Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I take a moment to thank my colleagues who have spoken. They have been so gracious. I shall never, never forget the beautiful words, the lovely phrases they have uttered here today. They have made this a very beautiful day. I know that my wife Erma has listened from home. I thank each and all of these wonderful, wonderful friends. That is what they are, they are friends. I shall never forget them. I shall not name them. The Record already has done that. I yield the floor and thank my friend from Ohio for his graciousness in yielding. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized. Mr. DeWine. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. DeWine pertaining to the introduction of S. 2270 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I note the presence on the floor of the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley. May I inquire through the Chair, is the Senator here to speak on the bill?

Mr. BYRD. I would be happy for him to proceed if he wishes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, has the Pastore rule run its course?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it was not long ago--just a few short weeks, in fact--that Washington was cloaked in the somber palette of winter, a chiaroscuro of black, charcoal, burnt umber, and paler shades from snow white to icy slush. In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter, Long ago. Thus wrote the nineteenth century poet Christina Rossetti. Despite the threat of a last snowstorm here, and large snowstorms in the Northeast, today presents a very different picture. It is as if an old black-and-white photograph has been gently tinted by a master's hand. A soft, green mist has crept over barren fields and dormant lawns. A rosy blush, tenderly applied, warms the tree tops with the buds of new leaves. Spangles of color, royal crocus and cheerful daffodil, sparkle among the decaying leaves. Iron-hard earth, now pliable, exudes the lush scent of fertile earth, and water, released from its frozen prison, gushes merrily over the stones. The stark infrastructure of life, the bare branches and simple undulations of the earth, are transformed each day by the miracle of the awakening season that even a temporary return to colder temperatures cannot stay. As Robert Burns wrote: Again rejoicing Nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues, Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steep'd in morning dews. On this past Saturday, March 20, Spring began. I am always glad to welcome it. Erma welcomed it, too. As the Earth fills with life, we can each share in that sense of renewal. Like the plants around us, we can take in the energy of the Sun and transform it into energy and enthusiasm for life. It feels so good to take a few minutes to take a walk with my little dog, Trouble, or Baby, as I have nicknamed her--to take a walk or just stand and bask in the warmth of a sunny window and feel miles away from the pressures of work. To see a flock of robins busy on the lawn, keenly listening for the subterranean noises of an earthworm, takes me back to boyhood dreams of sunny afternoons long ago spent rediscovering the outdoors after a winter spent inside. The soft song of the whippoorwill recalls those first nights sleeping with the windows opened wide, cool breezes fanning the curtains, and the smell of sheets that had been dried on a line with clothes pins--remember the clothes pins? I can smell the earth of a newly tilled garden on a hillside, a lovely scent in the early days before the weeds come on strong. As Mary Howitt wrote: Buttercups and daisies, Oh, the pretty flowers; Coming ere the spring time, To tell of sunny hours When the trees are leafless; When the fields are bare; Buttercups and daisies Spring up here and there. This year there is so much to distract us from the simple pleasures of a springtime afternoon. The omnipresent undercurrent of terror threats, the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the difficult budget and trade issues, and the building election battle-- all of these vie for our attention, and all of these deserve our attention. But spring does put all of these great issues into a larger context, reminding us of the permanence and the adaptability of the Earth and the even-paced cadence of life. For all that men do to each other and to the Earth, the seasons continue to roll onward, inexorable. We, too, would do well to take a longer view and spend our effort against the long term, like a gardener planting perennial flowers or carefully siting a young tree, mindful that it will still be growing many decades hence. We must not be deterred by short-term setbacks or be daunted by the size of our problems. With discipline and consistent effort, we have beaten large deficits before. We have survived greater wars before. We must focus on our Nation like a good gardener focuses on his plot, improving the soil, pruning the weeds and deadwood, adjusting our seeding as conditions change, always mindful that a good effort this year builds toward a good harvest and a better year next year. The Nation we want our children and grandchildren and great- grandchildren to grow up in is like a well-tended garden--rich and productive, vibrant with life and opportunity, a place of beauty for all to admire and emulate. Who loves a garden Finds within his soul Life's whole; He hears the anthem of the soil While ingrates toil; And sees beyond his little sphere The waving fronds of heaven, clear. Thus wrote Louise Seymour Jones. She captured well the closeness to the Creator that being in nature brings. Even within the fortresses of stone, concrete, steel, and glass that surround us in Washington, spring finds ways to lighten our hearts. The pansies that smile at us from flower beds outside, the dandelions that invade even the smallest cracks in the pavement, bring nature's message home--take heart, spring is here at last. And to those facing the deep drifts of late season snowstorms farther north, be patient. Spring is coming. Surely as cometh the Winter I know There are Spring violets under the snow. So observed R.H. Newell. In the Northeast, then, there must be a sea of violets waiting for the melt. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished manager of the bill. I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senate has an obligation to approve a budget resolution that addresses the massive deficits and debt that now lie before us. Such a balanced resolution should rely on responsible restraint, on all three elements of the budget: revenues, mandatory spending, and discretionary spending. The Senate has an obligation to approve a budget resolution that will permit the Congress to enact 13 fiscally responsible appropriations bills. This budget resolution utterly fails to meet those tests. Instead, the resolution puts the Congress on a course toward long-term deficits, higher debt, and an appropriations process that will inevitably produce gimmicks and delays. The budget resolution puts us on a course that will prevent us from meeting the needs of the Nation. Rather than confront record deficits with responsible limits on mandatory and discretionary spending and reassessment of the revenue losses produced by the tax cut legislation of 2001 and 2003, the Budget Committee produced a myopic budget resolution that pretends to address the deficits with ridiculously low limits on domestic discretionary spending. It is not the spending side of the budget that has put the Federal budget back into the deficit ditch. Rather than restoring some sanity to our revenue base, the budget resolution that is before us includes $144 billion in new tax cuts. According to the House Budget Committee, the tax cuts enacted since 2001 have or will increase our deficits by $2.6 trillion for the period from 2001 to 2013. According to the Office of Management and Budget, taxes in 2004 are, as a percentage of gross domestic product, the lowest they have been since 1950. Every year, the IRS fails to collect hundreds of billions of dollars from delinquent taxpayers and corporations. In 2001, IRS data showed $49 billion in lost revenues from delinquent employment taxes, penalties, and interest owed to the Federal Government. The Joint Tax Committee estimates that the cost of tax preferences increased by twice the rate of spending during the last 10 years, from $488 billion a year to $730 billion a year, and none of it--none--is required to be reviewed annually by the Congress. Yet there is nothing in the budget resolution to increase tax enforcement or to close tax loopholes. Instead, this budget resolution heaps more tax cuts on top of the huge back-loaded tax cuts already enacted. This budget resolution pretends to reduce deficits by focusing cuts on one very small piece of the budget pie, domestic discretionary spending. Unlike the Tax Code or mandatory programs, discretionary spending is the only piece of the Federal budget required to be reviewed every year by the Congress, and it is the only part of the budget that is squeezed routinely for savings, even though there is an abundance of potential savings from excesses in the other areas of the budget. Here are the facts. Domestic discretionary spending comprises less than 17 percent of the Federal budget. No one should believe cutting domestic discretionary spending by itself can produce balanced budgets. I remind Senators that according to the White House's own budget documents, if we were to eliminate every penny of nondefense spending in fiscal year 2004, we would still run a deficit of $65 billion. The mathematics in this resolution just do not work. The budget resolution cuts discretionary budget authority for fiscal year 2005 by $1.9 billion and outlays by $12.1 billion below the request of the President. For nondefense, non-homeland security programs, the resolution cuts budget authority for fiscal year 2005 by $11.2 billion below the level necessary to keep pace with inflation. Outlays for nondefense programs face even deeper, unsustainable cuts; that is, $11.2 billion in cuts in education, health care, veterans medical care, job training, transportation, and other critical priorities. Such cuts do not have the support of the American people or their Representatives in Congress. Just 2 weeks ago, the House Veterans' Affairs Committee called upon the House Budget Committee to increase veterans spending by $2.4 billion. Recently, the Senate passed a bill increasing funding above the President's request for highway and mass transit programs. The Senate Finance Committee has requested more funds for tax enforcement. The Senate Small Business Committee called for increases in small business loans. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee called for increases for the Coast Guard. None of these increases are included in this resolution. Yet we engage in this charade, framed by the Bush administration, about how discretionary spending is bloated and how funding cuts are the absolute one and only way to reduce the deficit. Under the President's budget, by 2009, education and training programs will be cut 7 percent below levels necessary to keep pace with inflation. Environmental programs will be cut by 20 percent, law enforcement programs by 16 percent, veterans medical care by 17 percent. The President tells us that we are in the midst of an energy crisis, but his budget cuts energy programs by 27 percent in 2009. Remember No Child Left Behind? In 2009, the title I program will be cut by $260 million below levels approved for 2004, adjusted for inflation. Overall, domestic programs would be cut by 12 percent in 2009. Does this budget resolution restore those cuts? No. No. No. Instead, this budget makes it next to impossible for the Federal Government to meet its obligations to children, to seniors, and to veterans. It digs a deep hole for funding education; a deep hole for funding health care; a deep hole for funding environmental programs, such as clean and safe drinking water. This budget puts the President's political priorities first and it puts the American people last. This budget resolution will force cuts to domestic discretionary programs by almost $1 billion below the President's totally inadequate request for fiscal year 2005. It is a slash-and-burn program. Ignore the consequences. We must cut, cut, cut. The resolution is $11.2 billion below the amount necessary to keep pace with inflation. During the next 5 years, the budget resolution cuts domestic programs such as veterans, education, and transportation by $107 billion below the amount necessary to keep pace with inflation. What is going on here? This Nation is suffering from neglect--neglect. Our schools are breaking apart; our health care system is in disarray; Social Security and Medicare face bankruptcy; America's veterans have to wait for weeks upon weeks for basic medical care; our homeland security network is riddled with massive gaps. Even though terrorists struck our Nation 2\1/2\ years ago, this very day protections at home are little improved from that fateful day. Why? Why do we face such major crises in so many critical areas? The answer is simple. The Bush White House and this Congress have failed to live up to the promises made to the American people. Today, the President is scheduled to participate in the groundbreaking for the 9/11 memorial in New York City. It was 2\1/2\ years ago today that those planes struck the two towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania. But are we safer? Hardly. The security of this Nation is on thin ice. The Bush administration has held back support for critical investments in homeland security, in police officers, in firefighters, in border, airport and seaport security. As a result of this White House's foot dragging, America is woefully unprepared to prevent or respond to another terrorist attack. Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics throughout this country have sent a clear message to this Capitol; namely, they need more Federal help to best do their job. Law enforcement grants are proposed to be cut by $1 billion. The President, in his budget, puts first responders last in line for Federal funding. The President's budget proposes to cut grants that equip and train police, fire, and emergency medical services personnel by $733 million. Fire grants alone are to be reduced by 33 percent. These cuts come despite continued warnings--from think tanks, from commissions, and from first responders themselves--that our Nation is not adequately prepared to respond to another act of terrorism. Congress has a responsibility to protect the Nation. It must focus on the country's many serious vulnerabilities and invest dollars where they are most needed. But it seems as though the only time this Congress is willing to increase funding is for our defense forces overseas. Defenses here at home are left to scramble and scrape. My amendment would increase the levels of the 2-year caps on discretionary spending contained in the resolution to sustainable levels. These levels would allow Congress to responsibly move forward on the appropriations process. This amendment provides sufficient resources, including $11.2 billion in fiscal year 2005 and $7.4 billion in fiscal year 2006 to make sure that the level of activity for domestic programs that the Congress approved and the President signed into law for 2004, can be maintained in 2005 and 2006, after adjusting for inflation. We will hear during the debate that spending is out of control. It really is not. We have seen an increase in the 3 years since President Bush took office, but what programs have received those increases? The increases have been for defense, homeland security, and the response to the September 11 attack. In fact, 91 percent of the spending increases since 2001 have been in those three categories. According to staff analysis, increases for domestic programs, excluding homeland security, have barely kept pace with inflation over the last 2 years. If you think the Congress should restore the President's proposed cuts of $1 billion in State and local law enforcement grants, you should be for this amendment. If you voted for the Senate highway bill, you should be for this amendment. If you think that veterans should not have to pay special charges and membership fees for health care, if you think that veterans already paid their dues at Iwo Jima, Pork Chop Hill, and the Mekong Delta, then you should be for this amendment. Anyone who wants to characterize this amendment as excessive spending is not paying attention to the needs of their constituents. Nor are they paying attention to the bottom line. This amendment would reduce the deficits below the levels assumed in the budget resolution. The amendment assumes additional revenues from the elimination of waste in tax expenditures, through increased tax enforcement and compliance, and through the partial repeal of the excessive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans enacted in recent years. This Senate must not continue to tell the American people that we are enacting legislation to better educate our children and to provide adequate care for military veterans--- those men and women who are enduring service in the powder keg called Iraq and will need care-- because we are not providing the money. We do not pay for our promises and that is nothing short of flim-flam and fraud pulled on the American people. To starve basic domestic needs and feed the country only feel- good rhetoric is the worst kind of posturing. Let us stop misleading the taxpayer and deliver what we promise. This amendment is balanced. It is fair. It is responsible. We should not ignore the needs of our constituents. I urge the adoption of my amendment. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BYRD. When may I briefly respond to Mr. Nickles?

Mr. BYRD. Just briefly, if I may.

Mr. BYRD. Thank you.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if I may resume and take a bit more of my time. It is not spending that has put us back into the deficit ditch. Spending for 2005 is estimated to be about 20 percent of the gross domestic product. That is significantly less than during the Reagan administration or during the administration of President Bush's father. On the other hand, revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product are the lowest since 1950. This amendment produces just enough spending to cover the levels approved by this Congress and signed by the President for fiscal year 2004, adjusted for inflation. This is a disciplined amendment that sets reasonable limits. This amendment is not about increasing taxes. In July 2003, at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on waste, fraud, and improved uses for taxpayer funds, GAO Comptroller David Walker testified that tax compliance and collection activity declines are a ``high risk'' concern for the GAO. As of September 2001, IRS data showed that employers owed $49 billion in delinquent taxes. IRS and Federal payment records indicate that 1 million taxpayers owed about $26 billion in delinquent taxes as of February 2002 and were still receiving some type of Federal payment. Our own budget chairman, at a hearing this year with Treasury Secretary Snow, expressed his concerns about tax compliance and its effect on the revenue side of the budget. The Senate should at least make some effort to ensure we are enforcing our current tax laws and that delinquent taxpayers are paying their fair share before we cut education, health care, and veterans programs for citizens who actually pay their taxes. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 2804 Mr. President, the Senate should ensure that delinquent taxpayers pay their fair share of taxes before we cut vital domestic investments for citizens who actually pay their taxes. With that savings, we can restore the spending for our schools, veterans, and homeland security that is cut by this budget resolution. The Senate should adopt a budget resolution that will permit the enactment of the 13 fiscally disciplined appropriations bills without forcing the Congress to use gimmicks to meet unrealistic spending targets. This amendment sets responsible limits on discretionary spending for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, just enough to fund the levels, adjusted for inflation, that were approved by the Congress earlier this year.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what does the amendment do?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this budget resolution contains a back-door cut that could result in an 8 percent cut in the budget for the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, the resolution contains a provision that will undermine the Pell Grant higher education program. This amendment, which is cosponsored by the chairmen and ranking members of the Homeland Security and Labor/HHS/Education Subcommittees, addresses these issues. Project Bioshield is a new program, first requested by the President in February of 2003, that will expand the Federal Government's preparedness for a bioterrorist attack by making it easier to purchase the most effective pharmaceuticals and vaccines. The fiscal year 2004 budget resolution, the discretionary limit for fiscal year 2005 was set at $814 billion. Above and beyond the $814 billion limit, the resolution assumed $5.6 billion for Project Bioshield as mandatory spending for legislation considered in the Senate. In the House, the budget resolution assumed that funding for bioshield would be discretionary. To help resolve the difference between the House and the Senate, the President submitted a formal budget request on September 12, 2003 for $5.6 billion of advanced appropriations as discretionary spending in the fiscal year 2004 Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Congress approved the request and the President signed the first Homeland Security Appropriations Act into law. Six months later, Chairman Nickles has decided to disregard that agreement. His budget resolution now assumes that the $2.5 billion of Project Bioshield funding that is available for the next 4 years will all count against the $814 billion limit for fiscal year 2005, forcing the Appropriations Committee to absorb the cost. What this means is less funding for first responder grants, less funding of the Coast Guard, less funding for border security, less money for FEMA to respond to disasters and less money to implement our immigration laws. This is unacceptable. My amendment will restore the Project Bioshield scoring treatment that was requested by the President and approved by the Senate last September and strike the language in the resolution concerning Pell Grants. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. You know, my wife and I are the proud possessors of two great-grandchildren, just within the last month. The distinguished chairman's grandson, and Erma's and my great-grandchildren, each of them owes, as of this past Monday, $24,253.36 on the national debt of the United States. My amendment is for the purpose of keeping down this debt and not increasing the deficit.

Mr. BYRD. I yield 3 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am not yet ready to enter into an agreement on my amendment.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. I call up my amendment.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, for many years, I have been growing increasingly concerned about the Senate as a forum for debate. Senators at every turn seem bent upon undermining this institution and the vision of our constitutional framers embodied in this upper body of the Congress. The Senate is the only forum in our Government where the perfection of laws may be unhurried and where controversial decisions may be hammered out on the anvil of lengthy debate. It may be slow; it may be unwieldy; it may be frustrating to some; but it is the best means to achieving compromise, to ensuring an informed citizenry, to protecting the rights of the minority. To shut out the minority by limiting the right to debate is to needlessly and detrimentally infuse partisanship into the legislative process. That is exactly what we are seeing in this budget resolution. Included in the Budget chairman's resolution are reconciliation instructions to the Finance Committee to report $81 billion in tax cuts to extend the child credit, marriage penalty, and 10-percent bracket expansion that are scheduled to expire this year. If misused, there is no procedural mechanism in the Senate more contemptuous of debate than the budget reconciliation process, and it is being misused. It is a process that has morphed into an annual exercise where the majority party takes advantage of the limitations on amendment and debate allowed by the Budget Act to shield controversial legislation from public discussion. This budget resolution would use reconciliation to circumvent a debate in the Senate about the wisdom of allowing additional tax cuts to deepen the deficit. I helped to craft the Budget Act in 1974, and I can tell Senators we never in that day contemplated reconciliation would be used to shield from debate legislation that spends the Social Security surplus and increases deficits. We, in that day, never one time envisioned these abuses of the process. Senators regularly express their desire for less partisanship, longing for the days--the days almost beyond recall--when the Senate accomplished its business without the political acrimony that has marked recent debates. One reason the Senate avoided such partisanship is because the leaders of the Senate respected the rights of the minority and allowed the Senate to work its will through open and vigorous debate. In 1981, Republican leader Howard Baker of Tennessee had the opportunity to use reconciliation to pass President Reagan's tax-cut package. Did he use it to do so? No. He chose instead to allow the tax cut to be brought before the Senate as a freestanding bill and fully debated. He said at the time, and I quote Howard Baker: Aside from its salutary impact on the budget, reconciliation also has implications for the Senate as an institution . . . I believe that including such extraneous provisions in a reconciliation bill would be harmful to the character of the Senate. It would cause such material to be considered under time and germaneness provisions that impede the full exercise of minority rights. Now, that was an extraordinary statement of extraordinary vision by an extraordinary Senator, Howard Baker of Tennessee. Let me read it again, and I quote him: Aside from its salutary impact on the budget, reconciliation also has implications for the Senate as an institution . . . I believe that including such extraneous provisions in a reconciliation bill would be harmful to the character of the Senate. It would cause such material to be considered under time and germaneness provisions that impede the full exercise of minority rights. That was a statement by a statesman. For almost 20 years, the Senate exercised restraint with regard to the reconciliation process, and until 1995 the reconciliation process served as a helpful mechanism for deficit reduction. Since then, the process has been twisted and contorted by those who find its limitations on debate and amendment too enticing to resist, using it to advance a partisan agenda. The country is the worse for that legislative opportunism. Would that Howard Baker could again speak from these desks. Today, the White House is projecting deficits at an alarming $521 billion for the fiscal year 2004. To pay for its tax cuts, the Bush administration is spending every dime of the Social Security surplus, money that the President and both parties pledged to set aside to save our retirement and disability system. According to the White House's own numbers, the gross debt just passed the $7 trillion mark on its way to $11 trillion in 2009, and there is no credible plan from this administration or this Congress to do anything about it. In response to mounting budget deficit projections, President Ronald Reagan signed into law 12 bills to increase taxes, including legislation to repeal part of his 1981 tax cut. Similarly, in response to alarming deficit projections in 1990, President Bush's father made the courageous decision to break his no new taxes pledge. State legislatures and Governors have been making similar decisions over the past 3 years in Alaska, Alabama, Connecticut, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, and Ohio. It is what is being debated right now in Richmond, VA. Senator Warner recently and courageously declared: Politics be damned. Let's consider what is best for the men and women and their families and children. The debate about budget deficits is taking place all across this country. Ironically, the one place where debate is discouraged on this matter is right here in this so-called greatest deliberative body in the world today. The tax cut reconciliation instructions in this budget resolution would stifle a debate when it is most needed. After 3 years of tax cuts and promises of job growth, the country has not reaped the benefits of those promises. We can tout higher economic growth rates. We can tout higher productivity. But none of these statistics mean anything to an unemployed worker. So far there seems to be no robust connection between these particular tax cuts and job creation. Since January 2001, 2.2 million jobs have been lost. The manufacturing sector has endured 43 straight months of job loss. Discouraged workers are dropping out of the labor pool at a rate of 100,000 per week. One million jobs have been lost overseas. Countless workers, white-collar workers and blue-collar workers, are worried that their own jobs may be next. The only thing we know for sure at this point is that tax cuts over the past 3 years have contributed to an explosion in debt. Just look at page 189 in the historical tables of the President's budget. After dropping to a low of $5.6 trillion in the fiscal year 2000, the gross Federal debt has increased to $5.8 trillion in the fiscal year 2001 to $6.2 trillion in the fiscal year 2002 to $6.8 trillion in the fiscal year 2003, and it will continue to increase to an estimated $10.6 trillion in the fiscal year 2009. These figures are beyond all comprehension. It is not just election year rhetoric. The IMF, the GAO, and the Federal Reserve are all in agreement that deficits do matter, and they are threatening to derail the economy of the United States. That is not all. The deficits also are threatening our ability to save Social Security. I understand why some would prefer not to engage in a lengthy debate about the explosion in the gross debt. The American public already is having trouble understanding why the Congress should enact the $1.2 trillion in new tax cuts included in the President's budget before we have even figured out how we are going to pay for the cost of the ongoing operations in Iraq. The budget resolution includes $30 billion in funds for ongoing operations in Iraq. And that figure is only in here because of the thoughtfulness of the distinguished chairman, only because of his thoughtfulness and foresight in putting the figures in here. The administration downtown didn't put a penny in, not one thin dime. But that $30 billion is even less than what was included in the House budget, $20 billion less than what the administration intends to ask from the Congress, and only enough to finance the first 6 months of the 5-year span in the budget resolution. The deficits embraced by this budget resolution will prevent the Congress from allocating any money to address the threat to the Social Security system, even though the Social Security actuaries estimate $1 trillion will be needed to finance the transition costs under the options proposed by the President's Social Security Commission. Reconciliation protects additional tax cuts from public discussion about the size of the financial burden that will be passed on to our children and our grandchildren, and it leaves hanging questions about deficit and debt and balanced budgets that are clearly on the minds of the American people. We have hard choices to make that may bring to bear enormous change in our Nation. We should not do so silently. This is no time to sweep problems under the rug. At the very least, we have a duty to the future to discuss and debate so that the public, the people out there looking at us through those electronic eyes behind that Presiding Officer's chair will know our reasoning and hold us responsible, hold us accountable. We should lay down a record so that, if in the end our choices are right, they may have in our example a good and steady guide and they may then say, ``Well done, thou good and faithful servant. . . .'' and so on. But, also so if destiny so transpires that our choices were wrong, others will not repeat our mistakes. If we have learned nothing else from the events of the past year, we certainly should have learned the absolute necessity of debate in our democratic Republic. We should have learned the folly of failing to ask questions, of failing to probe and to delve, failing to do our duty as the elected representatives of the people of this great Republic. I would think by now we should have learned the dire consequences of our failure to insist on debate. The Senate must not shirk its responsibility to engage in debate about these issues. With the American public, according to recent polls, in such stark disagreement with the current course of our Nation's economic and budget policies, it is time for the Senate at long last to finally engage in an honest debate about the fiscal course laid out by this administration. In recent weeks the chairman of the Budget Committee has expressed his desire to address the expiring child credit, the marriage penalty, and the 10-percent bracket tax cuts through the regular legislative process. The chairman of the Finance Committee has indicated his belief that including those tax cuts in the reconciliation bill would create a needlessly partisan debate. The Senate needs time to explore these views. While these reconciliation instructions are viewed by some as only a backup plan if both the House and Senate pass a budget resolution with tax reconciliation instructions, the decision about whether to use reconciliation may be taken out of our hands. The House can force us to take up a reconciliation bill in the Senate containing tax cuts. The American public deserves the opportunity to better understand how these tax cuts will affect our mounting budget deficits, and to probe whether these tax cuts should be offset. We should allow the Senate to have its debate, not stifle it. That is the issue on which we will vote. A vote to strike the reconciliation instructions is a vote to allow the Senate to engage in an informed debate. That is what I want. I want an informed debate. That is why I am suggesting we strike these instructions, so we may engage in an informed debate about how to prevent the further deepening of the deficit, and a further worsening of the bitter atmosphere that has, regrettably, engulfed this body. I urge Senators to vote to strike the tax cut reconciliation instructions. I ask unanimous consent to add Senators Conrad and Baucus as cosponsors of my amendment.

Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent to reserve the remainder of my time. How much time do I have?

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time remains?