Bill Bradley

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this bill to take violent criminals off the Pentagon's payroll. I was an original cosponsor of S. 205, the first bill to address this problem. I congratulate Senator Boxer on introducing this improved version that introduces an element of compassion for the families of those taken off the payroll. I was shocked to learn that our Government spends more than $1 million per month on salaries and benefits for military personnel who have been convicted of violent crimes. This is morally wrong. This is an insult to the brave men and women of our Armed Forces. And this is bad fiscal policy. Mr. President, it is morally wrong to pay salaries to murderers, rapists, child molesters, and other violent criminals. Imagine, the families of victims and, indeed, even victims themselves pay tax dollars that end up in the pockets and savings accounts of the very people who victimized them. In some cases, these violent criminals even continue to receive pay after they are released from prison. This situation is also an insult to the brave men and women who serve in our Armed Forces. They work hard and make many sacrifices to give us the best military in the world. Their efforts are degraded when we pay the same salaries to convicted felons that we pay to them. Finally, it is bad fiscal policy to waste taxpayer money in this way. How can we justify paying $1 million a month to convicted criminals when we are at the same time cutting back on payments to needy children? We just spent 5 weeks trying to one-up each other on our commitment to balance the Federal budget. How can we ever hope to do so if we squander millions of dollars not on incarcerating criminals, but rewarding them? As the Dallas Morning News stated in a February 5, 1995, editorial, ``this change is a no-brainer. Congress should act quickly to end this travesty.'' I could not agree more.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, let me tell you about Katie O'Connell. Katie's picture ended up on postcards that thousands of Americans have sent and will be sending to Washington. Neither her parents nor I are glad that this is the case. You see, Katie was a beautiful, happy, 2- year-old girl from my home State of New Jersey. Yet, she died from eating a hamburger served at a fast food restaurant. Unknown to anyone, her meal was contaminated with a deadly pathogen called E coli. Sadly, the meat that Katie ate had been declared safe by inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Katie died from a disease that should have been detected through our Federal meat inspection system. Katie is no longer alive because that system failed her and her family, and has failed thousands of others across the country. The legislation I am introducing today, the Family Food Protection Act, is designed to ensure a Federal system that protects the public and not just meat processors and slaughterhouses. Diseases cause by foodborne illness often strike those most vulnerable in our society: our children. Last summer, health officials in New Jersey battled another outbreak of the disease that killed Katie O'Connell. One family the McCormick's of Newton, NJ, had two of their children--ages 2 and 3--hospitalized. Their lives were in danger because they too ate meat that had been declared safe by Federal inspectors in the Department of Agriculture. These cases in New Jersey are far from isolated: The Centers for Disease Control estimates that over 9,000 people die, and another 6.5 million become sick, from foodborne illness every year. That the current system represents a false promise to the public is not news. Many studies, including work by the GAO and the National Academy of Science, make this point. About 1 month ago, the USDA proposed a series of new regulations for food inspection. These rules would require a daily testing for salmonella at meat/poultry processing plants. Additionally, each of the Nation's 6,000 slaughterhouses and processing plants would have to develop operating plans designed to minimize the possible sources of contamination. This proposal represents a significant improvement over the current system--which has remained remarkably unchanged for 90 years. However, the proposal leaves some significant holes. The Family Food Protection Act fills the holes: First, the Family Food Protection Act is comprehensive--we need to recognize the scope of the problem. It's not just salmonella. We need USDA to consider the whole range of human pathogens--bacteria--and other harmful substances--for example animal drugs, pollutants--that can threaten health. My bill calls on the Secretary to enact standards and regulations designed to control and reduce any of these dangerous substances that is likely to cause foodborne illness. Second, the Family Food Protection Act gives the Secretary the enforcement tools he needs--the bill allows the Secretary: to order a recall of contaminated food; to demand the identification of the whole chain of companies that may have handled a contaminated food-- ``traceback''; to withdraw Federal inspection, and the USDA seal of approval from plants that are repeated violators of regulations; to issue civil fines, which makes it more likely that the processors will follow through with their improved operating procedures. Third, the Family Food Protection Act helps protect the conscientious worker--the new USDA regulations depend on changes in the daily operations of thousands of plants to protect the public. In order to provide the most protection to the public, we need the cooperation of workers as well as managers. This bill provides explicit whistleblower protection to food processing employees who step forward with public health concerns. Fourth, the Family Food Protection Act keeps the public involved and informed--this bill would: provide for public access to food safety inspection records; create a public advisory board of food safety. Last Congress, Congressman Torricelli and I introduced the Katie O'Connell Safe Food Act. Like most legislation, that bill didn't make it into law. But that fact does not mean that we haven't changed policy as a result. This bill exposed the inadequacies of the status quo and shook up the bureaucrats at USDA. I'm pleased that the USDA is trying to respond to the challenge of food safety. But the USDA has much more to do before the public can really believe their program means a guarantee of healthy food. This new bill is the blueprint for the work yet to be done. The Family Food Protection Act is supported by a wide range of consumer and food safety advocacy groups. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to consider this legislation carefully and support its enactment. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of a bill summary and the legislation be printed following these remarks.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, today's vote on the balanced budget amendment is not a vote on how we should reduce our Nation's crippling deficit. It's not a vote about the substance of serious deficit reduction. After this vote, not a single program will have been cut and not a single dollar will have been saved. Instead, this is simply a vote on a procedure that will enshrine in our Nation's most sacred document both bad constitutional policy and bad economic policy that will make it more difficult to counter recessions. It is more likely that banks will fail and more certain that disasters will go unabated. We all agree on the need to cut the deficit. However, the debate over the balanced budget amendment is not about which programs to cut, how to stop the unchecked growth of entitlement spending, or what our tax policy should be. Instead, this debate is about procedural fixes. It is about finding ways to continue ducking the tough choices that need to be made, all the while appearing to be concerned about the deficit. If a decade of procedural fixes to the deficit has shown us anything, it has shown us that such fixes are no substitute for leadership. Unfortunately, Mr. President, the amendment we will vote on today is simply a substitute for solid, courageous leadership. Before taking this route, we would do well to remind ourselves why we were elected. Under our Constitution, it is the Congress that is vested with the power to make all laws, and it is our obligations as Senators to make decisions about these laws and live with the implications of these decisions. No one. No President. No Senator has placed the cuts necessary for a balanced budget before the American people. We vote on the amendment without knowing what it means for citizens who work every day. The irony of this proposed amendment is that nothing in the Constitution stands in the way of a balanced budget. The plain truth is that the Senate already has the power to reduce the deficit. Cutting the deficit requires leadership now and no amendment to the Constitution will cut the deficit if we lack such leadership. In fact, we can have a balanced budget whenever enough Members of Congress are ready to vote for one. If we agree that deficits should be reduced, then we should take the responsibility for making the necessary decisions and live with the consequences. Mr. President, this amendment does nothing to reduce the deficit. It simply allows Congress to postpone action until at least 2002, and even then it will not require Congress to balance the budget. Instead, it will lead to more gimmicks such as off-balance-sheet budgeting, inflated revenue estimates, redefining such terms as CPI, and raids on the Government trust funds to mask the size of the deficit. Throughout this debate, I have supported efforts to protect Social Security and prevent Congress from relying on budgetary gimmicks. Each of these efforts has been defeated by the supporters of this balanced budget amendment. No one disputes that we need to reduce the deficit substantially. The massive Federal deficit continues to sap our economic strength by raising interest rates and passing an enormous tax burden onto our children and grandchildren. Throughout my tenure in the Senate, I have introduced legislation to cut wasteful Government spending. I have offered proposals to cut wasteful spending in appropriations bills for defense spending, for agricultural spending, for Interior Department spending, and for HUD spending, among others. I have also offered legislation to close many of the tax loopholes that increase the Federal deficit by billions of dollars each year. In addition, in 1993, I voted for the largest deficit reduction act in our Nation's history. That act, which cut the deficit by over $500 billion, passed without a single Republican vote in its favor. I am also concerned that the balanced budget amendment will serve to exacerbate recessions. Currently, Federal spending helps to reduce the harm caused by recessions. As the economy slows down, more people qualify for unemployment compensation and other Federal assistance programs. In addition, as people earn less as a result of the recession, they pay less in taxes. While these changes in spending and taxes temporarily increase the deficit, they also serve to reduce the damage done by recessions to the American economy and families. The balanced budget amendment would require the Federal Government to raise taxes and cut spending at precisely the same time that such policies will cause the most harm. Have we learned nothing from economic lessons of the 20th century? According to a recent report by the Treasury Department, if this amendment had been in place during the 1990-92 recession, an additional 1.5 million Americans would have lost their jobs as the unemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent, the highest level since the enactment of the Employment Act of 1946. In New Jersey, we would have seen the unemployment rate reach 11.8 percent, as an additional 34,000 to 103,000 New Jerseyans lost their jobs. Without the support provided by Federal assistance programs, many of these families might have found themselves destitute. Mr. President, not only would the balanced budget amendment that we are voting on today aggravate recessions and harm American families, it makes no distinction between current operating expenses and long-term capital investments. Every family understands the difference between credit card debt and mortgage debt. While we need to balance our budget, we should not do so in a way that would prevent us from making those investments that will be necessary for our children to compete in the world economy. Despite a balanced budget requirement, New Jersey, along with almost all other States, allows the State government to borrow to finance long-term capital projects, such as highways, schools, and water treatment facilities. Although families are required to balance their budgets, they also borrow to buy homes. The balanced budget amendment would prevent the Federal Government from borrowing to finance long-term projects over their useful lives. As a result, we will be far less likely to make these necessary investments in our Nation's infrastructure, especially when confronted with the day-to-day demands of competing interests. In order to address this risk, Senator Biden and I offered an amendment to the balanced budget amendment that would have allowed the Federal Government to borrow to invest in long- term capital projects just as families, businesses, and States do. Mr. President, in addition to the damage that this balanced budget amendment will cause our economy, I am concerned that the amendment will significantly damage our democratic form of government. The Constitution is primarily a charter of basic rights, not a prescription for economic policy. Unfortunately, while enshrining economic policy in the Constitution, this amendment would allow minority rule and potentially shift tremendous power to unelected judges--both violations of the basic tenets of a representative democracy. Of the 26 amendments to the Constitution, all but 2 have been drafted to protect the fundamental rights of American citizens or correct flaws in the original structure of the Constitution. The only two exceptions are the amendments which were passed to establish prohibition and then to repeal it. Prohibition--established by the 18th amendment and repealed by the 21st Its proponents screamed, ``Keep us from drinking'' only to find there was not the will equal to the words. Mr. President, I find a parallel between the prohibition amendment and the balanced budget amendment. Proponents of this amendment scream, ``Keep us from spending.'' Here also, there must be the will to equate the words. Without that will, the amendment will make little difference. If our experience with Gramm-Rudman and the budget agreement has shown anything, it has shown the ability of Congress to get around rules meant to limit deficits. If we are unwilling to make unpopular votes, the amendment will result in placing more programs off-budget, mandating more expenditures by the States, and playing more tricks with revenue and expenditure estimates. We have seen these types of gimmicks before. In 1981, in their official estimates, the Republicans promised the Nation that they could cut taxes, increase defense spending, and balance the budget--all by 1984. By relying on false estimates to pass their legislative programs, the Republicans unleashed a tidal wave of red ink. In the almost 200 years leading up to 1980, our Nation amassed a Federal debt of roughly $750 billion. Over the next 12 years, this debt quintupled to approximately $4.5 trillion. Ironically, it is these same empty promises that have led to our current budgetary problems. In 1994, total Federal revenue exceeded all programmatic spending combined. The deficits that we suffer from today are due solely to the cost of paying interest on the debt that was run up during the 1980's. If we did not have to pay these interest charges, we would have a balanced budget today. In addition, Mr. President, even with the proposed changes suggested by Senator Nunn, this amendment holds the potential to significantly expand the rule of the courts. Over 200 years ago, the Framers were wise enough to exclude judges from making economic policy decisions. Depending on unspecified enabling legislation, this amendment would allow judges to make unilateral tax and spending decisions. In fact, legal scholars as diverse as Judge Robert Bork and Harvard Prof. Lawrence Tribe have opposed the amendment because of the danger posed by the expansion of the role of the courts. The change proposed by Senator Nunn does not eliminate this danger. Furthermore, this amendment will enshrine in the Constitution not a balanced budget amendment, but rather the principle of minority rule. With this amendment, just more than 40 percent of either House will be able to hold the entire Government hostage to their demands. Over 200 years ago, in The Federalist Papers No. 22, Alexander Hamilton warned against the danger of granting a congressional minority a veto power over government activities. We would be wise to heed this warning. Mr. President, I am painfully aware of the effects which the Federal Government's uncontrolled spending is having on this generation and on future generations. The longer we wait to address the issue, the more enormous the problem is going to be. Balancing the budget will be bitter medicine for the entire country. I believe the time has come for this bitter medicine. But, Mr. President, I also believe that it is fundamentally unfair to ask the American people to take this medicine without their full knowledge and consent. Every citizen has a right to know what the likely effects of the budget cuts will be before their elected representatives are asked to vote on it. The bottom line is that we have to decide just what it is that we owe to our children. By running deficits, we have been acting as if we owe no obligation at all to the future. Traditionally, Americans have thought otherwise. We have seen ourselves as part of a progression of Americans, linked to each other across time. We have agreed with Edmund Burke, who saw society as a ``partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead, and those who are to be born.'' Otherwise, ``The whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other.'' Instead of postponing action with gimmicks such as the balanced budget amendment and Contract With America, let's get onto the job of fashioning real deficit reduction. One of the great tasks for this Congress should be to define--in terms of specific policies and spending priorities--what such a partnership across time should mean. The first step should be to stop arguing about process and start debating substance. Mr. President, in the coming weeks, I will propose a package of spending cuts that will substantially reduce the Federal deficit and place us on a path toward a balanced budget. If the American people are to be prepared for the sacrifices necessary to put us back on a track toward long-term growth, their elected leaders must be candid in their description of the problem and forthcoming in their discussion of possible solutions. We must also begin this debate now--not at some point in the distant future. Unfortunately, the balanced budget amendment before us today simply postpones this debate, while doing nothing to actually reduce the deficit. We should defeat it and lead with serious action. amendment no. 300, nunn amendment, as modified

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, this afternoon, in New York, Ambassador Madeleine Albright will sign the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. This marks a small, but long overdue step toward improving the lot of the world's children. I urge the President to take a much larger, and equally overdue step, and submit the convention at once to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. I have stood on the Senate floor many times over the past 6 years to discuss the importance of this convention and to urge its ratification. There are many arguments in favor of the convention, but they all boil down to one basic point--children in less-fortunate circumstances deserve the same rights and protections we demand for our own kids. In addition, whether we ratify it or not, the convention is a reminder that we ourselves have much to do to make sure that every American child enjoys the full benefits of the principles enshrined in this convention. It is a standing reproach to our own unsuccessful efforts to end the tragedy of infant mortality, the terror of child school dropouts. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes, as does U.S. law, that children need special protections. It states that every child has the right to a name and nationality, stresses the importance of child survival measures, pledges the signatories to work to abolish traditional practices harmful to children's health, recognizes the importance of education, and prohibits sexual exploitation. Opponents of the convention argue that it would insert government into the parent-child relationship. They assert that it would take children away from parents. This simply is not true. The convention is explicit on the primacy of the parents in the life of the child. For example, article 5 states: States Parties shall respect the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents . . . to provide, in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, appropriate direction and guidance in the exercise by the child of the rights recognized in the present Convention. But, as a practical document, the convention also recognizes that there will be times when the parents are unable to fulfill their responsibilities. In these cases, the convention requires the State to step in, in accordance with the best interests of the child. This is already the practice in the United States. But, for the first time, the convention lays down commonsense guidelines to make sure that, in those extraordinary cases in which the State must intervene, its actions are in fact in the best interests of the child. So far, 176 nations have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The list of countries that have not is a rogue's gallery of international pariahs such as Libya and Iraq. It is an embarrassment to the United States to be on this list. But ratification is more than a matter of appearances. The lives of children are at stake. Until we ratify this convention, we will be unable to exert the leadership necessary to make a difference in the lives of the world's children. President Clinton has done the right thing by instructing Ambassador Albright to sign the convention. He should now submit it to the Senate, and we should ratify it without delay.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, the crucible of American society is the family. Today the family faces stresses and injuries that we have never seen before in this country. Almost every child is affected by these pressures: the 40 percent of children who go home to an empty house every afternoon because both parents work as well as the 27 percent of children who live with only one parent. Our efforts as a nation must address these stresses by seeking to recouple sexual behavior and childbearing with family responsibility. That responsibility involves giving time, love, care, and attention, but it also includes food, clothing, and medical care. We should send a clear message, above all to young men: If you father a child, whether or not you are married to the mother of that child, be prepared to set aside one-sixth or more of your earnings every year for 18 years to help that child grow up healthy, educated, and responsible. That's the principle of child support. Today, Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill that will reinforce that principle by repairing all the holes in the tattered, State-based system of child support enforcement. That system has not worked well. It left $5.1 billion in court-ordered child support uncollected last year. It succeeds in establishing paternity for less than 40 percent of out-of-wedlock births. Still, the complex Federal-State system succeeds in collecting $3.98 for every dollar spent on enforcement. We face a choice. We can throw out the State system and replace it with a Federal bureaucracy, which might be more cumbersome but would be as hard to run away from as the IRS. Or, we can try to repair the State system, help States work together better, require some uniformity, and help the States by creating national databases of child support orders and new hires. That is the path that I and a number of my colleagues of both parties have chosen in developing the bill we introduce today. About 17.6 million children live with just one parent. There are almost 10 million women who are raising children on their own. Almost one-third of them live below the poverty level. Less than 60 percent have child support orders. Only half of those who have child support orders receive the full amount due. Mothers who do not receive child support do all they can to remain off of welfare. By definition, almost every family receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children should be receiving child support, except in cases where one parent is deceased or in the small number of two-parent families participating in the AFDC-UP program. When we talk about welfare, we have to recognize that for every woman who is raising children, receiving welfare and not working, there is a father who is not raising the children and who may or may not be working. Either way, he is exploiting welfare as much or more than the mother who is receiving welfare. Tougher child support enforcement has resulted in collections for 873,000 families on welfare in 1993, and much of that money went back to the taxpayers to make up for welfare payments already made. If this Congress undertakes a serious effort at welfare reform, child support enforcement along the lines we propose today must be a part of it. I am very pleased that my colleagues in the House of Representatives, especially Congresswomen Marge Roukema and Nancy Johnson, were able to persuade the leadership of the Ways and Means Committee to expand the Contract With America's welfare reform bill to include comprehensive child support reform. But as I said last year, if welfare reform continues to be delayed by controversy, we must not allow child support to be delayed along with it. There is consensus on child support, and there are also three times as many mothers due child support who are not eligible for welfare as are. They should not have to wait until we fix the welfare system before they receive the support due them. The link to welfare makes child support a valid concern of the Federal Government, but it is also a Federal concern because one-third of all child support cases are interstate cases, which means that the parents live in different States. These cases are the most difficult to resolve. By moving from State to State and changing jobs, parents can systematically avoid paying child support, or even being located so that their wages can be withheld, for about a year at a time. These deliberate evasions occur against a backdrop of inconsistent State laws, inadequate staff and computer resources, and a continually growing caseload due to the tremendous rise in out-of-wedlock births. Expanded paternity establishment is key to improving interstate child support enforcement. Every year more than 1 million children are born to unmarried women, about one-fourth of all births that year. About 57 percent of black children, 23 percent of Hispanic children, and 17 percent of white children born in 1990 were born to unwed mothers. In 1990, 68 percent of all births to women between the ages of 15 to 19 were out of wedlock. Out-of-wedlock births need not automatically consign a mother and children to poverty. They can be handled like a divorce; support can be ordered and enforced. But in about one-quarter of the cases, the State cannot even get started, because they cannot obtain any information about the father. Many of the paternity establishment provisions of my earlier bill were passed in the 1993 budget package, which required States to establish hospital-based paternity establishment programs. These programs are now up and running, and are demonstrating a significant increase in the number of child support cases in which the father can be identified, so that support can be ordered and the other enforcement mechanisms can kick in. About 85 percent of fathers are in touch with the child and mother at, or soon after, the or birthing center. Programs that target these fathers and provide opportunities for them to acknowledge paternity can do a lot to cut down on the number of children for whom paternity has not been established. For the situations where the father was not targeted at the hospital, this bill contains provisions which would make it easier for paternity to be established by courts or administrative agencies. It makes it less difficult to locate out-of-State fathers by expanding the locate information and services available to custodial parents and child support professionals. It mandates changes in evidence standards which remove many of the obstacles that now exist to paternity establishment across State lines. It provides State child support agencies for the first time with a Federal incentive to work on establishing paternity, not just collecting child support that has already been ordered. Even when parentage is established, custodial parents always seem to be one step behind noncustodial parents. If a noncustodial parent gets a job in another State, child support officials do not usually learn about the job change until the next quarter in which the employer has to report payroll information. By the time child support officials in the custodial parent's State learn the information, the noncustodial parent has often moved to another job. A year can pass. This scenario is played out over and over in interstate cases. This bill requires information on every new hire to be filed in a national database, which States can regularly search for the names or Social Security numbers of parents who owe support to children in their States. To eliminate the problems associated with establishing a support order across State lines, my bill requires the States to expand their long-arm statutes to reach more out-of-State noncustodial parents. It requires States to recognize and enforce child support orders from other States, and it also requires all States to adopt the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, verbatim so that inconsistencies between the States in case processing and enforcement can be eliminated. Even where a support order has been established, custodial parents still have problems collecting money, especially in interstate cases. In response, this bill requires the States to take tougher measures against parents who do not pay their child support. It requires them to pass laws making it possible for delinquent parents to lose their professional and occupational licenses, hitting them in a sense at their livelihood. It requires the States to hold off issuing driver's licenses to delinquent parents. It calls for the expanded use of credit reporting--it is interesting that a noncustodial parent can be delinquent on a car loan and that fact can be reported on a credit report, but the fact that he or she is delinquent on child support might not be reported. In addition, this bill requires the States to intercept lottery winnings, money judgments, and other income of noncustodial parents who owe child support. This bill also requires the States to make it easier to freeze the bank accounts of delinquent parents, and requires the States to make it a State crime to willfully fail to pay child support. Finally, this bill responds to staffing the training issues which have plagued child support professionals for decades. In a GAO report I and the other congressional members of the commission requested, it was reported that the average caseload per child support case worker is 1,000 cases. Can you imagine, Mr. President, 1,000 cases? This bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct staffing studies in every State and report such findings to this body and the States. It also requires the Office of Child Support Enforcement to make training assistance available to State child support agencies. Mr. President, this bill represents a consensus, an overdue consensus, about the kinds of repairs that are needed in the child support system. It began with the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Interstate Child Support Enforcement, of which I was a member. I put those recommendations forward as legislation in 1992, as did my colleagues on the commission, Representatives Marge Roukema and Barbara Kennelly. Last year, the administration took those central recommendations and added some detail about the national databases of child support orders and new hires. Late last year and early this year, the House Caucus on Women's Issues took up the subject, and earlier this month introduced a bill modeled on the administration's and my earlier bill. The bill we introduce today is intended to be the Senate companion to H.R. 785, the Johnson bill in the House, with only minor differences. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a summary be inserted in the Record.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Anyway the Senator from Illinois would like--I would like to accommodate him because I think he raises a couple of good points. He raises the issue of the U.S. highway being built. Why do you need debt? I wonder if the Illinois Turnpike Authority is financed the same way. The New Jersey Turnpike is not financed the same way. We float bonds. I note that in the 1950's there were a couple of years in which the Federal Government ran a surplus on a current year basis. We had no gigantic national debt, a very minuscule national debt, we ran a surplus. This allowed us the freedom to finance major capital projects on a pay-as-you-go basis. However, I would say there is a great difference between our situation today and the situation that faced young Senator Albert Gore, Sr. when he proposed his amendment. The difference is about $4.3 trillion worth of debt. As we try to balance the budget, we will be forced to make dramatic spending cuts. The capital budget amendment would simply cause us to weigh an investment's long-term benefits against its long-term costs. If the benefits outweigh the costs, we should be able to finance the project over its projected lifetime. Without this amendment we will be forced to budget for the entire cost of a capital investment in its first year and compare this cost to the many competing, and frequently legitimate, demands for current consumption spending. The Senator makes a second point which is that as the deficit has grown, capital investment has dropped, to which I would say, ``And the sun comes up in the morning.'' Of course, as deficits grow, capital investments drop. Capital investments drop because the public sector crowds out the capital markets. Instead, the money goes to finance public sector consumption. As a result, there is relatively little available for private sector investment. But that is not the point. The point here is the public budget. Unless we act, public investment will continue to drop as we attempt to reduce the deficit. Ask yourself, you are a practicing politician, are you going to respond to the guy that comes in and says you know what we need is a new highway system. What we need is a new dam. Or what we need is a new power plant. Or are you going to say, I will give you the power plants, the bridge, the highway, but all you senior citizens, all you middle-class taxpayers, all you others out there who want to eat into a shrinking amount of available public funding, I will say no to you so I can make this long-term investment? This never happens. It has not happened in the past and is not likely to happen in the future. That is precisely why we need a capital budget. Now the Senator made one last point about how the balanced budget should be flexible. I agree and would simply ask the question: Why is what is good for the American family not good for the Federal Government? Why is it that American families, when they buy a long-term asset, their home, get a mortgage and pay it off as they benefit from it each year in terms of interest payments? Why is that okay for the American family but not okay for the Federal Government? Why is it that Governors across this country say they have a balanced budget but still assume debt to finance long-term projects? In my State alone, the State budget is $16 to $17 billion; the amount of amassed debt is $19.8 billion. Why is what is good for the Governors is not good for the U.S. Government? Why is what is good for the American families is not good for the U.S. Government? So I would simply say, I think the Senator has raised a number of interesting questions, to which there are answers, and I have done my best to try to answer him. (Mr. DeWINE assumed the chair.)

Mr. BRADLEY. Right, while protecting the pensions.

Mr. BRADLEY. In 1 year. Mr.BIDEN. Without being able to raid the retirement fund.

Mr. BRADLEY. Again, back to the New Jersey example, the State budget is roughly $16.9 billion, the indebtedness is $19.8 billion. Imagine what would happen to taxes if you had to fund New Jersey investment the way this amendment would require us to fund Federal investment.

Mr. BRADLEY. Will the Senator yield for one last point?

Mr. BRADLEY. New Jersey is the exception in that as well because New Jersey--I do not know what the date of the Senator's economic report is, but in the recent New Jersey budget, the State borrowed $3 billion from the pension funds to fund the deficit.

Mr. BRADLEY. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. BRADLEY. And by the logic of the argument of the Senator from Idaho, he thinks we should continue to raid the Social Security trust funds in order to balance the budget.

Mr. BRADLEY. If the Senator will yield at that point.

Mr. BRADLEY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BRADLEY. I would say to the distinguished Senator that they might have a AAA rating, but it does not it does not equal the rating of the U.S. Government is because we can print the money. State borrowing is not as secure. There might be a Governor in New Jersey that might make some bad economic decisions. This might result in a bigger deficit than investors had imagined. Lenders might believe that the State is not making a good investment. At some point they might not be funding the pension funds as they should be funding the pension funds. In fact, right now that is the debate. And indeed that might affect their rating. But we are talking about the Federal Government. I would say to the distinguished Senator as well, look, I voted to take the Social Security trust funds out. Let us have the trust funds as a separate part of the budget. Let us have an operating budget and then let us have the capital budget. Let us organize it clearly and tell the American people, as the Senator points out, just like the State of New Jersey, so that we can then say we have a balanced budget if we balance the operating expenditures.

Mr. BRADLEY. Absolutely.

Mr. BRADLEY. There are not profiles in courage enough for people to take longer-term decisions, witness this deficit and debt. The Senator is exactly right. He points out that we will have a balanced budget amendment that will simply reduce the chances for better jobs, more jobs, higher incomes for our children because we will not be building the kind of infrastructure and the kind of investments that most every State in the Union finance by borrowing. In my State, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority has financed through borrowing what is probably the best known investment. I guess there is not a Member of this body who has not ridden on the New Jersey Turnpike. That would not have been built if it had not been debt financed. I do not know if anybody has gone to Giant Stadium or to the racetrack built under the auspicies of the the Sports & Exposition Authority. They would not have been built if they had not been debt financed. I do not know if many people know about the incredible dams in the west that would not have been built.

Mr. BRADLEY. I will be pleased to yield for a question.

Mr. BRADLEY. Why do we build the roads that got them to the homes in the subdivisions? Same reason. But there is a difference between that and sending somebody a check that they spend tomorrow. That is the operating budget. Send people a check and they spend it tomorrow. You can do debt like that, too. You can have a credit card as an individual, you can go out and spend, consume, go to the movies, buy your wife dinner, buy some new clothes and put it on the credit card. That is consumption. That is the operating budget. In general, we should not borrow to finance such types of spending. However, when you buy a house, you have a longer- term investment so you do not want to pay $100,000 or $200,000 for that house in 1 year, you want to spread it over time because you are going to derive the benefits of that house over a longer period of time, year by year by year. All we are saying is treat the American Government the same way that we treat American families. Treat the Federal Government the same way that we treat State governments. The distinguished Senator from Delaware was not on the floor when I pointed out that in my State of New Jersey, we have public indebtedness--State government and authorities--of $19.8 billion and, yet, the Governor--and every Governor who has been Governor of the State of New Jersey--asserts we have a balanced budget. We balance the operating budget, we do not balance the capital budget. The capital budget is debt for long-term projects that help the economy grow and prosper. It is nonsensical to say, ``Well, we don't need that. We are prohibiting it in the balanced budget amendment.'' Instead, look what happens when you gain control over spending by balancing the operating budget and capping the capital budget. Under this proposal, the capital budget would be capped at 10 percent of the overall budget over time and the payoff in jobs, investment, economic productivity is immensely greater than that investment. I agree with the Senator from Illinois, it will not be made in the amounts that are available under a capital budget because all those demands of people who want to consume money we send them through the mail will be greater than those people who will be farsighted enough to say, ``Build this dam, build that highway or build mass transit.''

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. I simply would like to make the point again, the Senator said people would not be able to buy homes if they could not get mortgages. Right, that is true. Why did we decide we would allow them to have mortgages? So they would buy homes, employ people and, at the same time, make an investment that lasts a long time, precisely because it is in the interest of this country to have investments in homes that last a long time.

Mr. BRADLEY. If the Senator will yield.

Mr. BRADLEY. If I could respond to the Senator, I take his point. At the same time, no family is going to put the full price of the house out. No family is going to be required, as we would be under the balanced budget amendment, to pay this full amount upfront. I think there is a significant difference. I take his point on the narrower issue. On the broader issue, I do not think anybody wants to say to American families, ``You can't buy your home with a mortgage, you have to pay for it all up front.'' I think that is what we are saying under this balanced budget amendment, that you cannot finance long-term investment out of debt and that, in my view, will be counterproductive; it will lead to lower economic growth and fewer jobs.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, if I could respond to my distinguished colleague from Illinois.

Mr. BRADLEY. I will reply to the distinguished Senator from Delaware, there is one simple answer: Those investments will not be made.