Bill Bradley

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2076, the Conference Report Making Appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State. This bill would eliminate the Community Oriented Policing Program [COPS] and replace it with a block grant program. By gutting a program that has proven effective in putting police officers on the streets to interact with community residents, Congress is reneging on a promise that was made to the American people last year to aggressively attack the epidemic of crime. In August of last year, Congress passed the $30.2 billion Violent Crime [[Page S 18173]] Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the largest, most comprehensive piece of legislation in the history of this country. The centerpiece of the crime bill is the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program [COPS], a six year, $8.8 billion crime fighting program designed to put 100,000 law enforcement officers on the streets. I provided a jumpstart for the community policing initiative in the crime bill when I introduced a bill in March of 1993 that authorized a major new expansion of community policing. Mr. President, in 1 year, roughly 80 percent of the police departments in the country have been authorized to hire or redeploy almost 26,000 officers for community policing. To date, Mr. President, over 300 New Jersey jurisdictions have received more than 670 additional cops to walk the beat. Over the next 5 years, New Jersey can expect to receive a total of about $250 million in community policing grants to hire approximately 2,800 officers on the beat. Mr. President, community policing involves establishing a close relationship between community residents and the entire police department. This enhanced relationship will result in better law enforcement by putting more cops on the beat to stop trouble before it turns into violent crime. Community policing also will improve the overall quality of life of community residents by involving all police personnel in community activities. In my talks with the citizens and law enforcement officers in New Jersey, I have been told that the Community Policing Program is improving the quality of life by making neighborhoods and communities safer. For example, in Woodbury, NJ, Chief Carl Kinkler has reported that the one police officer hired under the COPS Program has made a tremendous difference in the quality of life in the city. The hiring of the officer has allowed the department to deploy two officers to patrol a problematic community where open air drug dealing has been prevalent. During the last 3 months, 11 major drug arrests have taken place and open air drug dealing has declined by 90 percent. According to Chief Kinkler, deploying cops on the beat has allowed the city of Woodbury to allow the residents of this community to take control of their neighborhood. In Newark, NJ, the community policing program has been enormously successful. Officers patrol neighborhoods on foot, and in those areas requiring acute attention, Neighborhood Stabilization Units have been set up. These units are literally mobile police stations, in which police officers in a specially equipped van drive into an area and set up a police station in the community. In addition to solving and deterring crime, Newark police indicate that officers on the beat have been instrumental in dealing with quality of life issues. The officers solicit from citizens problems that merit attention, such as prostitution, illegal dumping, and loud music which creates a public nuisance. The officers then solve the community problems. The cops on the beat also handle citizen concerns that traditionally fall outside the realm of police activity, such as repairing streets, towing abandoned cars, and razing abandoned buildings. The police department reports that community policing has have a significant impact on providing citizens with safer communities and an enhanced confidence in the police force. Mr. President, this legislation provides that the block grant funding can be used for basic law enforcement functions, which can include prison guards, meter maids, file cabinets and parking meters. There is no guarantee that one police officer will be hired to stand with community residents to fight crime. I am reminded that when Congress debated the crime bill, critics of community policing argued that it was impossible to put 20,000 police officers on the streets over the life of the crime bill. However, in approximately one year, almost 26,000 cops have been deployed to walk the beat and rid communities of crime. Mr. President, a year ago a promise was made to put 100,000 police officers on the streets within 6 years. We are well on the way to fulfilling this promise. However, if Congress kills the community policing program--a program that has proven hugely effective in combatting crime--the guarantee that Congress will make to the American people is that their security is no longer a priority issue. Mr. President, Congress has had past experience with block grants in the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration Program. I would like to remind my colleagues that this program had to be terminated because of waste. We should not make the same mistake today by eliminating a highly successful program that to date has funnelled Federal money directly to approximately 80 percent of police departments around the country to enable those departments to deploy officers on the beat to form a partnership with community residents to fight crime. Mr. President, the community policing program has been immensely successful and is supported by the law enforcement community, including the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the National Troopers Coalition, the Police Executive Research Forum and the Police Foundation. In addition, 65 percent of the American people support funding for more police officers. I urge my colleagues to stand with the American people in opposition to this bill and preserve the community policing program. gender bias studies in the courts

Mr. BRADLEY. I wish to join my colleagues in their support for the continuation of the work of the Federal judiciary in studying the existence, if any, of gender bias in the courts. I am proud to say that in 1982, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey established the Nation's first task force on gender in the courts. Now, the majority of States have commissioned gender task forces and issued reports of their findings. In general, these studies have identified some problems in the State courts and identified steps that can be taken by the bench and bar to improve the fair treatment of attorneys, litigants, and employees. No one should question the importance of ensuring that our Federal courts truly function as fair, neutral adjudicators. Toward that end, the Federal courts should be commended for taking the steps to identify and, where it exists, to eradicate, gender bias in decisionmaking, employment, and the treatment of individuals. The work of these gender fairness task forces may not always be popular. The work may not always be comfortable for some. But in the end, their work will help ensure that the courts are, and are perceived to be, fair to all litigants. I agree with Senators Simon, Kennedy, Biden, and Kerrey that the Federal judiciary is fully authorized under the Violence Against Women Act to conduct these important studies and that the allocation to the judiciary under this appropriations bill may be used for that purpose.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, this reconciliation bill, from top to bottom, is intoxicated with the fantasy that it is abandoning the welfare state. Mr. President, we do not have a welfare state, we have a safety net for a few poor people. This drives big holes in that safety net. Welfare reform--block grants replace welfare. What it does is take money from Federal pols and give it to State pols. The theory is, if you do not like Washington, you are going to love Lansing, or Trenton, or the State capital. Hardly. What this does is, in the Federal commitment to poor children, 1.2 million more children will be plunged into poverty because of this. The Medicaid block grant. Send it all back to the States. Do not say who is eligible, and do not say what the benefits will be, or how the providers will provide the benefits. Just send the money back. The only thing we know is that when we pass this bill, 12 million Americans will be uninsured. Uninsured. I predict that, 5 years from now, there will be Medicaid scandals in States where Governors are putting in a health care program that will help their constituencies. Why are State governments different? They are not. For what purpose? The purpose is that we are giving a gigantic break to wealthy Americans. On the other side, they say, ``Oh, no, only 35 percent of the cut goes to people above $75,000.'' Yes, but they only represent 13 percent of the people. And embedded in this bill for estates of $2.5 million is an $800,000 tax cut. At the same time, we are ripping holes in the safety net, we are giving estates of $2.5 million an $800,000 tax cut. We should say ``no.''

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. October 1, Mr. President. Every year, we have until October 1 to pass the 13 necessary spending bills that keep our Government running. This year, when it became clear that Congress would not be able to complete floor action on these bills by this deadline, we passed a continuing resolution to keep the Government running until November 13. Still, the additional 6 weeks proved insufficient for Congress to complete action on these bills. Our Government is now shut down because Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate cannot agree with each other on what should and should not be included in these bills. In large part, the appropriations bills presented before us have been seriously flawed, so much so that Republicans themselves cannot agree on them. As Republican House and Senate conferees continue to bicker in back rooms, several hundred thousand Federal employees are home, waiting for a paycheck that is not coming. The so-called faceless, nameless bureaucrat waits, wondering how he or she will put food on the table, make the next mortgage payment, or prepare for the coming holiday season. Thousands of citizens wait to obtain a passport, a visa, file for Social Security, and so on. Congress has once again failed the American people. It is time to put this budget impasse behind us. We will only be able to do so if the majority party presents us with fair and responsible spending bills to send to the President's desk. This brings me to the legislation we now face, the Department of Defense appropriations report. As the Republicans claim to want a balanced budget, they now put before us a defense spending bill bloated beyond one's wildest imagination. Let me remind my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle that the cold war is over. Let me repeat that. The cold war is over. We must put an end to outdated notions--outdated notions of America's defense needs and outdated notions of the threats to U.S. security. The Defense appropriations bill reported out of the conference committee is designed for the cold war era--an era that has ended. This budget embodies outdated notions and adopts an outdated approach to our national security. I therefore urge that the conference report be rejected. Rather than focusing on threats that no longer exist, we must begin focusing on the realities of the present day and the fundamental transformations that are shaping the world and our country. [[Page S 17165]] Chief among those transformations are the end of the cold war and our runaway debt. These transformations have enormous political, strategic, and economic implications. They are changing the way we must view the world and the role of the United States in that world. The end of the cold war, for example, has brought a period of transition. We are no longer faced with a Soviet threat. Rather, we are confronted with a period of transition--a work in progress--as Russia and other countries move to define themselves and their relationships with the United States and the rest of the world. This transition period has brought with it different and very real threats for which we must be prepared. Ethnic conflicts and renegade nuclear proliferation, among others, are threats that must be recognized, met, and defeated. Economically, these transformations have changed the way that we produce things, the services that are offered and the way that we must compete in global markets to be successful. Jobs have been lost and our enormous debt places very real limits on our spending choices. This has very real implications for U.S. security interests, which obviously depend not only on military power, but on economic power as well. It is crucial that our military power be supported by a strong and vital economy and work force. This in turn requires fiscal responsibility, not the current runaway deficit spending. It also requires difficult choices. In short, we simply cannot afford to waste millions of dollars on outdated programs that will not serve our national security or our economic interests. But that is precisely what this defense budget does. Rather than directing scarce resources where they are needed, this budget funds exorbitantly expensive and unnecessary programs. As you will remember, I spoke against the Defense appropriations bill when it was considered by this body in August. Since then, that bill has gone to committee to be reconciled with the House version. What has resulted is even worse than could have been expected. No program was eliminated. Rather, when there were competing budget items in the House and Senate bills, the committee accepted the extravagances of both, never mind that they were redundant or not even necessary in the first place. Take, for example, the funding of two types of marine amphibious assault ships--the LHD-7 amphibious assault ship included in the Senate bill--a ship that the administration did not even request. In the House bill, funding was provided for the similar PD-17 amphibious assault ship. Rather than choose one or the other, this budget funds both at a cost of almost $2.3 billion. This is fiscal irresponsibility and it is not in our national security interests. This budget also provides for increases for the B-2 bomber program-- an increase that the Pentagon doesn't even want. Indeed, the Pentagon- sponsored May 1995 study opposed any further purchases for this system. But throwing such recommendations to the wind, this budget increases funding by $493 million. Not only does this budget fund B-2 increases, it provides over $2.2 billion for the competing F-22--a program that the House appropriations subcommittee zeroed out as long ago as 1989 for its highly unrealistic assumptions about funding levels and possibly unrealizable technical goals. Now, the F-22 is 1,300 pounds overweight, its stealth signature is larger than expected and there are questions about its software. But this budget continues to fund it although both the CBO and GAO found that the lower cost F/A-18E/F could do the job. This budget also provides $700 million for a third Seawolf submarine that we simply do not need and that is far too costly. Although the Bush administration proposed halting this program in 1992, we have already funded a second one, and this budget would add a clearly unnecessary third. This budget provides $757.6 million for the continued development of the V-22 Osprey, a program that the Bush administration tried to kill 4 years ago and whose mission can be performed more cheaply and reliably with the procurement of CH-53E helicopters. This budget provides $299 million for the Comanche. Not only is the Comanche unproven and experiencing developmental problems, its air combat missions can be performed at a much lower cost by the Apache. Even the Defense Department had proposed limiting this program to the production of two prototypes. But this budget not only continues to fund those prototypes, it increases funding by $100 million over the administration's request for full-scale production. With all these increases, it is not surprising that this budget exceeds the administration's request by nearly $7 billion. But this increase in funding does not represent an increase in our national security. Rather such fiscal irresponsibility will do more to harm our national security than to improve it. Too much of this $243 billion Defense budget represents nothing more than a jobs program. It funds defense contractors for weapons that we simply do not need and increases funding for programs like the B-2 against the Pentagon's own recommendations. It is true that the end of the cold war era has required a substantial drop in jobs in the defense sector. Defense jobs will decline from 7.2 million to 4.2 million by 1996. This job loss in the defense industry clearly must be addressed. However, the answer is not found in funding jobs through unnecessary weapons programs. This is a budget for a time now gone, not a budget for today, let alone tomorrow. I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting it. I yield the floor.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Would the Chair restate the Senator's request?

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. BRADLEY. Will the Senator state what the amendment is?

Mr. BRADLEY. Will the Senator state what the amendment is?

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. As I understand it, the amendment offered by Senator Nickles is the exact content of the amendment that I was going to offer. So I have no opposition.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I move to strike sections 5400 and 5401 of the reconciliation bill. These provisions represent corporate welfare at its worst. They direct costly Federal irrigation subsidies-- originally intended to support small family farmers--to the largest farm operations in the West. They will benefit only a handful of wealthy individuals. I oppose granting additional subsidies to those least in need of Federal handouts, and ask my colleagues to do the same. When the Reclamation Program began in 1902, Congress provided low cost irrigation water to small, 160 acres or less, family farms. The policy was intended to help small farmers; large farms were explicitly excluded from the subsidies. In 1982, Congress recognized that the average family farm had grown, and increased the acreage limitations from 160 acres to the present 960 acres. Holders larger than 960 acres were required to pay full cost for irrigating their excess holdings. The reconciliation bill creates a loophole permitting the wealthiest farmers to avoid paying full cost instead of the subsidized price. It allows farmers with excess holdings to prepay for their water--nothing wrong with that--but at the subsidized rates intended for small family farms. For these large farm operations, the cost of prepaying could be less than the cost of 1 year's irrigation water. These individuals would then be exempt forever from acreage limitations and full-cost pricing, even if the Federal Government makes new investments that would enhance their water projects. The net present value of the benefits to these individuals--and loss to the U.S. Treasury--could exceed $1,000 an acre. How can we justify such welfare for the wealthiest? As a result of this provision, the very family farmers for whom the Reclamation Program was designed will face ever-larger competitors who obtain even greater subsidies than the small farmer. This change in policy would be accomplished without hearings and without any meaningful analysis of impacts, taxpayer costs, winners or losers. It also is not fair to the many farmers throughout the West who have complied with the letter and intent of reclamation law, and did not seek additional discounts or waivers of key provisions of Federal law. I believe that allowing people to buy their way out of Federal regulations is fundamentally unfair; to offer them a discount just compounds the inequity.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Bumpers/Bradley amendment to restore the traditional method of scoring asset sales that the Congress changed last June in the Budget Resolution. The change allows Congress to count the sale of public assets--parks, powerplants, buildings, [[Page S 16025]] the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, even oil in national storage facilities --as deficit reductions despite the fact that such sales are actually money-losers. This budgetary innovation opened the floodgates for proposals to unload valuable Federal assets in return for the fast buck, often at fire-sale prices. Many of these proposals, in fact, will lead to reduced revenues in the future, and higher deficits. This approach relies on political myopia--a simpleminded scoring of sales revenue within the limited budget window--and fails to withstand the straight face test. Only by railroading these proposals through the Senate, under the very restrictive and controlled conditions of budget reconciliation, would many of these proposals ever have a chance of becoming law. The Energy Committee's title is loaded down with asset sales that follow the same pattern. While they produce deficit reductions in their first few years, as valuable assets are sold off, after a few years the pattern reverses and deficit reductions are turned into increases. In most cases the red ink continues far out into the future, easily dwarfing the deficit reductions of the early years. Thus asset sales are both short term and short sighted. Why we produce these budget resolutions in the first place? The reason is not to balance the budget. If it were, I am sure we could create some appropriate fiction which showed budgetary balance by definition. But that is not what we were supposed to be doing here. We are supposed to be systematic. We are supposed to be honest. We are supposed to be consistent. We are supposed to address the substantive, structural issues which keep the Federal Government spending--year in, year out--more money than it takes in. So what do we have here, buried deep in this bill? We have a trick, a gimmick. We cut spending, by redefining what a cut is. Now, for the first time since we gave this budget process teeth--with the passage of Gramm-Rudman--we can sell off national property--national assets--and include the proceeds as deficit reduction. Mr. President, because of these cynically clever changes, we can now propose all sorts of asset sales, from ANWR to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and chalk that up to deficit reduction. This asset sale formula leads to all sorts of questionable proposals. Because even outrageously low sales prices would still score as deficit reductions for the short period of the budget window, asset giveaways could receive a budget blessing. In fact, I doubt that any business accountant or economist would agree with the underlying budgetary premise--that liquidating public assets adds to public wealth. If I sell my stock portfolio and put the returns in my checking account, do I become wealthier? Have I protected my children? It may make sense to sell my stocks, but the transaction itself produces no wealth--except for my broker. Consider the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We can lease the Refuge to oil developers and sell any oil that might be underground to them. We will get some money. The companies will get the rights to oil. If they find oil, probably it will be shipped to the Pacific rim and burned completely. Have we done a lot for our kids? You must be joking. At best, we can claim for our children a neutral financial transaction. But what about the larger issues? If we go ahead with the development of ANWR, we damage probably irrevocably a unique, world- class ecosystem. We consume utterly a non-renewable resource. We get some cash. If we forego the drilling of ANWR, we preserve intact this ecosystem. We preserve intact any oil underground and the possibility of future development. We do not get the cash. I, frankly, reject any claim that our children will thank us for using up this oil and running oil rigs and oil pipelines across the Arctic Plain. Mr. President, what the American public expects, and what our children expect, is for us to get our fiscal house in order. Our children are not asking us to sell off their collective inheritance. Our children are not asking us to look narrowly at some budget window and forget that many of these assets produce public value--and I do not just mean financial value--beyond the window. When one Member from the other side of the aisle, Senator Craig, considered this issue as a House Member, he said, ``Asset sales are in fact blue smoke and mirrors at best. If they are to happen, they should be set off budget.'' Exactly right.

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

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

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, under the pending bill, estates worth $5 million or more would receive a tax break of $1.7 million. This is because the bill effectively shields the first $3.25 million from tax. This amendment would strike these provisions and substitute a package of reforms that are designed to ease the burden of estate taxes on true small businesses and family farms.

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

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

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, the amendment that I have offered denies a tax deduction for the expense of advertising tobacco products. Federal savings of $3.2 billion would be used to offset cuts in Medicaid. Currently tobacco manufacturers deduct the cost of their advertisements from their taxable income. In other words, it favors the Joe Camel ad. This amendment would eliminate that deduction. The amendment would not prohibit tobacco manufacturers from advertising their products. It only removes the Federal subsidy through the Tax Code for their advertising.

Mr. BRADLEY

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the senior Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Washington State.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, in 1993, Congress decided to give a 3- year tax cut to families earning under $30,000 a year. That is the earned income tax credit. What the other side attempted to do is to say, ``Do not give these working families earning under $30,000 a year the third year of their tax cut.'' That is essentially what this debate is about. As I said last night, I would oppose their effort to raise taxes on families earning under $30,000 a year if it was a free-standing amendment; but in the context of this debate it is virtually unconscionable because of the estate tax provision in this bill. I have not heard anyone on the other side defend this provision. If you have a $5 million estate you pay $1.7 million less in estate tax because of the changes in this bill. I have not heard one person on the other side of the aisle stand up and credibly defend why we should give less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the estates in this country a $1.7 million tax cut while we are raising taxes on families earning under $30,000 a year. I have not heard that defense. Maybe it exists. I have not heard it. The distinguished Senator from New Mexico read a letter from the Joint Tax Committee, as if the letter clinched the case. And the letter of course says that 72 percent of the tax benefits in this bill go to families earning under $75,000 a year. That is true. One does not dispute that. But that is not a refutation of the fact that taxes are increased on families earning under $30,000 a year. It means that the tax cut for those with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 is large enough to offset the tax increase for those earning under $30,000. Then, finally, there was this nice phrase here in the letter from the Joint Tax Committee, ``Only 1.5 percent of all households will have an income tax increase;'' an income tax increase. Mr. President, people who earned under $30,000 a year last year paid $114 billion in Federal taxes. Guess how much of the $114 billion was income tax? It was $12 billion. Mr. President $12 billion out of the $114 billion was income tax. What other taxes do they pay? They are working people. They pay Social Security taxes. For years we heard from the other side that the cruelest tax of all is the tax on working Americans, the Social Security tax. What they are doing is essentially raising the effect of the Social Security tax on those working people, because the earned income tax credit offsets Social Security taxes and income taxes and excise taxes paid by families earning under $30,000 a year. And the Joint Tax Committee did not refute that. The letter refers only to income taxes, not Social Security taxes. So let us be clear here. Let us be clear. There has not been one refutation of the fact that the earned income tax credit offsets Social Security taxes. And when you repeal it, you are essentially raising Social Security taxes on families earning under $30,000 a year. Why do this in the context of a bill where estates of $5 million get a $1.7 million tax cut? Tell me how is that good policy. Then, of course, we are going to see a chart later, the famous growth chart, that will show that the earned income tax credit has increased dramatically in the last 3 years, how it is exploding since 1986. Every time, Mr. President, every time we hear that argument about the earned income tax credit exploding, remember, Mr. and Mrs. America, what they are saying is that working families are getting a bigger and bigger tax cut and they do not like it. Republicans want to reduce their tax cut. They want to raise taxes on working families. So when you see that chart going up, that is not a chart of the growth of the earned income tax credit. That is a chart of taxes going down for working families in this country. So when the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma puts that chart up-- and I hope he puts that chart up at some point today--remember those bars that go higher and higher: Lower taxes on working families in America. Mr. President, this is one of those moments that is so clearly defining that it really is even reachable by my own rhetorical skills. You do not have to be a great speaker when you have all the facts on your side, when you have no refutation on the other side, and when the choice is so clear--a $1.7 million tax cut for estates of $5 million? That is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the estates in this country in any given year. So the contrast is clear: a tax cut of $1.7 million for estates versus a tax increase on working families. The other side says, ``We did not increase it on families. We only increased it on single people earning under $30,000.'' Well it is true that single people are clearly getting a tax increase. That is true. But I can also give you plenty of examples of where you increased taxes on working families. Anybody who is single under 30, yes, you get a big tax increase--a big tax increase. Not a small one, a big one. And for many families, it is also true. Mr. President, this is an issue that I think bears a very a strong vote in support of our effort to protect this tax cut for working families. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who is on the floor now in support of this amendment.

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

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I have one final point. The purpose of the earned income credit was to offset income taxes that working families pay--working people--and Social Security taxes that working families pay, and excise taxes that working families pay. That is the purpose of it. The other side has said this proposal that they have offered does not increase income taxes on 98 percent of the people. What about Social Security taxes? What about excise taxes? Are they saying those are not taxes? Are they not saying that a working family at the end of the month has less money in their pockets because they paid those taxes? A working family has less in their pockets after this proposal passes because of the Social Security taxes that they do not have offset, and the excise taxes that they do not have offset. And if you are a working single person, forget it. You are going to have a serious increase in taxes. Those are the facts. Those are the facts. One repeat of a statistic: Of the $114 billion in Federal taxes paid by families and individuals earning under $30,000 a year, only $12 billion of the $114 billion are income taxes. We offset all the others. They offset only the $12 billion. In the context of a tax bill, where an estate of $5 million gets a tax cut of $1.7 million, I really want to hear the other side defend that estate tax provision. I want to hear them make the argument about the family farm because I will have an amendment later that will protect the family farm, and it will cost $700 million as opposed to $3 billion over 5 years. Then we will be able to see the difference between the two parties. Even on that issue, one wants to protect the family farm, and the other, of course, wants to give a little bit more benefit to business corporations, and not only the family farm. I can understand why that is good politics for some. It certainly is not good politics. And it is certainly not good policy in the context of a bill that raises taxes on working families that deserve a tax cut, not a tax increase.

Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what was the request on the EITC?