Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I thank my friend and colleague from Michigan for offering this amendment. While I do not believe this amendment is necessary, I believe it does address a concern that was raised yesterday relative to the constitutionality of a process which would deem an appropriations bill which was enrolled separately to incorporate all of the provisions of the original bill. For reasons that I outlined at length yesterday, and on the basis of some respected constitutional scholars, as well as others who have researched this area, we strongly feel and believe that our conclusions that the constitutionality of the Dole substitute, as originally presented, meet constitutional muster, that those provisions are adhered to and that no constitutional question exists. Nevertheless, the amendment of the Senator from Michigan is acceptable to this Senator and to the proponents of the Dole substitute, in that it clarifies any ambiguity that might exist or concerns that might exist among some Members who have questioned the constitutionality of that procedure. For that reason, I think the amendment of the Senator from Michigan is appropriate and I trust and hope that it will be adopted by this body. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. It has not.

Mr. COATS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. COATS. I had just heard a minute ago that it was not. That is why I wanted to verify that. We are satisfied, Mr. President.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we have had trouble putting our fingers on 402. I want to make sure amendment 402 is the lockbox amendment.

Mr. COATS. If the Senator from Wisconsin will yield, I just say to the Senator from Wisconsin that we think it is a meritorious amendment. It is consistent with the goals and the intent of the line-item veto legislation before us. We are happy to accept the amendment.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I would agree with that. We obviously hope to be able to vitiate the cloture vote that is now scheduled for 6 p.m. We are making excellent progress on these amendments. We hope that Members will come to the floor and continue to offer amendments. Our goal is to expedite the debate and consideration of this bill that is before us. We have had considerable debate not only on this particular issue but on similar issues for the past several years. I think Members have had an ample opportunity to express their thoughts and opinions. We now actively encourage those amendments. Obviously, as the Senator from Nebraska said, the more amendments that we can consider before 6 o'clock, perhaps the more favorable consideration the majority leader can give to that vote which is ordered for 6 p.m. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Coats pertaining to the introduction of S. 589 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as if in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask that the next two votes be 10-minute votes.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I move to table the pending amendment No. 362 offered by Senator Feingold and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I move to table the pending amendment No. 404 offered by Senator Hollings and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the motion was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Motion to Table Amendment No. 404

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Interstate Transportation of Municipal Solid Waste Act of 1995. For the past 5 years, I have fought to give all States and local communities the right to say ``No'' to out-of-State trash. I am convinced that interstate waste legislation is necessary so that States and communities can intelligently plan their waste disposal needs. As interstate waste legislation has traveled through the Senate and the House, we have learned important principles in the effort to protect importing States while allowing exporters sufficient time to adjust to new rules. My bill incorporates these important principles. First, my bill allows the importing States to ratchet down the amount of trash they receive. Beginning in 1997, landfills and incinerators that receive more than 50,000 tons of trash may reduce the amount of out-of-State trash they import. Second, my bill requires the exporting States to reduce the amount of trash that they export by certain target dates. This provision allows for a gradual adjustment on the part of the large exporting States. Third, my bill allows all States to choose between 1993 and 1994 freeze levels. This provision ensures flexibility without sacrificing protection from flow levels that fluctuate. Finally, my bill will provide additional backup authority to limit waste flows by allowing the State planning and permitting process to take into account local need when siting new capacity. Under this provision, a State could deny a permit for construction or operation of a new landfill based on the fact that there is no local or regional need. The flow of waste across State lines is not a new problem. States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Indiana have suffered under the tremendous volumes of out-of-State waste. States have tried to stop the growing shipments of interstate waste by enacting legislation that restricts the flow. Yet, courts have held many of these laws in violation of the commerce clause and therefore unconstitutional. In order to address the constitutional question, Congress must legislate the issue. During the past 5 years, Congress has come close to giving the States the power to enact interstate waste legislation. Many of my colleagues have worked very hard to see that this is finally accomplished. We have had to give and take on both sides. I am hopeful that this is the year that Congress can complete the task. This legislation issues a simple plea for each community, each State, to be responsible for the environment, and accountable for the trash they generate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 10 a.m. the Senate resume consideration of the Daschle substitute on which there be the following time limitation prior to a motion to table: 2 hours to be equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, in one very real sense, I welcome the remarks of the minority leader and welcome the support that the minority leader and others have offered on this floor for the concept that we are attempting to advance; namely, how do we make it harder to spend the taxpayers' dollars? And how can we end a practice which most of us recognize as not a practice that brings credit to this institution, but one which annually causes us significant embarrassment? The disclosure of certain types of spending, certain types of tax benefits to the public severely undermines their confidence in us as an institution, severely enhances their criticism and their cynicism toward this institution, as they regularly see expenditures for items that are not considered to be in the national interest or in any sense of the measure a broad interest, but are targeted to just a few. And it is a time honored, some would say--I would say time dishonored--process that we have engaged in over the years to slip those little provisions in, sometimes in the back room, sometimes in conference, when there really is no chance to amend a bill that we know the President has to sign. And so we are encouraged that our colleagues from across the aisle have recognized that this is a practice that needs to be limited or stopped. But for the past 6 years, during my service in the Senate, I have been part of an effort led by Republicans to attempt to address this issue. And we failed each time. Really, going all the way back to 1985, there have been six separate efforts to address line-item veto in which we had votes. And in each one of those efforts, the number of Democrats supporting Republicans or supporting the effort in general can be counted generally on one hand. We have failed again and again and again. We have failed because we have not had support from across the aisle. Oh, it is wonderful now to hear all these statements about how Democrats support line-item veto; how they support enhanced rescission; how they are trying to work toward the same goals as we are. Well, we welcome their support. It is a little late, but it is not too late. And we hope that that translates into finally arriving at a measure which will get at this practice of tax pork and spending pork. In 1985, when the measure was offered by Senator Mattingly, Republican from Georgia, only seven Democrats supported the effort. And in 1990, when I offered not the line-item veto or a separate enrollment, but when I offered enhanced rescission, only four Democrats supported the effort and we failed, as did Senator Mattingly in 1985. We failed because the effort was filibustered. We failed because points of order were raised forcing us to achieve 60 votes to even get to debate. We did not even get to the debate of the issue. In 1990, my colleague and partner in this effort, Senator McCain, also offered enhanced rescission and he only got four Democrat votes. And in 1992, Senator McCain offered it again and this time he got seven. So there was some movement in our direction. But then a year later, in 1993, I offered it, the same bill, enhanced rescission--the rescission process that the Democrats are now talking about as the alternative and the substitute to what we are attempting to do--and we only got five. So I must not have been as persuasive as Senator McCain because we lost two Democrats. And even in 1993, when Senator Bradley changed his position on this issue from being opposed to it but recognizing that something had to be done, something had to be done to stop this runaway spending and this runaway deficit and this runaway national debt, even then Senator Bradley, as a Democrat, could only secure 13 Democrats and the measure fell once again. And so we have had a decade of resistance--a decade of efforts to block our attempts to pass rescission, enhanced rescission, separate enrollment, line-item veto. And every one of those efforts has been defeated not by the votes of Republicans but defeated by the votes of Democrats. So it is a little difficult to sit here through this debate and hear the protestations that, ``If Republicans would just cooperate. If they would just lean a little more our way and see the bill as we see it, we could have line-item veto or we could have enhanced rescission. And somehow the Republicans are authority.'' When the fact of the matter is that it is only the persistence of Republicans, the persistence of those who continue to offer this year after year after year, that finally has translated into an election last November which gave us the necessary new Members to have a chance at succeeding on this item. Now a great deal has been said about why do we not take the Domenici- Exon package; that the chairman of the Budget Committee at one time sponsored a provision which is being offered now as an alternative, and it must have been a pretty good effort in putting that bill together because both the chairman and the ranking member supported it. Well, Senator Domenici did offer that alternative to the McCain-Coats enhanced rescission. He offered expedited rescission. And it was pointed out that expedited rescission really was not a major change from the status quo. It was a modest improvement, but it did not really have the strength of fundamentally changing the way we do business in this body and it lacked the two-thirds vote necessary to override the President's decision. As such, the conclusion was the same 51 votes that passed the appropriation in the first place, that voted for the appropriation, could overturn the President's decision and retain the very items that raised the questions about pork-barrel spending in the first place. And so, it was Senator Domenici who said, ``Why don't we look at an alternative that will be even stronger, that will expand the scope?" In fact, Senator Domenici said, ``My problem with the McCain-Coats effort is that it only focuses on the appropriated items. And the appropriated items, once you separate out defense, amounts to less than 20 percent of the budget.'' He thought that was unfairly targeted to a certain segment of spending and it would ignore other areas. That is the reason he crafted the alternative bill. And so we sat down with Senator Domenici and said, ``Well, let's examine some ways that we could expand this and address the question that you raised because that is a legitimate question.'' And Senator Stevens weighed in on it and he had the same concerns. Out of that came the product that we are now debating that has been offered by Senator Dole, the majority leader, as the Dole amendment, the product around which we have secured the support of nearly every Republican because it was expanded to include additional items and not just the appropriated items. And it was Senator Domenici, right after the introduction of the Dole amendment, the separate enrollment provision, that came to the floor and made a lengthy statement as to why the Dole amendment was so superior to his own product and why he was withdrawing his amendment that had been reported out of the Budget Committee, his bill, his product, why he was withdrawing support for that in favor of a much better version, a much more effective version, a much tougher version, a version with real teeth. He outlined that, and I want to quote from his remarks. As my colleagues have said, the alternative that they are providing must be a good one because it was Senator Domenici's original proposal. Yes, it was his original proposal, in response to a measure that he did not think was strong enough because it did not include enough categories. As a result of that, we met and we crafted a much stronger version, and Senator Domenici came down here and said, ``This is what I was really looking for and this is a much superior product.'' I quote from him where he said, reading from the Congressional Record of March 20, 1995, Senator Domenici said ``I support the objective of Senator McCain's bill,'' enhanced recision, ``but I felt the McCain bill shifted too much power over the budget of the President and focused too much attention on just the appropriated accounts, which excluding defense, represents less than 20 percent of total spending. The Dole amendment provides a less cumbersome process to overturn Presidential rescissions.'' The McCain-Coats bill has a two-stage process where Congress would have to vote two times if the President vetoed the first effort. He said the new Dole amendment offers a one-hurdle process, and for that reason it is superior to the product that he had originally sponsored. Second, he said, ``The Dole amendment applies to all spending. It applies to new spending and legislation, not just appropriations legislation. In addition, it applies to any new very narrow targeted tax benefit legislation and new entitlements.'' Third, he says, ``It provides for congressional review. It contained a sunset in the year 2000.'' I quote again, ``I congratulate Senator Dole. He has found an approach that significantly expands the President's authority over spending, without unduly disrupting the delicate balance of power.'' The minority leader suggests this evening that this is some kind of a surprise because it is a substitute to the previously reported bills. The truth of the matter is that every provision in this has either been voted on by the Senate or discussed thoroughly in committee. And he goes on to state why it is not a surprise, and I will get to that in a moment. I will conclude Senator Domenici's remarks by quoting one more time: ``This product,'' referring to Senator Dole's amendment, ``is as close as we will ever get to a fair line-item veto that has a chance of working and that is broader than we originally conceived but fair in that respect. It is fair. I will suggest that if there are some who think that the old bill which I introduced should be revisited, and perhaps the President supports it, let me set that one aside.'' Let me repeat that. Senator Domenici, the one who wrote the bill along with Senator Exon, that was his initial effort, came to this floor and said, ``I will suggest that if there are some who think that the old bill which I introduced should be revisited, let me set that one aside,'' and he withdrew that bill and signed on to the Dole bill because it was a much superior, much tougher, much broader, much more effective, and as Senator Domenici said, fairer to a line-item veto that has a chance of actually working. We have talked a lot about the practicality of this bill and it seems that the opposition--Democrats opposing this bill--keep using the question of process and mechanics, and how this is going to complicate the effort. Well, the President of the United States does not think it will complicate the effort. They worry about sending too many pieces of paper down to the White House. The President of the United States said in his statement released on March 20, ``I urge the Senate to pass the strongest possible line-item veto.'' He did not say, ``I urge the Senate to pass expedited rescission.'' Expedited rescission does not begin to resemble a line-item veto. Veto means two-thirds override. It does not mean majority vote. It does not mean the same votes that pass the appropriation in the first place are necessary to overturn what the President has vetoed. It means two-thirds. Give me the line-item veto, the President said, in his letter. This is about closing the door on business as usual in Washington. Business as usual in Washington is 51 votes to pass tax benefits, which I call tax pork, that go to certain individuals or specialized interest that do not apply to broad classes. And it is spending pork which go to special individuals, special interests, and do not apply to the broad, public interest. The President wants the real thing because he knows the real thing is the only thing that will make a difference. He knows if we will change the spending habits of Congress, if we are going to change the process of blackmail in sending him--what I should call ``legislative blackmail''--in sending him bills, where it is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, he knows that he has to have some tool that will have some teeth in it, and some authority that has some clout in it. That is what the President understands. That is what he has asked for. We Republicans do not give him very much of what he asks for or do not like to give him very much that he asks for, but this is something we have been trying to support, and trying to give him for a very considerable amount of time. The fact of the matter is that the Dole substitute grants the President Congress to continue spending. Short of an amendment to the Constitution, which we are not able to secure enough votes to pass --I wish we could--it is the strongest tool we can grant the President. It is similar to the authority that 43 other Governors currently enjoy. The Exon expedited recision package does little to restore the President's authority to withhold spending that he enjoyed prior to 1974. At that time, Congress decisively grabbed the absolute power of the purse. The only thing they gave the President was the power to propose rescissions. Most of those recissions that the President and subsequent Presidents proposed, never saw the light of day. In 1974, the President sent up recissions and Congress ignored every one of them. One hundred percent. They said, ``No thank you, Mr. President. Everything we passed, stands.'' In 1976, 86 percent of the President's rescissions were ignored. In 1983, 100 percent of the President's recissions were ignored. In 1986, 95 percent. In 1987, 97 percent. Now, the Exon legislation, the expedited rescission just offered by the minority leader, is a modest improvement because it says that at least the President's rescissions are going to get a vote. But it is only going to get a vote of the same people who passed it in the first place, and it is hard to see how that will change what Congress had previously done. If we are ever going to reverse spending trends in this body, we do not need modest improvements. We need fundamental change. To continue spending under the substitute or appropriately, under the amendment offered by the minority leader, the only standard they are proposing is that Congress needs a simple majority, and if it fails to enact a bill within 45 days, the funds are automatically released. What is being offered as a poor substitute, a weak substitute, to the closest thing we can get to line-item veto is, simply put, too little too late. It does nothing to restore that healthy tension necessary between the legislative and executive branch necessary to impose fiscal discipline on Members of the Congress. Some have said that the veto standard, the two-thirds is too high a standard, that it is too difficult to muster the numbers to override it. To those, I would say that the greater challenge today is to reduce our Nation's debt and balance our Nation's books. In this day, it should be tougher. It should be a formidable challenge to continue to spend money. It is time for a higher standard. If we get the job done by the year 2000, then maybe we will want to revisit this. Maybe we will want to look at this and see whether or not it has been abused, this new authority of the President has been abused as some say that it might be. I do not think it will. It certainly has not been at the State level. There are no State legislators calling for repeal of the line-item veto power that their governors have. It sets up a healthy tension, a healthy tension, a necessary tension that can restore some discipline to this body. The Dole bill is the strongest line-item veto bill. It presumes that funding is rescinded unless the elimination of spending is specifically disapproved. It requires a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate to override a subsequent veto. Let us show the American people we are serious about fundamentally changing the way this Congress does business. Let us show them that we intend to present appropriations bills and tax bills without embarrassment. Let us show them that we intend to send a message to the taxpayers that under our guidance their dollars will not be wasted. Let us act boldly to eliminate the dual deficits of public funds and public trust and let us resist the urge to continue business as usual. The alternative offered by the minority leader is essentially business as usual. The Dole amendment is a real meaningful, fundamental change in the way this Congress spends taxpayers' dollars. It makes it tougher. It makes it a lot tougher. It ought to make it tougher because we have abused the privilege that we have had as Members of this body by being irresponsible in the way we spend those dollars, by running up a debt and by sending to the President items which we in our hearts know do not deserve to be in those appropriations or in those tax bills. So while I urge my colleagues to reject the proposal offered by the minority leader, we welcome their support for the concept. What they have offered is too little too late. Let us pass something that will make a difference. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Calendar No. 13, S. 169 be indefinitely postponed.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order. There being no objection the Senate, at 9:16 p.m., adjourned until Thursday, March 23, 1995 at 9:30 a.m. 

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, for the information of my colleagues, Members who still have amendments on the list must offer those amendments by 10 a.m. Thursday morning. Votes can therefore be expected throughout Thursday's session of the Senate, including final passage of the pending line-item veto. Mr. President, I want to repeat that. Those Members who still have amendments that are on the list, that have been cleared to be on that list under unanimous consent, must offer those amendments by 10 a.m. Thursday morning. Votes will be expected throughout the day, including final passage of the pending line-item veto bill.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 23, 1995; that following the prayer the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date, no resolutions come over under the rule, the call of the calendar be dispensed with, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; and that the Senate then resume consideration of the line-item veto bill.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I want to thank the Senator from New Jersey for his remarks and commend him for his longstanding efforts on behalf of the line-item veto concept. The Senator from New Jersey has talked to me on numerous occasions about expanding the original concept of the bill that Senator McCain and I have proposed to include--not just appropriated items but also tax expenditures. He, as a member of the Finance Committee, detailed for me the process of what most would consider tax pork that occurs as tax bills are written. It is not just the appropriations process. I am pleased that we could address this issue in this bill as an amendment introduced last evening by the majority leader. I say to the Senator from New Jersey our goal, I believe, is the same--to address the same items that he attempts to address. I hope that as we debate through this and work through this we can clarify that so that Members know exactly what we are after. It is hard to get the exact words in place so that we understand just exactly how this applies to tax items. But I believe that the targeted tax expenditures which are targeted in the Dole amendment very closely parallel what the Senator from New Jersey has tried for so long to accomplish. So we look forward to working with him. I thank him for his support. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his statement in support of the line-item veto. He has only been here a few months, but already he has been a powerful voice for change in this institution. It is change which I believe the taxpayers and constituents that we represent called for in the November elections. They want a change in the way we do business. They want a change in the way Congress represents them, a change in the mechanics. They are tired of hearing promises delivered from this floor over and over and over again that, yes, give us another chance; we will do better next time. What we are seeking to do with this line-item veto proposal is change fundamentally the way we make decisions and the way that we spend taxpayers' dollars. The effort that Senator McCain and I and others have been working on for so long appears to be reaching a point where we will be making a final decision as to whether or not we will bring that fundamental change to this body. The substitute which Senator Dole offered last evening on this floor was the result of days and weeks of some very tough negotiations involving Members who have had a history of involvement with the appropriations process, with the tax writing process, with the entitlements process, with the spending process of this Congress. We took an idea, a concept that has been discussed, as I indicated on this floor yesterday, for nearly a century, that is enjoyed by 43 Governors, that has been called for, asked for, requested by, with one exception, every President of this entire century. The request is simply to allow the President a check and balance against a practice that Congress has been engaging in which allows Members of the legislative branch to attach to major pieces of legislation, most of which they are pretty confident the President has little or no choice of signing, specifically targeted items, specifically designated items that go to provide a benefit for a particular class of individuals, small group of individuals, which cannot be defined in any sense in the national interest. It may have been something that was generally accepted and overlooked in the past as we were running budgets which were roughly in balance. It was seen as a way of, I guess, making the process work here: You support this for me; I will support that for you, or I need to take this back home to let the constituents know that I am looking out specifically for them. At a time when our annual deficits are running $200 billion or more, at a time when our national debt is reaching staggering proportions, nearly $5 trillion, we can no longer afford to practice business as usual. The vote which will eventually occur on this item is a vote for one of two courses. One course is business as usual. The other is for a change in the way business is done, for a discarding of the status quo. For my colleagues who are in the process now of studying the final proposal that was put forth and is the result of several weeks of negotiations, let me just explain that it is not all that complicated. It is only five pages and one line of language which essentially takes the line-item veto concept--that is, the two-thirds vote that is necessary to override a decision of the President of the United States which will be granted to him, the authority of which will be granted to him to line-item out specific spending requests or items that increase spending, send them back to the Congress, and if the Congress wants to reinstate those, it will require a two-thirds vote. That is the core concept of line-item veto--veto, the process of overriding a decision, that process which involves a two-thirds vote, and it is embodied in the Constitution of the United States. We are incorporating that into this process. We are then applying that principle of two-thirds to the various functions of spending that take place as we write legislation. Originally, the McCain-Coats proposal only addressed appropriated Committee that affected discretionary spending. As Senator Stevens has correctly pointed out, we were targeting then the line-item veto procedure to too narrow a slice of spending. We were applying it to an area under the control of the Appropriations Committee, which admittedly carried what most would describe as pork-barrel, pork- spending items, but which only went to a portion of our entire budget. Senator Stevens suggested that that ought to be expanded, and we looked for ways to do that. Interestingly enough, we reached back into a process that has been debated at length on this Senate floor. It goes back a decade or more. We reached back to a process which has been suggested by prominent members of the Democrat Party, led by committee chairmen who have eloquently debated the rationale behind the need for the process called separate enrollment but which also can be described as line-item veto, and we used that as the basis for putting together this new legislation that was introduced yesterday evening by the majority leader, Senator Dole. We took that process and we applied it to a broader range of spending, so now not only will appropriations bills be subjected to line-item veto, but we will also subject other portions of the budget to line-item veto. We have included direct expenditures, expenditures of dollars, that occur outside the appropriations bills, including the appropriations bill process but also go to authorizations which provide for new spending. We have expanded it to new entitlements. We are not changing the law in terms of benefits that are currently available under the law to new enrollees or to current enrollees within the entitlement programs, but we are saying, if there is an attempt to expand that program as it currently exists into new spending, then it will be subjected to the President's new authority, should this bill pass, new authority to line-item veto that. Again, Congress could come back and with a two-thirds vote override the President's decision, but obviously it will be much harder for Congress to enact new spending. And we have expanded this to include what we call targeted tax benefits. There is tax pork as well as spending pork. Often what is described as the pork barrel involves not just appropriated items but tax breaks targeted for specific groups of people, specific individuals, a specific business entity within a broader group, so it is directed to help a particular targeted group, not the group as a whole. This would not allow the President to veto a broad tax deduction on the books, or a broad tax provision such as mortgage interest deductions, such as real estate tax deduction, such as some of the deductions that Americans now enjoy under the Tax Code. But it would go to those specifically targeted items that often are added somewhere along the line in the tax-writing process and go, not to benefit a large group, but go to benefit a very specific targeted interest. So the bill has been expanded considerably. It has a much broader scope than it had before. It applies a discipline to the process that is currently not available. It has a provision under the tax provision and has a provision available to Senators that, if they do not agree with the way in which a bill is brought forward and enrolled and think there is something that has been excluded, they can raise a point of order on this floor. Under that point of order they can subject that particular item to the separate enrollment procedures which would allow it then to be subject to the line-item veto of the President. So, if a Senator does not believe that new entitlement spending or targeted tax benefits have been fully identified in a reported tax bill or an appropriations bill, the Dole amendment provides a means by which those Senators can challenge the bill. If the Senator's point of order is sustained, the relevant committee would then have to flush out or pull out that particular provision and enroll it separately before the bill could be in order on the floor. So we have addressed that question that has been raised about: What if the bill slips something in but does not separately enroll it and a Senator believes it should be separately enrolled? We provided a process for that. Finally, let me state, because the questions have been raised: We are not exactly sure how all this will work and we are a little bit nervous about the authority we are giving to the President; should we not test the idea? I suggest the idea has been tested. It has been tested for a century by our Governors in working with our legislatures. But in order to accommodate that concern, we have put a sunset in this bill so Congress can revisit this new authority, can examine it on the basis of how it applies, and if it wants can modify it or, of course, even repeal it. So it does contain a sunset. It will provide a test period to see how well it works. Madam President, I suggest we will never know how fully effective the line-item veto power to the President will be, in terms of accomplishing real spending cuts, because it will fundamentally change the way we think and behave. That fundamental change will mean that items which would have been attached to appropriations bills or would have been incorporated in the tax bills will not be, because of the fear that they will be exposed to public scrutiny before it finally becomes law. It is shining the light of public scrutiny on our debate, on how we write our legislation, and it is requiring a separate vote by Members in support of or in opposition to a particularly targeted item that does not benefit the national interest or the group as a whole but only goes to benefit a particular individual or a particular entity. It is that process which will, I believe, prevent most of what has taken place in the past that we find so egregious. So we will never be able to total up the amount of money that we have saved for our constituents and for the taxpayer because the line-item veto will have accomplished its purpose--its purpose being to prevent this kind of activity from taking place in the first place; to prevent the kind of embarrassment that we go through on an annual basis when we discover the items that have been slipped into the appropriations bills, slipped into legislation, slipped into tax bills at the last minute in conference, behind closed doors, late at night, and then presented in a massive bill with a limited time period for debate in the House of Representatives and an urgency because of the end of the session or whatever might occur--the urgency to get the legislation on the President's desk and signed. The President then looks at this massive bill and says: Ninety or ninety-five percent of what is in here is what is beneficial to this country, what I want to support. But you are forcing me--as President Truman said, ``blackmailing me''--into either accepting the whole bill with the egregious provisions or rejecting the whole bill. And the emergency we are under, the timeframe we are under, requires that I have little choice except to not reject the whole bill. That is what we are offering here today. I trust my colleagues will look at it carefully. I hope we can gain their support. It has the support of the sponsors of the bill and the vast majority of Republicans. It has support, I believe, of Democrats who have been prominent in helping us advance this concept. And we look forward to advancing it, hopefully, this week, and putting it on the President's desk soon--something we should have done a long, long time ago. Madam President, with that I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Presidents throughout our history have asked for the line- item veto. It goes all the way back to Ulysses Grant. It was President Truman who said: One important lack in the Presidential veto power, I believe, is the authority to veto individual items in appropriations bills. The President must approve the bill in its entirety or refuse to approve it or let it become law without his approval. He later went on to say that it was a form of ``legislative blackmail''--those are his words, legislative blackmail--when the legislature sends to him a bill it otherwise knows needs to be approved by the President or else the Government will cease to function or else important appropriations for the provision of our national defense or for the meeting of national emergency will have to be vetoed by the President or accepted in whole even though it contains items which the executive feels are not in the national interest and bear no relationship to the legislation that is sent to him. It is that practice that brings us to this point. It is the practice of a Congress which has discovered that under the powers granted to it by the Constitution rests and resides what I would term as an abusive power, a power that does not go toward meeting the needs embodied in the original appropriation or the original bill that is sent to the President but which goes toward placating or pleasing an individual parochial interest and is attached even though it is totally irrelevant to the purpose for the original appropriation, attached because, as President Truman said, we can hold this over the President's head knowing that he needs this particular expenditure in order to meet a pressing national need and his choice is limited to accepting the whole or rejecting the whole. It was in 1974 that this Congress stripped the President of his executive power that was being exercised to impound funds, the power that was exercised routinely from every President from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Nixon. In fact, it was Jefferson who first employed the power to refuse to spend appropriated funds in 1801 when he impounded $50,000 that was appropriated for Navy gunboats. And it is the particularly egregious practice, in this Senator's opinion, of loading up otherwise necessary appropriations with items that are deemed unnecessary, that necessitates, through line-item veto power, a check and balance for the President, a restoration of the check and balance power that allows someone--in this case the Executive--to put a question mark on what we have done and to say, ``If you really believe that is a necessary item, you have the constitutional power to override my objection by a two-thirds vote.'' What that does is it sheds the light of public exposure, public debate, and individual vote--an individual yea or nay on a particular item--so our constituents, those we represent, have the ability to examine how we have handled their tax dollars so that they can hold us accountable, either favorably or unfavorably, for our actions, not on a massive bill as a whole but on an individual item. No longer will we be allowed the excuse of saying, ``Yes, I voted for that particular measure, not because it contained the items you object to, but because it had such a pressing national interest that it overrode the specific objections.'' Our constituents say, ``But why did you not protest that particular item?'' Frequently we find that particular item was buried deep within a bill that was rushed to the floor to meet some national emergency or was added in conference and brought back in a way that, under our rules, is not amendable. So what we are attempting to do with this process, with this concept of separate enrollment, what we are attempting to do is to provide the President with presentations from the legislature which are specified, item by item by item, which the President with his able staff and with the resources at their disposal can easily examine. They can look at these items which do not comport with the thrust of the legislation presented and send them back here for our review and, if we so choose, our overriding that particular veto. As opposed to the statement that the Senator from West Virginia made about his fight to save the constitutional system, I would argue that line-item veto is a fight to save the constitutional system, it is a fight that honors what the Framers of our Constitution and what our Founding Fathers attempted to achieve: a system of checks and balances. It is difficult for this Senator to believe that the Founding Fathers of this country, the Framers of the Constitution, intended that we would present the Executive with a continuing resolution embodying every penny of spending for this entire Federal Government and place it on the desk of the President at the end of a session--sometimes it is after we have adjourned that it arrives at his desk, although we are still here in pro forma to finalize the formal adjournment--and say, ``Mr. President, take it or leave it. The entire budget of the United States of America sits on your desk in one piece and your choice is to take it all or reject it all.'' I would claim that is an abuse of the spending power, an abuse of the power of the purse, an abuse of the Constitution, an abuse of what the Founding Fathers intended as the way that body should act--act responsibly. The Senator from West Virginia has said that when all is finally said and done, when we take Public Law 103-316, Making Appropriations for Energy and Water Development for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 1995, and for other purposes--that all we send to the President is this nice, neat little several-page piece of legislation. And that is a much neater process than sending to the President the stack of separately enrolled bills. In one sense it is, because it is much easier to read through this small, little booklet than it is to peruse through that stack of bills. But what we have here and what we present to the President is something that is so general that it is very difficult to itemize out all that it accomplishes. It is a very neat way for Members to say, ``I did not know what was in the final product.'' Under title I of this particular act that I am reading, it appropriates, in until expended, of which funds are provided for the following projects,'' in the amounts specified. And then it lists about 10 projects. But that $181 million actually goes to fund an additional 326 projects. So, when the President looks at this, it is extremely difficult to determine which items are going to receive the specific expenditures and which ones are not. Of course, it is impossible for him to examine the legislation and come to the conclusion that there are portions of this that should not be spent because he is forced to accept the entirety or reject the entirety. He has no power, no authority, granted to him to send back items that he does not deem necessary. The Senator from West Virginia talked about the process as a cut-and- paste operation, conducted in the wee hours of the night with clerks assigned from perhaps the Government Printing Office helping enroll the separate bills. That is the way it used to be done. That is the way, I would say to the Senator from West Virginia, that enrollment of legislation used to be conducted. It would be a mechanical problem--not an insurmountable one but a mechanical problem--as we used to do it. But we do not do it that way anymore. Modern computer technology has arrived in the Senate and arrived at the House. I spent some time with the enrolling clerk asking him how he now goes about this process. He said, ``Well, it is very easy.'' He showed me a computer sitting on his desk about this wide and about that high. He showed me a software package which is called XyWrite, and he said, ``We now do in a matter of minutes what used to take us hours, and we now do in a matter of a few hours what used to take days.'' He said, ``While I have authority to bring over people from the Government Printing Office, I never have to call them anymore because the miracle of modern technology allows us to separately enroll items literally with a push of a few buttons. What used to take dozens if not hundreds of hours now can be done literally in minutes.'' So it is not a mechanical problem. It is something that is easily processed and easily handled by the enrollment clerk. The House clerk has the same technology as the Senate. The question of do we cede power to the enrolling clerk I do not believe is valid any longer either because, as the enrolling clerk explained to me, he does not have the authority. It is not vested in him to make a determination as to what should be enrolled or what should not be enrolled. It is the purview of the appropriators or those who write the bill to define the items of expenditures in those bills. And the power of the enrolling clerk only goes to enrolling that particular separate item. To the extent that we are sloppy in our efforts, that would raise a question as to what ought to be enrolled. But I am confident that, if we understand that each item in a particular appropriation or a tax bill or other item of legislation is going to be separately enrolled, we will make sure it is separately enumerated in the legislation that we send down to the enrolling clerk. Any ambiguity relative to a question mark on enrollment can easily be resolved by our own efforts. As Senators know, the expansion of this legislation incorporates targeted tax expenditures. The Senator from West Virginia is absolutely right when he cites that the problem and the dimension of the problem that we face does not fall solely on the shoulders of the appropriations process to the discretionary account. In fact, I believe it is less than 20 percent of the budget. In recognition of that, part of the process in negotiating the amendment that was offered by the majority leader was to expand the scope of the veto power of the President, individual item veto power of the President, to incorporate new spending, new spending in the entitlement functions, targeted tax spending where specific tax--what I call tax pork--is incorporated in tax legislation which goes not to serve a broad interest or a broad classification like charitable deductions, like mortgage interest deductions, items that the Senator from West Virginia mentioned, but go to please or to satisfy a particular narrow interest, an individual interest or a specific interest within a class rather than to the class itself. That is defined in this bill. That will now be brought into this bill. That is an idea that was brought forward by the distinguished Senator from New Jersey, Senator Bradley, who offered that last year on this floor. So we have incorporated that idea. It is a good idea. It immeasurably improves and expands the scope of the line-item veto. And we have added expenditures which would be added under the category of new expenditures to entitlement programs. It does not change the law relative to entitlement programs--as to who is eligible and what benefits they are eligible for. But, if this Congress changes the benefits provided under the entitlement and expands those and that results in increased expenditure, that too would be subject to the President's veto. So we have expanded it far beyond the original provisions of just applying it to the appropriations process. I would like to conclude by making some points on the constitutional question because that is a valid question and one which I believe Members need to address. Under article I, section 5, each House of Congress has unilateral authority to make and amend rules governing its procedures. Separate enrollment speaks to the question of what constitutes a bill. It does nothing to erode the prerogatives of the President as that bill is presented. Under the rulemaking clause, our procedures for defining and enrolling a bill is ours to determine alone. There is precedent provided in House rule 49, the Gephardt rule. Under this rule the House clerk is instructed to prepare a joint resolution raising the debt ceiling when Congress adopts a concurrent budget resolution which exceeds the statutory debt limit. The House is deemed to have voted on and passed a resolution on the debt ceiling when the vote occurs on the concurrent resolution. Despite the fact that a vote is never taken, the House is deemed to have passed it. The American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service analyzed separate enrollment legislation and indicated the following: Evident, it would appear to be, that simply to authorize the President to pick and choose among provisions of the same bill would be to contravene this procedure. In separate enrollment, however, a different tack was chosen. Separate bills drawn out of a single original bill are forwarded to the President. In this fashion, he may pick and choose. Formal provisions of the presentation clause would seem to be observed by this device. Laurence Tribe, who is a distinguished constitutional professor of law, who is frequently quoted on the Senate floor more often by Democrats than Republicans, but nevertheless is a respected constitutional scholar, has also observed that this measure is constitutional. He recently wrote, and I quote: The most promising line-item veto idea by far is that Congress itself begin to treat each appropriation and each tax measure as an individual bill to be presented separately to the President for his signature or veto. Such a change could be effected simply and with no real constitutional difficulty by a temporary alteration in the congressional rules regarding the enrolling and presentment of bills. He went on to say: Courts construing the rules clause of article I, section 5, have interpreted it in expansive terms, and I have little doubt that the sort of individual presentment envisioned by such a rules change would fall within Congress' broad authority. The distinguished Senator from Delaware, Senator Biden, during his tenure as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote extensive additional views in a committee report on a constitutional line-item veto. He wrote about a separate enrollment substitute which he offered. And I quote from Senator Biden. Under the separate enrollment process instituted by the statutory line-item veto, the items of appropriation presented to the President would not be passed according to routine lawmaking procedures. Congress would vote on the original appropriations bill but would not vote again on the separately enrolled bills presented to the President. And the absence of a second vote on the individual items of appropriation has raised questions of constitutionality. For the following reasons, such concerns are unfounded: One, this does not change congressional authority. Each House of Congress has the power to make and amend the rules governing its internal procedures. And, of course, of the legislation that passes. Thus, the decisions to initiate the process of separate enrollment to terminate the process through passage of a subsequent statute, to pass a given appropriations bill and to establish the sections and paragraphs of that bill, are all fully within Congress' discretion and control. That is exactly the process which is presented in Senator Dole's amendment. We, the Congress, have complete control over the content of the legislation we pass. Thus, the decisions to initiate the process of separate enrollment, or to terminate that process through passage of a subsequent statute, or by a sunset provision, which this Dole amendment contains, and to establish the sections and paragraphs of the bill, which we have the authority and the power to do, all are fully within our control and discretion. Quoting again from Senator Biden: A requirement that Congress again pass each separately enrolled item would only be a formal refinement, not a substantive one. It would not prevent power from being shifted from Congress to the President, because under the statutory line-item veto, Congress will retain the full extent of the legislative power. Nor would it serve to shield Congress from the process of separate enrollment, because Congress will retain the discretion to terminate the process. If we pass the whole, surely we pass the parts. How can we argue that having passed an appropriation bill that covers spending for certain functions of Government--let us say the Commerce Department--it does not incorporate the separate items of spending listed within that bill? To argue otherwise is to say that Congress, in passing the whole, does not pass the separate items. And it seems to me that a more legitimate process--if you are concerned with that question--is to separately enroll the items. Then there is no doubt that we have passed those separate items. So passing the whole incorporates the parts. Senator Biden said: The second reason why he believes the constitutional concerns are unfounded relates to House rule 49, the statutory limit on public debt. I will refer to that later. Rule 49 of the House of Representatives empowers the enrolling clerk of the House to prepare a joint resolution raising the debt ceiling, when Congress adopts a concurrent resolution on the budget, exceeding the statutory limit on the public debt. This procedure, which has been in existence since 1979, provides a clear precedent for the separate enrollment of items of appropriation. The House never votes on the joint resolution. Nonetheless, the House is deemed to have voted on the resolution because of its vote on the concurrent resolution. House rule 49 states, in part: The vote by which the conference report and the concurrent resolution on the budget was agreed to in the House shall be deemed to have been a vote in favor of such joint resolution upon final passage in the House of Representatives. The committee report continued to elaborate on that by saying House rule 49 has not been found unconstitutional because of its modification of routine rulemaking procedures. It is transmitted to the Senate for further action and presented to the President for signature. This process has been in effect for a decade. Despite the absence of a separate vote by the House on the joint resolution, there have been no constitutional challenges. The American law division has supplied me with a number of cases which further elaborate these points. In United States versus Balan, decided in 1892, the Court articulated the power of the Congress to determine its rules of proceeding. It said: The Constitution empowers each House to determine its rules of proceedings. That is the Court speaking. It may not by its rules ignore the constitutional constraints or violate fundamental rights, and there should be a reasonable relation between the mode or method of proceeding established by the rule and the result which is sought to be attained. But within these limitations, all manners of method are open to the determination of the House, and it is no impeachment of the rule to say that some other way would be better, more accurate, or even more just. It is no objection to the validity of a rule that a different one has been prescribed and enforced for a length of time. The power to make rules is not one which, once exercised, is exhausted. It is a continuous power, always subject to be exercised by the House and within the limitations suggested, absolute and beyond the challenge of any other body or tribunal. So is that not what we are doing? Are we not exercising that continuous power articulated by the Court to make our rules? Once exercised, that power is not exhausted, as the Court said. It is always subject to be exercised. In this case, the Court was referring to an action by the House. Obviously, it could apply to the Senate equally. So it is not impeachment of the rule to say that some other way would be better, more accurate, or even more just. Who is to say that this method is not more accurate? I believe it is more accurate. It is certainly more accurate than the 10- or 12-page bill presented to the President for his signature, which does not begin to enumerate the actions of this body. You can pore through this and not begin to understand how the taxpayer' dollars are going to be spent. But if we separately enroll, every Member of this Congress will have at his or her disposal, immediately, exactly how dollars are spent, exactly how projects are funded and which projects they are. They will be able to pull pieces of paper out and say, ``I do not think this is the way we ought to deal with the taxpayer's expenditures.'' And the light of day will be shed on our actions. I think that is a more accurate and a more just way of being held accountable to the very people that send us here to deal with the allocation of their hard-earned dollars. Killian asks: Within this capacious concept, what provision of the Constitution would the ``deeming'' provision violate? We certainly cannot point to any fundamental right that is abridged. The constitutional constraint that is applicable is the first section of article I, which sets a bicameral requirement for the exercise of lawmaking. But Congress in the proposal does not disregard the bicameralism mandate. A bill in identical form has passed both Houses. Then, a functionary, the enrolling clerk, follows instructions embodied in the rules and separates out of this bill a series of sections identical to the sections contained in the larger bill and enrolls these sections into separate bills; these bills are signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, and these bills are then presented to the President for his signatures or his vetoes. One can readily see that the question is much more narrow than the mere issue whether Congress can pass a law that has not cleared both Houses in an identical version. The separately enrolled bills, taken together, are identical to that initial bill. If Congress should conclude that this two- step process comports with the constitutional requirement of bicameral passage of a legislative measure, in what way has a constitutional restraint been breached? The issue of validity could also be influenced in determination by two other factors. That is, first, Congress is not seeking to aggrandize itself or to infringe on the powers of another branch . . . second . . . it must be observed that these rules are entirely an internal matter, subject to alteration by simple resolution at any time in either House. There is no irrevocable conveying away. 2. There is some question about whether the judiciary will review this case at all. There is some precedent to indicate that the judiciary may construe separate enrollment as a political question unsuited for judicial review. Marshall Field v. Clark (143 US 649 (1892): The signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill, is an official attestation by the two House of such bill as one that has passed Congress. It is a declaration by the two Houses, through their presiding officers, to be President, that a bill, thus attested, has received, in due form, the sanction of the legislative branch of the Government, and that it is delivered to him in obedience to the constitutional requirement that all bills which pass Congress shall be presented to him. And when a bill, thus attested, receives his approval, and is deposited in the public archives, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable. . . . The respect due to coequal and independent departments requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept, as having passed Congress, all bills authenticated in the manner stated leaving the courts to determine, when the question properly arises, whether the act, so authenticated, is in conformity with the Constitution. Judith Best, a distinguished political scientist summed up these arguments well. She said: Under article I, section 5, Congress possesses the power to define a bill. Congress certainly believes that it possesses this power since it and it alone has been doing so since the first bill was presented to the first President in the first Congress. . . . The definition of a bill is a political question and not justiciable. ``Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department. (Baker v. Carr, 369 US 186 (1962)) A ``textually demonstrable constitutional commitment'' of the issue to determine the Rules of its Proceedings. If Congress may define as a bill a package of distinct programs and unrelated items, it can define distinct programs and unrelated items to be separate bills. Either Congress has the right to define a bill or it does not. Either this proposal is constitutional or the recent practice of Congress in forming omnibus bills containing unrelated programs and ungermane items is constitutionally challengeable. Mr. President, despite the best efforts of those who oppose line-item veto in any form to characterize this bill as unconstitutional, I am confident that separate enrollment clearly passes the constitutional hurdle. Both conservative and liberal constitutional scholars agree; the American Law Division of CRS and the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee have spoken clearly to its constitutionality. If I thought that we would win the votes of those who are committed to kill the statutory line-item veto by passing a constitutional amendment, I would offer that amendment. However, I strongly suspect that the very same Senators who are raising constitutional concerns would fight just as hard against granting the President line-item veto authority through a constitutional amendment. The real issue at hand is not constitutionality, but Congress' willingness to change. Mr. President, let me state that the real reason we are here is that this body, this Congress, this legislature, has been unable to responsibly exercise the authority and power given to them on behalf of the people of the United States, or a reasonable exercise of expending the money, which we require them to send to the Federal Government. In 1994 we spent an average of $811.7 million a day on interest payments. That is $33.8 million an hour, $564,000 a minute. Those interest payments are due because this Congress did not have the courage or the will to go before the taxpayer and demand payment up front at the time of expenditure for items which it passed. And we have, over the past 20 years, and I point the finger of blame at every Member of this body, including myself--we have seen the national debt increase in the last 15 years from under a trillion dollars to nearly $5 trillion, a more than 500 percent increase. Because we have not had the courage to go to the public and say, ``If we are going to pass this program, which is pleasing to many, we are going to have to ask you to pay for it as the money is expended.'' And we have, in the process, passed on to future generations a staggering debt burden which, as the Congressional Budget Office has enumerated, adds a crushing debt load which will provide a stagnant standard of living for future generations, which will place a burden on them that we have not had placed on our own shoulders. I believe what we have done borders on or, if not, is outright immoral. I am not the first person to say that. Distinguished Americans have said that. They have warned about that, and now they have observed us doing it. It is grossly unfair for us to enjoy the fruits and the blessings of this country without having to pay for them. A lesson that each of us tries to teach our children has been ignored by this Congress, and that is that debt will ultimately crush you. It will ultimately destroy your hopes and your dreams. Those items that we have deemed part of the American dream, at least that are part of the vision and dreams for most of us--owning our own home in which to raise our family, having the wherewithal to educate our children, providing for their needs, their necessities, whether it be transportation, clothing or food--those dreams and visions are going be infinitely harder for future generations because we have failed to act responsibly, because we have failed to honestly face the taxpayer and honestly exercise the responsibilities they have given to us, because we have had a very convenient excuse, and that is we can postpone the day of reckoning, we can postpone the day of payment to a future Congress, to a future generation. To those who say that all we need do is stiffen our backbones and exercise will, I say it has not been done. It has not been done in 55 out of the last 63 years and for 25 straight years it has not been done. For one reason or another, there is always an excuse to postpone it, usually past the next election. It is a natural human tendency which we all fall prey to and that is a tendency to avoid a very fundamental, basic principle of not having more than you can afford, of being able to pay for it up front. But because the Federal Government is allowed to float debt, because the Federal Government, unlike other institutions, has a convenient out, we are able to tell our constituents that they can have it all now and somebody else will pay for it later. That is why we are here. Now, in my opinion, we failed to enact the structural reform necessary to change the way we behave, and that was the balanced budget amendment. I regret that that failed by one vote. The line-item veto is another structural reform that changes the way we behave. It is almost as if we are trying to save ourselves from ourselves. That is why I felt the balanced budget amendment was necessary because, despite all the promises--and I have been here through the budget deals and through the tax deals and through the promises--that we are going to get it right the next time, despite all that, we fail. We fail because it is so much easier to say yes than it is to say no, because of that natural human tendency of wanting to go home and say yes to the group that will vote in the subsequent November election on whether or not they want us to stay here, who will be pleased if we say yes and will be very unhappy if we say no. And so that natural human tendency overcomes all of our best intentions. And each year, then, we fail to step up to the responsibilities of making the hard choices. Oh, we make some hard choices, but they are just trimming at the margins. So I have believed for a long time that the only way we are going to accomplish what all of us, I believe, deep down in our hearts know we need to accomplish is to put in place structural changes which will either force us to accomplish that or make it much more difficult to continue past practices. The balanced budget amendment would have forced us to accomplish that. We would have had to put our left hand on the Bible and our right hand in the air and each time swear to uphold that Constitution. And that Constitution would have required us to balance the budget. It would have liberated us. It would have liberated us from the pressures of constituencies, from special interests, from lobby groups. We could have looked them in the eye and said, ``Yes, that is a worthy idea, but you are going to have to sell it to the taxpayer, because I am constitutionally bound to not spend more than we take in. You are either going to have to suggest a reduction in an offsetting program or you are going to have to suggest a tax increase that will pay for it. But, by the end of the session, we have to balance the books.'' What a liberation that would be. We ought to self-liberate. That is what I hope we will do now that we have not passed the balanced budget amendment. I hope we will realize and understand the gravity of the impact of this debt. As Thomas Jefferson said: The question whether one generation has the right to bind another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles of government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves. I hope that we will take that to heart and that we will summon the will to accomplish that end. The line-item veto is a pale shadow in comparison to the balanced budget, but it is the only other game in town--the only other game in town other than what we have been doing for 25 straight years, and that is running deficits; despite our promises, despite our rhetoric, despite our best intentions, the only other game in town that changes the way in which this body operates, that provides a check on the way we do things, a balance on the way we do things that makes it more difficult for us to continue this practice of saddling future posterity and generations with unnecessary debt as a result of spending that goes to the narrow interests rather than national interests. a month or so to fundamentally change the way we do business. Some will argue for the status quo, saying that we are constitutionally bound. I do not accept that argument. Neither do other respected constitutional experts. Some will say that we are tradition bound. What a tradition. Who can defend the tradition of a $5 trillion debt? Who can possibly defend the way that we have done business when faced with such staggering debt? So the line-item veto, as I said, is just a shadow of what might have been accomplished under a balanced budget amendment, but, nevertheless, an important tool, an important tool to end the practice or at least to make the practice substantially more difficult than the practice that has been the traditional course of action here for perhaps the history of this body, but certainly since 1974 when we took away the President's right of impoundment. It is a tool we need. It is a tool we need because it forces us to be honest legislators, to own up to the individual item that somebody has proposed and to defend it. And if it is defensible, if it is meritorious, then it will pass. It will gain the votes and the support of the Members of this body. If it is not, it will fail. My guess is that many will not see the light of day because those items are items that we know cannot generate a majority of support, otherwise they would be brought as individual items to this floor. We will never know the full impact of line-item veto because most of the items that would have been vetoed will never be put on the bills in the first place. We will not risk the embarrassment of the appropriation or the special tax break that will be labeled ``spending pork'' or ``tax pork.'' Most will not risk that embarrassment of having the President call out that separate bill and stamp ``veto'' on it and send it back here and bring it up for debate and for a vote. We know in our hearts it would never achieve a majority, let alone a two-thirds vote. So line-item veto will not be measured in the amount of money that it saves in the future. Only we know in our hearts and in our minds what items we might have attached if we had not had line-item veto. Those are the broader reasons, Mr. President. We can argue the technicalities. We can argue as we always do that, yes, I support the concept but not this bill, not this definition. Well, we have been going through and saying this now for more than a decade. I do not know what perfect piece of legislation lies out there. All I know is it is not offered. We have wrestled and wrestled with this. We want something that is real, something that has teeth, something that makes it harder for Congress to spend. Not 51 votes. We want two-thirds, something that allows the President to know exactly what it is we have done. We do not want a 14-page bill sent to him that incorporates in its first paragraph, 326 separate items. We would like those items defined, in detail. A little extra work, yes. But we are not quill and pen any more. We are computerized. We have the technology to do this, to do this easily, to do this accurately, to do this fairly, to do this justly. Mr. President, I would hope our colleagues would conclude that the time is now, the time to make a structural change, to make a difference, is now. If we postpone this, if we continue to postpone it, we simply will have a much more difficult task in the future. So, let Members at least, having failed a balanced budget amendment, let Members at least pass line-item veto so that we can say, ``We did something different. We made some change in the way we do business.'' So that we do not have to go home and say ``Despite the mandate of them, despite the burden of the debt, despite the speeches that each Member has given about the insidiousness of the debt and uncontrollability of this debt we did nothing structurally different. We did nothing to change the way we did business.'' Does any Member want to go home and say that? This is our chance. This is our time. I urge support for the amendment by the Senator from Kansas, the majority leader, Senator Dole. I yield the floor. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.