Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, if I might just say to our colleagues, please understand. We are set up to have 50 straight hours of voting unless people show a little restraint, a little discipline, and a little courtesy towards our colleagues. Please, let's not get into a circumstance in which we spend the next 50 hours in this Chamber voting every 10 minutes.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I recommend we move to a vote.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

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

Mr. CONRAD. Might I say to the Senator from Tennessee, if he can accept a voice vote, he will have strong support. If we have to go to a vote, he may lose the amendment. We urge the Senator to think about the circumstance and to accept the voice vote.

Mr. CONRAD. If I may say, we have not yet cleared this on this side. We are not prepared. I recommend we go to a quorum call.

Mr. CONRAD. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. CONRAD. How much time is remaining on this side?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, it may sound, to those listening, as though this is a debate on the President's tax cut. It is not. This is a debate on how the President's tax cut will be considered. On our side, we do not believe we should restrict the Senators' right of freedom to debate and freedom to amend. That is what this vote is about. Let me cite Senator Domenici in a debate in 1989 on an amendment from the majority and minority leaders at the time to limit the scope of the bill that was then being considered to deficit reduction. Senator Domenici said: We are going to use the process available under the Budget Act to strip from this bill not only those matters which the Parliamentarian would call extraneous but also those which were never intended because they were not pure deficit reduction matters. That is the issue. This is not a deficit reduction matter. It should not be considered under reconciliation.

Mr. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent that we have 1 minute restored on both sides so the managers can conclude the argument on this amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Parliamentary inquiry: Has all time expired? We understood that we had 1 minute left, and that the other side had 1 minute 30 seconds. We have been on leader time.

Mr. CONRAD. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the difference between these two amendments is very clear. The Senator from Michigan has an amendment that is paid for. The Senator from Maine has an amendment for which there will be no money if Medicare is being raided for other purposes, which we have seen time after time after time on the floor of the Senate over the last 2 days. The choice is very clear. If Senators want to support home health care, they had better support the Senator from Michigan. It is the only proposal that is paid for. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I will take time off the leader time. We always welcome the majority leader to the floor, even when he makes statements that don't quite fit the facts. I say to my colleague this morning, I think he knows, as we all know, that the choice is not the choice between spending and a tax cut. It is really more complicated than that. It is the question of what is the appropriate mix of tax cut, debt paydown, and reserving resources for these high- priority domestic needs such as improving education and a prescription drug benefit. The most stark differences are that we have reserved much more of the projected surplus for the paydown of national debt. They have a tax cut that is about twice as big as ours. We have about twice as much reserved for the paydown of our national debt, both short-term and long-term. We think that is a better set of priorities. We have also reserved additional resources for improving education and for a prescription drug benefit and for strengthening our national defense. We think those are the priorities of the American people. The President has said very often this is the people's money. We agree with that. Absolutely, this is the people's money. Some of it should be returned to them in a tax cut. Some of it should be used to pay down our collective national debt. After all, that is the people's debt. We also ought to strengthen Social Security because that is the people's Social Security program. We ought to improve education for our kids because, after all, they are our kids. We also ought to do something about a priority that is as important as home health care. The Senator from Michigan has an amendment that is paid for, that would provide an assurance that the resources would be available to improve home health care. It deserves our support. I reserve the remainder of leader time and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes off the resolution.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his kind words. I have always enjoyed working with him. He is right. I hope it is not too late to have a bipartisan approach to this budget. We are rapidly running out of time. Very soon we will be casting the final votes that will set this budget in place. Nobody should doubt what that will mean for the rest of this year and perhaps for the rest of the decade. This morning in the Washington Post I noticed an opinion piece by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman, former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, who are cochairmen of the Concord Coalition, and three former high officials in the Federal Government: Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury; Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman; and Pete Peterson, who was Secretary of Commerce in the Nixon administration. I want to bring to the attention of the Senate this opinion piece because they make a great deal of sense in how they have alerted us. They say in part in this opinion piece that ``great care must be taken to ensure that any tax cut medicine treats the short-term economic symptoms without adversely affecting the long-term prognosis.'' They go on to say: We believe an immediate fiscal stimulus can be provided independently of the proposed 10-year tax cut. Any additional tax cut should be limited to account for the enormous uncertainty-- Something the Senator from Pennsylvania mentioned in his remarks-- of long-term budget projections and the huge unfunded obligations of Social Security and Medicare. A compromise based on this framework would help ensure passage of a budget resolution with substantial bipartisan support. They are right. We could have substantial bipartisan support on a plan to provide immediate fiscal stimulus. I wish we would halt work on the budget right now, go to work on a stimulus package right now and pass it this week, get it into the hands of the American people as quickly as possible, and then go to work on a 10-year package that would take account of both the uncertainty of this 10-year forecast and also, as former Senators Nunn and Rudman and their group have advised, ``the huge unfunded obligations of Social Security and Medicare.'' They go on: The first part of the compromise, passing immediate tax relief, already has overwhelming support. They are right. The second part of the compromise involves an entirely separate issue--the extent to which policymakers should gamble on the accuracy of 10-year projections that the Congressional Budget Office itself says could be off by trillions of dollars. In our view, it would be exceedingly unwise to rely on these projections to lock in a series of large, escalating tax cuts, particularly before addressing the implications of the future financing requirements of Social Security and Medicare. Mr. President, how much time have I consumed?

Mr. CONRAD. If the Chair will inform me when I have consumed 8 minutes, I would appreciate it. This chart talks about the uncertainty former Senators Nunn and Rudman have discussed. This is from the Congressional Budget Office itself, the ones who did the forecast. They tell us the projection of a $5.6 trillion surplus has only a 10-percent chance of coming true, a 45-percent chance there will be more money, a 45-percent chance there will be less money. Of course, this forecast was made weeks ago. In the interval, the economy has weakened further. I will bet that the chances are we will probably have less money over this 10-year period than was previously forecast. Yet we are about to lock in a 10-year plan that leaves little margin for error. It uses all of the non-trust-fund money for the tax cut. That means if the forecast does not prove out, if there is less money, we will be into the trust funds of Medicare and Social Security, and we will be into them at a critical time--right before the baby boomers start to retire. And all of these surplus numbers will turn to substantial deficits. I hope very much that colleagues will take a look at this opinion piece by our very respected former colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, who are saying: Enact the stimulus package now. That is something we should do and then go to work on a 10-year plan that takes account not only the uncertainty of the projections but that also takes account of the massive unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare. That would be the responsible thing to do. That would be the wise thing to do. And I think we could come together on a bipartisan plan to do both of those things. Let me conclude on the question of the uncertainty of the forecast by saying this chart shows that in the year 2006 we can have anywhere from a $50 billion deficit to more than a trillion dollar surplus, and this is according to the people who made the forecast. That is the uncertainty. It is just unwise to come out here and support a plan that uses all of the non-trust-fund money for a tax cut. I think it virtually assures that we will be raiding the trust funds of Medicare and Social Security if the President's plan passes. Let me say that the plan we have offered on our side as a potential compromise protects the Social Security and Medicare trust funds--every dollar of those moneys--and then, with what is left, divides it in the following ways: a third for a tax cut; a third for the high-priority domestic needs of prescription drug benefits, money to improve education, money to strengthen our national defense; and then, with the final third, we do what is proposed by our colleagues in this opinion piece this morning--set aside $750 billion to begin to deal with our long-term liability in Social Security and Medicare. That is a conservative approach. To me, it is a wiser course than using all of the non-trust-fund money for a tax cut--a tax cut that is predicated on a 10-year projection that is highly uncertain. There has been a lot of talk about what the differences are between our plan and the competing plan on the other side. The fundamental difference is right here--short-term and long-term debt reduction. Our plan dedicates $3.65 trillion of the $5.6 trillion projected surplus for short- and long-term debt reduction. President Bush's plan dedicates $2 trillion for that purpose. I suggest to my colleagues that the plan we are offering is conservative; it takes account of the uncertainty of this forecast; and it gives us maximum paydown of both short-term and long-term debt. With that, I yield the floor and look forward to our remaining 1 hour of debate on the amendment before us.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. CONRAD. I listened to my colleague and my friend from New Hampshire describe farm prices rising. I would love for him to go to my home State and tell the farmers that farm prices are rising. They are not rising. They have the lowest farm prices in real terms in 75 years. That is what is happening to farm prices.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield in a moment. I would love to have a dialog on this question. I say to my friend from New Hampshire, I know agriculture is not a dominant industry in New Hampshire but it is dominant in many States in the Nation. For those who represent farmers, we can report to our colleague there is a desperate crisis across farm country. This is about as serious a situation as I have ever seen. When our colleague says farm prices are rising, he is talking about a projection into the future by the Congressional Budget Office, the very same people who said prices would be rising now, when prices have plummeted. Their record on forecasting farm prices is not very good. It is another indication of why there is great danger in banking on any 10-year forecast. That is what the Senator from New Hampshire was showing, a 10-year forecast for farm prices by people who in the past haven't been able to forecast farm prices worth a hoot and a holler. Here is what has happened. This is what has really happened from 1991 to now. The red line on this chart is the prices farmers receive. The distribution of this line is quite clear. It is almost straight down. The green line is the prices farmers pay for their input. It is going up, up, up. It is the relationship between the prices farmers pay and what they are paid that has created this farm crisis. It is why there is strong support on a bipartisan basis to respond. It is the reason so much of farm income is currently coming from the Federal Government. If it weren't, we would have an absolute collapse occurring in farm country. My State is a wheat State. When my colleague from New Hampshire says farm prices are rising--and I say I would love to have him come to my State and address a farm crowd and explain to them how farm prices are rising--this is why he wouldn't get a very good reception. This chart shows what has happened to farm prices ever since we passed the last farm bill which was a disaster in itself. Farm prices have plummeted. That is what has happened to wheat prices. Here is the cost of producing. Here is what has happened to prices. The prices are far below the cost of production.

Mr. CONRAD. I will yield soon. I want to first devastate the case the Senator made.

Mr. CONRAD. No, the Senator was making the case that CBO made. When you say farm prices are rising, they are not. That is the simple reality. What you have is the lowest prices in real terms in 75 years, and it is a crisis all across rural America, all across agricultural America, and every Senator who represents a farm State, farm constituency, knows it. Let's talk about some of the underlying reasons we have this serious problem. This is what our major competitors are doing. We cannot talk about agriculture in isolation. We have to talk about what is happening with our major competitors. Our major competitors are the Europeans. This is what the Europeans are doing to support their producers: $313 an acre on average. This is for the period of 1996 to 1999. This is what we are doing in the United States during the same period: $38 an acre. That is nearly a 10-to-1 advantage in terms of what the Europeans are providing their producers versus what we are providing our producers. These are not Kent Conrad's numbers; these are the numbers from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They are the international scorekeepers on these questions. It isn't just what they do for their producers directly; it is also what they are doing in terms of agricultural export support. Here is what the Europeans are doing. This chart shows which countries are providing what percentage of world agricultural export subsidy, according to the World Trade Organization. This is for the last full year for which there are records, 1998. The blue pie on this chart is Europe's share of world agricultural export subsidies. It is 83.5 percent. The U.S. share is 2.7 percent. That is 30 to 1 as a differential. Is there any wonder our farmers are getting killed in the international marketplace? Is there any wonder our market share is going down and Europe's is going up? Is there any wonder Europe was poised to surpass us in world market share last year? Our friends in Europe have a strategy and a plan. They are working it, and they are working it very effectively. They have told me flatout: We think we are in a trade war with you in agriculture, and we think at some point there will be a cease-fire in this trade war. We believe it will be a cease-fire in place. We want to occupy the high ground. The high ground is world market share. We are going out and buying. That is exactly what they are doing. They are buying world market share. We are faced with a circumstance in which we have a crisis in American agriculture. It is deep. It is threatening. It is so serious that if it is left unchecked, it will force thousands of farmers off the land--not because of anything they have done but because of our failure to respond to the European juggernaut. The Senator from New Hampshire wanted to join in a colloquy, and I am happy to entertain a question on his time.

Mr. CONRAD. I object unless we are given an additional 15 minutes, and that extends the time of the vote. I don't think that is a wise course.

Mr. CONRAD. The Senator has used his time. I didn't use his time. He used his time. If you add time, the only fair way to do it is for us to then add time, and then we extend the time for the vote, which I don't think should be done. We wouldn't accept that.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, in response to my colleague from New Hampshire, when he uses the figure of 200 percent in North Dakota, what he is taking is a year in which there were two emergency packages paid in the same year: one for the previous year, one for the current year. So it is not an accurate picture of what is occurring. The Senator is right that agricultural spending has increased. It has increased in response to a crisis. It has increased in response to the lowest farm prices, in real terms, in 75 years. I put up the chart that shows what has happened to farm prices. They have gone straight down since the last farm bill has passed and the prices that farmers pay have escalated, escalated, escalated, creating a huge gap between the prices they pay and the prices they receive. If we do not respond, we will see tens of thousands of farmers forced off the land. Talking about a value question, this is a value question. It has nothing to do with our farmers doing something wrong or being somehow incapable of competing. But they are up against the hard reality of what the Europeans are doing. The Europeans are outgunning us 30 to 1 on export support for agriculture--30 to 1. On support to individual producers they are outgunning us almost 10 to 1. That is the reality of what we confront here. The Senator from New Hampshire can say ``tough luck, you are all down the road here,'' but I do not think that is the response of the American people. I think the American people say if this is what our competitors are doing, we ought to fight back. We ought to level the playing field. We ought to give our farmers a fair, fighting chance. I know there are other Senators waiting for time. How much time does the Senator from Iowa need?