Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this morning I got up and, as is typically my habit, I opened up the Washington Post to see what was there. I turned first to the sports page to see how my Baltimore Orioles performed. I got good news there. That was a welcome addition to my morning. On the front page of the Washington Post I was very surprised to see this headline: ``GOP Seeks to Ease Crunch with 13-month Fiscal Year.'' I have heard of some gimmicks in my time. Now we see our friends on the other side, who are not able to meet the legal requirement that they pass the appropriations bills on time by October 1, have resorted to a new concept. Instead of having a 12-month year, we will have a 13- month year. I think our friends are going off on a tangent that should not be pursued. I think this would be a profound mistake. The last thing we need to do is solve our fiscal problems by creating a fiction of a 13- month year. That isn't what we need to be doing. We need to address directly and forthrightly the problem we face in trying to avoid raiding the Social Security trust fund. Let's do it honestly. Let's do it directly. Let's not engage in the fiction of creating a 13-month year in order to resolve the fiscal challenges facing this country and this Senate. That is what the Republicans have come up with. They point out in the story: By creating this fictitious 13th month, lawmakers would be able to spend $12 billion to $16 billion more for labor, health, education and social programs than they otherwise would be permitted under budget rules. What are we doing? We are going to create a 13th month to deal with the fiscal problems of the country? I don't think so. Senator Specter is apparently one of the backers of this idea. ``We all know we engage in a lot of smoke and mirrors,'' said Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, ``But we have to fund education, NIH, worker safety and other programs. It's a question of how we do it.'' I agree with it being a question of how we do it. The last thing we ought to do is create a 13-month year. If we want to cause a lack of respect of people in the country for the Congress, this is the way: Adopt the Republican proposal that the way to solve our fiscal problem is to create a 13th month. I began looking at the calendar to try to figure out where we would add this 13th month, what we would call it. One thought that we had is that maybe we could have January, February, and then ``Fictionary''-- kind of a fictional 13th month. Maybe that could be the month: January, February, and Fictionary. Or maybe we ought to have ``Spend-tember,'' after September, or maybe before September. We could have ``Spend-tember'' for the 13th month. There is something wrong with what our colleagues on the Republican side have come up with. Thirteen months? I don't think the American people are going to buy this. Everybody knows there are 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, and there are just 12 months in a year. Search as we might, here is the calendar; there are only 12 months; there is no 13th month. That is not the solution to our problem. If we started thinking of where we would add this month, some would advocate two Decembers. That would have a certain attractiveness. We would have two Christmases, all the retail sales twice. That is not a bad idea. On this idea the Republicans have come up with for 13 months to solve our fiscal problems, my choice is to see 2 Octobers. I am a baseball fan. I could have the World Series twice. Others might have a different idea of where we could add a month. I must say to our Republican friends, why stop at 13 months? If this is the way we are going to solve the fiscal problems of our country, let's go to 14 months, maybe add 15. Somebody in my office suggested we go to 24 months. That way, we would be able to double everybody's income in a single year. We would be able to have twice as much spending in a single year if we went to 24 months. I think we have real opportunities. If we keep adding enough months, we can completely avoid the Y2K problem altogether. Now this is a real opportunity, and I don't think we want to miss it.

Mr. CONRAD. There are lots of good ideas coming out on this idea to extend the concept that our Republican friends have come up with to go to 13 months in a year in order to solve our budget problems. The last time we made a major change in the calendar, it was made by the Pope. I am not sure what that says about those putting forward this proposal, other than I can't wait to see what they come up with next. I don't think this is the solution to the fiscal problems of America; 13 months is not the answer. Going back to the headline, it really is kind of stunning: ``GOP Seeks to Ease Crunch with 13-month Fiscal Year.'' One person who has commented on this in this morning's paper is Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group. He says they are degrading themselves and we degrade the budget process by resorting to these budget gimmicks. The only disagreement I have with that is, this goes way beyond gimmick when all of a sudden we are going to take a 12-month year and make it 13 months to address the budget problems of the country. I think our Republican friends have gone off in the weeds. I hope they reconsider. This is a mistake. If we start going in the direction of adding months, where is this going to stop? We have 12 months. Thirteen months? Fourteen months? Are we going to be able to solve all the problems of the country if we start to engage in fiction? That is not the direction we ought to take. Does my colleague from North Dakota agree?

Mr. CONRAD. I will.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington. She is exactly right. We do face a problem this year, and the problem is we have these budget caps that were agreed to in 1997, and now things have gone better than anybody anticipated. We have been able to get our fiscal house in order. The question is how we maintain that discipline and at the same time fund the urgent priorities of the American people, especially education. As was said by budget expert, Robert Reischauer, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, this notion the Republicans have come up with to just add a 13th month does not solve the problem; it avoids the problem. We will have spending caps in 2001 and 2002 as well, so all we have done is postpone and magnify the problem. We will have actually made the problem worse. There is humor in this. I think we all see almost a theater of the absurd in the notion that our Republican colleagues have come up with as a way to solve the problem, which is to add a 13th month. I say on a serious note, let's not do that. We have had success in getting our fiscal house in order by being straight with the American people, by passing legislation that fits our spending to our income. Let's not create a fix such as this in order to support a massive, risky, radical, reckless tax cut scheme which our friends on the other side have come up with that threatens the fiscal discipline that has been put in place, that has put us in such a strong position. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on the subject that has been discussed by the Senator from Texas and the Senator from Georgia, I think the President did make a mistake. I don't think it was appropriate to extend clemency to these people. I hope this is an issue that we can address by resolution and make clear where the Senate stands. We are going to have an opportunity to do that.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senators Feingold and Chafee in introducing the Fairness in Medicare Home Health Access Act of 1999. I am proud to say that the Governing Board of the North Dakota Home Care Association, as well as the Visiting Nurse Association of America, have endorsed this legislation as a crucial step toward ensuring beneficiaries retain access to vital home care services. As you know, home health care has proven to be an important component of the Medicare package because it allows beneficiaries with acute needs to receive care in their home rather than in other settings, such as a hospital or nursing home. In my state of North Dakota, home health care has been particularly important because it has allowed seniors living in remote, frontier areas to receive consistent, quality health care without having to travel long distances to the nearest health care facility. Over the last three decades, we have witnessed significant increases in home health utilization as medical practices have shifted care from an inpatient to outpatient setting. To help address rising health care spending, the Congress included targeted measures in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) to reduce costs and give providers incentives to become more efficient. In particular, the BBA directed the Health Care Financing Administration to implement an interim payment system for home health care until which time a prospective payment system could be instituted. While the interim payment system has allowed agencies to become more cost-effective, there are also concerns that it may be having some unintended consequences on agencies' ability to deliver quality, appropriate home care services to Medicare beneficiaries. Mr. President, this legislation takes definitive steps to address various unintended consequences of the interim payment system and of the BBA in general. Home health providers serving rural beneficiaries have been particularly affected by the interim payment system. As you know, home health care delivery is unique because unlike most other services, the health care provider must travel to the patient. Compared to urban agencies, rural home care providers must travel longer distances to serve beneficiaries and they often face poor weather and road conditions. Due to these constraints, agencies serving rural beneficiaries must visit patients less frequently; but during an isolated visit aides tend to spend more time with beneficiaries to ensure that they are receiving appropriate levels of care. Unfortunately, the per visit limits included in the interim payment system do not adequately account for the unique challenges of serving rural beneficiaries. This legislation revises the per visit cost limit to ensure agencies have the resources to deliver care to beneficiaries living in rural and underserved areas. It also appears that the interim payment system does not adequately account for the needs of medically-complex beneficiaries. Various reports have suggested that the interim payment system has resulted in restricted access to home health services for high-acuity, high-cost patients. In a recent survey conducted by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, nearly 40 percent of agencies reported that they are less likely to admit patients identified as those with long-term or chronic needs. In addition, many beneficiary advocates have raised concerns that home health agencies are denying access to care because they believe Medicare will no longer cover the high costs of providing services to medically complex individuals. When it is implemented, the prospective payment system will include a measure to account for the treatment of medically-complex beneficiaries. In the interim, this legislation will allow agencies to receive more appropriate payments for treating high- acuity, high-cost beneficiaries. In addition, this legislation includes provisions to further ensure home care agencies have the appropriate resources to serve Medicare beneficiaries. To help slow the growth of home health expenditures, the BBA includes a provision to reduce home health cost limits by 15 percent, beginning October 1, 2000. There is significant concern that the timing and level of the scheduled 15 percent reduction will result in reduced beneficiary access to health care. To address this concern, various industry representatives have requested a complete elimination of the scheduled reduction; however the cost of this reduction is estimated to be nearly $17 billion over ten years. Against the backdrop of impending insolvency of the Medicare program and the overall needs of the health care community as a whole regarding BBA-related relief, it will not be possible to completely eliminate this scheduled reduction. For this reason, this legislation suggests a middle-ground approach to this issue to ensure the scheduled reduction does not result in a reduction in beneficiary access. Primarily, this legislation would ensure that agencies receive adequate reimbursement by delaying the scheduled 15 percent reduction until the prospective payment system is fully implemented. This means that if implementation of the prospective payment system is delayed, the scheduled reduction would be delayed accordingly. In addition, to allow agencies to transition to the prospective payment system, and ensure they retain the necessary resources to serve beneficiaries, this legislation would reduce the scheduled reduction to 10 percent and would phase-in a further 5 percent reduction three years after the prospective payment system is implemented. These responsible measures will provide home health agencies additional resources to continue serving Medicare beneficiaries. In addition, this legislation would offer home health agencies relief from a particularly burdensome regulatory requirement. The BBA requires home health agencies to record the length of time of home health visits in 15-minute increments. This requirement is burdensome for agencies because time for travel and administrative duties related to this requirement are not compensated. Also, it is not clear that the collection of this data has a defined use. This provision eliminates the 15-minute reporting requirement and directs that any data collection regarding direct patient care have a defined purpose and not be unnecessary labor-intensive for home care providers. This bill would also take steps to address concerns regarding the provision of durable medical supplies to Medicare beneficiaries. The BBA requires implementation of consolidated billing for home health services. As part of consolidated billing, the BBA requires home care providers (rather than durable medical equipment suppliers) to provide durable medical equipment (DME) to Medicare beneficiaries during any episode of care by the home health provider. When a beneficiary seeks home health care, there is concern that they may experience a break in the continuum of care as they shift between receiving medical equipment from a DME supplier to receiving these supplies from a home health agency. In addition, many home health agencies are not currently equipped to provide and be reimbursed for the provision of durable medical equipment. This provision would ensure beneficiaries do not experience a break in serve with regard to durable medical equipment by allowing DME providers to continue delivering services to beneficiaries regardless of their home health status. Lastly, this legislation includes a provision that directs the establishment of a nationally uniform process to ensure that fiscal intermediaries have the training and ability to provide timely and accurate coverage and payment information to home health agencies and beneficiaries. This provision will be particularly important to home health reimbursement transitions to a new prospective payment system. I am confident that this legislation will ensure home health agencies can continue providing critical health care services to Medicare beneficiaries. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senators Feingold and Chafee in introducing the Fairness in Medicare Home Health Access Act of 1999. I am proud to say that the Governing Board of the North Dakota Home Care Association, as well as the Visiting Nurse Association of America, have endorsed this legislation as a crucial step toward ensuring beneficiaries retain access to vital home care services. As you know, home health care has proven to be an important component of the Medicare package because it allows beneficiaries with acute needs to receive care in their home rather than in other settings, such as a hospital or nursing home. In my state of North Dakota, home health care has been particularly important because it has allowed seniors living in remote, frontier areas to receive consistent, quality health care without having to travel long distances to the nearest health care facility. Over the last three decades, we have witnessed significant increases in home health utilization as medical practices have shifted care from an inpatient to outpatient setting. To help address rising health care spending, the Congress included targeted measures in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) to reduce costs and give providers incentives to become more efficient. In particular, the BBA directed the Health Care Financing Administration to implement an interim payment system for home health care until which time a prospective payment system could be instituted. While the interim payment system has allowed agencies to become more cost-effective, there are also concerns that it may be having some unintended consequences on agencies' ability to deliver quality, appropriate home care services to Medicare beneficiaries. Mr. President, this legislation takes definitive steps to address various unintended consequences of the interim payment system and of the BBA in general. Home health providers serving rural beneficiaries have been particularly affected by the interim payment system. As you know, home health care delivery is unique because unlike most other services, the health care provider must travel to the patient. Compared to urban agencies, rural home care providers must travel longer distances to serve beneficiaries and they often face poor weather and road conditions. Due to these constraints, agencies serving rural beneficiaries must visit patients less frequently; but during an isolated visit aides tend to spend more time with beneficiaries to ensure that they are receiving appropriate levels of care. Unfortunately, the per visit limits included in the interim payment system do not adequately account for the unique challenges of serving rural beneficiaries. This legislation revises the per visit cost limit to ensure agencies have the resources to deliver care to beneficiaries living in rural and underserved areas. It also appears that the interim payment system does not adequately account for the needs of medically-complex beneficiaries. Various reports have suggested that the interim payment system has resulted in restricted access to home health services for high-acuity, high-cost patients. In a recent survey conducted by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, nearly 40 percent of agencies reported that they are less likely to admit patients identified as those with long-term or chronic needs. In addition, many beneficiary advocates have raised concerns that home health agencies are denying access to care because they believe Medicare will no longer cover the high costs of providing services to medically complex individuals. When it is implemented, the prospective payment system will include a measure to account for the treatment of medically-complex beneficiaries. In the interim, this legislation will allow agencies to receive more appropriate payments for treating high- acuity, high-cost beneficiaries. In addition, this legislation includes provisions to further ensure home care agencies have the appropriate resources to serve Medicare beneficiaries. To help slow the growth of home health expenditures, the BBA includes a provision to reduce home health cost limits by 15 percent, beginning October 1, 2000. There is significant concern that the timing and level of the scheduled 15 percent reduction will result in reduced beneficiary access to health care. To address this concern, various industry representatives have requested a complete elimination of the scheduled reduction; however the cost of this reduction is estimated to be nearly $17 billion over ten years. Against the backdrop of impending insolvency of the Medicare program and the overall needs of the health care community as a whole regarding BBA-related relief, it will not be possible to completely eliminate this scheduled reduction. For this reason, this legislation suggests a middle-ground approach to this issue to ensure the scheduled reduction does not result in a reduction in beneficiary access. Primarily, this legislation would ensure that agencies receive adequate reimbursement by delaying the scheduled 15 percent reduction until the prospective payment system is fully implemented. This means that if implementation of the prospective payment system is delayed, the scheduled reduction would be delayed accordingly. In addition, to allow agencies to transition to the prospective payment system, and ensure they retain the necessary resources to serve beneficiaries, this legislation would reduce the scheduled reduction to 10 percent and would phase-in a further 5 percent reduction three years after the prospective payment system is implemented. These responsible measures will provide home health agencies additional resources to continue serving Medicare beneficiaries. In addition, this legislation would offer home health agencies relief from a particularly burdensome regulatory requirement. The BBA requires home health agencies to record the length of time of home health visits in 15-minute increments. This requirement is burdensome for agencies because time for travel and administrative duties related to this requirement are not compensated. Also, it is not clear that the collection of this data has a defined use. This provision eliminates the 15-minute reporting requirement and directs that any data collection regarding direct patient care have a defined purpose and not be unnecessary labor-intensive for home care providers. This bill would also take steps to address concerns regarding the provision of durable medical supplies to Medicare beneficiaries. The BBA requires implementation of consolidated billing for home health services. As part of consolidated billing, the BBA requires home care providers (rather than durable medical equipment suppliers) to provide durable medical equipment (DME) to Medicare beneficiaries during any episode of care by the home health provider. When a beneficiary seeks home health care, there is concern that they may experience a break in the continuum of care as they shift between receiving medical equipment from a DME supplier to receiving these supplies from a home health agency. In addition, many home health agencies are not currently equipped to provide and be reimbursed for the provision of durable medical equipment. This provision would ensure beneficiaries do not experience a break in serve with regard to durable medical equipment by allowing DME providers to continue delivering services to beneficiaries regardless of their home health status. Lastly, this legislation includes a provision that directs the establishment of a nationally uniform process to ensure that fiscal intermediaries have the training and ability to provide timely and accurate coverage and payment information to home health agencies and beneficiaries. This provision will be particularly important to home health reimbursement transitions to a new prospective payment system. I am confident that this legislation will ensure home health agencies can continue providing critical health care services to Medicare beneficiaries. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. That is what we have done in our generation. We have taken this national debt of less than $1 trillion and run it up to nearly $4 trillion. That is the publicly held debt. Gross debt is even higher. But this is publicly held debt. Is that the legacy we want to leave, that we ran up the debt on our watch? I do not think so. This is what could happen if we stay the course. This is what the Congressional Budget Office tells us could happen if we stay the course. We could actually eliminate publicly held debt over the next 15 years. But it will not happen with this plan because we apparently all have our hand out. We want to take care of ourselves first and forget about the future. I hope that is not the legacy we leave. I thank the Chair, and I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, let's be honest with the American people. This plan does not add up. It threatens to take us back to a period of growing debts. It fails to meet high-priority domestic needs such as education and agriculture and defense. It does not do anything to secure Medicare for the future. It is not real. It is not balanced. It is not responsible. This plan is not conservative. It is radical; it is risky; it is reckless. It ought to be rejected.

Mr. CONRAD. I remember so well. I remember being on the floor of the Senate the day we passed the 5-year plan that got us back on track. I remember Republican leaders saying if we passed the plan, it would crater the economy. I remember Republican leaders telling us if we passed the plan it would increase unemployment, it would increase inflation, that it would cost jobs, that it would wreck the economy. They were wrong, and they were wrong on every single count. They said: If you raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent, and you cut spending, it is going to create a nightmare. They were wrong. They were absolutely wrong. Maybe we are not reminding people enough. Maybe we are not learning the lessons of the past, but we have to because we should not go back to the days of deficits and debt that put this economy in the ditch. So I am very hopeful we will learn from the past and we will recognize that to come out here, based on a projection over the next 10 years, to justify a massive tax-scheme giveaway that blows a hole in the budget, blows a hole in the deficit, leads us back to the path of debt and is a profound mistake. It makes us all feel good. I would love to have a tax cut. I have two kids in college, and it is expensive. But I care more about their long- term future. I care about them inheriting a world that is less debt- laden than what we have done to them so far. Because our generation-- and here it is--has taken the debt from 1980, and here we are today. This is what we have done with the national debt. We have run up the debt from less than $1 trillion to nearly $4 trillion.

Mr. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent for 1 final minute.

Mr. CONRAD. Look at what CBO is projecting--and I emphasize projecting--as the surplus over the next 10 years, $2.9 trillion. But $1.9 trillion of that is Social Security. If you take that out, you have $1 trillion left. Republicans are proposing nearly $800 billion of tax cuts. When you do that, you add interest costs of $141 billion. That only leaves $63 billion left for debt reduction, for strengthening Medicare, for domestic needs. They are using not 25 percent of what is available; they are using 94 percent of what is available, because we have all agreed that none of the Social Security money is available. The only way they get this number of 25 percent being used for a tax cut is when they include Social Security in the base. Are they proposing we are going to use 25 percent of the Social Security money for a tax cut? No. So they are using phony statistics. They are applying this 25 percent to two-thirds of the money that is Social Security money. They are taking 94 percent of the money that is truly available for this risky tax cut. Here are the choices: Republicans say $800 billion of tax cuts; nothing to strengthen Medicare; nothing for domestic needs; they have $63 billion unallocated. Our proposal in the Senate was balanced. We said save every penny of Social Security for Social Security and then one-third for tax relief; one-third to strengthen Medicare--and, by the way, this money is not needed immediately so it can be used for the next 15 years to pay down debt--and one-third of the money for high-priority domestic needs, such as education, defense, and agriculture. That leads our friends on the other side to say: There go the Democrats again; they just want to spend money. Let's examine that notion. This blue line shows constant buying power of what we do with Federal spending now for domestic needs. That is what would happen if we had constant buying power. The Democratic plan is represented by this red line. It is a cut from current buying power. Here is the Republican plan down here. They have a massive cut, $770 billion over the next 10 years from what current buying power would permit. They do not want anybody to talk about this, but the reality is, they are advocating deep cuts in education, in defense, in agriculture, and in all the rest--parks, law enforcement--because there is no way to avoid this mathematical reality. They came to this Chamber with a chart that said, yes, you could accommodate this tax cut if you froze all domestic spending for 10 years. It has never been done. What is amazing about it is that it is not what they are doing in the Appropriations Committees that meet every day. They are spending additional money. I ask for 1 additional minute.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this is an editorial that appeared in the New York Times on August 2. It says: ``Here we go again.'' That is exactly what this tax bill is all about. Here we go again. Back in 1980 Ronald Reagan assured one and all that he could cut taxes sharply, increase defense spending substantially and balance the Federal budget. That is the promise he made. It did not work out that way. The deficits exploded. George Bush at the time: . . . famously derided Mr. Reagan's supply side fantasies as ``voodoo economics.'' We all remember that. The veteran Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon, in his book ``President Reagan, the Role of a Lifetime'' described the reaction of James Baker, Mr. Reagan's own chief of staff, to the transformation of economic fantasy into national policy. He wrote: Though not particularly well-versed in economics, Baker suspected there was something screwy about the idea that massive tax cuts would increase government revenues. Later, he would privately express regrets that the deficits had `gotten away' from the administration and wished he had paid more attention to the consequences of the tax cuts. Here we go again. Again, we have the fantasy being held out to the American people that somehow you can have a massive tax cut, you can have a big defense buildup, domestic needs will not be hurt, and somehow it is all going to add up. The problem with it is it is highly unlikely to happen. Let's just check the record. It shows very clearly what happened in the Reagan administration when they had this fantasy that they were going to cut taxes dramatically, have a big defense buildup. Somehow it was all going to add up. It did not add up and this plan does not add up. This is what happened back then. President Reagan inherited a deficit of just under $80 billion and he promptly shot it to $200 billion. That is what happens when we just put our head in the sand and get wedded to an ideology and do not care about the economic results, or the economic fallout. This plan is a disaster. I do not know how else to say it. It is risky; it is radical; it is reckless. We would make a profound mistake to pass it today. We then went into the Bush administration and the deficits went up, up, and away again. It went up to $290 billion in 1990. In 1993, President Clinton came into office and we passed a 5-year budget plan to cut spending and, yes, raise income taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent. That plan worked. Each and every year of that 5- year plan the deficit came down until finally we have achieved a balanced budget. Why would we ever want to go back? Why would we ever want to repeat the incredible mistakes this country made in the 1980s that threatened the economic security of this country, that put this country's economy in a ditch, that led to recession, that led to job loss, that led to an extinguishment of economic growth? Why would we want to repeat that tragic mistake? Yet here we are. ``Here we go again.'' Goodness knows, don't we have more common sense than this? This is not just my view. This is the view of economist after economist who has looked at this proposal. Mr. Samuelson, the columnist, wrote: The wonder is that the Republicans are so wedded to a program that is dubious as to both policy and politics. He went on to say: As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted the other day, tax cuts might someday be justified to revive the economy from a recession or to improve the prospects of a sweeping program of tax simplification. But there is no case for big tax cuts based merely on paper projections of budget surpluses. That is what this is. These are plans based on projections of what might happen over the next 10 years. What a risky way to run the economy. What a reckless way to run economic policy, to run out here and shovel $800 billion out the door before the money is collected. That puts this entire economy at risk. That puts this entire period of bringing down the deficit at risk. That puts this entire successful economic policy of improving economic growth, reducing unemployment, reducing inflation at risk. It is a mistake we should not make. This columnist points out: Suppose that spending exceeds projections by one percentage point of national income and that tax revenues fall below projections by the same amount. In today's dollars, these errors . . . not out of line with past mistakes . . . would total $170 billion annually. Most of the future surpluses would vanish. That is the reality. We are betting the farm on projections of what is going to happen over the next 10 years. Does anybody believe these projections are going to come true? I used to be responsible for projecting the income of the State of North Dakota. That was my job. I can tell you, projecting 5 years out is very risky. Frankly, it is hard to project 1 year out. Projecting 10 years out is a total crapshoot and we are basing the economic security of this country on a 10-year projection? Are we really going to do that? I ask my colleagues, are we really going to do that? Is this what you are seriously proposing for the United States, after the economic success we have enjoyed by reducing the deficits, by reducing debt? Some of the very same people who said the 1993 plan would not work are here today, advocating this risky scheme. The 1993 plan, as I showed, worked. That 5-year deficit reduction plan, in fact, reduced the deficit each and every year. But when we passed it in 1993, the other side said it would crater the economy; it would ruin us. This is what Senator Gramm, who is on the Budget Committee and on the Finance Committee, said back in 1993: I want to predict tonight that if we adopt this bill the American economy is going to get weaker and not stronger, the deficit 4 years from now will be higher than it is today and not lower. . ..When all is said and done, people will pay more taxes, the economy will create fewer jobs, government will spend more money, and the American people will be worse off. That is Senator Gramm in 1993 when we passed the plan that did just the opposite. Let's look at the record. We passed that plan in 1993, and here is what happened: Unemployment went down to the lowest level in 41 years. Senator Gramm and the advocates of opposition to the 1993 plan, who are the very ones who are the advocates of this plan today, were wrong. They said it was going to increase unemployment. They were wrong. We have the lowest unemployment in 41 years. They said that that economic plan would increase inflation. They were wrong. That plan reduced inflation to the lowest level in 33 years. Mr. President, it does not stop there. Look at the economic growth. They said the 1993 plan would retard economic growth. They were wrong. Look at the record. We have the strongest economic growth during the last 6 years of any administration going back to the administration of Lyndon Johnson. Friends, people who are listening across the country, let's think a minute: Is the economy in good shape or is the economy in bad shape? I think every one of us knows we have the strongest economy in anyone's memory. That was built on a plan of reducing the deficits, relieving pressure on interest rates, making America more competitive, reducing home interest loans, reducing car loans, reducing student loans, because there was less deficit, less debt. Now we are on the brink of completely changing that policy and going back to the bad old days of deficits and debt and decline. Are we really going to turn back the clock to those days? I hope not. I hope we do not make as foolish a mistake as that. Because of the 5-year plan put in place in 1993, not only have we gotten the lowest unemployment, the lowest inflation in decades, the strongest economic growth in decades, we have also seen welfare caseloads decline dramatically. That is the record. That is the fact. The other side says: Oh, but wait a minute. Taxes are the highest they have been in 20 years. They are not telling the whole story. Here is what has happened. Remember when we had deficits, we had a gap between the revenue of the United States and the spending of the United States. The blue line is the spending; the red line is the revenue. Go back to 1993. There was the gap. That was the deficit, $290 billion. We cut the spending line, and we raised the revenue line. That is how we balanced the budget. We cut spending; we raised the revenue line. When they say the taxes are the highest they have ever been, again, they are not telling the whole story. Revenues are strong because the economy is strong, but individual taxpayers are not paying more in taxes; most are paying less. That is not the Senator from North Dakota speaking, that is the respected accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. They analyzed the tax burden, including payroll taxes and income taxes, of a family earning just under $20,000 a year. They looked at 1979, and they looked at 1999. In 1979, that family was paying 8.6 percent of their income in taxes--payroll taxes and income taxes. That burden has been reduced to 5 percent. Why? Because when we raised taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent in the 1993 plan, we also cut taxes on 28 million Americans by increasing the earned income tax credit. So we reduced taxes for individuals. The same is true for a family of four earning $35,000 in 1999. Again, the respected accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche went out and looked at their tax burden: 1979, 11.2 percent. That has been reduced to 10.5 percent in 1999. It is also true of a family earning $85,000 a year. In 1979, they had a total tax burden of 17 percent; in 1999, 16.3 percent. Does that mean there should not be any tax relief? No. We should have tax relief, but we ought to have a responsible package of tax relief, not one that threatens to put us back in the economic ditch of deficits and debt. Unfortunately, that is what the Republican plan does. On the question of the fairness of this proposal, if this is fair, I do not understand fairness. They are going to give to the top 1 percent in this country with an average income of $837,000 a $46,000 tax cut. They are going to give to the bottom 60 percent of the income earners in this country, the vast majority of people on average, a tax reduction of $138. That does not strike me as very fair. Let's check their math. We have heard over and over they are just giving 25 percent of the money that is available in surplus back in a tax cut. That is interesting math they are using. Let's check it. The total surplus is $2.9 trillion. That is the CBO estimate. I ask for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we are making progress. I can feel the concrete breaking. I don't think we are quite there yet because at this point this is not a bipartisan proposal before us. There has not really been a negotiation between the two sides. There has been a negotiation on the other side. There are a number of things I believe are deficient in terms of the proposal that is before us. We do not keep the promise of the disaster package of last year. We devised a formula. We didn't fully fund it. The result was that people got 85 percent of what was promised. No. 2, there is not sufficient money for the crop losses that are occurring now. Some say, well, we don't know the full amount. That is true. But I can tell you that we know enough to know that $400 million is not going to solve the problem. In my State alone, we know the flooded land losses. We absolutely know what has occurred there. Three million acres have not even been planted and millions more planted late. In the Democratic alternative, we have $250 million for flooded lands. I don't see anything specifically set aside in this proposal-- not $1 is set aside--specifically to address the problem of flooded lands. That is just not acceptable. Partly because of the way this came about, I suppose it is the result. We have not had a true discussion. We basically had the other side saying this is it, take it or leave it. On that basis, we don't have much choice but to leave it because it does not address the needs of the people we represent. I say that as a preface to the remarks that are more positive; that is, there are some very good parts of the proposal the Senator has advanced, the chief being the crop insurance of $400 million. That goes in exactly the right direction.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield time off the Democratic side.

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

Mr. CONRAD. I thank my colleague from Mississippi for the accommodation. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Iowa, Senator Harkin.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, 8.8.

Mr. CONRAD. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. CONRAD. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. CONRAD. I give 4 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator withhold until Senator Grassley has a chance to speak? I am not out of time.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I just urge my colleagues to give our amendment close consideration. This is the only amendment that is bipartisan. We have compromised on the dollar amounts almost down the middle. We have provided the Republican payment mechanism. We have $500 million to address drought and flooded lands. There is nothing in the underlying amendment for that. We have $200 million to address the crisis in dairy. There is nothing in the underlying amendment for that. This is $8.8 billion, in a bipartisan proposal, to deal with the disaster. I hope my colleagues can support it on a bipartisan basis. I thank the Chair and yield the floor and yield back our time. Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. CONRAD. That is the understanding. Amendment No. 1517 To Amendment No. 1499 (Purpose: To make a perfecting amendment)