Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I have not relinquished my right to the floor. I simply asked a question.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this amendment is an urgent matter. I hope very much our colleagues would support this amendment on a bipartisan basis so that we send the clear message that this country intends to hold to account those who organized the attack on America. I think that is absolutely essential. I also say to my colleague, if the Senator from Alaska seeks recognition, I will be happy to yield the floor so he can do that. I ask him at this point if he would have an interest in a time agreement on the amendment? We were approached earlier with a request on that matter. I would be happy to explore that, if the Senator from Alaska has any interest.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. There is no objection on our side.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that recently celebrated its 125th anniversary. On July 27-30, the residents of Mayville gathered to celebrate their community's history and founding. Mayville's post office first opened on June 20, 1877, under the guidance of Mrs. Alvin Arnold, who served as the postmaster. It is believed that the community may have been named after her daughter May or for the wife of another postmaster in a nearby town. In 1888, led by Mayor E.M. Paulson, Mayville became a city. Today, Mayville is thriving. Located in the beautiful Goose River Valley, Mayville prides itself on providing residents with a nice country living. Low crime, excellent education, and diverse economic opportunities set Mayville apart. Mayville is also home to Mayville State University, which offers 2- year and 4-year liberal arts and professional degrees to over 700 students of all ages. Mayville State was the fourth university in the Nation to provide all of its students with a notebook computer. It is also home to the Traill County Technology Center, a business incubator. Mayville celebrated its 125th anniversary with a weekend of events that included parades, auctions, an all-school reunion, and community breakfasts. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Mayville, ND, and its residents on their first 125 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Mayville and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Mayville that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Mayville has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to associate myself with the concerns expressed by Senator Shelby regarding the cuts contained in this bill to the tanker replacement program. The tanker fleet is one of our military's key competitive advantages. It gives our Nation the ability to project power to any point on the globe like no other country can. In an age where our military must be able to react rapidly to events, our airmen and soldiers cannot reach all corners of the world without being refueled by tankers. At a time when we are spending billions of dollars on new, short- range fighter aircraft, it would be foolish to not ensure that those aircraft could get adequate supplies of tanker gas to do their jobs. The current tanker fleet is old, with most aircraft dating back to the mid-1960s. The fleet is now aging even more rapidly because increasingly frequent deployments--mainly in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan--have put significant wear and tear on their airframes. As magnificently as they have performed, these work horses of our military are coming close to the end of their service life and cannot safely fly forever. It is imperative that we move now to ensure that we can acquire sufficient numbers of new tankers before these old airframes have to be retired. Reliable sources have informed me that without a minimum of $70 million in fiscal year 2007 funding, the Air Force's effort to acquire the next generation of tankers will likely face significant delays. I believe it is very important that the conference committee provide sufficient funding for next generation tankers to ensure that the program can proceed on schedule.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the leader for this time. We have heard a lot of talk that there is a death tax in this country. All of us in this Chamber know there is no death tax. There is a tax that applies to estates that wealthy individuals have in this country, but only three-tenths of 1 percent of estates pay any tax in America. This shows the current level of exemptions. In 2006 a couple has to have $4 million before they pay a penny of estate tax. In 2009, that will rise to $7 million for a couple. Some of us believe we ought to increase the exemption before 2009 to this $7 million level, but that is not the proposal before us. The proposal before us is to virtually eliminate the estate tax or certainly the revenue that flows from it. In fact, as my colleague from Illinois just indicated, the proposal before us will cost us three- quarters of the money that complete elimination of the estate tax would cost: $750 billion in the first 10 years that it is fully effective. This at a time that we are borrowing money as a nation in an unprecedented way. Last year we borrowed 65 percent of all the money that was borrowed by countries in the world. Let me repeat that. Last year, our country, which has now become the biggest debtor nation in the world, borrowed 65 percent of all of the money that was borrowed by all the countries in the world--65 percent. A very weak second was Spain at 6.8 percent, and the United Kingdom at less than 4 percent. The point is very clear. This is absolutely unaffordable at a time that we are running up massive debt. Our friends on the other side say: Well, we have a good idea. Let's eliminate some more revenue and let's eliminate it on those who are the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of the American population. If anybody wonders about the budgetary impacts or whether this is fiscally responsible, here are the budget points of order that this legislation before us now violates. It violates the pay-go rule. It exceeds the pay-go scorecard by more than $12 billion. On revenue, it exceeds the 2006 through 2010 revenue floor by more than $6 billion. It exceeds the outlay allocation for 2006 and 2006 through 2010 for the Finance Committee by $1.5 billion. It contains unfunded mandates on State and local governments that are all subject to a point of order. It reduces the Social Security surpluses, also subject to a point of order. Let me just say to my colleagues, if this measure would pass tonight and cloture would be invoked, I intend to raise every single one of these budget points of order, and we will see who is serious about being fiscally responsible and who is not. I have shown this chart to my colleagues many times. It took 42 Presidents--all the Presidents pictured here--224 years to run up $1 trillion of debt held abroad. This President has more than doubled that amount in just 5 years. What are our colleagues saying? Our colleagues are saying: Let's go borrow some more money from abroad. Where are we going to get this money? The country we borrow the most from is Japan, so a lot of this money would be borrowed from Japan. The next country that we owe the most money to is China, so we would have to borrow more money from the Chinese to give this tax reduction to just a handful of Americans. Right now, there will only be 13,000 taxable estates in the entire country in 2006. By 2009, that will be down to 7,000. When our friends call this family prosperity, they are right. They are talking about family prosperity for 7,000 families in America, and they want to shift the burden on to all of the other American families. That is what this is about. If you are listening to this debate, if you have assets----

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Mr. CONRAD. If you have assets of more than $7 million, it is true, you will face a tax. If you have assets and you are a family, if you have more than $7 million, you will face a tax. Now, that is the only instance in which you will. My friends, the proposal before us is to reduce--for 7,000 families in America who are in that category in any one year--reduce their obligation and shift it to all of the rest of us. That is not fair. That is not right.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on this subject, I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee and Chairman Stevens for their observations. Early on, I urged the administration to budget for the war, and they said: It is hard to predict what will be needed. I said: That is true, but the one thing we know for certain, the right answer is not zero. And that is what the administration was sending up in their budgets: Zero, no money. Obviously, that wasn't right. Budgets are about making an estimate of what the costs are going to be. Unfortunately, early on, the chief spokesman for this administration dramatically understated what this war would cost. I remember very well Larry Lindsey, who was the chief economic adviser to the President, said this may cost over $100 billion. The Vice President of the United States chastised him publicly--at least that is my recollection--and suggested that this war would not cost more than $50 billion. Here we are and the war has cost over $300 billion so far, and the administration is still not budgeting appropriately for it. They are dramatically understating in their budgets what this war is really going to cost. What that does is denies the Congress the ability to oversee these expenditures, and the result is we are going to see more scandals, we are going to see more wasteful spending, we are going to see more circumstances in which our troops do not receive the equipment they ought to receive because this money is being handled in a way that is outside the normal process in which a budget is sent up here that does not really represent the spending plan at all. And then it is followed by what is called an emergency supplemental bill that has very little chance for review, very little chance for scrutiny, very little chance for oversight. What the chairman is saying is there is a reason for a budget process, and the reason is to give Congress the chance to try to make certain that money is not wasted. Is it a perfect process? No, we all know that. We know it is a very imperfect process. But we know it is the best we have, and if we don't follow it, we are then vulnerable to waste and abuse, and that is a serious concern for every one of the Members. The Spreading Disaster of Drought Mr. President, I now wish to speak on a different matter. It is a matter of an emergency in my State and increasingly a matter of emergency in other States as well, and that is the spreading disaster of drought that is enveloping the central part of our country. Ironically, last year, my State had massive flooding. These were the headlines from a year ago: ``Rain Halts Harvest''; ``Heavy Rain Leads to Crop Diseases''; ``Beet Crop Could be Smallest in 10 Years''; ``Crops, Hay Lost to Flooding''; ``Area Farmers Battle Flooding, Disease.'' These were the headlines from last year. In North Dakota last year, every one of our counties was declared a disaster because of abnormal wet weather conditions, something we are not very used to in North Dakota, but that is what we were experiencing last year. Pictures such as this were very typical last year: Massive flooding in which farmsteads were surrounded by water. And in fact, in North Dakota last year, we had over 1 million acres that couldn't even be planted; 1 million acres that could not even be planted in my State last year, and then hundreds of thousands of additional acres that were planted but then flooded out. So farmers got no production. Fast forward to this year and what is happening now. This is the drought monitor that comes out on a weekly basis. What this shows is the center part of the country is now in very serious drought. The color code for those watching on TV is: Yellow is abnormally dry, the light tan is moderate drought, the darker tan is severe drought, the red is extreme drought, and the dark brown is exceptional drought. One can see all of my State is now in drought. All of South Dakota is now in drought. All of Nebraska, all of Kansas, and all of the Presiding Officer's State are in drought, and virtually all of Texas-- not quite all, but virtually all. What is dramatic is how this has spread. Last year, it was just the south central part of our State. Now the entire State is in drought, and much of it is in extreme drought. That is the red part of this chart. And one part is in exceptional drought, that is beyond extreme-- exceptional drought. There was an article in one of our major dailies saying that the Dakotas are now the epicenter of a drought-stricken Nation. It indicated that more than 60 percent of the United States is in drought, and it says the experts say that the dry spell is the third worst on record. Looking at the drought from 1999 to 2006, the drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. This is an extraordinarily serious situation in my State. We put together a chart that just shows the month of July. These are the days that were over 90 degrees in Bismarck, ND, the capital city, my hometown: 23 days over 90 degrees. Rainfall is less than 20 percent of normal. We are a pretty dry area to begin with, but 20 percent of normal? In my lifetime, I have never seen anything like this. I didn't live in the thirties. I did live in the fifties, but I was so young I probably didn't really know what was going on in terms of weather conditions. I thought I had seen it all, but last Sunday in my hometown, it was 112 degrees--112 degrees in Bismarck, ND. I have never seen anything approaching that. I am not talking about the heat index here. I am not talking about when they add a bunch of things together. I am talking about the temperature in my hometown last Sunday was 112 degrees with rainfall 20 percent of normal. This is a situation that is becoming dire, and if we look at the 10 days leading up to that, on the 10th of July, it was 96 degrees; the next day it was 101; the next day 105; the next day 94; the next day 102; the next day 105; the next day 106. In North Dakota, typically you might have a couple of days that are 100 in the summer, but you don't have day after day, and you certainly don't have a day that gets to be 112. In July, Senator Dorgan, Congressman Pomeroy, the Governor, and I went together on a drought tour. This was in early July. This is what we saw in pastures in North Dakota. There is nothing there. There is nothing for the cattle to eat. Now we have seen as the days have gone by that the ground is actually cracking. It is so dry the ground is cracking. This is an extremely serious situation. Here is a map of North Dakota and our counties. The red counties are ones that have already been approved for emergency CRP haying and grazing. One can see it is widespread across our State and growing. But what is striking is when you go out and look at the crops. This is southern Burleigh County. This is where Bismarck, my hometown, is located, the capital city of North Dakota. This is a cornfield. You know what they used to say--knee high by the 4th of July? This isn't boot high by the 4th of July. There are hardly any plants that have even emerged. They will produce nothing, absolutely nothing. During our drought tour, a man came up from South Dakota who runs the Herreid livestock auction ring in north central South Dakota. He said: Senators, I want to alert you to something that is happening. It is a real warning signal. He said: In July we would normally be selling a couple of hundred head a day. The last 3 or 4 days we have been selling thousands, thousands of head, because there is no feed. The Senate has taken action before. We took it on the supplemental appropriations bill and we said we needed to provide disaster assistance. There is a need to take it here. Seventy-two Members of the Senate said: Don't take it out, we ought to provide disaster assistance. The President said no. If there is any disaster assistance, he would veto it. I hope the President is watching carefully what is happening, what is developing. I just had the independent bankers of my State in my office. They told me if there is not assistance, 10 percent of the people they lend to will go out of business by the end of this year--10 percent of the farmers and ranchers of my State. This is a catastrophe of stunning proportion. It is getting worse each and every day. We are experiencing temperatures that are unprecedented and a lack of rainfall that has only happened twice before in our history--in the 1930s, the Dust Bowl days, and the 1950s. I take the time of my colleagues to raise this issue on the Defense appropriations bill. I recognize full well this has nothing to do with the Defense appropriations bill. This does have to do with a crisis among the people I represent, so I have taken a few moments of the time of the Senate to alert them to what is happening and to tell them that a group of us, on a bipartisan basis, from the States affected, are writing the leadership, Republican and Democratic, of this body to alert them that when we return in September it will be our effort on every vehicle that moves to put on disaster assistance. This is a group of Republican Senators and Democratic Senators who are from the affected regions. We will do everything we can to minimize the financial request that is made, but we have to say to our colleagues this is a crisis. When it gets to be 112 in July in Bismarck, ND, and rainfall is 20 percent of normal, that is headed toward a catastrophe--a catastrophe for literally tens of thousands of people in my State. It extends way beyond the border of North Dakota. I have talked to colleagues here from Montana who report to me their State is in drought, as are Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado--so many of these States being affected--and, of course, Wyoming as well. I have talked to colleagues from many of these States who report to me that they are seeing in their States what I am seeing in mine. This drought is intensifying and the prospects for a calamitous growing season are growing. I thank my colleagues for their patience. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we heard debate start this morning on permanently cutting the estate tax. I heard some of my colleagues again this morning refer to it as the death tax. There is no death tax in America. We have no tax that applies at death. We do have an estate tax. We have a tax on wealthy accumulations that occur in families. That tax does not affect an individual unless they have at least $2 million. For a couple, that would be $4 million before they face any estate tax. Of course, my colleagues know there are many ways you can further reduce the taxes that apply to wealthy estates. But the first thing we ought to say clearly and directly to the American people is, there is no death tax. There is no tax that applies at death. None. One of the most interesting stories I have heard was a colleague of mine who was at the airport. A baggage handler said to him: My God, you have to get rid of that death tax. That is going to affect my family. And my colleague said to him: Unless you have at least $4 million as a family, you do not have to worry about any death tax because there is no death tax. This baggage handler was completely shocked to hear there was no death tax. He has heard over and over and over there is a death tax. He believed it. Everyone in this Senate knows there is no death tax. What is most extraordinary about the proposal before this Senate is the context in which it occurs. Our country is deep in debt--deep in debt. Now our friends on the other side, their idea in the last week we are in session for the next month is to come out here and put us deeper in debt. Dig the hole deeper and deeper and deeper. What an extraordinary proposal that is. And for what purpose? To help the struggling middle class? No, no, they are out of this. This is not even the upper class. This is the wealthiest among us. That is who this is designed to help. Here is our current circumstance. The deficit last year was $318 billion. The deficit for this year is now projected to be just under $300 billion, some modest improvement in the deficit. But that completely misses the point because at the same time the deficit is showing some modest improvement, the increase in the debt is getting much worse. Last year, the debt increased by $551 billion. This year, we now project the debt will increase by almost $600 billion. Someone out there listening might say: How can that be? How can it be the Senator is saying the deficit is less than $300 billion, but the debt is going to increase by almost $600 billion? How can that be? That is largely because under the President's plan, they are also taking hundreds of billions from Social Security to use to pay other bills. All of it gets added to the debt. None of it gets counted for the deficit. This chart shows the deficit for 2006 just under $300 billion. Here is the amount added to the debt--almost $600 billion. And you can see the biggest difference between the deficit and the increase in the debt is the amount of Social Security money that is being taken to be used for other purposes: $177 billion in this 1 year alone, Social Security money taken to pay other bills. And, of course, it all gets added to the debt. None of it gets counted to the deficit. When one looks at what is happening to the debt, here is what one sees: We are building a wall of debt that is extraordinary. At the end of this President's first year in office, the debt was $5.8 trillion. We do not hold him responsible for the first year. But at the end of this year, the debt will have climbed to $8.5 trillion. And if the President's plan is put in place, for the next 5 years, the debt will go over $11.5 trillion. The debt under this President has taken off like a scalded cat, and at the worst possible time. The debt is increasing before the baby boom generation retires. What are the implications of this rapidly rising debt? Well, one of them is that increasingly we are borrowing this money from abroad. Increasingly, we are going, hat in hand, all around the world borrowing money. This chart shows that it took 42 Presidents--all the Presidents pictured here--224 years to run up $1 trillion of debt held abroad. This President has more than doubled that amount in just 5 years. That is a completely unsustainable course. You go back to President Clinton, you go back to the previous President Bush, you go back to President Reagan, President Carter, President Lyndon Johnson, and all the other Presidents--224 years of American history--they ran up $1 trillion of external debt. This President, in just 5 years, has run up more than $1 trillion of U.S. debt held abroad. So what we see are these countries to which we now owe money. We owe Japan $638 billion. We owe China $326 billion. We owe the United Kingdom almost $200 billion. We owe the oil exporters over $100 billion. My favorite down here, the Caribbean banking centers, we owe them over $60 billion. Mexico now is on the top 10 list of countries that we owe money. We owe Mexico $43 billion. I asked my staff the other day: What do we see in terms of our borrowing compared to other nations borrowing? Sometimes that is a good way to get a sense of where we stand. They came back with this answer. It is not their numbers; it is the International Monetary Fund. It shows the percent of world borrowing by country. These are the world's biggest borrowers. And who is No. 1? Our country. We borrowed over 65 percent of the money that was borrowed by countries last year--65 percent borrowed by our country. Turkey borrowed about 2 percent. I see the United Kingdom borrowed about 4 percent. Spain was the next biggest after the United States. We borrowed 65 percent of all the money that was borrowed by countries last year. The next biggest was Spain at 6.8 percent; then the United Kingdom at just under 4 percent; then Australia, just over 3 percent; France, under 3 percent; Italy, just over 2 percent; Turkey, just under 2 percent. The United States, 65 percent. With all of this occurring, with the deficit skyrocketing--that is by historical comparison; yes, it improved somewhat over last year, but these are the biggest deficits our country has ever run--and the debt taking off like a scalded cat, what do our colleagues do in the last week before we break for a month? They come out here and propose to virtually eliminate the tax on wealthy estates. Now, there is an idea whose time has come. While we cannot pay our bills now, while we are borrowing money from Japan and China, their answer is: Let's go give an enormous tax break to the wealthiest among us. And where will we get the money to fill in the gap because we cannot pay our bills now? Let's go borrow some more money from Japan and China. Let's go borrow some more money from Japan and China. You would think you were in a movie-- not even a very good movie--that somebody had dreamt up if you were to describe what is going on here. Our country is the biggest debtor nation in the world. Our colleagues have cut the revenue, cut the revenue, cut the revenue, increased the spending, increased the spending, increased the spending; and now their answer is: Let's cut the revenues some more, and let's cut it on the wealthiest of the wealthy, the top three-tenths of 1 percent of the estates in this country, because they are the only ones who are paying the estate tax now. Our friends say: Oh, no, my goodness, let's cut them some more. Let's cut them some more. The wealthiest among us have already gotten the greatest benefit of the tax cuts that have been enacted--by far. Now they say: Let's cut their taxes some more and borrow the money from China and Japan. This is a farce--a farce--which is occurring here. And it is a disaster for the economic strength of our country. Here is what the size of estates has to be before they pay any tax. We are in 2006. These are the estate tax exemption levels under current law for a couple. Couples have to have $4 million before they pay a penny of estate tax--$4 million, not of gross assets, of net assets. They have to have $4 million free and clear before they pay a dime. And in 2009, that will go up to $7 million. Our friends on the other side of the aisle say: Whoa, that is not nearly enough. Let's jack this thing up dramatically. Let's lower the rates. Let's increase the exemptions. And let's borrow the money from China and Japan. Now, there is a format to strengthen America. The number of taxable estates is already falling very dramatically under current law. In 2000, there were 50,000 taxable estates in the whole country. This year, there will be 13,000 in the whole country. Now, people say there is a death tax. There is no death tax. There is no tax that attaches to anybody at death in this country. The estate tax applies to people who have accumulated wealth. Good for them. I am glad for their success. But does a further tax cut on multi-million dollar estates make any sense for our country? Does it make any sense at all when we cannot pay our bills now that we would go out and dramatically cut taxes on the very wealthiest among us who already have tax cut after tax cut after tax cut--let's give them one more--when we have to borrow the money from China and Japan? In 2009, the estimates are that there will only be 7,000 estates taxable in the whole country. In 2009, only two-tenths of 1 percent of estates will be subject to tax. That is under current law. Under current law, 99.8 percent of estates will not pay a penny of tax--99.8 percent. Our colleagues say: That is not good enough. Let's cut it some more. Even though we cannot pay our bills now, let's give another big tax cut to the wealthiest among us and go borrow the money from Japan and China and Great Britain and the oil exporting countries--because the money is gone. The money is gone. There are no surpluses here. We cannot pay our bills. We are borrowing 65 percent of the money that is being borrowed in the world today by countries. We are borrowing 65 percent of it. This is insanity. This is irresponsible. This is reckless. And not just a little bit reckless, this is totally reckless. Now our friends come with a proposal to virtually eliminate the estate tax. Full repeal from 2012 to 2021 would cost just over $1 trillion. This proposal costs $753 billion from 2012 to 2021. Now, our friends on the other side say: Hey, Social Security is short $4 trillion. They say: Medicare is short $29 trillion. And they are not doing anything about that. What they are doing is digging the hole deeper. Let's get rid of another $750 billion we do not have--that we have to borrow from Japan and China and all the other countries in the world, even Mexico, because we now owe Mexico $43 billion--let's do that so we can cut the taxes on the very wealthiest among us. What earthly sense does this make? I will tell you for whom it makes sense. It makes sense for--as this article in the New York Times on June 7 says, it is ``A boon for the richest in estate tax repeal.'' Over the last decades, 18 of the wealthiest families in the country have spent more than $200 million lobbying to repeal the estate tax. Eighteen families have put up $200 million to repeal the estate tax. How happy they must be on this day. How happy they must be. The wealthy families include the Mars candy family; the Gallo wine family; the Wegman supermarket family; the Dorrance family, which controls Campbell's Soup; and the Waltons, who control Wal-Mart. I applaud people who have been successful, but people who have been successful have succeeded not only because of their own hard work and creative approach to solving problems; no, in part they have succeeded because they are part of this country. How incredibly fortunate we all are to be born in America. Many very wealthy people I know believe they have an obligation to give back. We just saw an extraordinary example of that with Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett, the second wealthiest man in America, worth some $40 billion, just decided to give virtually all of his wealth to Bill Gates's foundation, who is the wealthiest person in the country, in order to do good works, in order to give back, in order to make a difference for others. What is being said here on the floor of the Senate? No, that should not be the test--giving back, helping others, making a difference to improve this world, understanding that part of each of our success is because we had the good fortune to be born in America. This proposal is all about me, all about me. I have it. I am keeping it. I am not giving it away. What is the result? Well, our country will have to go borrow more tens of billions and hundreds of billions of dollars from Japan and China and Great Britain and the oil exporting countries, and even Mexico. That is what is going to happen. Or our friends on the other side will, at some point, just shred Social Security and Medicare. That is where this is all headed. Make no mistake. That is where this is all headed because America cannot pay its bills now. Hurricane Katrina put the estate tax repeal in some perspective. The chairman of the Finance Committee said this: It's a little unseemly to be talking about eliminating the estate tax at a time when people are suffering. He said that last year. People are suffering this year as well, suffering the aftermath of Katrina--I have been with families suffering from losses in Iraq and Afghanistan--but also suffering because our country is in deep trouble. Our country is living on the credit card. Our country is borrowing money at a rate unprecedented in our history. We are borrowing 65 percent of all the money that was borrowed by countries of the world last year, our country. And who did we borrow it from? It used to be when we ran deficits we borrowed the money from ourselves. We issued bonds and Americans bought them. It has all changed because now more than half of the bonds that we sell are going to foreigners. Every time we have another month where we spend more than we take in, we have to borrow more money. Over half of it now we are borrowing from Japan, China, Great Britain, the oil exporting countries, and the Caribbean banking centers. What sense does this make? Now we are told: Do you know what we should do? Here is a good idea. Just before we take a break for the month, let's go out and dig the hole deeper. Let's go out and have a plan that will reduce taxes on the wealthiest among us by $753 billion for a 10-year period--not million, $753 billion--and put that on the charge card. Boy, we will have a real party in August. The cost of the proposal before us absolutely explodes, because they have a clever device called a phase-in that hides the long-term cost. It is not in full effect until 2015, and then the cost goes up like a scalded cat, as this chart depicts. The cost between 2012 and 2021 is about $600 billion plus an additional $154 billion of interest cost, because, after all, where is the money coming from? Is it coming out of the Treasury of the United States? No, it is all going to have to be borrowed. And who are we borrowing from? Increasingly, we are borrowing from abroad. And what is going to happen? Some in this town say deficits don't matter. Go ask the Germans about that. Ask the Germans what happened after World War I when they were on a course like this, borrowing, borrowing, borrowing, increasingly borrowing from abroad. How did they try to get out of it? They inflated their currency until the German mark was virtually worthless. If you wanted to buy a pair of shoes, you had to fill up a wheelbarrow with German marks and go to the store because the currency had so little value. That is one way out. It is a disastrous way out, but many countries have tried it. The other way out is, you have to cut spending and raise taxes. That is tough. That is hardly popular politically, go out and tell people: Gee, none of this adds up. We have been spending money we don't have in your name. It is your debt. The President likes to say it is the people's money. He is exactly right, it is the people's money. It is also the people's debt. This debt is being run up in the people's name. This debt is owed and is going to have to be paid. The cost of the House proposal, if you compare it with the cost of extending the middle-class tax cuts, is very interesting. Over the first 10 years of this proposal, it costs $268 billion; from 2012 to 2021, it costs $753 billion. But in just the first years, it dwarfs the cost to extend the child tax credit. That would cost $183 billion. It dwarfs the money to extend the marriage penalty; that would cost $46 billion. It totally overwhelms the cost to extend the college tuition deduction; over that period that would cost $19 billion. Those are tax reductions and tax relief that do benefit the middle class. This is one of the most irresponsible proposals to come before the body in the 20 years I have been here. It is completely and totally irresponsible. I was a conferee on the conference committee to deal with the issue of pensions. Last Thursday the conferees were to meet at 6 o'clock. We were there. House Republicans did not appear. They asked us to come back 2 hours later. They needed some more time. We came back at 8. They still did not appear. At that time they apparently made the decision to forget about the conference committee. The conference committee worked since March of this year in good faith to deal with the pension crisis, and they added to that package the so-called extenders, those tax provisions that are about to expire that are critically important to the country. We were prepared to pass that package. The leaders from the conference on the other side decided, no, they didn't want to have that discussion in the public. Instead they didn't appear, and they hatched this other plan to have a pension bill come out of the House freestanding and this other package that includes elimination of the estate tax and an increase in the minimum wage for some States. I was with the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, who informed me in her State the so-called minimum wage increase will actually reduce the minimum wage for millions of workers because of its provisions. They put together the Abandoned Mine Lands Act in this package in order to try to get the support of Members here, and they have wrapped it all in a big package to try to get this body to do something that makes absolutely no sense for the fiscal future of this country. That is, without question, the most irresponsible package I have seen offered here in my 20 years in the Senate. It is not just a little bit irresponsible; it is wildly irresponsible. This is reckless, the course this country is being taken on, utterly reckless. Why do I say that? Because sometimes you wonder if anybody is paying attention. Here is what is happening to the debt of our Nation: $5.8 trillion in 2001; $8.5 trillion at the end of this year. If the budget the President proposed is followed, the debt will rise to $11.5 trillion in 2011. If this proposal is adopted, it will be even worse. From 2012 to 2021, this proposal that is before the body will take another $750 billion and add that to the amount this country will have to borrow. It is unbelievable. This President has taken us on a reckless course. Forty-two Presidents took 224 years to run up a trillion dollars of our debt held abroad. This President has more than doubled that amount in only 5 years. So what is before the body now? A plan to go out and put another $750 billion on the charge card, because this money has to be made up from somewhere. We can't pay our bills now. If you reduce the revenue that is scheduled to come in, the debt goes up. You have to have more borrowing, more going to the Chinese, more going to the Japanese, and asking them for more money. How are we going to pay it back? Our friends say this is a tax cut. I don't think so. I think what this is an enormous tax shift. Because at some point we are going to have to start paying our bills. And when we do, I have a feeling I know what they are going to do. They are going to come out here and they are going to say: All of us have to contribute. All of us have to participate. We are going to have to cut spending. We are going to have to raise revenue. I can see their proposal now. They will be coming right at the middle-class people who are the bulwark of this economy. They will either cut programs that are important to them, such as Social Security and Medicare, or they will raise taxes on them, all so that we could give a big reduction to the very wealthiest among us, the people who have benefitted most from the genius of the American economy. Many of the wealthiest people I know say: Don't do it in my name. Don't do that in my name. I don't need another tax cut. I do need a country that pays its bills. I do need a country that isn't borrowing more and more money from China and Japan and Great Britain and Mexico. I can't think of a more consequential fiscal decision that will be made than this one. Are we going to keep digging the hole deeper and deeper? Or are we going to head in a new direction and get serious about getting America back on track? I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that recently celebrated its 125th anniversary. On July 14-16, the residents of Grandin gathered to celebrate their community's history and founding. Grandin, set in the fertile Red River Valley, is a thriving community in southeastern North Dakota. Grandin was also home to American painter and artist, Clyfford Still. Still, who used rich, vibrant colors and imagery, is just one of the many great talents that the small communities of rural America have produced to enrich our culture. The citizens of Grandin take pride in their quiet and comfortable community that still welcomes guests with a friendly smile and wave. Grandin had an exciting anniversary that included an all-school reunion, parade, tractor pull, dinner, and street dance. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join in me congratulating Grandin, ND, and its residents on their first 125 years and wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Grandin and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Grandin that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Grandin has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. On August 4, the residents of Douglas will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Douglas was founded in 1906 and was proudly named after the nearby Douglas Creek. The creek's name honored Major Douglas, who was stationed at Fort Stevenson in the 1870s. In 1906, Douglas's post office was established under the stewardship of Arthur C. Bates. Douglas was incorporated as a village in 1908 with A.G. Burgeson as its first mayor. Today, Douglas remains a small, proud community. Each year, the community gathers together and has picnics in the park. During the summer, many of its residents can be found on the banks of Lake Douglas catching up with friends and family. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding, the residents of Douglas will gather on the weekend of August 4th. There will be an all- school reunion to allow former classmates to reunite with each other, followed by a charity auction. A fireman's rodeo, lawnmower pull, and an event to honor veterans will keep the crowds entertained all weekend. The highlight of the celebration will be the parade, which will feature floats, musical performances, and a fireworks display. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Douglas, ND, and its residents on their first 100 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Douglas and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Douglas that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Douglas has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, as the Senate debates stem cell research, I wanted to indicate that I will be supporting all three measures before the Senate. I will support these measures because I have great faith that some day this promising research will lead to cures for some of our most devastating diseases. This is not a decision I came to hastily. I have thought long and hard about stem cell research. Hundreds of North Dakota families have told me this research is the key to helping their loved ones lead healthy lives. I have also heard from North Dakotans who have very strong religious objections to stem cell research. I respect their views. But, in the end, I believe we should put an appropriate ethical framework in place to give hope of a cure to those who suffer from disease. That is why I am supporting stem cell research. In 2001, a group of U.S. Senators, including me, called on President Bush to allow Federal funding of stem cell research. The President agreed and created the current policy of allowing research but only on those lines developed by August 9, 2001. This arbitrary date has limited the ability of scientists to fully realize the potential of stem cell research. In fact, there are only 22 lines available today, and all are contaminated. I think it is right to expand the available lines. And it is imperative that we create a strong framework to ensure this research is done in the most ethical way. It has been over a year since the House of Representatives took action on H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, and passed it with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. This bill expands Federal research while strengthening the ethical guidelines associated with it. To be clear, this bill would only allow research on stem cells taken from excess embryos used in fertility treatments. Fertility clinics help couples have a baby, but sometimes this therapy produces extra embryos, which can be disposed of, donated to other couples, or used for research. A 2003 study estimated that 400,000 excess embryos are currently stored in these clinics and more than 11,000 of those have been designated for research. This bill simply allows researchers access to those embryos. H.R. 810 also requires that these embryos would never be implanted into a woman and that the individual has given written consent for the donation. Under the current policy, there are no such guidelines. I believe these requirements are essential to ensuring the strongest ethical behavior. Before I close, I would like to share the stories of two young girls that I have had the pleasure of meeting. Their stories--as well as the thousands of others like them--have deeply impacted my decision to support H.R. 810. Ashley Dahlen and Camille Johnson are both teenagers suffering with juvenile diabetes. And I truly mean suffering. They each have scars on their fingertips from where they have to check their blood sugars constantly, even while they are sleeping. They have to stay home from school when their sugars are too high. Both have had extremely close calls and have been hospitalized. Without a cure, both will end up on dialysis and will suffer other complications, possibly even heart failure. These young girls and their families support stem cell research. They want to grow up, get married, and have children of their own. They continue to hope that one day, stem cell research will provide them a cure to this most awful disease. I share their hope and faith in stem cell research. Today, I am voting to pass this hope along to the millions of children and families suffering from diseases that could be cured using stem cell research.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I recognize a community in North Dakota that recently celebrated its 125th anniversary. On June 23-25, the residents of Sheldon gathered to celebrate their community's history and founding. Sheldon is a small town located in the eastern part of North Dakota. Previously named Jenksville, E.E. Sheldon bought the land in June 1881 and renamed it after himself. On July 20 of that same year, a new post office was established with Karl E. Rudd as the first postmaster. The National Pacific Railroad arrived in Sheldon in 1882, and the village began to grow, becoming incorporated in 1884. Since the day of its founding, the community has been small but very active. Shortly after its founding Sheldon established itself as a hotbed for amateur baseball, winning the state title in 1895. In addition, Lynn Bernard ``Line Drive'' Nelson, 1905-1955, born and raised in Sheldon, played major league baseball during the 1930's with the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Athletics, and Detroit Tigers. The community had a wonderful weekend celebration to commemorate its 125th anniversary. The celebration was highlighted by a full day of activities on Saturday, including a pancake breakfast, two parades, a tractor and pick-up pull, and a car show. The day was capped off by a street dance that night. In addition to those festivities, a quilt show and a room celebrating the history of the town were open all weekend. The celebration concluded on Sunday with an all-faiths service followed by a brunch. Mr. President, I ask the U.S. Senate to join me in congratulating Sheldon, ND, and its residents on their first 125 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Sheldon and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Sheldon that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Sheldon has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 125th anniversary. On July 22, the residents of Colfax will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Colfax was founded in 1881 and was proudly named after former Vice President Schulyer Colfax, who had owned property in the area. In February 1881, Colfax's post office was established. Colfax became known as the ``Fountain City'' because of the numerous artesian wells that can be found in the community and the surrounding areas. Today, Colfax remains a small, proud community. Each year, the community gathers together and has picnics in the park. During the summer, many of its residents can be found at the local pool, catching up with friends and family. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of its founding, the residents of Colfax will gather on July 22. There will be an all-school reunion to allow former classmates to reunite with each other and a coffee social at the local church. The highlight of the celebration will be the parade, which will feature floats, horses, and this years' North Dakota nine-man football state champs--all of whom are residents of Colfax. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Colfax, ND, and its residents on their first 125 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Colfax and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Colfax that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Colfax has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today Senator Roberts is joining me as I submit a resolution to commend the Patriot Guard Riders for all they have done to honor our Nation's fallen heroes and bring comfort to these soldiers' friends and family members. The Patriot Guard Riders was established in August of 2005 when the American Legion Riders Chapter 136 from Kansas learned that the Westboro Baptist Church was planning to protest at the funeral of SGT John Doles in Chelsea, OK. The Patriot Guard Riders have since grown into a national network of tens of thousands of members who share a respect for service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice. The group's mission is to show their sincere respect for our fallen heroes, their families, and their communities. Patriot Guard members attend funerals after being invited by the family of the fallen soldier. At the funeral they form a human shield to protect grieving family members and friends from protesters. I was recently at the funerals for North Dakota soldiers, and I was appalled--absolutely appalled--by the behavior of protesters who used the funeral to convey their twisted message of hatred for our soldiers and their families. These protests do a grave disservice to the men and women who have courageously served our country and paid the ultimate sacrifice. They and their families deserve privacy and our profound respect. In addition to attending fallen soldiers' funerals, and send offs, and welcome home ceremonies, the Patriot Guard Riders also visit critically wounded soldiers in hospitals and help them become assimilated back into civilian life. The group has also started the Fallen Warrior Scholarship Fund, a scholarship established to send fallen soldiers' children to college. Our colleagues in the House passed a similar piece of legislation, H. Res. 731, on June 20. We should join them in expressing the Senate's deepest appreciation to the Patriot Guard Riders who help to preserve the memory and dignity of the Nation's fallen heroes. The resolution I am submitting today does just that. It expresses the Senate's ``deepest appreciation to the Patriot Guard Riders who shield mourning family members and friends of the deceased from protesters who interrupt, or threaten to interrupt, the dignity of a funeral; and in so doing, help to preserve the memory and dignity of the Nation's fallen heroes.'' All across the Nation, and in my own State of North Dakota, Patriot Guard Riders are protecting mourning families from further hurt. For that, they deserve our sincere gratitude.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. On July 28-30, the residents of Bowbells will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Bowbells is a vibrant community in northwestern North Dakota, just a short drive from the Canadian border. The town was founded in 1896 with the help of the Soo Line Railroad that passed through the town. The name ``Bowbells'' came from the bells at the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow located in London, England, that were in the shape of bows. By 1913, the town was served by two different railroad lines. Today, it is the county seat of Burke County, ND. Many citizens of Bowbells support their families through agriculture, producing a wide array of products, including canola, flax, barley, sunflowers, hard red spring wheat, and durum. Located near Bowbells is the Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge, which supports a large waterfowl population. Outdoor enthusiasts can also enjoy both fishing and hunting opportunities in and around Bowbells. Citizens of Bowbells have organized numerous activities to celebrate their centennial. Some of these activities include a golf tournament, class reunions, street dances, a 5K/10K walk/run, a parade, softball and baseball games, and all-faith services. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Bowbells, ND, and its residents on the first 100 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Bowbells and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Bowbells that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Bowbells has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to thank the managers of the bill for this time allocation. I appreciate it very much. I thank the chairman and the ranking member. Today is the day of the so-called midsession review in which the administration takes a middle-of-the-year look at our budget circumstances. The President has already held a press conference in the White House, the Budget Director is speaking to the National Press Club, and they are heralding the improvement in the deficit outlook as proof that their fiscal plan is working. That is an interesting spin. That is an interesting way of looking at these facts. Let me give you what I consider to be the other side of the story, or perhaps it is better described as the rest of the story. The President is saying there has been a $100 billion improvement in the deficit outlook. Well, not really because that is based on his earlier projection that many of us said, at the time, overestimated what the deficit would be, for the very purpose of later this year, when the deficit wasn't that big, to claim great success. That is exactly how things have played out. But if you compare the new deficit projection with what the actual deficit was last year, instead of getting into the projection game, the actual deficit last year was $318 billion. Now they are saying the deficit this year will be $296 billion. Is this cause for some great celebration? Is this some dramatic improvement in the deficit? I wish it was, but I think people can reach their own conclusion. I think it is a pretty modest improvement over last year's deficit. At the same time, the thing that is getting no attention is the real threat to our long-term economic security, and that is the debt of the country. And the debt increase last year was $551 billion. With these new numbers this morning, the debt this year will increase by $593 billion. So the amount of the debt increase is actually growing. The debt is getting bigger, and it is getting bigger than it was last year. That is even with these new numbers. This is almost a $600 billion increase in the debt. The White House is saying: Well, there has been this dramatic improvement in revenue, and that proves that if you cut taxes, you get more revenue. No, that is not what it proves. I wish it would prove that because then we really would have the tooth fairy working for us. That would be great. Wouldn't it be wonderful? You cut taxes, you get more money. But here is what has happened. Here is the historical record. In 2000, revenue, as a percentage of gross domestic product, was about 21 percent. It is true that this year we are getting an increase over last year's revenue, but it is still way below what it was back in 2000. If you look at it on an inflation-adjusted basis, you look at the revenues that we have received, you adjust it for inflation, what you see is now, in 2006, we are getting back to the revenue we had in 2000. So in 2000, we had over $2 trillion in revenue. We had massive tax cuts in 2001 and revenue went down. In 2003, revenue went down some more. We had another big tax cut. Revenue stayed down for 2004 and 2005. Now, only in 2006, are they projecting that revenue will go beyond what it was in 2000. This is not proof of the theory of the tooth fairy that if you cut taxes, you get more revenue. In fact, if you look at individual income taxes, where most of the tax cuts have been, you see--and this is not adjusted for inflation; this is in nominal terms--we had $1 trillion of individual income tax revenue in 2000. You can see every year after that: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, every one of those years we had less revenue than we had all the way back in 2000. It was not until this year that they are now projecting that we will have somewhat of an increase over the level of revenue in 2000. If one wants to talk about projections, if you go back to their projections in January of 2001, they said this year we would have $2.7 trillion of revenue. Instead, we are going to have $2.4 trillion in revenue. So we are far below what they projected back in 2001. This is from the New York Times of July 9: Revenues are still below historical norms. One reason the run-up in taxes looks good is because the past five years looked so bad. Revenues are up, but they have lagged well behind economic growth. Compared with the size of the economy, tax revenues are still below historical norms and far below what the administration predicted as recently as 2003. ``Far below.'' This is not this magic supply-side epiphany that some are now claiming today. In fact, if one looks at the debt, the increase in the debt, here is what one sees. When President Bush took office at the end of his first full year--because obviously he is not responsible for the first year; he is inheriting a budget--at the end of his first full year, the debt was $5.8 trillion. At the end of this year, they are now saying it will be $8.5 trillion. And in 2011, they are now saying the debt will reach $11.5 trillion. This is an explosion of debt, and they are claiming great success. Excuse me. This is a great success? What would a failure be? They will have doubled the national debt. When we look at foreign holdings of U.S. debt, here is what we see. It took 42 Presidents--all these Presidents pictured here--224 years to run up $1 trillion of external debt--U.S. debt held abroad. This President has more than doubled that amount in just 5 years. This is a success? I don't think so. Looked at another way, it is stunning. Here are the world's biggest borrowers. If you look at all of the money that is being borrowed in the world, you see the United States in the No. 1 position. We are borrowing 65 percent of all of the money that is available to borrow. Let me repeat that. The United States is borrowing 65 percent of all of the money that is available to borrow. Look at this. We have the United Kingdom borrowing about 4 percent of what is available; Spain, 7 percent; Australia, 3 percent; France, about 3 percent; Italy, 2 percent; Turkey, 2 percent. And the United States is borrowing 65 percent of all of the money being borrowed in the world. This is not a sustainable course. This is not something that can be continued. So while the White House is out bragging about their achievements, let's just remember their budget record: Four years in a row of record deficits, debt projected to soar to more than $11 trillion by 2011. They have more than doubled foreign-held debt in 5 years. There is very little real revenue growth since 2000. Revenues in 2006 are still far below original projection. And every penny of Social Security surplus is projected to be spent on tax cuts and other things over the next 10 years. Again, $2.5 trillion of Social Security money is going to be spent on other things. On the other hand, they say there is a big shortage of Social Security? Well, they are helping to create it. A new budget process proposal has been made by our friends on the other side that would circumvent Social Security protections and fast- track a Social Security privatization plan. They have repealed and increased the spending caps for next year that they put in place last year. They have come out with a big, new plan, more spending caps, more budget points of order, but they just repealed the spending caps they put in place last year. Now we are told they will not have a budget this year at all. The country simply will not have a budget. The Comptroller General of the United States has warned that the budget outlook is getting worse, not better. This is what he said: Our problem is our large, long-term deficit, and the sooner we deal with that, the better. Walker, the Comptroller General, warned of a false sense of security: ``We're in much worse shape fiscally today than we were just a few years ago.'' He said this on July 11. Mr. President, the Comptroller General is telling the truth. Our budget situation is not getting better; our budget situation is getting much worse. Here is what is happening to the debt. You didn't hear the President mention anything about the debt. They don't want to talk about the debt because the debt is exploding. The debt is going up, up, and away. And this is before the baby boomers retire. If the budget were to pass that has gone through both Houses of Congress--which we are now told is not going to pass, we are not going to have a budget--if it were to pass, they would add $3 trillion to the debt over the next 5 years. It is simply stunning. The former CBO Director who, by the way, was an economic adviser to the President before he was CBO Director, said this: ``The long-term outlook is such a deep well of sorrow that I can't get much happiness out of this year,'' said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and a former White House economist under President Bush. He is telling the truth. This notion that there has been some dramatic decrease in the deficit just misses the fact. The fact is the deficit last year--the actual deficit--was $318 billion. Now they are forecasting it is going to be $296 billion this year. That is not some great improvement. That is an improvement, but it is very modest. At the same time the deficit is getting a little better, the debt is getting a whole lot worse. Last year, the debt increased by $551 billion. This year, the debt is going to increase by $593 billion. All this happy talk today from the administration about how great things are reminds me a little of somebody holding a press conference to brag about the new lifeboats on the Titanic. Yes, it is a nice thing that the deficit numbers are a little better, but it misses the larger reality. The larger reality is this ship of State is in deep trouble. We are in an ocean of red ink, and nothing substantial is being done about it under this administration. Instead, the debt is growing and growing dramatically. Even with these new numbers, that is what is happening to the debt of our country. It is skyrocketing, and it is skyrocketing at the worst possible time--before the baby boomers retire. Remember, the baby boomers are going to start retiring--the leading edge--those eligible for Social Security, in 2008, and we are going to leave them a legacy of debt unprecedented in our Nation's history. The President does a disservice to the country, as do members of his administration, when they talk about the fiscal circumstance dramatically improving. It is not. It is not. The deficit has improved modestly over the deficit of last year, but the debt is actually growing more rapidly than the debt grew last year. And there is absolutely no relief anywhere in sight. The President and this administration owes it to the American people to come forward with a plan to address this crisis of debt. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 125th anniversary. On July 13-16, the residents of Larimore will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Founded in 1881 by Anthony Clark and named for Newell Green Larimore, Larimore is located just north of Grand Forks. Many of Clark's descendents still live in Larimore and are part of the tight knit community. Larimore's post office was established on October 31, 1881, with Lyman P. Goodhume as its postmaster. Today, Larimore continues to thrive with a bustling downtown area that has a grocery store, a flower shop, and an appliance store. During the summer, citizens of Larimore head out to the Larimore Dam for swimming, boating, camping, and fishing. In the winter, the Men's Club of Larimore and the American Legion hold an annual ice fishing derby. An annual highlight is the celebration of Larimore Days. Each year Larimore holds festivities that are meant to bring the community, family, and friends together. Larimore celebrates with parades, school reunions, and family events. This year, the 125th anniversary of the town will be held in conjunction with the Larimore Days celebrations. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Larimore, ND, and its residents on their first 125 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Larimore and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Larimore that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Larimore has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. On July 8-9, the residents of Newburg will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. Newburg is a vibrant community in northern North Dakota. Newburg was established when the Great Northern Railroad built a station in the town and named it after an early settler to the area, Andrew Newborg. About a year after the railroad station opened, the town's post office was established. Newburg is also home to a local inventor and businessman, Frederick Sund. Sund began Sund Manufacturing Company, which employs many community residents. Along with Sund Manufacturing Company, Newburg is home to several other businesses, many of which support farming business in the town and surrounding area. The town also has many recreational activities, including fishing and duck hunting. Guide services are available to assist wildlife enthusiasts in the area. The residents of Newburg are proud of all of their accomplishments over the past 100 years and have planned a celebration that includes a parade, a car show, a variety show, a street dance with fireworks, a community-wide pot-luck meal, and an ecumenical church service. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating Newburg, ND, and its residents on the first 100 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring Newburg and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as Newburg that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. Newburg has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a community in North Dakota that will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. On July 7-9, the residents of McVille will gather to celebrate their community's history and founding. McVille is a small but welcoming community located in the northeastern part of North Dakota. In 1906, McVille, like many rural towns, relocated to a new townsite along the Great Northern Railroad. McVille has a rich history. It is one of the oldest settled areas in North Dakota outside of the Red River Valley. The name McVille was coined from the many families in the region whose surname began with ``Mc.'' Today, McVille is a great place for outdoor enthusiasts. McVille Dam offers great opportunities for sports fishermen, and is stocked with walleye, northern trout, large mouth bass, blue gills, and perch. McVille also hosts ``McVille Days,'' an annual three-day community celebration that offers residents and visitors many fun and exciting activities to participate in. McVille is a close-knit community that fosters unity and cooperation among its residents. The citizens of McVille have many exciting events planned to celebrate their centennial, including a dance, art show, basketball tournament, pig race, canoe race, car show, golf tournament, and parade. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in congratulating McVille, ND, and its residents on their first 100 years and in wishing them well through the next century. By honoring McVille and all the other historic small towns of North Dakota, we keep the great pioneering frontier spirit alive for future generations. It is places such as McVille that have helped to shape this country into what it is today, which is why this fine community is deserving of our recognition. McVille has a proud past and a bright future.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose the Oman Free Trade Agreement. There are two primary reasons that I oppose this agreement. First, this trade agreement is part of the administration's failed trade policy. I believe strongly that we need to change direction, and we need to change direction now, before our trade and budget deficits cripple our economy. This chart shows how badly off target our trade policy is. Our trade deficits have exploded. In 1992, our trade deficit was just $40 billion. Thirteen years and 10 trade deals later, our trade deficit last year was $718 billion--$718 billion. NAFTA provides one example of how these trade deals have affected our trade deficits. In 1993, the year before NAFTA took effect, we had a trade surplus with Mexico of about a little less than $2 billion. Last year, after 12 years of NAFTA, our trade deficit with Mexico had mushroomed to $50 billion. So we went from a trade surplus with Mexico to a massive trade deficit with Mexico. Agriculture provides another example. When this administration took office, we had a healthy trade surplus of $15 billion in agriculture. But that surplus has been shrinking every year since then. This year the surplus is expected to fall to just $2 billion, the smallest agricultural trade surplus in 35 years. Yet we keep going down the same path, trumpeting each agreement as a resounding success. If this set of policies is a success, I would hate to see a failure. How can anybody suggest that this is a success? We have gone from being the biggest creditor nation in the world to being the biggest debtor nation in the world, and a key reason are these failed trade policies that over and over have promised the American people that they were going to turn the tide, that they were going to make a difference, that they were going to change the circumstance. And over and over they have failed, not in the world of theory, not in the world of make-believe, but in the real world, in the real world where we can measure the results, and the results have been clear: We mushroomed the trade deficit with this set of trade policies. There is an old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Under that definition, our trade policy is certifiably nuts. We need to stop giving more than we are getting in trade agreements. We need to stop sending American jobs overseas. We need to reduce our trade deficits. And we need a trade strategy that will boost incomes for American workers and farmers. The agreement before us is a continuation of this failed trade policy. We are not getting more than we are giving. When we read the fine print and the study done by the United States International Trade Commission, the nonpartisan U.S. agency in charge of analyzing trade agreements, we discover that this agreement will increase our trade deficit with Oman--will increase our trade deficit with Oman. Why are we entering into more trade agreements that make our trade deficit that is at record levels even worse? What kind of a plan is this? Imports of apparel from Oman will increase by $42 million annually, according to the International Trade Commission. But the ITC says our exports of all products to Oman will only increase by $14 million to $41 million, depending on how responsive our exports are to tariff reductions. So this agreement, as I have said, actually makes our trade deficit with Oman worse, not better. Perhaps it should not be surprising that this agreement would increase our trade deficit. It is produced by an administration that says that outsourcing jobs to other countries is a good thing. It is produced by an administration that does not believe in having other countries improve their labor standards so that American workers don't have to compete with workers who are paid pennies an hour to work in abusive conditions. In fact, this administration has repeatedly rebuffed the efforts of my colleagues to strengthen labor laws in Oman so that they meet international labor standards. I don't think this is a good agreement on its merits, but the process by which it has come to the floor is even worse. The way this bill has been brought to the Senate floor makes a complete mockery of the fast- track process. The fast-track process is now revealed, for anyone who cares to look, as a complete sham. How so? As all Members of this body already know, the Constitution gives the Congress, not the President, the responsibility for regulating foreign trade. Yet in recognition that we cannot have 535 trade negotiators, the Congress has agreed to the fast- track process for considering trade agreements. By the way, I have supported that approach in the Senate Finance Committee. I thought it was the right approach to take, given the commitments that were made to us on how these trade agreements would be negotiated, how these talks would be conducted. But what we have seen in this agreement is a flagrant failure to keep the agreement. In agreeing to fast track, each Senator gives up their most fundamental rights as a Senator. We give up our right to amend. We give up the right to extended debate. In essence, we are giving up our right to protect the interests of our individual States. In return, there is supposed to be detailed consultation with the Congress throughout the process of negotiating trade agreements and developing implementing legislation. In practice, the Finance Committee, of which I am a member, is the focus of this consultation because the Finance Committee has jurisdiction over trade policy. In theory, the committee has extensive input during the process of negotiating trade agreements and developing the legislation to implement it. Theoretically, it does not then need to amend the implementing bill once it is formally introduced. When it comes to developing the implementing bill, this consultation occurs through what is known as a mock markup process. The mock markup is the Finance Committee's opportunity to amend the implementing bill before it is formally introduced, and then cannot be amended under fast-track rules. This informal process has a long history. During consideration of previous trade agreements, the process has lasted months and produced a host of changes. On the Oman agreement, I offered an amendment in the Finance Committee to prevent products made with slave labor or under sweatshop conditions so egregious to be tantamount to slave labor from benefiting from the agreement. I did so because current law has failed to prevent horrific sweat shops in Jordan under the Jordan FTA. I did so because it is not free trade when foreign workers are locked in factories and forced to work 100 hours a week for pennies an hour. That is not free trade. That is not what Members of this body support when they vote in favor of free trade. This story from the New York Times entitled ``An Ugly Side of Free Trade: Sweat Shops in Jordan'' tells the story. The recent study in Jordan found that the use of what amounts to slave labor is precisely what has happened. Workers from Bangladesh, China, and other parts of Southeast Asia were promised much greater pay than they could earn in their home countries. They paid hundreds of dollars to recruiters to get a job in a Jordanian apparel factory. When they got to Jordan, their passports were taken away so they could not leave or change jobs. They were then forced to work 90 to 120 hours a week. They were paid far less than Jordan's minimum wage, and if they complained, they were beaten or jailed. Here is what workers reported, according to the news stories: We used to start at 8 in the morning, and we'd work until midnight, 1, or 2 a.m, 7 days a week. When we were in Bangladesh, they promised us we would receive $120 a month, but in the 5 months I was there in Jordan, I only got 1 month's salary, and that was $50. Mohammed Saiful Islam, a Bangladeshi, said that several times the workers had to work until 4 a.m. and then sleep on the factory floor for a few hours before resuming work at 8 a.m. The workers got so exhausted they became sick. They could hardly stay awake at their machines. Several workers said when they were sick, they did not receive medical care but were instead punished and had their pay docked. Hazrat Ali said he sometimes worked 48 hours in a row--48 hours in a row--and received no pay for 6 months. ``If we asked for money, they hit us,'' he said. Nasima Akhter said the western factory gave its workers a half glass of tea for breakfast and often rice and some rotten chicken for lunch. ``In the 4 months I was in Jordan,'' he said, ``they didn't pay us a single penny. When we asked management for our money and for better food, they were very angry at us. We were put in some sort of jail for 4 days without anything to eat, and then they forced us to go back to Bangladesh.'' Mr. President, these conditions are appalling. We should not be asking American workers to compete with these practices, and we should not be giving special trade benefits to products made under these conditions. In the case of Oman, its labor laws fall far short of the core International Labor Organization standards. Oman, like Jordan, relies heavily on guest workers who are often at a serious disadvantage in trying to assert their rights. Oman has been cited by our own State Department for human trafficking. According to the International Trade Commission, the Oman Free Trade Agreement is expected to greatly increase apparel production and exports to the United States. This means there are significant reasons to be concerned about the same thing that happened in Jordan. There is good reason to be concerned that they might happen in Oman as well. That is why I offered the amendment in the Finance Committee. It simply clarified that goods produced with slave labor or de facto slave labor will not get the benefits of the agreement. The administration raised objections in the committee, but the committee rejected the organization's advice and unanimously adopted my amendment-- unanimously. It did so because the members of the committee believed that products manufactured in these sorts of abusive conditions should not get special benefits under this trade agreement. The Finance Committee spoke loudly and clearly. By an 18-to-nothing recorded vote, the committee disagreed with the administration and said that we needed to add protections in this agreement because, clearly, local labor laws and U.S. laws did not work in the case of Jordan. Yet the bill before us today does not include these protections. It does not include my amendment. This process says that a unanimous vote in the Senate Finance Committee means nothing. It says that adopting an amendment by a unanimous vote is tantamount to rejecting the amendment because the outcome is exactly the same. This makes a complete mockery of the markup system for trade legislation in the Finance Committee. It demonstrates how completely broken this process is. No matter what the Finance Committee says, no matter how strongly it says it, the administration is free to ignore it. Two years ago we debated the Australia Free Trade Agreement and the Finance Committee adopted an amendment I offered at that time. It then went through procedural contortions to drop the amendment. I said at the time: This precedent strikes me as dangerous. It opens the process for abuse, and it reduces the committee's role in crafting trade policy and trade legislation. It may have been expedient, but I believe we will come to regret this precedent. It invites a future President to ignore any recommendations made by the committee on future trade implementing legislation. Mr. President, that is what has happened here today on the Oman Free Trade Agreement. The administration has concluded that it is free to ignore the unanimous recommendation of the Finance Committee. I believe this action has serious consequences for the fast-track process itself. If consultation is without meaning, there is no reason Senators should give up their rights under Senate rules to amend and debate trade agreements. Fast track is up for renewal next year. This egregious abuse of the process is just another nail in the coffin of fast track. It is becoming crystal clear to me that consultation promised in the fast- track process is completely a sham. Let me conclude. The Oman Free Trade Agreement promises few, if any, benefits to the U.S. economy and will make our trade deficit with Oman worse. Moreover, the safeguards that were supposed to protect against imports made under abusive sweatshop conditions and slave labor have been dropped from the bill. Finally, the process that the Finance Committee followed sets a terrible precedent. No Senator should welcome the precedent that the administration can simply ignore the will of the Finance Committee on a particular trade issue very important to the people we represent, secure in the knowledge that a trade implementing bill can be pushed through as part of a larger take-it-or-leave-it package. So I hope my colleagues, even those who generally support free-trade agreements, will think long and hard about this vote. If you believe the Senate and the Finance Committee should not have a voice in trade agreements and trade implementing bills, if you support the use of slave labor and human trafficking and egregious, abusive sweatshops, you should vote for this bill. But if you believe that consultation under fast track should be meaningful, if you believe that the markup process should not be a mockery, and if you oppose slave labor, you should oppose this bill. I urge my colleagues to stand for a new direction in trade policy, to stand for agreements that benefit America and to vote against the Oman Free Trade Agreement. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.