Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place Thursday, April 30, 1998 at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 1253, the Public Land Management Improvement Act of 1997. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Amie Brown or Mark Rey at (202) 224-6170. committee on energy and natural resources

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place Tuesday, May 5, 1998 at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 1253, the Public Land Management Improvement Act of 1997. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Amie Brown or Mark Rey at (202) 224-6170. committee on energy and natural resources

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to announce for the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The hearing will take place Wednesday, May 6, 1998 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on S. 94, the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1997, and H.R. 449, the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act of 1997. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. For further information, please call Amie Brown or Mike Menge at (202) 224-6170. subcommittee on energy research, development, production, and regulation

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I can.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to waive the Congressional Budget Act. I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to waive.

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, last night I offered an amendment called the Surplus Protection Amendment for myself and several other colleagues here in the Senate: Senator Allard, Senator Coverdell, Senator Grams, Senator Helms, Senator Hutchinson, Senator Inhofe, Senator Sessions, and Senator Thomas. My amendment is a fundamentally simple amendment which sets forth very clearly a new approach toward how we handle mandatory spending. Pay-as-you-go budget enforcement rules were established to help put Washington's fiscal house in order. Since fiscal year 1994, the Senate has had a point of order requiring 60 votes to waive against any legislation that would increase the deficit. However, mandatory spending in Washington is Washington's version of a fiscal autopilot. Once enacted, it requires no further congressional action to operate. Rather than a perpetual motion machine, what we have found out with mandatory spending, of course, is that it is a perpetual spending machine. It is, if you will, the Energizer Bunny of budgeting and has kept growing and growing and growing. What all this means--and I think it concerns us all greatly--is an increase in mandatory spending must be paid for with a tax increase. Any tax cut must be paid for by a mandatory spending cut. As anyone can tell, pay-go, in its present form, is very insufficient to control mandatory spending. Mandatory spending has increased dramatically and will continue to increase dramatically over the next few years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 1987 mandatory spending accounted for 47 percent of the Federal budget; in 1997, it accounted for approximately 56 percent; in the year 2008, it will account for 70 percent. Many of us have struggled mightily, as has the chairman of the full committee, to control this. What is happening is that mandatory spending is crowding out, rapidly crowding out, Federal Government spending for schools, for roads, for law enforcement, and for those infrastructure maintenance kinds of programs that most citizens in our country feel are legitimate spending areas for our Government. I have sensed, as many of my colleagues have, that it is time to make a modest adjustment to try to change the process by which we deal with this issue. Current estimates are that the budget will be balanced this year, and the chairman of the full committee and many colleagues on this floor deserve credit for that because it will be, and we are pleased about it, excited about it, and I think the country is also. It is true that we are nearly 4 years ahead of schedule in balancing the budget, and there is a lot to be credited for that--certainly our ability to begin to control spending here, but also our ability to help free this economy and to see it move as successfully as it has, has been another major contributing factor. However, we must look not just to the horizon of spending, as this budget resolution does, but look well beyond it. If we fail to look beyond it, we fail to recognize what is out there in the very, very near future of additional spending as a result of the drive of mandatory entitlement-style spending. To avoid what will happen in the future, I think we have to change the way we work now, because if we don't gradually move into controlling these kinds of spending areas, the step that we would want to take or have to take out there or be forced to take would be uncontrollable-- tax increases, major budget cuts of the kind many might find intolerable. What I am proposing is a modest step. I guess I am a bit like a doctor tonight. I am going to suggest that we first pledge to do no harm. What I am offering tonight does no harm to this budget. My amendment establishes a point of order that requires new mandatory spending programs to be paid for by mandatory spending savings. In other words, it would require 60 votes in the Senate to create a new mandatory spending program that was not funded by an equivalent mandatory spending savings. Tough choices? Not necessarily. But it forces the Congress to do the work that it probably hasn't liked to do over the years, and that is to do oversight to see whether these programs are working or they ought to be adjusted or changed, and if they are changed, is there something better that we might adjust to? If all of the new mandatory spending programs had been paid for, as we had claimed, we would not be facing a fiscal future of exploding spending and exploding deficits. I think anybody who might be listening to what I am saying tonight would be scratching their heads and saying: But, Senator, the budget you are proposing this night is balanced. The budget that the senior Senator from New Mexico, chairman of the Budget Committee, is offering is at balance, and we are talking about the potential of surplus revenues. My point is--and it is a point that nobody disputes--that the current budget path that we are on, which is the right path, is unsustainable. As good as a balanced budget is today, it will not remain a balanced budget for long. The path that we are traveling is no secret that it is unsustainable. It is not. We all know because so many have told us so, including some of our own colleagues here on the floor. Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, who chaired the bipartisan commission on entitlement and tax reforms, has said so. The General Accounting Office has said so. Interestingly enough, the President's budget has said so. And in the most recent report, the Congressional Budget Office said: Currently, more than half of the nearly $1.7 trillion in Federal spending goes for entitlements and other mandatory spending programs. As a share of the total outlay, mandatory spending has jumped from 32 percent in 1962 to 56 percent in 1997. If current policies remain unchanged, such spending will continue to grow faster than other spending, reaching 63 percent of total outlays by the year 2002, or twice the size of discretionary outlays. Under baseline assumptions, continued growth in mandatory outlays would raise their share of the budget to 70 percent by the year 2008. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office wrote that this year's budgetary news should not lull people into complacency and, most assuredly, this budget, the budget resolution we have before us, should not. It is an excellent work and it controls spending. It gets us to a balanced budget. But let me suggest that the retirement of a large baby boomer generation is just over the horizon. If the budgetary pressure from both demographic and health care spending is not relieved by reducing the growth of expenditures or increasing taxes, deficits will mount and seriously erode future economic growth. That report concluded: Current budget policy is unsustainable and attempting to preserve it would severely damage the economy. How serious are the future projections? The Congressional Budget Office concluded that even if the budget were balanced in the year 2002--and that is our goal and we are going to get there--we would have a deficit equal to 34 percent of the gross domestic product by the year 2050 and the public debt would be 283 percent of the gross domestic product. Those are the outward projections of the current path of expenditure. There will be a demographic shift to older populations. This Senator standing before you tonight is part of that group. I am part of that baby boomer crowd. I am going to be one who will be collecting my Social Security and my Medicare. And there is no question that, in 1995, there were 34 million 65-year-old and older citizens. But by the year 2030, there will be twice that number, or 68 million. There will be more elderly. They will live longer and they will be using Federal services more intensively. There will be relatively fewer workers around to put foot all of these bills. If we don't sense that now--and several sense-of-the-Senate resolutions have talked about it today, but my amendment changes the process, forces the issue, causes us to work our way through these kinds of tough decisions. In 1950, there were 7.3 workers for every senior. In 1990, there were 4.8 workers for every one senior. In 2030, there will be 2.8. We all know the reality of that. What I am talking about are the taxpayers paying into the programs that will fund that one individual. It will take all 2.8 of those workers working together at a very large chunk--a 60-plus percent tax rate on their income to fund that one individual, along with all the other Government services and necessary programs that we think are appropriate. So what the demographic shift means is that spending rises very rapidly relative to revenue. Quoting the Congressional Budget Office: Revenues will be squeezed as the number of people working and the economy grows slower. At the same time, outlays for Government programs that aid the elderly will burgeon as the number of people eligible to receive benefits from these programs will shoot up. What the fiscal squeeze means is major new revenues in the form of taxes or enormous deficits. The deficit, last year, was less than 1 percent of GDP. It would be 29.8 percent by the year 2030. The Federal debt was 50 percent of GDP last year; it would be 250 percent by the year 2035. Those are not my numbers; that is the Congressional Budget Office speaking. Those are valid numbers, and anybody who studies the budget curves understands that. This is unprecedented. We have never had a period of time in our country's history where these numbers became reality, because we never have spent that much of the gross domestic product of our country. The deficit has been higher than 10 percent of GDP only briefly, during major wars. And we understand those reasons--when our Nation is at risk and our freedoms are to be secured. The debt exceeded 100 percent only once and that was during World War II. The result would be based on the figures by the year 2035 of economic catastrophes. I don't know of any other way to explain it, any other way to compare it. Those would be the realities. Even to make the burden sustainable, the Congressional Budget Office terminology allowing debt to rise, but keeping constant in relation to the gross domestic product, would have dire consequences. The tax burden would have to increase 20 percent just to continue running deficits and adding debt. Of course, someone will say that the budget agreement solves the problem. No, the budget agreement doesn't solve the problem. It addresses the immediate, it addresses the desire to maintain current spending while mandatory spending within this continues to grow at the rates offered in these projections that brings us to the year 2035. It is certainly an improvement, and I am very laudatory of the chairman of the Budget Committee, and others. It delays the scenario I have just outlined. But according to the CBO, if the budget is balanced through the year 2010--and that is what I believe this Congress strives to do-- it will take less than 15 years to reach the same scenario that I have just described--a huge deficit and a debt of 230 percent of gross domestic product by that time. Quoting the Congressional Budget Office: Regardless of how the budget is balanced in the near term, congressional budget action would still be needed to put the budget on a sustainable path. So what I am proposing is a modest first step. The years 2030 to the year 2050 are not real to us on this floor. We cannot even begin to appreciate the kinds of budget numbers those years will produce. But they are very real to our children or any child that might be in the galleries tonight, because they are the ones who will be paying that huge tax rate out there to fund these kinds of programs that we have already put in progress today. So those are the realities of what we are dealing with. My amendment is a first step in that direction.

Mr. CRAIG. I did.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues tonight to vote with me to waive the Budget Act. It is the first step to reigning in the uncontrolled costs to mandatory spending programs. Your vote tonight merely extends the same treatment to mandatory spending that already exists to annually appropriated discretionary spending; that new programs will offset with savings in existing programs; that mandatory spending is out of control--we all know that. While this is a balanced budget in the outyears of 2020, and 2035, we will be looking at spending up to 200 plus percent of the gross domestic product. The Craig amendment will not affect a single current beneficiary of a single existing program. The Craig amendment will not affect a single person who will qualify to become a beneficiary under current entitlement programs. We need to start with a single, simple, first step, toward reigning in mandatory spending. An aye vote starts us in that direction.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. CRAIG. Let me thank the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee for those remarks. I think they are candid and appropriate to the very essence of my own that, at a time when we have an opportunity to begin to shape control over mandatory spending, we ought to take a look at this time, and we can do that in a unique period in our Nation's history which we all fought to get to. So I thank my colleague for those comments. I ask to retain the balance of my time.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, as I debate this amendment this evening, let me first recognize my colleague from Colorado, who has just brought before the Senate an almost unbelievable proposal. I say that because it is difficult for us to fathom a savings of $3.7 trillion to the American taxpayer and to future generations in this Nation by taking it upon ourselves to pay down the Federal debt over a 30-year period. I am proud to support my colleague from Colorado. It is these kinds of initiatives that I think reflect to the American people that we really are sincere about getting the spending habits of this Government, and the debt we have accumulated over the last good number of years, under control. It is also very reflective of the kind of impact that controlling deficits and debts has on our economy and on our future generations. So, in my offering of the amendment this evening, I am proud the Senator from Colorado has joined me along with Senator Helms, Senator Hutchison, Senator Inhofe, Senator Grams, and Senator Thomas. Mine is a similar measure to once again shape the spending habits of this Congress. My amendment is entitled the ``Surplus Protection Amendment,'' because it does just that; it protects the surplus from irresponsible spending. Current budget policy as we know it, pay-as-you-go--so-called PAYGO-- budget enforcement rules were established to help put Washington's fiscal house in order. Since fiscal year 1994, the Senate has had a point of order requiring 60 votes to waive against any legislation which would result in mandatory spending increases that would increase the deficit. Mandatory spending in Washington's version of a fiscal autopilot. Once enacted, it requires no further congressional action to operate. And we know that. We see it happening right here. It is a part of this budget resolution. Rather than a perpetual motion machine, mandatory spending is a perpetual spending machine. It is the Energizer Bunny of budgeting, and it has kept this budget growing and growing and growing. What does all of this mean? Any increase in mandatory spending must be paid for with a tax increase, and any tax cut must be paid for by a mandatory spending cut. We wonder why taxes are high. We wonder why it is so difficult to cut taxes. Those are the reasons. As anyone can tell, PAYGO--that is what we call this provision in its present form-- isn't sufficient. Mandatory spending has increased dramatically and will continue to increase dramatically as far as any of us can sense it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 1987, mandatory spending accounted for 47 percent of the Federal budget. In 1997, it accounted for 56 percent of the Federal budget, and in the year 2008 under this budget resolution, it will account for about 70 percent of the total Federal budget. Now remember, that is the portion that is on auto pilot; that is the portion that just keeps growing and growing and growing. This means that there has been and will increasingly be a crowding out of what the Federal Government can spend on schools, on roads, on law enforcement, and some of those fundamental things that keep our country operating in a civil way, the kind of things for which historically our Government was envisioned to have a responsibility. I believe because of that it is time that we try to make a change. Current estimates are that the budget will be balanced this year, and the budget chairman, my colleague from New Mexico, the senior Senator who has done such a marvelous job shaping and nurturing and bringing this balanced budget along, is going to see that that happens. We are going to help him, and of that we are proud. As far as we can see out there, we are 4 years ahead of schedule on balancing the budget, and I applaud it. I am proud to have been a part of it, and I think it is wonderful for the American people, for our economy, for job creation and all that that means. The Senator from New Mexico can be rightfully proud of it, and I know he is. However, we must look not just at the horizon of the current budget, but we ought to look beyond it, beyond the 4 years. I know we can't get beyond it in the budget process, but we can get beyond it in the policy. We can get beyond it in how we operate moving toward the future. To avoid what will happen in the future, we must change the way we work now. I am proposing, as a modest first step, that like a good doctor, we first pledge to do no harm, and I believe my modest first step does no harm. My surplus protection amendment establishes a point of order that requires new mandatory spending programs be paid for by mandatory spending savings. Let me repeat that. My amendment establishes a point of order that requires new mandatory spending programs be paid for by mandatory spending savings. In other words, it would require 60 votes in the Senate to create a new mandatory spending program that was not funded by an equivalent mandatory spending savings. If all of the new mandatory spending programs had been paid for, as we had claimed, we would not be facing a fiscal future with exploding spending and exploding deficits in the outyears. Why does this Senate and this country need the Craig amendment? I think the current budget path that the Senator from New Mexico and all of us have worked so hard on is truly unsustainable. As good as a balanced budget today is, without ever more fundamental changes, it will not remain balanced. And it ought to be our goal to at least strive to maintain a balanced budget. That this path is unsustainable is no secret. We all know because of what we have been told by so many. My colleague, Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, who chaired the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform has said that is impossible to do. The General Accounting Office says we cannot sustain a balanced budget under our current scenario, and the President's own budget office says so. In its most recent report, the Congressional Budget Office states: Currently, more than half of the nearly $1.7 trillion in Federal spending goes for entitlements and other mandatory programs (other than net interest) . . . As a share of total outlays, mandatory spending has jumped from 32 percent in 1962 to 56 percent in 1997. If current policies remain unchanged, such spending will continue to grow faster than other spending, reaching 63 percent of total outlays by the year 2002--or twice the size of discretionary outlays. Under baseline assumptions, continued growth in mandatory outlays would raise their share of the budget to 70 percent by the year 2008. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office wrote: [T]his year's budgetary news should not lull people into complacency: the retirement of the large baby-boom generation is just over the horizon-- Just beyond where this budget and all of us can see-- . . .If the budgetary pressure from both demography and health care spending is not relieved by reducing the growth of expenditures or increasing taxes, deficits will mount and seriously erode future economic growth. That is the reality of what we deal with. That report concluded, Mr. President: [C]urrent budget policy is unsustainable, and attempting to preserve it would severely damage the economy. How serious are future projections? The Congressional Budget Office concluded that even if the budget were balanced through 2002--and that is our goal, that is the goal of this budget--if that were true, we would still have a deficit equal to 34 percent of the gross domestic product by the year 2050 and the public debt would be 283 percent of the gross domestic product. There will be a demographic shift to an older population. We all know that. The experts show us that. I am part of that. I am a baby boomer. In 1995, there were 34 million 65-year-old, or older, citizens. In the year 2030, there will be twice that number or 68 million. There will be more elderly. They will be living longer and using Federal services much more intensively. There will be relatively fewer workers around to pay all the bills. Let us remember that it is the current working population that generates the economy that pays the bills. In 1950, there were 7.3 workers for every senior. In 1990, there were 4.8 to 1 senior. In the year 2030, there will be 2.8 workers per every 1 senior. So if that senior is receiving well over $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits and maybe health care benefits, who is paying for it? Those 2.8 workers. Divide it up. Count it out. It is pretty obvious how much has to come out of their wages on a monthly basis to transfer it to that senior's well-being. What the demographic shift means is that spending will rise rapidly relative to revenues. Quoting the Congressional Budget Office: Revenues will be squeezed as the number of people working-- and the economy--grows more slowly. At the same time, outlays for Government programs that aid the elderly will burgeon as the number of people eligible to receive benefits from those programs shoots up. What the fiscal squeeze means, if we don't begin to recognize it now, is enormous deficits. Just at a time when we thought the deficit battle was over, when this Congress has battled through to get to a balanced budget, where we are now, all of a sudden this begins to dramatically shift. We know it will happen because the facts, the figures and the spending programs are already in law. The deficit last year was less than 1 percent of the gross domestic product of our country. In 2035 it would be 29.8 percent. Let me repeat that. The deficit by the year 2035 will be 29.8 percent of the gross domestic product if we don't begin to shape it down and scale it down. The Federal debt was 50 percent of the gross domestic product last year. Now we are talking about debt. It would be 250 percent by the year 2035. These are not my figures. These are the projections of the professionals, the budget professionals--the Congressional Budget Office and others--who look at the long term, who put on the binoculars and look over the horizon to see what our spending programs must yield to benefit the citizens who are living today who will be recipients of those benefits in the year 2035. Those figures I have given you are truly unprecedented. We have never had to deal with them before as a percentage of the gross domestic product of this country. The deficit has been higher than 10 percent of GDP, but only briefly and during a major war. Not during peace times, not during prosperity, but at a time when we were fighting for the safety and the security of this country. The debt exceeded 100 percent only once, briefly during World War II. The results, if we were to continue to do this with these projections I have just given you, would be economic catastrophe. Even to make the burden sustainable, in CBO's terminology, allowing debt to rise but keeping it at a constant to the gross domestic product rate would have dire consequences. In other words, we can't just sustain where we are. We have to begin to back away from where we are and do so over an extended period of time. The tax burden would have to increase 20 percent above where it is today just to continue running deficits and adding debt. Of course, some will say that this budget agreement solves the problem. I wish it did. It solves the problem in the short term, and for that we are proud. For that all of us who vote for it and support it and support the chairman in what he is bringing before us ought to be proud. We have a right to be. But it is within the short term. It is in the foreseeable future. It is certainly an improvement, but it only delays the same scenario that I have just sketched out. According to the CBO, even if the budget is balanced through the year 2010--and that is the Congressional Budget Office speaking--it will take less than 15 years to reach the scenario that I have just projected, and that is a debt that consumes over 250 percent of the gross domestic product of this country. The Congressional Budget Office states: Regardless of how the budget is balanced in the near term, additional budgetary action. . .would still be needed to put the budget on a sustainable path. I am offering, as I said, a modest first step. The year 2030 and the year 2050 are unreal to any of us on this floor. But if there are any young people in the galleries tonight, it is their budget. It will be their Government. It will be their responsibility to run it. And it will be their responsibility to pay for it. The Congressional Budget Office paints such an alarming picture that even the authors cannot imagine it, and they write this: Policymakers would surely take action before the economy was driven to such dire straits. So even those who analyze it are willing to say surely those of us-- that's me, that's you, Mr. President--as policymakers would never allow this to happen. But we are not taking steps to change it. We are dealing in the short term, and we have to deal in the short term first. For that I have already applauded the chairman and the ranking member, but we have to do more. Now is the time for us at least to prepare for such an action. My amendment takes this first modest step that we do no fiscal harm to our children, like a good doctor would. The first frightening thing in the CBO report is that it only addresses existing programs. It makes plain that our children cannot afford them. The existing programs are not now and will not in the future be paid for by our taxes. We certainly cannot responsibly add more. Regrettably, the President's budget adds more: $28 billion in new mandatory spending, $118 billion in total new spending, and $43 billion less in surplus that would be saved for Social Security as the President himself has called for. My amendment will not affect a single beneficiary for a single existing program. My amendment will not even affect anyone who would be qualified in the future for one of these programs. My amendment will not prevent a tax increase in order to reduce deficits. And my amendment will not even prevent a new spending program if a new program is so important that there is a supermajority, 60 votes in this body, to bring about a new spending program. This amendment should appeal to everyone serious about deficits. It will merely make sure that there is an overwhelming demand for a new program before we create it. These are shared goals. By all 66 who supported the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution last year. By even those who opposed it because it included Social Security. For whatever purpose people want to use the surplus, they must first be protected. My amendment not only protects them now but will for the future. Because mandatory spending has historically failed to adhere to estimates, we must offset new mandatory spending with mandatory savings. Good-faith first steps are something that we should all come together on. So I urge my colleagues to take a look into the future to recognize those figures that are very real, that no one disputes, whether it is the President's budget estimators or whether it is our Congressional Budget Office. My amendment is a modest first step to look beyond the horizon of a balanced budget, to recognize that our current spending programs produce deficits and debts in the future that we have not yet devised a method to respond to. And I would suggest, Mr. President, that my amendment would attempt to do just that. With that, I have spoken about this issue all that I would care to tonight. I would be happy to reserve the balance of my time if no one else wishes to speak to this issue this evening. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Before the chairman speaks, let me ask, Mr. President, that Senators Sessions and Coverdell be put on my amendment as original cosponsors. I ask unanimous consent that that be done.

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

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

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will be brief. Others are gathered here to speak on the Hutchison amendment. But let me first of all recognize the Senator from Texas for highlighting and bringing to the surface an issue that is growing in the minds of many of us and we hope will alert the minds of many Americans. We were engaged here for a week on the debate on the expansion of NATO. This Senate more than likely will vote to expand NATO in the course of this session. But as we do, we ought to remember the consequence or the potential impact of that kind of a vote. And I think it is reflected in this drifting policy that we have currently in Bosnia. Peacekeeping operations so designated by our President are important and should be well defined. But I will tell you, the Senator from Texas is right. Our President operates in an unauthorized situation in Bosnia today. The Senator from Oklahoma has brought up the mounting costs. We are able to measure some $8 billion in costs. We know they are much larger than that. The mission appears at date to be endless as it relates to some culmination. Do we have to lose American men and women in Bosnia before our citizens wake up or, more importantly, the Congress begins to move with its constitutional authority to deal directly with this issue? I hope not. The mission in Bosnia is now just what we were promised it would not be. We were promised it would not be an unauthorized, open-ended, nation-building deployment with no withdrawal criteria. It is now all of those things by definition. In 1995, President Clinton vowed that the U.S. troops deployed to Bosnia ``should and will take about one year.'' Three years and nearly $8 billion later, the administration now admits, ``We do not propose a fixed end date for the deployment.'' This unauthorized, open-ended deployment is affecting the readiness of our troops, their morale. Some anecdotal evidence is clearly available if you scratch the surface. Increasingly, Army and Air Force units put off combat training because they are too busy with low-intensity missions, and they need the money elsewhere. We see that great shift of dollars underneath the surface that this administration has been unwilling to admit. And, finally, just in the last month, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee said we will do no more of that. Following this supplemental, the administration must now bring to the Hill as an authorization the appropriate expenditures for the mission in Bosnia. Another anecdotal piece of evidence: A particular Marine expeditionary unit deploys more than 220 days in a 365-day period as if we were at war. That is how we are using our men and women in uniform today. Air Force pilots are fleeing to the commercial sector despite cash incentives from the Air Force of up to $22,000 to reenlist. We all know the kind of investment we have in these pilots--millions of dollars of training and, of course, operational time. There are serious problems that the President is turning a blind eye on so he can continue to deploy troops to humanitarian missions. If we are going to declare humanitarian missions in our national interest, then let us declare them. Let us come to Congress and get the constitutional authorization necessary for those kinds of actions. Let us appropriate the money accordingly instead of slip money and the necessary resources away from certain missions to other missions of the kind that we have talked about. Meanwhile, there are fewer dollars for defense and increasing orders to deploy. Since 1989, manpower has been cut by nearly one-third, the number of missions has quadrupled, and defense spending has been dramatically reduced. This year's defense budget marks the fourteenth consecutive year of decline for defense spending. President Clinton's $270 billion 1999 defense budget represents a real decline of 1.1 percent from current spending levels, and marks a 39-percent drop from the spending levels of the mid-1980's. While defense spending declines, the U.S. military has been asked to do more. Since 1990, U.S. Armed Forces have been used in 36 major foreign missions, compared to 22 between 1980 and 1989. The commitment of United States troops to Bosnia is a commitment of United States blood. The decision to place United States troops in harm's way is a commitment that I do not take lightly. The President not only broke his promise to have our troops home by December 1996, he has also decreased the readiness of our troops by taking scarce dollars from an underfunded defense budget and used them to defend causes that have little to do with our national security interest. I hope my colleagues will support Senator Hutchison's amendment which will allow for an honorable exit of U.S. troops from the region, and turn over the operation to our European allies. That is why it is time to debate this issue. I am proud that the Senator from Texas brings it to us, highlights it, gets it on the national agenda, not just the agenda of Congress and this Senate, but brings it forth for a national agenda. I thank my colleague for doing so. Mr. President, I stand in support of this amendment. Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I thank the chairman.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. CRAIG. Let me ask an instructive question, if I might, Mr. President. On page 8 of the amendment, line 13, you will find the word ``direct.'' If the chairman has no difficulty with the removal of that word, I ask unanimous consent that it be stricken from the amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank Senator McConnell and Senator Hagel for the work they have done on reform issues tied with this most critical IMF funding. I must tell you that at the outset I was not a champion of the idea that we bail out anybody--and I am still not. But clearly what we have done here is say to the IMF and to nations who would benefit from their loans that there needs to be the establishment of some clear-cut rules that impact loaning policies and the economy of those countries. My colleague from Idaho has just spoken to an issue that I think so clearly demonstrates why we need to do what we need to do. Senator Kempthorne and I, for the last several years, have worked in my State with a company that has fought overwhelming odds. They fought a major government of a growing economic power --the Korean Government--and a major industry in Korea. Why? Because of a very cozy relationship between this industry and its government to build an extremely large and excessive capacity to dominate a world market and, therefore, substantially underbid in the market the efficiencies of this company that was leading the world in technology and productivity. We should not allow this nor should we allow the taxpayers of this country to be a part in this bailing out. Well, we are no longer doing that. We are making a major move to create transparency in the relationships that governments and their banking institutions and private industry in those countries have. That is what will strengthen the Asian economy. That is what will disallow the kind of Asian flu that currently exists, when we can work on equal footing, when all are treated relatively equal in a growing global economy. That is what strengthens what the Senate is doing today. And clearly, the amendments that Senator McConnell and Senator Hagel and others have worked on will do just that in bringing about reforms. The United States must have a major voice in this issue. The IMF and our support of it can, in fact, be that voice to bring about uniformity around the world for all citizens of the world, and certainly the citizens of our country, the banking institutions of our country, but most importantly, the private industry of our country which without Government support and without Government subsidy must compete in a world market where that subsidy and support exists. So I thank my colleagues for working jointly together to accomplish what I think these amendments, included with the IMF funding, will accomplish.

Mr. CRAIG. That is correct; to read, ``have resulted in support to.''

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I am filing an amendment related to the resolution of ratification for the proposed expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Last May, President Clinton publicly embraced the idea of a ``new NATO'' mission. It is my concern that the President's vision of a new NATO will signal the end of NATO as a defensive alliance and begin its role as a regional peacekeeping organization. The President declared: We are building a new NATO. It will remain the strongest alliance in history, with smaller, more flexible forces, prepared to provide for our defense, but also trained for peacekeeping. It will work closely with other nations that share our hopes and values and interests through the Partnership for Peace. It will be an alliance directed no longer against a hostile bloc of nations, but instead designed to advance the security of every democracy in Europe--NATO's old members, new members, and non-members alike. I cannot support the President's call for a new NATO to be the de facto regional peacekeeper in Europe. President Clinton's peacekeeping operation in Bosnia has been going on for more than two years, without authorization from Congress, with costs mounting far above every estimate, and with mission end-dates repeatedly broken. The mission in Bosnia is now just what we were promised it would not be: an unauthorized, open-ended, no end-date, nation building deployment with no withdrawal criteria. In 1995, President Clinton vowed that the U.S. troop deployed to Bosnia ``should and will take about one year.'' Three years, and $8 billion later, the Administration now admits ``we do not propose a fixed end date for the deployment.'' Will the expansion of NATO be a green light for other unauthorized, open-ended, and cost missions for the U.S.? Today I am filing an amendment which provides that before the President can deposit the instruments of ratification for NATO expansion he must receive authorization for the Bosnia mission. Let me be clear on one point: this is NOT a ``war power'' amendment. This does not say he cannot continue the deployment in Bosnia without authorization, nor does it cut off funds for that mission, nor does it set an end-date for that mission, nor does it establish withdrawal criteria. It does, however, require the President to cooperate with Congress to set reasonable parameters for that mission before he gets a blank check--like a ``new NATO ''--for more just out of area, out of Article 5 missions. Membership in NATO is a commitment of U.S. blood. This is a responsibility that I do not take lightly. For the sake of our men and women serving in this dangerous and volatile region, the mission in Bosnia ought to be authorized by Congress.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today I am filing an amendment to the resolution of ratification for the proposed expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As the Senate begins debate about expansion, I think it is fair to say that most Senators--whether they favor, oppose, or are undecided about the proposed treaty revision--can all agree that the issue of cost to the U.S. taxpayer is of great concern. Unfortunately, these costs are yet to be determined. The Administration claims the NATO expansion bill for the U.S. will be approximately $1 billion. On the other hand, the Congressional Budget Office contends it will cost taxpayers $125 billion. Given the enormous discrepancy between the estimates, it only makes sense that we know what actual costs will be before we make an irrevocable decision to enlarge NATO. I would like to commend the Foreign Relations Committee for their fine work in crafting language detailing American cost obligations to NATO. However, there seems to be one problem: all of this cost related information will be made available to Congress only after the Senate's advice and consent to expansion is final and irrevocable. That means if the information is not satisfactory to the Senate, we will have no recourse. The amendment I am filing simply provides that the Congress has the fullest possible information as to what we will pay for, before we commit to the United States to this tremendous political and economic decision by requiring a Senate vote of approval related to cost, benefits, burden-sharing, and military implications of NATO enlargement prior to the President depositing the instruments of ratification.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. president, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate that the hearing scheduled before the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Land Management will also include S. 1807, a bill to transfer administrative jurisdiction over certain parcels of public domain land in Lake County, OR, to facilitate management of the land, and for other purposes. The hearing will take place Wednesday, March 25, 1998, at 2:00 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Those who wish to submit written statements should write to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Texas. She is always very thoughtful on these issues and spends the time it must take to understand them. I appreciate, not only her concern, but what she is offering as a constructive approach toward what might otherwise be a very frustrating effort to expand NATO without, certainly, the consideration of the impact of that expansion. Mr. President, this morning I come to the floor not to speak about NATO, so let me, at this time, ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak up to 40 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I would like to bring one other issue before the Senate today. I am talking about ``National Safe Place Week.'' I rise today to thank my colleagues for passing Senate Resolution 96, which designates this week, March 15 through 21, as ``National Safe Place Week.'' I am truly pleased that the Senate agrees that Project Safe Place is a valuable community resource which deserves our attention and our recognition. Project Safe Place is a unique union of community agencies and the private sector that promotes the well-being of our Nation's troubled youth. It is an innovative program of nonresidential community locations where youth who are at risk or in crisis situations can obtain help quickly and find shelter if necessary. The mission of Project Safe Place is to cultivate community involvement, to combat adolescent crime and substance addiction, and to help youth who are abused, threatened, lost or scared, or in an unsafe situation. Since its creation in 1983, in Louisville, KY, the scope of Project Safe Place has spread to include more than 8,000 Safe Places nationwide, and more than 27,000 young people have sought help at these locations. We all agree that our Nation's youth are our most valuable resource. In our largest cities and our smallest towns, this resource is threatened every minute of every day and every week. The threats are truly enormous. Every 4 minutes in this country, a youth is arrested for alcohol-related crimes. Every 7 minutes, a youth is arrested for drug-related crimes. And every 2 hours, a youth's life is snuffed out prematurely, making homicide the No. 2 killer of 10- to 14-year-olds, usually with alcohol and drug abuse as the major factor in the violent act that took the life. Nearly half of all adolescent murders and between 20 and 35 percent of adolescent suicides are directly linked to alcohol and to drug abuse. Despite all of our efforts, alcohol and drug abuse among teenagers continues to rise. Child abuse and neglect also threaten our children. In 1995, Child Protection Service agencies reported that more than 1 million children were abused and neglected, and in the same year almost 1,000 children were known to have died as a result of abuse or neglect. Just like drug abuse, incidents of child abuse are increasing. Between 1986 and 1993-- a span of only 7 years--substantiated reports rose by 67 percent. Another threat to the safety of our children is the temptation to run away from these problems rather than facing them head on. Most runaway youth are not running to some thing; rather, they are running away from family problems, drug problems, or physical or sexual abuse. Unfortunately, runaways find out quickly that their solution can only bring about more problems for themselves. In order to survive on the streets, runaways typically turn to ``survival sex,'' theft, panhandling, or drugs--either selling them to pay for food and shelter or taking them to relieve their pain. All this paints a pretty dark picture for our Nation's youth. But there is hope. For many troubled teens--over 27,000 of them in fact-- this Safe Place sign that you see here serves as a beacon--a beacon of hope, a beacon of opportunity, a beacon which points to the first step in a long and sometimes difficult but necessary road to salvation. Here is how it works. Here is what the sign means. Here is what is behind the sign. Say you are a teenager with a major problem. You see the Safe Place sign outside of your local fast-food restaurant and you decide that you need help with whatever you are facing. You walk in. It is busy. But as soon as you mention Safe Place and ask an employee for help, you are taken into the back, where there is a quiet and comfortable situation and, most important, away from any of your friends who might happen to be in the restaurant or wonder what you are doing there. You do not know it, but the employee you have talked to is already on the phone to the local youth shelter. The shelter calls back to tell the employee the name of the counselor who is already on his or her way, and within minutes the volunteer, who is the same gender as you, will arrive to talk with you and transport you back to a shelter if you want counseling and a safe place to stay. If you decide to go to the shelter, counselors will be there to help you resolve your problems. Also, your family will be notified so that they know you are all right. Little did you know that the first step of walking up to the counter and asking for help would open up to you all the local community service organizations that you have in your area. Little did you know that it would be that easy to gain help for yourself when you need it. It is almost as easy to become a Safe Place site. Now, I took that first step last year when I asked my regional office in Pocatello, ID, to consider becoming a Safe Place location. After my employees passed a background check, they attended a short training session to become familiar with the do's and the don'ts and the what if's of greeting those who might seek help. Remember, all an employee in a Safe Place location needs to do is act as the middle person between the victim and the local Safe Place office. The Safe Place volunteers and the local youth shelter take care of everything else. As Safe Place grows in my home State of Idaho, I will ask that all of my regional offices might join the program as well. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to do the same in their regional offices. This morning--this very day--I have delivered information about Safe Place programs to each of my colleagues' offices, and I urge you to call the national Safe Place office to find out how you can join in this program. I also urge every business owner in the Nation or anyone who might be observing C-SPAN to talk about it and to encourage business owners to get involved. This is such an effortless way to give something back to the community you live in. And community is what it is all about--the businesses in a community working together with Safe Place volunteers, and these private volunteers working together with community organizations and agencies. Project Safe Place brings together the best of every community into a long chain of people and resources working together to save young lives. This chain is growing. Since I introduced the ``National Safe Place'' bill itself back in June of last year, 700 sites have been added to the Safe Place family. But this is only the beginning. The goal is to have a Safe Place in every State before the end of the millennium. That is not very far away. But I know that just as America's ingenuity created these Safe Place for kids, American industry and hard work is a guarantee that every troubled teen, every runaway and every abused or neglected child will know there is a Safe Place right in their own neighborhood if they need it. Mr. President, I thank you. I yield back the balance of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.