Tom Daschle

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me say that last week we began with about 130 amendments which Senators on our side had hoped to offer. I indicated to the majority leader that it would be my hope we could bring that list down to under 30, and we checked the record again and that list was reduced to 25 amendments, as I had hoped we could reduce them to. And so I think to the degree it was possible we accommodated both in time as well as in number the desire on the part of the leadership on both sides to successfully complete the deliberations on the budget resolution Friday night. With regard to the conference report, again, we faced a number of motions to instruct; that it was my hope we could reduce in number from perhaps as many as 20 to less than a handful. I think we have agreed as a result of the discussion in conference that it will not be 20; it will not be 12; it will not be anything more than 4--4 very specific targeted motions that we would be willing to agree, timewise, to not take the 10 hours. I wish to accommodate the schedule of the distinguished majority leader, and I hope we could work through this in a way that would accommodate both of our needs. Let me emphasize, our colleagues feel very strongly about a number of the issues that we raised through amendments last week. We feel very strongly this week. We will be watching with the great interest of everybody in the conference what develops in that conference, and we think it is very important to articulate in as strong a way as we can what our concerns are. We have a number of concerns that will not be addressed in these motions to instruct. There were a number of Senators who said they wanted the opportunity to move an amendment or a motion, and we will do that in other ways--in the form of letters, in the form of conversations with our colleagues--but we will limit our motions to instruct to four. So it is an effort to balance, Mr. President, our degree of concern with our interest in working through this effort procedurally in an effort to accommodate all Senators. That is what we will do whenever the distinguished leader decides to bring up the conferees motion, and we will be prepared to work with him in that regard. I yield the floor. Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me commend the distinguished Senator from Nebraska for the remarkable job that he did in representing our side during these very difficult days. He has worked with all of the Members of this caucus, as he always does, with professionalism and leadership. I personally appreciate the contribution that he has made, along with his excellent staff. They have done all the work on this bill from our side in representing us and they have done an outstanding job. I applaud them as well. Mr. President, the tragedy underlying the passage of this reconciliation bill is that it fails completely to reflect political consensus. We all agree on the need to balance the budget, but there has been no effort by the Republican majority to address Democrats' concerns and the very real concerns of the American people. We have stated time and again that we want to work with the majority to produce a bipartisan solution to the deficit problem. The President of the United States has held out his hand in an offer of cooperation. Instead of cooperation, we have been cut out, shut out, and our concerns have been ignored. Along with us, the American people have been shut out of this process, and their values have been trampled upon. As people are realizing how they and their families will be affected in a real way, they are increasingly rejecting the Republican budget plan. The plain fact is that Democrats have a clear and successful track record of reducing the deficit. In 1993, we achieved $600 billion in deficit reduction without a single Republican vote. The result is that the deficit, as a percentage of the economy, is this year at the lowest level since 1979. The deficit has fallen for 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman was President. In fact, the 1993 economic plan is working better than even the Administration or the Congressional Budget Office had projected. That is because the economy has performed better than projected since 1993 due to the success of the President's economic plan. While we seek to balance the budget, we also understand that there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. The budget plan before us is the wrong way. Unlike the Republicans in 1993, this year we offered to cooperate in good faith so long as our basic concerns were on table. We said $270 billion in Medicare cuts to pay for $245 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy was unacceptable. And we asked that the priorities in this budget be changed to protect children, the elderly, those with disabilities, working families, rural America, and the environment. This debate is about people: seniors who need Medicare, young people who need an education, families who need a fair income-- and greater stability, and rural people who want to preserve their way of life. That is why we are here. It is what unites us as Democrats. It is why we have fought so hard and so long against the harmful provisions of this bill. None of our concerns was addressed. The majority did not budge one inch on any of the extreme proposals they made. As a result, this budget is ``DBA''--dead before arrival--and is certain to get the veto it so richly deserves. This is a ``reconciliation'' bill in name only. Certainly there was no reconciliation with Democrats. There were no hearings, no consultation with Democrats, and virtually no time for debate. Senate Republicans held a private markup in the Finance Committee, locking out committee Democrats for the first time in history. The congressional majority has exercised rigid party discipline, forcing every one of its members to march in lockstep even if they disagree with the fundamental direction of their leadership. The Senate received its first look at this package only one week ago. It was not printed and available to all Senators and the public until this Tuesday. The result is a 2000-page abomination we are only now beginning to understand. This far-reaching, extreme package is being rushed through Congress before public opposition can bring it down. The authors of this budget have not built a consensus with anyone, except themselves. They claim a mandate for their radical course--as if wishing would make it so. This budget does not reflect the hopes and needs of most Americans. Nor have we reconciled our problems with the deficit. Under this budget, in the year 2002, there will still be a deficit of over $100 billion, and we will use Social Security money to pay it off. Maybe that is why 80 percent of the American people, in a recent poll, said they believe this bill will not balance the budget. They know it, and we know it. The only reconciliation that has taken place has occurred in the Speaker's office--in backroom deals between the right and the far right--and between the Republican leadership and a line of special interests that just keeps getting longer. And longer. Mr. President, our country deserves better than this. This is not what the American people voted for last year. The American people did not vote last year to cut $457 billion in health benefits to give tax handouts to those who do not need them. They did not vote last year to cut education to millions of students so that some of America's largest and wealthiest corporations could pay no taxes at all. The American people did not vote last year to raise taxes on American families making less than $30,000 so the richest Americans could pay $6,000 less. Nor did they vote not to have a farm bill for the first time in 80 years. They did not vote for this budget plan then, and they do not support it now. Mr. President, this bill is not a product of the reconciliation process. It is an abuse of the reconciliation process. What is in this monstrous package? It contains the largest health care cuts in American history. Two hundred seventy billion dollars in Medicare cuts alone. The mask is off those who have argued that their intention is to ``save'' Medicare. Their real purpose is to dismantle Medicare. Three days ago the Republican leaders of both Houses of Congress made clear their real intentions. One stated that creating Medicare was a mistake in the first place, and the other said that Medicare as we know it will ``wither on the vine.'' Their recent [[Page S 16099]] statements help explain why they insist on cutting $270 billion from Medicare, when only $89 billion is needed to restore its solvency for the next eleven years. As a first step toward abolishing the program, they are cutting Medicare three times more than necessary to pay for their ``crown jewel'' offering to the special interests: $245 billion in tax breaks. Mr. President, this attack on Medicare reveals how far out of touch with the American people the proponents of this bill have become. Medicare is one of the greatest success stories of our time. The American people know that, even if some of their politicians have forgotten. In 1965, before the creation of Medicare, 46 percent of seniors had health care coverage. Today, 99 percent are covered. Does the majority want to bring us back to the ``good old days'' when only half of our senior citizens had health insurance? It would be heartless to go back to the age when our older citizens suffered needlessly from disease and even premature death because they had no access to health care. The consequences of these Medicare cuts will be severe. Hospitals will be forced to close. Couples will be forced to pay an average of $2,800 more for health care by 2002. Clearly, Medicare is being used as a piggy bank to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, with no regard to the damage to the health care of senior citizens in America. This bill dismantles Medicaid. At a time when we have unacceptably high numbers of Americans with no health care coverage, it would deprive an additional 36 million Americans guaranteed health care coverage under Medicaid. A recent study by the Consumers Union and the National Health Law Program estimates that 12 million Americans--half of them children-- would lose their health care coverage under this proposal. Surely the majority doesn't think the American people voted last year to increase the number of uninsured. Older Americans and their families also have reason to fear the destruction of Medicaid. One-half of the nursing home patients in the U.S., including over 1 million senior citizens, rely on Medicaid. What will happen to the quality of their care under this bill? What justifies putting the spouses and adult children of nursing home residents at risk of bankruptcy? That is not what the American people voted for last year either. The majority is telling these people and their families, ``You're on your own.'' Republicans say, ``Don't worry about those details. Think about the tax relief in this bill.'' But there is no tax relief in this bill for average Americans. There are only new tax burdens for them. Despite the Republican promises, the typical family in this country earning less than $30,000 will see their taxes increase under this bill. And half of all families in the U.S. have incomes below $30,000. This bill represents the biggest transfer of income from the lower and middle income levels to the wealthy that we have ever seen. In one fell swoop, it destroys 30 years of investment in our people. Most of the pain in the budget--affecting seniors, children, working families, rural America, and the environment--is driven by the insatiable greed on the part of the congressional majority for tax breaks that benefit the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. The richest one percent of Americans--those earning over $350,000--will get an average tax break of $5,626. Many large corporations will pay no taxes at all under this bill. Not only do these generous handouts to the wealthy require huge cuts in education and health care and so many other areas, they are fiscally irresponsible. The tax breaks will add $293 billion to the debt over the next seven years--$293 billion in added debt that our children will have to pay off! The costs of those tax breaks will explode after the 7 years covered in this budget. To those who profess that this effort is intended to save our children from the crushing burden of our debts, I would ask them to explain this hypocrisy. For all the talk we have heard about how this plan is intended to benefit children and future generations, the actual provisions of the bill reveal a different story. The bill launches an assault on education in this country. By cutting billions for student loans, this bill closes the door on a college education for many Americans. Other children's priorities are savaged as well. By 2002, up to 6.5 million children could lose health coverage. Food stamps will be cut. Foster care payments will be capped, threatening to throw us back to dependence on the orphanages the Speaker proposes. Countless children threatened with abuse may never benefit from investigations of their situations. This bill plays a shell game with the $3 billion in child care funds that were included in the Senate welfare reform bill. It cuts Title XX, the states' primary source of child care money, by $3.3 billion. It is ``Home Alone II'' for children whose families are trying to work their way off welfare. Another giant item stuffed into this package is the 1995 farm bill, which drops a bomb on rural America. For the first time in history, the farm bill was included in the reconciliation package. There were no hearings on the Republican plan. The bill cuts farm programs by 25 percent. Net farm income will decline under this measure by $9 billion. This devastating blow comes on top of the other hits on rural America in the bill --ravaging rural health care and closing hospitals, tax increases on working families, elimination of rural educational opportunities. Taken as a whole, this package amounts to a raid on rural America that will devastate our rural way of life--perhaps forevermore. Have we learned nothing from our recent history? This bill asks us to take another riverboat gamble, like the one Ronald Reagan took when he called for huge tax breaks for the wealthy in 1981. We all lost that gamble when deficits soared in the 1980s as a result. In fact, if it were not for the cost of interest payments on the debt built up under Presidents Reagan and Bush, the budget would be balanced today. No wonder the American people fear another roll of the dice. According to a recent poll, the public rejects the tax break proposals in this budget by a margin of nearly 3 to 1. The American people have learned a costly lesson from Reagan's riverboat gamble. Eighty-one percent said they believed that even if the Republican plan is enacted, the budget will not be balanced by 2002. We are saying no to another riverboat gamble, and we will do so with one voice. Unlike 1981, every Senate Democrat will oppose this budget. This budget is fundamentally flawed. It does not strengthen America. It weakens America. It does not bring us together, it moves us apart. The ``haves'' will have more, and the rest will have less. Worst of all, this budget does not reflect the priorities of the American people. The American people reject the idea of cutting taxes before the budget is balanced. They disapprove of the Republican Medicare plan. As the American people are learning whose side this budget is on, they are demanding we change it. Senate Democrats offered a series of amendments to correct these gross inequities in this bill, both in committee and on the Senate floor. Virtually every one was defeated on a party-line vote. As a result, the destructive, dangerous excesses contained in this bill will not receive a single vote from our side of the aisle. This bill deserves a veto by the President of the United States--and vetoed it will be. This budget is mean and extreme. It rewards the rich and ravages the rest. It punishes families who need our help most to pay for tax breaks for those who need handouts the least. It is the wrong plan, for the wrong reason, done the wrong way, to help the wrong people.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, just a point of inquiry. If this material would be incorporated in the conference report, when it comes back would it be subject to the same point of order?

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I voted for the welfare bill, as well. Let me say I do not hold the same view as the distinguished Senator from New York about the consequences of the bill that we passed here in the Senate. Obviously, I would like to see a lot more done in welfare reform, and ultimately I think we will do a lot more. If we feel strongly about welfare, it is important enough to separate out from reconciliation. It ought to stand on its own. It ought to be considered policy for policy sake, not a source of revenue, referred out of current welfare programs into other things. That is what we are doing in the reconciliation package. That is why I support the point of order raised by the ranking member, the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. DASCHLE. We have no objection.

Mr. DASCHLE. Half-hour on each side.

Mr. DASCHLE. I have consulted with a number of our colleagues, and I think that a half-hour on either side might accommodate the needs of Senators interested in participating in debate on the Roth amendment if that would accord with the majority leader.

Mr. DASCHLE. Did I hear the majority leader say if we can expedite this and come to final passage tonight on the bill, we would not be in session on Monday. Is that correct?

Mr. DASCHLE. Would the majority leader yield?

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I have consulted with colleagues, and I think we are down to five amendments. One of those may fall. We are within reach now. That is the total on our side.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I have no objection to that approach. I think all Senators need to have the opportunity to express themselves, whether it is a block of time or one person does it or individual blocks of time. I know the distinguished Senator from West Virginia is very concerned that everybody have a complete appreciation of what it is that these amendments include. In this case, all of the amendments deal with Medicaid. They are interrelated and in some cases the original amendments were overlapping. So it is our view it expedites not only the process but the issue, in order to allow us to bring them up together. So I think all concerns are served in this particular amendment. I hope we can support it.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I wish to express my support for this amendment, which will help ensure continued protection for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The issue of whether or not to allow oil drilling along the Arctic coastal plain has been lobbied heavily for years. I have listened carefully to the various arguments made by my colleagues, by representatives of the oil industry, by a delegation of Gwich'in people who inhabit the area in question, by members of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation who are veterans of North Slope oil production, by environmentalists, and by the public at large. I appreciate the strong feelings this debate evokes. The fate of ANWR is far reaching. It involves national and State economics, environmental and social values, and the relationship between the Federal and State government. Anyone who has visited Alaska knows that the stakes for Alaskans are high. The State and its people depend heavily on oil revenues, and its leaders are sensitive to, and have experience with, the potential environmental tradeoffs of oil development. This issue has come before Congress in the past. I have consistently opposed opening ANWR during those debates. I remain strongly opposed to disrupting this unique and fragile habitat for the purposes of oil drilling today. Most opponents of opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge cite the potential environmental tradeoffs of drilling in this fragile ecosystem. I appreciate and share that concern. As I have said in the past, I take seriously the national obligation embodied in the Alaska lands bill to ensure that these remote 19 million acres continue to achieve their purpose of providing a refuge for wildlife. There is no other place in America or in the world where caribou, polar bears, and wild geese flourish as they do in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And, as we know from both history and recent scientific study, once one component of an ecosystem is adversely affected, then the entire system can become effected by a chain reaction. Declining populations of polar bears, birds, and caribou, and the animals and Native American communities that depend on them, is a valid fear. A recent article in the Anchorage Daily News reports that the Central Arctic caribou herd that inhabits Prudhoe Bay has suffered a 23 percent reduction from 23,400 to 18,000 animals in just the last 3 years. Although it is difficult to determine the exact reason for this marked decline, the part of the herd that ranges near the oil drilling activity has experienced almost all of the losses. Nonetheless, the debate over the future of ANWR should not be framed as it all too often is as a face off between elitist environmentalists and rapacious developers. It is also a debate about national energy policy and national values. It is particularly hard to justify opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, with all the industrial activity and associated disruption that would involve, when the probability of finding oil is so low. Moreover, even if oil were to be found, the potential oil reserve in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would at most sustain our country's basic petroleum needs for a mere 6 months. Clearly, then, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not the answer to achieving independence from foreign oil supplies. Meanwhile, this perpetuation of our national love affair with hydrocarbon fuel has other downsides. Our profligate energy consumption cripples our international competitiveness, pollutes our air and beaches, and increases the trade deficit. We must take serious steps to make ourselves more energy-efficient and to conserve energy whenever and wherever possible. And we should better develop our domestic renewable energy supplies like ethanol and renewable methanol. Mr. President, last week, representatives of the petroleum, natural gas, automotive, ethanol, and engineering industries met in Washington at the World Conference on Transportation Fuel Quality to review the progress made in just the past few years with reformulating gasoline as required in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Today, approximately one-third of all the gasoline sold in the United States [[Page S 15996]] contains noncrude oil-derived additives called oxygenates, primarily ethers and ethanol from grain. EPA has called the reformulated gasoline program the most significant automobile pollution reduction advance since the removal of lead. The pollution reductions achieved this year amount to the equivalent of taking 8 million cars off the road. What is little recognized, however, is that the reformulated gasoline program is also the most significant crude oil reduction program ever instituted. The Congressional Research Service has concluded that it could reduce U.S. oil requirements by 500,000 barrels or more per day, and that it represents the most significant means of reducing oil imports in the near to mid-term of any other approach. Even more exciting is the fact that if the proposal to have a ``49 State Fuel''--in other words, a nationwide RFG standard--is adopted, U.S. oil requirements could be reduced by over 1.5 million barrels per day, or more than 20 percent of our daily gasoline demand. At an average $20 per barrel, this would mean that nearly $11 billion annually would remain in the United States rather than be exported to foreign oil producers. This alternative far overshadows the benefits to the Nation of opening ANWR. It also carries with it the additional advantage of more diversified job creation, and the ongoing benefits of stimulating renewable fuel technologies that cannot be depleted as is the case with finite oil fields. I believe the case for continuing to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling is strong. Drilling would risk the ecological health of the coastal plain for a relatively small and speculative supply. And, from a national energy policy standpoint, it makes more sense to look to energy conservation and the development of renewable fuels than to seek new reserves of fossil fuels in the Arctic coastal plain. For most Americans, opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is more profound than the mere sum of these concrete arguments might suggest. Our country has a revered tradition of protecting its natural heritage. Through our system of State parks, national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges, Americans have been in the forefront of conservation, articulating and enforcing a land ethic that embodies the best impulses of our Nation. We have always had a clear sense in this country of the natural heritage that makes our lives so special and worthwhile, and we have been willing to take tangible steps to protect that heritage. Robert Kennedy, in a speech delivered only 3 months before his death, spoke at the University of Kansas on the measure of America's worth. He noted that too often we pay attention only to the bottom line and judge policies only on their contribution to the gross national product, and that in using that simple measure, we fail to account for that which makes life in America so special. He stated that--and I quote: [The] GNP counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. . . . It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion, nor our devotion to country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. For most Americans, who will never have a chance to see the Arctic coastal plain and witness the thundering herds of caribou in their annual migration, or watch a wolf run down a ptarmigan, the simple knowledge that this special and unique place will remain unspoiled by the heavy footprint of industry will make life richer and more worthwhile. It will also encourage us to invest in domestic alternatives, such as more efficient end-use technologies and new strategies for energy conservation--alternatives that have positive environmental effects and which make us more economically competitive in the international marketplace. The route toward energy independence lies down the road of energy conservation and efficiency, and I believe, greater use of domestic renewable fuels. It does not lie down the road of more consumption of fossil fuels. This vote is as much a test of our common sense as it is of our common character. We are setting national priorities in this budget, priorities that should reflect our deepest and most closely held values. If we allow this wild and unspoiled refuge to become yet another monument to avarice and addiction to fossil fuels, then we will have lost more than a single wildlife refuge in a remote land; we will have sacrificed part of our character, that intangible part of each of us that values the gentle and respectful treatment of our natural heritage and from which we derive a profound sense of national worth. If we set this precedent, if we vote to open this remote refuge to oil drilling, then we will have defeated the better part of ourselves. Collectively, we will have failed this important test of national character. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and vote to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, using my leader time, let me emphasize we have asked all Senators to turn their lists in, their amendment in--we hope it is not a list, but an amendment--by noon. The amendment ought to be filed by noon, and it ought to be turned in to the managers by noon. That is the only way I am going to put it on a list. If I do not have that amendment by noon, it is not on the Democratic list. So it is very important everybody cooperate to the extent that we have 40 minutes, now, to file the list and compare our lists so we can get on with our work.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, using my leader time----

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I want to confirm what the ranking member and the chairman have indicated. The majority leader and I have talked about how we are going to proceed now with the third tier. I urge Senators to accommodate our two ranking members. They have been working with us very carefully and closely. I think the only way we can accommodate the schedule for the balance of the day is to do what the chairman has suggested. We have talked to all of our colleagues on this side of the aisle. We know approximately what the list is. We do not have the text of any of the amendments. They need to be filed within the next hour. And then the list needs to be provided to the ranking member so we can begin to put the list in order. So I urge everyone's cooperation to allow us to get through this list as expeditiously as we can but also as knowledgeably as we can. No one on the Republican side has seen the text of any of our amendments. We have not seen the text of their amendments. The only opportunity for us to look at the text is while we are voting on additional amendments. So it is important that everyone come forth and bring their amendments to the desk, and allow us to list them officially. Then we will begin considering them. I thank the Chair. Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. That is right.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, just one clarification, I ask the majority leader. I would expect that we will vote en bloc on the second tier. I wonder if it would not be appropriate to have a minute, 30 seconds on a side, just to remind everybody what that series of second- tier votes are prior to the time we vote. We may have done that. I do not have the agreement in front of me. We are going to do that on the first tier with 2 minutes on a side. We vote on the second tier and have 30 seconds on a side just to be sure people understand.

Mr. DASCHLE. I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Hawaii off the bill.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today my colleagues and I offer an amendment to the budget reconciliation bill that reaffirms our commitment to rural America. This budget before the Senate today will devastate the hard-working farmers and ranchers that provide our Nation's food supply. It will also decimate the main street businesses, schools and hospitals that make up our rural communities. The agricultural cuts in this budget are too extreme, are unfair to rural America and should be restored. Our amendment proposes to do just that. No one should be fooled. The agricultural provisions in this bill represent the bulk of the farm bill. Buried in this 2,000-page document is the heart and soul of agricultural policy for the next 7 years. There were no hearings during the development of this bill and no opportunity for Democratic input. Now we do not even get a vote on farm policy. It is all rolled up in this enormous budget bill. Everyone knows this is not the way farm bills have been developed in the past. This farm bill rips the safety net out from under our hard-working producers by cutting $13.4 billion from farm programs over the next 7 years. In South Dakota that translates into a loss of $460 million for our producers. Nationwide net farm income is projected to decrease over $9 billion over the next 7 years. Clearly family farmers who are already disappearing at the rate of 600 per week cannot tolerate this level of income reduction. The pain of this budget does not stop at the farm gate. It bleeds into our rural hospitals. Ten to fifteen rural hospitals are projected to close in South Dakota if the proposed Medicaid/Medicare cuts are enacted. Some people already have to drive over 50 miles to reach a hospital or doctor. After this budget goes into effect they will have to drive even farther. Add to that the fact that over 2 million rural residents nationwide will be denied Medicaid, and anyone can see that this budget is a recipe for a health care disaster in rural America. The sad truth of this situation is that it does not have to be this way. This severe level of cuts was required only to finance the lavish tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans who do not need them. This amendment my colleagues and I are offering provides the opportunity to send the agricultural provisions back to the drawing board and to do it right. Rural Americans deserve better than what they are getting under this budget. Farmers and ranchers are committed to balancing the budget as long as it is done fairly. Reducing farm income to pay for tax breaks is not remotely fair. No one is asking for a handout--only as fair shake. This budget gives rural America, the very heartland of the Nation, little more than a cold shoulder. We can and should do better than that.

Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the majority leader for that explanation, and that is in keeping with our agreement. We have three tiers of amendments. We have just completed our work on the first tier, for which now there will be votes, without second-degree amendments. Once those votes have been completed, we will go to the second tier, for which there will be debate of up to 10 minutes on either side. I should say 10 minutes total for 10 amendments on the Democratic side and 10 amendments on the Republican side. That will then expire all of the time. We will then go to the third tier of amendments for which there will be no time, and we will encourage Senators to write the purpose of their amendments clearly enough to allow the clerk to read the purpose and give us the opportunity then to vote. We would also expect that on occasion the managers might find the need to explain a particular amendment. But there would be no time for discussion of that third tier set of amendments. I think this is a very good agreement. It is what we had hoped to achieve now for some time. I appreciate the cooperation of all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I think this will allow us to accommodate our work and accommodate many of the priorities we have been talking about now for several hours.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I would ask that the quorum call not be taken from either side as it relates to the time available on the bill, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DASCHLE

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I hope the Senator from Florida will not object. There are three provisions in this unanimous consent request that specifically assist Democratic Senators. First, we want to protect the Senator from Maryland to offer her motion to instruct. Second, we want to give Democratic Senators the opportunity to explain all of the 30-plus amendments that we have available to us. And third, we are accommodating another Senator in starting when we are to assure that she does not miss the first vote. So I hope that after all the negotiations that we have made in good faith on both sides that the agreement, which has nothing to do with the Roth amendment, would be allowed to be accommodated, and we will, as I have given him my word, deal with the Roth amendment to accord additional time and additional understanding tomorrow. This agreement has nothing to do with tier two. It only has to do with the third tier, directly affecting virtually every Democratic amendment still pending. So I hope that the Senator will not object, and we could work with Republican managers tomorrow to accommodate the concerns, legitimate as they are. There are concerns I share in terms of attempting to better understand what the Roth amendment would do.

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me reiterate, I have great sympathy for the Senator from Florida. It is his right to ask for a reading, and it would take unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. So the Senator is protected under the rules, should he choose to have the amendment read. I hope that he will recognize that we will certainly work, as I have throughout this process, with him and all of our Democratic colleagues, to protect our rights, to ensure that Senators are accommodated. I will work with him in this regard as well. We just need to get on with the business of moving this legislation, as it relates to all of our amendments. This largely is an agreement that we have requested. It would undermine my ability to deal with the leader as it relates to disposing of these amendments were we not to get this unanimous consent request tonight.