Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me say to the Senator, I appreciate his comments. It is good to have somebody who understands the overarching activities that this budget resolution provides, and his constant concern about overspending and his concern about the taxpayers has been evident from the day he arrived. I am very pleased because we need to get this finished so we can start down the path of finishing the year, working with a President who is going to try to help us get a tax bill that is representative of the Senate. People keep talking about a rich man's bill. Before you arrived, I read the names of the members of the Finance Committee. I think you know it has had a lot of changes of late, but clearly they will produce a tax bill. It is going to be representative of this Senate. It is not going to be one little faction's bill because of the makeup. So that is going to be a good thing. That will prove out the contentions in the Chamber about rich versus poor and what kind of tax cuts we do. Clearly, it is going to have a marriage penalty. Clearly, it will have some rate reductions. Clearly, it is going to have childcare credits. However they do that, they are going to be there for American families with children. Obviously, there is going to be some estate tax reform of significance because we have already voted on that.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to answer the distinguished Senator from Illinois who just spoke. We haven't said very much about who is responsible for gasoline prices. The fact is we don't have enough electricity for America. But to come down here and talk about it as if this President has anything to do with it or this budget has anything to do with it is absolutely wrong. What happened is the previous President who was in for 8 years--we don't like to be partisan, but he sure wasn't a Republican--did absolutely nothing to give America an energy policy. It was a nothing policy. It finally caught hold and gave us California, giving us higher prices for gasoline. And we are going to have to fix it--this Congress and this President--because no one did anything about it during the last 8 years. I gather Senator Inhofe is next. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask for 3 minutes now and then 3 minutes for Senator Wellstone.

Mr. DOMENICI. That is correct.

Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection. I would like to make sure that under the current time agreement, when the time agreed upon time has expired, the next Senator to speak from our side, Senator Inhofe, has 10 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I make that request.

Mr. DOMENICI. Let's agree now so they will know where they are.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I hope on our side, if anyone wants to speak, they will let me know. I will be here and try to reserve time. The Democrats can go with one Senator. Then we go with one. In the meantime, if there is none, I will tell Senator Conrad he can have as many Senators as he wants in a row if he wants to line some of them up. If I don't hear from our side,I may agree in advance with Senator Conrad.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, the Senator's understanding is correct.

Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, Senator Lugar's understanding is correct. Section 213 is intended to give the Agriculture Committee the flexibility to use this additional mandatory spending authority in the ways the Senator mentioned, if it so chooses in reporting a new farm bill.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, so Members on our side of the aisle understand, I want to say that we are going to go on this evening because there is kind of a gentleman's agreement that we are going to use up most of the time tonight; that is, most of the 10 hours allowed, and set a small amount aside tomorrow just before the vote. I am not dictating that. I am merely saying under the rules we can stay here until the 10 hours are used tonight. I hope we don't use all of it. I don't intend to do so. But if there are Senators who would like to speak, and for whatever reason they want to talk about one portion of this budget, they want to talk about defense, they want to talk about taxes, we have time. I don't have anyone planning at this time to address the Senate. I want to make a couple of comments, however, before I move to the other side to see if Senator Conrad has additional speakers. I want to talk about a habit we get into, depending upon what we have been saying and how we have been acting in the past. But, essentially, there were some comments about what the tax bill would look like and how one part of this institution--to wit, Republicans--were for the rich. I assume by that they meant that the other party is for the poor. But, in any event, I think it would be good for the American people, and those who are watching the evolution of a tax bill pursuant to this budget resolution, to know who is going to make the decision about the tax bill. So give me a moment while I tell everyone who is going to make that decision. The makeup of that bill--that $1.25 trillion over 11 years and the $100 billion that is going to go back to the American taxpayers this year and next year--is not decided or determined by this budget resolution. It tells them how much to do. But the Finance Committee of the Senate decides what are the cuts. I believe it will serve a purpose to read their names. Then people can think about them as a group, and then remember that at least 11 of them have to agree. Frankly, I believe it is a very representative group. I believe it represents the various philosophical and ideological attitudes of Senators from both sides of the aisle, and even subgroups between it as to Senators. So let me start: The chairman is Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa; the ranking member is Senator Max Baucus of Montana. Senator Orrin Hatch is second on the Republican side; and Senator John Rockefeller is the counterpart on the Democrat side. Senator Frank Murkowski is a Republican; and Senator Tom Daschle, the minority leader, is a Democrat. Senator Don Nickles is a Republican; Senator John Breaux is a Democrat. Senator Phil Gramm is a Republican; Senator Kent Conrad, who has been speaking here about the budget, is a Democrat; Senator Trent Lott, a Republican, was also here speaking about the budget; Senator Bob Graham of Florida; Senator James Jeffords of Vermont; Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico; Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee; Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts; Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine; Senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey; Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona; Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. All I want everybody to know is they are going to decide what the tax cuts are. They are going to decide who benefits over the next 11 years and how we give people back money in an urgent manner this year and next year. Frankly, I believe if we were to decide we wanted a well-balanced committee, that clearly would make its own decisions based upon very big differences of opinion, that is what you would have. Those would be the Senators. And more than half--half plus one--must agree on what is the tax plan. I am not fearful they are going to bias this result in favor of the rich against the poor or they are going to bias it in some way that is not common to the desires of this place we call the Senate. I do not see how they could and expect it to be adopted. So after all the words are finished about who is going to be helped by the tax bill, let me say, no matter what we say in this Senate Chamber in a budget resolution, no matter what we agree to, no matter what we are accusatory about, that group of Senators, with a simple majority required--which means one more than half--will decide what is the tax bill. Having said that, I want to speak for a moment and then I will yield the floor. I will be pleased, once again, before we finish, to wrap up on what is in this budget and how we got there and how it will be implemented. I believe it is a good budget. If one were to look at a previous budget and determine that we wanted to look at every single item in it, and analyze it, and take it to the floor and talk about what should have been done versus what somebody else would do, sure, it is subject to others looking at it and saying: We would have done it differently. But I say, whatever the adjectives are that have been used to describe it, it is an honest budget. It may not be what some want, and it may not answer questions the way some would want them answered, but it is a well-intentioned, honest, honorable budget. I am hopeful that those who helped us get where we are will help us get the vote tomorrow and let the Congress, with the President, decide what is going to happen during the next 8 or 9 months. For those who are concerned about Social Security or Medicare, let me repeat, on the Medicare side, we have set aside $300 billion that can be used for Medicare reform and for prescription drugs. How well did we do? The House had $146 billion. They went to our number of $300 billion--a pretty good compromise. We won. They gave up. We have a lot more available if we get a bill. With reference to farms in America, and the farm program, which clearly, for some reason or another, requires that we supplement the money that would come under the existing law every year by way of emergencies and the like, we have put in a number for the next decade that uses $5 billion in the first year, $80 billion over a baseline that would be the law as we have it implemented on the books. The House even asked that we put in more than we had passed which had received very broad bipartisan support. If you look at education--we will prepare, before we close, a separate chart about it, but I want to repeat, the special ed program of the United States is going up $1.25 billion year over year. I know that is not enough for some, but it is a pretty good sum of money for others. The rest of the programs in education, those within the control of the appropriators, surely some that are not real education will come down, but essentially the rest of education will go up 11 percent. People can say that isn't enough and there are other programs in there that should go up, but let me suggest, as I started today, when might it be right to give the taxpayers back some of this surplus? I think it is now. I think that is what the vote is going to be about: Do we want to really seriously give back to the American taxpayers some of this surplus tax money? And if not now, with a $5.6 trillion surplus, then when? That is what we are trying to do. We are very grateful we had bipartisan support, albeit it reduced the tax number from $1.6 trillion, which the President wanted, to $1.25 trillion, plus $100 billion in stimulus this year and next year, which would go into the pockets of American working men and women, those who invest, small businesspeople, and the like. The President did not get all he wanted. Republicans did not get all they wanted. We came to the floor with a budget resolution with $1.6 trillion. I just told you what we ended up with. Let me also say that when it comes to defense, some have continued to speak about this as if we gave a blank check to the military. I want to repeat, what should we have done when there was almost bipartisan concurrence that the President's top-to-bottom review, if it were going to be credible, should ask us to do some things differently but we did not know what they were, and we could not have them for 4 or 5 months. Would we have said, let's wait around and do another budget resolution for defense? I do not think so. So we said, let's use the President's number for this year, which is a low number, I acknowledge. Then let us say, subject to appropriations when the President is finished, we can put his number in and see what the appropriators want to do but not more than the number he recommends. I guess we could have done it differently. There are a number of ways to do it, but I do not think it is a blank check because I think Congress has to vote on it, on any additions above his request, which is a very meager request for this year. I want to also close by saying that I think, because some Senators from both sides of the aisle insisted we do something in the field of health care for the uninsured, we did something. We have an additional $28 billion over and above the current programs for the uninsured, thanks to Senator Smith and Senator Wyden, on which the House had zero. They conceded and said OK. We also have home health care which one of our Senators championed, Senator Collins, with support. We put in $13 billion to complete it over the decade with the increases instead of the cuts currently contemplated. In the conference they said: We should have give and take. They gave us the whole number and conceded that we could proceed on that front. Then there is the bill of Senator Grassley and Senator Kennedy, the Family Opportunity Act. We went into conference with nothing on that. We came out with $9 billion on top of the other items for just that program. The House gave in and gave us the whole thing. We had some great successes in the direction of championed causes that came from the Senate to the Senate budget resolution, to conference, and back to us intact. agriculture reserve fund

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI. Fine. I have no objection to finishing up with two more Democrats in a row. We have no Senators desiring to speak. They may speak as part of my 40 minutes tomorrow. With that, I thank the Senator for his cooperation today and his side of the aisle for the way they have handled the use of time, and I thank my side of the aisle for placing so much faith in me that you left it all up to me. I wish you could have come down and I could have taken a rest. I will have substantially more to say tomorrow with reference to education, and one other item--the $500 billion contingency fund that remains in the budget to be used for other items beyond this budget. That will be part of my wrap-up tomorrow. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, in light of this agreement, there will be no further votes this evening. I think most Senators will not be surprised by that announcement. The next vote will occur at 11:30, or thereabouts, on Thursday, on the adoption of the budget resolution conference report. It is also my understanding, and the Senators should note, that the two leaders would have leader time available for their use prior to the vote. However, we would still expect the vote to occur at 11:30, or shortly thereafter, if the leaders use their allotted time. Mr. President, with that, I inquire, how many more Senators might speak tonight?

Mr. DOMENICI. On behalf of the leader, I have a unanimous consent request in hand. I ask unanimous consent that all time be used or yielded back by the close of business this evening with the exception of the following: 40 minutes under the control of Senator Conrad or his designee, 30 minutes under the control of Senator Byrd or his designee, and 40 minutes under the control of Senator Domenici or his designee, with 15 minutes of that time consumed just prior to the vote. I further ask consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of the conference report at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, tomorrow, the vote occur on adoption of the conference report following the use or yielding back of the time as described in this unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, might I say to the distinguished Senator, with reference to this place, that while I can't claim to have spent as much of my life as you, it seems almost forever. It has been 29 years for me. It has been a long time since I first met you. You had been here a long time before you met the Senator from New Mexico. But I have 29 years of activity here of seeing how things are done. This is a rather unique institution--unique in the very best sense of the word. You really have to be part of it for a while. You can't just read a history book. Many political scientists have written about it, but none have really captured what it is. What you say about trust and comity is very right. There is no doubt about it. When people ask you how it runs, you say by rules. But by unanimous consent, a lot of the time, Senators can agree. A lot of times they are not here when agreements are entered into. Leadership does that. That is just one example. Everybody trusts them. They trust us who are doing it. We put together a unanimous consent, or my good friend, the ranking member, did, and it sounds right to both sides. Everybody thinks we are not going to cut them out or improperly agree to something. But we run that way. Unanimous consent is an interesting word. It means a lot of comity, a lot of trustworthiness between individual Members. I am not as acquainted with the history, but I have known a number of those who are mentioned. But you took to the floor talking about this great institution of America, and about its moving forward. I thank you. When I talked about whether your time should come off the resolution and about whether you had 15 minutes or an hour, whatever you needed, you got.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me say to the Senator, I hope the debate does not go late into the evening. But I think we are just on a path now where each side has 5 hours. I hope we do not use it. I do not know if you will use it. But essentially, for anybody who wants to speak on our side, you just heard the consent agreement. So if you want to speak, it will be 40, 50 minutes before we have another Senator from our side. I hope we will all recognize that. We will welcome you before the evening is out. I might say to anybody who is concerned about what this budget resolution has in it, I have stated that one time today. But I believe as a wrap-up I will go through again everything that we have put in this because anyone can pick out certain areas and debate them. But overall, I want to first thank those Democrats who voted with us, those from the other side, so we could go to conference. Anyone who thinks they have not had an impact, they have had an impact. They had an impact to permit us to get a budget, go to conference, and get a conference report that included tax cuts. How the tax cuts are going to come out and all the ingredients of that over the next 11 years, including 2 years of stimulus, clearly, those on the other side will have a very big impact on that. Not only did they have an impact as we left here, they had an impact as we produced the conference report for the Senate and final wrap-up of the language that went to conference. But essentially I assume they will be big participants in the kind of tax reductions that people are going to get. I thank them for that. I am going to summarize on education because I am sure there will be many speakers speaking to what they thought should have been the numbers on education. I just want to say that whatever the President assumed as education increases are assumed in this budget. IDEA is assumed to increase to $7.6 billion. That is up $1.25 billion. That is a 20-percent increase in special education. There will be some who think it should be more. There are some who think it should be a new entitlement program. But it did receive a pretty substantial increase. For those who are wondering about funding IDEA, we can look at the last 3 years, plus this year, and we are well on our way to living up to our commitment, which has taken a long time to fulfill. We are moving toward the amount we assumed the Federal Government's participation in special ed was going to be a long time ago. We are moving aggressively on that. We have another $6.2 billion that could be, if the appropriators see fit, part of it--they could use all of it, half of it. It could go to education if they choose to do that. That is what is in the budget resolution. I want to wrap up and say, I understand my worthy opposition talks about the assumptions in this budget, the 10-year totals. I can only say to everyone, if you believe that we have assumptions for growth, inflation, and the like, that are optimistic, then go ask those who are not optimistic what their assumptions are. You will find this is a modest set of assumptions. It is not extraordinarily high. If some President in the past and some Budget Director in the past used rosy scenarios in economics, we did not. It is not in this budget. It was not done by CBO. Lastly, there is no question that everyone wants to do something in Medicare. I repeat, I think when the Senate comes out with a $300 billion reserve fund--the House had $145 billion or $146 billion, and we end up with $300 billion--we did pretty good, considering that both Houses have to speak. We doubled the amount the House had. Frankly, it is a pretty good number for those who want to work on that. There are many other things that will be addressed from time to time. I will try, after much discussion, to recap it all. But it may be we will get through early enough and, who knows, maybe the Senate will not want to even hear from me again. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.

Mr. DOMENICI. Sure.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have been talking with the ranking member. There are two Members on his side ready to speak. I am going to just speak for a couple minutes, and then the other side can have two in a row. If we have another speaker come, we will work to accommodate that person, but that will be after the two speakers from the other side.

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, fellow Senators, and anyone listening, I am very sorry that the minority leader is frustrated. I wish he were not. I am also very sorry that my facts and what is in this budget, as I see it, are very different from his--very different. I have been part of this process. I want to talk for a minute about partisanship. I can tell you when President Clinton won office and had a Democratic Senate, they did the budget. They did the tax bill. We did nothing. We were left out of everything. And I do not think our leader came to the floor and called that the kind of names the minority leader has used today. Frankly, I think the Senate, itself, will prove that what he has said is wrong because they will vote for this budget resolution. If it were a fabrication, they would not vote for it. If it were unreal, they would not vote for it. But I want to start by using a different approach. I want to start by saying: If not now, when? If not now, when will the American taxpayer get back some of the surplus that their taxes have generated? How big must the surplus be, Madam President, and fellow Senators, before we give the taxpayers some of their money back? How big should it be? It is $5.6 trillion. That means getting that much money more than we need for the policies of our Government. Should it be $10 trillion before we give them back any money? Should it be $20 trillion before we give them back some? Absolutely not. Madam President, $5.6 trillion yields to the American people in their hands for use as taxpayers-- let's get the number--$1.25 trillion. Remember, there is a $5.6 trillion surplus, and then, secondly, $100 billion that must be spent this year and next year as an economic stimulus. And the Democrats wanted that. Of course, they did not want the other one. They did not want the long-term one. So every single thing has been invented by way of the fault of this budget, to put it in the way of one thing, and one thing only: taxes given back to the American people. In fact, the minority leader, again, to borrow his own words, is frustrated. I tell you, tomorrow I think the Senate will indicate that it is frustrated, that it is frustrated in not giving back the taxpayers some of their money, and they are going to vote to do that. Frankly, I wish we were here without controversy and that those who lead on that side and those who lead on this side, including this Senator, could say: This has been done together; we have had total bipartisan support. But let me tell you, we have already gone from the $1.6 trillion that the President asked for in the tax cut, and with some Democratic help we are down to $1.25 trillion, plus $100 billion for stimulus. How far down would we have to go under the idea we would have bipartisan support, and write this together in the Budget Committee, and go the conference, Democrat and Republican? Just think of it. It is already, on the one hand, being claimed as a loss for the President because he did not get enough tax cuts, and, on the other hand, it is too much; and, therefore, we talk about everything wrong in this budget because we would not like to see this tax cut pass. The good news is, fellow Americans and taxpayers, regardless of the rhetoric of today, within a week to 10 days, the Finance Committee of the Senate will produce a tax cut bill. It will come to the floor. Then we are going to see how many support it and how many support the stimulus of $100 billion spread equally this year and next year. I surmise there will be plenty of support for it. But every obstacle is put in its way by those who lead on the other side of the aisle. Now they complain: It's too big a tax cut. But the President did not get what he wanted. And there are all these other things we should be doing, not giving back money to the taxpayers. So I again say: If not now, when? And I answer my own question: Now. Give them back some of their money. It is not an extraordinary amount. Social Security is funded. Some would like to say: Before we give the tax cuts, we want to fund the next generation of Social Security. I don't know about that. I think we put all the money into Social Security that they are entitled. No matter what is said on the other side of the aisle, it is our position--and I think it is right--we do not touch Social Security and we do not touch Medicare. For those who want to get up on the other side of the aisle and just say we do, I stand up on this side of the aisle and say we don't. You can believe who you would like, but we have committed to not bringing you a budget that offended the Social Security trust fund. We have committed that we will not do that on the HI, the Medicare program. You say we do, and I say we don't. So let's see how we vote tomorrow. If there were a large group of Senators who thought we were violating Social Security and Medicare, this would not be adopted tomorrow. So they can keep on repeating it, but let's see how the Senators vote tomorrow. One thing happened during this process that is very extraordinary and good. The other side of the aisle has developed a budget ranking member who works hard, knows a lot, and makes his case. It is not that I agree with him all the time, but he makes his case. I commend him for that. And he does it well. It is just that on this one I do not believe he is going to tell all of you and tell the American people what this budget means. I would like very much to quickly tick off on the charts right there behind me--and we will do it early on so the other side can go on and produce a chart that says it isn't so, but I do not like to say things in this Chamber that I do not believe are true and honest and forthright. First, it reduces the debt to $818 billion, down from $2.4 trillion. For those who complain that it isn't enough, just look at the numbers. We have Treasury bills that we owe to people that are accruing interest, that we have to pay every year; and it is $2.4 trillion. It is almost as large as the surplus--well, half as large. We are going to reduce it to $818 billion, which is the largest decrease we have ever had in history and I believe very close to the maximum amount we can do. We can talk about what it does in terms of the budget percentages, and the like, but those are the numbers. It protects Social Security and the HI trust fund. In fact, on Social Security, none of the tax cuts here are predicated on any numbers that include Social Security trust fund money. That is taken out first. I don't know what else we ought to do to live up to our lockbox commitment, unless it is to start a new funding to take care of Social Security in another way that we have not yet passed and don't know anything about. It maintains a balanced budget every year: $219 billion in fiscal year 2002, $48 billion not counting the Social Security trust fund surplus. When you added it all up, people thought we were using the entire contingency fund, but we did not. There is a $\1/2\ trillion--$500 billion--unspent over the 10 years. For those who want to do something about the ID or special ed program, by making it mandatory, have at it. Let's get it passed. It can come out of that $500 billion. We just could not pass a new mandatory program in a conference with the House for that piece of education. On taxes, let me repeat, you can state it two ways, but, in essence, over the next 11 years, the American people will either get back in their pockets or have changed the law such that $1.25 trillion is back in their pockets. In addition, for the rest of this year, plus next year, we will rebate, refund, cut, another $100 billion for the American people. So you might say this is a $1.35 trillion reduction in taxes for the American people, and that would be a correct statement. Some would like to put it in two pieces: having the $100 billion for stimulus first, and take that out first. That is all right with me. The sum total is what I have said. I repeat: If we are not going to give them back some of this money now, when will we? Will we wait 3 or 4 more years and find ways to spend the surplus? If you want to wait, I am not sure who will spend it, but somebody will spend it. You had better get on the record giving some back to the people. On spending, there are a lot of ways to look at this budget, but I suggest that the spending in this budget, as we add it up, is $1.92 trillion for the year 2002--excuse me, $1.952 trillion for everything. This authorizes, for the appropriations process, $631 billion in 2002. In that number there is both defense and nondefense, and Social Security and everything, but the 631 is just appropriated accounts. There are many assumptions made--many--but the appropriators will decide what they are going to fund out of that total amount and how. If they do what we assume, they will put an awful lot of it in education. They may not do that, but you can't do more in a budget than to say that we assume it and ask the others to pay for it. In addition to the President's increase, which was about 4 percent for the year, we have authorized an additional $6.2 billion for nondefense programs. That is without emergencies, which are handled as they were in the past; when they come, they are added to the budget. We didn't change that. The House wanted to change it. That was one of the things over which we fought in an argument with reference to using our budget process. Let me talk about Medicare for a minute. I can't understand when there is a reserve fund in this budget that says, if you do a new Medicare bill with prescription drugs in it, $300 billion is given to you to spend: How much did you want: 500? 600? 800? The House had 146. We won that debate. We got 300, just as the Senate had voted. I don't know what else we can do. We have stated unequivocally, you cannot use any of these programs or moneys to affect either Social Security and/or Medicare. Let's talk about defense for a minute. How could we have budgeted defense when the President gave us a number and said, we are having a top-to-bottom review and it won't be ready until a few months down the line? Are we supposed to say, let's leave it all out of the budget and start over in 3 months? The best thing I could see to do was the following: Fund defense as he requested it, which is not a very big increase, and put in this budget that when the top-to-bottom review is completed, whatever their number is, they get to submit it, and it belongs to defense and nothing else. But guess what. It is not a free ticket. It has to be appropriated by the Congress. If we don't like it or don't want some of it, we don't have to do it. I didn't know any other way to do it. It is not intended as a blank check. It is intended as what I have described. There are some saying, what else did we do in this budget, besides the $300 billion we set aside for Medicare, if they reform it and if they do prescription drugs? Frankly, I am very pleased to say the House gave on that to us; it went our way. In addition, we had a program in here to make sure that the farmers this year, 2002, and for the decade--we had unanimous support that we ought to increase the authorization and allocation and use some of the contingency fund for that. Guess what. The House had nothing for that in their budget, and before we finished, they said, we think we should do a little more than the Senate--I assume because that is what they want to show their House Members. So we did agriculture at an $80 billion increase, to make sure it gets money. Frankly, I don't know how much more you can do. I believe if we are not right, it has so much support that next year or the next year we can do more. We could take it out of the contingency fund and fund agriculture even more. Here on the Senate floor, Senator Kennedy was going to propose a very large amount which had to do with uninsureds--health uninsureds. Senator Smith of Oregon, joined by his friend, Senator Wyden, proposed an add-on to the health uninsured fund of $28 billion to be used over the next 3 years. They can use it if they want in the committee for uninsured benefits and enhancement of the program. The House had zero. We got a full $28 billion. They gave us everything we asked. So Medicare, health insurance for the uninsured, agriculture, and then in the area that many here worry about, home health care. For home health care we have another reserve fund that comes from Senator Collins' work in the Chamber. We put in $14 billion to make sure that that fund continued unabated; that is, that home health care funding, instead of coming down at a point in time which is currently prescribed, it says that sunset brings it back up, and it is almost $14 billion. There is another one Senator Grassley and Senator Kennedy have been working on that is called the childcare credit and earned income tax, $18.5 billion for its expansion. Then we added to it nearly $8 billion to expand Medicaid benefits to children with special needs. We don't hear anything about any of those as this budget is denounced, as it is called a fabrication, as it is called a sham of process, none of which is true. I have brought budgets here many times. This is a solid budget. I will close by talking about the appropriated accounts because every year we have to do 13 bills. There is a lot of commotion about them and a lot of trouble getting them done. I just described to you what is going to happen on defense. I might tell you this budget resolution contemplates a supplemental this year principally for defense, which everyone knew would happen. This contemplates it because we have room under the caps for this year. But if you take just the nondefense part of this budget that is appropriated, our mathematics and arithmetic say that that is going up 5.5 percent, not 4 as the President asked. There are some--perhaps the other side--who will say it didn't go up at all. Let's deal with that on apples and apples, the totality of the accounts now this year and the totality of the domestic accounts next year. There is $6.2 billion in new money, and the percentage increase is 5.5. If the House knew it was 5.5, I am not sure they would pass the resolution. So they used their numbers; I used mine. I know what is going to appropriations, and it is not 4 percent for which the President asked. It is not 5 percent. It is more than 5 percent. Can you get along with it? I don't know. Is there enough money for education? Absolutely. If you want to take every assumption in this resolution that is attributed to education and then add the 6.2 new money and assume they are going to give some of that to education, you have funding of education programs that I believe will be voted for in appropriations by both sides of the aisle because there is sufficient money in there for education, including the increase, a substantial increase, in special ed. In fact, I think the amount is $7 billion, 7.9--almost $8 billion for special ed, the IDEA program. Let me say to everyone, the Senate voted in an amendment that said, do a huge new mandatory entitlement program for IDEA for special ed. It is not a mandatory entitlement. It is appropriated every year. Congress has not done well, except in the last 2 or 3 years, in doing its part for the funding for special ed kids, but we are starting up that path. For anybody who is looking in this budget to find a brand new mandatory entitlement for IDEA, it isn't here. I guarantee you, there is no way you can get a new entitlement out of the House. It will work its will, and we will work our will. But we couldn't do it in the budget resolution because they said it is a whole new way to approach it; do it separately. There is still money around if you want to do that, still money around over the decade, without violating the balanced budget, Medicare, or Social Security. I guess I could close just like the minority leader did. If you think I am kind of worked up, first of all, that is the way I am all the time. However, I am just slightly worked up more than I normally am. While he is infuriated about certain things, I am infuriated about some things said by a number of people about this budget. I won't say who. I close by saying to everybody, there is no doubt in this Senator's mind that the people of this country deserve to have a significant amount of this surplus given back to them now. There is no doubt in my mind that it is fair; it will help the American economy; it won't hurt it. I close by saying, if we can do anything to stimulate the economy through tax changes, this resolution will permit that to happen. It will permit money to be spent from the hands of our people, encouraging them to spend money and keep the economy going, or to pay some of the money for expenditures for gasoline and related fuel prices. I anxiously await hearing from my friend, who I have just indicated, right in the middle of my speech, has done a great job becoming very learned and an expert. He knows I was here a lot longer and, probably today, he is willing to stand up on the floor and say in all ways I know more than Domenici about the budget because I have really learned it. I would not doubt that. I think I have just enough to get it done. It has been a lot of years. The charge of partisanship could be levied more times than not, as budgets have been produced in this place. I didn't go through each one to find out how partisan they were, but I can vividly remember the budget resolution ran through here with no Republican support, no votes in the Senate, when President Bill Clinton was given what he requested. Whether that was the right thing to do, who knows? Whether this is the right thing to do, some say no on the other side; some say yes. I believe the American people are watching us. We had a big chart that said: $5.6 trillion overpayment to Government, $1.25 trillion to the people in taxes, and $100 billion to stimulate the economy by giving people back some money to spend. We will let them judge whether that is too much. Let me close by saying those are simple numbers. They already take into account a 4-percent growth in Government. That still yields those numbers. How much more should Government grow? I don't know. I surely think there ought to be enough to give people tax cuts. It seems to me it is rather basic and simple. Nonetheless, because we are a different body than the House, we have more allocated than 4 percent, for which the President asked. Repeating, for the domestic side, it is more like 5.5 percent they are going to have to spend. We still have those numbers--$5.6 trillion, and $1.25 trillion of that going back to the people, plus $100 billion to be in their pockets this year and early next year as a stimulus, for them to use as they see fit. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I recently received a copy of To Be as Brave, a collection of memoirs of Joe B. ``Bob'' Murray. This fine book tells the story of a great American, who evolved from an East Texas farm boy into a valiant soldier who defended his nation during World War II. Bob grew up in Spring Hill, Texas, and shortly after his high school graduation in 1944, he left Texas for Europe and the heart of World War II. Although he was trained for combat against the Japanese in the Pacific, Bob was sent to the Alsace region of France to join a regiment that had been devastated by Hitler's counteroffensive. Bob proudly served in B Company of the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Division. His regiment was given the herculean task of breaching the Siegfried Line and entering Germany. The young men succeeded beyond anyone's expectations by breaking the Siegfried Line in less than a week, when the high command predicted that it could take up to three months. After entering Germany, his regiment continued to move eastward to protect General Patton's right flank by clearing the territory of enemy troops. The division was so successful that General Patton lauded them as ``one of the best, if not the best, division in the history of American arms.'' The 45th Division later entered Dachau and liberated tens of thousands of prisoners in several concentration camps. Bob was proud to bring hope and freedom to thousands of captives. Bob's regiment was then assigned the often difficult task of maintaining law and order in Munich, as the war was brought to an end. After World War II, Bob continued to demonstrate his patriotism by enlisting as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division during the Korean War. He later had a successful career as an oil and gas consultant in my home state of New Mexico. Bob is married to his childhood sweetheart, Dulcia, and last year, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. To Be as Brave is an excellent book and it celebrates the life of an outstanding patriotic American, Mr. Joe B. Murray. I thank Joe for my copy of his book and salute his exceptional service to our Nation.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to praise the Mexican government's decision to extradite Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez. I have criticized Mexico's extradition policy for many years. Historically, Mexican drug kingpins have not paid much attention to indictments from the United States. Many Mexican Administrations have talked about reform. Some have even extradited a few low level criminals to placate U.S. critics. This critic has not been placated. Today, however, I am pleased and encouraged to see substantive reform taking place in Mexico. The Fox administration and the Mexican judiciary have taken an important step toward cooperation and partnership. Furthermore, extraditing such an infamous drug trafficker as ``El Kitti'' Paez sends a resounding signal that Mexico is not doing business as usual. Mexico's recent action should be recognized and commended. I hope that Mexico will continue to work with United States law enforcement and will become a partner in fighting crime as it is in other areas, such as trade. As a Senator from a border state, I look forward to working with President Fox on issues that affect both our nations and support his reform efforts.