Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I will be glad to. I think the Senator is correct. I ask unanimous consent that the time from 3:30 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. be equally divided for consideration of Senator Domenici's reconciliation instructions amendment; that all time on the budget resolution expire at 6:30 p.m.; that when the Senate votes in relation to the reconciliation amendment, all remaining amendments be limited to 30 minutes each. I further ask unanimous consent that any votes ordered on remaining amendments to the budget resolution be stacked to occur following the vote on or in relation to Senator Domenici's reconciliation amendment at 6:30 p.m. with 2 minutes prior to each vote for explanation. I think the rest of it was clearly audible. I propose the rest of it.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, this is a unanimous consent agreement that has been worked on by a wide variety of Senators representing leadership on both sides. I will propound it now. I ask unanimous consent that time from 3:30 p.m. today until 6:30 p.m. be equally divided for the consideration of Senator Domenici's reconciliation instructions amendment; that all the time on the budget resolution expire at 6:30 p.m. this evening; that when the Senate votes in relation to the reconciliation amendment, all remaining amendments be limited to 30 minutes each. I further ask unanimous consent that any votes ordered on remaining amendments to the budget resolution be stacked to occur following the vote on or in relation to Senator Domenici's reconciliation amendment at 6:30 p.m., with 2 minutes prior to each vote for explanation. I further ask unanimous consent that the first-degree amendments to be offered by the minority and majority leaders be the last two amendments in order prior to the vote on the substitute and the vote on adoption of the concurrent resolution, that they be offered in the order listed above and they not be subject to any second-degree amendments. I further ask that following the disposition of the amendments by the two leaders, the Senate proceed to vote on adoption of the substitute, to be followed immediately by a vote on adoption of the concurrent resolution, all without any intervening action, motion, or debate, if all amendments have been offered and disposed of. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that disposition of the last two amendments by the two leaders and the final vote on the concurrent budget resolution occur no earlier than 2:30 p.m. on Friday, April 6.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. I do not think it is necessary. I think we are prepared now to have a voice vote and accept the amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. I wonder if the Senators would be prepared to yield back their time.

Mr. DOMENICI. Is all time expired on the amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I think this has been an excellent discussion and debate this afternoon. I will summarize it my way. If this amendment is adopted, the so-called stimulus package from the other side, then the tax cut proposed by our President would be reduced to $746 billion. Understand, just doing the arithmetic, we would have taken $854 billion of the President's tax cut and wiped it out. Imagine, in the name of an economic stimulus package, we reduce that which stimulates the economy by $854 billion. I say to Senators on both sides, if you have been worrying about taking more and more away from the President's tax cut, you have a real humdinger on your platter. This, combined with others, will make the President's tax package $746 billion, which is $854 billion less than he asked for--and he thinks he is giving us a stimulus package. We are saying $60 billion up front and $1.6 trillion over time, with marginal rate deductions, marriage tax penalty, child care credits, and the other things. We say that is exactly what the American economy needs as a stimulus, short and long term. In the name of an economic stimulus package, the tax cuts to the American people are reduced by more than one-half, more than 50 percent. Once again, Americans, if you have been sitting around thinking maybe Congress will do something right, maybe they will give us back some of our money, over half of it disappears. Between this amendment and a previous Democrat amendment they have taken more than half of what you might have expected. It is out the window. It is gone, gone at the altar of an alleged stimulus package. This is just following suit of almost every amendment offered: Baucus Medicare, higher taxes, $156 billion; Johnson agriculture, higher taxes, $88 billion; Harkin education, $448 billion, higher taxes; Landrieu, $93 billion more; Stabenow, $14 billion more. Adding them up, $798 billion is how much they tried thus far to reduce the tax cuts for the American people. Only one passed, Harkin, but it is still under consideration, so I don't count it yet. Maybe it won't pass. Having said that, if I have any remaining time, I yield it to Senator Nickles.

Mr. DOMENICI. Fine.

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank everyone for helping on this agreement. I think we have reached an agreement with which everybody agrees. I ask consent the Durbin amendment be laid aside and Senator Bennett be recognized to offer an amendment. I further ask consent the debate run concurrently on both first- degree amendments--both of them--and be limited to 60 minutes equally divided in the usual form and, following that time, the amendments be laid aside. I further ask consent that no amendments to those amendments be in order prior to votes just described and the votes occur in a stacked sequence, first in relation to the Durbin amendment and then in relation to the Bennett amendment, beginning at a time determined by the two leaders. Further, I ask consent that following that debate, Senator Smith of Oregon be recognized to offer an amendment and there be 15 minutes of debate equally divided between Senator Smith and Senator Wyden and, following that debate, the amendment be temporarily set aside.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.

Mr. DOMENICI. I understand that the time would not come off the amendment but off the resolution.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--I must apologize to the Senator--would he please repeat the request.

Mr. DOMENICI. I understand we have an order entered as to how we proceed. I want to take 5 minutes off the resolution just to talk with the Senate a little bit about where we are. I understand my friend wants to do the same. He is not limited, of course, to 5 minutes. But I want to start that. Mr. President, I want Senators to know that both of us, as managers of this bill, find ourselves in a position where there are some very big conflicting desires. One desire is that we finish by noon tomorrow. It seems to be a rather pervasive one going around. Whenever you say: Would you like to finish at 12 tomorrow, the roof goes down with shouts of, ``Alleluia. Let's do it.'' We are trying to figure out how we can do that. The problem, fellow Senators--I speak to all Senators; and then my friend can speak to all, and he can include ours in his comments--it is not possible to do that. Some Senators have five, some have six, some requested three amendments. I don't know if there is anybody with any higher than six that we are aware of, but we have all these requests for amendments, and we want everybody to know we are aware of that. But we also want everybody to know that we are going to have to soon find a way to limit our time. When that happens, it is not going to be possible that all of these amendments are going to be considered. We have a time agreement now that says Senators who have amendments and want them considered have to get them turned in by 2 o'clock today. That is in just a few hours. I hope my recalling that to Senators does not bring another rash of amendments. If you have them ready, I am hoping you will get them down here. I hope I did not remind you to come up with more because essentially there is not going to be time for more. We are going to have to get our heads together--that is, the two leaders and the two managers--to talk about how we are going to attempt to assure Senators that we will be finished tomorrow at 12 o'clock. In that process, we have no way of setting a list of 40, 50 amendments that are all going to be considered. I think you understand that would not be the case. If we used all the time we have, many Senators would not get their amendments up other than a vote-athon. We are trying very hard to limit the vote-athon so it is credible, rational, and so people have a couple minutes and we don't just start voting. With that, I urge anybody on our side who has amendments that they absolutely feel must be considered to talk with us. If they can get by with one amendment, if they have three pending and will put two of them in the vote-athon, and then get them one after another, and very quickly, we will very much appreciate that. We are trying our best. All Senators should know we are trying to get a consent agreement so that we will be out of here by 12 tomorrow. That means people will get pushed back in terms of the number that can be considered and the time that can be used on amendments. We are going to do our very best on our side. We think we know the Senators who have insisted and worked very hard to make sure they get an opportunity. We are going to try to protect that. Beyond that, I don't think we can guarantee very much. If indeed Senators want us to lead them to the promised land, the promised land, we thought, was to have a unanimous consent agreement sooner rather than later, saying we will be finished at 12 tomorrow. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, may I just inform Senators where we are. People would like to go home this evening. The next amendment is that of Senator Allen from Virginia. We have a minute; whoever opposes him has a minute. The next amendment would be Senator Wellstone with reference to veterans spending, and we have a second-degree amendment to that. They will be voted side by side. If we can get those finished, that is all we have lined up by way of votes. We have an amendment on vote-arama and streamlining the process so we won't get into these problems next year. We should proceed with the votes we have: Senator Allen, to be followed by Wellstone and a second degree. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. So Senators should know that that is about the time we are going to vote. I want to make sure they know that because they have been waiting. First of all, I think we ought to be careful about accusing the other side of speaking loosely. I can see about 10 examples in my mind's eye of saying they spoke loosely. I choose to say they spoke what they believed and we speak what we believe. I don't think it is loosely; I think it is very deliberate, and it is very thoughtful on both sides. I have a rough estimate, so the American people will know. We are going to spend $44 billion on education this year, the National Government. We are going to spend $500 billion over the next decade. That is half a trillion dollars. So the point of it is, while some may not think that is enough--and maybe I would even join in saying we ought to do more--I think we are on a pretty good growth path for education. And everybody should know that over the next decade we are a small contributor to education. That is the way it has been. We are between 6.5 and 7.5 percent of public education. So everybody will know the dimension of our involvement. Nonetheless, we are going to spend half a trillion dollars. It will be growing substantially each year. The point I am trying to make is, at some point you have to raise the level of the concern for the taxpayer to an equal level with those who would increase spending from what is already a very high level of spending. So the American people should know we are spending a lot on education. It is going up each year. I just showed how much. And it is going to continue going up. Should we not at some point in time bring the taxpayer into this and say: OK, Mr. and Mrs. Hard Working American, would you like to get some of your tax dollars back or would you like for us to take every program that sounds good, no matter what the level of spending nationally, and let's add some more to it, and then we will consider you later on? I don't think that is what the American taxpayer wants. In fact, I think they want a fair break out of this, and a fair break is over the next 10 years giving them back 6.4 percent of what they pay in in taxes. That is what we are talking about. When we get away from the big numbers and get into 6 cents out of every dollar, we are talking about 6 percent, giving 6 percent of the tax taken from the taxpayer back to the taxpayer over the next decade when we are running very big surpluses. Frankly, I will answer one further insinuation. The insinuation is that the Senator from New Mexico is talking about these surpluses as if they were there tomorrow. I believe they are as good estimates as we are ever going to get, and there is a high probability that they are going to be right. But if the estimates are not any good, then they ought not to be any good to add spending based on them either. So if you have something down here where you want to spend half that tax money on new programs, you ought to be thinking, maybe the tax surplus is not real. We don't want you to think it is real because we don't want you to use it for tax dollars, but we would like to use it for something else. With that, I yield back any time I might have.

Mr. DOMENICI. We then go to a vote under the UC, as it exists.

Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I believe I have 5 or 6 minutes remaining; is that correct?

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

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator for coming to the floor and spending so much time while I could not be here. The poor American taxpayer. Every amendment from the other side wants to spend the surplus so they won't have it. Those on alert out here ought to be the taxpayers. Every time we turn around, a huge amount of money that is scheduled under our President's proposal to go to the taxpayers of America is taken away from them for another program, another activity. Another Senator comes to the floor and talks about how fixing up America will require us to do another 10 things. Where do you think all those new things come from? They come right out of the surplus that was going to the American taxpayers. On this particular one, listen up; the President's $1.6 trillion is diminished, not by a little bit but by $450 billion. For those who expressed a desire to have a tax cut, if you had the slightest sympathy toward the President's tax cut, understand that all of these goodies talked about don't come free. They come from somewhere. In this case, they come from the taxpayers of the United States who were going to get a $1.6 trillion tax cut. Who knows what would be in it? Great Senators with more wisdom than I and more clairvoyance have told you how the tax cut will look. With this surplus we are sending to the tax-writing committee, the $1.6 trillion that the President is suggesting we send to the people of this country instead of spending it, we have no idea what the tax cuts will look like. No idea. That money goes to a Finance Committee that is split even stephen with Democrats and Republicans. They have to get together and write a tax bill. How do we know how it will come out? It will require Democrats to vote with Republicans for a tax bill. What will those people vote for? When the taxpayers of America hear the debate, and there is this huge song, ``don't give the rich a tax break,'' maybe they won't even give the rich a tax break. Maybe they won't even give the rich a tax break. Who knows? They will be given a $1.6 trillion cut, if you adopt these budget numbers. Now they will be given $450 billion less. All the Senators who spoke of all the good things we could do, they are all good things, but remember, they are not free. In this instance, they come out of a surplus that is $5.6 trillion. And we can't give the taxpayer back $1.6 trillion? We will collect $27 trillion in all kinds of taxes during that period of time. Can we not give them back 6 percent when we have this huge surplus? I heard the other day that I have been working on budgets when they were mostly in deficits. I find it much easier to handle a budget that is in deficit than I do one that is in surplus. When we have one that is in surplus, everybody wants their hands on the surplus. I am here, maybe the only one, saying $1.6 trillion of that should go back to the taxpayer. I hope I have 51 Senators agree that is what we ought to do. There are plenty of things that could be done by the tax-writing committees for the American taxpayer that would be very good. I will talk about one right now because it gets a lot of attention from the other side. The other side of the aisle would not argue that the beneficiaries of a growing, prospering American economy are the people. In fact, the more growth for the longest period of time, the more poor people get out of poverty, the more middle-income people climb to a higher middle income because you have prosperity and growth. When you have a surplus, what should you use it for so you can be sure you are providing prosperity and growth, which every single American, rich or poor, certainly would like? Rich, poor, middle income, whoever is sitting around their breakfast table talking, whether they are finishing up right now for April 15 with a $75,000 income or $150,000 income, what do they want? They want to keep on earning money and keep on getting more in their paycheck over the next decade. How will that happen? It will happen if the American economy is growing so everyone has a real interest in growth, in the innovation that has led to productivity increases--everybody, rich and poor. The average household in America is going to participate in something called marginal rate reduction. Every level of taxation will get reduced, with the bottom level getting reduced twice as much as the top level. As a candidate for President and as President, why would one ever have dreamed up that in marginal rate cuts everybody gets a tax rate cut. Would he dream it up to help one group of citizens over another? The very best advisers that we could put together were used, and we heard testimony from one in committee, Alan Greenspan. What kind of use of a surplus is recommended? Pay down the debt as much as you can, they say. Then, surprise, surprise. They don't say, spend it, like we are. They say, if you are finished paying down the debt, cut the marginal rate for Americans under the American tax system. Why do they say it? Because if you want prosperity and you want growth and most of all what you need in today's economy is investment. Ask anyone. Ask some of your Senators, ask their friends, perhaps somebody they trust on Wall Street, ask them what is needed the most. They will say investment. How do you get investment? By cutting the marginal rates. So everybody has a stake in it no matter what the other side chooses to call it. It is the very best thing we can do with the surplus. Now, regarding the $1.6 trillion tax cut, since there is a continual carping about who gets the breaks, the average across America is $1,400 in the hands of the taxpayer to use for what they would like, $1,400 on average. In my State, it is $1,800 on average. I wonder what it is in the State of the occupant of the chair. I would guess it is somewhere between $1,400 and $1,800 because of the level of income. But anyway, that is speculative. The others I know. In any event, the issue is are they apt to use that money right or are we apt to use it more right by spending it the way that is being proposed in this amendment? I believe I do not have to answer that question. I believe the American taxpayers will answer that question: You give us our $1,200, $1,400, $1,600, or whatever we get in a marginal rate cut. We will spend it better than the Government is going to spend it on new programs or additions to programs that are already adequately funded. I want to look at this one more time for anybody who has listened to those on the other side of the aisle. Here are President Bush's numbers. We have done it as well as we can to put it in our budget. The first number in red, $5.6 trillion, is the surplus, an incredible surplus--in this Senator's opinion, a credible surplus. If we argue which is most apt to happen, I would say that is most apt to happen, $5.6 trillion, because there are others that might happen. It might be $12 trillion--that is what the economists say--or it might be $1 trillion or $800 billion. But if you ask them what is it the most likely to be, they say use that number. We take Social Security out of it and that leaves a surplus for the rest of Government of $3.1 trillion. The Bush-Domenici budget said there was plenty of support for it. I could name everybody else on it; it is just I happened to put his budget into language in a resolution. So the next thing we do is take off the $1.6 trillion we want to give back. Write the tax bill however you want. We send an even number of Democrats with an even number of Republicans to the Finance Committee and they will have to worry about how to spend that $1.6. So anybody who thinks they have that formula, they have to wait around for a couple of months and see what that next group of Senators does with the tax bill. I repeat, the numbers are even Stephen in that committee: 11 Democrats, 11 Republicans. Just follow down. The rest of these are pretty obvious: Available for other priorities, $1.5 billion: Medicare/prescription drugs. Make sure you keep the surplus in the health insurance program. And then debt service, for $400 billion, and, lo and behold, there is $500 billion of contingency fund left over. Let me repeat. Whenever you have a surplus and whenever you plan to give some of it back to the American people, rest assured, it will be a very hard fiscal policy--it will be very hard to get the work done on the floor because everybody wants a fistful of that surplus. Not for the taxpayers; it is for other things that they are certain the Government will fix if we just have more money for the Government to spend. I will give one other example. You might wonder, hearing the debate, how much more we need. Somebody out there watching might have said it would be interesting to know how much you are spending. Since we are talking about what you want to spend in addition, it must be in addition to something. I thought we would just say what has happened to education nationally and what is going to happen under President Bush, so everybody who has been hearing these debates about all we want to do for education, remember, it all comes out of the taxpayer's hide. Here it is, starting in 1998, 29.9; 1999, 35; 36, 42, and then the President's request of 44.5. That is a 10.6-percent average increase. So education is getting a pretty good chunk of money and the President has asked for $2.5 billion more than we are spending this year. I could get up here and list 25 new education programs and say we need more. But let me see the next chart and I will be finished. President Clinton requested $34.7 for education. Congress gave him $35.6. In 2001, he requested $40 billion; we gave him $42 billion. In 2002, he asked for $40.1 billion--interesting, no increase in President Clinton's budget--we increased it from 42.1 to 44.6. There was a whopping 25-percent increase. If there is anybody who thinks we are not helping education, from 2000 to 2002, we will have increased it 25 percent. I am not standing here saying education does not need more money, but I am wondering, when the Federal Government is putting in the largest share each year in education, largest increase in decades, whether or not the taxpayer ought to not be looked at to get the next piece of money out of that surplus, when we are already taking care of education quite well. So everybody ought to know when my friend Senator Wellstone gets up and talks about all the things he would do, I say to Senator Lott, he has 20, 30, 40 things the Government ought to do that he thinks would make life better. Let me remind everyone, you have to get that from somewhere, and there are only a couple of places to get it. One place to get it is to reduce what the taxpayers are going to get; just take it out of that pocket and decide we have something much better to do with it than do the taxpayers. We plan to give back to the American people over a decade--not tomorrow, not the next day--over 10 years, $1.6 trillion out of a surplus of $5.6 trillion. This amendment, with all the things that have been spoken about that we will be able to do, takes $450 billion right out of the taxpayers. The taxpayers had a little pool of money they thought they were going to get back. It amounted to $1.6 trillion. This will cut it to $1.150 trillion--just like that. If you do not think this is an important amendment for the taxpayers, just think about that. It is a pretty big change in what they might have been expecting, what the business community, through the lowering of marginal rates, might have expected to get the American economy going permanently. That is going to be reduced by $450 billion. Think carefully, Senators, when you vote on this. Have we increased education? Absolutely. Does the President intend to increase it? Absolutely. Does he intend to increase special ed? Absolutely, to the highest levels, percentages in many, many years. You have seen them up here. The facts are the facts. The Senator from New Mexico is not saying you could not spend more on education, but I suggest it is time to put the taxpayer right up there with any new program add-ons and ask: Don't they deserve to be considered up there with any program? It is their money and they clearly ought to have a chance to spend it. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. When you finish, don't yield to him. I want to be recognized.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, April 4, 2001 at 2:00 p.m. in Dirksen 226. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, April 4, 2001 at 9:30 am on Mad Cow Disease: Are Our Precautions Adequate? THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.