Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I believe Senator Grassley has the proposed amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Two minutes equally divided, of course.

Mr. DOMENICI. We are ready to ask for a unanimous consent. I ask unanimous consent Senator Grassley be recognized to offer an amendment on behalf of himself, Senator Snowe, Senator Domenici, Senator Collins, Senator Frist, and others who want to join on our side. That is an amendment in the first degree regarding Medicare and prescription drugs. I ask that the time between now and 5 o'clock be equally divided for debate on both amendments, and following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate proceed on two consecutive votes, the first on or in relation to the Grassley amendment, which I have just described as to its cosponsorship, to be followed by a vote on or in relation to the Baucus amendment, without any intervening action or debate, and that no second-degree amendments be in order to either amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DOMENICI. Plenty of time. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask it be charged equally.

Mr. DOMENICI. How much was there on the Republican side?

Mr. DOMENICI. I reserve the remainder of my time. I am finished for now, if the Senator from Oklahoma wants to speak.

Mr. DOMENICI. That does not mean if someone wants to talk with the time coming off the budget resolution they cannot. I want to finish our discussion on the amendment and offer our second-degree amendment and have a vote on it. It would be a very good thing for us to explain to the American people how we are going to take care of Medicare without reducing the tax cut Americans can look forward to in various forms. The committee that writes tax laws will write that particular bill. If my friend is willing to move ahead so we can offer the amendment, I am willing to yield back----

Mr. DOMENICI. OK. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes. I say to my good friend, the ranking member, and Senator Reid, we clearly do not intend to take a long time before we are ready to vote on this amendment except we will offer a second-degree amendment. It is just being written up. And it is moving a lot of numbers around, which is not easy, as you all know. But that is being done as expeditiously as possible. Let me suggest that in the basic budget that we bring to the floor, we have a number in it that is proposed to be used for prescription drugs, along with reform of Medicare; that number is $156 billion. I understand what the Democrats would like to do now, and everyone should just understand it is probably the beginning of a few more like this. They would take $156 billion of what our President proposes that we consider the tax cut for the average American--and the marriage tax penalty, and a solid death reform measure, and, indeed, making sure that the American families with children get a doubling up of their child credit--that all of that might fit in this $1.6 trillion, but we do not know what parts of it. But we are saying, let's give it a chance. This amendment says, let's take $156 billion of that, and let's take it out of the tax relief measure and put it into a fund for Medicare prescription drugs or into the Medicare Part A trust fund. We do not think that is necessary. We do not think you have to take anything out of the tax cut that is planned in order to make sure we have sufficient revenues, sufficient resources to take care of prescription drugs. We can do that. As a matter of fact, we will propose an amendment that will be a second-degree amendment to that one. We will propose one that will, indeed, take care of and make sure that our senior citizens know that there is going to be ample money for them and their prescription drug program. In fact, it could be perhaps as big as the one being recommended. It is just that none of us knows. None of us knows precisely what that program is going to cost because it involves reforming Medicare, and a prescription drug program. If you listen to the voices, they are all over myriad programs in terms of what prescription drugs might look like. So essentially, in due course, we will say, here is our proposal. And just so everyone understands, we will not use any of the President's tax relief program that is for average Americans, for married couples, for those others who might be considered as part of the tax relief effort. Again I remind everyone that Senators can come to the floor from either side and tell us what, indeed, this tax plan is going to look like because they choose to pick a part of the President's proposal-- understand it is a proposal--or they choose a part of what somebody else is going to propose that is going to be part of this tax plan and talk as if we are doing that in this budget resolution. I am sure that before we are finished, a few people listening who did not want to learn about budget resolutions will learn a little bit because we have to talk a little bit of budget language but not very much. Essentially, no one knows what the tax bill is going to look like. In fact, I am sure the Presiding Officer in his home state of Missouri has talked to his people as to what he thinks it is going to look like. I am quite sure he did not say that it is exactly, in every respect, what the President has proposed because we do not know that. What we know is that $1.6 trillion out of a $5.6 trillion estimated surplus can be used for tax reduction for the American people. That is what we know--$1.6 trillion, not $1.6 trillion minus a whole bunch of things, such as the $156 billion we would take out of that tax reform proposal. We take it out and make it $156 billion less. When that Medicare prescription drug plan comes up--and we will talk about our amendment--we will talk about what it ought to be, and it will be related to something very practical on which everybody can count. Then it will say that we do not need to take it out of the tax relief package if, indeed, it costs the maximum amount we are going to allow, which I do not believe it will. We would not be taking that money from the taxpayers. They would be getting their full tax cut. We would take it out of the contingency fund in this budget. As I understand it, when I started, there were 20 minutes remaining on the amendment--10 minutes on the Democratic side on the amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. What is the status in terms of time on the amendment from the other side, the Democrat amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry, please.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I do not come to the floor to try to answer all the various arguments made. I would just like to say to the American taxpayers: It ought to be interesting to you, Mr. and Mrs. America who are paying taxes, because, in fact, what is happening here is, instead of the opportunity to give the taxpayers back some of this $5.6 trillion surplus--a number we cannot hardly understand--instead of putting that right up at the top of the priority list, we are speaking about priorities. But isn't it interesting, every single priority is to spend more of the taxpayers' money. All the priorities that are being stated here are spending a part of this surplus to spend on something for Americans. The whole difference is that we suggest you put the taxpayer at the top of that list, not at the bottom of the list--at the top of the list--and that instead of using their money for new programs and add- ons, whatever it is, that we ought to consider them first. Included in that is the President's tax plan which is good for the economy. I yield the floor. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for 2 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield myself time off the budget resolution. I yield myself up to 10 minute, Mr. President. First I want everybody to know that while my friend who is managing on the Democrat side might choose to answer every detail of research given on this side, I am not going to do that in reference to what he talks about in the Chamber. I will every now and then indicate why I think it is wrong. I want to make sure we start with everybody understanding what the Republican budget proposal is. I am pleased to have the other side say they would do it differently. But I want to make sure everybody in the country understands that based upon the regular budget concepts that we have been using now for a long time with reference to what is within a budget, what is not within a budget: This is the budget. It is very simple. I don't want to say it is right because I have just asked that perhaps the other side not be so dogmatic and say right and wrong. But I would say it is what the President asks us to do, with a few changes. Frankly, it is a very good budget, if you want to give the American people, the average family, a substantial portion of this surplus; if you want to give that back to them so they can spend it for themselves as they see fit, perhaps sitting around a table saying we are going to get $1,600 back, we are going to get $1,200 back, which is the average in my State; $1,600 is the average in Texas. They are going to say every year we are going to get that much; what can we do with it? Frankly, I will trust any choice they make sitting around that table rather than us keeping it up here in the Federal Government and making that choice for them. This is a very basic budget. I am sorry it was prepared when we were still meeting in small rooms. So next time we have it, it will be very big so people will not have to strain. I told them order it twice as big so it will not be so tough for me to explain it. Everyone agrees if you use the Congressional Budget Office estimates, which we are bound to do--and incidentally, to my friend, the ranking member, when he asked about the debt service and how do we get at these numbers, there is a simple answer: We use the Congressional Budget Office estimates. So that question of us, How do we get the debt service paid like we are? The Congressional Budget Office estimates, which we are supposed to use. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated a $5.6 trillion surplus. Everybody starts with that over 10 years. I want to editorially comment on it. There has been some talk about should we use that number. Let me make sure everybody knows what I think. I think absolutely we should use that number because, if you look at what they tell us, what the CBO tells us, the Congressional Budget Office, they say using modest economics, modest productivity, modest growth, and assume a couple of downturns over the next decade, that is the number they recommend. All the other business about it could be four times higher and it could be three times lower--they are telling us that might happen. But then you ask them: But what do you recommend? That is what they recommend. That number. That means in the next decade that is going to be sitting around up here, not being needed to pay for the ordinary operations of Government--unless we choose it as an opportunity for spending and we say we are going to spend a bunch of money. Then that will come down. We will not have that much. We will tell you what we think we ought to spend because we think it is right. Next, take out all the Social Security money, everything that is supposed to go toward the debt on Social Security. I don't think there is any argument there, that is $2.5 trillion. Then what we call the rest of the Government surplus, $3.1 trillion--the rest of the Government surplus. Then the President of the United States has asked us to approve a budget resolution that says the committees that write the taxes can lower taxes up to $1.6 trillion. Interestingly enough, my friends in the Senate, and anybody else who is interested, this budget resolution does not tell us which tax cuts are going to take place. So when we get up and say we know what the Republicans' tax proposal will be, we know what the Democrat's tax proposal will be--not so. We don't know because the tax-writing committee will write whatever they want with reference to tax cuts, and make sure they do not exceed $1.6 trillion. That is all we are doing in this budget. If you want to talk about whose estate tax is better, you have to work on that in the Finance Committee when you write up the bill. When you talk about which kind of marginal rate cuts you are going to have, they will continue to say Republicans want to cut the taxes for the rich. We say we want to cut everybody's marginal rates and, in fact, for those in the middle-income area, they get a rather substantial tax cut, each and every one of them, because their marginal rates are going to be cut. But that may not happen because the tax-writing committee will write what they can work out among themselves. The next amendment will be offered by the ranking member of that Finance Committee. He cannot stand up here and say this is what the Republicans say they are going to do in the Finance Committee and I know they are going to do it. He is probably going to say, whatever you say to him, we are going to work our will and he is going to be part of that working our will. Next, available for other priorities--$1.5 trillion. Identified priorities: Medicare, prescription drugs $200 billion, the surplus for Medicare, for Part A, is $400 billion, and the debt service that it causes is $400 billion. The important thing is, no matter what is said on the other side, under our budget there is $1/2 trillion--$500 billion--that is not spent. It goes nowhere. It is there to be used as a contingency fund over the next 10 years. That is it, plain and simple. The other side may choose to put in some other numbers. They have another place they want to say we are going to put $700 billion because we are waiting around for somebody to draft up a program that will let people, independently, invest in investment accounts. The point of it is last time I saw that it was part of Social Security reform. The last time I heard about it, it disappeared from the horizon, it seems to me, until the stock market comes back. A lot of other things are not dependent on that stock market, but you come down here to try to sell an overhaul of the Social Security system that includes investing money now in independent accounts that involve the common stocks of America, I think it would be a logical thing going through everybody's head, why don't we wait a year or two? I think that is what is going to happen. I wish it was not. So this is what we normally put in a budget. We believe it is a good budget for the American people. Having said that, I want to make sure everybody knows that, plain and simple, as this Senator sees it, every time we get close to giving the American people a large sum of the surplus back so they can use it, a new project, program, or activity is invented by the other side to spend it. It is presented with great, great ardor, with great effectiveness. All of a sudden, something that was never used before in a budget, never thought necessary, as soon as we get close to giving those American people a big tax break up pops another one: Here is $700 billion you ought to set aside for something else. Here is $500 billion more you should spend on Medicare plus agriculture. Just remember, those who are listening, you will hear many things. But for the most part, it will be: We have found some way to use more of this surplus for Government purposes rather than for individual purposes. Up pops the spending, up pops the new idea that will restrain what we can give the taxpayers of America. I have been at it a long time. I was one who stuck with it to get balanced budgets. I believe this is fair. I believe we are going to have a balanced budget, we are going to keep a balanced budget, we are going to pay down the debt as much as you can, and we are going to end up giving the American people back some of their money. That is a very simple plan. The President offered it and it was pretty good. I yield myself 2 more minutes. Remember that all of these proposals build on a budget that the President sent that has a 4-percent increase built into it, and for the decade almost has 4-percent growth every year. All of that is taken for granted. Everybody should understand that. Then whatever people are offering on top of that means more than 4 percent which means less tax reform and less tax rebates, less tax cuts. The budget before us does one other good thing. It says, tax-writing committees, you can use $60 billion out of this year's surplus as this year's stimulus so long as you fix the marginal rates so that you get a double whammy: current stimulus and a permanent fix for the American economy and its performance over time for the American people who are sitting around about now paying their taxes. We are saying to them: We want your taxes to be less; we want to give you some back. In addition to the stimulus, we want to prepare the economy for long-term growth. I yield the floor. I understand the other side has an amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am working with the ranking member on a startup schedule this morning. I suggest the absence of a quorum to be charged to our side.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the leader has asked me to announce that today the Senate will immediately resume consideration of the budget resolution. Senators who have amendments and opening statements should work with the bill managers on obtaining floor time. A few hours were used up during last night's session, and therefore there are under 50 hours remaining. Senators should be prepared for votes throughout each and every day this week in an effort to complete the budget resolution prior to the end of this week. I thank my colleagues for their attention.

Mr. DOMENICI

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I note the presence of the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Senator Kent Conrad. What we have agreed to in the unanimous consent is that he and I will each speak for 5 minutes, after which we will adopt the House-passed budget resolution, after which the Senator from New Mexico will send a substitute to the desk which will be the Bush-Domenici amendment. We will get that much done tonight. For Senators who might want to speak, we should be there rather quickly, do what I have just described, and we will be here if Senators want to come down and speak. I understand there is at least one Senator on our side who would like to make a speech tonight, and we have talked with Senator Conrad, if there are any on his side who would like to speak. It looks as though the magic hour tonight is certainly somewhere around 9 o'clock because it seems like it would be very uncomfortable after 9 o'clock for Senators to be around here, and we will not be doing any voting until tomorrow. So that looks like a nice time to shoot for, as far as how much time we will use. I will certainly save for tomorrow a more detailed analysis of why we are here. I will say tonight that it is very important to most Republicans--I think I speak for almost every Republican Senator; I am not overstating the case, almost every Republican Senator--that this President, George W. Bush, deserves to have his budget and his tax plan considered by the Senate. That is what the arguments have been about thus far. Should he have a chance? What I am saying tonight is, yes, he should and, yes, I am grateful now that, after a lot of back and forth, the other side of the aisle has agreed that we can call up the budget that we heretofore talked about, the Bush-Domenici budget. Everyone should know that budget has a couple of things different than the one I proposed maybe a week ago. Those things are that the reconciliation instruction on the taxes is not in the budget resolution. The reason for that is simple and does not require much finger pointing or much time. Essentially, it was determined, parliamentary-wise, that would not work, putting the reconciliation instruction on a budget resolution at this time. We intend to offer it at a later time in an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate, and I am certain that while some might want to delay that--I haven't heard that from my friend, Senator Kent Conrad--we will have that vote. We are hopeful by then we will have 51 votes for that, and we will be back where we were originally. It will be in our budget resolution as it goes on its way to the House for conference. Having said that, in the few minutes I have, I will say that the President of the United States and a very brand new staff, who did not have very much time, put together a rather good budget, which the Senator from New Mexico has looked at--at least the profile of it, the plan for it. I have looked at that, and I have modeled the budget after that. Let me tick off what our new President wanted us to do that we are going to try to do in the next few days: One, save Social Security; two, save Medicare; three, provide, in the opinion of the President, adequate defense until and unless he gets his top-down review; and to provide new and increased spending for education. And he did that, and we proposed that within the discretionary funding in this budget resolution. In addition, the President of the United States proposed that we should have a major tax bill. Frankly, in due course, the tax-writing committee will work their will. This is not a Senator putting something off; it is just stating the facts and the law. In a budget resolution, you just use dollar numbers. So you tell the Finance Committee where they have latitude to cut taxes. They will determine how, what kind, and we will be saying in this budget resolution you have permission to do up to $1.6 trillion over a decade. Before we are finished--since some of my friends have gone on television and talked about how big this $1.6 trillion is--I want to use a whole series of numbers as to what that looks like over 10 years to eventually convince people that it is not a very big number--whether you consider the total gross domestic product, total tax take--whatever you want to look at--it is a pretty modest number. The President would like us to consider that. We want to give him the right to consider that in this budget resolution. My last comments have to do with what else is in this budget of a high priority and a big substance; that is, we reduce the national debt by $2 trillion over the decade. We think that is the right amount. We think that is a fair amount. We also think, considering the size of the surpluses, that probably is what we ought to do. We prescribe that in this budget resolution. I have given a summary tonight, as brief as it was. We will ultimately talk about more detail. We have done this budget with this kind of spending in it. The President has a 4-percent increase, year upon year, over the last year's budget for discretionary spending. In my opinion, that is a pretty good amount. Mr. President, we won't adopt the House measure. We will make it pending, after which we will offer a substitute. I note that the Parliamentarian was nodding his head.

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

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be the presence and use of small calculators, which we don't normally permit but which might be needed, during consideration of the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, we have an agreement and understanding that there will be no amendments offered tonight. Incidentally, for those who wonder what that amendment I sent to the desk is, that amendment is the budget I submitted on Thursday of last week to the other side of the aisle. When my friend got it--maybe he got it the next day. It was there for circulation. It is the same budget. Senator Gramm from Texas asked if he could speak tonight. I want it to go out to his office and others that we would like for him to come down. I do not intend to speak until 9 o'clock, considering however long my friend wants to speak. That would be an awful long time for each of us to listen to ourselves, although we both probably have a lot to say. It probably would be fun to listen. I yield myself, for purposes of making sure we keep ourselves under control, 10 minutes and ask that I be reminded when I have used that time. I hope we do not spend an awful lot of time talking about whether or not we have sufficient information from the President of the United States to proceed on this budget. I do not want to spend a long time on it, but I remind everyone--those Senators in their offices who are listening, or those who give Senators information about what is happening on the floor. I spoke earlier of trying to give a new President an opportunity to have his budget considered and his tax proposal considered. I want everyone to know the other side of the aisle, when they had the majority, when they had a brand new President named William Jefferson Clinton--he did not have the luxury of being in office for very long to write up a budget--the other side of the aisle, in its majority status with their President, proceeded to bring up a budget resolution, and the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, had not sent a budget to the Congress. In fact, the budget resolution was adopted by the Senate on a party- line vote. The other side of the aisle had the majority. It was adopted, and the President had not sent us a budget in its totality. It went to conference with the House. They conferred upon it and brought it back and passed a final version of a budget resolution which, incidentally, included not tax cuts but tax increases, tax increases that if you looked at them in today's gross domestic product numbers would be equivalent to almost a trillion dollars in tax increases. Various committees--10, I think--were instructed to make changes in matters that they could make changes in to effect a budget--some of them up, some of them down. The important point is all of that was done by the other side of the aisle when they had a new President without a final budget document. They had a 100-page document, more or less, called ``A Vision for America.'' Our new President, who was elected--and even though some want to contest that election, I believe President Bush got a higher percentage of votes than did Bill Clinton because there were three people running. I do not think we ought to be hearkening back as to who had the moral authority to give us a budget. We have a President. He sent us his vision document, and it was used by the Budget Committee, including this Senator and the staff on this side. It was used to develop the budget that I sent to the desk. Frankly, I repeat, I hope we do not have an argument now from every Senator on the other side of the aisle that we should delay this because we do not have the President's detailed budget. Summarizing, neither did the other side of the aisle, the then-majority, have the budget of the new Democratic President, Bill Clinton, when they produced a budget resolution and the entire finality of a 5-year game plan for America's fiscal policy and tax policy. If we get the budget next week and this budget resolution is still around, I remind everyone that the details in the President's budget may enlighten some people, but it will not necessarily have an impact on this budget resolution because we do not have the authority to determine small itemized programs. That all goes to the Appropriations Committee, as the Chair now recognizes, and they make the final decisions. Mr. President, have I used my 10 minutes yet?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 3. I further ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of House Concurrent Resolution 83, the budget resolution.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a series of technical amendments to S. 27, which are at the desk, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. These technical changes have been agreed to by the chairman and ranking member of the Rules Committee.