Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to talk about a crisis that the leadership in America does not want to tell the American people about, and certainly the leadership does not want to try to solve this basic problem which is the most serious problem confronting us now. I thought it would be fair and right, since this is what I believe and this is what I understand and before we have a new President, for at least one Senator--and I hope there will be others--to remind the American people that we are in the midst of an American energy crisis. Unless and until it becomes critical to millions of Americans in their daily lives, it is very hard for Americans to think we have a crisis, but there is a growing, creeping crisis of paralysis that will occur in America because we do not have enough energy that is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and that we can add to our inventories and resources. The crisis is coming close. Californians may be asking some questions. They ought to be. The media of the United States is not asking them yet. The great State of California, if you put that State alongside countries, is either the third or fourth largest economic unit in the world. In other words, in terms of gross domestic product, California is either third or fourth in the world. There are brownouts happening in California, USA, which means there is not enough distributable electricity in the power lines, in the grid of California, to permit people to continue operating day by day as if there is sufficient energy for anything and everything they choose to do. I hope some people start asking: Who did this to us? Why are we in this condition? I predict this will creep across America, and I only hope we do not blame the next President for what has occurred before his watch. We do not have anyone in a leadership position at the executive branch of America, from the President on down, who is telling the American people that we have a big, big energy problem and that there are solutions, but it will mean we have to make some tough decisions. I want to talk a moment about what energy means. The reason the United States is powerful, the reason we can have a strong military, the reason we have the best material things in our daily lives--more houses, more cars, more refrigerators--and people can continue to aspire to be materially sound in America with our economy growing robustly, adding people to the payrolls and giving them more money per unit of time, giving them a better standard of living and a life to lead, is because we have energy. Without energy, we cannot grow, and I do not mean grow from the standpoint of adding a subdivision; I mean grow from the standpoint of putting to work for us in our daily lives the kinds of things that use energy and give us productivity, jobs, and economic growth. Without an energy supply, that cannot happen. I want to talk a moment about our goals for the world. We have used some really nice words--``globalization,'' for one. The way I see it, America would like poor countries to get rich. We would like poor people in the world to have more, not fewer, material things. Believe me, these poor nations are beginning to look at the world and ask: How about us? Can't we grow? Can't we have prosperity? Let me give an answer as I see it. If the world is expected to grow and prosper using current American restraints on energy sources, it is impossible for us to grow and the poor to grow because they need huge quantities of energy to grow. Do we want to be part of that? If we do, how can we hide our heads and not encourage that all sources of energy be looked at from the standpoint of the benefits versus the costs--the cost to a country, to the environment. Because of the inability to make hard decisions, we are just about to make our country a natural gas environment. We have almost abandoned coal. We have almost abandoned cleaning up coal so we can use it. People are wondering what is happening to natural gas prices. When we say to the American people that all you can use in new powerplants is natural gas, all you can use for anything now because of environmental concerns is natural gas, and then we say we cannot produce it on American lands, on American property, on American public domain--I am looking across the aisle at a Senator who is always talking about coal, coal mining. Let me tell him, there is currently a study that says the United States of America has 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. We use 20 a year. That is almost 10 years of total supply. We have it locked up in American public domain, in American real estate that we own as a people, because we are frightened to make decisions about letting people explore for it or drill for it. In fact, we have case after case where almost nonsensical restraints lock it up so we cannot use it. I submit that the challenge for the new President is to be courageous and for his Secretary of Energy to be courageous. First, we had better define the problem for the American people. A Senator this morning came to the floor and spoke about our growth. I say to my friend from Colorado, we seem to be having a downward trend in our gross domestic product, and everybody wants to tell Alan Greenspan how to do his business. That is OK. That is what Senators do. Everyone claims Alan Greenspan in the last decade did the best job of steering us in the direction of sustained growth, high employment without inflation. I say to my friends, there can be no sustained growth at 2.7 per year or 3.3 per year, which gives us a lot of power in our economy, if we do not have energy to use. We cannot do that with brownouts across America. That, in and of itself, and the increased price will cause America's economy to sputter and slow down, and somebody will be blamed. I submit, do not blame the new President and do not blame the new Secretary. They may have to tell us the truth. They may have to tell us we cannot as a nation get by hiding our heads from new energy sources, such as advanced new technology in the nuclear area. I think we are going to have to start talking about it realistically with the American people. Do you know in South Africa they are about to build a module--that means a small powerplant--with brand new nuclear technology that, number one, means the powerplant can never melt; it is passive; it will turn itself off at a certain temperature. Do you know that powerplant they are trying to build will not use light water? Their gas-cooled design may be much simpler, much safer, and produce less waste (but some) than light water systems. We here in America are working on nuclear research and the like related to that kind of addition, but we are doing it in such a quiet way because we are fearful that some will rise up and get angry about it. Angry they may get, but the truth is, if the American people understand that we can move in that direction--carefully, slowly-- adding some diversity to our energy supply, we can also do a better job in cleaning up our coal and using some of it for electricity. We can, indeed, open up our public lands to exploration instead of hiding them, as if drilling a well that produces huge amounts of natural gas for Americans--and for whatever we need to grow and prosper--as if that is something terrible rather than something very good. It is something where we ought to hold our heads up and say: We own it. It is American. If we produce it, it is ours. We do not have to be dependent. And, yes, there is no question that we ought to look at the refining capacity of America. We have not built a new refinery in 16 years, I say to the occupant of the chair. What is that all about? It is because we have put environmental rules ahead of America's energy needs. We refuse to look at real cost benefits and reasonable mainstream protection rather than extraordinary protection that in many instances is meaningless but costly and many times stops the production of things such as refineries, pipelines, and the like. I have much more that I will talk about from time to time on the floor of the Senate, but I come today to say, I hope we do not have to turn off our Christmas trees in New Mexico during this Christmas season, nor in the Senator's State of Colorado. I hope we can turn them back on in California. Frankly, the only reason they cannot--and the only reason California suffers--is because nobody will make tough decisions. We are sitting back suggesting that things are really going well; that we will fix the American energy supply with windmills. I can deliver a specific talk on why that will not work for all our energy, but we ought to continue it. But it will never give us the kind of energy supply we need as we look to the future. Do you know that the underdeveloped countries of the world, which intend to grow--and we say to them: Grow, prosper--by 2020 will use as much energy as the United States of America? Where are they going to get it? What are they going to use? What are we going to suggest they do? Are we going to sit back and say America can grow but they can't? Are we going to say they can use some new kind of energy source but we won't? So our leadership in the world, moving towards democratization and growth and prosperity for the poorest of nations, will come to a grinding halt if, in fact, we cannot have energy supply in the world. Why should we have an agreement to preserve ambient air qualities and in that report not mention nuclear power? Why should leaders do that? I have had experts, physicists, who know what they are talking about, saying that alone is enough to put that document over here on a table and declare that it is not real. If you want clean air in the future, you cannot say we will do it by using only natural gas, that we will not build any more coal burning powerplants, even though we could develop the technology to do that, that we will not consider nuclear power, even though we have a nuclear Navy that since 1954 has gone all through the waters of the seas and oceans of the world with it, with one or two powerplants right inside the hull of the boat, with never an accident. Never has anything happened, and we are so frightened we will not even talk about it. I think we will talk about it. I think we will talk about opening up American public domain for production. I think we will have a real debate about ANWR, rather than an emotional debate, a real one about what we ought to do to relate our energy needs to that area of the world, not just putting our hands up and saying it cannot be touched, that you can do nothing. So there is much to be talked about and much leadership needed. But the point is, energy problems in America, without major changes, will get more pronounced. We will have more crises; the prices will go higher, not lower across the board in America for gasoline and natural gas. I am hopeful the new President will put somebody in the Department of Energy who will help America address this issue with its eyes open, ready to make some really tough decisions. But the biggest thing I seek is to set the record straight. When that occurs, as the energy crisis creeps across America, I hope we will remember that the seeds have been sown before the swearing in of this President. They are there; the lack of doing the right thing in America is already in place. This President and his Cabinet and his Secretary and his Environmental Protection Agency head are going to have to help solve a crisis they did not create. We ought to know that, and we ought to set the record straight that that is the case. I want to close by saying there is plenty of blame to go around. But we will not solve this problem without some leadership that is willing to tell us the truth and suggest that there is really no need for the State of California to be running out of electricity. It is because we have been shortsighted, misled--and they have been in their State because there is the potential for plenty of energy to go around out there. We just have to decide that America needs energy for its future, and that we cannot grow more dependent, that we ought to grow less dependent. So rather than proceed with details about each of the sources of energy which I had chosen to talk about today, I will do that on another day. Suffice it to say, we will not continue to grow--the Federal Reserve Board notwithstanding--if we cannot solve the problem of how much energy we need and make sure we have it. Some people thought that because of Silicon Valley, because it is so clean and because it is built around new technology and computerization, we would not need new energy sources. But it turns out that if you want that kind of growth and that kind of productivity increase, and if you want the future of our country to be built upon the technology that evolved with the Silicon Valley in California and other mini ``silicon valleys,'' you need a lot of energy to create the new productivity that that brings to America. I want to also add that new technology, led by computerization, is part of the reason we have had the sustained growth; they added a dimension of productivity we did not even measure for many years. They added growth to technology by way of productivity increases: The more computers you had, the more you got out of your personnel per unit of work. You got more because of high technology. That has added immensely to our productivity and has permitted us to grow without inflation. That is peaking out. Surely, if we do not add more energy to the mix of the base, we will have to start trading off one source of growth in America for another. I do not believe that is going to work, and somebody will be blamed, especially since it does not have to happen. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

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

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

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry: Is it time for the Senator from New Mexico to speak about the departure of Senator Slade Gorton?

Mr. DOMENICI. I am very sorry to ask for that. I thought Senators on our side had control. I am very pleased Senator Murray yielded to me. Mr. President, I come this morning to speak about my friend, Slade Gorton, who is leaving the Senate shortly. I thought I better do it today because, as most things around here, when you can get them done you ought to because time flies and all of a sudden we find Senator Gorton is out of the Senate and we have to speak before he leaves. Today, I want to take a few minutes to share with him and his wife Sally, whom I hope will have occasion to read the Record, having served with him in each of his 18 years in the Senate, what he has contributed and who he is. It will not take me a long time to speak about him, although to tell the truth, he probably is more noteworthy in my life in terms of being a co-Senator on many things that are very big and important to our Nation than any other single Senator here. Slade Gorton is a quiet man. Even though he appears on the floor regularly to discuss things, he is a very thoughtful person and also a very hard worker. As we sometimes coin phrases, he is certainly a workhorse, not a show horse, and he is a very special and unique person because he is also extremely thoughtful and shares willingly his wonderful ideas, thoughts, and innovations with us, his fellow Senators. I think everybody knows that while he shares no official leadership role and he works hours on end on a subcommittee called the Subcommittee on Appropriations for the Department of Interior, his contributions go well beyond that. Wherever he touches things, either by committee work or by being called in by our majority leader to discuss issues to advise him, he leaves an imprint. It is not that he must get his way all the time, but essentially he is rather compelling and does succeed most of the time by power of persuasion to leave his imprint in the Halls of the Senate, be it in this Chamber, while we discuss things seriously and collegially as Republicans or combined Republicans and Democrats, or certainly where small groups of Senators meet because they must meet in their leadership roles. He is almost always among them. From my own standpoint, I have had one major commitment, one major user of my time in my work, and that is to understand and make sense of the U.S. budget. While it is not my only job, it is one of those the Senate expects somebody to know a lot about if they are going to come down here and talk about it. I have been privileged to work in that committee since its origin, believe it or not. It is a rather new committee, enforcing a rather new part of the Senate. We used to have just authorizing and appropriations, and some 26 years ago we had budgeting. He has been on that committee with me through thick and thin. Everybody should know that we did a lot of innovative things in that committee. We rather imaginatively broadened the scope called reconciliation where we can insist that things get done without being burdened by filibuster and untold amendments. We have done new and innovative things to set aside money for only one purpose and it cannot be used for anything else. These are all unique and different, along with regular routine things. It did not take very long, once these issues were put on the table and discussed, for Slade Gorton to understand them and to suggest ways of improving them. That is the way he is with everything he does. He does not have to be the kingpin, but I guarantee you, those who are and who are forced to lead, if he is around helping them, you can just tell; You can see the imprint, the logic, the strength of argument that comes from him being directly involved or indirectly being a helper. I am not sure in the history of the Senate how we are going to rate Senators over time, but I suggest that Slade Gorton will certainly be recognized in some very special way for his 18 years because there will be few who trace this history who may just look around and say: Who were the leaders? Who was the majority leader? Who was the minority leader? Who was this or that in terms of a formal job? And then attribute to them some direct legacy in this 18-year span that he served, being absent 2 years while he sought election again. But if it is looked at carefully, Slade Gorton has to come out near the top of the list of influential Senators in the conduct of occurrences of significance in the Senate. I am not sure how that will be picked up because much of it occurs in meetings that are not public not private meetings but meetings that are just not known because they are in the leader's office or a committee room. But what I want to say to him is: You will be missed because while you have been here, you have been felt. People have known you were here. They knew your presence, your intellectual presence, your humanity, your loyalty, and, yes, your skill at knowing when things ought to happen. Slade has a real knack for knowing: Well, it is about time to spring this. He will be there doing that and, sure enough, it will go unnoticed that he was the one who got it done. Individually, from my standpoint, he has been at my side every time we have had major events on the floor that I have had to manage. There have been many, they have been long, and they have been arduous. When I had to test them and tried them on for size with Slade Gorton, and he said, ``That's the way to do it,'' no one will really know what that has meant. Nobody will really understand how influential saying ``that's the way to do it'' from Slade Gordon really is in terms of many of us here. He has a wonderful wife Sally and three great, wonderful children. I hope whatever happens in the next few years, since he is so knowledgeable about the workings of our Government, not just those items within bills on which he worked so hard called appropriations, but he knows about many things in Government, I close by saying, many of us raise our hand and say, yes, we are lawyers, and some of us know full well we are not lawyers any longer; we have been away from the profession for years. We are not what one would call a lawyer's lawyer. But after all these years in public life, Slade Gorton could step into the most significant of legal offices in America and be a great, participating, achieving modern-day lawyer, even after all these years of not being in the legal profession. He must have been a great solicitor. He appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of his State and made some very interesting law when he was a lawyer for his State, either in his attorney general's office or otherwise. So I want to say to him, whatever it is you choose now, Senator Gorton, and Sally, whatever you choose, I hope you will be around so we can continue to share with you, an occasional opportunity to share a meal, an occasional social event, or, even better, an opportunity from time to time to just listen to you tell us what you think of how it is, how you observe it, and, in a way, continue to bless us with all those marvelous qualities you bring here. You have brought from your State a degree of pride to the Senate that is very difficult to replace. Far be it from me to judge any other Senator from any other State or even his own State, but Senator Slade Gorton will be here a long time in memory because many will know what he thought about the Senate and how he thought about us. It is hard to say he will not be down here at that seat, arguing with us on important issues. But he will be here because I cannot imagine that people who lived and worked with him all these years--I see one here on the floor, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who knows about it very well--will ever forget him, and we will not let the Senate forget. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate all the Senators who have been working on this issue and, in particular, the chairman who is standing here, Senator Grassley, and has been here many times. Today, in an extended session, we will finally reform the bankruptcy laws of America. They are very important because credit in America, be it from banks, from individual lenders, wherever, is really the heartbeat of what makes us tick and permits us to give our citizens material means. Without credit, things do not work in America. Every now and then, we have to fix the bankruptcy laws so they work in behalf of not only the debtors but the creditors of America. That is what we are doing here. I think it will pass overwhelmingly. My thanks to those who have worked so hard on it. I cannot claim to be one of them. Again, Senator Chuck Grassley has great persistence, and this is a tribute to him and a good start to his chairmanship of the Finance Committee. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Fissile Material Loan Guarantee Act. This Act is intended to increase the arsenal of programs that reduce proliferation threats from the Russian nuclear weapons complex. This Act presents an unusual option, which I've been discussing with the leadership of some of the world's largest private banks and lending institutions and with senior officials of the Russian Federation's Ministry for Atomic Energy. I also am aware that discussions between Western lending institutions and the Russian Federation are progressing well and that discussions with the International Atomic Energy Authority or IAEA have helped to clarify their responsibilities. This Act would enable the imposition of international protective safeguards on new, large stocks of Russian weapons-ready materials in a way that enables the Russian Federation to gain near-term financial resources from the same materials. The Act requires that these resources be used in support of non-proliferation or energy programs within Russia. It also requires that the materials used to collateralize these loans must remain under international IAEA safeguards forevermore. This Act does not replace programs that currently are in place to ensure that weapons-grade materials can never be used in weapons in the future. The Highly Enriched Uranium or HEU Agreement is moving toward elimination of 500 tons of Russian weapons-grade uranium. The Plutonium Disposition Agreement is similarly working on elimination of 34 tons of Russian weapons-grade plutonium. The HEU agreement removes material usable in 20,000 nuclear weapons, while the plutonium disposition agreement similarly removes material for more than 4,000 nuclear weapons. Both of these agreements enable the transition of Russian materials into commercial reactor fuel, which, after use in a reactor, destroys its ``weapons-grade'' attributes. There should be no question that both these agreements remain of vital importance to both nations. But estimates are that the Russian Federation has vast stocks of weapons-grade materials in addition to the amounts they've already declared as surplus to their weapons needs in these earlier agreements. If we can provide additional incentives to Russia to encourage transition of more of these materials into configurations where it is not available for diversion or re-use in weapons, we've made another significant step toward global stability. By introducing this Act now, Mr. President, I'm hoping that this concept will be carefully reviewed by all interested parties--by the new Administration, by lending institutions, and by the Russian Federation. My hope is that in the next Congress, these interests can come together to enable this new approach to still further reduce the proliferation threats from surplus weapons materials in the Russian nuclear weapons complex.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I say to my good friend from Alabama, that is absolutely true, and he probably heard me on the floor today. I mentioned enough subjects, but capital gains was also on my list because we've gotten some very unexpected returns to the Treasury from this source. Clearly, the 1997 capital gains reduction--which we accomplished and the President signed although it wasn't high on his list--has been one important factor behind this surplus that is now carrying us into this better period with a lot more flexibility on what we can do in the future.

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator is assuming that each one of those took the job, and they are getting paid and earning income pursuant to the job.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I open by saying if I have heard it once in the last 2 months, I have heard it 40 times as the other side of the aisle tries to convince us and the American people that what really has made the American economy so strong, with its 22 million new jobs, is the fact that they voted on a tax increase bill in the year 1993 that amounted to $247 billion over 5 years, and it is called the Clinton- Gore plan, in quotation marks; sometimes referred to on the floor as ``the plan.'' Before we are through this evening, we hope we can convince our colleagues that that plan had very little to do with the state of economic well-being, jobs, and confidence of the American people today. However, there are several subjects I want to touch on quickly, because the other side cannot come to the floor for 15, 20, or 30 minutes without talking about them. The first one is what the plan of the Governor of Texas on Social Security is going to do to our senior citizens. They proceed as if they know, and they don't know. The distinguished Governor from Texas has given us an idea. The idea is to let every senior who is on Social Security keep their check and the program remain totally intact while we let younger Americans invest a little piece of their Social Security money in a preferred or protected account in the stock market. They come down here and do some arithmetic gymnastics, which is hard for any one to understand. They support their statements by citing the Secretary of the Treasury, a genius I believe they called him. We all know Secretary Summers. We all know he is rather bright. We all know he was a very young Harvard Ph.D. faculty member. But for him to take to the streets telling Americans he knows what that Bush plan is going to do to senior citizens is absolutely deplorable. I have seen Secretaries of the Treasury come and go. We had a great one before this one. Never have I seen anybody attempt to do this. I want to tell the American people the truth about the Vice President's plan on Social Security. I would almost say there is no plan because, in fact, the plan he is talking about is accepted by so few in the Congress, despite the fact that it has been around since 1999, in case anybody is interested. You know, we voted on it a couple times in the Budget Committee. I think perhaps that there was one time when a Democrat voted for it--one member. I think we might have forced a vote on the floor that included that and nobody voted for it. So what is the Vice President's plan? I will tell you plain and simple. He wants to put some new IOUs in the trust account for senior citizens, and the IOU says we, the American people, promise to pay to the trust fund the face value of these IOUs. He says let's put about $10 billion worth in there. Guess what happens. He puts them in there a few years from now and indicates that that helps make Social Security solvent. So that the American people might understand an IOU in the parlance of your checkbook, it is a postdated check. Have you ever postdated a check? It used to be illegal. It may still be if you do it with the intent to cheat. But some people postdate a check and say, I won't have the money for 2 months, so will you take my check and it will be good then. That is what an IOU is--except the Congressional Budget Office says 50 years from now, when the IOUs all come due, the total amount that the taxpayers of America will owe to that fund will be $40 trillion--not billion but trillion, $40 trillion. Who will owe it? Well, of course, the Vice President is not worried about that today; right? It is our children who are going to pay it, I say to the occupant of the chair. Some day down the line, we are going to have to raise taxes generally or raise the Social Security withholding tax so high that it probably will make the program inoperative and ineffective. It is amazing that the Secretary of the Treasury and the people on that side of the aisle--my friends, the Democrats of the Senate--would talk about the plan of the Governor of Texas when their candidate has a plan before us that would eventually require that we raise taxes--and I left out an option--or dramatically cut programs. They would have to cut American programs to the tune of $40 trillion over this period, or raise new taxes. Now you would think if you had a plan that was that embarrassing, you would not have the courage to get up and critique other programs that actually do try to reform Social Security. Democratic Senator Pat Moynihan and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska have both stressed the need to reform Social Security, which is just what Governor Bush is trying to do. Now my Democratic colleagues also have another line of argument. They say that what we really should do is pay down the debt. They then say, why are Republicans against that? Well, they know we aren't. We have already paid down $360 billion of debt over the last three years. The greatest threat to debt reduction is the Vice President of the United States' spending proposals. He has asked for 200 new programs and has a complicated tax code proposal. Let me address this latter point briefly. My Democratic colleagues have attacked Governor Bush's tax plan tonight, however, it is based on the very sound principle that everybody who pays income tax should get a break. That's not the case under the Gore plan, where 50 million American taxpayers get no break at all. Why? Because taxpaying Americans don't get a tax break. It is Americans who are selected by the Vice President's plan. If you meet their criterion--if you're the ``right'' kind of person--you get a tax break. But that doesn't mean everybody paying income taxes gets a tax break. Now let's get back to the size of the Government that Vice President Gore would fund. Let me give you an example of the charades he plays in order to say he is not spending very much money. See, I have estimated the plan, and it spends a lot of money. I ask Senator Gramm if he knows that the Vice President's Retirement Savings Plus (RSP) plan, the one that is going to help low income Americans save money, which he talks about so much--i.e. if someone saves $500, the government will match this contribution 3:1, thus giving this person an additional $1500 of taxpayer money for deposit to their savings account--do you know when that plan would be fully implemented under his proposal? Nine years from today, assuming he wins. So the centerpiece of his ``tax'' plan would not fully phase-in until after two full Presidential terms and 1 year. If you assume such an unrealistic phase-in, of course, it won't cost very much. But neither should anybody kid themselves that his budget isn't full of those timing gimmicks, in order to give the appearance that he does not spend the Social Security surplus. There are all kinds of strange dates such as the RSP one. In fact, this major one he speaks about being such a good plan for low-income Americans to save money, I repeat, won't go fully phase-in until 9 years after he is elected, if he is elected. The Vice President has not provided enough information to tell when all of his 200 programs phase- in. But I can tell you that if you just look at the overall programs and add them up cumulatively in your mind, there has not been a bigger increase in American programs since Lyndon Baines Johnson invented the Great Society. Now what actually happens under the plan of the Governor of Texas is very simple. Of the surplus, he says 50 percent will be saved for Social Security and debt reduction. If you want to go add that up, it looks as though he would pay off the debt entirely by the middle of the next decade. Frankly, if that could happen, what a marvelous thing it would be. If Democrats keep pushing for more spending, we might not do it that fast, although I can tell you the money is there barring that. 50 percent of the projected surpluses is for Social Security and debt reduction under the plan of the Governor of Texas, 25 percent is to be given back to the American people since it is their money to begin with, with every taxpayer getting a tax cut of some type, and 25 percent goes toward new priorities, new things such as increased defense or money we may need to add to the Medicare program to pay for prescription drugs. The ratio is 50, 25, 25. The other side of the aisle likes to get up and brag about how they are paying down the debt. I submit to you that if you took the litany of Gore programs and what he wants to do in every area to increase things such as prescription drugs for everyone, as he suggests, in the manner he suggests, debt reduction will suffer. His new programs are very costly and we expect the cost estimates to rise the more that people look at them. Let's look at prescription drugs. When that program was first submitted to the Congress by President Clinton, we thought it would cost $120 billion. The last reference we have from the Congressional Budget Office says that plan would cost $430 billion. So you see, there is no question that there is not going to be very much money left over if you put all those programs the Vice President has in mind into effect and give them to the American people in a reasonable period of time. If you want to delay them incessantly, obviously they won't cost much; but will the American people think they have been fooled if that is the case and he is to get elected? I believe they will wonder, what in the world were they talking about when they told us they were going to give us that? I want to also say that when it comes to reducing the size of Government--I want to repeat one more time, our friends on the other side always cite the total number of reductions in employees that have occurred since Bill Clinton took office. What they don't tell you is that 96 percent--and I just put it in the Record 2 days ago, and it comes from the Office of Management and Budget, not Domenici's staff-- OMB says 96 percent of all employee reductions, described as stripping down Government, came from civilians in the Department of Defense. In other words, we started drawing down that Department of Defense so quickly and rapidly, and continued it, so 96 percent of the employee reduction comes from the Department of Defense, and 4 percent comes from all the other civilian programs, which they would lead you to believe have been seriously restrained and many employees have been taken from their ranks. Not true. I will shortly yield to my friend from Texas for about 20 minutes. However, before I do, I want to point something out. When my Democratic colleagues speak of the Clinton plan for the recovery of the United States, which caused America to have all these 22 million new jobs, new high technology, and breakthroughs in communications--and I say that facetiously--, they ignore the fact that the first plan the President sent to us was a $26 billion stimulus package for American economy, even though the economy had already begun posting strong growth before he took office. Does my friend from Texas recall that? Standing right back over there was the Senator from the State of Colorado, who is now retired. He came to the floor and told us what was in that $26 billion that we were supposed to spend. He found all kinds of things that were promised to mayors during the election and to all kinds of groups in America by the Governor of Arkansas as he campaigned. I can't remember. Some of them were igloos, and all kinds of strange things--skating rinks for some communities. The first thing we did was to say we aren't going to do that. The first phase of the recovery plan was a $26 billion stimulus which never occurred. That would have caused more money to be spent, not less. To lead into what is being said on the other side of the aisle, and by our President and by our Vice President about this plan--the 1993 tax increase of $243 billion--, I would like to hearken back to Alan Greenspan, who coined a phrase. Perhaps my friend from Texas remembers it. He used two words, ``irrational exuberance.'' Do you recall that, Senator Gramm? Irrational exuberance? I am going to borrow that phrase today--not to describe the speculative activities in the stock market, as Dr. Greenspan did, but rather to describe my colleagues who have been attributing the 1993 Clinton/Gore tax increase budget plan as the genesis of this long boom we have been experiencing. I want to talk shortly about what really caused the boom. But I understand my friend from Texas would like to speak for 20 minutes. I yield that off my time, reserving the remainder for myself. I want to say just before I yield that I have looked at some polls that somebody presented--maybe even some polls that were published. I am thrilled with the American people because you know they don't believe the irrational exuberance of the other side. They do not believe it. They come down here and keep on saying it, but the American people just do not believe it. The primary reason for this boom has been the evenhandedness of the Federal Reserve Board in making sure we do not let inflation go rampant, and controlling interest rates where they could so that the American economy would always grow, and if it was coming down, to have a safe landing. They put that No. 1. In terms of who did it, Dr. Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve deserve much of the credit. The American people, no matter how many times the plan is discussed about the 22 million jobs and all the other things, they do not believe it. And they shouldn't. Who do they put in second position as responsible for this? I didn't think it was going to be the case because we don't do a very good job of talking about it. But they said the Republican Congress which puts some real controls on spending. When we are finished tonight, we will show you that actually happened when we took over the U.S. Congress. In third place, in terms of who did it, who brought it, they put the President's plan. I yield to my friend from Texas.

Mr. DOMENICI. If the Senator will yield, I suggest to the Senator, and I wonder if the Senator concurs, six Democrats voted with Republicans. That is why it was 49-49.

Mr. DOMENICI. I will be pleased to yield.

Mr. DOMENICI. If the Senator will hold up the health care plan again, I say to Senator Gramm, I want to make a statement about it. I made a mistake. If you look at the President's FY 1995 budget and health plan, it would have increased outlays by $1.4 trillion--I said billion. Billions are gone; they are not in our vocabulary. The $1.4 trillion is the additional outlays that the President's budget and health plan would have generated if we'd adopted his plan versus the outlays that the government actually recorded over the five years covered by his budget. You heard Senator Gramm describe one of the most significant indicators of prosperity--the 30-year Treasury bond yield. Here is the chart that describes precisely what he spoke of. Here is 1993. You see shortly after that, yields drop a little bit. But then look at what happens in the middle of 1993. It goes to its highest rate on this chart. Yields only begin to fall again after 1995 and the election of a Republican Congress. After that, yields come back down on a sustained basis. I want to just insert a comment, since there is so much talk about us doing nothing here. This is sort of extraneous, but I think it is terribly relevant to our discussion. This is a late-this-evening quote from the President of the United States: Again, we have accomplished so much in this session of Congress in a bipartisan fashion. It has been one of the most productive sessions. He goes on and asks for more. But for all those who have been listening, again, to the ``mythology,'' to borrow one of Senator Gramm's words, that we have not had a very productive Congress, let me say the President of the United States spoke today and that is what he said. Let me say to the American people, to all the investors who took risks, to all of the people who invested in new technology since 1993-- we will just use that date--to all the millions of Americans who get up every day and work hard and raise their standard of living: You know that it was not ``the plan'' that caused America to achieve again and grow again. Let me suggest we have had one of the most remarkable productivity increases during the last five years of this recovery that we have had ever in American history. We had a period right after the Second World War that rivaled this in productivity. Did the productivity of the investors, risk takers, American workers, the banks with new technology, the new computers--did all that happen because we had a plan to raise taxes $243 billion? Of course not. Of course not. Did that $243 billion tax increase reduce inflation and cause it to stay down? Of course not. Productivity did, and international trade did, and the Federal Reserve Board did. That is the kind of thing that made America's prosperity so significant in the past decade. Did that tax increase reduce regulatory burden, which all American companies will tell you started falling under Ronald Reagan, and has continued up to the recent telecommunications deregulation? That was not a result of the ``plan,'' that $243 billion tax increase. Deregulation was part of giving American business more freedom to achieve, expand, and to do things in the most efficient way rather than the most burdensome way. Did it help business become more efficient in managing its inventories? Of course not. The 1993 budget plan had nothing to do with it. Just-in-time inventory management had a lot to do with it, making firms' profits go up and their efficiency increase. We could go on. Did global trade, which essentially kept inflation under control and opened new horizons to American business--was that impacted by the $243 billion ``plan'' which we hear regularly? No. It is only ``irrational exuberance'' that would cause my Democratic colleagues to claim that the 1993 tax hike generated today's marvelous economy. I am not sure that ``irrational exuberance'' is even an adequate word with which to describe the day-after-day trek to the floor of the Senate Democrats to remind us that all good things came from that day, that day when a difficult vote was taken to increase taxes dramatically. I think the American people understand that the 1993 budget plan had little to do with where we are and where we are going to end up. It is because we have a free economy and we have made it freer. Frankly, let the people judge whether we are more apt to keep this economy going if we have a tax reform measure that gives everybody some of their money back to spend as they see fit. I believe they will say that that gives this economy a much better chance than 200 new programs that the Government is going to run which we do not have today, and we estimate--and I think this is a modest estimate--that we could not administer with less than 20,000 new employees. Americans understand their prosperity does not come from the size of our National Government. Maybe it is inverse to the size of our National Government. I believe that might be a fairer estimate of America and the world. Maybe the smaller our National Government gets, the better we will compete and that is very important in the global economy. I do say the President of the United States deserves credit on trade. Had some Democrats said that votes to further free trade were an important reason behind our strong growth, I would have agreed with them on that point. Trade has been an important positive in the chain of things that have happened to make economic life better in these United States. I have time remaining. If there are any Senators on our side who want to speak----

Mr. DOMENICI. All indications are that it did. There are several things which have combined to get these tremendous new revenue increases. One of them clearly is capital gains. Another is that real incomes have increased for all Americans in all income quintiles. They are paying a lot more taxes, and when you have more Americans paying income taxes because they are working, obviously you collect more revenue and you make Social Security more solid. All of those are positive things that occur when the American economy is flourishing, when it is booming, when more and more people are working. Capital gains is very instrumental in that regard. I think there are many in this body who think in the near future we ought to think seriously about reducing capital gains further. In my opinion, it is very helpful for the stock market, government fiscal position and the economy. Higher stock values--particularly in the Nasdaq have greatly contributed to investment in new technology, everything from computers to telecommunications, and everything in between. This is good for the economy, since it boosts productivity and keeps inflation down. The higher the productivity, even when you get less and less unemployment, you do not get inflation. Americans do not appreciate low inflation yet. Most all other things can be cured in the American economy if you keep inflation low. Does the Senator have a further observation?

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield those 5 minutes to Senator Sessions. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, at the end of this session of the 106th Congress Brian Benczkowski will be leaving my staff. Brian has worked on the Hill since his third year in law school. He started as an intern while still in law school, served as the senior analyst for judiciary issues for the Senate Budget Committee, and worked closely with my general counsel to develop, and enact, over the President's veto, the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Brian was my counsel for the second round of Whitewater hearings and was part of the team for the historic impeachment trial of President Clinton. Brian worked on Juvenile Justice legislation and helped me take on the Mexican drug lords. He learned the highway, airport and other infrastructure needs of New Mexico as well as any Highway and Transportation Secretary in any Governor's cabinet. He was knowledgeable on immigration issues and helped my caseworkers with the really tough, but worthy immigration problems that are a daily fact of life in a border state. Just to prove that Brian had a soft side, he was my staff person for Character Counts during the 106th Congress. Brian was instrumental in drafting the claims process legislation for the victims of the Cerro Grande fire. From the date that the fire first started to the day that the President signed the bill, complete with the $640 million to pay the claims, was fifty days. It is a good legislative product, and it proved that the delegation and the Congress could be bipartisan and act expeditiously in an emergency. Brian is a talented lawyer, a caring and hard working member of my staff. For a young man raised in Virginia, taught the law in Missouri with parents now living in Connecticut, he has made many New Mexico friends, developed a taste for green chile and amassed an understanding of the border. At one point I remarked that his Spanish was as good as any other staff member in my office. So what is it that such a talented young man would choose to do when leaving Capitol Hill? Banking legislative assistants and counsels with backgrounds in securities often end up at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission or at one of the Wall Street firms. However, the typical career path wouldn't do for this untypically talented young lawyer. He is going to New York to work for the first, real sports stock market! This new sports stock market will list the baseball and other trading cards of today's marquee athletes and major league sports rising stars. Just like any major stock exchange, the exchange is a market maker. Just like E-trade or Ameritrade people will have sports brokerage accounts. Brian is a baseball fan, former baseball player and a font of knowledge when it comes to sports. As a former minor league baseball player myself, I know baseball and am a fan of most other sports. ESPN was a great invention that adds to most men's enjoyment of life, sports and the pursuit of happiness. Hopefully, this new sports stock exchange will add another dimension to the way we all follow sports. Many of us share a passion for sports, but very few of us get to take that passion, and merge it with the law, get a impressive title like Assistant General Counsel, receive a pay check and stock options. However, Brian is going to do just that at thePit.com. I wish him and his new company every success.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, normally, I don't have the luxury of using as much time as I would like on subjects. I am very pleased tonight to have a considerable amount of time, which I am going to share with my good friend from Texas. I will start with a statement about one of my staff people and then proceed to a point where I think what Senator Gramm has to say will fit rather nicely with what I am talking about.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, at the end of this session of the 106th Congress Brian Benczkowski will be leaving my staff. Brian has worked on the Hill since his third year in law school. He stared as an intern while still in law school, served as the senior analyst for judiciary issues for the Senate Budget Committee, and worked closely with my general counsel to develop, and enact, over the President's veto, the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Brian was my counsel for the second round of Whitewater hearings and was part of the team for the historic impeachment trial of President Clinton. Brian worked on Juvenile Justice legislation, and helped me take on the Mexican drug lords. He learned the highway, airport and other infrastructure needs of New Mexico as well as any Highway and Transportation Secretary in any Governor's cabinet. He was knowledgeable on immigration issues and helped my caseworkers with the really tough, but worthy immigration problems that are a daily fact of life in a border state. Just to prove that Brian had a soft side, he was my staff person for Character Counts during the 106th Congress. Brian was instrumental in drafting the claims process legislation for the victims of the Cerro Grande fire. From the date that the fire first started to the day that the President signed the bill, complete with the $640 million to pay the claims, was fifty days. It is a good legislative product, and it proved that the delegation and the Congress could be bipartisan and act expeditiously in an emergency. Brian is a talented lawyer, a caring and hard working member of my staff. For a young man raised in Virginia, taught the law in Missouri with parents now living in Connecticut, he has made many New Mexico friends, developed a taste for green chile and amassed an understanding of the border. At one point I remarked that his Spanish was as good as any other staff member in my office. So what is it that such a talented young man would choose to do when leaving Capitol Hill? Banking legislative assistants and counsels with backgrounds in securities often end up at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission or at one of the Wall Street firms. However, the typical career path wouldn't do for this untypically talented young lawyer. He is going to New York to work for the first, real sports stock market. This new sports stock market will list the baseball and other trading cards of today's marquee athletes and major league sports rising stars. Just like any major stock exchange, the exchange is a market maker. Just like E-trade or Ameritrade people will have sports brokerage accounts. Brian is a baseball fan, former baseball player and a font of knowledge when it comes to sports. As a former minor league baseball player myself, I know baseball and am a fan of most other sports. ESPN was a great invention that adds to most men's enjoyment of life, sports and the pursuit of happiness. Hopefully, this new sports stock exchange will add another dimension to the way we all follow sports. Many of us share a passion for sports, but very few of us get to take that passion, and merge it with the law, get an impressive title like assistant general counsel, receive a pay check and stock options. However, Brian is going to do just that at thePit.com. I wish him and his new company every success.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator Moynihan, I was listening to your speech on the television set before I arrived on the floor. First, I thank you for what you said this morning. It is something we ought to hear, something that ought to be placed permanently in our Record. And that is what happened. I personally want to say to you, over the years in my work as Budget Committee chairman and other legislation, I have found you to be a real friend. I think that is more important than talking about what you did here in terms of this Senator. I can remember, believe it or not, when we produced a most difficult budget, and it looked like a pretty good budget. I was wondering whether it would pass. I had the votes counted. All of a sudden, I won by one more vote than I thought. As he walked out, he put his hand on my shoulder and said: You did a great job. I voted for you. Now, we have talked a lot about other things, including you have asked me regularly about my wonderful family and my beautiful wife Nancy. I thank you for that concern. I guess in the remaining time I want to say to you, there are many ways to be a great Senator. Sometimes you become a great Senator because you get a lot of big headlines. Sometimes you become a great Senator when you promote yourself, which is permitted around here, and there is nothing wrong with it. But I can say, I think you are a great Senator. I don't think you did either of those. I think you just worked. And when people had to hear something that was vitally important, that had some history to it, I don't think we have had anyone around here in my 28 years--maybe there are Senators who have been here longer who might have experienced it, but I don't think I have ever had a Senator who had so much impact because he knows a lot and he remembers history and he always calls matters to our attention when we ought to have them there. You have served on an important committee. Your knowledge of the world and trade and what it means to us in the world has been a tremendous asset for the Senate. I thank you for that. I am certain that many are not going to have time to commend the distinguished Senator from New York because we are in some kind of a strange, 1-day-at-a-time funding resolution. We are just adding to the appropriations by 1 day at a time, which I have never heard of before. I have never had it happen to me in 28 years. I don't think it has happened. Nonetheless, we are here, and that is going to make it difficult for Senators to find the time that they want to commend you in this Record. But I am sure many Senators are thinking today that they would love to get down here and say thanks to you. I thank Senator Moynihan very much. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I don't know the parliamentary situation. I need 3 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. How can the President of the United States say he is going to veto the bill because of the Medicare provisions? Actually, everyone knows that nursing homes need additional reimbursement. That is in this bill. I could go on with each one of them. I believe what is happening is that politics is walking up from Pennsylvania Avenue into the Chambers of the House and Senate, and politics from the White House is saying: You give me everything I want or you do not get the bills completed. And then the White House can say: You didn't do your work. You didn't get your work done. Let me say we will get our work done. Mr. President, you just consider the compromise with us on some of these. This is a good bill for the American people. I might like to do it differently. In fact, if this bill is vetoed next year, we will do it a lot differently. But for now, Mr. President, you cannot get everything you want in this kind of bill. This one is not our President in the Senate. This is the President at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. That President, not our President here. You can't get everything you want, and when you don't get it, blame the Republicans for ``not completing their work.'' I want to repeat one more time that the Republicans have tried to lead this Senate and get its work done. For those on the other side of the aisle who complain about not getting our work done, if you look back at the record, it has been the Democrats on that side of the aisle who have been insisting on their agenda all year long. They get a vote on guns; they want another one on an appropriations bill, or the next bill that comes through. They even held up the education bill because of guns. That is the record. The education bill that everyone touted was held up by the other side of the aisle who wanted their agenda of amendments on that bill. I think our leader did the right thing. He wouldn't let them, after they had their vote once. So what happened? We don't get the bill. Who is to blame? It appears to me that what we ought to do right now is sit down together and get this work done. And Democrats ought to tell the President of the United States, instead of concurring with him every time and saying they are with him and to go ahead and veto the bill, they ought to say to him: Mr. President, we have done a very good job in the closing moments to try to get our work done, and you ought to help us, President Bill Clinton, get our work done instead of threatening us. In fact, I am wondering about this business over the weekend with 1- day extensions of the appropriations process that has not been completed--1 day at a time. It is as if the President doesn't care anything about our leadership and what we think we ought to do. We have to come back every day to vote on a continuing resolution. I have been here a long time--28 years. I have never seen a President do that. As a matter of fact, I have never seen a President use continuing resolutions to get their way as this President has. They just didn't do it in the past. It was kind of a sacred thing to sign appropriations bills and get them done. This President is on the way out. He is very desirous of electing Vice President Gore. And we all understand that. But everybody knows that the Justice Department of the United States ought to get its money, the FBI ought to get paid, and all of those entities that are part of our criminal justice ought to get paid. They ought not be held up for one provision that is really extraneous to that bill because this is an appropriations bill. There is an authorizing bill the President wants on immigration. So the whole bill will die. If they want to talk about who is to blame, then I submit to Pennsylvania Avenue that it ought to be a two-way street. It ought not get down to the end where it is a one-way street or one or two or three provisions that the President insists upon. We are close to completing the people's business, one or two or three provisions that the President of the United States insists upon that we have offered compromises on, and he says that or nothing.

Mr. DOMENICI. What about the Senator----

Mr. DOMENICI. I would like to have 20 minutes reserved for me when you are finished--whoever is in the chain, whatever that is.

Mr. DOMENICI. No. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object. Where are we now with reference to whether the Senator from New Mexico gets to speak?