Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I think that is an excellent suggestion. We will understand where we are. On behalf of the leader, let me one more time say any Member who has not submitted their first-degree amendment at the desk must do so by 7 p.m. in order for it to be available to be called up for consideration during the remainder of the budget resolution.

Mr. DOMENICI. Members, for first-degree amendments, walk up and file them. You don't have to stand on the floor. Just give them to the clerk so we can have a list of all of them filed and they will have a number and we can work with them in an orderly fashion to finish this task. I also ask any subsequent second-degree amendments offered from the floor must be relevant to the first-degree amendment that they are amending.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished minority whip for his tremendous cooperation. Without his help and cooperation, we wouldn't be where we are. We might, indeed, get this budget resolution finished. Many thanks for that go to Senator Reid. In the interest of orderliness, I ask consent that all first-degree amendments to the pending budget resolution be submitted at the desk by 7 p.m. this evening.

Mr. DOMENICI. I don't understand. We have a second-degree pending. What kind of amendment is he sending? Is it amending the second-degree amendment or the underlying amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, there will be 2 minutes of debate, and then we will have another vote. Votes don't count against this time. So if you take 20, 30 minutes on a vote, we just have to add that much more to the resolution because we are not counting vote time under the statute. I hope you will stay around and vote shortly, after the debate is completed. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to use my 2 minutes to express to the Senate--referring to no singular Senator but all of us--this budget resolution idea has become preposterous. Any kind of sense of the Senate is in order, including one to instruct the committee that is in conference. We are going so far overboard that we are making this floor much like a circus. Actually, I am hopeful it won't be too long from now that the Parliamentarian will reverse himself. I don't know how we will do it. Maybe we will instruct him to do it himself. A Parliamentarian ruled that senses of the Senate were in order on budget resolutions even if they did nothing to the resolution. Now we are dreaming them up. We have a gun amendment on a budget resolution. We have instructions to a committee in conference on a Budget Committee. I don't know what kind of points people are making, but if anybody thinks they are effective just because they win one of these sense of the Senates, let me say, constituents and politicians don't believe they are effective because they do nothing. So if you want to run a TV ad that you got something passed in a sense of the Senate, I hope the other guy is smart enough to say that is baloney; it did nothing. We would be out of here if we didn't have these--out of here as far as substantive amendments. It is getting worse, not better, on both sides. On our side, we have 20 sense-of-the- Senate resolutions. I am going to ask them to file them pretty soon and see how many have the courage to call them up and have votes on those. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. I say to my friend, I did not think we were going to be doing this. That is what you kind of said to me. But that is all right. I thought we were going to vote on second degrees, you would have another round of votes on your own, but it is OK if you want to change that now.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. President, I say to the Senate, I am not sure I will have a chance later tonight to summarize this budget resolution that I hope sometime tomorrow we are going to adopt, with an amendment that the distinguished Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, and others put together, that we have been discussing and of which I was a part. Let me first say this budget resolution has the right priorities. It increases defense at the same time it increases spending for such things as education--at least the equivalent amount of increase the President has. We leave how the education program is to be structured up to the appropriate authorizing committees and the appropriators, but we give them plenty of resources to have an increase. With some reform, we may be able to do better at education than we have done in the past. In addition, we have extra funding for the National Institutes of Health--not as much as some people would want but a very substantial increase--$1.1 billion. I know some would like more than that, but I remind everyone, for the last 3 years we have increased the National Institutes of Health more than they have been increased in their entire history, year over year. That is why they are doing such remarkable things and that is why in a few more years of increases we may find breakthroughs in cancer and many other diseases that beset mankind. In addition, we have reduced the debt of the United States in this budget resolution by $177 billion. It was not too many years ago, perhaps Lyndon Johnson's budget, that the whole budget was $177 billion. This year we are reducing the deficit--the debt owed to the public--by $177 billion. For those who think our tax relief in this budget is too much, let me remind you: In the first year, if we accomplish them, they are $13 billion. That is $13 billion compared to $177 billion in debt reduction. It is pretty good, Americans, pretty good. If we end up in that way for the next 7 or 8 years, we will indeed leave a stronger and better America with more prosperity than we have today. In addition, if you take the whole 5 years, we have eight times as much debt reduction, to wit, $1.1 trillion debt reduction, $8 for every $1 in tax relief. The tax relief we dream of, and we hope the Finance Committee will enact--and we can do nothing more than give them our best advice; they will do what they want in the public interest, and it will be right--we have the marriage tax penalty. Married couples, new ones and those who have been married for a long time, will not have an average penalty of $1,200 to $1,400 for having been married and working and filing one return as a husband and a wife. They are now punished. We say reform the Tax Code now--not 10 years from now. We are putting plenty of money on the debt. We ought to put some money on reforming the Tax Code for the marriage penalty, for small business changes, and a few other things such as that. That is what this budget is going to provide for Americans, so I am proud we have it here. For the appropriated accounts, all the rest of Government, when you take the fact that there were $9 billion last year in items that are not recurring, and you take the increase that we have in this budget, and $4.1 billion they will get when they pass another bill that we ought to pass because it is in the balanced budget amendment with reference to Social Security and veterans--it merely changes pay dates as required by the balanced budget agreement--they will have a rather significant increase that can be done in this very difficult political year. I wrap my argument up by saying it will be tough, appropriators and all of us, because the President has submitted a political budget. Why is it political? Because it is a 14-percent increase in domestic spending. Really, nobody thinks you can do that big an increase. He put it in. It could only be for one reason--to present us with a political budget. Then we are going to have to have to match our wits with getting something done while he tells the Americans he did more. Of course you do more, but if you added 14 percent every year on this budget on only domestic spending, you would consume all of the surpluses that are accumulated and you would dip into the Social Security trust fund to a huge extent, just by adding the amount the President offered as an increase this year. So he clearly must not have intended it to go on forever. So what was it? It was a submission to try to either embarrass us or make us spend precisely what he wants, which is way too much. So we will be busy doing that. It will be tough. But if we can get out of here tomorrow, leave the Senate and say we did some good work, we have a budget resolution, let's go to conference--we are pretty close with the House--then the appropriators can start their work. My final comments go to Senator Stevens. Senator Stevens and I have become friends. I have been here a long time. He has been here longer. I am chairman of the Budget Committee; he is chairman of Appropriations. I think neither of us thought--at least he waited a long time for his chairmanship. Might I say, I believe when we are finished today everybody will be thankful he was willing to sit down with us and work this out. I thank the distinguished majority leader for his help, Senator Lott, and I thank the Senator from Texas, Mr. Gramm, and all Members who have participated in getting us this far. There are many more amendments, there is no doubt about that, in the vote-arama and otherwise, but I think we will come out with a budget resolution we can confer upon that will be very close. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator from New York yield for a unanimous consent request first?

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DOMENICI. Therefore, several votes will occur beginning at approximately 8:15, is that correct?

Mr. DOMENICI. This evening, in a stacked sequence, as just agreed upon by the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Vermont.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 2 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Now, Mr. President, Senator Allard wishes to speak. Can he do what he wanted to do in 3 minutes?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to table the Robb amendment. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOMENICI. I reserve 2 minutes of our time. How much time do we have left?

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senator from Rhode Island understands the amendment is not in order unless agreed upon on the other side, but I yield time for him to speak.

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator. We will try to stack this vote, if it is all right with the Senator. We are going to have the three votes. I commend Senator McCain. I hope what he is suggesting on the floor happens, because the truth is, the U.S. Department of Defense is making it very difficult for this to happen. We have worked with them on a number of occasions. You would actually be shocked at some of the correspondence I have received. I want to quote one piece of correspondence. When I said, why don't you tell us how to take care of the food stamp problem, this is what the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Edwin Dorn, wrote to me: It would be a mistake to give higher pay to military personnel who had ``a larger family than he or she can afford.'' You can see why that becomes part of the issue, as the Senator from Arizona understands. We have an all-volunteer military that we have asked to stay on for long periods of time. It is not like draftees who spend 2 years in uniform. They have families. They have children. In fact, we have not quite figured it out. Maybe the Senator from Arizona can figure it out in his committee. With this targeting of money today--not a lot of money--we will start solving the problem with those who are not earning much. That is the intent of the proposal of the Senator from Arizona. But essentially it is very difficult for the military to come up with a conclusion that we have to make sure we don't penalize big families in the military. I never heard of any implication that we had an all- volunteer military and we were going to start by saying to them: Don't have too many children. I believe the Senator from Arizona would join me in saying that is an absurd policy. What if they have five children? I think that is all right. If they want to serve 30 years in the military with five children, we ought to give them the benefits they deserve. Because they have that many children, we ought not to cause them to be on food stamps. That is the basic problem we have. I want to put in the Record letters I wrote in 1996, the response I received from Edwin Dorn and from Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen. I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Is it not correct that the Robb amendment, No. 2965, is now pending for a vote?

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 2 minutes to Senator Gorton.

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to talk with Senator Stevens for a moment. First of all, let me say that there are a couple of Senators who want to speak for 2 or 3 minutes on my side. Since I have almost an hour, I will yield to them. We haven't been able to have any time because of the way things are. Senator Gorton wishes to speak. How much time would Senator Gorton take?