Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I will be pleased to speak with my colleague regarding this issue. This reserve fund will accommodate legislation recently reported by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that will correct a very large problem for counties across the country which have historically shared receipts taken in by the Forest Service and BLM. The decline in those receipts over the last ten years has had devastating effects on many rural school districts, especially in the rural West, and the Budget Committee has provided $1.1 billion over the next five years to stabilize the flow of resources to these counties.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator Bingaman is correct, and I understand he has introduced legislation to correct that provision. We now have a CBO preliminary estimate of the budgetary impact of that bill.

Mr. DOMENICI. As we are considering this resolution, I cannot say for sure that the reserve fund would accommodate Senator Bingaman's bill, since the estimate of the budgetary impact of the recently reported legislation is not yet complete. It is my hope, however, that when we convene the conference on this resolution, we will have estimates on the impacts of both bills. It is my intention to move in that conference that the House recede to the Senate position with an amendment to accommodate both the Forest Service receipt stabilization legislation, and the mineral receipt sharing legislation.

Mr. DOMENICI. Nobody here is in opposition.

Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield off his time?

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, might I ask a question of the Senator who has been managing? How much time does he have on his amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. There are 2 minutes? I waive my minute if the minority will waive its minute.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand Senator McCain has an amendment. We have agreed heretofore on the floor--the minority and majority--that he would proceed as the next amendment. To do that, we have to yield back time that we have on the pending amendment. I yield back any time I have.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator Chafee has been asking for time. I yield 2 minutes to Senator Chafee.

Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 4 minutes to Senator Smith from New Hampshire.

Mr. DOMENICI. I will yield Senator Hatch 4 minutes of that.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have a Senator who wants to speak on the actual amendment itself, Mr. Hatch.

Mr. DOMENICI. Do we have 6 minutes remaining on our side?

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Let me just verify, as the one who is working with these amendments, Senators should not assume it is very likely that we finish tonight. I reported that to the leader earlier this morning. I do not know how many amendments are pending on the other side. We are working with our people who have about 31 amendments, most of them sense-of-the-Senate amendments. I will give my colleague that list soon and see if he can help us. I will work at it and talk some Senators into understanding they would not have to offer them; they could offer them some other time when the Senate is considering another matter. If you just look at 8\1/2\ hours plus whatever it is going to take for half those amendments in vote-arama, I assume we will be in tomorrow.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that the next two votes be 10- minute rollcall votes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Do we have anybody else here? Mr. President, I said about as much as I can say about the difference between the budget resolution and Senator Conrad's approach. I think it is shown right behind me on this chart. Essentially, it does not have very much to do with who brings the debt down quicker. It has more to do with who wants more money for spending? I want to repeat that I am firmly convinced that, for some reason or another, the other side is not frightened by the idea of spending the surplus but somehow they are very frightened about giving some of it back to the citizens of the United States. I know Senator Conrad has a tax plan also. He is on the Finance Committee. But I submit, if we were to adopt his amendment, any realistic change in the marriage tax penalty over the next 5 years to make it more fair, so millions of newlyweds will not come into April finding out they are paying an average of $1,400 a year more in taxes because they are married than they would if they were single, filing separately--we think that will cost, over 5 years, somewhere between $60 billion and $65 billion. There is some education tax relief that has passed with rather substantial margins. That is about $8 billion. There is health care tax relief that is about $13 billion. That leaves small business provisions for which both sides have voted. They are very good provisions for small businessmen, such as one that says anyone who works for an employer that does not have insurance, if they buy their insurance as an employee, they can deduct it. Isn't that something? I assume Americans thought that was the case already. But unless your employer deducts it, employees cannot. So two people working for different employers, neither of whom has health care, if they pool their resources and buy a health care plan for themselves and one child, they cannot deduct a nickel of it. But there is some relief we propose here on the floor of the Senate that ought to get done, and a number of small business provisions. The minimum for those kinds of reforms is somewhere between $100 billion and $130 billion. We are led to believe we are going to grant all kinds of tax relief to the rich people of America, when the plan encompasses these ideas because that is what we have been talking about. That is what the Finance Committee is going to consider. If you take that much of the surplus and say, we are going to put that much more on debt, you cannot accommodate these kinds of tax relief measures. Last but not least, I repeat, how much debt reduction is enough? Frankly, I would like to get rid of the whole debt. But we accumulated it over 30 years. How in the world we expect one generation of Americans to pay that whole debt down is beyond me. I think the $400 billion we have already done plus the $1.1 trillion in this budget resolution in the reduction of debt is pretty good. As a matter of fact, I think we will substantially reduce interest payments. That ought to permit lower interest rates in this country. Although Dr. Alan Greenspan insists on raising interest rates to solve other problems, maybe it will not have an impact for some time. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, might I suggest, I think this is the right decision. We had an agreement. I left the floor and he left the floor. This time should come off the amendment. Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOMENICI. Taken from the amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have to leave the floor for a while. I wanted to indicate that one-half hour of our hour in opposition is going to be yielded to the Senator from Texas. He will have half an hour. I thank the Senator from New Mexico. I yield the floor.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the last time I saw something like that was when Senator D'Amato did a tune.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the two Senators from Connecticut be permitted to speak as in morning business and that their comments be counted toward the remaining time on the budget.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Before the Senator proceeds, on the next amendment, Senator Bingaman's amendment, I ask unanimous consent that the last 2 minutes we have on our hour be reserved out of our overall time on that amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Abraham and Levin be recognized as in morning business for up to 10 minutes to discuss a resolution relating to the NCAA tournament and that that time be counted towards the remaining time on the budget.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the next vote in this series be limited to 10 minutes.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Robb amendment is not germane to the provisions of the budget resolution. I therefore raise a point of order against the amendment under section 305 (b)(2) of the Budget Act.