Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is a debate about a reconciliation process by which a tax cut will occur. I think most Members of this Congress would, in quiet moments, agree we are unlikely to have 10 years of relentless surpluses. This is truly a triumph of hope over experience, but that is the way politics is sometimes. I want to introduce into the Record a memorandum by Alan Blinder, Gene Sperling, and Jason Furman, three very distinguished economists who have reviewed the assessment of the 51 leading private sector forecasts with respect to recent economic trends on the surplus. I am going to ask consent to have it printed in the Record in its entirety, but essentially they say: . . . altering only the 2001 growth forecast [with the last three months of information] leaving all other projections unchanged, would result in a roughly $215 billion reduction in the unified surplus. . . . They go on to say the effect of the stock market difficulties could well lower the unified surplus by $1 trillion or more. Standard & Poor's DRI, for example, project stock market factors could reduce the unified surplus by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. My point is very simply if we proceed with the size of a tax cut proposed by the Republican Party and by the President and do not experience these surpluses, which is very likely--very likely we will not experience these surpluses--we will head back into big deficits. The discussion is as if these surpluses already exist. They do not. They are not in a silk purse; they are not in a mattress; they are not in a bank account. They do not exist. They are projections and they are projections which we may not see. Let's be cautious and conservative. Let's have a tax cut, yes; pay down the debt, yes; meet our priorities--improving schools and other things--but do it in a prudent and thoughtful way.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Standardized School Report Card Act, along with Senators Bingaman and Byrd. Every six to nine weeks, schools all across the country send parents report cards evaluating how their child is doing. Rarely, however, do parents ever get any sense of how their child's school is performing. And let's face it: The two are inextricably linked. It is not as meaningful for a child to be among the best in his or her school if the school itself is among the worst. As a parent of two children in public school, I believe it is very important for parents, taxpayers, teachers, and the public to have some way of measuring how their school is performing, relative to other schools in the area, the state, the country, and even the world. The legislation I am introducing today along with Senators Bingaman and Byrd would give parents and taxpayers an important tool for evaluating how their school is doing. Our legislation would require that schools and states develop an annual, easily understandable report card and widely disseminate it to parents, taxpayers, teachers, and the public. I am pleased that the concept of school report cards has bipartisan support. President Bush called for school-by-school report cards on student achievement in his ``No Child Left Behind'' education plan. In addition, Senator Daschle and the others have provided for school report cards in S. 10, the Educational Excellence for All Learners Act. And the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act, which was reported by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, includes some limited school report card language that I think can form the basis for helpful reports for parents and taxpayers. The Standardized School Report Card Act that I am introducing today would require schools and states to cover eight key, basis areas in their report cards, plus any other areas of indicators of quality they want to include. The eight subject areas schools would be ``graded'' on are: Student performance; attendance, graduation and dropout rates; professional qualifications of teachers; average class size; school safety; parental involvement; student access to technology; and whether they have been identified by the State for improvement. These eight areas were chosen largely because they were the ones parents themselves said they felt were most critical, in focus groups around the country conducted by the Center for Community Change. Some might say this legislation is unnecessary. After all, according to Education Week, 36 states already require schools to publish a school report card. In addition, the Congressional Research Services has looked at the kinds of data that states already require their schools to report and/or collect. According to the CRS, 47 states have ``report cards'' in at least one of the eight areas specified by the Standardized School Report Card Act. However, the content of these report cards varies widely. In fact, according to a report by Education Week, no two state report cards cover exactly the same information, so they cannot be a useful tool for parents and educators to compare their school with other schools in the state or nation. For instance, in my state of North Dakota, the state Department of Public Instruction has designed a ``school district profile'' that is published for each school district in the state. These profiles include lots of interesting and helpful information, including a lot of data not required by my legislation. However, there is also some valuable data missing from this report that parents would want to know about, such as the number of teachers who have emergency certification or the incidents of school violence. By requiring all schools to report on at least these eight key areas, my school report card legislation will provide parents with the ability to measure how their school is doing relative to other schools. Schools will also have to be sure that they widely disseminate their report cards. According to Education Week, most people have never seen a report card for their local school, even though 90 percent think a school report card would be helpful. This legislation is not about the Federal government wresting control of education away from local school boards, where it belongs. Rather, it is about whether parents, no matter where they live, have an opportunity and the ability to measure how well their children are doing from community to community, school to school, state to state? As a nation, we spend more than $375 billion annually to provide an education to our elementary and secondary children. Parents and taxpayers deserve to know what we are getting for the money we are spending on K-12 education. Those in this country who are concerned about our education system know that we must make some improvements. How do we make improvements? You create a blueprint, a plan, for fixing what is wrong. But before you can do that, you must first assess what is right and what is wrong. And we do not have a basic approach by which parents can measure what is right or wrong with their local school. The lack of obtainable, understandable information is a major barrier to parents' more active involvement in the education of their children. In Georgia, the number of schools developing local school improvement plans increased by 300 percent following the first publication of report cards in 1996. I feel strongly that's because parents will hold their schools accountable if they have the information they need to determine whether improvements are needed. Times have changed. This is not 40 years ago when we as a country could tie one hand behind our back and beat anybody else in the world at almost anything, and do it easily. We now face shrewd, tough international competition in every direction we look. We now face competition in the job market, in our economies, and in our schools. Our children compete with countries that send their kids to school 240 days a year, while we send our kids to school 180 days a year. In short, parents have a right to know whether their kids are receiving a quality education, no matter what State they live in, no matter what city or school district they live in. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation. When the Senate begins debate on the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act, I intend to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to strengthen the school report card provisions already in the Senate bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this is a very interesting debate. You never know when you come to the floor of the Senate whether you are going to be informed or entertained. And sometimes it is a portion of both. I want to respond to a few things that my colleague from New Mexico said recently. I have great respect for him. He does quite a remarkable job steering the budget on that side of the aisle. A couple things. One, this surplus for 10 years, if you listened to the Senator from New Mexico, and did not know it, you would believe that surplus was in a bank across the street. Why, that is money that is already here. That is locked in. We have that surplus handled. The fact is, that surplus represents estimates by economists, some of whom cannot remember their home address, but they know what is going to happen 2, 5, 10 years from now. We know better than that. My colleague mentioned Alan Greenspan. Ten months ago, Alan Greenspan increased interest rates 50 basis points. Why? Because he was worried our economy was growing too fast. Now he is worried we might be heading toward a recession. He could not see 10 months ahead. We can't see 10 months ahead. I do not know, now maybe there is a Ouija board or tarot card or palm reader someone got ahold of someplace that gives them more confidence than the rest of us about what is going to happen in the future. I hope we have 10 years of surplus, 10 years of economic growth, but I sure would not bank on it. We would be smart to be reasonably conservative in the way we deal with these estimates. But I want people to understand, when they listen to this debate, it is as if this surplus is in the bank, and it is not, and those who seem to allege it is know that it is not. That is No. 1. No. 2, my colleague said: We are going to collect $27 trillion in the coming years; we surely can provide a reasonable tax cut out of that. I do not think he meant to include $27 trillion. Madam President, $9 trillion of that belongs to Social Security and Medicare. The people who pay that in, pay it in to a trust fund with the expectation that those who handle it will do so responsibly; that is, not spend it for other things but to save it in a trust fund. I do not expect that the Senator, or others, intend to say that $9 trillion is available to be discussed with respect to a tax cut, and yet they do. It is not right. They know that. Then the issue of debt. I want to talk about the education issue in a moment. I would like to ask my colleague from New Mexico a question. And I would ask my colleague from North Dakota a question. What I show you is a description of what President Bush sent us from the Office of Management and Budget. And this is the budget resolution we have on the floor. On page 5, line 19, it says: Public debt. Public debt grows from fiscal year 2001--that is the year we are in--$5.5 trillion, to fiscal year 2011, $6.7 trillion. Let me show what it looks like on a graph. Now I will ask a question, if someone would come to the floor from the other side so we can examine why they say you can't pay down additional debt: If during the 10 or 11 years of their budget resolution the gross debt is increasing, and if they say it is not, go to page 5, line 19 of their resolution. In fiscal year 2011, they say that gross public debt is going to be $6.7 trillion. Is gross public debt increasing or is it decreasing? We know the answer to that. No one will come to the floor to talk about it. I hope my colleague, Senator Conrad, will allow us some time when perhaps our colleagues are on the floor--the Senator from New Hampshire, who spoke on this at some length earlier, or the Senator from New Mexico, who said we can discuss this. There is not enough debt out there to repay? Maybe we can find some on page 5 of your resolution. Maybe we ought to start paying a little on that. Because your debt is increasing. We will talk more about that when someone will show up to answer a question. I hope we can have a discussion about that. I happen to think, when we talk about values, that one of the values we ought to think important is that if during tougher times you run up a debt, during better times you ought to try to pay it down. And debt is not just debt held by the public; it is all debt incurred by the Federal Government, all of the Federal Government's liabilities. And this, on page 5 of their own resolution, describes an increase of over $1.2 trillion in indebtedness or liability by the Federal Government. Let me turn to this amendment because we are obviously not going to have a discussion about this at the moment. The question of whether ``Leave No Child Behind'' is a bumper sticker, a political slogan, or public policy, is what we will answer in this Chamber. Perhaps there are some who embrace all of that. There are some who certainly would use it as a bumper sticker; some as a political slogan. How many are there in this Chamber who will embrace ``Leave No Children Behind'' as public policy? That is the question. We can all describe our experience with education. And for those who trash our education system--and there are many who do it all the time--I ask them, how do you think the United States of America came to this moment in history? How do you think we arrived at this moment? Might it not have been because we have a universal system of education in which we have a public education system that says every child in America--no matter from where they come, no matter how fat or thin the wallet of their parents, no matter their circumstances in life--can be whatever their God-given talent allows them to be as children of this great country? Isn't that perhaps what has given us this opportunity to arrive at this moment in history? Do we have challenges in this system of education? You bet we do. Should we fix them and address them? Absolutely. Can we do that just by talking? No. No. It takes some money to keep good teachers. It does take some money to reduce classroom sizes so kids are in a classroom of 15 or 18 students, not 30 or 35, so they are in a school that is well repaired, not in some sort of a trailer outside the school, in mobiles that are ill-equipped. We need to do right by our children. That is what this debate is about. My colleagues have offered an amendment I intend to support. I am happy to support it because it moves us in the right direction. You can't talk about these issues without understanding a requirement to address them boldly. It is interesting; all the debate on this is about spending. If you don't believe that investment in our children is an investment in this country, then you don't understand anything about the management of money. There is a difference between spending and investing. When we do right by our kids, when we strengthen America's schools, we invest in this country's future. It is just as simple as that. Some say this is a tradeoff, this is an offset issue; it is between tax cuts and education. We will have a debate about tax cuts at some point. I happen to think we should have a tax cut. My colleague just described our offer to use this week for an immediate tax cut to provide some fiscal stimulus. The other side didn't want to do that. Now we have heard they would like some fiscal stimulus. We offered that, but they didn't want to do that. We will have a tax cut. We ought to do it in a way that is fair to all taxpayers. We ought to do it in a manner that gives this economy a boost. It is not a circumstance where every single dollar is offset to make a choice between a tax cut or education. There are some of us who believe that if you add the payroll taxes paid by individuals and the income taxes paid by individuals and if the top 1 percent of the American people who have done very well--and God bless them--paid 21 percent of that, and the majority party says, we want to give 43 percent of the tax cuts to them, we say: Wait a second. That is not something we ought to do. That is not a fair tax cut. We are going to have that debate at some point. But we ought to be able to provide a tax cut and also do right by our children and strengthen America's schools. The Harkin amendment has $225 billion for education and also $225 billion for debt reduction because he also values not only investing in our kids by strengthening our schools but addressing this issue as well. My hope, I say to my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, and also the distinguished chair of the Budget Committee, is that we can have a good discussion about this issue of debt, the increase in the gross Federal debt. I don't know that we can have it at this moment because we are headed towards a vote. I would like very much to spend some time understanding how one rationalizes the increase in debt and the increase in liabilities in the Federal budget as outlined on page 5, line 19, of the majority budget--an increase of $1.2 trillion in indebtedness--how one rationalizes that with this notion that we have $27 trillion, according to them, in income. We have surpluses that are almost locked in a bank, and they have the key in their pocket, and they have apparently used a Ouija board to discern what is going to happen in the coming 10 years. I would like to understand the rationale of all of this. I think it is time to talk straight about all of these things in terms of what we have available, do it conservatively, and then make cautious judgments about what will strengthen and improve this country. Yes, a tax cut will; I support one. Yes, paying down the Federal debt will, and I support that. And yes, investing in America's schools will strengthen this country, and I believe we ought to do that as well. Madam President, this will be an instructive debate, and it will be an opportunity, as we vote, for people to tell us, is ``Leave No Child Behind'' a bumper sticker or is it real public policy this Senate embraces.

Mr. DORGAN. I am asking the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object, I don't mind extending and dividing it. I only intend to have an opportunity to speak for a sufficient amount of time. If that accommodates my interest, I ask my colleague from North Dakota, it is fine with me. If it doesn't, I will object.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Standardized School Report Card Act, along with Senators Bingaman and Byrd. Every six to nine weeks, schools all across the country send parents report cards evaluating how their child is doing. Rarely, however, do parents ever get any sense of how their child's school is performing. And let's face it: The two are inextricably linked. It is not as meaningful for a child to be among the best in his or her school if the school itself is among the worst. As a parent of two children in public school, I believe it is very important for parents, taxpayers, teachers, and the public to have some way of measuring how their school is performing, relative to other schools in the area, the state, the country, and even the world. The legislation I am introducing today along with Senators Bingaman and Byrd would give parents and taxpayers an important tool for evaluating how their school is doing. Our legislation would require that schools and states develop an annual, easily understandable report card and widely disseminate it to parents, taxpayers, teachers, and the public. I am pleased that the concept of school report cards has bipartisan support. President Bush called for school-by-school report cards on student achievement in his ``No Child Left Behind'' education plan. In addition, Senator Daschle and the others have provided for school report cards in S. 10, the Educational Excellence for All Learners Act. And the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act, which was reported by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, includes some limited school report card language that I think can form the basis for helpful reports for parents and taxpayers. The Standardized School Report Card Act that I am introducing today would require schools and states to cover eight key, basis areas in their report cards, plus any other areas of indicators of quality they want to include. The eight subject areas schools would be ``graded'' on are: Student performance; attendance, graduation and dropout rates; professional qualifications of teachers; average class size; school safety; parental involvement; student access to technology; and whether they have been identified by the State for improvement. These eight areas were chosen largely because they were the ones parents themselves said they felt were most critical, in focus groups around the country conducted by the Center for Community Change. Some might say this legislation is unnecessary. After all, according to Education Week, 36 states already require schools to publish a school report card. In addition, the Congressional Research Services has looked at the kinds of data that states already require their schools to report and/or collect. According to the CRS, 47 states have ``report cards'' in at least one of the eight areas specified by the Standardized School Report Card Act. However, the content of these report cards varies widely. In fact, according to a report by Education Week, no two state report cards cover exactly the same information, so they cannot be a useful tool for parents and educators to compare their school with other schools in the state or nation. For instance, in my state of North Dakota, the state Department of Public Instruction has designed a ``school district profile'' that is published for each school district in the state. These profiles include lots of interesting and helpful information, including a lot of data not required by my legislation. However, there is also some valuable data missing from this report that parents would want to know about, such as the number of teachers who have emergency certification or the incidents of school violence. By requiring all schools to report on at least these eight key areas, my school report card legislation will provide parents with the ability to measure how their school is doing relative to other schools. Schools will also have to be sure that they widely disseminate their report cards. According to Education Week, most people have never seen a report card for their local school, even though 90 percent think a school report card would be helpful. This legislation is not about the Federal government wresting control of education away from local school boards, where it belongs. Rather, it is about whether parents, no matter where they live, have an opportunity and the ability to measure how well their children are doing from community to community, school to school, state to state? As a nation, we spend more than $375 billion annually to provide an education to our elementary and secondary children. Parents and taxpayers deserve to know what we are getting for the money we are spending on K-12 education. Those in this country who are concerned about our education system know that we must make some improvements. How do we make improvements? You create a blueprint, a plan, for fixing what is wrong. But before you can do that, you must first assess what is right and what is wrong. And we do not have a basic approach by which parents can measure what is right or wrong with their local school. The lack of obtainable, understandable information is a major barrier to parents' more active involvement in the education of their children. In Georgia, the number of schools developing local school improvement plans increased by 300 percent following the first publication of report cards in 1996. I feel strongly that's because parents will hold their schools accountable if they have the information they need to determine whether improvements are needed. Times have changed. This is not 40 years ago when we as a country could tie one hand behind our back and beat anybody else in the world at almost anything, and do it easily. We now face shrewd, tough international competition in every direction we look. We now face competition in the job market, in our economies, and in our schools. Our children compete with countries that send their kids to school 240 days a year, while we send our kids to school 180 days a year. In short, parents have a right to know whether their kids are receiving a quality education, no matter what State they live in, no matter what city or school district they live in. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation. When the Senate begins debate on the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act, I intend to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to strengthen the school report card provisions already in the Senate bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am here to talk about this amendment, but I say to my colleague, Senator Conrad, I also am interested in coming over at some point soon and spending a little time talking about this budget resolution and especially the issue of the increase in public debt. I want to go through with the chairman of the Budget Committee, the issue of the increase in public debt over a 10-year period, which seems to me incompatible with this notion that we have such large surpluses that we can provide a 10-year tax cut costing trillions of dollars. If that is the case, why is the public debt increasing in this very budget resolution? I will do that at a later time, but I am here now to talk about the issue of prescription drugs. We know there are a large number of citizens, especially senior citizens, in this country who cannot afford the prescription medicines they must take, the prescription medicines prescribed by their doctors necessary to continue a healthy lifestyle. All of us have an opportunity day to day and week to week, as we are in our respective States, to talk to older Americans who are taking increasing amounts of prescription drugs and paying more for them. Senior citizens represent 12 percent of our country's population. Yet they consume one-third of this country's prescription drugs. Why is that the case? In one century, we have increased the life expectancy in our country by nearly 30 years--from 48 to nearly 78. I know some wring their hands and gnash their teeth and mop their brow because of all the problems we have with Medicare and also with Social Security. All of those problems are born of success: people are living longer and have better lives. Let us not gnash our teeth too much about the success of having people living much longer in this country. We can and should address the financing issues in Social Security and Medicare, and we can do that without, in my judgment, great difficulty. One of the issues with people living longer, and one of the issues with the substantial amount of new medicines available to prolong life in this country is, how do we pay the bill? Especially if you are consuming prescription drugs whose cost is increasing substantially at a time when you have reached that retirement age, the time in life when your income is decreasing a great deal, how do you address that? The proposal by members of my caucus in the Senate, the Democrats, as well as a proposal now by the Bush administration, is to provide a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens. We proposed to put it in the Medicare program. The prescription drug proposal, as a part of this budget, needs to be sufficient so the prescription drug benefit will work for senior citizens. We all know the cost of prescription drugs is going up dramatically, 15 to 16 percent a year in increased costs for prescription drugs. Part of that is increased utilization and part is price inflation. But we all understand the consequences of these increased prices to senior citizens. I have told my colleagues of a woman who came to me one evening at a meeting I had in the northern part of North Dakota. She was perhaps 75 years old. At the end of the meeting, she approached me and said: Senator Dorgan, I am retired. I am getting up in age. I have to take several medicines to treat diabetes and heart trouble. But I don't have any money. I am left without any assets or income of any sort and I can't afford to take these medicines. Yet my doctor says I really must take these medicines. As she began to talk to me, her chin began to quiver and her eyes welled with tears and it was clear she was on the edge of crying because she knew what she had to do. She needed to take this medicine to prolong her life and treat her illnesses and she didn't have the money to do so. This goes on across this country all the time. I was at a hearing in Dickerson, ND, one day and a doctor said he had a senior citizen as a patient who had breast cancer. After the patient had surgery, the doctor prescribed a medicine and said this medicine is something you must take because it will reduce your chances of recurrence of cancer. The woman looked at the doctor and said: Doctor, there isn't any way I can take that medicine. I can't possibly afford that medicine. I will just have to take my chances with breast cancer. I was at a hearing in New York with my colleague, Senator Schumer, when one of the witnesses talked about going to the grocery store but always going to the back of the store first where the pharmacy was because first she had to buy her prescription drugs. Only then would she know how much money she would have left to purchase food. I have heard that a dozen times, if I have heard it once. Should we do something about this? The answer is clearly yes. The Senate budget resolution provides a certain amount of money for a prescription drug benefit. But let me quote the Congressional Budget Office Director, Dan Crippen, who said in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee: If you are going to provide $150 billion over the entire Medicare population--again for 10 years--it won't provide a great deal for any one person. The money provided in the Republican budget resolution does not even cover the cost of the President's own Healthy Hand prescription drug proposal. About 25 million of the nearly 40 million Medicare beneficiaries would be ineligible for the President's plan. If the amount proposed by the President in his budget were used to provide a universal drug benefit in Medicare--which is really what we ought to do--it would provide about $200 coverage for a beneficiary for the first year. This debate is about choices. The budget debate is always about choices. The most significant choice is the front end of this debate, and according to the President, is the tax cut. I believe we are going to enact a tax cut. I will support a tax cut. But I don't believe we ought to have a tax cut to the tune of trillions of dollars--and, yes--that is more than $1.6 trillion as proposed by the President. Everyone scores it at well over $2 trillion. To do that when we don't know what the future will bring with respect to this economy, to do that at a time when we have the public debt increasing and not decreasing, and to do that when we don't have sufficient resources to improve our schools, or, yes, in this circumstance on this amendment, to provide enough resources so that we have a prescription drug benefit under the Medicare plan, in my judgment, shortchanges all Americans. It means we will have an increasing Federal debt--not decreasing. It means we are short of doing what we ought to do to make this a better country--improving our schools, providing for the family farmers during tough times, and in this amendment providing for a prescription drug benefit for Medicare. My colleagues have offered the amendment today in the hope that we could reach agreement in this Senate. At least between the two political parties, doing this makes sense. Adding a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program makes sense. I think everyone agrees that if the prescription drugs had been available when Medicare was created that are available now, clearly we would have had a prescription drug benefit in the program. Said differently, if we had no Medicare program but we were going to create one in the year 2001, just as clearly it would include a prescription drug benefit, because we are moving away from acute care hospital stays, we are moving towards outpatient procedures in medical facilities, and especially we are moving towards prescription drugs that allow people to live without having acute-care health. That is much less expensive in many ways. These new medicines that are available are breathtaking, lifesaving medicines. They are good for researchers on the public payroll--at NIH and elsewhere--those in private prescription drug companies, and others. It is good for them. We are developing wonder drugs that allow people to do things they wouldn't have before thought possible. But it is very expensive. We ought to find a way to say to those who have reached their declining income years in life: We want to help you be able to afford the prescription drugs you need to continue to live your life. This isn't some luxury. This isn't some optional expenditure. The prescription drugs are necessary for senior citizens who are in many cases required to take 2, 5, 10 or even 12 different kinds of prescription drugs a day. It is very expensive to do so. We must pass this amendment to make room in this budget for a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program. That is why I support this amendment. Let describe a couple of other different priorities, if I might. Mr. President, 100 years from now everyone in this Chamber will be dead. It is an ominous thought, but it is true. The only historical reference about who we were and what we did here will be to look at this budget and see what we did that was considered valuable: What were our priorities? What did we think was important for this country? This budget represents the framework by which future generations can judge us. Every time in this country we have tried to do something new, there have been those who have said no. They opposed everything for the first time. It didn't matter what it was--Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage--you name it; they opposed it. This budget resolution establishes our priorities. Let me describe a few priorities. First, a tax cut. Yes, let's so do that, and let's make it fair. Is it fair that the top 1 percent of the taxpayers pay about 21 percent of all income taxes and payroll taxes but would get 43 percent of the tax cut? Absolutely not. Let's do a tax cut. Let's make it fair. Second, let's pay down the Federal debt. I want to ask the chairman of the committee and others why the public debt is increasing on page 6 of this budget resolution over 10 years. Third, what about other priorities? I mentioned schools. Does anybody think our future doesn't depend on improving our schools? Of course it does. Should we and could we improve our schools? Of course. But we must have the resources to do that as well. In addition to improving our schools, we know we need to pass an amendment such as this to provide a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program. We need to have room in this budget resolution to help family farmers given these price valuations. If this country believes that we are a better country because of families living on and operating America's farms all across this country, then when family farmers face collapsing commodity prices, they have a right to expect that we will help them during tough times. There are so many other priorities to which we must pay some attention, such as the issue of agricultural research. I come from a State with a significant livestock industry. And we face the scourge of foot and mouth disease--some call it hoof and mouth disease--and the prospect of mad cow disease, the prospect of a disease that could devastate our livestock industry. This ought to persuade all of us to address more quickly this issue of increases in basic research in agricultural areas and research in dealing with a safe food supply. All of these areas require our attention. Let me say again that if we are going to have a tax cut in this year, we will, I hope, agree between Republicans and Democrats to a thoughtful and fair tax cut that says to the American people: Yes, this is your money. Yes, we want to give it back, and we want to do that in a fair way. But I think the American people want us to invest in the future of this country as well, even as we provide tax cuts for the benefit of our children and pay down the Federal debt. If you run up a Federal debt during tough times, it seems to me that during better economic times you ought to be able to pay it down. This country has not had a period that has been any better in general for the American economy than the last 7 or 8 years. We ought not end this period with substantial increases in Federal indebtedness. We have a lot of priorities. My hope is when we look back at the work of this Budget Committee and decisions by this Congress, we will have said: Yes, this Congress reflected the right priorities for this country; yes, we made the right investments; yes, we voted for a tax cut that was a fair tax cut; and, yes, we decided to commit ourselves not just to talk about paying down the Federal debt but to really paying down the Federal debt even as we have experienced the surpluses that come from better economic times. I believe the hour of 12:30 has arisen. I yield my time.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the underlying amendment offered by Senator Grassley from Iowa and the amendment that will be offered as a counter to it is exactly what needs to be discussed when we talk about the Federal budget. What are our priorities? What do we think is important in this country? What do we as Senators and Members of the House believe ought to be done? What ranks near the top? We come, those of us from farm country, to the Congress saying family farming is important to this country. We believe that family farming contributes something very substantial to America; it always has. There was an author who died some years ago named Critchfield who described what family farming provides to our country. He described the origin of family values coming from family farms, and rolling from family farms to small towns, to big cities, refreshing and nourishing the family values of our country. I believe that to be the case. I believe a network of food producers across this country is important to this country's strength and its security. Some take the position that it does not matter whether we have family farmers. They say: Corporations will farm America. We don't need people living out on the land. We have dairy operations in California that milk 3,500 cows three times a day. Those are agrifactories, not family farms. We have corporations that will buy land and have tractors big enough to plow as far as you can see. And, yes, they will produce America's food. But this country will have lost something if we decide that family farming is not important in our future. It will have lost part of its culture and its heritage. Europe has taken a different tack, a different road. Europe has already decided family farms are important. They want people to be able to live out on the land, to produce their food, and to be able to make a decent living producing their food. The result is, in rural Europe, farmers are doing well and small towns are thriving, as compared to this country where small towns are dying and family farmers are struggling and rural economies are shrinking like prunes. We have an opportunity in this country to decide what kind of future we want, what kind of an economy we want. In speaking about farming and its culture for a moment, I come from a town of nearly 300 people. I graduated from a high school class of nine. In my hometown and towns similar to it all across the rural State of North Dakota, wonderful things result from a culture that is important to this country. Let me give an example. In one community in North Dakota, a man and his wife run a gas station, according to news reports. But they don't want to work all day because they are of retirement age. So at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, they close their gas station, hang the key to the gas pump on a nail by the door to their gas station, and also have a pad there so if when they are closed you need gas, you take the key, unlock the pump, fill your car, and make a note that you have taken gas. Yes, that happens in America, in rural America, in a very small town in North Dakota. Another small town in North Dakota, as part of our rural culture, can't keep a cafe open, a town restaurant. So they have all members of the community who are able-bodied sign a sheet to say when they will work for nothing to keep the restaurant open. That is the way they have a restaurant in their town. Another community had a grocery store close up, and so the city council decided the town would build a grocery store. I was there the day they opened it with a high school band playing on Main Street in this little town of Tuttle, ND, proud as the dickens at the new grocery store they had built for themselves. Some would call it socialism because it is not a private grocery store. The town decided to put together a little nonprofit group, and they built their own grocery store because they lost the store they had. Wonderful things happen in rural cultures where family farms support small towns. In my home county, some long while ago, there was a robbery. In my little town a robbery is almost unheard of. It prompted the county sheriff, after investigating, to say that there had been no sign of forced entry for the cash that was stolen because the people had gone on vacation for 2 weeks and had not locked their home. Let me repeat that. The people had gone on vacation for 2 weeks and had not locked their home. Why? Because they didn't have a key for their home in any event. The county sheriff of my home county put out a missive to all the folks in the county saying, if you are going to vacation, you should consider locking your home. And a good many people in my hometown said that was a real problem because they didn't have locks. Then he said something very radical. He said: When you park your vehicle on the main street in Hettinger County, you should consider taking the keys out of the vehicle. A couple of ranchers observed to the county newspaper that they wondered what if people needed to use their pickup trucks. That happens in rural America. That is a rural culture. That is something that is important. That comes from family farms dotting the landscape, providing the economic blood vessels by which small towns survive and thrive. In this country all too often family farmers are hanging on by their fingertips, struggling during tough times with collapsed commodity prices. Small towns are shrinking and dying all across this country. I have a map that I haven't brought to the floor. I will bring it to the floor when I offer an amendment in a couple of days that shows the counties in this country that have lost 10 percent of their population in the last 25 years. It is blocked out in red. It is a big egg-shaped area from North Dakota down to Texas. We are depopulating rural America. The middle part of America is losing its population, a century after we homesteaded rural America, a century after we told people: You go out and if you take 160 acres of land and improve that land and build a farm, we will give you the 160 acres. That was under the Homestead Act. That is how people went to the Dakotas at that time. That is how my great-grandmother went there with four kids after her husband had a heart attack. She went to Hettinger County, ND, and pitched a tent, built a home, and created a farm, and the Government gave her 160 acres of land under the Homestead Act. That is the way we populated rural America. Now that county, as virtually every other county in America, is shrinking like a prune because farmers can't make a living when prices collapse and prices have gone down and down and stayed down. Now the question is, Does this Congress care? Does this country care? Are we going to, in public policy, decide that family farmers matter, that we want our food produced with a broad network of food producers, families living out there with the yard light shining on a yard and contributing to a culture of the type I have just described that is something unique and wonderful in this country or are we going to take the position that some take that the family farm is similar to the little old diner that got left behind when the interstate came through and we have fond memories of it--but so long. I hope this Congress decides that family farmers matter to this country. The space between New York and Los Angeles is not just air time. It is a lot of good country. When you get to the middle of America, you find a lot of good people. They struggle to produce crops against all the odds. Some say: Why do you need something special for farmers? Farmers are no different than the hardware store in town. But farmers are very different. A farmer borrows money to put a seed in the ground in the spring, borrows money to fuel the tractor to put that seed in the ground, and then fertilizes that seed and hope it grows. If it grows, it is good luck, that crop. If it grows, it is good luck for the farmer. But it might get eaten by insects, it might be destroyed by hail, disease, all number of elements over which farmers have no control can affect that crop. And perhaps if the farmer is lucky enough to take that crop off in the fall and haul it to an elevator, in a world in which nearly half the people are hungry, the grain trade now tells that farmer the food you struggled to raise has no value. Think of that. In a world in which 500 million people go to bed with a severe ache in their belly every night because it hurts to be hungry and in a world in which half the people don't have enough to eat, our farmers are told their food has no value. It somehow is not a national asset. There is something fundamentally bankrupt about that kind of thought. My point on this amendment and on this bill is this: Are we going to keep skipping around here, just sort of doing enough to avoid the charge that we are not doing anything or is this Congress going to decide that one of its priorities is to do something to help family farmers so we have family farmers in our future? Does agriculture or family farming matter? We will see. We know what matters to some. We know to some the only thing that matters is a $1.6 trillion tax cut. I am for tax cuts. It is not exactly political heavy lifting to be for tax cuts. That is zero gravity in politics. You want to go out and say you are for tax cuts. That is not exactly heavy lifting. I am for tax cuts. I am not for $1.6 trillion. I am not for taking money out of the Medicare trust fund in order to do it. I am not for tax cuts at the expense of education or family farming. I am not for tax cuts at the expense of paying down the debt. I am for tax cuts that make sense for our country, that allow us also to pay down the Federal debt, to improve our schools, to help our farmers, and to do the other things we need to do in this country to make this a good place in which to live. This is all about priorities and balance. We are going to have a couple of amendments offered on the issue of funding agriculture. One is going to be short. The other, shorter than I would like, will address this issue in a much more robust way. We can choose what is our priority. Look in the rear-view mirror a few years and dig out the debate in the Congressional Record that preceded the most recent debate on Freedom to Farm. See who said what. Those who said they were friends of family farmers said we were headed towards nirvana; I see a day in the golden sunset in which farmers will no longer be dependent on the Government and we will have robust, aggressive, decent prices for family farm products all across the country; farmers will be able to make a good living. They said that when wheat was $5.50 a bushel. And they put in place a farm program that said: We have a new theory. Our theory is, we don't need countercyclical help for farmers. When we have a price valley, let farmers fall into the valley. We don't need a bridge across that price valley. So Congress passed that legislation. I didn't vote for it. Congress passed that legislation. The price of wheat collapsed, from $5 right off the table. It just flat collapsed. Every single year since that time, the so-called Freedom to Farm bill has been demonstrated a failure. It doesn't work. We are going to transition for 7 years with transition payments or so-called AMTA payments out of any kind of support for family farmers. That never made sense. If a country says family farming doesn't matter, then that is the route to take. But I expect most in this country believe family farming matters a great deal. Certainly most in this Chamber profess they believe that. If that is the case, let us finally put together a farm program that works. Let's stop shadowboxing. This is all political shadowboxing. Let's decide this is a priority. And on this day and in this way, we will put together a program that works, something that says to family farmers: You matter, too. You are part of our future. We care about family farming. I am not going to be apologetic for saying this is important to my State and to our region of the country. This is important to our entire Nation. As I indicated when I began, Europe has already made this decision, and good for them. This country ought to as well. Europe long ago decided they were hungry once and they will not be again. How do you make certain you are not hungry? You make certain you have a network of food producers dotting the land, family farms producing America's food--in this case, producing Europe's food. You decide you are going to pay people who work hard on family farms a decent return on that which they produce. As I said earlier, it is inconceivable to me that which we produce in such great abundance and that which the world needs so desperately-- food, coming from our family farms--is deemed to have so little value by the grain trade. Part of this is an issue some of us will work on together as well, and that is all the monopolies in every direction farmers face. Do you want to put your grain on a railroad? Guess what. The railroads are in monopoly or near monopoly. They are very few. They will tell you where you are going to be and what they are going to charge. Do you want to sell your grain? It does not matter what kind of milling you are talking about selling it into. The top three or four firms are going to control almost all of them. Do you have some animals you want to sell--fat steers or hogs? Sell them into the production cycle, and guess what. Two, three, or four firms are going to control 70 or 80 percent of all of the processing. In every direction farmers face monopolies. They have their fist around the neck of the marketing bottle in a way that chokes family farmers every single way. We need to do something about that. It is time for this country to stand up for some antitrust enforcement and bust some trusts and break some monopolies. Today we are talking about the priorities. With this budget, what are we committing to decide we are going to have a nation of family farmers in our future? I hope we will make the decision to do enough. The amendment offered by my colleague from Iowa is short. It is not enough. It does not meet the needs. In any case, it comes from, in large part, the so-called contingency fund. David Copperfield is on television with his special, talking about illusions. He has his match in this Chamber with respect to illusions. We have been hearing about this mythical contingency fund for hours and hours, and we will hear about it all week. It is an illusion. To the extent any part of it is real, a significant part comes from the Medicare trust fund which was supposed to have been in a lockbox. So now we are talking about Houdini, not David Copperfield, because somebody opened the lockbox and put it in the so-called contingency fund. We can do a lot better than that. Let us decide this is a priority, that family farmers matter, that family farmers are a priority for this country, and fund it the way it should be funded. We should reject the amendment offered by the Senator from Iowa and accept the amendment to be offered by my colleague from South Dakota and my colleague from North Dakota tonight or tomorrow morning.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Secondly, there are roughly 160 democracies in the world. I wonder if the Senator knows--I didn't know until a few minutes ago-- where we rank in the democracies around the world in voter participation. Before asking whether he knows the right answer, I will say we rank 139th among the democracies in the world in voter participation. It seems to me we ought to encourage in every conceivable way activities that get out the vote, that encourage voter participation. Is it not the case, that is exactly what this amendment does?

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from Michigan yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I am pleased to support this with Senator Levin, Senator Clinton, and others. I ask the Senator from Michigan, isn't it the case that, as currently written, a Governor and a mayor could not use non-Federal money to conduct their own activities for get out the vote, for example, in an election in which there might have been a Federal candidate, and would that not be the case?

Mr. DORGAN. Finally, if the Senator from Michigan will yield one additional time, let me say the proposal of the Senator from Michigan is a modest one. We could have done more, perhaps should have done more. This represents a compromise, a modest compromise, however. It does the right thing. We don't want to pass campaign finance reform and then produce impediments to those very activities that would encourage voter participation. That would be a step in the wrong direction. I, again, say how pleased I am at the effort tonight and the sponsorship by Senator Levin. I am very proud to be a cosponsor. I am pleased this is going to be accepted.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Feinstein in introducing the Gun-Free Schools Refinement Act. As my colleagues may remember, Senator Feinstein and I were the principal authors of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, and as a result of this law, more than 13,000 students have been expelled from school between 1996 and 1999 for bringing a gun to school. That is more than 13,000 potential tragedies that have been avoided because we as a nation adopted a ``zero tolerance'' policy toward bringing a weapon into our school classrooms and hallways. Despite the Gun-Free Schools Act, however, school shootings still occasionally occur, and even one of these incidents is too many. That's why, nearly two years ago, Senator Feinstein and I asked the Department of Education Inspector General to conduct a review of the Gun-Free Schools Act to ensure that states and local school districts are vigorously enforcing this important law. The Inspector General completed this review and issued her final report in February, 2001. Fortunately, the IG found no evidence that states or school districts were intentionally ignoring instances where students brought weapons to schools. However, while we were glad to learn that schools are generally trying to comply with the spirit of the law, the IG did find some instances where schools and states have not complied with the letter of the law. This may result in uneven enforcement of the Gun-Free Schools Act. Therefore, the IG recommended in March that Congress consider making a number of technical changes to the Gun-Free Schools Act to clarify areas of the statute where schools were confused about what was required in the enforcement of their ``zero tolerance'' policies. The Gun-Free Schools Refinement Act would make four changes to the 1994 law: First, this legislation clarifies that the law applies to students who ``possess'' a gun in school, not just those who ``brought'' a weapon to school, as the law currently reads. A common- sense interpretation of the law would compel schools to expel students who possess firearms in school, even if they were not the ones who physically brought the guns there. This change merely codifies a common-sense reading of the law so that it applies to students who either bring or possess a weapon at school. Second, this bill clarifies that the Gun-Free Schools Act applies not just to the school buildings but to the grounds and any other setting under the jurisdiction of the school. What is meant by a ``school'' is not currently defined by the statute, but the Department of Education has already determined in its implementation guidance that a ``school'' means any area under the supervision of the school, such as buses or off-campus athletic events or field trips. This change codifies the Department's reasonable definition. I do want to mention, however, that this change would still allow schools the flexibility to permit rifle clubs, hunter safety education, or other sanctioned school activities, as long as these limited purposes provide reasonable safeguards to ensure student safety and are otherwise consistent with the intent of the Gun-Free Schools Act. This bill also requires that schools report all incidents of students bringing a gun to school, even if a student's expulsion is ultimately shortened using the case-by-case exception provided for in the Gun-Free Schools Act. Technically the law requires schools to report only expulsions, and the IG found that this has led to considerable confusion among schools about whether they also need to report shortened expulsions. The Department of Education has already taken a step in the right direction toward addressing this issue by revising the reporting form that schools use when reporting firearm incidents. This will further clarify for states and schools the data they need to report. Finally, this legislation requires that modifications to one-year expulsions, which are made on a case-by-case basis by the chief school officer, be made in writing. This will simply ensure that school officials, parents or other appropriate individuals will have access to a written record explaining why the expulsion was shortened. In summary, I think these are simple, straightforward, and sensible changes to the Gun-Free Schools Act. I urge my colleagues to join me and Senator Feinstein in making these technical changes when the Senate debates upcoming legislation reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for yielding the time. Mr. President, there are some who continue to insist that, gosh, there is not too much money in politics. In fact, they say there is not enough. What we really ought to do is make sure that everything is reported and let anyone contribute any amount at any time they want to contribute. I think that is a fairly bankrupt argument. I ask the American people if they think, in September or October of an election year as they turn on their television sets, that there is too little politics or too little money in politics. They understand there is far too much money in this political system. We ought to change it. The Supreme Court, in a rather bizarre twist, which happens from time to time across the street, said Congress can limit contributions. That is constitutional. But it cannot limit expenditures of campaigns. That would be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court struck down a provision in a previous reform that had some limits and said: We are going to limit contributions, but you can't limit expenditures. In this debate for nearly 2 weeks about campaign finance reform, there are no serious discussions about limited expenditures, except for the discussion initiated today by Senator Harkin from Iowa. You can't get at this problem unless you begin to talk about trying to find a way to limit expenditures in campaigns. How do you do that? Some stand up and want to test the waters. Some want to make waves. Fortunately, the Senator from Iowa wants to make waves. There is a big difference. He wants to do something that works. There are some in this debate who want to do just enough to make the American people think they have done something but not so much that we would solve the problem. I am for campaign finance reform, some would think, but I am really not for that which has enough grip to solve this problem. You don't solve this problem unless you find a way to deal with this question of campaign spending. This has become, as some of my colleagues have said, almost like auctions rather than elections, with massive quantities of money moving in every direction--hard money, soft money, $1 million here, $500,000 there, and $100,000 in this direction. So we have McCain-Feingold. I support McCain-Feingold. But I must say it has changed in the last 6 or 8 days. I regret that yesterday the McCain-Feingold bill was changed by my colleagues who said we need to add more hard money into the political system. That is not a step forward. That is a retreat. Nonetheless, I will still vote for McCain- Feingold. But the Harkin amendment makes this McCain-Feingold bill a better bill. It addresses the bull's eye of the target by saying we can construct a set of voluntary spending limits with mechanisms that will persuade people to stay within those limits. Because if someone waltzes in and says they are worth a couple billion dollars, that they intend to spend $100 million on the Senate seat, if they do not like it, tough luck. We have a series of mechanisms now described by my colleague in this amendment that says that is going to cost them. They have every right to spend that money, but, by the way, their opponent is going to have the odds evened up because their opponent is going to get twice as much as they are spending over the voluntary limit through fees that are through checkoffs of income tax, from a fund that provides some balance in our political system. The funding of politics has almost become a political e-Bay. It is kind of an auction system. If you have enough money, get involved, and the bid is yours. We bid on a Senate seat. Here is how much money we have. We have big friends and bank accounts. So this Senate seat is ours. That is not the way democracy ought to work. That is not the way we ought to have representative government work. Some while ago, I was in the cradle of democracy where 2,400 years ago in Athens, the Athenian state created this system of ours called democracy. This is the modern version of it. What a remarkable and wonderful thing. But democracy works through representative government when you have the opportunity for people to seek public office and the opportunity to win in an election in which the rules are reasonably fair. There are circumstances where that still exists. I come from a family without substantial wealth. I come from a family without a political legacy. I come from a town of 300 people. I come from a high school class of nine students. I come from a rural ranching area in southwestern North Dakota, and I pinch myself every day thinking: What a remarkable privilege it has been for the many years that I have had the opportunity to serve in the Congress. It still happens. But I must say that in modern elections, in cycle after cycle, it is less and less likely that someone without massive quantities of money is going to be able to be successful against other candidates who have access to barrels of money that they can pour into the television commercials, along with their partners and the independent organizations that can pour massive amounts of unlimited money into the same election and affect the result. My colleague says we can change that. I like the mechanism that he establishes to do that. I don't think it does violence to the McCain- Feingold bill at all. In fact, this bill is reform. If you come to the Senate floor and say you support McCain-Feingold because you stand for reform of campaign finance, then you must, it seems to me, come to this floor and say you stand for this amendment because this amendment is real reform added to this bill. I will not diminish the McCain-Feingold bill. I have great respect for Senators McCain and Feingold. And I have long supported this legislation and have not wavered from that support. I commend them for what they have done and for establishing leadership on this issue. Were it not for them, we would not be on this floor at this time discussing this subject. Make no mistake. While this may not lead in the polls, this subject is important to the preservation and strength of this democracy of ours. But, I say again, I don't want people to tell me that we must oppose this amendment because we must keep this fundamental bill pure. This bill will be better, this bill will be strengthened, and this bill will move further in the direction of reform with the amendment offered by Senator Harkin. In the last debate some 6 or 8 years ago in the Senate on this subject, I offered an amendment that was reasonably similar to this. It said that you establish voluntary spending limits, and if someone goes over the spending limit, they pay a fee equal to 50 percent of that which they are over the spending limit, and the FEC collects the fee and transmits that fee to the opponent, which I thought was a delicious and wonderful way to penalize those who want to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars in an attempt to buy a seat in the U.S. Congress. We ought not have advantages for incumbents. We ought to have elections that are contests of ideas between good men and women who want to offer themselves for public service. The outcome should not always be determined by who has the most money. The amendment offered by my colleague from Iowa is a very significant step in the right direction. It is voluntary spending limits, but spending limits that are attached to a construction of a pool of money that would be available through checkoffs available to help challengers and others in circumstances where one candidate says they are going to open the bank account and spend millions and millions in pursuit of purchasing a seat in the U.S. Congress. I am happy to come today to support this amendment. I say to my colleagues, if you have been on the floor talking about reform in the last 2 weeks, do not miss this opportunity to vote the way you talk. This is reform. This adds to and strengthens McCain-Feingold, make no mistake about it. So I am very pleased to support this amendment. I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. I hope we can adopt this amendment because this is a significant step. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for as much time as I may consume in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have listened with some interest today to some of the discussion on the floor of the Senate, first about campaign finance reform, and then to Senator Byrd, and others. I come to the floor to talk about the economic circumstances this country finds itself in for the moment. I want to visit about a number of issues that relate to our economy. Mr. President, I came across one of my favorite books last evening while going through a pile of old books that had been stacked for some long while. The book is written by a man named Fulghum. Most people in this country have read this book or seen the book. It is entitled ``All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.'' It is a wonderful little book. In ``All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,'' he describes: ``Put things back where you got them.'' ``Don't hurt others.'' ``Play fair.'' ``Clean up your own mess.'' ``Don't hit people.'' ``Wash your hands.'' ``Flush.'' There is a whole list of things you learned in kindergarten that represent enduring truths throughout life. I started thinking about this in the context of the grappling that we do in this country with our economy. We forget the most basic of things--almost kindergarten-like lessons--about our economy so very quickly. Let me describe just a few of them. We have been blessed, of course, with a long period of economic expansion, a period in which we have seen almost unprecedented economic growth: new jobs, better income, and more opportunity for most American families. The stock market began to increase in value and rolled to increasing new heights. People felt good about the stock market. They invested in the Dow Jones, in the Nasdaq, and would see their net worth increase daily or weekly or monthly. We saw college dropouts who were still fighting their acne problems, and hadn't yet learned to shave, making million-dollar deals in technology companies, and then selling them and starting new technology companies. It was a go-go economy with remarkable and almost unimaginable new things that were happening. We had higher economic growth and lower inflation. Of course, the one constant in all of this was a Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board sat down behind its thick doors, and in its concrete building, and continued to ring its hands and fret about inflation, despite the fact that inflation was receding rather than increasing. So that is what kind of economy we had. It has been quite an economy. Then about 10 months ago, the Federal Reserve Board, and its chairman, Alan Greenspan, decided they once again would increase interest rates--then 50 basis points--because our economy was growing too rapidly. They had great fear that an economy that was growing too much would produce inflationary pressures. What they did not understand--and have not understood for some long while--is the workers in this country are more productive. Productivity was on the march, on the increase. You can have lower unemployment and higher economic growth if you have higher productivity. But, nonetheless, 10 months ago, the Federal Reserve Board took its last step to increase interest rates because they felt America was growing too fast. It was the last, I believe, in six steps over about a year to substantially increase interest rates and slow down the American economy. At about the same time, we began the see some energy problems in this country--price spikes in natural gas, propane, and home heating fuel. We began to see the dislocation of energy restructuring, especially electricity restructuring in California. And now we see--in recent days--rolling blackouts in the State of California. So we have significant energy problems. Part of that resulted from the euphoria of having the price of oil drop to $10 a barrel, which resulted in very few people deciding they wanted to look for additional oil and natural gas, and the drying up of new drilling rigs. Therefore, because the price of oil dropped so low, and we had so few new people looking for oil and natural gas, we now find a dislocation--increased demand for natural gas especially and oil, and reduced supply. Now we have new exploration because oil went to well over $30 a barrel at one point, and we have new people looking for oil and natural gas. I suspect 8 months, 12 months, 2 years from now we will have new supplies on line, and we will have some additional balance. But with a Federal Reserve Board determined to slow down the economy with high interest rates, and a significant energy problem that has visited this country and provided great injury, and still does today for many Americans who fought through a bitterly cold first 2 months of the winter and discovered their natural gas prices to heat their homes had been jacked up, in some cases double and triple, it has been a tough time. At the same time, the bubble began to burst on the stock market. The Nasdaq began falling. The Dow began falling. The economy began to slow down. We had, and still have, a form of liquidity crisis. We have good businesses that are building out to try to provide competition in communications and other areas that can't find the kind of capital they need to continue doing that business. This serious liquidity crisis accompanies the slowdown and the bursted bubble on the stock market. At the same time we have a trade deficit that is growing very dramatically. This trade deficit is the highest in history of anywhere on Earth. Personal debt continues to go up in this country. As I indicated, economic growth is slowing. Amidst all of this, we have, it seems to me, probably just forgotten some of the fundamentals. Going back to ``All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,'' some of the fundamentals we should never have forgotten. Mr. Greenspan should never have forgotten that increased productivity allows less unemployment. Increased productivity allows higher growth. Don't be afraid of the American workers being more productive and earning more money and being employed at a higher rate if their productivity is up. All we really need to know, we should have learned in the primer course on that subject. Yet the Federal Reserve Board consistently has insisted that is an equation that doesn't work. They have forgotten the fundamentals. In our market for securities and investors, we have forgotten the fundamentals. This is not the first time. You can go back to bubbles of speculation throughout history. One of the most interesting ones for me was to read about the bubble of speculation in ``Tulipmania'' four or five centuries ago in which there was a time when they paid $25,000 for a tulip bulb because tulip bulbs became the subject of massive speculation. We have had a lot of speculation bubbles in recent centuries. This was just the last. Is it surprising that it doesn't work out when you purchase stock that is selling for 200 times its earnings or when you purchase the stock at a wildly inflated price of a company that has never made a profit and doesn't look as if it is going to make a profit? Is it surprising that that doesn't work out at some point? I don't think so. Yet many of us, probably all of us, temporarily forgot those lessons when the Nasdaq and the markets continued to go up and up. Will Rogers once said his dad gave him some advice. He said his daddy said that he should buy stock, then hold it until it goes up, and then sell it. And if it doesn't go up, don't buy it. At least that is what he said his dad said. He said that doesn't work out so well. The lesson from all of this that we probably should have learned long ago is that some of these prices were never justifiable; that is, with respect to the market. What about energy? Perhaps we should understand with respect to this energy crisis that it is not enough just to applaud when the price of a barrel of oil goes to $10 because there will be a consequence later. It is not enough when you find yourself short of energy to just go find new energy because that is only part of the solution. Opening up ANWR, as some of my colleagues suggest we should do, and as I oppose, is not a substitute for an energy policy. I don't believe we ought to open ANWR. But some say: Let's just address this energy policy by simply finding new supplies. Well, let's find new supplies. Let's incentivize the finding of new supplies of oil and natural gas, and let's use clean coal technology to produce our coal in an environmentally friendly way. Let's also do other things. Let's understand that conservation is very important. If you are sitting in a 6,000 pound gas hog and complaining about the price of gas, we have to be concerned about the issue of conservation in this country as well. We need to produce new energy. We need to conserve more, both with appliances and vehicles and other ways. Additionally, we need to incentivize new sources of renewable energy: wind energy, biomass, ethanol, and more. I know the oil industry doesn't like it, but that is precisely why I do. When the oil industry believes it is in its self-interest to impede the development of other sources of energy, I say that is exactly why we ought to develop other sources of energy. Yes, we need the oil industry. We need natural gas. But we also ought to develop wind power. The new generation of wind turbines are very effective and efficient. Wind, biomass, ethanol, all can contribute to this country's energy supply, and we ought to understand that. Again, all we need to do is to make sensible decisions. The sensible decision is not to just rely on additional production. That won't solve America's energy problem. We introduced a piece of legislation yesterday--Senator Bingaman, myself, and others on the Energy Committee, along with my colleague Senator Daschle, the Democratic leader--which is a comprehensive energy policy. It moves us in the right direction in a range of areas, one that is thoughtful and will lead this country out of the dilemma that currently exists with the imbalance between supply and demand for energy. Our economy cannot survive, progress and succeed the way we want it to unless we have assured supplies of energy. I talked about the stock market. I talked about the economy. Energy is also a very important element of these issues. We have to respond to them, and we have to deal with them. At the same time we are confronting the other issues, we are confronting the challenge of international trade. I mention the challenge of international trade only because, while all of the other elements of our fiscal policy seemed to have improved dramatically over the most recent 8 years, the one area that continued to decline was trade. By decline, I mean our trade deficit continued to grow year after year. We have the highest deficit in human history. It is not rocket science to fix this. Again, all we really need to know we learned in kindergarten. Everyone needs to play fair. Our current merchandise trade deficit is a huge problem at over $440 billion just this last year. The problem is that when we have trading partners, whether it is Europe, China, Japan, Mexico, or Canada, we say to them, we will open our markets to you, but in exchange, you must open your markets to us. We have never had the nerve or the will to do that. Let me give some examples of what we have done in trade. We just negotiated a deal with China. We said to China, after a long phase-in, we will give you this deal. You have a huge surplus with us or we have a huge deficit with you, and after a phase-in, we will give you this deal. You have roughly 1.2 billion people who are looking for new products. However we negotiated a deal that when we sell American vehicles to China, they can impose a 25-percent tariff. But if the Chinese sell automobiles to the United States, we will impose a 2.5- percent tariff. In other words, we will make a deal with you. You can charge a tariff that is 10 times higher than the United States on automobiles. That is with a country with which we already have a huge deficit, an over $80 billion last year. I scratch my head and look at that and think, on whose side were our trade negotiators? They certainly weren't for America. At least, they forgot for whom they were negotiating. That is one example here are a few others. The average agricultural tariff in the United States is 12 percent. The global average is 26 percent. The average tariff in the European Union is 30 percent. We have a long series of trade agreements, and big disputes, with the European Union. How is it that our trade negotiators let our European counterparts take advantage of our farmers? The average Japanese tariff is 58 percent. Every pound of T-bone steak that goes to Tokyo has right now a nearly 40-percent tariff on it. That is after the beef agreement with Japan--unforgivable. Japan has a $70 billion trade surplus with the United States but they won't cut a deal for our ranchers. After our beef agreement, almost every pound of beef going into Japan has a huge tariff on it. Yet this country seems to lack the will, the strength, or the nerve to do much about it. Every time we get involved in a trade negotiation, we lose in a very short period of time and agree to trade concessions that continue to ratchet up the trade deficit. I hear all my colleagues say: These trade agreements are really important so we can sell around the world. Yes, they are important. Every time we have a new trade agreement, we have a higher trade deficit. Does that add up? We have a trade agreement with Mexico. We had a surplus; we turned it into a deficit. We have a trade agreement with Canada. We had a deficit; we nearly doubled it. We have a trade agreement with China. We didn't have a vote on that, but we just had a bilateral agreement with China. I will make a wager with my colleagues that in a year and a half, when we evaluate our relationship with China, our deficit will have increased and we will be getting fewer agricultural products into China. Incidentally, after the trade agreement with China, in December, a load of barley was shipped to China from the U.S. and it is still waiting to enter. China stopped the shipment and apparently isn't going to let it get in. And China will give no reason for it. It is reasonable to ask: Who is looking after our interests? You could put on a blindfold and listen and you could not tell the difference between George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, or Richard Nixon. It is all the same mantra on trade: This country is ill served by the trade agreements we have had. I support expanded trade and expanded opportunity for American products abroad. That is not what is happening in these trade agreements. Now we come to a backdrop of an economy with energy issues and issues with respect to the market, trade, and other things I have discussed, and we have a new President who wants to cut taxes. In his campaign for the Presidency, when he was campaigning against Mr. Forbes in the primaries, he said he wanted to cut taxes by $1.3 trillion over 10 years. That was nearly 2 years ago that he made that announcement. That $1.3 trillion is scored by those who know it all works out that we will offer $2 trillion in real costs. So we have a President who, a couple years ago, said he wants a very large tax cut, and that there are surpluses as far as the eye can see. He and virtually all others from all political parties say they expect surpluses every year for the next 10 years, so the American people ought to receive some of those surpluses back in the form of tax relief. I agree. I think it is time for a tax cut for a number of reasons. No. 1, I think our economy is weaker than most people believe. We are headed toward some pretty troublesome circumstances. Our fiscal policy ought to be stimulative. It is time for a tax cut that will help stimulate this economy and help provide additional economic growth. But I do not believe we ought to lock in a tax cut for 10 years that is so large that it could pose a danger of putting us right back into very large, significant budget deficits once again. It took well over a decade to get out of that problem. This country should not want to be back in the same set of circumstances. First of all, I don't think anyone here really believes that we know what is going to happen 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years from now. Nobody believes that we know there will be surpluses. We have never had surpluses for 10 straight years. We have never had those surpluses. Nobody knows what is going to happen 6 months from now in the economy. Yet we have people here who are prepared to say we are going to lock in a very large tax cut in a way that will put us in jeopardy of going back into Federal budget deficits 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years from now. I don't think that is wise. We should only lock in a tax cut for the first 2 years, and do the right kind of tax cut so that it is fair to everybody and in a way that stimulates our economy. The first 2-year phase--make that portion of it permanent. Make the first phase stimulative, and at the end of 2 years, if we still have surpluses and the economic outlook is good, do a second phase. That is a much more conservative and a much more thoughtful way to address these issues. I hope as we have these discussions in the budget debate, and in the subsequent tax debate that will come following that, we will be able to think through exactly what kind of projections we have for the future and exactly what we think is going to happen and, as a result of that, what kind of tax cuts we should enact. There are a number of priorities for this country. Tax cuts are one at this point, especially because, A, we have a surplus and, B, we have an economy that is weakening. There are other priorities as well, one of which is to pay down the Federal debt. If you run it up in tough times, pay it down during better times. To those who say we are paying down the debt, I say when the budget document gets here, we will go to the page number I say and look at gross debt. It is going to increase, not decrease. Tell me why you think we are paying it down. Gross debt will increase, not decrease. That is why a significant part of the surplus that exists, in my judgment, should go to reducing the Federal debt. Second, there are other things for us to do. Yes, a tax cut is a priority. So, too, is paying down the Federal debt. But there are other things we should do. We need to improve our schools in this country. That is something that is important to our future. We need to try to be helpful to senior citizens--to all Americans, but especially senior citizens--to pay the cost of prescription drugs. We ought to do that in the Medicare program and in a way that is affordable and effective. So those are the other needs and priorities that we ought to consider. Finally, let me say that without disparaging any of the economic thinkers, either in the administration, or in Congress, or the Federal Reserve Board, no one knows what is happening in the future. We are all united by that profound lack of understanding. No one knows what the future holds for this economy. The most important element, by far, for this economy is the confidence of the American people. There are some who think we are so sophisticated that the control room on a ship of state has all kinds of gauges and knobs and dials and levers, and if you just go down there and adjust them all right, pull the right lever, adjust the right knob, move the right gauge, whether it is M-1B or tax cuts or spending or any number of devices, somehow the ship of state will sail forward at maximum speed. That is not the case at all. That has very little to do with the speed at which this ship moves forward. What has everything to do with it is the confidence of the American people. This economy rests on the confidence of the American people. If the people aren't confident, the economy is going to contract and there isn't anything anybody can do much about it. People make judgments about their future, about buying a house, buying a car, buying other things--making decisions about their life that affect the economy. They make decisions based on their view of what will happen in the future. If they are optimistic, they decide one thing. They may buy a new home, a second car, or a vacation home. They may make a decision to buy new clothing. That confidence creates a wave of improvement in any economy. That economy rests on a mattress of consumer confidence, and it always has. When people are not confident about the future, they delay decisions, postpone decisions, or simply decide they will not make purchases. So they behave differently and they create a contraction in the economy. That is the important thing for all of us to understand. This is all about confidence, about the American people's perception about the future and their confidence in the future. I want to talk for a few more moments about this tax cut. When we do a tax cut, as I indicated, it ought to be stimulative and fair. Let me talk about this issue of ``the top 1 percent'' because there has been so much discussion about that. I open my mail and people write to me, and some support this and some support that; it is all over the mark. As some journalists write, some of my colleagues call it ``class warfare'' and so on. Let me describe the 1-percent issue. The top 1 percent have done very well, far better than anybody else in the country. That is good for them. When you add up the individual income taxes and the payroll taxes paid by the American individual taxpayers, it is about a trillion dollars in individual income taxes and about $650 billion in payroll taxes. The top 1 percent bear about 21 percent of that burden. President Bush, in his proposal, says he would like to give the top 1 percent about 43 percent of the proposed tax cut. I think that is unfair. When I raise that and somebody says that is class warfare, I say it is not about class warfare; it is about class favoritism. Why have a tax policy that plays favorites, that says: you pay 21 percent of the total taxes, but you ought to get 43 percent of the tax cut? That is about class favoritism. What I say is, let's take care of the 99 percent first, look at their burden; let's look at what they have done, and their struggles. Then we should evaluate what kind of a fair tax cut can be helpful to working families, which can reflect their tax burden--yes, including the payroll tax because three quarters of the American people pay a higher payroll tax than they do in income taxes. That is very important to understand. That is where we get these differences in numbers. I hear people get on the floor and say these are fuzzy numbers and you are jockeying around these numbers. Look, there is only one set of truths, only one. We know what the tax burden is the American people bear, and we know what the proposals are to relieve that burden--and there will be more, I am sure. The proposals that say the payroll taxes people pay don't count are proposals that shortchange working families who pay a significant amount of payroll taxes and are told when it comes to handing part of the surplus back to them, their tax burden didn't count. That is not fair. It is not class warfare to describe that as unfair. It is class favoritism to decide the top 1 percent should get nearly double what they would normally deserve if we had a proportional tax cut related to their tax burden. I know there are differences in how we see the economy that probably relate to our attitudes about this. There are people in this Chamber who firmly believe the economy works based on this so-called trickle down theory. That is the notion that there are some people who run this country who know about allocation of capital, and they are the ones who make the country go; they are the ones who run the big businesses and they hire the people, and if you give them something to work with, it all trickles down to the bottom, and everybody is better off. I had an old farmer write me a letter some years ago. He said: I've been reading about this trickle down stuff for 20 years, and I ain't even damp yet. The old trickle down does not always trickle down. Others believe there is a percolate-up theory of economics: The engine works best when everybody has a little something with which to work, when American families have something with which to work. After all, you can have the best business in the world, but if nobody has the income to buy your product, your business ``ain't'' going to do very well. Hubert Humphrey used to talk about the trickle down theory. It is an old story everybody has heard, I am sure. He said: It's sort of like when you give a horse some hay and hope later the sparrows will have something to eat. It is kind of a description of believing that somehow everybody will get something ultimately. As we look at this tax issue, which I think is going to be one of the significant issues in Congress this year, we ought to be pretty hardheaded on two fronts: One, how do we do this in a way that helps this economy because this economy is in tougher shape than some know; and No. 2, how do we provide a tax cut that reflects the understanding we now have a surplus and ought to give some of it back in a way that also saves some for debt reduction, but in a way when we give it back it is fair to all the families in this country, it is fair to everybody. There is an old song by Ray Charles that has a lyric: Them that gets is them that's got, and I ain't got nothing lately. That is an apt discussion, it seems to me, of the way some people look at tax cuts. When they are proposed, they say: Gee, let's take a look at the top; they pay a lot of income tax. We will give them a large tax cut and the rest we will try to figure out. But we will trickle down, and somehow if we give enough at the top, it will trickle down and everybody will be better off. It seems to me when we talk about taxes, we need to talk about the total tax burden people face, which is income taxes and payroll taxes, and give a tax cut that reflects the burden for working families. That is not the case in the proposal that has come from the President. I think it is very unwise not to be somewhat conservative, and I am, frankly, surprised that those who call themselves the most conservative Members of Congress are often saying: Look, we are not conservative on this; what we want to do is provide a very large tax cut, and we are going to do that on surpluses that do not yet exist, but surpluses we expect we will have in 6 years, 7 years, 8 years, 9 years, 10 years. That is not very prudent, in my judgment. It was an awful struggle to get rid of these Federal budget deficits, but they are gone. The last thing we want to do is get put right back into the deficit ditch. We have a lot of interests and a lot of opinions about all of these things. I come from a farm State, and the Presiding Officer is from a farm State. I mentioned other things we want to do: provide a tax cut, pay down the debt, and reach other priorities that are necessary, such as improving our schools. I did not mention one that is most important to me, and that is doing what is necessary to preserve a network of family farmers in this country. Again, there is a difference of opinion about that. Some say if farmers are worth saving, let the market system save them. If the market system does not provide a price that saves family farmers, tough luck. So what, America will get its food. Food comes from a shelf, and it comes from inside a package. Farmers are like the little old diner: They are kind of a nostalgic thing, like the little old diner left behind when the interstate came through. It is fun to look back and see that vacant diner and think of what was, but we have an interstate now, we don't need to stop there. That is how some feel. It is total nonsense. Farmers produce more than grain. They produce a community, they produce a culture, they produce something so valuable for this country, and yet we are losing on this score. We have a farm program that does not work. We have family farmers struggling to hang on by their fingertips because commodity prices have collapsed. Our farmers put a couple hundred bushels of grain in the truck and drive to the elevator and the elevator operator says: This grain you produced doesn't have much value. Almost half the world is hungry, and probably a quarter of the world is on a diet. We have instability in places of hunger, and our farmers are told: Your food does not have value. What a strange set of priorities. If there is any one thing this country can do to promote a better world and promote more stability in the world it is take that which we produce in such abundance--food--and move it to parts of the world where it is needed for survival. What a wonderful thing for us to do and do it in a way that gives those who produce it a decent return. We are able to do that with arms. It is interesting, we are the largest arms merchant in the world. The United States is the largest arms merchant in the world. We sell more weapons of war than any other country. If we can do that with armaments, we ought to be able to do that with food. Most of us in this Chamber have been to refugee camps and places in the world where people are dying. I held a young girl who reached out of her bed. I was the only one she had. I was only going to be there a minute or two. She was dying of hunger, malnutrition. I can go anywhere in the world and see this. It is happening every day. My late friend Harry Chapin, who was killed in 1981, used to say the reason people dying from hunger is not a front-page story is because the winds of hunger blow every minute, every hour, every day; 45,000 people; 45,000 people a day, most of them children. It is not a headline because it happens all the time, and we produce food in such wonderful quantity and are told it has no value. We can do a lot better than that. I did not mean to speak at length--I will do so later--about agricultural policy, but in terms of our priorities as a country, as we think through all of these issues--taxes, trade, reducing the debt, and other priorities--and talk about prescription drugs and Medicare, about improving our schools and a farm policy that works for family farmers-- all of these things represent values. It is about values: Who are we, what are we doing here, and what kind of future do we want? In conclusion, when I talk about the economy, some say the economy is what it is and what it will be; the market system establishes the economy. The market system is a wonderful allocator of goods and services, but it is not perfect. In some cases it is perverted. It needs a referee, a certain structure. It needs rules and guidelines. My thoughts are, our economy is what we decide we want to make it. If we want to make an economy in which family farmers can make a decent living, then that is the economy we can have. Europe has it. Good for them. I am not criticizing them. Good for them. This economy is what we make it. The tax policy is what we make it. We need to think our way through this. I do not intend to be partisan. We have a new President. I like him. I want to work with him, but I say to him: You have given us a plan--that is good--but it is not the only plan. It is not the only idea. What we ought to do is get the best of what everyone has to offer. When people write to me and say support the President, I say this is not about the President, it is not about me; it is about this country's future: What are the best ideas to ensure this country's economic future? What are the best ideas we can get from Republicans and Democrats to ensure economic growth and opportunity for all Americans? Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mark Peters, a legislative fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges during this debate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to congratulate the North Border Eagles who were recently crowned state champions at the 2001 North Dakota Class B boys basketball tournament in Minot, ND. The Eagles beat number-one ranked Cando, ND 74-65 in the tournament's championship game to claim the state's top spot in Class B basketball. I congratulate Eagles Coach Dave Symington, his coaching staff and the players on their accomplishment. Members of the team include Jacob Anderson, Aaron Bonaime, Mike Brown, Nathan Carrier, Anthony Chaput, Matt Defoe, Dennis Delude, Warren Eagan, Kyle Rollness, Kevin Schaler, Travis Stegman, Chris Stremick, Chad Symington and Jason Tryan. But I stand before the U.S. Senate not only to share with you the boxscore of the final game of the North Dakota Class B boys basketball season, but to tell you the remarkable story of how they got there. It's a story that many of you from rural States may recognize. Everyone, though, will be inspired by this story of teamwork and determination. If you look on a North Dakota map, you won't find a community called North Border. That is because North Border is not one community, it is three different communities that have joined resources in education and athletics to compete against shrinking school enrollments. North Border is a co-op of three small communities, Neche, Pembina and Walhalla, in the far northeastern corner of my state. The communities with populations of 434, 634 and 1,131 respectively are joined by rolling hills, County Road 55 and a common goal of maintaining a high quality of life for its residents while facing the realities of a population that is older and smaller. The communities' high schools have a combined enrollment of less than 200. The schools formed the North Border co-op due to the low athlete numbers in boys basketball and other sports. The schools agreed to rotate the location of practices and games to accommodate players and fans in all three communities. While the athletes had played together before in summer programs, the transition was challenging. The newly formed Eagles lost its second game of the season. It was against the Cando Cubs--the team the Eagles would eventually meet again in the state tournament. The Eagles soon began playing well together as a team and compiled a very impressive 23-2 record, including a victory in the regional finals over Fordville- Lankin avenging the Eagles' second loss of the season. The team's birth into the state Class B boys basketball tournament was the first state tournament experience for either Walhalla or Neche, and the first time since 1955 that Pembina went to State. The Eagles received no beginner's breaks. All schools who made it to the tournament were strong teams and deserve praise for this accomplishment. The Eagles were paired against the defending state champion Fargo Oak Grove team in the first round. As they had all season, the Eagles relied on their defense and a strong balanced offense to move past Oak Grove and their second opponent, the Dickinson Trinity Titans, to advance to the championship game. Four players scored in double figures in the opening game and five players did the same in North Border's win over the Titans. The two victories put the Eagles in the title game to face the team that gave the Eagles their first loss on the season a 28 point loss at home. Again, in a performance marked by team balance, four North Border players scored in double digits including a team high 21 points by junior guard/forward Dennis Delude to give the Eagles a victory over previously unbeaten Cando. Three Eagle players--senior Aaron Bonaime, junior Nathan Carrier and Delude--were named to the State Class B All- Tournament Team. The journey these three communities made to become state champions is truly remarkable and inspiring. Once again, congratulations to all those involved in the Eagles successful season and to all teams who made it to this year's tournament.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I say to Senator Torricelli and my other colleagues who have cosponsored this amendment, they have done a real service, in my judgment, in this debate. This is an amendment that can hardly be opposed by Members of the Senate. It makes so much sense and is so overdue. Let me begin in a more general way talking about campaign finance reform and then describing why this amendment is critical to the success of this effort. This Saturday there was a story in one of the major city newspapers in this country. I do not think I will identify the people in the story, but I want to use this story to make a point. It is a story about a group who has gathered to fund certain political campaigns. It says they met in a conference room, 40 business executives, investors, wealthy folks gathered at a law firm conference room, and they had some candidates come in and they would make presentations to the gathered potential donors. Then the donors would score them, 1 to 10, and determine who was best, who were the best candidates. It was like a beauty contest without the bathing suits or good looks, I guess. You have the candidates come in this law office conference room, make their presentation, and they get a score of 1 to 10. Apparently after the candidates have made this presentation, this group of investors would decide who they were going to support. In this case, the story was about a Member of Congress now who went to this conference room, made a presentation, scored in the 10s, I guess, and then this group of 40 people said: You are our guy. What we are going to do is, we are going to do a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of television advertising for you--independent issue ads--and then, second, we are going to bundle some money and get you a couple of hundred thousand dollars in checks. So this little beauty contest produces $400,000 for a candidate. The group evolved from a small core of Wall Street bigwigs led by so-and- so. Their goal is to target large sums of money to specific kinds of candidates who come in and survive this little beauty contest they have. Do we need campaign finance reform? Of course we do. That is just one evidence of the desperate need for campaign finance reform. You bet we need it. I support the McCain-Feingold bill. I admit it is not perfect. I might have written some sections differently. It may need to be changed some. But it is a piece of legislation this Congress ought to embrace. Fifty years ago we effectively had no rules with respect to campaigns. There were no limits, no reporting requirements, and there was an exchange of money in this town in paper bags or envelopes; it could be in cash. The amount of money was donated and unreported. Was that a system that worked? Of course not. That desperately needed to be changed and it was in the early 1970s. We had the reforms of 1974 that tried to establish certain limits and tried to establish certain reporting. In many ways it worked, in some areas, but in other ways it has not worked. Money and politics are like water finding a hill. They run downhill inevitably. There is in this political system, rather than a competition of ideas is, which is what democracy ought to be about, a mad rush for money in order to pay the costs of television advertising, which has become the mother's milk of politics. What has happened to their competition of ideas in this blizzard of television advertising? Ideas are almost gone, nearly obliterated. The orgy of 30-second advertisements in this country is a slash-and-burn and hit-and-run negative attack, often by nameless and faceless people, in many cases by organizations that are not part of political parties. They are independent organizations collecting unlimited money from donors who are undisclosed. Do we need campaign finance reform? Darned right, we do. This system is out of control. In this morning's Washington Post there is a columnist who really makes the case about, what we need in politics is more money, that we just need more money in this political system. I wonder, has this person been on some kind of space flight somewhere? Did the shuttle take him up, and have they gone for the last 10 years? Could they not have failed to see in September and October--and even before in every election year, especially last year--the blizzard of advertisements, the 30-second ads in every venue of every kind? Our political system doesn't need more money. In fact, what has happened--and I think that is what has prompted this amendment--is that politicians have become collectors of money in order to transfer the money to television stations that become the large beneficiaries of this new system of ours. My colleague, Senator Torricelli, has offered an amendment that says the television stations in this country have a responsibility to do what the law says they should do--that industry has a responsibility to sell political time for political advertisements to candidates at the lowest rate on the rate card. But that has not been happening. What has happened in the communications business--especially television and radio--is a galloping concentration and mergers. Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, we have seen a rash of mergers and large companies becoming larger. In virtually very State, there are fewer television stations owned locally, and more are owned by large national combines. Guess what happened. The result is they make decisions now about the ad prices and the rate cards they are going to use for politics. They are maximizing their revenue from the political income in this country. My colleague described what is happening in New Jersey. I think that is important, because he describes the substantial increase in costs of television advertising for political purposes in New Jersey. Let me describe what happened in North Dakota. The advertisement that cost a mere $290 in 1998 to clear an ad on four NBC stations in western North Dakota--remember that this is a sparsely populated area, and the rates are much different from in New Jersey and New York--but a $290 or $300 advertisement 2 years go sold at $753 last fall, nearly tripling the advertising rates of the television stations in a small State such as North Dakota. I am told that the two Federal races paid almost exactly double for about the same time on the television stations in North Dakota in the year 2000. This isn't just about big markets, it is about every market, and it is about the television industry deciding it is going to profit as a result of being able to ignore, effectively, a provision that exists in law requiring the sale of television advertising at the lowest rate on the card for political advertising. I happen to think we ought to do more in reform with respect to advertising. I know some think this would be too intrusive. But, as I indicated, I think political campaigns ought to be a competition about ideas. They ought to be about competing ideas of what we need to do in this country to make this a better place in which to live. They have instead become this machine gunfire of 30-second advertisements. I would like to see at some point that we require the lowest rate on the rate card to be offered to those who purchase a 1-minute ad, require the television industry to sell ads in 1-minute increments, and require the candidate to appear on the ad three-fourths of the time of the 1-minute ad. That would really require people to use television advertising to tell the American people what they are about. If they want to criticize their opponent, good for them. But they would have to do it in person on the air. I think that would really change a lot of political advertising in this country, and I think America would be better served to have positive debate about what the candidate stands for; one would stand for one set of ideas, and the other would stand for another set of ideas; and let people make a choice. But these days, that is not what you have. You have a rush to try to destroy one candidate by the other, and in many cases we are seeing expenditures and unlimited money coming from undisclosed donors. That doesn't serve this political system at all. My colleague says let us at least solve this problem by adding to the McCain-Feingold bill. As I indicated when I started, I support the McCain-Feingold legislation because I think it is a significant step in the right direction. But it will be incomplete if we do not add this amendment because this amendment will finally tell the television industry: You must do what the law requires. Here is exactly what Congress says the law has required for some long while that you have gotten away from doing. If we don't do this, we will not see an abatement to this mad rush for money and the requirement that those who are involved in politics collect funds in order to transfer those funds to the television stations that are now charging double and triple for the advertising that is required in America politics. I really believe this is a critically important amendment. I must say my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Torricelli, made an outstanding presentation. He has done his homework, as I described, with one of my colleagues. He has made a very effective presentation of why this is necessary. Let me make an additional point about the television industry. I think the television industry does some awfully good things in our country, and all of us take advantage of it almost every day. And we appreciate the good things they do. But, as we know, the television industry was provided a spectrum. The public airwaves were given to broadcasters free on the condition they serve ``the public interest, convenience, and necessity.'' According to a study by the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, during the 2000 campaign the typical local television station in a major market aired just 45 seconds of the candidate's second discourse per night during a month before November 7. Why? They know what sells on the news. They are chasing ambulances, they are not covering political campaigns. There were stories about this in the last campaign. Too often television stations decided they weren't going to put campaign news in the news strip, let people buy it, and at the same time on the commercial side of the station they were jacking up the price of their ads and preventing candidates from accessing the lowest unit cost. I think on the issue of public interest, convenience, and necessity, we have a ways to go in the television industry dealing with the coverage of political campaigns. Major broadcast networks performed only slightly better--airing just 64 seconds a night of a candidate's discourse per network, according to an Annenberg Public Policy Center report. The question is, How are the American people to gather information about the competition of ideas that ought to exist in the political race over the newscast? Hardly. The news industry, including the networks, is not covering most of these campaigns. And local stations have decided increasingly that there is a menu for their nightly news, and they understand exactly what it is. It is often dealing with crime, even while crime goes down. Incidentally, there are wonderful studies about this which show decreased crime rates and increased viewing of stories about violent crime on the nightly news because that is what sells. It is time for us to ask for something better and something different from the television industry. In this circumstance, we are simply asking them to do what we believe the law has required them to do but what they have been refusing to do in recent years, and that is to sell 45 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election to candidates for public office at the lowest unit charge of the station for the same class and amount of time for the same period as for the commercials that are aired on those stations. That is what the requirement is. It is what they have not been doing, and it is what Senator Torricelli and Senator Corzine, Senator Durbin, I, and others say it is time to be required to do. So I am pleased today to support this amendment. I think it is a very important amendment, and I am especially pleased my colleague, Senator Torricelli, has taken the lead to offer it today. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am very concerned about the current state of affairs in our nation's airline industry. The way airlines have remade themselves since deregulation is very troubling to me and should be very troubling to most of the traveling public in this country. Since deregulation we have seen an unprecedented number of mergers in the airline industry. What used to be 11 airlines is now 7, and now with United wanting to buy US Airways, and American wanting to buy TWA out of bankruptcy, there is a very high risk that we will quickly be reduced to three mega-carriers in this country. I am afraid of what this will mean to competition which is already almost non-existent in so many parts of the country. That is because the major carriers have spent the last 20 years retreating into regional hubs, such as Minneapolis, Denver, and Atlanta, where one airline will control 50 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent of the hub traffic. The result has been that a dominant airline controlling the hub traffic sets its own prices, and it is the people in sparsely populated areas in the country that end up paying for it with outrageously high prices. These proposed mergers fly directly in the face of public interest and ought not to be allowed. We need more than three airlines. Increased consolidation would be moving in the wrong direction. We need more competition, not more concentration. That is why I am introducing legislation today to place a moratorium on airline mergers above a certain size for a couple years so we can take a breath and evaluate what kind of air transportation system we want in this country. I hope my colleagues will join me in expressing loudly that we must avoid having this country go to three major airline carriers. It would be a step backward, not forward.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am very concerned about the current state of affairs in our nation's airline industry. The way airlines have remade themselves since deregulation is very troubling to me and should be very troubling to most of the traveling public in this country. Since deregulation we have seen an unprecedented number of mergers in the airline industry. What used to be 11 airlines is now 7, and now with United wanting to buy US Airways, and American wanting to buy TWA out of bankruptcy, there is a very high risk that we will quickly be reduced to three mega-carriers in this country. I am afraid of what this will mean to competition which is already almost non-existent in so many parts of the country. That is because the major carriers have spent the last 20 years retreating into regional hubs, such as Minneapolis, Denver, and Atlanta, where one airline will control 50 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent of the hub traffic. The result has been that a dominant airline controlling the hub traffic sets its own prices, and it is the people in sparsely populated areas in the country that end up paying for it with outrageously high prices. These proposed mergers fly directly in the face of public interest and ought not to be allowed. We need more than three airlines. Increased consolidation would be moving in the wrong direction. We need more competition, not more concentration. That is why I am introducing legislation today to place a moratorium on airline mergers above a certain size for a couple years so we can take a breath and evaluate what kind of air transportation system we want in this country. I hope my colleagues will join me in expressing loudly that we must avoid having this country go to three major airline carriers. It would be a step backward, not forward.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, after nearly a decade of economic growth, historic gains in productivity and reining in the Federal budget deficits, Congress is now considering enacting a tax cut. I support a tax cut. And I think it should be retroactive to January 1 of this year to provide a needed boost to our economy. Cutting taxes now will be helpful both to individual taxpayers and to our economy. But we also need to use some of the expected available surplus to pay down our Federal debt. If a country runs up a debt during tough times, it should pay it down during good times. And some of the surplus should be used to do other important things like improve our schools, provide emergency help to family farmers, and help the elderly afford prescription drug costs. There is an effort by some to frame this tax cut debate in terms of whether one supports the President. But it is not about who we support. Rather, it's about what we support. What kind of a tax cut should we enact and how large should it be? Here's what I think we should do: One, enact the income tax cut in phases. The projected 10 year budget surpluses are just that, projections, and are not at all certain. Therefore we should be conservative. Enact the first phase of the tax cut now, and make it retroactive to January 1. In 2 years, if our economy is still producing the expected surpluses, add to the tax cut. Two, cut income tax rates and do it in a way that provides fair tax cuts for all tax brackets. Three, eliminate the marriage tax penalty in the income tax code. Four, simplify filing requirements by allowing ``return free filing'' for up to 70 million Americans. Five, totally exempt all family farms and family businesses from the estate tax and increase the estate tax exemption to two million dollars for all estates--$4 million for married couples. Six, add a tax credit for investments that are made in rural States, where there is out-migration of people. We should use this opportunity to use tax cuts to stimulate new jobs and economic growth in rural states that have been left behind. Here are some of the major issues that we must consider as we enact this tax cut. The President's plan assumes we will have budget surpluses for the next 10 years. I hope that is the case, but with the current slowdown in our economy, we ought to be cautious. Economic forecasts are no more reliable than weather forecasts. If we lock in a large tax cut and then do not get the expected surpluses, we will once again put our country in financial trouble. One of the major priorities for using the surplus should be to pay down the Federal debt. It grew by trillions in the 80s and early 90s. Now we have the opportunity and an obligation to use part of these surpluses to pay down that debt. Our Government collects about $1 trillion in personal income taxes and about $650 billion in payroll taxes from individuals each year. The top 1 percent of all income earners in the U.S. pay 21 percent of all taxes, but under the President's plan they would receive 43 percent of the tax cut. That's not fair. We should make changes to the President's plan to provide a larger share of the tax cuts to working families. A tax cut is a priority, but so too is fixing our schools, helping family farmers through tough times, dealing with the high prices of prescription drugs, and strengthening Medicare and Social Security. Yes, surpluses need to be used to cut taxes and reduce the debt, but some should be used to address other urgent needs that improve our country. This debate is larger and more important than partisan politics. And these decisions are bigger than whether the Congress is supporting a new President. Our country works best when we think ahead and think together. That is what we need to do on this issue.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is a great deal of discussion and debate going on right now about cutting taxes. Everyone, it seems, supports a tax cut although there is great disagreement over how big it should be, when it should take effect and who it should benefit. The American people deserve and need a tax cut, and I hope they will get one. But there is another part to this discussion that's not getting much attention. The American people also deserve and need tax simplification. There is broad agreement on this question, much broader and much deeper than any consensus on the need for a tax cut. I think we ought to act to provide it. Just a few months ago, the press reported several independent studies showing that American families and business will spend at least $115 billion trying to comply with federal tax laws this year. That is an enormous amount of money. It represents an enormous amount of time, an enormous amount of effort, and I'm pretty certain, it represents an enormous amount of frustration for tens of millions of American taxpayers. Lately there has been a lot of talk about lifting tax burdens, and we should be talking about that, but let's also talk about one of the biggest tax burdens of all: the tax compliance burden, the colossal hassle taxpayers face to file their tax returns each year. I think it is simply inexcusable that it is so complex, so difficult, and so expensive for Americans to fulfill this basic civic duty. I find it even more unacceptable that we should do nothing to lift this burden, even as the nation is focused on lifting the tax burden when it comes to what is owed. We must do both. As I mentioned, taxpayers will spend somewhere around $115 billion and more than 3 billion hours this year in the effort to meet their federal income tax obligations. At this very moment, millions of taxpayers are probably just beginning the gut-wrenching process of wading through complex forms and instruction books so they can meet this year's fast-approaching filing deadline. After completing this annual ritual, they will once again start barraging congressional offices with letters imploring us to simplify the tax code. I don't blame them for doing so. They are right. Each little provision in the tax code has a justification, but together they add up to a big headache for the American taxpayer. We can't blame the IRS for the misery endured this year or in the years ahead. There's no way to truly simplify tax day unless Congress changes the underlying law. Nevertheless, the President and Congress appear ready to move forward with tax relief of possibly historic proportions without addressing the tax compliance burden that most Americans urgently want fixed. That's why I am pleased to be joined by Senators Gregg and Durbin in re-introducing a tax reform proposal that we call the ``Fair and Simple Shortcut Tax'', FASST plan. Our plan would give most taxpayers the opportunity to pay their federal income taxes without having to prepare a tax return if they so choose. More than thirty countries already enable their citizens to pay their federal taxes in this way. We believe tax simplification along these lines can work in this country, too. Our bill is based on a principle that both sides of the aisle generally are eager to espouse, namely, choice. The bill would allow taxpayers to choose to pay their taxes without complexity, paperwork and hassle. Those who prefer to use the current system, with its complexity and expenses, could do so if they wanted. But if they want something simpler, they could choose our approach instead. Under FASST, most taxpayers could forget about filing a federal tax return on April 15th. Instead, their entire income tax liability would be withheld at work. There would be no more deciphering statements from mutual funds, no more frantic search for records and receipts, and no last minute dash to the Post Office in order to meet the midnight deadline. According to Treasury Department officials who have studied it, the FASST plan could give at least 70 million Americans the opportunity to elect the no-return option. Specifically, under the FASST plan, most taxpayers could choose the no-filing option by filling out a slightly modified W- 4 form at work. Using tables prepared by the IRS, their employers would determine the employee's exact tax obligation at a single rate of 15 percent on wages, after several major adjustments, and withhold that amount. This amount would satisfy the taxpayer's entire federal income tax obligation for the year, absent some unforeseeable changes in circumstances. The FASST plan would be available for couples earning up to $100,000 in wages and no more than $5,000 in other income such as interest, dividends or capital gains. In the case of individual taxpayers, the wage and non-wage income limits would be $50,000 and $2,500, respectively. Popular deductions would continue under this plan: the standard deduction, personal exemptions, the child credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, along with a deduction for home mortgage interest expenses and property taxes. Our bill would include critical savings incentives for average Americans by exempting up to $5,000 of all interest, dividends and capital gains income from taxation for couples, $2,500 for singles. Moreover, savings contributions made through employers would be excluded from the wage calculations in the beginning. Consider some of the advantages of this hassle-free plan: No taxpayers would lose. If a taxpayer prefers to file an ordinary return, he or she would still have that choice, and no one would be forced to lose a tax deduction that he or she wants to keep. Wages would be taxed at a single, low rate of 15 percent. A deduction for home mortgage interest expenses, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other popular parts of our current tax code would be preserved. Other major tax reform plans would eliminate those deductions, which many people count on. The alternative minimum tax, AMT, and the marriage penalty would be eliminated. Compliance costs for taxpayers and government alike would fall. If 70 million Americans chose the FASST option, hundreds of millions of dollars now spent on paper pushing could be used in more productive ways. Those taxpayers who continued to file under the old system would get relief too. The plan would reduce the marriage penalty by making the standard deduction for married couples double the amount available for single filers. Also, it would virtually eliminate the complicated AMT for most sole proprietors, farmers and other small businesses by exempting the first $1 million in self-employment income from the AMT calculations. This legislation also would provide a 50 percent credit for up to $1,000 in expenses that businesses might incur implementing the FASST plan. In addition, it would grant taxpayers who continue to use the current system a 50 percent tax credit for up to $200 in tax preparer expenses, provided they file their returns electronically. Finally, the bill would offer individuals a substantial incentive for savings and investment by exempting up to $500 of dividend and interest income, $1,000 for couples. Our bill is both simple and fair, and it gives most taxpayers the choice to avoid the annual tax filing nightmare that they have come to dread. In testimony before a Senate subcommittee last year, IRS Commissioner Rossotti testified that it's ``unquestionable that this bill provides significant tax simplification.'' Imagine how much better life would be if April 15th were just another day. Under the FASST plan, for millions of Americans, that could be true. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this bill be printed in the Record.