Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I want to talk about two items today. The first deals with February being American Heart Month. Let me describe my interest in this issue. Today, of course, is Valentine's Day. Most of us will receive some kind of valentine from someone that has a red heart on it and describes love and affection. It is a wonderful day for all of us. The other symbol is the human heart, which is a symbol that relates to the American Heart Association, an organization I have worked with a great deal. And also, as I said, this is American Heart Month. Robert Benchley once said: ``As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did,'' describing, of course, the devastation of the cardiac problems that people who suffer from heart disease have. I want to talk, just for a moment, about that because we need to continue every day in every way to deal with this killer in our country. Heart disease is this country's number 1 killer. It is the leading cause of disability and the leading cause of death in our country. Forty-one percent of the deaths in our country each year are caused by heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases, more than the next six leading causes of death combined. Cardiovascular disease and heart disease kill more women than the next 14 causes of death combined each year. That is 5.5 times more deaths than are caused by breast cancer. How can we help fight heart disease? All of us work on a wide range of issues. I am very concerned about a wide range of diseases. I have held hearings on breast cancer in North Dakota. I have worked on diabetes especially with respect to Native Americans. But heart disease is a special passion for me. I lost a beautiful young daughter to heart disease some years ago, and I have another daughter who has a heart defect. I spend some amount of time visiting with cardiologists and visiting Children's Hospital talking about the human heart. We know there is much more to be learned about heart disease. There is breathtaking and exciting research going on at the National Institutes of Health dealing with heart disease. I have been to the NIH and visited the researchers. What is happening there is remarkable. Congress is dramatically increasing the funding for research dealing with a wide range of diseases and inquiry into diseases at the National Institutes of Health. We have gone from $12 billion now to over $20 billion, and we are on a path to go to $24 billion in research at the National Institutes of Health. I am pleased to have been one of those who stimulated that increase in the investment and research to uncover the mysteries of disease. To find ways to cure diseases and to prevent diseases--heart disease, cancer, so much more--is a remarkable undertaking, an outstanding and important investment for the country. How can we, however, as a Congress provide some focus to this issue of heart disease? We have a Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition that we founded in 1996. I am a co-chairman of that in the Senate and Senator Frist, who is a former heart transplant surgeon, is the other co-chair. We have two co-chairs in the House of Representatives as well. We are active in a wide range of areas dealing with the issue of heart disease. More than 600 Americans die every single day from cardiac arrest. That is the equivalent of two large jet airline crashes a day. But it is not headlines every day because it happens all the time, day after day, every day. There is some good news, and that is that cardiac arrest can be reversed in a number of victims if it is treated within minutes by an electric shock. There is now something called an automatic external defibrillator, AED. The AEDs, which we have all seen on television programs where they are applying a shock to someone to restart their heart, used to be very large machines. Now they are portable, the size of a briefcase, easily usable by almost anyone, even myself. I was in Fargo, North Dakota, one day with the Fargo-Moorhead ambulance crew, and the emergency folks use these defibrillators, the portable briefcase size defibrillator. They showed me how to hook it up and how to use it. Without having any experience at all, someone off the street can just hook up one of these portable defibrillators and use it without mistake or error to save lives. The question is, how can we now make these portable defibrillators easily accessible in public buildings all around the country, and other areas of public access, so they're available to help save lives when someone has a sudden cardiac arrest? That is what we are working on. We have passed legislation to try to make these available in airplanes. We have passed legislation to try to move them around to make them available in public buildings. We should do much more than that. They are affordable, easy to use, and can save lives. We ought to have these new portable defibrillators as common pieces of safety equipment in public buildings like fire extinguishers are now. It is achievable, and it is something we should do. We also need to find ways to do more cholesterol screening. That also relates very much to cardiovascular disease. We know the identification of one of the major changeable risk factors for cardiovascular disease--that is, high levels of cholesterol--is not covered by Medicare. Clearly, we ought to cover those kinds of screenings under Medicare. The American Heart Association recommends that all Americans over the age of 20 receive cholesterol screening at least once every five years. But when an American turns 65 and enters the Medicare program, their coverage for cholesterol screenings stops. That makes no sense. We have tried in recent years to improve the Medicare coverage of preventive services. We now cover screenings for breast, cervical, colorectal and prostate cancer, testing for loss of bone mass, diabetes monitoring, vaccinations for the flu, pneumonia, and hepatitis B. Now we must provide Medicare coverage for cholesterol screenings as well. I intend to introduce legislation that would add this important benefit to the menu of preventive services already covered by Medicare. I have just mentioned also the substantial amount of new research going on at the National Institutes of Health. I confess that my passion about this issue comes from my family's experience--in the first case, a tragic experience. In the second case, we hope for an experience that will show us the miracles of research that are coming from the National Institutes of Health that provide new treatments and new remedies and new cures for some of these illnesses, including heart disease. We hope this will offer my family good news in the future; not just my family, every family. Every family is touched and is acquainted in some way with this issue of heart disease. As I indicated, it is America's number 1 killer. I have been pleased to work with the American Heart Association, a wonderful organization of volunteers all across this country that does extraordinary work. I will continue to work with them and work with the heart and stroke coalition in the Congress to see if we can't continue to make progress in battling this dreaded disease that takes so many lives in our country.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I rise to speak for a moment about the airlines and the airline service in our country. Last weekend, the National Mediation Board released Northwest Airlines and one of its unions, called AMFA, from the mediation service that was going on. Now we are under a 30-day march to a potential labor strike and therefore shutdown of airline service. It is not just Northwest Airlines. We have a United Airlines dispute in front of the National Mediation Board. We have a Delta Airlines dispute there, and an American Airlines dispute. What has happened in recent years with the airlines, not just with respect to these labor issues, but with respect to the way the 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. I mentioned earlier, today is Valentine's Day. I suggest for a moment that you might want to take a trip on Valentine's Day. If you want to go to Bismarck, ND--and if you say no because it is February, I would admonish you that Bismarck, ND, is a wonderful place and it is not all that cold in the winter--guess what the walk-up cost for a flight to Bismarck, ND, is--$1,687. But assume your sweetheart is very special and you decide, I am not going to go Bismarck. I am going to Paris, France. Do you know the fare you can find to Paris, France today? It is not $1,687. We have found walk-up fares to Paris, France, for $406; or Los Angeles, $510. So fly to Bismarck for $1,687 or Paris, France, for $406. Ask yourself, what kind of a nutty scheme is this that these private companies have developed a pricing scheme that says: If you fly twice as far, we will charge you half as much. But if you fly half as far, we will charge you twice as much. Using Bismarck again, if you have a hankering to see the largest cow on a hill overlooking New Salem, ND--the cow's name is Salem Sue, the world's largest cow--or to go to see Mickey Mouse at Disneyland in Los Angeles, you pay twice as much to go half as far to see the largest cow, or pay half as much to go twice as far to see Mickey Mouse. What kind of a nutty idea is that? Who on earth comes up with these pricing schemes? Deregulation comes up with pricing schemes that say, by the way, we are not going to regulate the airlines. They can compete aggressively between the big cities where a lot of people want to travel. That competition will drive down prices, and you have really nice prices among the large cities where people are traveling. Meanwhile, the rest of the folks get soaked with extraordinarily high prices and less service. So what happened after deregulation is these major airlines decided they really liked each other a lot and started romancing each other and they merged. What used to be 11 airlines is now 7. They want to merge some more and they want to go from 7 to 3 airlines. What happened through all these mergers? They retreated into the regional hubs, such as Minneapolis, Denver, Atlanta--you name it; they have retreated to regional hubs where one airline will control 50 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent of the hub traffic. The result is that a dominant airline controlling the hub traffic sets its own prices, and those prices are outrageous. Now, here is the point: We now have outrageous prices for people in sparsely populated areas in the country. We have a system of deregulation in which the airlines have become unregulated monopolies in regional hubs, and now we have a circumstance where United decided it wants to buy USAir, and American wants to buy TWA because TWA is going to be in bankruptcy, and it has been there twice. Delta is talking about buying Continental, and Northwest will soon be involved in the mix. They want to condense this down to three big airline carriers. Now, that is not competition where I come from. That is kind of an economic cholesterol that clogs the economic veins of the free market system in this country. We need to stop that. I am considering legislation that would set up a moratorium on airline mergers above a certain size for a couple years so we can take a breath and understand what this means to the American consumers. The answer of what it means to the American consumers is quite clear to me. Some are rewarded with lower fares--if you are in the large markets where there is competition, while others are paying extraordinary prices to fly in small markets where there is less service and higher prices. United says it wants to buy USAir. That combination means a bigger company with more market control. American says TWA is failing and it wants to buy TWA. More market control. The TWA thing--if I might just describe the circumstance--is, in my judgment, byzantine. It was purchased by Carl Icahn in a hostile takeover in the 1980s. I said this is unhealthy to put an airline company into these hostile takeover wars, with junk bonds and everything. Guess what the problem with TWA is? At the moment, Mr. Icahn, after having been through two bankruptcies with TWA, has an agreement post bankruptcy to sell seats on TWA at a 45-percent discount from the lowest public fare. This Icahn-TWA deal, termed the ``caribou agreement,'' remains in effect through 2003. Mr. Icahn is vigorously contesting the bankruptcy proceeding because if the assets are sold, the company will cease to exist. What kind of a deal is that when airlines become pawns in hostile takeovers and then you get sweetheart deals coming out of bankruptcy that impose that kind of burden on the back of TWA? It doesn't look to me as though the public interest has been defined at all in these machinations. The point is, when airlines have become bigger and bigger and have retreated into dominant hubs, if there is a strike or lockout and the airline ceases operating, it is not like it was 30 years ago when, if your airline shut down, you had other airlines. In North Dakota, we had five different companies flying jet airplanes into our State. Now we have one, and we just got a second recently with a regional jet. The point is, when an airline shuts down now, when you have dominance in a certain hub, entire parts of the country will be left with no airline service at all. Those airlines and their employees have dramatically changed the circumstances of collective bargaining. There is someone else who must be at their table, and that is the American traveling public because their interests are at stake. A strike or lockout will affect their interests in a very dramatic way. I wanted to make this point for a couple reasons. One, I think these proposed mergers fly directly in the face of public interest and ought not to be allowed. That is No. 1. We ought to stop this. We don't need to go to three airlines. That is, in my judgment, moving in the wrong direction. That is not in the public interest. We need more competition, not more concentration. No. 2, and my final point, is when you have the kind of disputes that now exist before the National Mediation Board and the threatened disruptions of airline service, it will be devastating to the public and to this country's economy if you have entire regions with no air service at all. We went through a strike with the dominant carrier in our region about 2 and a half years ago and it was devastating. We can't let that happen again. There are four carriers with cases in front of the mediation board, one of which was just released. I say to those carriers and to the labor unions, because you have remade yourself in a different circumstance, with dominance in hubs all across this country, you have a different responsibility than you used to have in collective bargaining. You have a responsibility to the American public that didn't previously exist. This is not business as usual. There is another interest that must be seated at your table, and that is the public interest. Understand that those of us in Congress, those who are strong supporters of businesses and strong supporters of unions, understand it is most important that we are supporters of the public interest, the people we represent, and supporters of the larger national interests in this country. With what happened to the airline industry, the massive concentration and the critical dominance in regional hubs, these labor disputes are very troubling to me and to many others. They must not--I repeat-- result in the shutdown of critically needed airline service to parts of this country that can ill afford to have that happen. I say to the airlines and to the unions: Sit at that table and bargain. I am a big supporter of collective bargaining. Bargain and reach an agreement. Understand that the empty chair next to your discussion is a chair that represents the public interest, and that chair is not filled by someone who is sitting there as part of that discussion, but they are in that room overlooking those negotiations. Resolve these issues and keep that service from the company and its employees provided to the American people. I hope my colleagues will join me in expressing loudly that having this country go to three major airline carriers is a step backward, not forward. It is a step toward concentration, not competition. It plugs the arteries of the free market system in a very unhealthy way for this country. I will speak at a future time about concentration, and not just in the airline industry. I am concerned about what is happening in a range of industries in this country where there is concentration and antitrust behavior that ought to be troubling to the American people and this Congress. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Brownback and a number of our colleagues today in introducing the Conservation Reserve Program Tax Fairness Act of 2001. This much-needed legislation would clarify that Conservation Reserve Program payments received by farmers are treated for tax purposes as rental payments from real estate not subject to self-employment taxes. For over a decade, many farmers have agreed to take out of farm production environmentally-sensitive lands and place them in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for an extended period. In return, these farmers receive an annual rental payment from the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the past several years, the IRS has waged an aggressive campaign to try to re-characterize CRP rental payments as net earnings from self-employment and subject to self-employment taxes. I believe that the IRS's position here is dead-wrong. North Dakota has about 3.3 million acres with $109 million in rental payments in the CRP program. The IRS's position means that farmers in North Dakota could be mailed a tax bill from the IRS for more than $16 million in added federal taxes this year alone. A typical North Dakota farmer with 160 acres in CRP would have a CRP payment of $5,280 and would owe nearly $800 in self-employment taxes because of the IRS's ill-advised position. To make matters worse, if the IRS pursues back taxes on returns filed by farmers in past years, the amount of taxes owed by individual farmers could amount to thousands of dollars. I believe that it is absolutely ludicrous for the IRS to load up farmers with an added tax burden at the very time that our nation's family farmers are struggling with high fuel costs and record high fertilizer prices while commodity prices are at record low levels. Given these circumstances, where are the nation's family farmers supposed to come up with the $231 million in additional taxes the IRS's interpretation of CRP rental payments imposes on them? In our judgment, the Congress never intended this tax result. In fact, the U.S. Tax Court understood this very point, when it ruled in 1998 that the IRS's interpretation of CRP payments was improper and that CRP payments are properly treated by farmers as rental payments and, thus, not subject to self-employment taxes. Regrettably, the U.S. Tax Court's ruling was later reversed by a federal appellate court as the IRS continues to litigate the matter. We think that most of our colleagues understand that the current IRS position is not what Congress intended, nor is it supportable in law in our judgment. That's probably why, for example, the Senate unanimously agreed to an amendment I offered to the marriage penalty reduction bill last summer that included language to clarify the proper tax treatment of CRP payments as rentals not subject to self-employment taxes. However, my amendment with its CRP language and other amendments were stripped from the final version of that bill and this critical CRP change was not included in any other tax bills signed into law by the President in the last Congress. With the legislation we introduce today, Congress can tell the IRS that its mistaken effort to treat CRP payments as net earnings from self-employment will not be allowed to stand. I, along with the other cosponsors, urge you to support this change by cosponsoring our bill and working with us to get it added to any major tax legislation passed by Congress this year.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Brownback and a number of our colleagues today in introducing the Conservation Reserve Program Tax Fairness Act of 2001. This much-needed legislation would clarify that Conservation Reserve Program payments received by farmers are treated for tax purposes as rental payments from real estate not subject to self-employment taxes. For over a decade, many farmers have agreed to take out of farm production environmentally-sensitive lands and place them in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for an extended period. In return, these farmers receive an annual rental payment from the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the past several years, the IRS has waged an aggressive campaign to try to re-characterize CRP rental payments as net earnings from self-employment and subject to self-employment taxes. I believe that the IRS's position here is dead-wrong. North Dakota has about 3.3 million acres with $109 million in rental payments in the CRP program. The IRS's position means that farmers in North Dakota could be mailed a tax bill from the IRS for more than $16 million in added federal taxes this year alone. A typical North Dakota farmer with 160 acres in CRP would have a CRP payment of $5,280 and would owe nearly $800 in self-employment taxes because of the IRS's ill-advised position. To make matters worse, if the IRS pursues back taxes on returns filed by farmers in past years, the amount of taxes owed by individual farmers could amount to thousands of dollars. I believe that it is absolutely ludicrous for the IRS to load up farmers with an added tax burden at the very time that our nation's family farmers are struggling with high fuel costs and record high fertilizer prices while commodity prices are at record low levels. Given these circumstances, where are the nation's family farmers supposed to come up with the $231 million in additional taxes the IRS's interpretation of CRP rental payments imposes on them? In our judgment, the Congress never intended this tax result. In fact, the U.S. Tax Court understood this very point, when it ruled in 1998 that the IRS's interpretation of CRP payments was improper and that CRP payments are properly treated by farmers as rental payments and, thus, not subject to self-employment taxes. Regrettably, the U.S. Tax Court's ruling was later reversed by a federal appellate court as the IRS continues to litigate the matter. We think that most of our colleagues understand that the current IRS position is not what Congress intended, nor is it supportable in law in our judgment. That's probably why, for example, the Senate unanimously agreed to an amendment I offered to the marriage penalty reduction bill last summer that included language to clarify the proper tax treatment of CRP payments as rentals not subject to self-employment taxes. However, my amendment with its CRP language and other amendments were stripped from the final version of that bill and this critical CRP change was not included in any other tax bills signed into law by the President in the last Congress. With the legislation we introduce today, Congress can tell the IRS that its mistaken effort to treat CRP payments as net earnings from self-employment will not be allowed to stand. I, along with the other cosponsors, urge you to support this change by cosponsoring our bill and working with us to get it added to any major tax legislation passed by Congress this year.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a dedicated member of the U.S. Forest Service as he concludes his 39-plus years of service to his country. We are proud to have had this man serve on the Medora Ranger District in Dickinson, ND for the past 35 years. Mr. Norman G. Bishop deserves this honor. North Dakotans are grateful for his contributions to the wise and sustainable use of our national grasslands. Norm Bishop's personal and professional career accomplishments are as diverse as they are noteworthy. His loyal service and sacrifices for nearly four decades, working in the communities of western North Dakota, are a testament to all who use and appreciate our public lands. In 1962, Norm moved to Dickinson, ND where he was an Airman, First Class at the Dickinson Radar Installation. His very first night in Dickinson, Norm met Karen Ridl, who he married a year later. After the Air Base closed in Dickinson, Norm began his Forest Service career. During the oil crisis of the mid-1970s, Norm was instrumental in developing what is now the largest, most productive oil and gas program in the entire National Forest System. In fact, Norm became the first person in the entire Forest Service to be certified as an ``Oil and Gas Resource Specialist.'' For more than 20 years, Norm worked tirelessly to insure that oil development on the grasslands was accomplished in a manner that was sensitive to the needs of natural resources. My staff and I had the privilege of working with Norm Bishop on the Kinley Plateau/Bullion Butte Minerals exchange. Norm's professionalism and knowledge were instrumental in making that exchange a tremendous success. It is with great honor for me to present these credentials of Norm Bishop to the Senate today. It is clear through all of his accomplishments that he has dedicated himself to furthering the benefits we enjoy on public lands. All of his actions reflect a true leader with a sense of purpose, commitment, and conscience. As Norm departs from public service I ask my colleagues to join me in delivering an appreciative tribute from a grateful nation, and best wishes to he and Karen for a productive and rewarding retirement.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. The first reaction is, we ought to pay down the Federal debt. That ought to be part of the original priority. If you run up the debt during tough times, then you ought to pay it down during good times. Second, they feel very strongly that most important is we ought to keep this economic expansion going. We don't want to sink back into budget deficits once again. Almost all of them would say we can't see 2, 3, or 5 years ahead.

Mr. DORGAN. The year before the last recession, 35 of the 40 leading economists in this country said next year will be a year of economic growth. The point is the same point the Senator from Illinois made. We don't know what is going to happen in the future. The field of economics is a little psychology pumped up with a lot of helium. I say that having taught economics. We don't know what is going to happen in the future. Alan Greenspan, who is canonized in a book, couldn't tell 7 months in advance what was going to happen to this economy. So we don't know what is going to happen in the future, and we would be very wise to be cautious. There is room to provide a tax cut, and we should do that. At the same time, we ought to be cautious enough to understand that while we provide a tax cut, and one that is fair to working families in this country, we ought not lock ourselves into a situation that could cut off economic growth and opportunity in the future. How would we cut it off? By sinking right back into the same deficit ditch we were in before. What will happen if we do that? We will see higher interest rates, economic growth slowing, fewer opportunities, and fewer jobs. In the last 8 years, we have had over 22 million new jobs created. The 4 years previous to that, when we had growing deficits, higher interest rates, and economic trouble all around us, we saw one of the worst periods of job growth in history. This is a very important economic decision we are making. The debate about it ought not be partisan. It is just a debate in which we have different ideas about how to proceed. My feeling is, proceed cautiously. Let us provide a tax cut. Let us do it in a way that is fair to working families. Let us have a trigger so that in the event the economy goes sour, we will not sink back into big deficits. Let us also be concerned about the other things we must do. We ought not dip into Social Security or Medicare trust funds. We ought to have enough money available to provide a prescription drug benefit through the Medicare program. We ought to invest in schools that are crumbling and reduce classroom size. We ought to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights and help people who are dealing with health care needs. There are a series of things we can and should do that represent a set of priorities that are also important to us.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is now a great deal of debate about economic policy, about tax cuts, and a range of issues surrounding President Bush's proposal for a $1.6 trillion tax cut that he sent to the Congress last week. I would like to speak for a bit on that subject and talk specifically about what I think we are facing. I know it is running down hill to be talking about tax cuts and politics. It is not exactly a tough political position to say I support tax cuts; in fact, the larger the better. But I think it is also important for us to understand what we need to do to make sure we retain a strong and growing economy, one that provide jobs and economic opportunities for American families. We have had times in the past in this country where tax cuts have been proposed that are so large that we then see significant Federal deficits occur, increases to the Federal debt, the slowdown in the economy, and increases in interest rates that are very counterproductive to the interests of American families. There have been a number of things written about tax cuts recently that I wanted to share with my colleagues. The Wall Street Journal article dated February 8, entitled ``A Tax Cut That Redistributes to the Rich,'' by Albert Hunt: The gist of the Bush tax plan to be formally presented today is analogous to a familiar baseball riddle: Which brothers hold the Major League record for the most home runs? Answer: Hank Aaron, who hit 755, and his brother Tommy, who hit 13. The wealthy are the Henry Aarons of the Bush tax plan, while working-class taxpayers are the Tommys. But the president packages the cut as equally generous to all. * * * * * Most appalling in the Bush plan, however, is who's left out. The president talks about helping the $25,000-a-year waitress with two kids, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group that conducts widely respected research, reported yesterday that under the Bush plan, 12 million lower- and moderate-income families, supporting 24 million children, would get nothing. Over half of African-American and Hispanic kids wouldn't benefit from the Bush initiative. Let me show you another piece by the Wall Street Journal, written by Jackie Calmes, published yesterday: As president Bush promotes his $1.6 trillion, 10-year income-tax cuts here, back in Texas, state legislators are so pinched after two tax-cut plans he won as governor that they are talking of tapping a state rainy-day fund or even raising taxes. * * * * * ``He got elected president, yet we were left holding the bag here,'' state Sen. Carlos Truan said last week as the Senate Finance Committee began grappling with the fiscal needs. Mr. Truan is a Democrat, so what was more attention- grabbing was the comment of a Republican, Senate Finance Committee Vice Chairman Chris Harris. ``We made tax cuts because we thought we had this huge surplus,'' he said, adding, ``I might have voted a little differently on all those tax cuts'' had he realized just the Medicaid pressures ahead. * * * * * ``It will work,'' Mr. Junell says of the budget-balancing. But Mr. Coleman, watching the tax-cut bidding in Washington, suggests the Texas experience ``should give people pause.'' Next, the Washington Post: The bigger problem for middle-income Americans since the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s has been the payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare, which actually eats up much more of a worker's paycheck. Payroll taxes are not addressed by Bush's 10-year $1.6 trillion tax cut. * * * * * Bush hasn't emphasized that the benefit from his plan ends when a worker no longer owes income tax. So, because the single mom making $25,000 pays only at most a few hundred dollars in federal income tax, that would be the extent of her tax cut. The lawyer, now at the 36 percent rate, would benefit from the drop to 33 percent, and from most of the other rate cuts. You get the picture. The point is this is a very interesting tax cut proposal that suggests everybody is going to benefit when, in fact, not everybody is going to benefit. If I might provide another chart that I read last week that also addresses a part of this question for the Congress, this is written by Alan Sloan of the Washington Post: There are weeks when you have to wonder whether the American economic attention span is longer than a sand flea's. Consider last week's two big economic stories: The Congressional Budget Office increased the projected 10-year budget surplus by $1 trillion, and the Federal Reserve Board cut short-term interest rates another half-percentage point to try to keep the economy from tanking. To me, the real story isn't either of these events; it's their connection. The Fed is cutting rates like a doctor trying to revive a cardiac patient because as recently as last fall, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan didn't foresee what today's economy would be like. Meanwhile, although it's now clear that even the smart, savvy, data-inhaling Greenspan couldn't see four months ahead, people are treating the 10- year numbers from the Congressional Budget Office as holy writ. Why is this important? Because we are now somewhere in the process of the longest economic expansion in the history of this country, with an economy that is weakening sufficiently so that the Federal Reserve Board is very nervous and is taking quick action to try to stem this weakening economy. In fact, 7 months ago, Alan Greenspan felt so strongly that our economy was growing too fast that he increased interest rates 50 basis points. Seven months ago, he felt the American economy was out of control and was growing too rapidly. ``We need to slow it down,'' he said. He couldn't see 7 months ahead. We are told, however, that we can see 10 years ahead. President Bush says let's lock in a permanent tax cut the cost of which in 10 years, he says, is $1.6 trillion. But, in fact, the cost is much more than that--about $2.6 trillion. Then he says despite the fact that the top 1 percent only pay 21 percent of the federal tax burden--the burden of income taxes, payroll and other taxes--they will get 43 percent of the tax cut that is proposed. This President says let's have a tax cut but only take one portion of the tax system and measure our burden by that. And in that circumstance he says let's provide 43 percent of my tax cut to the top 1 percent. One final chart: This is the income tax to show what is happening with this tax cut proposal. Eighty percent of the population would get 29 percent of the benefit, and the top 1 percent would get over 40 percent of the benefit. There are a couple of things wrong here. One, it would be very unwise to risk this country's economy, risk jobs and opportunity that comes from it, risk Social Security and Medicare, risk education and health care investments that are needed by believing we can see 5 or 7 or 10 years out, and that we ought to lock in a large tax cut, the bulk of which is going to go to the very highest income people.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 15 minutes, after which I ask unanimous consent that Senator Boxer be recognized for 15 minutes.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak until 11 o'clock.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I withdraw my request.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for an additional minute.

Mr. DORGAN. We have many needs and many priorities, one of which is, yes, let's provide a tax cut. Let's make it fairer. Second, let's not have a 10-year tax cut locked in so that we put this country's economy at risk and throw us back into Federal deficits. Third, let's also pay down the Federal debt while we have some surpluses. What better gift to our children than paying down the Federal indebtedness we ran up during tougher times. Fourth, let's not provide a tax cut that is so large, the bulk of it will go to the upper income people, in a way that would prohibit us from having the resources we need for education, health care, and other areas that we know need additional investment in this country. Those ought to be our priorities. I say to the new President, I am interested in working with him and others. Having an aggressive, good debate about fiscal policy is not personal, and it shall never become personal. We have different ideas about the priorities in this country. We need to debate that in the coming months. I intend to talk about that because I believe so strongly that we ought to do all of the things I have described in order to give us an economy that will continue to grow, prosper, and provide opportunities for all Americans. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last Friday morning we had an issues conference with the Democratic caucus at the Library of Congress, just across the street from this building. Those of us in the Democratic caucus in the Senate--and there are 50 of us in a 100-person Senate-- spent the day talking about the issues we want to raise during this Congress. We invited President Bush to come by this issues conference, which I believe was unprecedented. As chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, I recommended we invite the new President. He came and made a very short presentation to us--very general and very cordial. We asked a series of questions, and then he departed. We were very pleased he did come by to our issues conference. One of the things he said in discussing issues with the Democratic caucus was that when he campaigned for the Presidency, he campaigned on certain issues, and he said: I intend to pursue those issues as President, and there will be time when we disagree, but we should be able to do that without being personal and without being disagreeable. He understands that there are times we will disagree as a matter of public policy, and that is the way democracy works. There is an old saying that when everyone in the room is thinking the same thing, no one is really thinking very much. That is certainly true in public policy. The ability in this kind of a setting to have a good aggressive debate on public policy issues, especially controversial issues, benefits the American people. Then we get the best of what everyone has to offer. So let's begin this debate. The President has proposed that we have a $1.6 trillion tax cut in this country over the next 10 years. That was not a surprise to us. He campaigned on that throughout this country. That election ended in a dead-even tie, but the members of the electoral college cast their votes, and he is now President. There is not necessarily a mandate for this tax cut, at least one for $1.6 trillion. I make the point that this President campaigned on it and yesterday he announced it, and we will in this Congress now begin to discuss and debate the advantages or disadvantages of that particular plan. There are a lot of reasons for us to say that now is the time to offer a tax cut to the American people. We do have a budget that is now in surplus, and that surplus exists in a measure that will allow some of that money to be sent back to the American taxpayers. That is the way it should happen. There are other uses for that money as well, and we ought to include them. We ought to pay down the Federal debt with part of it. If during tough times we run up the Federal debt, during good times we ought to pay it down. Not all of that surplus ought to go to tax cuts; some ought to go to reduce the Federal debt. Yes, some ought to go to tax cuts, and then some ought to be used to improve life in this country-- invest in education, invest in health care, prepare for the needs of Social Security and Medicare in the future. There is a range of needs and a range of priorities, and that is what I want to talk about today. Twenty years ago, we had a new President come to this office, President Ronald Reagan. He proposed in 1981 a very large tax cut. In fact, one of the contestants for the Presidency was Republican Senator Howard Baker who called the economic plan that President Reagan brought in 1981 a ``riverboat gamble.'' President Reagan said we should cut taxes substantially and double the defense budget, and the concurrence of those two policies--cutting taxes and doubling the spending on defense--would result in a balanced budget. In fact, the plan backfired. It did not result in a balanced budget. It resulted in long-term, abiding, deep Federal budget deficits that kept growing and growing. And $3 trillion was added to the Federal debt in a very short period of time because the plan did not add up-- with annual budget deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars. I make that point only because it has taken years of struggle to try to deal with those annual budget deficits that kept growing like a cancer in our budget. But we did deal with it. Through a series of public policies and private initiatives, those budget deficits are gone and replaced now by surpluses. How did they disappear? One, we changed the direction of fiscal policy early in the last decade. We cut some spending and increased some taxes. Some did not like it. It was very controversial. Some of my colleagues said, if we do this, it will throw the country into a recession and throw people out of work. Of course, it did not. It gave the American people confidence that we were going to be on the right track and that finally Washington was serious about getting rid of Federal budget deficits. The result: We had unprecedented economic growth. We then had, as well, diminishing Federal budget deficits to the point where deficits turned into surpluses. So finally, after 20 years, the accumulated deficits are gone. But we still have a substantial amount of Federal debt that resulted from those annual deficits. President Bush says, let us decide to cut the Federal tax load by $1.6 trillion over the coming 10 years. What is wrong with that? Aren't tax cuts always good? Don't the American people always want tax cuts-- the bigger the better? Let me read something written by Allan Sloan, who is a thinker and a journalist that I really respect. This was in today's paper. He describes what is wrong with it, from my perspective. I am quoting Allan Sloan: There are weeks when you have to wonder whether the American economic attention span is longer than a sand flea's. Consider last week's two big economic stories: The Congressional Budget Office increased the projected 10-year budget surplus by $1 trillion, and the Federal Reserve Board cut short-term interest rates another half-percentage point to try to keep the economy from tanking. To me, the real story isn't either of these events; it is their connection. The Fed is cutting rates like a doctor trying to revive a cardiac patient because as recently as last fall, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan didn't foresee what today's economy would be like. Meanwhile, although it is now clear that even the smart, savvy, data-inhaling Greenspan couldn't see 4 months ahead, people are treating the 10-year numbers from the Congressional Budget Office as holy writ. Hello? If Greenspan missed a 4-month forecast, how can you treat 10-year numbers as anything other than educated guesswork? Especially when the CBO has for years devoted a chapter in its reports to ``The Uncertainty of Budget Projections''? Should we really be talking about 10 years, $1.6 trillion? Abe Lincoln once gave a speech, and he said that an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent for him a sentence to ever be in view and which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. Working on the problem, they finally presented the following words: ``This, too, shall pass away.'' Abe Lincoln said: ``How much that expresses. How chastening in the hour of pride and how consoling in the depths of affliction, this, too, shall pass away.'' Because we have turned deficits into surpluses, what has happened in this town is that we have people who believe that this kind of economic growth and opportunity will continue for 10 years unabated. I thought the definition of a conservative was to be reasonably cautious about things. That, apparently, is not the case. Let's lock in very large tax cuts that have the danger of throwing us right back into the same deficit ditch we were in for so very long. Let me say this. I believe there is room for a tax cut. I do not believe we ought to lock in large tax cuts for the next 10 years. I do not happen to believe the kind of tax cuts proposed by this President are the kind of tax cuts that we should lock in, in any event. I do not happen to believe that you ought to just say, the tax burden in this country represents the income tax burden people pay, and whatever else they pay is irrelevant. The fact is taxpayers paid over $600 billion in payroll taxes in this country last year, and that is relevant because three-fourths of the American people pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes. But this plan proposed by President Bush says: Ignore that. That is not a tax burden that counts. All we are concerned about is giving back some income tax. And, by the way, we will give it back on the basis of who paid it, and so our giveback plan is that the largest payers get back the largest refunds. I do not think that is good policy. I do not think it is conservative. I do not think it is good for this country. Let me go through just a couple of charts that describe the choices we are going to make. These are budget choices and tax choices: Should we risk slipping back into big deficits or should we move forward and build on recent economic successes? I think almost everyone would say that is a choice which is very simple: Let's build on these economic successes. If that is the case, then what are the risks of the fiscal policy we choose? What are the risks of deciding that we can see 10 years out? Everyone here knows that is not the case. That is foolhardy. We cannot see 6 months, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, or 7 years out. We can't see that far. We do not know what is going to happen. Does anyone in their own family budget think they have the opportunity to understand what is going to happen 7 years or 10 years from now? They don't. Yet that is exactly what we are being told by the President and his economic advisers: Lock in a $1.6 trillion tax cut because we know what is going to happen for the next 10 years. That is, in my judgment, very risky for this country. The Congressional Budget Office does an analysis of what might or might not happen. Let's look at the difference in optimistic versus pessimistic presumptions. If you want to take an optimistic view of things, if you want to always look for a pony in a manure pile--you always think there is good news just around the corner--you can ride on this top line. But what if it is wrong? What if it is this bottom line? What does that mean for the country? What does it mean for kids going to schools in disrepair? What does it mean for kids going to school in classrooms where there are 32, 34 kids in a classroom? What does it mean for a woman who has diabetes or heart trouble and can't pay for her medicine because Medicare does not cover it? If you make the wrong choice--and we have a huge tax cut that lasts 10 years, when the economy is soft, and we are back into deficits, it means there is no money for education, no money for prescription drugs in Medicare, and no money for health care. The President proposes that we can see 10 years out, and with the surplus that we expect for 10 years out we can propose massive tax cuts. Eighty-five percent this is the $2.2 trillion that people say really is the cost of what the President says his tax cut is--and there is very little money left for debt reduction, which, in my judgment, ought to be a priority. It seems to me, one of the things that ought to rank high here is reducing the Federal debt during better times. If you run it up during tough times, reduce it during good times. Prescription drugs in Medicare, we ought to do something in that. We know of the challenges in education. They say that defense is going to need more money. This administration has talked about substantially more money for defense. You also have agriculture, Medicare reform, Social Security reform. And how about a rainy day fund. Should there be something set aside in case something goes wrong with our economy? Yes, I believe so. Those are some of the considerations. And President Bush's plan is a tax cut that has a relatively small cut in the first year but permanently is backloaded with huge tax cuts in the 10th year. What that does is, it puts us right back in the same circumstances that we found ourselves in in to the 1980s, in my judgment. Some say, this public debt is all coming down. Let me take a look at this chart. We have a long way to go to reduce public indebtedness, and it ought to be a priority. What better gift to America's children, to remove that yoke of indebtedness around their shoulders. It ought to be a priority. It is, in my judgment, a conservative ethic to decide one of the priorities is to reduce debt. Finally, let me make the point that we are going to discuss this at a time following the longest economic expansion in this country's history, when we see a weakening of the economy. Let me hasten to add, this is not a surprise. Seven months ago, Alan Greenspan decided the American economy was too strong. He and his brethren at the Federal Reserve Board locked their door because they are the last place in town that locks their door to keep the public out. It is the last American dinosaur in our Government. They locked their door. They make secret decisions. And 7 months ago they said: Our economy is too strong. It is growing too fast. We have to slow it down. We are going to increase interests rates. Seven to eight months later, where are we? Planned job cuts at Montgomery Ward, Daimler Chrysler, Lucent Technologies, Sara Lee, and General Electric--potentially 80,000. This morning EToys is broke. This economy is softening far beyond the imagination or expectation of the Federal Reserve Board. But no one should be surprised by that. The Fed insisted that the economy was growing too rapidly, and they wanted to slow it down some. Don't call this economic slowdown anything other than Federal Reserve Board strategy. Having both studied economics and taught economics in college, it is useful to ask the question, notwithstanding the Federal Reserve Board action, has anyone really repealed the business cycle, that cycle in which you have economic expansion and contraction? It is inevitable. We have economic stabilizers to try to even it out a bit more, but has anyone been able to repeal the business cycle? The answer is no. As a result of that, we have economic contractions, notwithstanding what the Fed does. When those contractions exist, we will hope they are minor. But the point of all of that is, we should not decide to lock in very large tax cuts for a 10-year period when we can't see out 2 years. The Fed can't see out 7 months. It is risky for this country, risky for our economy and our children, to do that. Some, I suppose, can't help it; it is just habit forming. There is a story about how elephants with circuses are able to be tied to the little metal posts. If you ever to go to a circus, you see the elephants. They have a metal cuff around their leg and a chain. The chain goes to a little metal stake pounded into the ground. You wonder, how can that stake hold an elephant that weighs thousands and thousands of pounds? The answer is that in Thailand, when they catch the elephants, what they do is they put that cuff around the elephant's back leg with a chain, and they tie the other end to a big banyan tree. That elephant, for a week or two or more, will pull with all of his might and all of his energy to get away. But he can't shake that banyan tree. Finally, the elephant simply discovers: With that cuff on my leg and that chain, I can't move. They take the other end off the banyan tree and put a little stake in the ground, and the elephant never moves. He is chained by his habit. He can't move, so he doesn't move. There is a lot of that in this policy we see these days. This is a policy born of habit. The minute you have some good economic news, you decide you are going to offer a very big tax cut and it doesn't matter what the consequences are. I mentioned when I started that there are a lot of ways to provide a tax cut. I happen to believe there is room to have a tax cut in this country now. But people pay income taxes, and they pay payroll taxes. They pay a range of taxes, income and payroll being the two largest. The President's proposal, like a lot of others, says the only taxes that really count are the income taxes and we will give you a portion of them back. What about the people at the bottom of the economic ladder who pay payroll taxes? Three-fourths of the American people pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes. Yet no one ever talks about giving them something back. Why not? How about those who work at the bottom rung of the economic ladder, many of whom pay no income taxes because they don't earn enough income? How about giving them something back in terms of the heavy payroll taxes they pay? How about making sure that when you provide a tax cut, the tax cut is fair across the board, not just provide very large tax cuts to the people making three, four, five hundred thousand, and more, millions a year, and then just small crumbs to the people at the bottom, if any at all. This economic engine of ours works because a lot of people are out there working, some at the top, some at the bottom. Don't diminish the efforts of those at the bottom. They pay taxes, too. They get up in the morning. They work hard all day. They pay taxes. They pay the same rate of payroll taxes as the richest Americans pay on their salaried income. So how about some help for those folks. What I would prefer we do in a tax cut plan would be to propose a 2- year tax cut plan for this country, and, at the end of 2 years, to evaluate: Do we have continuing surpluses? Is our economy good and strong? And if so, then we should continue those tax cuts. What I would suggest is that we provide a tax cut over the next 2 years that represents a percentage cut in income taxes paid, plus payroll taxes paid. Add those burdens together and take a percentage of that and provide a tax cut for 2 years based on that. That recognizes then that people at the bottom who are paying payroll taxes also ought to get a percentage of that back. I am not saying we should eliminate money from the trust fund. Let that go into the trust funds. I am saying that when you measure the burden of taxes, measure the Federal income taxes paid and the payroll taxes paid and provide a percentage of that and give it back. And I would have a maximum of perhaps $1,000. That is a way to give a tax cut in a manner that is fair and in a manner that makes sense. Second, as we talk about taxes, there is one other thing we ought to do. I have been working on this for a couple years. I have introduced it with a couple of my colleagues. It is called the FASST plan--the Fair and Simple Shortcut Tax plan. Over 70 million Americans can pay income taxes in the future, if we adopt this plan, without ever having to file an income tax return. Your withholding at work is your actual tax liability. Check a few additional boxes on your W-4, one of which says I am a homeowner, yes or no, and your actual withholding becomes your actual tax liability. No waiting in line on April 15 at the post office. No more audits. Over thirty countries have return-free tax filing systems for most of their taxpayers. We could, and we should. Seventy million Americans can avoid having to file income tax returns in the future if we pass the Fair and Simple Shortcut Tax plan I propose. That also can be done in a way that reduces taxes, because in order to do that, you would eliminate taxes on the first increment of interest, dividend and other investment income that families have. I won't go into all of the details of my plan, but it makes sense, if we are talking about substantial changes in our Tax Code, to consider simplifying the Tax Code at the same time. Those are a couple of things I think we should do. We ought to recognize that payroll taxes count as well. That is part of the tax burden. We ought to do something that recognizes that. Finally, let me talk for a moment about the alternatives. If we decide to lock in a 10-year tax cut, a very sizable proportion, there will not be any money left to pay down the Federal debt, which, as I said, I think ought to be a priority, and, second, to make needed investments which we know are necessary. I have talked before about a couple of people. I will do it again. We know it is a priority to provide a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. I was in Michigan, ND, one evening. A woman came up to me after a town meeting, and she grabbed hold of my arm. She was perhaps in her late seventies, early eighties. She began to speak to me about the prescription drug medicine she had to purchase. Then her chin began to quiver, her eyes filled with tears, and she said: I can't afford to buy these prescription drugs. I don't have the money. I know I need them. The doctor says I must take them, but I don't have the money. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she turned away from me. That goes on all across this country, people who need prescription drugs, living on Medicare, but they don't have the money. Do we have needs to respond to in those areas? You bet your life we do. That ought to be a priority. I have talked about Rosie Two Bears, a third grader in a school that is dilapidated, in a school where kids sit at desks 1 inch apart in crowded classrooms in a school, part of which has been condemned, in a school that has classrooms where they have to evacuate because the sewer gas comes up a couple times a week. And little Rosie Two Bears says to me: Mr. Senator, are you going to build me a new school? I can't build her a new school. I don't have the money to build her a new school. She and so many others around this country need a school that is renovated and modern and capable. When she walks through that classroom door, we do her and others a disservice by not having a first-class facility for her to be educated in. Is that a need for us? Yes, that is a need.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mark Peters be granted floor privileges for the purpose of this debate. He is a fellow from the Commerce Department.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business and I have some time assigned to me; is that correct?

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of Gale Norton as this country's next Interior Secretary. While I have some disagreements with some of Ms. Norton's positions, I believe that she represented herself well in the nomination hearings that we held in the Energy Committee. I indicated during those hearings that if I felt she were another James Watt I could never vote for her ``in a million years.'' I say that because, two decades ago, James Watt came to town as a newly appointed Interior Secretary and very quickly began to take both positions and actions that were, in my opinion, destructive to the interests that I value with respect to the stewardship of public lands in our country. Because Gale Norton was a protege of James Watt, and because she has spoken and written extensively on a range of issues, we questioned her very closely during her confirmation hearing on a wide range of important issues that will confront the new Secretary of the Interior. Her responses to some tough inquiries during the hearings demonstrated to me that she is qualified to be Interior Secretary and that the views she holds, while in some cases controversial, are well within the norm of the political discussions we're having in Washington about a wide range of these issues. I want Gale Norton to do an excellent job as Interior Secretary and pledge my cooperation to help make that happen. At the same time, I want her to know that those of us on the Energy Committee take very seriously the representations she made during the confirmation hearings on a wide range of matters. She will find those of us on the Committee who have now voted for her confirmation to be helpful in her job of meeting the stewardship responsibilities of the Secretary of the Interior. But she should understand that she will find us to be severe critics if the representations she made to us during the Committee hearings turn out to be not in keeping with the way she conducts herself as Interior Secretary. I will be particularly interested in working with Ms. Norton on several issues important to North Dakota and the Nation. For example, I will work to ensure that Ms. Norton provides protection for our National Parks, public lands and environmentally-sensitive areas. Native Americans are particularly important to me. During the hearing, Ms. Norton said she respects tribal sovereignty. She should adopt a cooperative approach to include the relevant tribal stakeholders in policy and regulatory decision making. She also committed to work with us to make progress in meeting the critical funding needs for tribal schools and colleges. I will count on Ms. Norton to adopt a sound scientific basis for her policy decisions on actions pertaining to endangered species, the global climate, energy issues and more. Again, I wish her well and pledge my cooperation as she begins her duties following her confirmation today. She clearly has the skill and capability to do well as Interior Secretary if she pursues a balanced set of policies that conform to the positions she took when she appeared before our Committee.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I offer legislation today that would strengthen our Trust in Sentencing guidelines and limit the ability of violent criminals to be released early due to ``good time'' credits. Let me tell you why we need these bills. If you commit murder in this country, on average, you are going to be sentenced to about 21 years in jail but that criminal will serve, on average, only 10 years behind bars. Most people will be startled to hear that. And why is this the case? Because people are let out early. Murderers go to prison, and they get ``good time,'' time off for good behavior: If you want to get out early, just be good in prison, and we will put you back on the streets. A murderer can get credit for good behavior. That sounds like an oxymoron to me. And what happens when you are put back on the streets? You read the stories. These people commit crimes again. They rape or they rob or they kill. They molest children. They repeat their crimes. I am introducing legislation today, along with my friend Senator Craig of Idaho to address this problem. The point of it is very simple. I believe that in the criminal justice system we ought to have different standards for those who commit acts of violence. Everyone in this country who commits acts of violence ought to understand: You go to prison, and your address is going to be your jail cell until the end of your sentence. I do not mind early release for nonviolent offenders. If prison officials want to use ``good time'' as a management tool for nonviolent criminals, fine. But for violent offenders, we ought to have a society in which everyone understands: If you commit an act of violence, the prison cell is your address to the end of your sentence. No good time off for good behavior, no getting back to the streets early. You are going to be in prison to serve your term. My legislation says, this is an important standard for state and federal prisons. We know the current system isn't working. Too many violent offenders are sent back to America's streets. There is a way to stop that. My legislation will do so.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I offer legislation today that would strengthen our Trust in Sentencing guidelines and limit the ability of violent criminals to be released early due to ``good time'' credits. Let me tell you why we need these bills. If you commit murder in this country, on average, you are going to be sentenced to about 21 years in jail but that criminal will serve, on average, only 10 years behind bars. Most people will be startled to hear that. And why is this the case? Because people are let out early. Murderers go to prison, and they get ``good time,'' time off for good behavior: If you want to get out early, just be good in prison, and we will put you back on the streets. A murderer can get credit for good behavior. That sounds like an oxymoron to me. And what happens when you are put back on the streets? You read the stories. These people commit crimes again. They rape or they rob or they kill. They molest children. They repeat their crimes. I am introducing legislation today, along with my friend Senator Craig of Idaho to address this problem. The point of it is very simple. I believe that in the criminal justice system we ought to have different standards for those who commit acts of violence. Everyone in this country who commits acts of violence ought to understand: You go to prison, and your address is going to be your jail cell until the end of your sentence. I do not mind early release for nonviolent offenders. If prison officials want to use ``good time'' as a management tool for nonviolent criminals, fine. But for violent offenders, we ought to have a society in which everyone understands: If you commit an act of violence, the prison cell is your address to the end of your sentence. No good time off for good behavior, no getting back to the streets early. You are going to be in prison to serve your term. My legislation says, this is an important standard for state and federal prisons. We know the current system isn't working. Too many violent offenders are sent back to America's streets. There is a way to stop that. My legislation will do so.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce legislation to address an estate tax problem that many Americans want fixed without delay. Over the years, I have heard from farmers, bankers and other business people in North Dakota and elsewhere who say it is nearly impossible for them to pass along the family business to their children to operate because of the estate taxes they would pay. They say emphatically that a family should never be forced to sell off any portion of their business just to pay the estate tax. I think they're absolutely right! I believe that families who want to pass their business to other family members to own and operate should never have to worry about losing that business or farm to taxes. The sale of a portion of a family business to pay estate taxes does not happen very often, but it shouldn't happen at all. In fact, families ought to know that our federal tax laws will be supportive of their enterprises because of the importance of such businesses to this nation's economic well-being. And that's exactly what the bill I'm introducing would do. This legislation is nearly identical to a bill I authored in the last Congress. It increases the current estate tax exemption for family business assets to $10 million over the next five years, and then totally eliminates the tax for them starting in the year 2006. At that time, family-owned and operated businesses will be completely exempt from the tax. I have spoken often on the Senate floor about the importance of the family as an economic unit as well as a social unit. This nation was built upon an economy of family-based farms and businesses, and it is crucial that we strive to keep the family farms and businesses that we have, and to encourage new ones. I think that is why there's already wide agreement in the Senate that we should act to reform the estate tax to help ensure the continuity of family businesses. We ought to address this critical family business estate tax issue early in this Congress and save for later, if necessary, those other parts of the estate tax on which there is still significant disagreement. My bill offers a common sense approach for changing the estate tax to help family enterprises survive to the next generation. The legislation that I'm introducing today differs in two important ways from the bill, S. 3098, that I authored last year. First, I have added a provision to increase the general unified estate tax credit that is available to everyone from $675,000 to $4 million per couple by the year 2006. This will help families wishing to pass along to the children or grandchildren significant stock, proceeds from a life insurance policy or other assets they may have acquired over the years. Second, my bill makes the general credit and family-owned business exemption fully portable. This would help ensure that a surviving spouse will get the full benefit of any unused general credit or family-owned business exemption without having to have hired a sophisticated and costly tax advisor. Let me briefly clarify one point. Together, the provisions of my legislation would effectively abolish the estate tax for over 99 percent of all taxpayers. But it does not exempt from estate taxes entirely the heirs of multi-billion dollar investment fortunes and the like, as the tax bill passed by the majority party last summer would have done. Many of us voted against that bill because we believed that complete estate tax repeal along with the other sizable tax cuts proposed at that time threatened to put us right back into federal budget deficits once again. That is certainly something I can not support. We also were concerned that repealing the estate tax completely would shift the burden of paying for the federal government even more onto the working men and women of this country. That is not fair. The gap between the very rich and everyone else has gotten wider in recent years, and repealing the estate tax in its entirety would only make it worse. I also think it is reasonable to ask those who have benefitted most from our democracy in the past to contribute to its security and well-being in the future. I know that there is disagreement on these and other points. But they do deserve an honest debate, and I expect that we will have such a debate later in this Congress. But as I have said previously, we should not hold family based farms and businesses hostage to that debate and we should move quickly on estate tax reforms where there is already strong bipartisan agreement.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for as much time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Alan Cranston was a Senator in this Chamber for some long while. In fact, in recent months he visited this Chamber, and I had an opportunity to say a few words to him. He was someone who left a significant mark, especially in the area of fighting for a policy in this country that would put this country in a leadership position to reduce the threat of nuclear war. Mr. Cranston worked diligently on that issue here in Congress, but after he left his service in the Senate, he especially was interested, and active all around this country, in trying to mobilize the energy and interest for this country to lead in a range of areas dealing with stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. I recall, perhaps 6 months ago, driving down a rural highway in North Dakota and receiving a call on my cell phone. The call was from former Senator Alan Cranston, and he was calling from California. What he was calling about was what he always talked about in recent years. He was trying to find ways to continue our country's obligation to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. He felt passionately about the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and was disappointed when the treaty was voted down in the Senate last year or a year and a half ago. But he never stopped working. He always believed that our country, as strong and as big as it is, had a leadership responsibility in the world to mobilize its energy and commitment to find ways to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. So today we pay honor to his memory. We should be thankful that there was an Alan Cranston involved in public service. I say to his family that our sympathies go to them. We will all miss his commitment in dealing with this issue of nuclear arms reduction. (The remarks of Mr. Dorgan pertaining to the introduction of S. 165 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') (The remarks of Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Baucus pertaining to the introduction of S. 171 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')