Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on November 23 the Washington Post had a story about a murderer that I want to call to my colleagues' attention. This is the picture of the alleged murderer, Elmer Spencer, Jr. The headline of the story reads: ``Sex Offender's Arrest Makes an Issue of Mandatory Release.'' Let me describe for a moment what I read in the story and how I related it to things I have spoken about on the floor of the Senate before and how disappointed I am that nothing ever seems to change. The young boy who was murdered a couple of weeks ago was a 9-year-old from Frederick, MD. His name was Christopher Lee Ausherman. He attended fourth grade at the South Frederick Elementary School. He had two brothers. The story said he liked Pokemon cards and was developing a real passion for fishing. He was apparently in his neighborhood, very close to his home on the street or sidewalk, and then a maintenance found his badly beaten, naked body in a dugout at McCurdy Field in Frederick, MD. Christopher Lee Ausherman had been sexually assaulted and strangled. The story described how the arrest was made. I want to talk about the fellow who has been arrested and charged with this murder. The fact that he was on the streets in this country to murder anyone is unconscionable and shameful. Elmer Spencer, Jr. was sentenced to 5 years for assault and battery in 1977, 23 years ago, and released 3 years later. Within a year of his release, he raped and attempted to strangle an 11-year-old boy. He paid him $20 to drink liquor and then tried to strangle him with shoelaces. Spencer left him unconscious after raping him. The boy regained consciousness as Elmer Spencer's attention was diverted, and miraculously escaped. Elmer Spencer was sentenced to 22 years in prison for that crime and released in 1994 after serving 14 years in prison. In 1996, Elmer Spencer, Jr. was charged with attempted rape and three counts of assault. He attacked the police officers responding to the cries for help from a woman whom he was attempting to rape. He was sentenced to 10 years, and, amazingly, released on November 14 of this year, after serving just 3 and a half years. Five days later, Christopher Lee Ausherman, a 9-year-old boy from Frederick, MD, was murdered by this man. Five days after being released from prison, having served 3 and a half years of 10-year sentence, this pedophile, this man who had attempted murder previously, killed this 9- year-old boy. The question is, When will we learn in this country? We know who is committing the crimes, especially the violent crimes, in most cases. It is someone who has committed other violent crimes, been put in prison, and often released early. I spoke to the family of this 9-year-old boy. There is not much you can do to console that family. They are grieving, obviously, for the loss of this young boy. But I told them some Members are working very hard to try to change the circumstances of release for violent prisoners. I have spoken many times on this floor about other crimes that are exactly the same--different victims, but exactly the same. Young Bettina Pruckmayr--I brought her picture to the floor of this Senate--a 26-year-old human rights attorney who moved to this town with such great expectations and passion to do work in this area. On December 16, 1995, she was at an ATM machine and a man named Leo Gonzales Wright apprehended her there. He was a man who should have been in prison. He had committed many previous crimes. At the age of 19, Leo Gonzales Wright was sentenced to 15 to 60 years for armed robbery and murder. He was released after 17 years. During those 17 years, he compiled a record of 38 disciplinary reports and transfers due to drug use, lack of program involvement, weapons possession in prison, and assaults on inmates and staff. Despite all that, he was let out early, so that in December of 1995 he was on the streets here in Washington, DC. He was able to stab young Bettina Pruckmayr 38 times. It wasn't that we didn't know he was a violent offender. He had used a butcher knife just four days earlier to rob and carjack a female motorist. While on probation and parole, he was picked up for drugs and let right back out on the streets. As a result, Bettina Pruckmayr was killed. Jonathan Hall. I have spoken about Jonathan Hall here on the floor of the Senate; it is exactly the same story. Jonathan was a 13-year-old from Fairfax, VA. The boy had some difficulties, but in the newspaper stories I read about young Jonathan neighbors described him as a smart young boy, starved for affection. His mother reported him missing in December, 1995. Twelve days later, his body was found at the bottom of a pond near his home. He had been stabbed over 60 times with a phillips-head screwdriver. After this young boy had died, they found grass between his fingers. Despite being stabbed 60 times, he was not dead when his attacker left him. This young boy tried to claw his way out of that pond, and they found grass and mud between his fingers, but he didn't make it. James Buck Murray, who lived right there in the neighborhood, killed him. Why was he living there? In 1970, Murray was sentenced to 20 years for slashing the throat of a cab driver, stealing the cab, and leaving the driver for dead. But a mere 3 years later, while on work-releasee, he abducted a woman, was convicted of kidnapping, and sent back to prison. But again he was let out. And then young Jonathan Hall, of course, was murdered. By someone we knew? Of course. By someone violent? Of course. Murray had been put in prison and released early. Shame on those who run our prison system. Shame on the laws that exist, that allow this to happen. I have asked, in this recent case in Maryland with Christopher Lee Ausherman, how could it be that a man who has been involved in such violent crimes--how could it be that, when sentenced to 10 years, he is released after 3\1/2\? This is after many other crimes, mind you, and 5 days after his release, he kills a 9-year-old boy. How can it be he is released that early? The answer? Unforgivable ignorance in the construction of public policy. I am sorry to say that about those who did it, but I cannot contain myself. Those who did it say those who served in prison for previous convictions can accumulate additional good-time credits at an accelerated pace against their current sentence because they have been in prison before. That is ignorance. We ought not reward anyone with ample or better good-time benefits because they served in prison before. Violent offenders ought to be put in prison and that ought to be their address until the end of their prison term. End of story. I am so sick and tired of reading stories about innocent people--and I have mentioned just three. I have many more. I am so sick and tired of reading the stories about state governments that allow violent offenders out of prison to walk up and down the streets of this country and kill again. Do you know, if you live in the United States of America you are seven times more likely to be murdered than if you live in France? The murder rate in our country is 7 times that of Germany, 6 times that of Israel, 10 times that of Japan, 7 times that of Spain. Is there something wrong here? I think so. Let me show you what is happening in our prison system. For all the talk about truth in sentencing, if state convicts you of murder in this country on average you are going to be in prison 10 years. You are going to get sentenced for 21 years but you are going to be serving about 10 years in prison for murder. Rape? You can expect to serve about 5 years in prison. They will sentence you to 10 on average, but you are only going to be there about 5. For robbery you are going to be sentenced to a littel over 8 years, perhaps, and you will serve 4 years. What is the answer to all this? Why are these folks let out early? Why would we decide in this country that a murderer should only serve half of his or her sentence? The prison authorities and others who construct these laws tell us the reason they have to dangle good-time benefits in front of these prisoners, including violent offenders, is because it allows the authorities to better manage them while in prison. In other words, if they behave while in prison they can get out early. That is a terrific incentive, they say, for prison inmate management. I wonder, I ask the question about the management of Elmer Spencer, Jr. I wonder if I could get names of the people who decided the best way to manage Elmer Spencer, Jr.'s time in prison was to dangle in front of him the opportunity to be released 7 years early, so he could be on the streets in late November of this year and murder a 9-year-old boy? I guess the word is ``allegedly murdered him'' because he is now charged with the crime, but am told there is little question about the guilt in this case. I wonder if we could have the names of those who have decided it is appropriate for James ``Buck'' Murray to be on the streets, or Leo Gonzales Wright to be on the streets after being convicted of murder, only to murder again; violent criminals to be back on the streets so Bettina and young Jonathan and all the others are victims. What is the answer? The answer is simple. This is not rocket science. It is simple. It is to decide as a policy--as I have advocated for some while, regrettably unsuccessfully--that in this country we distinguish between those who commit violent crimes and those who commit nonviolent crimes. In my judgment, we ought to have a judicial system in America that says: If you commit a violent act, understand this. All over America, understand this and listen well: If you commit a violent act, there will be no good time, there will be no parole, there will be no time off for good behavior. You will go to prison and the sentence administered by the judge in your trial will be the sentence that you serve in prison. No time off for good behavior--period. We need to do that in this country. I have tried and tried and tried again in this Senate to advance that public policy, unsuccessfully. But I am not going to quit. This 106th Congress is ending without great distinction. We didn't even discuss the issue of violent crime. We should. I hope we will in the 107th Congress. I hope perhaps there are Republicans and Democrats who understand that there is nothing partisan about this issue. But there is a crying need in this country to decide that violent offenders must be put away and kept away for their entire term of incarceration. In 1991, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found there were 156,000 people in State prisons for offenses that they committed while they were on parole from a previous conviction. Let me say that again because it is important: 156,000 people were incarcerated for criminal offenses that they committed while they were out on parole from a previous prison sentence. That is exactly the case in the description of the murder I started with today. It is exactly the case with Elmer Spencer, Jr., out early and a 9-year-old is dead. This is not an unusual story. I could speak for 2 hours and more, and not just about Maryland or Virginia or the District of Columbia. There is a courageous young woman from North Dakota named Julie Schultz. Julie Schultz is a friend of mine, a mother of three from Burlington, ND. She was going to a League of Cities meeting in Williston, ND, on a quiet North Dakota highway on an afternoon with very little traffic and stopped at a rest stop. At this rest stop Julie Schultz, mother of three, encountered a man named Gary Wayne Puckett, who should have been in prison but was released early in the State of Washington. This issue knows no State boundaries. He assaulted Julie Schultz and then slit her throat and left her for dead. I won't describe the events that allowed her to survive, but they were quite miraculous. But Gary Wayne Puckett should never have been near a rest stop on a highway in North Dakota on that day. He was released early. Again, we know better than that. State governments should know better than that. Public policy should know better than that. We can do better than that. It is my intention to reintroduce in the coming Congress, in January in the coming Congress, legislation that I have introduced previously. That is legislation that would provide financial penalties in the truth-in-sentencing grants that are given from the Federal Government to the State government, for those States that fail to enact laws that eliminate good-time credits, eliminate the dangling of time off for good behavior. My legislation will use these funds to provide financial incentives for states that say, instead, by statute: If you are convicted of a violent crime, understand your address will be your jail cell until the end of your term. When and if we do that in this country, finally, innocent people walking up and down the streets of America will not be threatened by a violent murderer, a kidnaper, a killer, a rapist, someone who is let out early, and poses a severe threat to innocent citizens like Christopher Lee Ausherman. Mr. President, my understanding is the Senate is now in morning business but there will be additional debate on bankruptcy; is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as soon as Senator Grassley comes to the floor, I will be happy to relinquish the floor. I want to speak for 2 minutes on another subject. As soon as he comes, I will suspend.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday I voted against cloture on the bankruptcy reform bill. I voted against cloture even though I support bankruptcy reform, and even though I supported this legislation when it originally passed the Senate. However, I oppose the motion to invoke cloture because I am troubled by some of the actions of the Republican majority. Neither the House nor the Senate ever formally named any conferees. Instead, the majority created a sham conference, hollowing out the State Department authorization bill and inserting the provisions of the bankruptcy reform. And even though the original bankruptcy reform bill that passed the Senate was a product of bipartisan input, the majority party did not include any Democrats in the discussions regarding the final package. Negotiators made significant changes to the bill without any input from Democrats. Important provisions were dropped; others were changed dramatically. All of this without the benefit of a formal conference that allows for debate and compromise by both parties. Under these circumstances, I could not support cloture. I still support efforts to reform our bankruptcy laws, and I hope we can achieve this goal before the Senate adjourns sine die. I am disappointed by the way in which the legislative process has been twisted and broken by the majority in the development of this bill. That is why I opposed cloture.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened to my colleagues today--Senator Feingold, Senator Durbin, Senator Wellstone, and now the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle--talk about a number of different issues. I want to take a moment to discuss my disappointment, as we near the end of this legislative session, with what this Congress could have accomplished, what we could have done for the American people, and what we left undone. I note that in this Presidential campaign Governor George W. Bush talks about his desire to come to Washington, DC, to serve in the White House, and end the partisan bickering. As he says, he wants to ``end all of the partisan bickering.'' Well, it takes two to bicker and it takes two parties to bicker in a partisan way. We have almost, on occasion, had debate break out in the Senate on some very important issues. But we never quite had that happen this year because we can't get to an aggressive, robust debate on the things that really matter. My colleagues talked about the bankruptcy bill. How did they do the conference on the bankruptcy bill? One party goes into a room, shuts the door, handpicks their members, and writes it by themselves. It is hard to have bickering, and it is hard to be partisan when one party is doing the work behind a closed door and saying to the other party: Here it is; like it or leave it. The tradition of debate in this country is the sound of real democracy. The sounds of democracy results from bringing people from all around America into our centers of discussion and debate. From all of those areas of the country--from a different set of interests and concerns, from the hills and the valleys and the mountains and the plains and different groups of people--we have ideas developed and nurtured and then debated. Someone once said: When everyone in the room is thinking the same thing, nobody is thinking very much. We have people here who kind of like the notion that you must think the same thing. Apparently, Governor Bush thinks we must all kind of think the same thing; we ought to stop all this disagreement. Disagreement is the engine of democracy. Debate is the engine by which we decide what kinds of policies to implement and what course this country takes in the future. The issues on which we never quite had the aggressive, robust debate that we should have had in this Congress include education. Do you know that for the first time in decades this Congress didn't reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act? We didn't pass it. Why? Because it was feared that when the bill was brought to the floor, people would actually offer amendments. Then we would have to debate amendments and vote on amendments. God forbid a debate should break out in the Senate. So the bill was pulled after a short debate. So we let the Elementary and Secondary Education Act lapse. It just didn't get done. The Patients' Bill of Rights is another issue. We had sort of a mini debate here in the Senate on that because it was judged that there wasn't enough time to allow a robust debate. The Patients' Bill of Rights was not considered significant enough to allow a very robust debate on the different positions of the Patients' Bill of Rights. These, of course, are not just abstract discussions. The issue of whether we need a Patients' Bill of Rights is a very significant issue for a lot of American people who are not only battling cancer, but also having to battle their HMO or insurance company to pay for needed medical treatment. I have shown my colleagues many times during discussions on the floor of the Senate a picture of Ethan Bedrick. He was born with horrible difficulties. He was judged by his HMO to only have a 50-percent chance of being able to walk by age 5, which means that his HMO said a 50- percent chance of being able to walk by age 5 was ``insignificant.'' Therefore, they withheld payment for the rehabilitative therapy that Ethan Bedrick needed. An isolated story? No, it goes on in this country all too often, day after day. I have told story after story on the Senate floor about it. We weren't able to get a final vote on this issue. We should have had a vote on the issue of a Patients' Bill of Rights toward the end of the Senate session because we would have had a tie vote, and the Vice President would have sat in that Chair and broken the tie. The Senate would have passed a real Patients' Bill of Rights if given the opportunity to vote again. Do you know why we weren't able to do that? Because those who run this place didn't want a debate to break out. So they managed the Senate in a way that blocked any amendment from being offered. Since September 22 until October 31, not one Member of the Senate on this side of the aisle was allowed to offer one amendment on the floor of the Senate that was not approved by the majority leader. That is why a real debate didn't break out on the issue of the Patients' Bill of Rights. The issue of fiscal policy is important in this country because we are now in the longest economic expansion in our country's history, and how to continue it is something we would want to have an aggressive, robust debate on. The majority party said: Well, all of this economic expansion is just all accidental. It didn't really result from anything anyone did. Well, of course, that is not true. We passed a new economic plan in this country in 1993. In 1993, we had the largest deficit in the history of this country. This country was headed in the wrong direction, and a new Administration, President Clinton and Vice President Gore, said let's change that; we have a new plan. It was controversial. It was so controversial it passed by one vote in the House and one vote in the Senate. Not one Republican voted for it. They stood on the floor and said: If you pass this, you will throw this country into a depression, and you are going to cost this country jobs, and you will just crater this country's economy. Well, we passed it and guess what happened? The longest economic expansion in our country's history. Unemployment is down, inflation is down, home ownership is up, personal income is up, welfare rolls are down, crime is down, every single aspect of life in this country is better because of what we did in 1993. Now comes George W. Bush and the Republican Party saying: Do you know what we need to do now? We expect budget surpluses in the next 10 years. We need to take a trillion and a half dollars and use it for tax cuts. Let's lock those tax cuts into law right now. Well, a number of groups have provided some very interesting analyses of this plan. Do you know what the threat is? Providing substantial tax cuts, the bulk of which will go to the top 1 percent, will put us right back in the deficit ditch we were in 8 years ago. Don't take it from me. The risks of this kind of fiscal policy were described last week by the American Academy of Actuaries, which is one of the most respected nonpartisan organizations of financial and statistical experts. Their report says the Bush plan would probably signal a return to Federal budget deficits around 2015. I encourage anybody to read their analysis. This is an independent, nonpartisan, respected group that says this tax cut proposal doesn't add up at all; it doesn't add up. One of the questions is, Do we want to jeopardize the economic expansion that has been going on in this country, the progress we have made in this country, an economic plan that turned this country around? Do we want to jeopardize that with a fiscal policy that doesn't make any sense, that will put us back into the same deficits? Or what about having a debate on the question of Governor Bush's proposal of taking $1 trillion out of the Social Security surplus and using it for private Social Security accounts for younger workers? This is what Governor Bush said about that: . . . and one of my promises is going to be Social Security reform. And you bet we need to take a trillion dollars out of that $2.4 trillion surplus. I don't know whether Governor Bush knows this, but the trillion he is talking about is already pledged. The reason we talked earlier about putting Social Security surpluses in a lockbox is we need them. The largest group of babies ever born in this country will retire in the next 10, 15, and 20 years. We are saving to meet their retirement needs. That is the $1 trillion. You cannot use it twice. It has been saved to meet the needs of the Baby Boomers, which is what it was designed for, or you can take it away and use it for private accounts for younger workers, which is what Governor Bush suggests. If that is the case, you will short change Social Security by $1 trillion. You can't count $1 trillion twice. I simply make the point that on the issue of fiscal policy, we should have had a real debate on the floor of this Senate on fiscal policy. When Governor Bush and others say they don't like the partisan bickering, I don't suppose anybody likes it in those terms. I like robust, aggressive debate. I think that is the sound of democracy in this country. When people say they have plans to take $1 trillion out of Social Security, I say let's debate that. When they say let's have tax cuts that go to the upper income people and I think that will put the country back in a deficit ditch once again, I say let's debate that. When they say we don't have time to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act because somehow it is not important enough, I say that ought to be the subject of aggressive debate in the Senate. Let's not shy away from debate. Let's understand what good, aggressive, honest debate does for this democracy, and let's have a few debates from time to time on things that really matter. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois asked a question about job creation. This administration, during these 8 years, has seen 22 million new jobs created in this country. In the 4 years prior under President George Bush, 2.5 million new jobs were created. You will see this is one of the most robust periods of economic expansion in this country's history. Is it an accident? No. This administration had a new economic plan that said let's move away from growing and choking deficits and give the American people some confidence about the future. The result of it was that confidence manifested a growing economy that created new jobs and new opportunities. Every single feature of this economy has become better in the last 8 years, every single one. Unemployment, inflation, welfare, home ownership--in every single instance, things are better in this country. This morning, when I heard the Governor say, ``Well, you have had your chance,'' I would say, yes, this administration had its chance and it inherited a weak and troubled economy and turned it into a strong, vibrant, growing economy, and good for them. It did not happen because they took the easy road. This was not the easy thing to do. In 1993, when they had the vote on the new plan, it passed by only one vote in the House and the Senate. We did not get even one vote on the majority side. We took our licks for voting for it, but history shows that what we created was the strongest economy in this world, and I think Vice President Gore and President Clinton and those who voted for that new plan in this Congress can take some pride in what the result of that plan has been.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes, I will yield.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is absolutely correct. We have had the longest economic expansion in American history. That did not happen by accident. Governor Bush says: Well, gosh, that's due to the American people. The American people worked hard in 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1984. The American people had as much ingenuity, as much tenacity to work hard then. But you need public policies in place that help them as well. The public policies that the Clinton-Gore administration and the Democrats in Congress put in place in 1993 said we were going to stop these Federal deficits. We had a new fiscal policy. We turned this country around. The American people understand that when they have hope for the future, they do things that reflect that hope. They buy cars; they buy homes; and they take vacations. They do the things that represent their hope for the future. There was not much hope for a long while because every year the deficit was getting worse and no one wanted to do much about it, but the Clinton-Gore administration came in and said: We have a new plan and it will be a little tough. It was hard to vote for--in fact, so hard that not one member of the majority party voted for it. I see on the floor my friend from Texas, Mr. Gramm, whom we have quoted many times. He said: If you pass this plan, this country is going to go into a tailspin. Those are not his exact words, but it is exactly what he meant. Of course, he was wrong. This country passed a new economic plan and gave the American people confidence about the future. Guess what happened. The largest deficits in history turned into the largest surpluses in history. We have had the longest economic expansion on record--welfare rolls are down, home ownership is up, inflation is down. Almost every basic index in this country is better.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is absolutely correct. They had their chance. What about the issue of the Patients' Bill of Rights? We were blocked by the majority party. What about campaign finance reform? We have tried, tried, and tried and were blocked by the majority party. What about a prescription drug benefit for the Medicare program? We have tried and tried and were blocked by the majority party. How about the issue of education and providing some help to reconstruct and renovate and provide for better schools and better classrooms?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am not going to talk about Texas. There has been plenty of discussion about that tonight. I am going to talk about this country. I saw this morning an interview in which Governor Bush said: ``They had their chance,'' talking about Vice President Gore, of course. ``They had their chance.'' I want to talk about what has happened in the last 8 years. It is important to remember exactly what the Clinton-Gore administration inherited and where we are. They had their chance. Let's talk about President Clinton and Vice President Gore. In 1993, when they took office, we had a $290 billion deficit that year, and it was rising. That deficit was exploding. Our economy was in trouble. Economists predicted slow anemic growth for an entire decade ahead. That is what the Clinton-Gore administration inherited. Now, instead of the largest deficit in history, we have the largest surplus in history. Is that an accident? I don't think so. We had a vote in this Senate and they had a vote in the House on a new plan to take this country to a new direction, and it passed by one vote--one vote in the House and one vote in the Senate. Not one member of the majority party voted for that in either the House or the Senate. We moved this country to a new direction. Now instead of the largest deficits in history, we have the largest surpluses in history. This is a chart which shows what these deficits and surpluses were when Governor Bush said: They had their chance. This is what we inherited from President George Bush in 1992 and 1993: red ink that was growing every year. This country was choking on deficits, and every year, when we changed direction and created a new economic plan to give people hope that we would make the tough decisions to turn this country around, we have seen lower and lower deficits and finally surpluses. That is not an accident. They had their chance, Governor Bush said. They turned the biggest deficits into the biggest surpluses. How about economic growth? In the 12 years prior to the Clinton-Gore administration taking office, average economic growth was 2.8 percent. Since then, economic growth has been on average 3.9 percent. Jobs: 1988 to 1992 was one of the worst 4-year periods in history for the creation of jobs. In fact, I have a chart that I think will be useful to show in terms of the creation of jobs: In the Bush administration, 1988 to 1992, 2.5 million new jobs in 4 years. In 8 years, the Clinton-Gore administration had an economy that rebounded, and we had 22 million new jobs created in this country. They had their chance. How about the unemployment rate? In 1981-1982, Reagan-Bush averaged 7.1-percent unemployment. Currently, there is 4.1-percent unemployment, the lowest level in 30 years. Home ownership: From 1982 to 1992, home ownership fell in this country. Now it is the highest in history. Welfare rolls increased 22 percent from 1981 to 1992. Now they have decreased by 53 percent. The Dow Jones was 3,300. Now it is over 10,000.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. The highest levels of spending relative to GDP occurred during the Reagan and Bush administrations. That had a lot to do with the size of the economy. As the economy has grown rather substantially, especially in the recent 8 years, what has happened is that Federal spending as a percentage of GDP actually decreased. I think it is important to talk about what has happened in recent years because people raise the question of the tax burden for middle- income taxpayers. As the chart shows, $39,000 is the average income. Federal income taxes, as a percentage, have actually decreased; the Federal income tax burden has decreased. There are a couple of other things I want to mention about our economy. In the last 8 years, the $290 billion deficit has gone, and now we have the biggest surplus in history. Eight years ago, economic growth averaged 2.8 percent for the previous decade. All of the leading economists in this country at that point said they expected we would have in the entire 1990s anemic, slow economic growth. In fact, they were all wrong. We have had economic growth averaging 3.9 percent annually since 1993. Job growth: 22 million new jobs since January 1993. The unemployment rate from 1981 to 1992 averaged 7.1 percent annually. Now it is at 4.1 percent--the lowest level in 30 years. Home ownership fell from 1981 to 1992, but the growth was the highest in history in the last 9 years. The Dow Jones was 3,300 in 1993, and it is now over 10,000. The point is this: A lot of good things have happened in this country. Some say: Well, it is the rooster taking credit for the Sun coming up. I don't know who is to share the credit here. It seems to me the country was headed in the wrong direction, and then President Clinton came to office and said: Let's change direction and plans. The planning proposed was not very popular. It passed by only one vote in the House and one vote in the Senate, and it gave the American people confidence that Congress would make some tough decisions. It increased some taxes--not many but some. It cut some spending, and we had a new plan--a new direction. The country moved in the new direction. The American people had confidence that things were going to change. Our economy rests on a mattress of confidence. If people are confident about the future, they do things that manifest that confidence. They buy a house and they buy a car. They do the things that represent their confidence in the future. If they are not confident, they decide not to do those things, and the economy then contracts. The point is that we have an economic plan in this country that has worked very well. The results are self-evident. The question is: What is the plan for the future? That is why we have this Congress. We have debates in Congress about what to do about the future. Some say: Well, we expect 10 years of budget surpluses for the next 10 years. I don't know of a group of economists in this country that has been right for 5 years, let alone 10 years. We would be very wise in this country, in my judgment, to take the conservative course on the question of what we do in fiscal policy. Economists don't know what is going to happen in the next year or in 3, 5, or 10 years from now. We ought to establish as a priority paying down the Federal debt first. If during tough times you run the Federal debt up, it seems to me that during good times you ought to pay down the Federal debt. I inquire whether that is a continuing resolution. If it is, I will suspend.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes, I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to make a couple of comments expanding on some I made the other day on the economy and what is happening. The reason I want to do that is there is a lot of discussion these days about what is happening in this country. Some say, well, what has been done in 8 years? That is a legitimate question. There is this old saying that bad news travels halfway around the world before good news gets its shoes on. Let's talk about good news for a moment. Maybe we can get that fully addressed about this economy and what is happening in this country. I want to talk about what has happened in the past 8 years. In 1992, we had a $290 billion Federal deficit that was growing by leaps and bounds. On this chart, these are the red ink numbers from 1985 forward. As you can see, there are massive quantities of deficits year by year. In 1992, it was $290 billion alone. At this point, Congress developed a new economic program. President Clinton proposed to change the direction with a new program, and Congress adopted it by one vote in the House and one vote in the Senate. You can see what has happened to deficits since then. The deficits have been reduced and finally eliminated. We have turned it around and we now have budget surpluses. That is good news. Mr. President, 22 million jobs have been created in the economy that has been growing during the past 8 years. That is an extraordinary number of jobs compared to what had been created in the previous 12 years. This chart reflects what happened to the inflation rate. It has gone down, down, and stayed down, which is wonderful news for our country. We have the lowest poverty rate in two decades. What has happened in recent years? You can see what happened here from 1993 on down. On this chart, the Federal spending related to the gross domestic product is down to the lowest level since 1966--related to the GDP of this country. So we have a lot of good news.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a brief question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is interesting to hear the discussion of the process. Apparently there was no conference; there were no conferees. This was a small business authorization bill that was laying dormant, which they used as a large carcass to stuff a whole range of bills in the middle of and throw it then on the floor of the Senate. I am curious; if the Senator from Massachusetts had been accorded the opportunity, as would normally have been the case, of being a conferee and being a part of deliberations, I assume first we would not have most of these provisions in a small business bill, but if we had, for example, would a conferee coming from Massachusetts been concerned about the massive quantity of money that would go to HMOs in response to this balanced budget fix? Would there not have been an aggressive debate saying you cannot do that in the dead of night, take bags of money and give it to HMOs that are not deserving, when, in fact, small hospitals, inner-city hospitals, and others who are desperately in need of these resources do not get it? Would there not have been aggressive debate on that, and probably the disinfectant of sunlight would have given us the opportunity to dump many of these provisions?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I will talk about tax cuts later. The point is, if we are going to have tax cuts, they ought to be targeted to middle-income families. We should not be surprised to find ourselves in this position on October 27, 27 days after we should have completed our work.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada. It is always interesting to me to watch how a legislative session ends. None has ended, in my judgment, with less elegance and grace than this one. It is now 26 days past October 1st. That is the date on which we were to have passed appropriations bills and sent them to the President. On the desk in front of all of us is the Calendar of Business, which says that it is Friday, October 27. The legislative day is September 22. I just want to remind everyone why it says that, what we have on the floor of the Senate, and why some people are chafing about where we find ourselves. What does September 22 mean? That is the day that a motion was filed, a motion to proceed on an energy bill that the leadership never intended to proceed to--a motion to proceed on an energy bill. Since that day, we have never adjourned. We have always recessed. Why? Because that motion was designed to prevent any other activity on the floor of the Senate, to prevent any single Member from offering a motion, for example, or an amendment to deal with a Patients' Bill of Rights. Yes, we have had a vote on that before, but there has been a change in the Senate, as we know, and if we took that vote now, we would win that vote. So how do you prevent that from happening? You prevent anybody from offering an amendment and having a vote--or on the education issues that we have talked about. So that is what is going on here. This Senate has been blocked since September 22, so that the people on the Democratic side of the aisle could not offer an amendment. And we have not even adjourned. We are in the legislative day of September 22. So 26, 27 days now have passed since October 1st, and we find ourselves not having passed the appropriations bills. People stand on the floor with great surprise, wondering, what on Earth is all the fuss here? I cannot understand why things are not working very well, why things are coming apart on us. I will tell you why things are coming apart. Because this Congress didn't get its work done. It was blocking the floor, afraid of amendments, and then we reached the time when appropriations bills were supposed to have been done. They are not done. Then the tax bill is cobbled together and stuck in this vessel called a small business authorization bill. It is cobbled together behind locked doors with no Democratic participation and brought to the floor of the Senate. And people say: Gee, this is reasonable. Why would anyone object to that? Does anybody remember watching the old western movies, the old spaghetti westerns where someone inevitably would ride into a box canyon and then wonder: What on earth has happened to me? I am in a box canyon. I am attacked from every side. What happened is, you rode into a box canyon. That is exactly what this Congress has done. It hasn't done its work. What it has done, it hasn't done well. And now it can't understand for all the world why anyone would object to cobbling together a tax bill on a small business authorization conference and shipping it through here and not receiving objections from us or from the White House. Let's add up the numbers. Together these proposals for tax cuts represent the single priority of this Congress. It is around $1.4 trillion. I may err on either side a bit, but it is somewhere around $1.4 trillion. We have an appetite by those who have no end of desire to cut taxes, most of which will inure to the upper income folks, who say: Our fiscal policy is to move us right back into that same old risk of toppling this economy into the deficit ditch once again. Our first priority ought not be large tax cuts for upper income folks and $1.4 trillion in tax cuts before we even have the surpluses which, incidentally, I don't think we will have for 10 years. We are not going to have 10 years of surplus. That suggests we no longer have a business cycle of contraction and expansion. But the first priority from the majority party is to say: Let's have big tax cuts, and let's put them in law permanently right now. Our priority is to say: That doesn't make any sense. Let's do a couple of things. Let's pay down the Federal debt. If during tough times you run it up--and we did--then during good times, you ought to be able to pay down the Federal debt. There is no money around to pay down the Federal debt when you have the majority party saying they demand $1.4 trillion in tax cuts. Second, it seems to me reasonable that in addition to paying down the Federal debt, you want to make some investments that will bear some rewards for this country in the years ahead: invest in children, education, invest in health care. That is not the priority; we don't want to do that. Third, yes, some tax cuts, but tax cuts that go to working families as well. My friend from Texas a few moments ago said he would be happy to listen to me. I know better than that.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to speak for a few minutes today about the issue of this country's economy. I was reminded the other day, in one of the discussions with respect to the contest for the Presidency this year, that some say: Really, nothing has happened with respect to the last 8 years and this administration. It got me to thinking of where we have been and what we are experiencing in this country today. As I have indicated previously, I believe we are blessed in this country. We have the strongest economy in the world and the longest economic expansion in this country's history. And this is not all accidental. Some say that had nothing to do with Government, it had to do with the American people. The American people were working very hard in the 1950s and the 1980s, and during other periods. However, you also need a set of sensible Government policies that reduce the Federal indebtedness, stimulate investment and do the other things that are necessary to allow this economic engine to run and to work right. So this is not an accident. Let me describe where we are. At the moment, we are 115 months into the longest economic expansion on record. That is something all of us should feel very good about. Let me describe what happened to us back in the 1980s. In the early 1980s especially, we began a significant amount of red ink, deficit after deficit after deficit, and it kept getting worse and worse. As you can see from this chart, the deficits went up to $290 billion in the Federal budget in 1992. Then, in 1993, Congress made some hard decisions. This President, a new President, proposed a controversial new economic plan. Some did not like it. Some still do not like it. It passed the Senate by one vote and passed the House by one vote. This new economic plan provided a different direction. The deficits got smaller and smaller, and then we began to see surpluses, and more surpluses, and more. Is this a turnaround? Yes, I think so. Is it accidental? No. It happened, as you can see indicated on this chart, when a new President proposed a bold economic plan and, by one vote in the House and the Senate, we embraced a new direction and a new approach. You can see by this chart what the result has been. We went from the largest deficits in history to the largest surpluses in this country's history. Jobs created. The Government does not create jobs. But jobs are created in a timeframe in which the Government, with a set of policies, provides for economic opportunity in the expansion of the economy. Under the Reagan administration, in 8 years, 16 million jobs were created; the Bush administration, 4 years, 2.5 million jobs; under this administration, in 8 years, 22 million new jobs. It is a wonderful record, with an economy that is working better than anyone ever could have anticipated. The unemployment rate. This economy is full of good news for our country. You can see what has happened to the unemployment rate, beginning in 1992 and 1993, when this Congress set this country on a different course to an economy of reduced deficits, with more robust growth. Unemployment has gone down, down, way down. That is good economic news for America's families. The inflation rate is down. As we can see, we have had a low inflation rate that has been stable throughout the 1990s. The lowest poverty rate in two decades. You can see from this chart what happened when this economy began to kick into fifth gear and we began to see lower deficits and more economic growth. We saw lower unemployment, and now we see lower poverty rates. Some say: That is just an accident; isn't it? No, it is not just an accident. This Congress, by one vote, embraced a new plan offered by a new President in 1993. It was very controversial, and it worked. The evidence is all around us. We had people on the floor of the Senate who said: Pass this plan, and it will bankrupt our country. Pass this plan, and our country will experience a recession. Pass this plan, and there will be people unemployed in the streets. They were wrong. Where we were headed was a very difficult circumstance for our country: Bigger and bigger deficits; slow, anemic economic growth. We changed the plan. The Clinton-Gore proposal in 1993 was passed by one vote in both the House and the Senate. We changed direction. And we see unemployment down, inflation down, poverty rates down, and more. And now, as a result of economic growth and better opportunity, the federal income tax burden on middle-income taxpayers has decreased, as well as the percent of income paid in Federal income taxes. With respect to the burden of Federal income taxes on middle-income workers, those with average income of $39,000 in 1999, the Federal income tax burden has actually decreased during this same period. Federal spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product in this country is down. That is not an accident either. That relates how much we spend to what our economy is in terms of its total value of goods and services produced. Federal spending is lower as a percent of GDP. Let's review the U.S. economy, since we passed the bill in 1993, that a new President, a new Vice President proposed that we pass to change direction. We were headed in the wrong direction. We saw deficit after deficit. It was getting larger. Let me show the chart again, because I think it is important -- deficit after deficit, getting larger each year. Here is where we were. As you can see, a $290 billion Federal deficit in that 1 year, growing by leaps and bounds. We changed direction. The deficits got smaller and smaller and turned into surpluses. That is not an accident. That is a function of good public policy. In 1992, we had the highest dollar deficit in history. Today, we have the largest dollar surplus in our Federal budget history. Economic growth, 2.8 percent annually in the 12 years before 1993, since 3.9 percent annually; job growth, 1989 to 1992, one of the worst 4-year periods in history, 2.5 million new jobs; in the 8 years since, 22 million new jobs. The unemployment rate average, 7 percent from 1981 to 1992; 4.1 percent in the last 8 years, the lowest in 30 years. Home ownership fell between 1982 and 1992. Now it is the highest in history. Median family income fell from 1988 to 1992. Now it has increased by $5,000 since 1993. Welfare rolls increased 22 percent from 1982 to 1992; decreased by 53 percent between 1993 and 2000. The Dow Jones was at 3,300, and now it is over 10,000. That is the consequence of having an economic plan that works. When people say, well, not much has changed, a lot has changed. In 1992, this country was headed in the wrong direction. Now it is headed in the right direction. In 1992, we had an anemic economy that was producing higher deficits, slower growth, more unemployment. Now we have an economy that is producing budget surpluses, lower unemployment, lower inflation, and the longest economic expansion in this country's history. When I hear discussions on the campaign trail about where we have been and where we are, they need to be rooted in some basis of fact. You would have had to have been on another planet not to understand that the last 8 years have been truly significant. I am not saying that one side or the other should claim credit for everything. I am saying this because I was here and I know it. This country was headed in the wrong direction, with fiscal policies that said you can have a very big tax cut, you can double defense spending, and somehow everything will turn out all right. It didn't. It turned out with huge, growing, abiding deficits every year that sucked the strength out of this country's economy. It meant people didn't have jobs when they wanted jobs. It meant businesses couldn't expand when they wanted to expand. It meant our Federal budget deficit was swollen with red ink. It wasn't working. It was a plan that didn't work. David Stockman told us in his book, shortly after helping concoct the plan in early 1981, that it wouldn't work. It didn't work. It put this country in a deficit ditch, a deep hole. We had a new plan, a different plan. No, it wasn't the same old trickle down where you pour something in at the top and hope everybody down at the bottom gets damp somehow. It was a plan that percolates up, saying that this country's economic engine works best when everybody has a little something to work with, when everyone has confidence in the future. Our economy rests on a mattress of confidence of a sort. If people are confident about the future, they do things that manifest that confidence. They buy a car, a house, do the kinds of things that manifest confidence in the future. If they are not confident in their future, they do exactly the opposite and the economy contracts. No one has ever repealed the business cycle nor will they. We have economic expansions and contractions. But economic expansions occur when people are confident, and they are sustained when people are confident. Right here, in 1993, this new President, President Clinton, and Vice President Gore said: We have a different plan. We are going to change directions. We don't want to be in the same deficit ditch we have been in all these years. It is going to be tough. It is going to be controversial, but we want you to be with us to make these changes. Enough of us were. As I indicated, by one vote in the Senate and one vote in the House, we changed direction. The American people had an assessment that was different than the assessment they had in the past. They became confident that Congress finally was going to do something to tackle these deficits, not just talk about them but tackle them, to get this country's fiscal policy back under some amount of control. People's confidence increased. The result was that our economy began to rebound. It produced more economic growth than anyone thought possible. It produced lower unemployment than virtually anyone thought possible, and we have economic strength and opportunity across the entire country as a result of it. Some areas have been left behind; I understand that. My point is, even as we work on those remaining areas, this country has done very well. It is not an accident. I get a little fatigued hearing people say nothing has happened in the last 8 years. What has happened is this administration, the Clinton-Gore administration, inherited a weak, anemic economy, and we turned it around. Was it easy? No. We paid a price for the votes we cast to do it. It wasn't easy. It wasn't the best political choice. It wasn't the most popular choice. But it was the required choice to say what is happening in this country isn't right and we need to change it. Changing it has meant that virtually everything in this country has improved. Welfare rolls are down, home ownership is up, unemployment down, inflation down. Almost every indices of economic health in this country shows strong, sustained improvement. That is not some historical accident. It is not. It is a function of a Congress, a President, and Vice President teaming up to make tough choices, to say we are moving in the wrong direction and, with as much strength and courage as it takes, we are going to turn that steering wheel and move the country back in the right direction. When people said, we blame you for the votes you cast in 1993, even back then, just after the vote, I said: You can't blame me. I demand that you give me credit for that vote. As unpopular as it might be, it was the right thing for this country to do. I am proud to have participated in it. I feel exactly the same way today. Do not dare to blame me for that vote. I voted to change direction because this country was headed in the wrong direction. This country is now headed in the right direction. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us and a lot to do. One of my great worries is that those people who now say, oh, by the way, we are going to have 10 years of surpluses, don't understand the lessons of history. We don't have 10 years of surpluses. We have economic uncertainty ahead, unless we maintain a fiscal policy that makes sense. A trillion and a half dollars in tax cuts before even the surplus exists will put us right back into the same deficit ditch we had been in for so long back in the 1980s and early 1990s. We dare not squander this opportunity. We need a fiscal policy that makes sense, one on which we can rely, one that says to the American people, our first priority is not to give tax cuts with money we don't have. Our first priority, when we have better economic times and have a budget surplus, is to use part of that surplus to pay down the Federal debt. If during tough times you run up the Federal debt, as we did, during good times you ought to have the common sense to pay down part of that Federal debt, as we should. This is the story. This is where we have been, and this is where we are. I worry very much that the kind of proposals offered by some here and by Governor Bush running for President--about $1.5 trillion in new tax cuts, most of which will go to those who need it least--will put us right back into the same deficit we have been in too long. We have worked too hard to squander our economic strength now.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield, of course.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I reclaim my time.