J. Exon

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. The Senator has that right.

Mr. EXON. I will simply say that I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment as offered.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I simply point out that this amendment will cost over $33 billion and does not say how we will pay for it. Another way of saying that is that this is a political amendment to make a political statement without saying how we are going to pay for this kind of reduction in revenue. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. EXON. I am not sure the Senator from Iowa heard. I think the Chair was asking him to proceed. The next amendment up is No. 23 on my list, which is No. 4011 by Senator Harkin. The Senator has 30 seconds.

Mr. EXON. It is all right with me if it is all right with the Senator from Minnesota, and he said it is. That takes care of it.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, the proper order at the present time is this: I move to waive the provisions of the Budget Act for the consideration of the Graham amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. EXON. To answer the Senator's question, it was turned down by voice vote.

Mr. EXON. What the amendment does, simply said, is we can do nothing in these considerations that will further weaken or hurt the trust fund. That is basically what it does. The amendment of the Senator from Texas hurts the solvency of the fund. This amendment corrects that.

Mr. EXON. Madam President, I supported this when it was offered a few days ago by the Senator from Wyoming. As I understand the amendment, it in effect urges the Government to use the most accurate inflation index available. That is pure and simple. We have no objection from this side and have heard of no objection from that side. I am wondering, since it seems to have universal support, if we could save some time by voice voting this, if we could have the approval of that from the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. EXON. I yield 30 seconds to the Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. EXON. Madam President, we have no objection. I yield the time we have on this side.

Mr. EXON. Madam President, there may be someone who wishes to talk on this side I did not know about. I yield 30 seconds to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. EXON. We yield back the remainder our time.

Mr. EXON. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3987

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I call for the regular order.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, this is a far reaching and very little considered amendment. It calls for a supermajority vote, presumably a two-thirds majority for Congress to approve a tax increase, but also calls for a flat tax. While many of us support tax reform, we should not be endorsing a particular plan without careful consideration of the alternative. I urge the Senators to vote against this unwise and undemocratic amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an analysis of the amendment be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. EXON. If there has not been a sufficient second, I ask for it.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I will take my 30 seconds to explain this amendment. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that repeal of the 1993 change, as proposed in the Gramm amendment, will move the insolvency date of the Medicare trust fund forward a full year. It is astonishing to me that the same Senators who claim to be concerned, even alarmed sometimes, about the solvency of the Medicare trust fund would sponsor legislation that will have the opposite effect. The second-degree amendment, thereby, assures that no action therein, as a part of that act, should worsen the solvency of the Medicare trust fund.

Mr. EXON. Madam President, I call for the regular order.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 minutes on the procedures that we are about to begin.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, just to add another fact to the statement made by the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, that largest tax cut in history that he indicated came in 1982, I believe. Is that what he said?

Mr. EXON. I thought it might be interesting to note that the chairman of the Finance Committee at the time of the real largest tax increase in history, chairman of the committee of jurisdiction, the Finance Committee at that time, was Kansas Senator Robert Dole. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. EXON. May I ask a question of the Senator from North Dakota. I appreciated the Senator's factual remarks, and just to back up what the Senator has said, that is just not a Democratic Senator saying that. That is not just a Democratic Senator saying that based on the facts. The same thing was said by the Office of Management and Budget director under President Reagan. His name was David Stockman, and he admitted publicly--and I believe wrote in a book--that it was a sham all the way through. In fact, he used the words that all of this period the Senator has just alluded to was ``fiscal carnage.'' And he admitted that it was a Republican fiscal carnage. I just wanted to emphasize that. I am just wondering if the Senator had remembered that fact.