J. Exon

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. I thank my friend.

Mr. EXON. May I suggest to my friend, possibly we can get started with Senator Bumpers, and then I think we all know what the unanimous consent request is going to be. We can finalize it and type it up sometime during the debate.

Mr. EXON. As usual.

Mr. EXON. The Senator is correct. Unanimous-Consent Agreements

Mr. EXON. Reserving the right to object. I have no objection.

Mr. EXON. I simply say that this is going to go push things back a little bit. We are trying to accommodate everybody here at one time. Is the Senator insisting on making an agreement at this time to go back to Senator Hatfield's amendment?

Mr. EXON. Under the circumstances, we have no objection.

Mr. EXON. Will the Senator, in order to keep the flow properly here, include as part of his unanimous-consent agreement that after the disposition of the Hatfield amendment that we would go back and meet a commitment that we have made through Senator Boxer on this side, and that her amendment would follow the discussion of the Hatfield amendment?

Mr. EXON. I yield time for an inquiry by the Senator from Arkansas, or I will yield him what time he needs on his amendment. I guess what we were hoping for is to restore the balance of the time due on this side on the amendment offered by the Senator from Maine. I would make inquiry at this time, if the Senator from Maine would consider setting aside her amendment now that the yeas and nays have been ordered so that we can allow Senator Bumpers to proceed with the offering of an amendment that he has that we will vote on tomorrow. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. I thank my friend from New Mexico.

Mr. EXON. We have stacked a series of votes now. I do not believe we have indicated when we might start our voting so that everybody would be properly advised. Are we going to start voting in an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours? Could the Senator give us some information on that?

Mr. EXON. Can I inquire of my friend at this time?

Mr. EXON. No, I have time.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, this amendment is very concise; it is very clear. We have cut down the time to 15 minutes on our side and 5 minutes for the opposition. Essentially, this amendment would take $160 billion from the $170 billion reserved in the Republican budget for tax cuts for the rich and redistribute $100 million to Medicare and Medicaid; $30 billion to education; $17 billion to the earned income tax credit; $3 billion to Veterans Affairs; and $10 billion to agriculture. The largest part of this amendment has been offered in part or in total in previous amendments to alleviate the hit that we think is unfair on many of the programs as they were produced out of the Budget Committee. We have discussed at length the distribution of taxes contained in the House Republican passed tax bill. It provides a $20,000 tax cut for taxpayers earning over $350,000. Fully 51 percent of the Republican tax cuts go to Americans with incomes over $100,000. We have to get our priorities back on track and that is what my amendment does. Let me walk my colleagues through the reasons for the redistribution of the $170 billion contingent fund. First is Medicare and Medicaid. My amendment restores $100 billion of the overall cut in Medicare and Medicaid is intended to reduce the adverse effects of increased premiums, deductibles and co-payments on beneficiaries. Most, if not all, of these add-backs would affect part B of the program and would not--I repeat--would not worsen the solvency of the HI trust fund. My amendment states that any add-backs will be structured in such a way to ensure that the fund remains solvent for the same time period attained through cuts made in this year's reconciliation bill. I am restoring these reductions in order to protect the 1 in 4 Medicare beneficiaries who rely on Social Security for their only source of income. Second is Medicaid. Two-thirds of all Medicaid dollars are spent on seniors and disabled people. This is the only program which pays for long-term care. Many middle-income people who develop disabling conditions--like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's--end up spending all of their incomes for care. They often have nowhere else to turn but Medicaid. Under the Republican budget, nearly 1 million seniors and disabled people could lose their coverage. This amendment would add back funding to reduce the hit on that population. The funding in my amendment could also be used to reduce the cuts to children. Third, is education which would receive $30 billion through this amendment. Over 500,000 graduate and professional students currently receive subsidized loans. Nearly 50 percent of full-time, full-year students rely on the subsidized loans to pay for their education. Eliminating the in-school interest subsidy means graduate and professional students could have their total debt increase by $3,000 to $6,600 depending on how long they are in school. The subsidy is critical for these students, most of whom are independent and going back to school to pursue higher learning that is critical to the future of our Nation. My amendment also helps restore some of the Republican budget cuts to the impact aid program. Impact aid is a critical program that provides funds to school districts that educate children of military personnel, children who live on Indian lands, and children who live in federally subsidized housing. For school districts with large areas of Federal property within their boundaries, raising sufficient revenue to provide for the education of these children is a daunting challenge. Federal land is exempt from local property taxes--the mainstay of local education finance--causing a greater tax burden on the residents and owners of non-Federal land. In my own State of Nebraska, Bellevue School District relies upon impact aid funding for almost 25 percent of its annual operating budget. Cuts in impact aid would be devastating to the quality of education for children of military personnel in Bellevue. My amendment softens the blow. Fourth is the EITC which would receive $17 billion. The EITC helps keep working families off of welfare. It also assists middle-class families who have sudden losses of income. The Republican budget cut for the EITC is particularly cruel since real wage growth has been slow, and many people are having to take lower-wage jobs as a result of downsizing and restructuring. Fifth, is veterans. My amendment adds $3 billion back to veterans programs. This Republican budget is a sad tribute to America's men and women who have worn their country's uniform. Let us be clear, by funding the VA's medical system at the 1995 level for the next 7 years, the Republicans are dramatically cutting access to health care services for veterans' across the country. The Republican budget also increases veterans' contributions for GI bill education benefits. It increases the co-payment for prescription drugs for higher-income vets. Finally is agriculture. Mandatory agriculture spending is already projected to decline by 17 percent over the budget resolution timeframe. The Republican budget would cut an additional 20 percent from these programs primarily CCC commodity programs. This amendment would ensure that farm programs make a fair contribution to deficit reduction without devastating the entire farm economy and severely hampering the ability of the Agriculture Committee to draft a workable farm program and a workable farm bill in the future. Finally, it would reduce the reconciled cut to the committee by $10 billion and thus lessen the overall projected cuts from farm commodity programs from $12 billion to $2 billion. Finally, I would note that if the CBO scores this surplus differently, the numbers provided would be adjusted accordingly. The amendment does not allocate $10 billion of the projected $170 billion tax cut now in the Republican budget. I intend to leave that amount open to be used to restore cuts in other programs that may have been unfairly hit. Or, it could be used as a cushion to further reduce the deficit and help us reach a balanced budget. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Lautenberg, Harkin, Kennedy, Murray, Breaux, Daschle, and Dodd, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to thank the Senator from Montana for his remarks and also, previous to him, the Senator from the State of Florida, the former Governor of Florida, who basically as a Governor understands the matter of choosing fairness, equal sacrifice, shared sacrifice--call it what you will. Certainly the Senator from Montana has simply emphasized very vividly and very well, in my opinion, the remarks that this Senator made earlier about the tremendous hit that this extraordinary cut in Medicare and Medicaid will have on rural America. Rural America needs to be heard, too. I have heard a great deal in this Chamber during the budget debate about shared sacrifice. We have to do this, and we have to do it in a fair manner of shared sacrifice. So that supposedly that term embodies the thought that everyone is sharing and sharing equally in the reduction in spending to get us to the balanced budget by the year 2002. I think earlier today, in the remarks made by the Senator from North Dakota with regard to what Republican commentator Kevin Phillips thought of fairness--who are the winners and who are the losers in this proposition?--Kevin Phillips, as well as any other national spokesman, highlighted the unfairness of the Republican budget that is being attempted to be sold here as an instrument of shared sacrifice. How fair is it and how fair are the sacrifices? I submit the Republican budget gets a total of $431 billion in cuts from Medicare and Medicaid. Let me repeat that. Under this shared sacrifice budget we are being asked to approve and we will be asked to vote on upcoming, we will be asked to vote down the reasonable proposal to make relatively small changes in the Republican budget, not changing balancing the budget by the year 2002, I emphasize, and not changes with regard to raising any taxes. We are simply saying since the Republican budget is not an instrument of shared sacrifice we should at least alleviate a portion of the hit on Medicare and Medicaid--and only a portion of it-- in the interests of shared sacrifice. I repeat, the Republican budget gets a total of $431 billion in cuts from Medicare and Medicaid. That is two-thirds of the Republican cuts in all entitlements. That is nearly 40 percent of the total spending cuts that the Republicans make in all programs. Essentially being repetitious, the proposals by the Republicans that are being described here as necessary shared sacrifices are being shared primarily by our senior citizens and our least fortunate on Medicare, including those being adequately provided for in our nursing homes. I again repeat, the shared sacrifice we are being asked to approve here, shutting out even reasonable proposals to reduce the hit on Medicare and Medicaid by $100 billion over 7 years, and taking that $100 billion out of the $170 billion tax cut pot that is part and parcel of the Republican budget that everybody likes to continue to ignore, that is not equally shared sacrifice. That might be shared sacrifice, but it is not equally shared sacrifice. I appeal once again to Members on both sides of the aisle to recognize the proposal made by the minority is a reasonable one. It makes a major step toward true shared sacrifice rather than meaningless words that have been used here to allude to the Republican budget in this regard. I yield 5 minutes to my colleague from the State of Alabama.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Bryan].

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I have been listening with great interest and appreciation to the remarks by my colleague from the State of Nevada, another former Governor, who understands what is going on in the States, who understands the relationship between the State and the Federal Government, and above everything else, recognizes and realizes the obligation that we have to act fairly in our deliberations, discussions and bill-passing here in the U.S. Senate. Previous to the remarks of the former Governor from Nevada, now Senator from Nevada, we heard an excellent presentation by my colleague from the State of North Dakota. The Senator from North Dakota is a former tax commissioner of that State. He knows that State. He knows rural America very, very well. Since he has come to the U.S. Senate, we have come to appreciate and respect the dedicated talents that he has with regard to the relationship between the Federal Government and the State government. Certainly, I thought that the excellent presentation he made with regard to the statements about the budget submitted by the majority in both the House and the Senate deliberations are absolutely a travesty. Kevin Phillips, a noted Republican columnist and spokesman, hit it right on the head. I have some remarks I would like to make, but I recognize that we are trying to move evenly back and forth. I certainly ask the managing Republican on the Senate side now whether or not he is waiting to speak, or is it his desire that the Senator from Nebraska continue on his remarks that I would like to make?

Mr. EXON. I see the Senator from Washington is on the floor. He will seek recognition, is that correct, at an appropriate time?

Mr. EXON. I simply say to my colleague, it would only be fair for him to proceed at this time, and I will follow. Then he has the disposition on his side for the next speaker, to keep it in the regular order.

Mr. EXON. I yield such time to myself as I may need. Mr. President, I have been listening with keen interest, of course, to this entire debate which we started last week and again this morning. The same theme keeps coming through time and time again. Once again, I would like to correct the impression that my friends on that side of the aisle seem to be giving, or not giving, depending upon your point of view, to what is the majority opinion of those of us on this side of the aisle. Listening to the rhetoric from the Republican side, you would tend to believe that we were against any balanced budget; that we do not want to be players in the game; that we simply do not seem to realize that the Republicans have stepped up to the plate, and they have by bringing forth a resolution that I agree took some courage. I have said that time and time again in the Budget Committee and on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The problem that I have with the spin that the Republicans are trying to give to this entire proposition is that they and they only are the only ones that care about balancing the budget of the United States of America. I think the record clearly shows that there are many of us on this side who have been trying to do that for a long, long time and we are simply trying to make some improvements, some improvements, some fine tuning, some minor surgery, if you will, with regard to the document that has been presented to us by the majority through the might and power of the majority in the Congress of the United States. I, therefore, emphasize once again--let me make this statement that I do not think has been made before, and I do not propose to speak for all on this side of the aisle--that I believe that the Republican steamroller, the Republican majority has rejected every one of even the minor changes that we offered in the Budget Committee, and have every indication of saying no, no, no to anything that we even suggest here. They might be surprised if they would simply realize and recognize what we are constructively trying to do on this side of the aisle despite their protestations to the contrary. What we are saying is that we recognize some significant cuts have to be made, but we simply say to our Republican colleagues, who are in control, why not reason together? Why not come out with a bipartisan budget so that we all have to share in the pain, if you will, of making some cuts in many programs that otherwise we would not like to cut. To put it another way, Mr. President, I believe, if the Republicans would accept the amendments, the constructive, well-reasoned, well- thought-out amendments not to eliminate the cuts but just to redistribute the cuts within their framework, within their totals, without disturbing the goal of 2002 to balance the unified budget, without making any major changes to get to that end result, we might be willing to support their budget. We Democrats are simply saying why not listen to us and listen to what we are saying, especially about Medicare. Now, the hit that Medicare is taking is unconscionable when you recognize and realize the results of what it will do. I have heard time and time again from that side of the aisle, and I heard it again this morning, there has been no proposal from this side. That is simply not true. Time and time again in the Budget Committee and on this floor-- and you are going to see more of it in the next couple of days--we have had a whole series of amendments. What the we are basically saying, Mr. President, is that the Republicans should recognize and realize, with all of the difficulty, with all the cuts that we are going to have to make to reach that balanced budget by the year 2002, there is no way that any reasonable person, whether they figure with a red pen or a blue pen or a black pen or whatever colored pen, can come to any logical way to balance the budget by the year 2002 and have a tax cut. There is no way to make all the painful cuts we are going to have to make--and we are ready to stand in support of some of those--if you are going to have a tax cut. And the tax cut is the tail that is wagging the dog on this Republican budget. I do not wish to call the Republican budget a dog because there are some good things in that budget. I simply say that we can make it a whole lot better if you will simply listen to the reasoned approach and proposals we are making. Putting it another way, you cannot have your cake and eat it, too. You cannot reach that deficit reduction proposal and balance the budget by the year 2002 if you are going to have the massive tax cuts passed in the House of Representatives. It is a sham. It will not work. Anybody who knows anything about the budget knows it will not work. And even if it should work by the year 2002, which it cannot in my opinion, because of the magnitude of the huge tax cut passed in the House of Representatives that benefits the wealthy we would immediately unbalance the budget in the next 2, 3, 4, or 5 years beyond that. My colleague from North Dakota pointed out very well what Republican commentator Kevin Phillips had to say about these two Republican budgets, one in the House and one in the Senate. The question that he asked is, who are the winners and who are the losers? Well, we are all going to be winners if we get to a balanced budget by the year 2002, but there obviously are going to be some losers, and although some of those losers are the traditional part of society that the Democratic Party has shepherded and protected to some degree, we are willing to make those sacrifices. I simply say to my Republican colleagues on that side of the aisle, if you would take the $170 billion you have in that kitty for a tax cut--and despite the newspaper stories and commentators to the contrary, there is a tax cut in the Domenici package. Senator Domenici himself in the Budget Committee deliberations in public said the $170 billion that likely will come along sometime later as a dividend, if you will, from the cuts that are being made can be used and used only for a tax cut. It is not in the budget right now, but it is in the budget on down the line and it is so identified. I simply say to those on that side of the aisle, if you would come to reason, if you would try to work with us, if you would give up the $170 billion, or most of it, to not eliminate but alleviate what we think is an unfair cut on many programs that affect the most fragile of our society, then you would be surprised how many votes there would likely be when this budget resolution passes the Senate. I would say 60, 65. But I simply say that absent that, absent the ability of the Republicans to give, absent the ability of the Republicans to keep their house in order and to keep their votes in line, maybe they dare not change the dotting of a single ``i'' or the crossing of a single ``t.'' I appeal once again as I did when we started this debate. Let us try harder on a nonpartisan position. And then I have heard, Mr. President, this talk about, oh, there is nothing wrong with giving the people a $170 billion tax cut as a reward, I guess, for the sacrifices that they have to make to balance the budget. I think that is a simple direct case of wanting your cake and eating it, too. We should not have to reward the people of the United States, and I do not believe the people of the United States-- Democrats, Republicans, independents, call them what you will--believe they need to be bought off by a promised tax cut to make the hard choices to balance the budget by the year 2002. That is a case which I think has not been made well by those on that side of the aisle, but they say it so many times some people may begin to think they really are saying something important. There has been a lot of talk about Medicare. Medicare and the hit Medicare is taking is of much concern to those of us on this side of the aisle. There has been lots of talk as evidenced by the recent exchange between the Senator from West Virginia and the present manager on that side of the aisle. The basic point seems to be that you have to go along with their recommendations, with their numbers in their fashion because otherwise the Medicare trust fund is going to go broke by the year 2002. We have to do something about it. We all recognize that it is a problem. But if you will look into the details, or lack thereof, of what the Republican majority is proposing, you will see that even if we would accept their proposal lock, stock, and barrel, the solvency of the Medicare trust fund would only be extended to the year 2005, or 3 more years. And yet to listen to their rhetoric you would believe, if we accept their budget proposal lock, stock, and barrel, that we would solve that problem as well. We do not have enough figures to know whether or not if their proposal was enacted, because it is so lacking in details, it would continue to make the Medicare trust fund solvent to the year 2005, 3 years beyond the date that it otherwise is expected to be insolvent. I simply say that no specifics are available to us. But I wish to emphasize once and for all, if I can, the fact that even if we accept the Republican budget we have not solved the long-term solvency of the Medicare system. Why are we suggesting, Mr. President, without violating the 2002 date to balance the budget without raising taxes, without doing anything else that the Republicans would generally think would be harmful, why are we saying that the $250 billion to $280 billion cut in the next 7 years would be so devastating? And why is it that those of us on this side are saying we recognize some reductions are going to have to be made in the Medicare and Medicaid Programs but we are simply saying you are going at this without thoroughly thinking it through? You are going to cause devastation to the system in a whole series of areas, primarily in the rural areas of America which, in this Senator's opinion, have too few representatives in this body and certainly too few in the House of Representatives. To bring this point home, I would like now to read an excellent article that was referred to originally this morning earlier in debate by the Senator from Maine. It was a New York Times article of yesterday, May 21, 1995, under the byline of Robin Toner. I want to read this into the Record because it basically proves, beyond any question of a doubt, that the point that myself and others-- Senator Rockefeller is included in that; and the Senator from New Jersey has been very active--are trying to say as to what is wrong with the indiscriminate slashing or crushing of the Medicare and Medicaid proposals without having thought through just exactly what we are doing. The referenced article that I will now read is headlined ``Medicare Talk Brings Anxiety to the Heartland.'' To Mike Brown, who runs a tiny county health care center about an hour's drive from here, the $250 billion or so in Medicare savings that Congressional Republicans want to achieve over the next seven years is more than an abstract figure in a Washington budget battle. Like many rural hospitals, his center, Saunders County Health Services, ministers to a population that is largely elderly and exceedingly dependent on Medicare. The health insurance program for the elderly accounts for about 40 percent of hospital revenue nationally but for more than 80 percent of the hospital revenue at the Saunders County center. As a result, Mr. Brown said one cool spring morning this week, he fears that new spending controls on Medicare would have a significant impact on his 30-bed hospital. It lost money last year, hopes to break even this year and has been struggling since the mid-1980's, he said. In a little burst of feeling amid the dry policy talk, he argues that his center has ``real value'' for its aging population, often cared for by aging children, for whom the drive to Lincoln or Omaha for regular treatments would loom large. When planners and politicians talk about potential ``disruptions in the health care delivery system'' from the new Republican budgets, they are often talking about hospitals like this one. But even in Omaha, in the high-rise temples of medicine that dwarf the one-story Saunders County hospital, the Medicare policies being created in Washington instill anxiety and frustration. Hospital administrators say that they are not trying to preserve or defend the status quo and that they recognize the need for restructuring of the Medicare program. But they say they have already taken numerous steps to control their costs, and they bristle at the idea that there is still a great deal of easily identifiable fat to be quickly wrung from the system. Even here in Omaha, a comparative latecomer to the competitive new world of managed care, hospitals say they have felt increasing cost pressures from private payers in recent years. Given all these forces in play, and the expectation of new constraints on Medicaid at least as tough as those proposed for Medicare, several hospital administrators here said they feared that Congress was moving too far, too fast. ``I'm confident that we can come up with a better system for caring for Medicare patients and doing it in a more economical fashion,'' said Charles J. Marr, president and chief executive officer of Immanuel Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital sponsored by the Lutheran Church of America. ``But they shouldn't throw us into a tailspin and force that change over a short period of time.'' John M. Fraser, chief operating officer of Methodist Hospital, across town, noted more than once during an interview that he is a Republican and said both deficit reduction and a Medicare overhaul were valid issues. ``But you don't do this in six months on Capitol Hill,'' he added. Republicans, of course, maintain that extracting these savings from Medicare is essential to insuring the continued solvency of the 30-year-old program. Under their plans, they note, spending on Medicare would continue to grow, just at a slower rate than the current average of about 10 percent a year. Representative Jon Christensen, a Republican freshman who represents Omaha, and who voted for the House Republican budget this week, declined an interview request. But he issued a statement defending the plan. ``The simple fact is that Medicare is going bankrupt,'' he said. ``Would it hurt Nebraska's hospitals less to let the Medicare program collapse?'' Many health planners dispute Mr. Christensen's argument that this level of reduction projected spending is necessary for the sake of the Medicare system. Democrats, for their part, assert that Republicans are simply using Medicare as a piggy bank to pay for their political promises of a balanced budget and a tax cut. Nobody yet knows how these spending reductions will be achieved or how much they will affect payments to hospitals; that will be resolved later this summer. What is clear, away from Washington, is not only how enmeshed Medicare is in the health care system but also how vulnerable that system is to large-scale changes in the program. Here in Nebraska, state officials say, it is the rural health care system that is most ``fragile,'' as Dr. Mark Horton, the state director of health, put it. Eighteen percent of Nebraska's rural population is over 65; many of the hospitals in rural areas, and many of the primary care physicians there, are exceedingly reliant on the Medicare program. Tinkering with its complicated reimbursement system, which some hospital officials say already makes it hard for them to recover the cost of rendering care, can thus have a major effect on the overall health system, officials say. ``You could argue that maybe some of these hospitals should close,'' said Dr. Horton. On the other hand, he added, these small community hospitals are often the most cost-effective places to treat common ailments like pneumonia. Mr. Brown's center, which also depends on a county levy, includes a small attached nursing home, an outpatient clinic and a home health care agency. Its hospital beds are generally filled with patients suffering from pneumonia and other heart and lung ailments that afflict the aged, he said. There is little flexibility in his budget. ``When you don't have any private paying patients to speak of,'' he said, ``there's no place to shift the cost to.'' Harlan M. Heald, president of the Nebraska Association of Health Systems, said of the expected round of spending reductions, ``The more Medicare patients you have in your mix, the more it's like that old Nebraska farm joke: if you're not making back your costs, you're not going to make it up in volume.'' C. Edward Schwartz, chief executive officer of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, works at the opposite end of the spectrum from Mr. Brown. Mr. Schwartz runs an academic medical center that prides itself on its liver, bone-marrow and pancreas transplant programs. Yet he too describes Medicare as ``absolutely crucial'' to his institution's future, in part because the program recognizes and helps subsidize the cost of medical education at such centers. Mr. Schwartz argues that the people who should be most alarmed about new controls on Medicare are private employers, because of the prospect that hospitals will be driven to renewed cost shifting. ``We have to be honest with ourselves,'' he said, adding, ``I thought business was well past the point of wanting to pay the taxes Congress didn't want to collect.'' The great debate over Medicare, in short, looks decidedly less abstract at the grass roots, a fact that opponents of the Republican proposal are counting on in the months to come. Diana Smalley, chief executive officer of Midlands Community Hospital, a 208-bed center south of Omaha, said she was looking forward to putting together a health forum for Representative Christensen, whom she met at a recent function of the local Chamber of Commerce, As head of the chamber, Mrs. Smalley is more than able to brief her Congressman on the importance of her hospital to the community's economy. It is the largest civilian employer in the county, she noted. ``I'd rather work with him if I can,'' she said. ``I admire, I guess you could say, the zeal that we see to get things done. I just worry about the time frame.'' up the disastrous effect that the size of the Medicare cuts, as recommended by the Republicans, would have not only on Nebraska but every other State in the Union that has a sizable rural population. Mr. President, I will have other things to say with regard to what I think is an ill-advised policy. I offer, again, to try and sit down with the Republicans and work something out. I think it would be far better if we had a bipartisan compromise that embraced many of the hard choices that the Republicans are making. I will simply say that if the Republicans can come and reason with us together, even though we are in the minority, if the Republicans will renounce lock, stock, and barrel any kind of a tax cut until we actually balance the budget in the year 2002 then we would take a giant step toward a true bipartisan and a tough budget that is going to hurt. I appeal once again for the Republicans simply to recognize and realize that the proposals we are making in the amendment before us do not eliminate the cuts to the Medicare system. The amendment simply reduces those cuts and makes them barely palatable by alleviating $100 billion of those cuts and taking that money from the $170 billion tax cut kitty that is clearly represented in the Republican budget. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, we have no objection to that and agree to that on this side of the aisle.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair. Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.