Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon in support of this bill that we have been addressing since noon, H.R. 2637, the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. By passing this legislation, Congress will take an important step in reforming what many Americans believe to be the most feared agency in the United States. I want to congratulate Chairman Roth of the Finance Committee for the tremendous effort he made last year to begin some oversight hearings. We heard earlier today those may be the first oversight hearings in the history of the IRS, an IRS that was formed during the Civil War. The hearings that we heard last year were frightening, revealing, and to most of the American public, not surprising, unfortunately. We learned a lot from that process. It provided emphasis and timing to be able to do the reform bill that we are presently debating, a reform bill that will bring a little bit of a sense of security to the honest American taxpayer. Last year I had so much interest in the hearings that were going on that we arranged for each day's hearings to be on our web site, the web site for my office, each day. Those were available within 24 hours. We have also been taking the hearings that were just held and getting them posted on the web site so they would be accessible to every American in the United States. I think that access to that will lend more urgency to the work before the Senate today. The bill before the Senate today, and I appreciate the very detailed explanation that Chairman Roth gave earlier this afternoon, this bill will first overhaul the IRS organizational structure; secondly, it will provide necessary protections for American taxpayers; and third, it will require greater accountability from the IRS employees. I will talk about that in a little more depth. First, the IRS Reform Act will overhaul the organizational structure of the IRS. In order for any organization to perform its function well, it is necessary for it to know what that function is, to know its mission. When I was in the Wyoming State Legislature, I worked with a number of agencies as they implemented strategic plans. We passed a bill that forced each of them to say what they do and how we could tell if they got it done. I think that is key to anything in government. There is no bottom line, but there is a mission. I watched that process as they did it in the State. We heard from directors, from the agencies, and we heard from the employees as it got down to their level on what they do and how we could tell if they got it done. I have to say I was so pleased, there were employees that came forward and said, ``My job shouldn't exist. It doesn't fit with what we say we are doing.'' It is my earnest hope that every one of those people were promoted, not eliminated. It worked so well in our State that we were able to get our budget balancing process down to a record 3 weeks and then to 13 days. I was pretty excited when I got elected to come back to Washington. I thought that was one of the things that the Federal Government could do--have a mission process. But when I got back here, I was excited to find that it already existed. We have a Government Performance and Results Act. It requires every Federal agency to have a mission statement, to have goals, to define them, so that they are measurable and prioritized, and then to see that the goals match up with the budget so they are spending the money on what they said they would. As a result of my excitement over that act, I got copies of a number of agencies I was interested in to see what they said they were doing and how we would know if they got it done. One of those agencies was the IRS. Something else I did was to go on a field trip to those agencies and let them explain to me, through their government performance and results, what it was they thought they were doing. It was an interesting trip to the IRS. I will admit to say they were extremely cooperative and had a lot of insights they were willing to share with me on problems they have and solutions they are arriving at. One of the things that I asked about was when a taxpayer calls in and asks a question about their taxes, how do they know they can rely on that? I want to tell you there isn't a good answer to that. I have asked for written confirmation when that answer is given so you can put that with your tax records and then show that to the agent if you are audited. We talked about having error notices that are easier to read. I don't know how many people have received an error notice, but they are computer-generated letters, and the computer-generated letter generates a series of codes that might be the reason you are being audited. You can take those series of codes and you can look in an extremely long document that comes with the letter and see what the range of possibilities are on what may have been done wrong and what is not right. It is computer generated. The computer is spewing out a series of letters. It could at least transform those letters into the exact words from the text of what those possibilities are. We are suggesting they ought to tell you what the problem is that brought you up for an audit. There are also problems with dollar thresholds. I remember when one of my clients--and I am the only accountant in the U.S. Senate--one of my clients, on a $3 million report, was told they were off by 58 cents. It took 3 months and about nine letters to get that straightened out. I suggest that when the IRS sent that very first letter they had already used as much money as they had the possibility of correcting--58 cents. It turned out they had made a mistake in their addition--58 cents. Then there is the problem of random audits. The IRS has been randomly auditing people in extreme detail. No reason showed up for the need for the audit. It was to get an estimate of how many dollars they might be missing. Those people were required to produce more documents than if they had been chosen for an audit. They had to find the documents for every single line of their audit. What would it achieve? It would give us a better state of how much money is not being collected. It wouldn't collect a dime. We have asked for that process to be stopped, and we have been told it is, but you will hear numbers still brought out about the possibility that we are doing random audits. I congratulate the new Commissioner. The new Commissioner brings a management perspective instead of a tax perspective to an agency that needs some management perspective. He has already changed some of the phone overflow so that people who may not have as heavy a work load can be answering questions. He is looking at a lot of things that need to be done. I have to admit that Congress has a big task ahead of it because part of the problem is the Tax Code itself. It is too cumbersome, too hard to understand, too many provisions, too many exceptions, too many interpretations. So it is up to Congress to take a look at the Tax Code and the American taxpayers to demand that we take a look at that Tax Code. We have to decide if it is going to be a Tax Code of policy or just one of collecting money. So far, we say it is a tax policy. But we really haven't taken the step of sitting down and determining tax policy and what we are trying to achieve. We always jump to the solution without agreement on the problem. I think the voters would buy and be excited over a clearly defined problem. They would hope for a solution. We talk about the American dream. We talk about strong families. We talk about home ownership. We talk about health care for everyone. We talk about the need and importance for investment and savings. We take about the role that small business plays as the backbone of our economy and the economic hope and dream for individuals across this country. In the land of freedom, we hide taxes. And it gets worse. We double tax some people. I ask you, with the exception of home ownership, where are those things reflected in the Tax Code? Stronger families? No, we penalize marriage. We discourage parents from raising their own children. We only give big corporations a health care tax break. We don't even give the same break to individuals paying their portion of health care. We tax investment and interest and at an escalated rate, unearned income. Our current tax system discourages the small, the beginning businesses, particularly those beginning in the home, which brings us back to families. America has become the home of the ``tax trap,'' and the IRS gets to spring it. Let's see, the way the tax trap works is, the harder you work, the more taxes you pay. The more taxes you have to pay, the longer and harder you have to work. You end up with more work, and Washington ends up with more money. I don't think that is how our forefathers saw the system happening. We in Congress have to make filing easier, and that means less forms, that means less instructions, that means less chance of making a mistake, and that means less chance of an audit. When I was at the IRS on the field trip, I asked about paperwork simplification--a major effort by the Federal Government. We have to reduce the amount of paperwork Americans have to do. Well, I want to tell you how they told me how that is rated. The IRS generates more paperwork than the other agencies combined; 75 percent of all Government paperwork comes through the IRS. We had some suggestions for ways the tax forms could be a little easier to fill out. A couple of those required adding another line so that you knew how the number got from here to here. Can't do that. The way the Paperwork Reduction Act works is, to get any credit under paperwork reduction, you have to remove lines from the tax forms or any other Government form, regardless of whether that makes it more difficult or not. That will give you a little explanation why the EZ- 1040 form--the simplest form we are supposed to fill out--has a 33-page instruction manual. You have to be a lawyer to read the detail to figure out what to put on this ``simplified'' tax form. That is not right. But that is why we have it. The Paperwork Reduction Act only gives credit for taking lines off the form, not for building millions of pages of explanation for the lines that you do not understand. I thought of an ``Enzi Form 1040,'' a 1-page form. It would still provide the auditing capability that the IRS would need. It can be done if we go to tax policy and if we get together and work on simplification. Now, the IRS reform bill makes some important structural changes, which I believe will help to focus the agency's mission. This legislation creates a separate board to oversee the management and operations of the IRS. This board would include six private life experts, who will bring their collective private sector experience to such tasks as reviewing and approving the agency's strategic plans and budget requests. The board would also have big picture authority over IRS enforcement and collection activities. Board members would not, however, be permitted to intervene in particular tax disputes. Moreover, in order to ensure the agency's autonomy from improper influence, these board members would be governed by conflict of interest restrictions. I believe this new board, which will be comprised largely of people with experience in the private sector, will help the agency better meet the needs and concerns of the agency's customers--the American taxpayer. Secondly, the IRS reform legislation provides important safeguards for the American taxpayers. For too long, the IRS has actively filled the roles of judge, jury, and executioner in collection actions against taxpayers. This Reform Act would shift the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the IRS in most court proceedings, as long as the taxpayer introduces credible evidence relevant to determining his or her income tax liability. It would also place the burden of proof on the IRS in determining whether penalties should be imposed. The bill expands a taxpayer's ability to collect attorney fees when the IRS brings unwarranted action against them and allows taxpayers to recover civil damages when an IRS employee is negligent in collection actions. Taxpayers may also recover attorney fees in civil actions against the IRS when the IRS engages in unauthorized browsing or disclosure of taxpayer information. It would also provide substantial relief for innocent spouses in collection actions based on past joint returns by allowing spouses to be liable only for tax attributable to their income. Many of the taxpayer provisions in the IRS Reform Act are a direct result of the abuses uncovered last year by the Senate Finance Committee hearings. Many people were shocked to learn that a number of the due process protections Americans take for granted in other legal proceedings do not apply to actions involving the IRS. The bill corrects many of these injustices. Once this bill becomes law, the IRS will be required to provide notice to taxpayers 30 days before the Service files a notice of a Federal tax lien. A taxpayer would then have 30 days to request a hearing by IRS appeals. No collection activity would be allowed until after the hearing. The taxpayer would likewise be able to petition the Tax Court to contest the appeals decision. Finally, the communications privilege now granted only to attorneys would be extended to accountants and other tax practitioners. This charge would provide taxpayers with the necessary confidentiality in communications with their tax preparers, whether or not they are licensed attorneys. I hope this reform activity will spread to some of the other agencies. We have people across America who are living in fear of the Government that they vote for, that they pay for, that is supposed to be working for them--people who really want to do the right thing, but are afraid to ask the right questions for fear that question will be used to penalize them, for fear that question will put them in the public spotlight and embarrass them. It isn't just the IRS; the Environmental Protection Agency is one that a number of small businesses live in fear of asking a question about: Is it pollution? How do I stop it? Can I clean it up and spend the money myself and not be penalized? OSHA is another one of those, where the small businessman lives in fear of asking the right question for fear it will result in a penalty and not an answer. Sometimes they are not even allowed to give an answer, but they are allowed to penalize. So what we are talking about in this bill is allowing the taxpayer to ask his accountant the right question to see if that is what he really owes and not have that become a road map for the IRS for future action. I believe these changes will help rein in many of the intimidation tactics used to target the unsuspecting taxpayers. Thirdly, and lastly, the IRS reform bill will bring and demand greater accountability from the more than 100,000 employees who work for the Internal Revenue Service. It requires all IRS notices and correspondence to include the name, phone number, and address of the IRS employee whom the taxpayer should contact regarding the notice. Imagine that--being able to talk to the person that knows the problem. Moreover, this bill requires the IRS to maintain complaints of any employee misconduct on an individual employee basis. This won't be just the IRS. Each person will have accountability. It will prohibit the IRS from labeling individual taxpayers as ``illegal tax protesters'' and maintaining lists of these individuals. The IRS will also have to disclose to taxpayers in simple terms the criteria and procedures for selecting taxpayers for audit. I believe this will decrease the ability of the IRS to target innocent taxpayers and innocent small businesses for audit. Mr. President, the IRS Reform Act will go a long way in reforming our Government's tax collection practices. By returning customer services and accountability to the IRS, this legislation helps ensure that the American taxpayers are treated with the decency and respect they deserve. Again, I want to thank the chairman for the hearings that he held to lend emphasis to the need for this bill and the desire to have this bill. I appreciate the bipartisan effort that has been made to get this bill moving through the process this week and look forward to the debate that we will have on it. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Chair. I thank my senior Senator. It is kind of Wyoming day, talking about the need for IRS reform. I do rise this morning in support of H.R. 2676, which is the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 that was passed by the House. That document, of course, has been taken by the Senate and improved based on the hearings that were held last year and are currently going on here. By passing legislation to reform the IRS, Congress will take an important step in reforming what many Americans believe to be the most feared agency in the United States. This bill will overhaul the IRS organizational structure. It will provide necessary protections for American taxpayers, and it will require greater accountability for our employees, the IRS employees. There has been tremendous support in this body for making a change. We talked about it at the end of last year when we were appalled at the hearings that were going on at that time. I hope people are tuning into the hearings that are going on now to see the real-life examples of what can happen with a bureaucracy out of control. For any who are interested in the details of the hearings, I have a web site, as do many of the Senators. That web site the day after the hearings posts the testimony from those hearings. We are keeping careful track of it. There are a number of documents that people would be interested in reading that have some summaries of it. I have one in my hand called ``The Lowlights of Today's IRS Testimony,'' that even talks about a manager being pulled at gunpoint from a shower by the IRS. I know that the American public is keeping up on this. I know my colleagues are keeping up on this. I am convinced that there will be something significant done to get the IRS under control. The IRS Reform Act will overhaul the organizational structure of the IRS. In order for any organization to perform its function well, it is necessary for it to know its mission. When I was in the Wyoming State Legislature, we passed an act that forced strategic planning by all of the agencies, one of the most valuable things we have done. We forced them to say what it was they were trying to do. And then we asked them how can we tell if you get it done? That process was so valuable that in a 3-week period we changed our budgeting process to a balanced budget, a new record for the State of Wyoming. I was so excited about what happened there that I talked about having that happen in Washington. I have to tell you that I was delighted when I got here when I found out that Congress had already passed a Government Performance and Results Act. That is an act which says to all of the agencies tell us what you do and tell us how we can tell if you got it done--measurable goals, prioritized goals, goals that are reflected in a budget for the agency so that what they say they are doing is really what they are spending their money on. I didn't feel there was a lot of emphasis on this new program, and a lot of dissension by the agencies, so I did some field trips just after the first of the year. I went to a number of the agencies that had these Government performance and results plans, and asked some more questions just to emphasize a little bit whether they really understood what it was we were trying to get at, the question of how do we know if you got it done? One of the agencies that I went to was the Internal Revenue Service. I don't think there is even the beginning of the numbers to be able to tell what they have done so they can tell if they are getting better. Quite frankly, from the testimony that we have heard, we don't want them getting better. We talked a little bit about the telephone conversations that they have. This is not as drastic stuff as was covered in the hearings. This is some normal stuff that people run into when they are trying to get answers from the IRS. You call them up. A guy answers the phone on the other end and he tells you the answer to your question. You use that information and you have no backup for it, so if somebody later says that it is wrong, you are hung out to dry. It is your problem. I suggested maybe there ought to be written confirmations sent when they give us an opinion, something that we can attach to our tax document and save until that horrible day of an audit. And then we can say, ``No, no, the IRS agent told me this. This is the data I relied on to file my taxes.'' We talked about error notices. I don't know how many people have gotten error notices, but if you do, you get this computer-generated form that says: You have the following problem. And then a series of codes. And you can take another document that is multiple pages and look at it and figure out, perhaps, from that code, what you may or may not have done wrong. What a way to run a business. We have computers. This thing is computer generated. The computer could look up the actual reason if it was keyed in there and list explicitly what they thought you had done wrong so you would have ample notice of what the potential problem was, instead of that fear of being a criminal, for the days that you wait until you meet the IRS person, who then asks you a series of irrelevant questions that you could have had exact answers for, could have maybe even submitted them by mail. Then there is the problem of dollar thresholds. I had one client who had a 58-cent difference on $2 million worth of reporting and it took 3 months and 10 letters to clear up that discrepancy. I don't know how much the IRS expected to make off of a 58-cent error, but I can tell you that their postage on the first letter almost cost them more than what they were trying to correct. Not very good management. We talked about random audits that the Senator from Georgia addressed earlier. They also assured me they were not doing random audits but had this terrible conflict because they cannot tell without random audits how much money they are not collecting. They want to be able to go into people's documents, who they have absolutely no reason to suspect of any errors at all, and review absolutely every detail of their documents and force them to get detailed documents to back up things that we never require detailed documents for when you are filing your tax return. They wanted to look through absolutely everything of your personal life to see if maybe you didn't file something so they can see what the estimated error is of taxes not collected. That is an abomination. Why do we want to know exactly how much, within a few pennies, people did not pay? Their job is to collect the money that was not paid, finding the biggest offenders first. That is a very specific task that auditors do regularly. Auditors figure out who the potential worst people are, and that is from a very prescribed set of criteria that give them indications that somebody may have made errors on their taxes. Most of the time those would prove to not be true, because sometimes people really do have unusual expenditures. They really do have unusual business expenses. But when they do, they have to answer to the IRS. That is a legitimate audit. But not a random one, going through documents and details that nobody ever anticipated needing to dredge up or being required to get in advance. I have to say I think the new Commissioner brings a management perspective instead of a tax perspective, instead of an ``audit the people'' aspect, and I look forward to changes that will be made on that basis. I also asked the IRS if they were doing anything to suggest simplification of the Tax Code. This was a huge revelation to me. We have a Paperwork Reduction Act in the United States. It says that every Government agency is supposed to be figuring out how to reduce the paperwork that you have to do--reduce the paperwork. I even checked to see who generates the most paperwork. It was no surprise. Seventy-five percent of all paperwork for Government agencies is taxes. You know that if you fill out your forms. There are huge numbers of taxes. We had a couple of suggestions for ways that we thought there might be just an additional little explanation right on the tax form, so people would understand what they were filling out. Better there, instead of going through pages of documents. The EZ-1040 form has a 33- page instruction manual, and you still have to be an accountant to understand that instruction manual. I thought maybe just a couple of little additions right there on the page would help people to get the answer and to get it right and to get it easier. That is where the big revelation comes in. The Paperwork Reduction Act is based solely on numbers of lines that are removed from documents. That is what you get your credit for and that is all you get credit for. So there is no incentive whatsoever to make a form more understandable if it increases the number of lines by even one, not a bit of incentive. In fact, there is a disincentive to do that. That is why you find the huge documents explaining the taxes that accompany what are considered to be relatively simple forms. There is a lot of room for improvement there yet. I am not putting all the blame on the IRS on this. There is a difficulty with the tax structure and it is up to Congress to get that tax structure changed. It needs to be easier. It needs to be fairer. Our taxes right now are based on kind of a policy. It is a policy that gets put together as another person explains a policy to us. We have to decide whether we are going to go with policy or just collecting money. Just collecting money is a lot easier. I suggest, if we are going to have a tax policy, we ought to really have a tax policy and sit down and have that debate and talk about whether we are trying to promote the American dream and have strong families and have home ownership and encourage investment and savings and encourage small business. And we can do that through a Tax Code. And I really think we can do that through a Tax Code and make the Tax Code simple. And we have to do that. Right now we talk about stronger families and then we penalize marriages; we discourage parents from raising their own children; and we only give big business a health care tax break. We put the American people in a tax trap. You have to work longer and harder to pay your taxes, and if you work longer and harder, you have more taxes you have to pay. We do have to find a way to make filing easier, and that means fewer forms, that means fewer instructions, that means less chance for making a mistake, and that has to mean less chance for an audit. If you are audited, we have to have the IRS under control so that the taxpayer is the person who is in control, not the one who feels like they are going to jail. The IRS reform bill makes some important structural changes, which, I believe, will help to focus the agency's mission. This legislation creates a separate board to oversee the management and operations of the IRS. This board will include six ``private life'' experts who will bring their collective private-sector experience to such tasks as reviewing and approving the agency's strategic plans and budget requests to make sure everything matches up. The board will also have ``big picture'' authority over IRS enforcement and collection activities. Board members would not, however, be permitted to intervene in particular tax disputes. Moreover, in order to ensure the agency's autonomy from improper influence, these board members would be governed by conflict of interest restrictions. I believe this new board, which will be comprised largely of people with experience in the private sector, will help the agency meet better the needs and the concerns of the agency's customers--America's taxpayers. The IRS reform legislation provides important safeguards for American taxpayers. For too long, the IRS has filled the roles of judge, jury and executioner in collection actions against taxpayers. This Reform Act would shift the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the IRS in most court proceedings as long as the taxpayer introduces credible evidence relevant to determining his or her income tax liability. It would also place the burden of proof on the IRS in determining whether penalties should be imposed. The bill expands the taxpayer's ability to collect attorney's fees when the IRS brings unwarranted actions against them and allows taxpayers to recover civil damages from an IRS employee if he is negligent in the collection actions. Taxpayers may also recover attorney's fees in civil actions against the IRS when the IRS engages in unauthorized browsing or disclosure of taxpayer information. It would also provide substantial relief for innocent spouses in collection actions based on past joint returns by allowing the spouses to be liable only for tax attributable to their income. No one should be liable for taxes they couldn't possibly know about. Many of the taxpayer protection provisions in the Reform Act are a direct result of the abuses uncovered last year by the Senate Finance Committee hearings. Many people were shocked to learn that a number of the due-process protections Americans take for granted in other legal proceedings do not apply to actions involving the IRS. This bill corrects many of those injustices. Once this bill becomes law, the IRS will be required to provide notice to taxpayers 30 days before the Service files a notice of Federal tax lien. A taxpayer would then have 30 days to request a hearing from the IRS appeals. No collection activity would be allowed until after the hearing. The taxpayer would likewise be able to petition the Tax Court to contest the appeals decision. Finally, the communications privilege now granted only to attorneys would be extended to accountants. That means you could ask your accountant a question about your taxes, and when he gave that answer, you could rely on it not being passed directly on to the IRS. He would be in your corner for sure. It needs to be that way. We have to change some other agencies, too. People are afraid to ask the EPA about potential pollution problems because they don't want to be fined. They just want to stop the problem and correct it if there really is one. But we have this Government fear of asking a question for fear that it will come down on us with penalties and unusual actions by a Government agency. The same thing happens with OSHA. If there is a safety problem, you don't want to ask OSHA for sure, because it might just result in penalties, not even an answer. That is the problem we have with Government. This would make the questions that you ask your accountant your questions and your information, and you could feel secure that it would not be the subject of the penalties by the IRS. This change would provide taxpayers with the necessary confidentiality and communications with their tax preparers whether or not they are licensed attorneys. I believe these changes will help rein in many of the intimidation tactics used to target unsuspecting taxpayers. Lastly, the IRS reform bill will demand greater accountability from the 100,000 employees who work for IRS. It requires all IRS notices and correspondence to include the name, the phone number, and address of the IRS employee whom the taxpayer should contact regarding the notice. Moreover, this bill requires the IRS to maintain complaints of any employee misconduct on an individual employee basis. Individuals will be responsible for their own actions. It won't just be passed off as an IRS problem. It will prohibit the IRS from labeling individual taxpayers as ``illegal tax protesters'' and maintaining lists of these individuals. The IRS will also have to disclose to taxpayers in simple terms the criteria and procedures for selecting the taxpayer for audit. I believe this will decrease the ability of the IRS to target innocent taxpayers and small businesses for audits. Mr. President, the IRS Reform Act will go a long way in reforming our Government's tax collection practices. By returning customer service and accountability to the IRS, this legislation helps ensure that the American taxpayers will be treated with the decency and respect they deserve. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the IRS Restructuring Reform Act. I yield the floor. Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 221 submitted earlier today by Senators Burns and Baucus.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. For the information of all Senators, tomorrow the Senate will begin consideration of S. 1186, the job training partnership bill. Under the previous consent agreement, there will be 4 hours of debate equally divided on several amendments to be offered to the bill. As a reminder, any votes ordered with respect to S. 1186 will be stacked to occur at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5. Members should also be aware that on Monday, May 4, the Senate will begin consideration of the IRS reform bill. It is hoped that Members will come to the floor to debate the IRS bill and to offer amendments to that legislation. Again, as with the Job Training Partnership Act, any votes ordered with respect to the IRS reform bill will be postponed to occur beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 222 submitted earlier today by Senator Lott and others. I further ask unanimous consent that the clerk read the resolution and the preamble.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution that was read be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of the transaction of morning business.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on the Executive Calendar: Calendar No. 581, and Calendar No. 582; also, four Coast Guard nominations reported by the Commerce Committee today; and all military nominations reported by the Armed Services Committee today. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I further ask that any votes ordered with respect to S. 1186 or amendments thereto be stacked to occur at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Friday, May 1. I further ask that on Friday, immediately following the prayer, the routine requests through the morning hour be granted and the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 1186, the job training partnership bill, under the previous time agreement of 4 hours equally divided.

Mr. ENZI. I further ask that at the conclusion of the consideration of S. 1186, during Friday's session, the Senate begin a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the following exceptions: Senator Coverdell, 1 hour; Senator Daschle or his designee, 1 hour.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action with respect to the NATO enlargement treaty.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I further ask that following the vote on adoption of the State Department conference report, at 2:25 p.m., there be 2 minutes equally divided for closing remarks on the Harkin amendment prior to the vote on or in relation to the Harkin amendment.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at this time to modify the Kyl amendment with the modification that is at the desk.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 4:30 p.m. today, the Senate resume consideration of the Kyl amendment No. 2310, as modified, and there be 30 minutes equally divided for debate on the amendment. Further, I ask unanimous consent that following the expiration or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on or in relation to the Kyl amendment, and further that no amendments be in order to the Kyl amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I have just returned from a very enjoyable time of traveling around Wyoming, attending town meetings, going to school classrooms, pounding a little bit on a Habitat for Humanity house. When I left Wyoming, it was snowing. But the folks in Wyoming understand that if there hadn't been a little bit of global warming, we would be under about 300 feet of ice. So they may not be as concerned as perhaps some other places in the world, but I want to talk today a little bit about the global warming treaty as well. I went to the treaty conference in Kyoto. I went with Senator Hagel and a couple of other Senators. The purpose of our trip was to convey the importance of the Byrd-Hagel resolution. We went over there to talk about a resolution that passed this Senate 95-0. That is a pretty clear message, and it was also a very simple message. The developing nations have to participate in the treaty and the treaty cannot result in serious harm to the U.S. economy. I have to say the treaty fails. It is unfair. The benefits are unclear. The costs are unknown, and the administration is unresponsive to our requests for information. Kyoto was titled ``a global warming'' conference, but I have to say it was an economic conference disguised as an environmental conference. While we were over there, we got to meet with the Chinese delegation. The Chinese, by the year 2010, will be the world's largest polluter, unquestionably. We wanted to know what they intended to do about that. They said nothing, they are a developing nation. We asked them what their definition was of a ``developing nation'' so that we would know when they would no longer be a developing nation. They said, ``We will always be a developing nation.'' We asked them if they would do voluntary restraints on their pollution. They said no. We asked, How about voluntary restraints at some future unspecified date? I don't know how you can make any negotiation looser than that. Their answer was no. We also got to hear from some of the island nations that are refusing to be a part of any voluntary restraints. Island nations. We are talking about nations that, if global warming is true, the polar icecap will melt and their island will be inundated with water; they will disappear as a country. They said they would not be a part of it, that they were a developing nation and they didn't need to do it. To me, that is the best evidence that there isn't global warming. There is no consensus on global warming. Some scientists argue that the carbon dioxide in global warming is even good. The important thing is that we are already doing more than others. We are doing more without recognition. We are doing more without penalties. We are doing more because it is the right thing to do. But this was an economic conference disguised as an environmental conference. It was a conference where we lose. I remember an incident in the Northwest, near my home up in Washington, where we got concerned about the spotted owl, that it was headed for certain extinction. We halted the Northwest logging industry. We put an entire industry and its employees out of work. Our national forests were left unmanaged, and they are now a big tinderbox; they burn whenever lightning strikes. It is not very good stewardship when we are wasting what we have. After all this, we have discovered that this timid little bird has been building nests in billboards by the highways and they are undisturbed by the passing cars and trucks. A part of our economy moved to other countries where they don't have the environmental laws. Logging moved to Siberia. Russian loggers are tearing down 10 million acres of forest each year. In our effort to save the spotted owl, we have wiped out the Siberian tiger. We have to be careful with the consequences of what we are promoting. The Vice President believes we can get rid of coal and use clean energy, like wind. I have to tell you, there are few places that are windier than the little belt that goes across southern Wyoming. It is up in the high plains, where the wind doesn't have any trees to block it. We have tried some wind experiments there. They built a generator, only to have the wind velocity blow the rotors off. I asked the environmentalists, what about wind energy, what is the potential for that? It only makes up one-third of 1 percent of our country's energy use at the present time. Their response was that it will kill the bald eagles; the eagles will fly into the generators and get chopped up. Not a good solution. I asked about water. Well, water changes the nature of the fish that use it, if we use it for hydraulic power. Nuclear power-- we don't even have to talk about nuclear power and the problems supposed to be caused by it and the way that we haven't met our energy requirements for the storage of nuclear waste. The biggest thing that disturbed me about the Kyoto trip was that we went there without the data we requested. Before we went to Kyoto, we made it clear that there was information which we were certain any good negotiators would be gathering to use for their case. We still haven't gotten that. When we went over there, we talked about a 1990 date and maintaining the levels that we had in 1990. Our negotiators allowed the other countries to relax the criteria they had already agreed to while we made ours more difficult. Marvelous negotiating. They never did answer the questions about the kind of administration that would be necessary, the kind of bureaucracy that we build internationally, what kind of regulations, and to whom the United States would be subject. We didn't talk about the pollution topic, and that is going to be involved. I do remember, from some of the discussion of the Chinese, that they had a solution for penalties. There ought to be penalties for those developing nations that could not meet their criteria, and their idea was that the penalties then would be distributed to those developing nations on the basis of population. Now, there is negotiation. Numbers. We still don't have numbers. I put in an amendment last year on the foreign operations spending bill. It asked for the numbers that the administration has been collecting on global warming: How many American jobs would be lost with the treaty? How much will it cost the taxpayers to pay for Federal programs? What Federal programs will be needed? We haven't received an answer. Apparently, none of the agencies involved can say how much they are going to spend on climate change. This lack of accountability is a disgrace. The taxpayers should be outraged. Maybe we ought to sic some of those IRS auditors on the Office of Management and Budget until we get the numbers we asked for a year ago. Nobody knows exactly how much will be needed, where it is going, or what the purpose of it will be. Now, according to the numbers I am reading, that ought to be about a $6 billion to $10 billion violation of the Government Performance and Results Act. Yes, we have a law that says that the Government agencies are supposed to tell us what they are doing. Here is the important part. They are supposed to tell us how we can tell if it is getting done. And then it is supposed to be reflected in their budgets so that we can see that what they said they were going to do will get done within the constraints of the money that is there. Somewhere the numbers have to be available for what global warming--no, for what the administration's proposal of anti-economic development will cost us. It is time for the administration to tell us exactly how much, how it is going to be done, if there will be incentives or just penalties, how will it administer it and give a little bit of credit to those that are already working the problem without the international treaty. Americans have a right to know where their tax dollars are going. This last week, the American people spent their tax dollars, sent their tax dollars, will be audited on their tax dollars. It is time that we audit the Federal Government on the use of those tax dollars and hold them to the 95-0 treaty that protects American jobs, and make sure that if we say we are going to do a job, we are able to do the job. We owe it to the American people. I yield the floor. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI

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

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, as we are heading out on the Easter recess, I want to wish all my colleagues godspeed and also make a small request of them while they are in their home States. That request is for them to thank the people that smoke for their contribution of $368.5 billion, or perhaps $510 billion. I think a lot of people out there think we are finally going to get to the big bad tobacco companies and get them to pay some money up front here and kick in for all the damage that has been done. But, really, the smokers are going to wind up paying this. I don't know whether it will be for increased tobacco costs, or whether it will be for an increased tobacco tax. At any rate, it is going to range from 50 cents to $1.10 or $1.50, or whatever they think will make a difference. Having said that, I ought to mention that I had not accepted any money from the tobacco companies during my campaign. It could have been very critical, as I had a highly underfunded campaign. I was offered money from the tobacco companies, but I would not accept it. I could see this sort of debate and discussion coming up later. I didn't want to be seen as favoring the tobacco companies and will not be favoring the tobacco companies. I have a lot of concerns, as we have gotten into this tobacco debate. In fact, the concerns have gotten to be so many that I am kind of depressed about whether or not there is any capability to do anything about the problem. When I was growing up, my folks smoked. Both my mom and my dad smoked, and they smoked a lot. In fact, I had the feeling that I didn't smoke because I could walk anywhere in the house, inhale, and get plenty of smoke. About the time I was a junior in high school, though, my dad saw a program on television. As part of this program, some kids visited a lab and they had a beaker about 6 inches in diameter and about a foot tall, half filled with some liquid. That was the amount of tar that the average smoker would have collected in their lungs. One of the kids reached into this beaker and pulled his fingers back up out of there and had strands of sticky tar hanging from it. At that point, my dad quit smoking. He and Mom had talked about smoking for as long as I could remember and about all of the money they would save if they quit smoking. But they had not quit--well, they quit several times, but they had taken it back up again. My mom had always said that if my dad would quit smoking, she would quit. My dad saw the picture of the stringy tar coming out of the beaker, thought about his lungs, and quit. It wasn't easy, but he quit. After a couple of weeks of my dad having quit, my mom decided that she had to quit, too; that was part of the deal. About a year later, I went for my annual athletic physical, and the doctor asked me to sit in his office for a minute because he wanted to talk to me, and I did; you always do what the doctor says. When he came in, he said, ``I am really glad to see that you quit smoking.'' I said, ``I have never smoked.'' He said, ``Oh, yes, you have, take a look at these x-rays.'' He put up the x-ray of a year before and showed me how clogged my lungs were the year before. So for years I have known about secondary smoke. We didn't even know to call it ``secondary smoke'' problems at that time. But they were there. It was evident on the x- rays. I also had a problem as I was growing up with hay fever. It wasn't seasonal, but I thought it had to do with molds, grass, and that sort of thing. Another benefit I had of my folks quitting smoking was that I got over hay fever. Secondary smoke again. About a year and a half ago, my mom had a heart attack. We found out at that time that she might still be smoking. It is a powerful addiction. So I do have some interest in smoking. I went to the George Washington University here in Washington, DC, when I went to college, and there used to be a medical museum on the mall right by the Smithsonian. It has been replaced by the Air and Space displays there. I think it still exists somewhere in the District. But one of the displays they had in there was parts of the human body cut up in thin slices, encased in plastic, and you could kind of page your way through a liver or a heart or lungs. They had lungs of smokers and nonsmokers. So there is a problem there, and it has been recognized for a long time. I do not think there is anybody now who argues that cigarettes will not kill you if you use enough of them long enough. It will have an effect on your health. I am very disturbed that there are still young people who are starting to smoke. They know what the damage is, they know what the outcome is going to be, and they still smoke. On behalf of all of these folks, we are going to look at a settlement. We are going to try to figure out whether we have the right to settle on behalf of the whole country and, if we do, in what categories we have that right to settle and what kind of a precedent we will be setting in all kinds of other fields where people may be damaged by things that at one point in time we did not know might damage them but now might clearly know that, because this will be precedent setting. The biggest thing I wish to talk about today is the smokers themselves, because I know as I travel around Wyoming--and I am in Wyoming almost every weekend; it is a big State with a lot of small towns, so it takes a lot of travel, and we get around regularly and talk to folks. But I know from talking to the smokers, it has not hit home yet that the smokers will pay the bill. Whether it is an increased tax or increased prices of cigarettes, the companies will collect it, the companies will forward it to us, but the smokers will pay the tab. Something that is happening back here that is disturbing me a little bit is, we have run into this $368.5 billion; that is a number that has been quoted for a long time. I noticed the tobacco settlement that came out of the Commerce Committee calls for about $510 billion. It doesn't matter which of those figures you want to use; they are both huge numbers. They are both probably too small a number to solve what we are talking about solving. But we are not necessarily talking about using that money to solve the problems of smoking, we are talking about it as a new addiction. That is what I call the political addiction --if there is some money and it is not earmarked, it is an addiction. I saw a cartoon. The cartoon essentially said: Don't give alcohol to an alcoholic; don't give drugs to a drug addict; and don't give money to a politician. This is more money than we have looked at in quite some time. There have always been constraints on the money we have had before. But this is pretty wide open. Oh, sure, we have said there are some things we would do with it. In fact, it was the States that brought up this issue originally. The States started some lawsuits against the tobacco companies, and they won. So now they have some money coming, and the tobacco companies can see that this could catch on, and it has. It has been to a number of States now. So the tobacco companies have said, let's get together and talk about a settlement; let's see how we can rein in a little bit of this and do some damage control. Of course, they are looking at damage control primarily for their companies, so they have reached some agreements with folks. It is a varied group of folks. Again, I do not know if they have the right to do the kinds of negotiations they say they are doing, but any way that you look at it, it is the States that started, the States that got agreements partly through the courts, now partly through negotiations and a settlement, and it seems to me that those States expect that they are going to get some money to reimburse themselves for the Medicaid they have spent to take care of smokers. That is what the lawsuit was about. That is the basis on which they won. So probably we ought to think about a little bit of that money getting back to the States to do what we said would be done based on the lawsuits and the settlement that came out of them. Now, 57 percent of Medicaid is the Federal part of the cost. So do we just have the States collect their share? How much of the $368 billion or $510 billion ought to be ours? Well, that is something we ought to legitimately address. But I am concerned that there is not money in that settlement that deals with the cost of Medicare. Smokers are going to have bigger problems when they get into Medicare than nonsmokers. It works that way with insurance; it works that way with Medicare. There isn't any money talked about in the settlement. We have talked about taking the Federal portion of the money from tobacco and putting that into Medicare. Good idea. Part of it comes, though, from reimbursing Medicaid, the Federal portion, the 57 percent. So we ought to take some money and put it into Medicaid probably. But we are talking about taking it--and this is for ease of talking about how we are going to handle it. The Medicare system is in trouble partly because of smoking. We are going to take a portion, that portion that turns out to be the Federal portion, and put it into Medicare. Good idea. Good plan. Medicare ought to have an additional contribution based on how much of it is caused by smoking--something that has been known by the companies for a long time that they have been causing, something they didn't own up to completely, something they are now talking about. So we need to be sure there is some Medicare money in there. Now, one of the fascinating phases I have talked about in dealing with the Medicare thing is a comment by some of the tobacco companies that it really should not be a very big part of their expense, because most smokers do not live long enough to be a part of the Medicare problem. I do not know if that is justification or not. It does not seem to me that it would be. We are also talking about using some of the money to compensate the people who are growing the tobacco, and there probably is some obligation on our part--not necessarily out of the $368.5 billion--to compensate the growers. The growers probably have seen the damage that smoking has been causing over the years and have had some options on other things they could have done with their land, and so a total compensation for losses probably is not in order. There are vending machine owners, and they are small businessmen, and I think in the settlement we are talking about compensating them, compensating them even for future loss of revenues. I am an advocate of the small businessman. I have been a small businessman. I know what some of those problems are. But I cannot go along with compensating them both for the loss of the vending machine and the loss of their future revenues. That is the normal course of doing business--figuring out what the future is going to be, what changes there are going to be in the marketplace and how you will adjust. These changes are not coming on that suddenly that they have to be compensated for future loss of revenues. I am even interested, as the only accountant in the Senate, in how they are coming up with the cost of the vending machines. It seems to me it ought to be the cost of the vending machines less what they have been allowed to depreciate under the tax system. I suggest there ought to be another part to this, and that other part I call smokers' compensation. Since the smokers of this country are going to be paying the bill, at least a portion of the money that we are going to collect, whichever method we use, ought to go for some kind of a fund that is going to solve the future health problems of these folks who are paying the bill. They ought to have some individual responsibility. It is a decision they made on their own to smoke, it is something they have known about for a long time as causing their own problems, but we are about to have one of the biggest court gluts that we have ever seen. The tobacco settlement bill as it came out of the Commerce Committee, as I understand it, has some form of immunity in it. That is a cap for the tobacco companies, guaranteeing them they will not be sued for more than $6.5 billion a year. That's liability protection. That means it still goes through the normal system of lawsuits. Somebody has to sue the tobacco companies to get compensation. They still have to win in court. But the companies will not lose more than $6.5 billion in any way. What we are going to have is thousands of lawsuits piled up in the courts, lawsuits of people trying to get to be first to the money so their money will come within the $6.5 billion cap. It sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money. It is not enough money to take care of all of the problems caused by smoking out there. In fact, I am pretty sure that if we took the entire assets of every tobacco company in the United States, put them out of business and sold the assets, that that would not be enough money to take care of the problems that have been caused by smoking. Unfortunately, the courts have become one of the biggest lotteries that we have in the country. It is a legal lottery, but you have to have a lawyer to scratch your card for you. That has become one of the biggest attorney retirement funds there is. The attorneys typically get about 40 percent of what they win for you. They don't have any pain. They don't have any suffering. They don't have the problems with the smoking. They just provide their legal expertise--and you need that to go to court. In exchange for their legal expertise and the money that you receive, they will get about 40 percent plus expenses. It has been anticipated that probably less than half of whatever money goes into this legal fund will ever get to a smoker. So we have the problem of how much is going to get to the smoker. We have the courts jammed up now with everybody trying to be first in line to get his or her money. And I suspect, because we now know how bad the tobacco companies have been, that the first awards by the juries are going to be good ones. This is going to be truly the lottery. This is going to be a lot of money, and it will use up the $6.5 billion each and every year and leave some people without any compensation, or sharing in the lesser pool, or whatever. I am trying to figure out how this could be handled and how we could save some of that money so the smokers who are paying the bill could get some of their compensation back, could get some of their health problems taken care of. I am suggesting that we set up a smokers' compensation fund. A lot of people are familiar with Workers Compensation. That goes to the workers on the job. If a worker gets hurt, there is a set procedure already that he can get his medical bills paid and get some compensation for his loss of time and not have to go to court. That is to give him quicker treatment, which is essential, and make sure the doctors understand that they will be paid. It's a system that has developed over more than half a century to try to help the worker. It does preserve some money there. I am suggesting that same sort of system could be put in place so smokers, when they have a problem, can be assured of immediate treatment and immediate compensation, and the funds that they and the tobacco companies are paying in would be what provides this fund. So it not only provides for the smokers but it also provides that the nonsmokers are not funding the problem also. That is what we are doing now with Medicare. Medicare dollars from everybody go into the Medicare funds and then Medicare funds go to take care of the extra costs that come with the smoking. I know that is not possible. It is too complicated. I cannot even do an adequate job, in a limited amount of time, of explaining how smokers' compensation would work and how it would save the courts problems, and how it would assure that everybody would have an equal shot at the money and how there would be enough money, provided we force the companies and the smokers to put that money into the fund. What I am suggesting is that we do put the money from the settlement for tobacco into Medicare and at the same time we begin to collect the statistics from the Medicare fund that show how many of the illnesses that are going into that fund, that are drawing money out of the fund, are smoking related. I looked at targeting them, decided that we can keep track of what is smoking related and what is not smoking related, so we will even have enough statistics that we would be able to establish a smokers' compensation fund where the smoking money goes to take care of the smoking problems and so there is money for the people who are there. This is going to be a long process. I don't think we will reach a settlement this year. When I was flying back on the plane last weekend, I started making a list of the complications that are going to keep a tobacco settlement from happening. It only takes 51 votes out of the 100 here to stop anything. It is much harder to pass anything in a legislative body than it is to stop it, because when you pass something, it has to go through a whole series of processes starting with the committees, and at any one time in that process, if there is less than a majority vote, it is dead. It will have to go through that process here, too. If 51 people don't like the deal that's put together, it is not going to happen. When I was listing those things, I got up to three pages, single spaced, of outline only, of the problems that look to me to be rather insurmountable in dealing with the tobacco settlement. So I don't think anybody will get really excited about what is going to happen and whether it will happen. But one thing they can be assured is we are going to raise prices on tobacco one way or another. So we ought to be both thanking the smokers and asking how we can reduce smoking and how we can take care of the people who are going to be paying the bill on this, which is the smokers. Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I rise to express my support for the common sense amendment, No. 2170, which would pay down the national debt. When Congress was in session, and on most weekends, I traveled thousands of miles throughout the vast State of Wyoming. I polled people on what they think is the most important thing we can be doing with their money. I consistently heard many people say, ``If there's a surplus, pay down the debt.'' I have to tell you, they don't quite believe in the surplus we keep talking about back here because they understand Social Security. But they don't want us squandering it on new spending and new ideas. If recent CBO statistics hold true, we should see a budget surplus of $8 billion in fiscal year 1999--not counting Social Security. However, we did not get to this point by exercising fiscal constraint. We still spend too much. We spend about $1.7 trillion every year. I voted against the spending portion of the balanced budget amendment of 1997 because it seemed clear to me that more could have been done to cut down the size and scope of the Federal Government. We could have enacted more meaningful entitlement reform. We could have gotten the fiscal house in order faster. If not for the unexpected revenues that came as a result of 7 years of economic expansion, we would not be close to eliminating that deficit today. Just the interest that we are now paying on the Federal debt has reached about 15 percent of the total budget outlays. That amounts to about $250 billion that cannot be used for education or military readiness or national defense. The only way we can cut down on the amount and percentage of interest paid is to reduce the Federal debt. This amendment will accomplish just that. It will set Congress on a path of fiscal responsibility and will require a 30-year pay down of the Federal debt. In the past few months, I have seen a unique attitude transformation take place in this city. Even though a budget surplus or zero deficit, only estimated, has not yet occurred, the administration did not hesitate to offer around $100 billion worth of new or expanded programs that would easily create a larger deficit in the proposed balanced budget. It seems their eye for spending is still bigger than the taxpayers' wallet. Even though the economy is strong, I am surprised that so few in Congress are concerned about what we, as a nation, are in danger of passing on to our children and our grandchildren. It seems we are tied to the immediate gratification we receive from spending more money that we don't have, that we don't see the danger that looms in the not-too- distant future if we don't stop spending on credit with reckless abandon. That danger is a massive Federal debt and the changing demographics that will place a tremendous amount of pressure on young taxpayers who, if no change is made with the entitlement programs, will see a bankrupt Social Security and Medicare system and a mountain of high debt and an economy so weak that there will be no hope of passing it off--paying it off; we are trying to pass us off. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that we deserve these benefits and we will it to our children to figure out a way to pay for them. Throughout the debate in the budget resolution it becomes even more evident that it does not matter whether the economy is performing at record highs or lows, some Members of Congress will always propose more spending and more programs. I have heard numerous excuses this week of why we should spend more of our Federal dollars. There seems to be a belief that no matter how much we spend, we are not spending enough for the American people. Before I came to Washington as a Senator, I knew we had a plethora of Federal programs. Now that I am here, however, I am even more astounded at the number of programs available for nearly everything and everyone under the sun. But some still believe the Federal Government is not doing nearly enough to help those in want or need, or more. It is very short-sighted to believe that our children or grandchildren will not be left with the bill that is accruing. Do we ever stop to think what the possible consequences are before we propose a program expansion or creation? The Allard amendment would require us to focus on our priorities. It would help us focus on a limited, less-expansive Federal Government. A limited, responsive Federal Government is what the people of Wyoming expect from any government, whether at the State, local or Federal level. They and the other American people deserve a disciplined Federal Government. This amendment will help Congress focus on limiting the scope of Government. With a Federal debt of over $5.5 trillion, we must run budget surpluses not just for 1 or 2 years, but for 30 or more years to pay off the debt. I believe the administration and Congress should heed the words of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan. He noted in his testimony in the Senate Budget Committee on January 29, 1998, that we should be cautious in our spending because Federal revenues are not guaranteed and may fall short of expectations. He, again, advised that we should be aiming for budgetary surpluses and using the proceeds to retire the outstanding Federal debt. He mentions how that will help the economy and save Social Security. The Allard amendment follows the advice of Chairman Greenspan. It requires budgetary surpluses every year, with these surpluses going toward payment of the Federal debt. These payments would amortize the debt over the next 30 years, similar to mortgage payments on a $5.5 trillion mansion. Anybody who purchases a house must pay the mortgage that accompanies it. Why should the Federal Government be exempt from a similar requirement? It is the ethical thing to do and it just makes sound economic sense. Yes, we bought a house for ourselves and our kids and our grandkids, and we will pass on the house and we will pass on the debt. But let's be sure that we are current on the payments. The Allard amendment will not take money from the Social Security system. To the contrary, it will extend the life and solvency of the Social Security system and other entitlement programs. The best way to shore up Social Security is to pay down the national debt while we work on reforms to the system. Now is the time to start making those mortgage payments and to begin to chip away at the mountain of debt. It is irresponsible, reckless, and selfish to wait any longer. Any delay will further jeopardize the national security and economic freedom of our Nation and our children. Some may ask if we can afford to do this now. In response, I will borrow the words of President Ronald Reagan: ``If not now, when? If not us, who?'' I urge my colleagues to support the Allard-Enzi amendment.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague, the senior Senator from my state of Wyoming, in the effort to safeguard the integrity of the nation's military memorials from the politically expedient demands of foreign governments--in this case the so-called ``Bells of Balangiga'' war memorial located in Wyoming's capital city of Cheyenne. I too, am amazed that such legislation is necessary. Amazed, but not surprised. After all, this is a President who seems to have no qualms about throwing overboard those states and communities who have not proven politically valuable to him. I recall his unilateral Utah land grab of the Grand Escalante. I also recall that he, with the Vice President at his side, signed the Presidential directive for that action in Arizona, so unpopular was it in the State of Utah. His unilateral forest roads construction moratorium is another such example of his proclivity for government by executive fiat. Many people contend that church bells are not a fitting subject for a war memorial. The circumstances surrounding these particular bells, however, are not normal. As the Senior Senator from Wyoming related, those bells were not used by Philippino insurgents to call the faithful to prayer that harrowing morning. They were used instead to signal the massacre of Wyoming troops as they sat down, unarmed, to breakfast. Of the 74 officers and men in the garrison, only twenty survived. Eye witness accounts had some of the attackers disguised as women, their weapons hidden beneath their dresses. Many others smuggled their weapons into the village hidden in the coffins of children. Under those circumstances, one must conclude that the bells in question were used to kill. Consequently I feel their use as the subject for a war memorial is wholly appropriate. This is especially true in light of their intended purpose if returned to the Philippines. As everyone concedes, the Philippine government desires the return of these bells in time for their 100th anniversary of independence. Apparently, these bells do not represent a religious symbol for the Philippine government either. Most significant of all, however, is the purpose they currently serve. Contrary to the assumptions of many, they do not memorialize American foreign policies of the time. Nor do they serve as a tribute to our political system, America's turn of the century notions of race relations, or the performance of the American troops who served there during that conflict. Rather, these bells memorialize one thing and one thing only: The tragic and premature deaths of 54 young men who volunteered to do the bidding of the American people. For this purpose I believe these bells serve as a most fitting memorial indeed and I am opposed to its dismantlement. It is time to honor our veterans, our war dead, and the principle that in this country, we do not submit to government by Presidential fiat. I ask the support of my colleagues for this legislation.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague, the senior Senator from my state of Wyoming, in the effort to safeguard the integrity of the nation's military memorials from the politically expedient demands of foreign governments--in this case the so-called ``Bells of Balangiga'' war memorial located in Wyoming's capital city of Cheyenne. I too, am amazed that such legislation is necessary. Amazed, but not surprised. After all, this is a President who seems to have no qualms about throwing overboard those states and communities who have not proven politically valuable to him. I recall his unilateral Utah land grab of the Grand Escalante. I also recall that he, with the Vice President at his side, signed the Presidential directive for that action in Arizona, so unpopular was it in the State of Utah. His unilateral forest roads construction moratorium is another such example of his proclivity for government by executive fiat. Many people contend that church bells are not a fitting subject for a war memorial. The circumstances surrounding these particular bells, however, are not normal. As the Senior Senator from Wyoming related, those bells were not used by Philippino insurgents to call the faithful to prayer that harrowing morning. They were used instead to signal the massacre of Wyoming troops as they sat down, unarmed, to breakfast. Of the 74 officers and men in the garrison, only twenty survived. Eye witness accounts had some of the attackers disguised as women, their weapons hidden beneath their dresses. Many others smuggled their weapons into the village hidden in the coffins of children. Under those circumstances, one must conclude that the bells in question were used to kill. Consequently I feel their use as the subject for a war memorial is wholly appropriate. This is especially true in light of their intended purpose if returned to the Philippines. As everyone concedes, the Philippine government desires the return of these bells in time for their 100th anniversary of independence. Apparently, these bells do not represent a religious symbol for the Philippine government either. Most significant of all, however, is the purpose they currently serve. Contrary to the assumptions of many, they do not memorialize American foreign policies of the time. Nor do they serve as a tribute to our political system, America's turn of the century notions of race relations, or the performance of the American troops who served there during that conflict. Rather, these bells memorialize one thing and one thing only: The tragic and premature deaths of 54 young men who volunteered to do the bidding of the American people. For this purpose I believe these bells serve as a most fitting memorial indeed and I am opposed to its dismantlement. It is time to honor our veterans, our war dead, and the principle that in this country, we do not submit to government by Presidential fiat. I ask the support of my colleagues for this legislation.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I would like to speak on the Gregg amendment.