Michael Enzi

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, thank you. I rise today to address an issue that is of great concern to the people of the State of Wyoming as well as the citizens of America. During my campaign last summer and fall, and again since I have taken office, I have traveled all across the great State of Wyoming. I have traveled from Cheyenne in the south to Sheridan in the north and from Evanston in the west to Sundance in the east and all of the counties in between. One message came through loud and clear from the citizens of Wyoming: Our tax system is too complicated and our taxes are too high. Working families are forced to pay too much for their income to a bloated Federal Government. Small businesses, which are the backbone of the American economy, are strangled by a complicated and often punitive Tax Code. As the only accountant in the U.S. Senate, I have had to weed through a Tax Code which is frustratingly complex. And as a small businessman, I have experienced firsthand the Tax Code which all too often discourages individual enterprise and penalizes ingenuity. As a husband and a father, I have felt the burden of working for nearly half a year to pay all the taxes levied by the Federal, State, and local governments. I promised the people of Wyoming that I would work to make the tax system simpler and fairer so that the taxpayers of Wyoming and America could keep more of their hard-earned money. I should note that it has been the Republicans who have long been sounding the battle cry for lower taxes and smaller Federal Government. It was the Republicans who led the charge on the balanced budget constitutional amendment. And it is the Republicans who have shown the determination to provide meaningful tax relief for America's families. I was proud to be an original cosponsor of the balanced budget constitutional amendment. I am also proud to be a cosponsor of several bills that would get us closer to a simpler and fairer tax system. With tax day now upon us, we are reminded of the impact our current tax system has on all of us. We are paying the price for a Government that has too long lived beyond its means. Like a child in a candy shop, the Federal Government hasn't met a sugar-coated spending project it did not like. To pay for its appetite, Congress has left the American people holding the tab with higher and higher taxes. It's time for Congress to rein in the Federal Government and ease the burden it places on America's taxpayers. Since I was sworn in as a Member of the U.S. Senate, I have joined my Republican colleagues in cosponsoring legislation that would allow America's families to keep more of what they earn. The American Family Tax Relief Act includes a $500-per-child tax credit, substantial cuts in the capital gains rate, and sizable reductions in the punitive estate tax. This legislation helps families with children by returning some of their hard-earned money to them. The American Family Tax Relief Act encourages investment and frees up creative capital by lessening the penalty of the capital gains transactions. I have cosponsored legislation that would help small businesses by allowing them a 100-percent deduction on health insurance coverage for their employees. This home-based business tax relief would put small businesses on a similar footing with the larger competitors who currently enjoy full deductibility of their employee's health care costs. It would also broaden the home office deduction so that parents and other individuals who choose to operate businesses out of their homes can receive more benefit from their expenses. This legislation encourages economic growth and creativity and lessens the tax burden on America's families. It would also take us another step closer to a Tax Code which sparks ingenuity and encourages family-owned business. There remains little doubt in the minds of the American people that the Tax Code is in need of serious surgery. The present Tax Code is needlessly complicated and treats American businesses and individuals unfairly. One example of this is the alternative minimum tax. This tax system, first instituted in 1986, has imposed substantial hardships on capital-intensive businesses, like mining and manufacturing, in Wyoming and across America. These businesses are forced to compute their taxes under both the regular corporate method and the alternative minimum tax method. This affects the farms and ranches as well. And they have to pay the greater of the two amounts. This compliance is expensive for businesses, and it ties up valuable capital that could be used to expand their operations and provide new jobs. The alternative minimum tax is a punitive tax because it effectively penalizes businesses that invest in equipment and structures necessary for the operation of their businesses. The current alternative minimum tax system is yet another example of why it is time to inject some common sense into the Internal Revenue Code. Reform of the alternative minimum tax would simplify the Tax Code and make the accounting method more consistent with the regular corporate tax rules. This legislation would make the Tax Code fairer for thousands of businesses that are now at a serious tax disadvantage. It marks an important step toward restoring simplicity and integrity to America's tax system. Reforming the alternative minimum tax depreciation allowance would work wonders for the American economy. One recent study estimates that the investment resulting from AMT reform would increase America's gross domestic product by $15 billion over an 8-year period. This would spur a surge in employment. Total jobs would roughly increase by 100,000 per year during a 5-year period. These jobs would be largely concentrated in the high-paying manufacturing sector of the economy. That is why this reform is needed so badly. The new high-paying jobs that would be available in my home State of Wyoming and throughout America will do wonders to improve our economy and the strength of our families. It is high time we give the American people the commonsense tax relief they so strongly desire. Right now, we tax anything that moves, we tax what doesn't move, we tax it when you buy it, we tax it when you sell it, we tax you for living. One of the worst taxes of all is that we tax you for dying. We want you to be able to keep more of your own money to do what you know how to do best. As tax day quickly approaches, I urge my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to join me in giving the American people meaningful tax reform. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Thank you, Mr. President. Today, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senator Thomas from Wyoming, Senator McConnell from Kentucky, and Senator Bennett from Utah, in urging the Justice Department to exercise its enforcement powers to break the current anticompetitive lock on college football, if football does not do it itself. I have a special interest in college athletics. I followed college athletics for some years, and I enjoy the excitement and competition of college basketball and football. I especially enjoy the competition in the Western Athletic Conference. My son, Brad, played basketball at the University of Wyoming, and so I watched numerous WAC games, both as a Cowboy fan and as a father. I am disappointed to see the University of Wyoming and other very competitive WAC teams kept out of the top college bowl games because of the anticompetitive College Bowl Alliance. These clandestine agreements keep our players on the bench and in the grandstand when they should be out there on the field. I think it is interesting we are discussing the anticompetitive effects of the college football alliance in the midst of the NCAA college basketball tournament. The NCAA basketball playoff system, while not perfect, aims to include the finest 64 college basketball teams in the Nation. In this tournament, any of those 64 teams has the possibility of winning the national championship. This arrangement is designed to maximize competition for the benefit of all the players, the fans, and the schools involved. In contrast, the College Bowl Alliance has decreased the competitiveness of college football to the detriment of the fans and schools involved. The alliance is a coalition of top football college conferences and representatives of the top post-season college football bowls. Over the past few years, the alliance has entered into a number of restrictive agreements designed to divide the market of the most highly lucrative New Year's football bowls. These agreements effectively preclude the nonalliance teams from having access to the most prestigious and lucrative bowl games, even when one of the nonalliance teams has a better record and a higher national ranking than any of the alliance teams. These restrictive agreements are bad for football, and they violate Federal antitrust law. Just this last January, as you have heard, 2 of the top 25 ranked football teams in the country fell victim to this anticompetitive alliance. Brigham Young University, a member of the nonalliance Western Athletic Conference, finished the year with a remarkable record of 13 and 1 and was ranked 5th in the Nation. Another member of the WAC, the University of Wyoming, finished its regular season with a formidable 10 and 2 record and a national ranking of 22, but it was not given an offer to play in any of the alliance bowls. In fact, as has been mentioned, despite its excellent year, the University of Wyoming was not given the opportunity to play in any post-season bowl game. This came as a great disappointment to the Cowboy fans nationwide. The alliance is bad for football since, as a practical matter, it prohibits teams from outside the alliance playing the top bowl games. The football games are now taking a back seat to the money games being played behind doors closed to both players and the fans. This has resulted in alliance teams having an institutional advantage in both bowl receipts and future recruiting. In 1996, the eight alliance bowl participants, including the teams playing in the Rose Bowl, split a total of $68 million. That was eight teams. In contrast, the 28 nonalliance participants divided a total of $31 million. This disparity in financial return is not good business. It results in a built-in advantage for alliance teams in the areas of future recruiting and program development. The alliance agreement provides unlawful economic protection for its members to the detriment of college football generally. The alliance's market allocation agreements have, in turn, hurt consumers. One poll has shown that college football fans would have preferred to have seen several nonalliance teams, including Brigham Young University and the University of Colorado, in top bowl games. These agreements amounted to changing the rules with 2 minutes left in the fourth quarter. These are precisely the type of market allocation agreements the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed to prohibit. I strongly urge the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to use their statutory powers to end the alliance's anticompetitive stranglehold on college football if they cannot do it on their own. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of The Home-Based Business Fairness Act of 1997, introduced today by the chairman of the Small Business Committee, Senator Bond. I know that Senator Bond, Senator Nickles and Senator Snowe have worked hard to draft this bill and I am proud to be an original cosponsor. It addresses three concerns that have weighed heavily on the small business community for years: First health insurance fairness; second the home-office deduction; and third the status of independent contractors. I hope the Senate and the House will move quickly to pass this legislation. It is a good bill because it responds directly to what small businesses have been asking us to do. It will help create jobs that will put people on welfare back to work. This is an issue that policymakers have been concentrating on since last year's welfare debate--the President has proposed a Welfare to Work Program while Congress is looking at the best ways to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Toward that effort, it is impossible to overlook the importance of small business. Small businesses create nearly 100 percent of this country's new jobs and employ over 65 percent of Americans working in the private sector. And I guarantee it would be small businesses that hire the majority of today's welfare recipients if Government would make it affordable to do so. Small business is more than the backbone of this country. Small business is the engine of the American Dream. But it needs a system that empowers people, not government. This bill would help people by removing just a couple of the obstacles in the way of that Dream. When I was elected to the Senate last November, my first choice of committee assignments was the Small Business Committee. My wife, Diana, and I were small businessowners and we have experienced--at one time or another--nearly all of the obstacles that can stand in the way of a successful small business. At this time last year, in fact, my wife and I were balancing our books and paying our taxes--hoping to find that the books still balanced after paying the taxes! So I know what small businessowners are going through. Very recently, I have been there. There is a lot of talk in this legislative body about improving the environment for small business. In fact, I doubt that any Member would stand up and say he or she does not support small business. We hold hearings and listen to testimony, we provide for White House conferences on small business, we receive stacks of polling data and we create commission after commission to tell us what needs to be done. In the end, we find out what I think we already know--the problem is taxes. Too many and too much. This bill is a small step in the Tax Code, but a giant step for sensibility. It recognizes some of the revolutionary changes in American business. The advent of personal computers, high speed modems, cell phones, pagers, and fax machines that have enabled Americans to work via audio and video conferencing, from satellite offices, and by telecommuting. Our tax laws have not kept up with the sea of change in American business. One example of this change is the increasing number of women in our Nation's work force. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 76 percent of mothers with school-age children now work. Among two-parent households, 63 percent report that both parents must work outside the home--in many cases, one works to pay the bills, while the other works to pay the taxes. And of these women entering the work force, 1 in 20 are starting their own businesses and many are home based and that number is rising rapidly. In fact, women start new businesses at twice the rate of men--and with a very good success rate. But the Tax Code needs improvement. It discourages self-employment and home-based business through discrimination and complexity. This bill would change that. The Home-Based Business Fairness Act would finally put an end to our regressive, two-tiered system that makes self-employed people pay more for their health insurance. It is time to give small business competitive parity with big business. All the technical assistance and loan guarantees in the world cannot overcome unfair tax treatment and disproportionately burdensome regulations. Last year, Congress recognized the inequality by voting to phase in an 80-percent deductibility for health insurance costs. That's a good start. But if we know the tax treatment is not fair, then shouldn't we make it right? America's small businesses need fair and equal treatment. This legislation would also add fairness for people who work in their homes. Our current outdated Tax Code discriminates against home-based people by restricting their ability to deduct office expenses. The message is, if you can't afford a real office, then you can't deduct your expenses. In this way, we increase the hurdles for entrepreneurs who want to earn a living, but can't afford to rent separate office space. This part of the legislation will benefit thousands of home- based women and men. It is very important and deserves a thoughtful consideration by the Senate. Another puzzling antibusiness setup that this bill would simplify is the definition of independent contractor. American entrepreneurs--and especially home-based business owners--need a simpler test. I have always believed we could make things a lot easier if we just followed the payroll taxes. Who pays them? Is there a written contract? It does not have to be ``rocket science.'' This legislation would simplify the test so that everyone can understand it--not just the tax attorneys at the Internal Revenue Service. On that subject, in Wyoming recently, the IRS has taken after the last bastion of budding entrepreneurs, our paper boys. Once again, the thirsty IRS auditors are devising ways to haunt working people-- presumed guilty until proven innocent. When did the IRS decide to pick on the hard-earned wages of independent paperboys and girls? They are not now, and never have been, salaried newspaper employees. They are just kids who want to earn some money by working before or after school. I think we should call this part of the bill, The Paperboy Protection Act. The last bastion for new entrepreneurs needs our help. The small business owners of tomorrow are counting on us to pass this legislation. I thank my colleagues on the Small Business Committee, and the assistant majority leader, for their hard work on the bill. I urge other Senators to support it.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of The Home-Based Business Fairness Act of 1997, introduced today by the chairman of the Small Business Committee, Senator Bond. I know that Senator Bond, Senator Nickles and Senator Snowe have worked hard to draft this bill and I am proud to be an original cosponsor. It addresses three concerns that have weighed heavily on the small business community for years: First health insurance fairness; second the home-office deduction; and third the status of independent contractors. I hope the Senate and the House will move quickly to pass this legislation. It is a good bill because it responds directly to what small businesses have been asking us to do. It will help create jobs that will put people on welfare back to work. This is an issue that policymakers have been concentrating on since last year's welfare debate--the President has proposed a Welfare to Work Program while Congress is looking at the best ways to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Toward that effort, it is impossible to overlook the importance of small business. Small businesses create nearly 100 percent of this country's new jobs and employ over 65 percent of Americans working in the private sector. And I guarantee it would be small businesses that hire the majority of today's welfare recipients if Government would make it affordable to do so. Small business is more than the backbone of this country. Small business is the engine of the American Dream. But it needs a system that empowers people, not government. This bill would help people by removing just a couple of the obstacles in the way of that Dream. When I was elected to the Senate last November, my first choice of committee assignments was the Small Business Committee. My wife, Diana, and I were small businessowners and we have experienced--at one time or another--nearly all of the obstacles that can stand in the way of a successful small business. At this time last year, in fact, my wife and I were balancing our books and paying our taxes--hoping to find that the books still balanced after paying the taxes! So I know what small businessowners are going through. Very recently, I have been there. There is a lot of talk in this legislative body about improving the environment for small business. In fact, I doubt that any Member would stand up and say he or she does not support small business. We hold hearings and listen to testimony, we provide for White House conferences on small business, we receive stacks of polling data and we create commission after commission to tell us what needs to be done. In the end, we find out what I think we already know--the problem is taxes. Too many and too much. This bill is a small step in the Tax Code, but a giant step for sensibility. It recognizes some of the revolutionary changes in American business. The advent of personal computers, high speed modems, cell phones, pagers, and fax machines that have enabled Americans to work via audio and video conferencing, from satellite offices, and by telecommuting. Our tax laws have not kept up with the sea of change in American business. One example of this change is the increasing number of women in our Nation's work force. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 76 percent of mothers with school-age children now work. Among two-parent households, 63 percent report that both parents must work outside the home--in many cases, one works to pay the bills, while the other works to pay the taxes. And of these women entering the work force, 1 in 20 are starting their own businesses and many are home based and that number is rising rapidly. In fact, women start new businesses at twice the rate of men--and with a very good success rate. But the Tax Code needs improvement. It discourages self-employment and home-based business through discrimination and complexity. This bill would change that. The Home-Based Business Fairness Act would finally put an end to our regressive, two-tiered system that makes self-employed people pay more for their health insurance. It is time to give small business competitive parity with big business. All the technical assistance and loan guarantees in the world cannot overcome unfair tax treatment and disproportionately burdensome regulations. Last year, Congress recognized the inequality by voting to phase in an 80-percent deductibility for health insurance costs. That's a good start. But if we know the tax treatment is not fair, then shouldn't we make it right? America's small businesses need fair and equal treatment. This legislation would also add fairness for people who work in their homes. Our current outdated Tax Code discriminates against home-based people by restricting their ability to deduct office expenses. The message is, if you can't afford a real office, then you can't deduct your expenses. In this way, we increase the hurdles for entrepreneurs who want to earn a living, but can't afford to rent separate office space. This part of the legislation will benefit thousands of home- based women and men. It is very important and deserves a thoughtful consideration by the Senate. Another puzzling antibusiness setup that this bill would simplify is the definition of independent contractor. American entrepreneurs--and especially home-based business owners--need a simpler test. I have always believed we could make things a lot easier if we just followed the payroll taxes. Who pays them? Is there a written contract? It does not have to be ``rocket science.'' This legislation would simplify the test so that everyone can understand it--not just the tax attorneys at the Internal Revenue Service. On that subject, in Wyoming recently, the IRS has taken after the last bastion of budding entrepreneurs, our paper boys. Once again, the thirsty IRS auditors are devising ways to haunt working people-- presumed guilty until proven innocent. When did the IRS decide to pick on the hard-earned wages of independent paperboys and girls? They are not now, and never have been, salaried newspaper employees. They are just kids who want to earn some money by working before or after school. I think we should call this part of the bill, The Paperboy Protection Act. The last bastion for new entrepreneurs needs our help. The small business owners of tomorrow are counting on us to pass this legislation. I thank my colleagues on the Small Business Committee, and the assistant majority leader, for their hard work on the bill. I urge other Senators to support it.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Chair. I am pleased to be here today and have an opportunity to address Senate Joint Resolution 18, the proposed constitutional amendment to limit campaign contributions and expenditures. I am a freshman Senator. I came through an election last fall and have a number of things I would like to see addressed on campaign reform, but I have to say that I do not think a constitutional amendment is the right forum for beginning that debate. This attempt to exclude core political speech from the first amendment's protection is a terrible assault on one of the very cornerstones of American representative democracy, the freedom of private citizens to participate in the public forum of political discourse through freedom of speech. This constitutional amendment is dangerous both in its design and its broad and sweeping scope. This expansive amendment would grant Congress the future power to prohibit independent citizens from distributing leaflets, writing editorials, producing independent commercials, and/or handing out voter guides if Congress finds these measures to be ``in support of or in opposition to a candidate for Federal office.'' This is precisely the kind of Government intrusion our Founders feared when they drafted and adopted the first amendment to the Constitution. The first amendment was designed to protect citizens against the dangers of a tyrannical Federal Government. It was adopted because our Founders rightly realized that there are some freedoms that are so intrinsic to the nature of a representative democracy that they must be protected from the momentary wishes of a majority in the Federal Congress. When asked what use the Bill of Rights served in our popular Government, James Madison explained, ``The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with the national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.'' In other words, it was to protect against such impulses as those now suggested by many of the would-be reformers that the founders drafted the first amendment's protection of speech in broad and unequivocal terms. ``Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech.'' A brief analysis of the effects of this amendment should terrify even the most ardent reformers. A few examples should show the chilling effect this amendment could have on political freedom of speech. This amendment gives Congress the power to set limits on the amount of expenditures that may be made in support of or in opposition to a candidate for Federal office. I will start with the worst example first. Suppose that one party again gains control of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. In order to maintain its monopoly on Government, this Congress could pass a law limiting the expenditures of congressional challengers to $5,000. What sort of possibility would this give any challenger. Such a proposal would all but guarantee a perpetual Congress of incumbents. As outlandish as such a proposal sounds on its face, it would be legal under this amendment. Again, even the freedom of the press could fall under the vast scope of this amendment. Let us consider a proposal which would prohibit any editorial against a candidate or a group of candidates. Such a law could well be passed under this amendment if Congress decides that such editorials are expenditures by the newspaper ``in opposition to'' a candidate for Federal office. Congress could have the power to limit or even prohibit press reports for or against a particular candidate since expenditures must be made to print and distribute a newspaper or broadcast a television or radio news report. Finally, let us consider the case where a private citizen wishes to write an editorial or hand out leaflets in favor of a particular candidate or his or her positions. Again, this amendment would give Congress the power to prohibit such activities. Expenditures must be made to write and publish editorials or hand out handbills. Congress could pass a law outlawing such expenditures in support of candidates if it so desired. This amendment would have a drastic and dangerous impact on the free discussion of ideas in this country. Newspapers also might not come under the law but we might come under an expenditure law, so they could write things about the candidate to which they may now not be able to respond in light of not having sufficient funds within the limited amounts. Proponents of this constitutional amendment have accepted as their first premise in the campaign reform debate that the first amendment to our Constitution is incompatible with a healthy electoral process. One of the original House sponsors of this gutting of the first amendment proclaimed unabashedly: ``What we have is two important values in direct conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy Democracy. You can't have both.'' This remarkable confession by one of the leading reformers is as startling for its boldness as it is for its inaccuracy. We should beware of any campaign reform which can only be achieved by destroying the first amendment. This false conflict between free speech and democracy was rejected by our Founding Fathers, and it should be rejected by the Members of this Senate. Our Founding Fathers rightly understood that it is precisely the unhindered protection of freedom and open political speech that makes democracy possible. I find it fascinating that in the 2 months I have been honored to serve in this deliberative body we have debated now two proposed constitutional amendments. These two amendments could not be more opposed in their purpose or their effect. The balanced budget constitutional amendment, of which I was a proud cosponsor, would have placed constitutional limits on Congress' power to squander away our children's economic future. Senate Joint Resolution 18 would give Congress expansive and unprecedented new powers of prohibiting core political speech. The balanced budget amendment would have limited the Congress' power by restricting its ability to spend money it does not have. Senate Joint Resolution 18 would constitutionally expand Congress' power to regulate the speech of candidates, businesses, private citizens, and perhaps the press and media. I support the balanced budget constitutional amendment because I believe that by forcing Congress to live within its means, we give our States, our communities and, most important, our families more freedom to make the decisions which most affect their lives and their futures. I have to oppose this constitutional amendment because it would grant Federal and State governments the power to stifle one of the most basic political freedoms: the freedom of individual citizens to express themselves freely and without restraint in the public forum. I urge my colleagues to join me in affirming the time-honored wisdom of the first amendment of the Constitution by rejecting Senate Joint Resolution 18. I yield the floor.

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 that the order allowing for remarks by Senator Torricelli be vitiated.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I, too, want to urge all my colleagues to vote for the balanced budget constitutional amendment. As the only accountant in the U.S. Senate, I have been interested in the various accounting issues that have been brought up as part of this discussion. I am very disappointed that while accounting techniques are needed to know exactly where we stand and what to do, there have been a lot of sham techniques that have been brought up so that some of the people would have a hook on which to add a no vote--and that is all that they are. We need to have good accounting. We need to protect Social Security. There is no one in this body who does not want us to take care of Social Security. The way to do that is through a balanced budget constitutional amendment. We owe it to our kids and to our grandkids. We owe it to our parents and our grandparents. We have to make sure that we have a balanced budget to keep this country going forward, with or without that amendment. I have heard promises here, but I am not so sure about promises anymore that we would balance the budget, and it is critical that we balance the budget. I will be counting on everyone to help on that. I ask for support of the balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak out of order for 5 minutes.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. When we woke up this morning, I wonder how many of us paused to reflect on the great gift we have been given--the gift of our freedom. It is a special gift, but so many of us take it for granted, even though we paid for it at quite a heavy price. As we drove to work, how many of us thought about the sacrifices that were made over the years by our Nation's veterans to preserve and protect those freedoms? Six years ago, President Bush was in the White House and he had a difficult task on his hands. The world was in crisis. The United Nations was meeting night and day to try to stop the spread of the threat of Saddam Hussein. He had invaded Kuwait and brought the people of that nation to their knees. Something had to be done. When the cry for help went out from Kuwait, we sent our best to answer the call. Many brave men and women went to a foreign land to stop the advance of that madman in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq. In the days that followed, we picked up a whole new vocabulary. We spoke of Scuds, Patriot missiles, chemical weapons, gas masks, Riyadh, and so much more. It was a war we witnessed like no other battle in our history. We charted our troops' progress with the reports we saw on the news every night. We were a part of it all. The press took us right along with our soldiers as the fighting progressed. Everything came to us live as the media brought the conflict right into our living rooms. It was almost like watching a movie. It seemed so distant and dangerous. Yet, somehow, because of our advanced technology, we thought our young men and women would be safe and that they would all make it home. Would that it were so. When it was over, and the battle had been won, we all felt a great wave of relief that our casualties had been light. But light casualties, don't feel so light when they include our families, our friends, and our loved ones. One hundred and forty-six young people did not come back. I say this in their memory as I mention one young man who didn't come home from that battle came from Gillette, WY. Manuel Davila was a young father, a nice guy who always had a smile and a kind word for everyone he met. He was the kind of person you'd like to have for a friend. That is why he had so many friends. I watched Manuel grow up. He was a remarkable young man. He came from the town I call home. You didn't get to meet him, so I should use the words of Ron Franscell, the editor of the Gillette News Record, who wrote so eloquently 6 years ago as Manuel's body was brought home for burial: ``I never knew Manuel, but he was from my town, he was one of us, and he had dreams. In that way, I knew him very well. You know him, too.'' Yes, Ron, we all did know him, too. Manuel saw a need, and when he was asked to go, he didn't hesitate. He was doing his job and it was a job he loved and felt proud to have been called to do. That's what it was to him. He felt good to be a part of this special mission for he understood how much it meant to the defenseless people of Kuwait who needed him so very badly. In Wyoming, we like to think of our State as holy ground that was blessed by God. It is a land of open spaces, beautiful mountains that seem to stretch up to God's heaven, green forests, national parks, clean, clear, cool air and wide open spaces. Manuel traded all of that for a far different world. He traded his clear blue skies for a desert sky that was pitch black with the fumes and smoke of oil fields set on fire by Iraqi troops. He traded his beautiful mountain paradise for an isolated desert wasteland. He traded the clean, crisp air of Wyoming for the use of a gas mask and the threat of Saddam's chemical weapons. He traded the safety and security of his homeland for the uncertainty and danger of a battlefield. He traded it all to go overseas and fight for freedom. When it was all over, in spite of all the precautions we had taken to protect our troops, this brave young man didn't make it home. A wife had lost her husband, and a family had lost a son. A little girl had lost her father. Six years ago we brought him back home to Wyoming. The loss of Manuel in the desert reinforced the truth of an adage made famous by an old television show written about a different war. In one scene a doctor says that there are two rules of war. The first rule is that young men and women die. The second rule is there is nothing that can be done to change rule 1. It is the awful truth of battle. Today, although we are far removed from that battlefield, we must never forget the sacrifices that were made by Manuel and by so many more who gave their lives for great causes like the one that claimed young Manuel's life. We must continue to honor their memory and commemorate their brave and courageous actions that were done in our name. Truly, far too many have made the ultimate sacrifice that we might be free. There is no greater way we can honor Manuel's memory and that of our other great war heroes than to rededicate ourselves every day of our lives to the cause of peace. I find great inspiration for that cause and the importance of peace when I reflect on the beautiful words of the Book of Isaiah in the Bible: ``They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.'' Yes, Manuel was one of our great heroes of Wyoming and of these United States. He was a good kid, a hometown boy who had plans for his future. That future was cruelly taken from him on foreign soil by a madman. Now, the torch Manuel carried so bravely in battle is passed to us to light the path to peace in our lives. We had best carry it high and proudly as we commit our every effort to ensuring that we will never again ask our young men and women to make the ultimate sacrifice, as we work together to avoid the horrors of war. If we are successful, we will truly live in a world of peace, where nation shall not lift up sword against nation. That is the best way for us to care for those who have borne the battle, by ensuring that it never happens again.

Mr. ENZI

Mr. ENZI. So the amendment really says that there won't be any restriction on doing capital budgeting, which is exactly where we are at the moment.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I feel compelled to speak a little bit on debt. That seems to be what we are talking about here today. We have talked about the Social Security debt for quite a while. There does not seem to be a lot of willingness to agree on some of the basics on it. Again, I want to explain that if we are paying our Social Security in and that money is being invested in the U.S. Government, if we do not recognize it as debt, we are lying to the people right now. We have to admit what we have and what we are using. The solution that is suggested by this substitute amendment is one that wants to take the Social Security numbers and just recognize them while there is this surplus, but really only recognize them while there is a surplus, to scare people about Social Security. We really ought to be worrying about Social Security. Debt is really a difficult thing to explain unless it is your own. Then it is even scarier. We heard a little explanation of State debt here a moment ago. State debt is a whole lot different than this Federal debt we are talking about, because in every State that has a balanced budget, they are expected to pay the debt back. We have yet to talk about paying debt back. We have a national debt, but I do not recall us saying that we are going to start budgeting not only to balance it, but we are going to balance it and pay back some of the national debt. We put that kind of requirement on the States. The States put that kind of requirement on themselves. They agree that if they borrow money, they have to agree to pay it back by a time specific. They have covenants. They have to meet covenants on those bonds, which means they put a little extra away. Sometimes they have to fund things up front. So when they are talking about capital debts, they are talking about a whole different ballgame than we are talking about. They are talking about the same one that that mortgage lender is doing when he enters into a home loan. When you go out and buy a house, you do not just ask to pay the interest and expect to get a house loan. You do not expect to be able to buy two or three houses, if you feel like it, and just pay the interest. The banker expects you to pay the loan back. I talked about municipal governments this morning. They are expected to pay the loans back. They are forced to pay the loans back. Many of them are forced to have a balanced budget. It is kind of interesting how their balanced budget estimates work. Theirs are a little more conservative than ours. They say, unless you can show that the economy has declined and you will not get as much revenue as last year, you will use last year's revenue estimates. That is pretty conservative. If we had to say that in a growing economy we had to use last year's numbers, we would be able to pay back some of the national debt with what was left in a growing economy. We would be putting aside some in the good times to take care of the bad times. That is the kind of an accounting system that we have to get to. That is the kind of budgeting that we have to get to if we are going to be fair, not only with today's generation alone, but with the ones of the future. We cannot keep buying the things out of the Christmas book that we want to have and expect our kids and grandkids to pay for it. That is what we are doing at the moment. Any way we try and phrase Social Security so that we only want to recognize the money through the good times, not adjust for it in the bad times, we are not properly accounting for Social Security. We have to take care of it past 2010. The amendment before the Senate only takes care of it through 2010 and then allows us to lie about it, to ignore it, to not have to worry about it. That is when the bonds come due. That is when the debt comes due from raising the debt limits over these years. I want to protect my seniors. I want to be sure there is money there in the year 2019 as well. I yield the floor but retain the balance of my time.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, in the short time that I have been here, and this is my first year in the Senate, which means I have been here about 6 weeks, this is not even the first time we have debated and voted on this particular issue. We have had it thrown out several different ways, talked about several different ways, but it is always the same thing that we are redoing. Of course, one of the reasons we do that and one of the reasons we exclude those other trust funds we talked about is that this is where the people are. It isn't this is where the dollars are, because we are talking about deficits in the year 2019, we are talking about people who rely on Social Security. There are people who need it badly, and they scare easily at the thought of losing it, and should. We are right there worrying about it with them, but we can't accept something that is half an answer. I mentioned that we have voted on this three separate times. I think we talked about it most of the ways that we can, but I want to try and answer some of the questions. Madam President, the balanced budget amendment does, indeed, require a balanced budget. Outlays must not exceed receipts under section 1 of this resolution. But it is also true that gross debt may still increase, even if the budget is balanced. That is because the Government's exchange of securities for Social Security taxes is counted as gross debt, and we had better count it somewhere. I don't think there is anybody out there who wants us to take those funds and not account for them somehow. We passed a law that says that those Social Security funds have to be invested in the Federal Government. That is where they are. The way that we account for them is to show them as Government debt. Should we loan them and not show them as Government debt? It is merely an accounting or bookkeeping notation of what one agency of the Government owes another agency. It is analogous to a corporation buying back stocks and debentures. Such stocks and bonds are considered retired obligations that, once paid, have no economic or fiscal significance. Thus, if we enact a balanced budget constitutional amendment, the debt the United States owes to everyone, but itself, will stop growing. It will not stop growing as long as we have the Social Security funds paid out as an investment in the Federal Government. This type of debt, termed ``net debt'' or debt held by the public, is legally enforceable, and it better be. But if we don't balance that budget, the funds will not be there to pay this legal debt when the time for the legal debt comes due. Those bonds that we have in that great storeroom called Social Security, the bonds that have already been loaned to the Federal Government, have to be paid off at the time they come due. We will not be able to do that without a balanced budget. If the debt zooms because of interest payments of debt, which last year amounted to $250 billion, budget deficits balloon with all the dire economic consequences, and we have been talking about those economic consequences and the advantages of a balanced budget. To assure that budgets will be balanced, unless extraordinary situations arise, debt held by the public cannot be increased unless there is a three-fifths of the whole number of each House concurring. That net debt is considered to be a far greater economic significance than the gross debt is a widely held truism among economists. Indeed, in the study ``Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the United States Government Fiscal Year 1998,'' the Clinton administration concludes that net debt, or borrowing from the public, whether by the Treasury or by some other Federal agency, has a significant impact on the economy. On the other hand, the study also maintains that gross debt, or debt issued to Government accounts, does not have any of the economic effects of borrowing from the public. It is merely an internal transaction between two accounts within the Government itself. We have to account for the debt. We have to account for it honestly, and we have to balance the budget more than past the year 2010. A balanced budget constitutional amendment is for all time until altered by us, and we don't do that on a regular basis. It is extremely tough. Our forefathers did provide a mechanism for doing it. That is the process we are going through now, and they made it an extremely tough one, with a two-thirds vote and then ratification by three-fourths of the States. If this balanced budget didn't have so much backing, would there be all of this opposition to having it? In checking, if just the Senators from the States that oppose the balanced budget did not ratify this, there would never be a balanced budget constitutional amendment. But I know from traveling out there that those States are saying we live under a balanced budget constitutional amendment. It works. We don't have to go through all of these other funny little accounting gimmicks to get there. The people know when it is balanced. You don't hear of lawsuits on a regular basis dealing with their balanced budget constitutional amendments. Consequently, they will ratify this if they can get Senators from those States to back a balanced budget constitutional amendment. I think that in a number of years, if not right now--I do think it will happen right now. I think this is the most important debate we could possibly be having in our lifetime because of the consequences in our lifetime and for generations to come. This is the most important thing we can be discussing. I do think if the last election didn't make the difference, the next election will make the difference, because people have promised their people at home that they will vote for a balanced budget constitutional amendment. We have to move on those promises so we can meet the expectations of the people at home, the people who voted for us, the people who sent us here with a trust in the political process. It is up to us now to fulfill that trust. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, the reason that debt has to increase is a requirement that we be honest with those seniors. That is being honest. That is the utilization of those funds, which are a trust fund, which are an intergovernmental transfer that has to be recognized as a part of the Federal debt under the accounting system that we use. It is not an adequate accounting system to show where the money has gone.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, the constitutional amendment that I support recognizes the red that is out there on the end as well as the green and recognizes a need to stop doing to Social Security what that huge green there shows at the present time. I am saying that we need to start recognizing Social Security honestly, not calling it off budget so we can force things into Social Security in future years by merely naming them ``Social Security'' and not having to account for them in the deficit--to recognize them honestly. Our seniors think that there is a trust fund out there, that there is money out there that will continue to fund them. I am always fascinated when I see the articles which suggest that we should privatize Social Security. If we tried to privatize it, we would recognize that it does not have the money there; that the money is not there to be able to do it because we have this system of taking the money that is paid in now and spending it at the moment that it is paid in, with a piddly surplus. And when you look at the future of Social Security, that little green line there is not a big surplus. It is $1.3 trillion, but that is not a big surplus. The actuarial liability on the Social Security system is $9.2 trillion. This is money that people expect to be there. We are giving the impression that it is there. This balanced budget constitutional amendment is not a constitutional amendment just for the next few years. It is a balanced budget constitutional amendment hopefully for the rest of the history of the United States, and it will require us to have good accounting. As an accountant, I have been fascinated with all of the debate that we have had in this process to talk about things that we should be doing as a nation. This is the place we have to start, not by scaring our seniors but by answering our seniors, not by scaring our seniors but by setting up a system where they understand the system and where it is and help us to force the kind of accounting, the kind of disclosure that will help to assure that that money will be there, not just for the ones on the system now but for you and me and the generations to come. I have explained before that the kids in this country, if you ask them if they are going to get Social Security, will agree that they are more likely to see an unidentified flying object, than to see $1 of their Social Security money. They already believe they are not going to get this money, and they are paying 7.45 percent of their paycheck, every time they get one, into Social Security. And that is being matched by their employer for another 7.45 percent. That is almost 15 percent. That would be one tidy pension fund if it were truly a pension fund. I keep asking, if we do not have good accounting for this, beyond the year 2010, not just for the present time, will not that next generation cause a revolution in this country if they are paying, and there are estimates that they will be paying 84 percent of their wages in taxes-- that includes their Social Security taxes, 84 percent of their taxes, and at a point that will only be going to pay interest on the national debt. It will not build another road that we have been talking about in capital budgeting. It will not add to the defense of this country that we have been talking about. It will not provide anything for education that we have been talking about. It will pay interest on the national debt. Now, if you and I were paying all of our taxes, and they are not nearly as high as what we are talking about those kids paying, if we were paying all of that and it was only paying interest on the national debt, what would we do? We would say we paid into that fund. How come we are not going to get it? Is anybody entitled to it? I am afraid there could be a revolutionary generation there. They may do it calmly and precisely by joining this body and the one down there and the Presidency and taking that away because they will be paying taxes that they have never see. That is what they already believe. If we move Social Security off budget, if we quit having to account for it as part of the deficit--we can add more stringent requirements to the balanced budget constitutional amendment that is before us, we can add more stringent requirements to that to recognize what has been said here, and it can be done through a normal statute, the enabling act, for instance. We can put the enabling legislation in it that will take care of recognizing the surplus spending we are having now and the huge deficits we are going to have in the future. I remember not too long ago sitting in on the President's State of the Union Message, and I was kind of surprised when he got to page 2, about halfway down the page, after he had said all the things about how we needed to be bipartisan and how we needed to balance the budget and we did not need a balanced budget constitutional amendment to do that; we just needed action, and then a couple of days later, making use of the extra time that he was given by this body and the one across the hall, he presented a budget. And was it balanced? No, it was not balanced. Did it do with Social Security what the Senator is talking about doing? No, it did not do it. Do we need other constraints to make sure that there is good accounting for Social Security? To make absolutely sure, as all of us want to do, that there is Social Security there? No, it did not recognize that surplus from Social Security in such a way as to preserve it as a surplus. I have said before that, individually, we all promise a balanced budget; collectively we just don't seem to be able to get there. We have to do that, for our kids and our grandkids. And we cannot ignore the seniors in 2019. On behalf of the seniors, we do need to recognize the debt, we do need to recognize what is happening now and into the future. And we are only going to do that by legislation forced on us by a balanced budget constitutional amendment and one that goes further than what is being done here. I join in protecting Social Security, as would all the other Senators, but not through one that only solves half the problem. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. ENZI. As long as it does not come out of my time.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, I have appreciated the history lesson in preserving the Social Security system. I wish that the history lesson included a much better ending than where the Senator ended. I wish that the Senator's amendment included an ending for where we are going. The Senator's chart goes out to the year 2010. I think he could have carried it out to the year 2019 and had a pretty good-looking chart. It starts to curve off the other end if you get past 2010. So he is showing the best of the best, the best times for building up money that should be in a reserve for Social Security. He is leaving off the time that it starts to taper off. And the Senator is leaving off the real lie of a substitute amendment that says take Social Security off budget. The Senator is leaving out the part where we have to pay in for my generation to draw the money out. The Senator is talking about a short-term solution rather than a longer term solution. We have to have a long-term solution. I appreciate the efforts the Senator went to when he was in the House. We have to have a long-term solution for that. And we have to do it through enabling legislation so that it doesn't just cover from now till the best of times but covers from now till the best of times through the worst of times. We need to have an accounting system for Social Security that is honest with our seniors. One of the things I have been doing through this debate is to mention that we are not even talking about what the true cost is out there of making this system actuarially sound, of putting the same kind of requirement on this retirement fund that we have forced on every business retirement fund in this country, one that includes annual audits to make sure that we are not lying with those business pensions the way we are lying with Social Security. We tell the businesses of this country that they are going to take their pension funds and they are going to contribute to those pension funds to the extent that the money will be there at the time that the person retires so that they will have an annuity that lasts through the rest of their lifetime. There is a variety of them. Some of them have COLA's with them, some of them do not have COLA's with them. But there is an honest attempt by the Senate and the U.S. Government to force them to have money on hand, true money on hand, true trust funds that will pay those people through the time they expect to be paid. Then we turn around and we say, well, that is not the requirement for us. The Senator is trying to go to that in the amendment, but he does not get all the way. He only gets through the good times and we do not talk about the future times.

Mr. ENZI. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. ENZI. I thank the Senator from New Jersey for his comments, his answers, and his passion. We share that passion for this country. I am pleased to be in the entering class with him. I appreciate the approach that he has taken was not set on a course to scare anybody but to get something done, and I really appreciate that. I am appreciative also of the talk that we are having here on this floor about good accounting systems. That is of the utmost necessity for our country and for us. The reason it is important for us is to know exactly where we are. I pledge I will work with the Senator from New Jersey to get those kinds of accounting procedures so that we can do the kinds of things we need to do for this United States and do it within the constraints of a balanced budget so we are not continuing to pass on things to our kids and our grandkids. I will remind everybody that we cannot go into a capital budget situation without the clarification that we are not just creating another loophole. When I was in the legislature, one of the biggest frustrations I had was that we would propose the bill, and I knew there were people listening to that proposition who were already designing loopholes in the bill, ways to get around what we were doing and not sharing with us the ways to get around what we were trying to do. That is what we have to overcome, with the immense responsibility that we have in amending the Constitution. I think the original amendment has that capability. I think it is important that we vote for the original amendment, not the substitute, but that under any circumstance we do have a balanced budget constitutional amendment that will preserve this country for ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids, and make sure that we are taking care of our parents and our grandparents. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. ENZI. I retain the remainder of my time. Mr. TORRICELLI addressed the Chair.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, several questions have been raised through the course of this debate. I have a couple of others, as well. I appreciate the efforts that have gone into this amendment, but I am very concerned about a couple of the areas we have been talking about, the largest of which is the capital budget area in this. When we talk about capital budget--I have read what the President had in his budget message about capital budgeting. With the definitions that I see that appear in this bill, what we are talking about is putting anything that we can call a capital investment off budget; and by putting it off budget, it removes itself from having to be a part of the formula. I would like more clarification on that term. There is also wording on that which says that net borrowing and the disposition of major public physical capital assets would be excluded from the receipts. I am concerned about how we handle some of the disposition of major physical capital assets. One of those we are talking about is selling the spectrum. That is one-time revenue. I am very concerned that we may take one-time revenue and use it to buy recurring types of things in the budget. That is why I, too, have been asking for capital budgeting and, more important, cash flow budgeting, so that we know that when we are getting a one-time revenue, we are matching that up with a one-time expenditure. If we have net borrowing and the disposition of major public physical capital assets excluded, what's the mechanism for handling that? What's the budget phenomenon for handling that? Everybody has to have capital budgets, as has been mentioned here today. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is the only entity that doesn't have to have oversight-- unless we pass the balanced budget constitutional amendment. Then we, too, will have to have oversight. I mentioned this morning that, as a mayor, we had capital budgeting, cash flow budgets, and performance budgets. It is very important not only to building what needed to be built, but to paying off the debt for what we built. I mentioned that the city I was mayor of is now one of the few debt-free cities in the United States. That comes from good planning. In the debate we have had on the balanced budget constitutional amendment, we are not talking about paying off the debt that we have already incurred. We are not talking about planning to pay off what we have already incurred on behalf of the future generations--those kids and grandkids that we keep talking about, as well as the parents and grandparents that are relying on Social Security. We have to balance the budget to take care of our kids, grandkids, parents, and grandparents, as well as ourselves. There is a lot at stake in this. Unless we build in some oversight for ourselves, something that forces us to pay back loans, then all we are doing is giving ourselves a license to spend. We are coming up with another risky gimmick that will let us slip things into a category and not have to account for them. That is not the purpose of capital budgeting. I have even heard some reference, in capital budgeting, to putting things into a capital budget that would be social investments. I don't know how you pay off the social investments any different way than you pay for any other expenditure under the budget. That, in my opinion, is not a capital budgeting thing. That is an expense budgeting item. I think there has to be a distinction made there. I am really worried that section 7 of this bill will give us a license to move things from the normal budgeting process to a capital budgeting process and kind of forget about how we handle the payback on that. Somebody mentioned earlier that if you buy a home, you are doing capital budgeting. You are, but you have oversight. The banker sets up specific parameters for you to be able to get the loan. If you don't meet those parameters, he is not going to be a happy fellow. What we are trying to do here is set up some parameters for ourselves. Capital budgeting, cash flow budgeting, and performance budgeting need to be done. Those are part of an enabling act of a clean balanced budget amendment. One of the problems that we have in this body, I think, is that we think of things more as a Christmas list, and I know that at Christmas time I delight in going through the catalogs that come in and seeing what things I like. There has never been a limit to the number of things that a person could pick--particularly when they are children. We talk about balancing budgets, and every one of us wants to balance the budget. Individually, we say that. It is collectively that we seem to run into the problem. The balanced budget constitutional amendment will take care of that. It will force us to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It will force us to put parameters on ourselves. Everybody wants to buy everything, and they want to buy it right now. Good budgeting will set up some parameters that will help us with that. I am glad we are thinking about good budgeting, good accounting techniques, because we need to start setting up our Social Security trust fund under some better accounting techniques, so that we are recognizing some of the actuarial differences that are there. It is good to be thinking about that. It is a must that we do that. Right now, we are building up some incredible actuarial debts that we are not recognizing at all. We owe about $9.3 trillion to the Social Security fund. If we put the same kind of parameters on ourselves that we put on business--we tell business they have to set up a trust fund, and it has to have the amount of money necessary to pay for the people who are retiring at the time they retire. But we don't put that parameter on ourselves. The balanced budget constitutional amendment will put those kinds of things on the line to be done. We will have to follow the promises we made in the campaign. When I campaigned, we talked a lot about balancing the budget. When the President talked, he talked a lot about balancing the budget. In his State of the Union speech, he said, ``We need to balance the budget, but we don't need a balanced budget amendment. All we need is action.'' Then we got a budget that was not in balance. We did not get the action to go with the words. I made a promise during my campaign that I would vote for the balanced budget constitutional amendment. I knew what that was at the time, and I am here to do that. The people of America want us to protect the future for our kids and our grandkids. Our kids want us to end the child abuse of taxation without representation, cosigning on notes for them without their permission. That is what we are doing by balancing the budget. I want to say that we either balance the budget--and I think we need the discipline based on these two stacks of 28 years of unbalanced budgets. We need the discipline of a balanced budget constitutional amendment. If we do not balance that budget we will be the longest running game show, and we will wind up with the lowest possible ratings. I yield the floor.

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. ENZI. Does this mean under this that if education is more than a $5 billion expenditure, that education would be a capital expenditure?

Mr. ENZI. I did read it. It says, ``Nothing in this article shall preclude authority.'' It doesn't give authority to do it. It just eliminates the preclusion of doing it. It does not define what major capital improvements are. All of the things that the Senator from California has in section 8 could be done in enabling legislation under a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Mr. ENZI. We are running out of time. I am sure that will not happen in my time.