Russell Feingold

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am just a little puzzled by the round condemnation of the PAC ban provision, especially given the fallback provisions that we have included in the bill, because in 1993, Senator Pressler offered an amendment 372, which is virtually identical to our provision, and it was supported and voted for by the Senator from Washington and the Senator from Kentucky. They voted for this PAC ban with the fallback provision. I am a little puzzled as to why this can be such a central problem in this bill when it was worthy enough for their support just 2 years ago. I yield the floor. Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.

Mr. FEINGOLD. This Senator is intrigued by the Senator's discussion of newspapers and the roles of the newspapers today in the context of this bill passing and becoming law. All I hear around the country is that the newspapers have lost their clout and that they do not compare with television, cable TV, and the like. My question is: If it is the case that newspapers somehow have this power, why do not campaigns spend a lot of money on newspaper advertising to counteract? I would suggest--and it would be an interesting response--that the influence of newspapers is absolutely minuscule. Regrettably the influence of these editorial writers is minuscule compared to the power of television. I would suggest that is the reason that 75 or 80 percent of almost every Senate campaign spends its money on television. I would be interested in why suddenly newspapers have reached the power that they have lost over the years.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the finishing touches have been applied to the leadership's Presidential election year budget, and as many of us on both sides of the aisle feared, the cornerstone of that election year budget is not balancing the books but cutting taxes. Even the few fig leaves that were carefully placed on last year's budget resolution have been removed. The special reserve fund from which tax cuts were to be funded only after CBO certified that we were on a glidepath to a balanced budget has been removed. Instead we have a Rube Goldberg construction of reconciliation bills, leading to a massive tax cut which, we are told, totals $122 billion, but which might actually be closer to $180 billion if one believes the Chairman of the other body's Budget Committee. If anything, the conference version of the budget resolution provides even more opportunities for enacting a tax cut before the budget is balanced. As I understand the conference report, Congress can now consider tax cuts as part of the welfare-Medicaid reconciliation bill, or as part of a separate tax cut reconciliation bill. It is readily apparent that the goal of this year's budget resolution is not to balance the budget in 7 years, in 6 years, or even sooner. The goal is to pass an election year tax cut. Mr. President, the goal, and thus the budget as a whole, is entirely political--a defect that is not unique to this budget resolution. The tax cut bidding war that has been heating up for the past 2\1/2\ years is now white hot. The President is proposing tax cuts. The Republican congressional leadership are proposing tax cuts. The GOP candidate for President is about to propose tax cuts. Even the bipartisan coalition of Senators proposed a significant tax cut as part of their own budget plan, though I think many in that coalition would have preferred no tax cuts at all until we balanced the budget. Mr. President, every time you turn around you bump into somebody about to propose a tax cut. Last week, the President proposed a $1,500 education tax credit, and there are reports that he may propose a tax break for first-time homebuyers. The Republican congressional leadership is pushing a gas tax cut, and has also proposed an adoption tax credit and a series of business tax cuts. And the Republican Presidential nominee is expected to propose a significant tax cut, reportedly as much as a 15-percent across-the-board cut in income taxes, a cut that would cost about $90 billion a year according to one report. Mr. President, we may need an environmental impact statement reviewing the loss of all those trees that will be used to make the paper for this blizzard of tax cut bills. The Washington Post took both Presidential candidates to task for their election year tax cut proposals. That June 4 editorial noted that ``both men know better,'' and went on to say that ``the candidates are moving, both of them, against what we persist in regarding as their own better instincts toward a bidding war on taxes.'' Mr. President, I think that is a fair characterization. I respect both President Clinton and Senator Dole, and I think they both know better than to engage in this bidding war on taxes. It is driven purely by political winds. With continuing budget deficits facing the Nation, our focus must remain on balancing the budget, not on cutting taxes. This is true not only for the Federal budget as a whole, but also within the budget in areas such as Medicare. The recent report of the Medicare trustees came as no surprise. We have known for some time that the Medicare trust fund would be insolvent in a few years, a projection that has been all too common over the past 25 years. We need to devote our economic resources toward stabilizing that trust fund in the short term, and ensuring its solvency in the long term. I regret that the path of this budget resolution is instead to further undermine that trust fund by putting tax cuts ahead of both balancing the Federal budget and the long-term solvency of Medicare. Mr. President, the bipartisan budget plan that was debated here last month also had this fatal flaw. That plan, which held much promise in so many areas, was fatally flawed by having to provide funding for a tax cut that was neither politically necessary nor fiscally responsible. That it used as its funding source an across-the-board cut in Social Security COLA's not only frustrated the rest of the plan, it also may have jeopardized efforts to reform the Consumer Price Index which so many respected authorities maintain overstates the cost of living. Making a case that the CPI needs to be modified will only suffer if the savings realized from reform are used to cut taxes rather than to secure the fiscal stability of Social Security. Mr. President, there was absolutely no need for that bipartisan plan to include a tax cut, and I very much hope that any future bipartisan actions which may flow from that important effort begin by dumping those tax cuts and focusing every last dime of savings on balancing the budget. Mr. President, I regret that so many have been infected by this tax cut fever. Its symptoms seem to cloud the mind. Even those who persist in believing the thoroughly disproven voo doo economics of the early 1980's can find little on which to launch their arguments for a so- called pro-growth tax cut. As some have noted, whether or not the ``pro-growth'' set believe in those discredited policies, there is little doubt that the Federal Reserve and the financial markets do not, and the effects of any tax cut that might be enacted would be countered in short order with an offsetting rise in interest rates. Mr. President, we can barely cut taxes and balance the budget on paper, let alone actually putting such a plan into effect. Maintaining the fiscal discipline needed to eliminate the deficit is hard enough for Congress. Adding a tax cut on top of that goal is fiscally irresponsible. Mr. President, this budget resolution invites mischief. It provides multiple opportunities to stray from what must be our most important economic goal, namely a balanced budget. And by opening up these new fronts, it further escalates a tax cut bidding war that is already getting out of control. Mr. President, we can expect a long, hot summer of tax cut proposals flying back and forth. Mr. President, it may have appeal in some quarters, but the great bulk of the American people would much rather be dealt with honestly and responsibly. They know that you cannot balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time. You have to choose one road or the other. Mr. President, let us choose the road to a balanced budget.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, this morning, the three-judge panel sitting in the U.S. district court in Philadelphia issued its decision in the case involving the Communications Decency Act, which was included in the telecommunications bill signed into law earlier this year. I opposed the Communications Decency Act when it was first proposed in the U.S. Senate, because I believe this measure would have a chilling effect upon communications transmitted over the Internet, and it would stifle the expansion of this important and exciting new communications vehicle. My concern was that the Communications Decency Act injected Government censorship into communications over the Internet that would not withstand a first amendment challenge and would be harmful to the development of technology to do what the proponents of the Communications Decency Act said they wanted to do, and that is to protect minors from exposure to pornographic material transmitted or made available on the Internet. I also joined the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] in introducing legislation to repeal this patently unconstitutional infringement of first amendment rights. Let me take my hat off to the Senator from Vermont who has been a great leader on this issue. It has been a bit of a lonely fight out here, given the vote we had on the Communications Decency Act, but the Senator from Vermont has been very instrumental in raising this challenge. I am delighted to report that the court this morning acted in a decisive manner and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Federal Government from enforcing the act. In a decision which I believe recognized the unique nature of the Internet, the court wrote: As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest level of protection from Government intrusion. Mr. President, let me repeat. The court has said ``the Internet deserves the highest level of protection'' of any form of communication or mass speech. This decision followed an extraordinary court proceeding in Philadelphia where the three judges were actively involved in learning about how people communicate across the Internet and the limitless potential the Internet now provides. They were also exposed to detailed information on how this same technology can and should be used to block access to certain material by minors. What they found, as some of us tried to note in the congressional debate, was there were far less intrusive means of achieving the goal of protecting minors than the approach utilized in the Communications Decency Act, which would impose content-based restrictions on information transmitted by adults over the Internet. It is a longstanding constitutional doctrine that when the Government chooses to interfere with fundamental constitutional rights, even for a very good cause, it can only do so in the least restrictive means available. Clearly, the Communications Decency Act has failed to meet that test. I firmly believe that if Members of Congress had this kind of tutorial that the members of the court had on the workings of the Internet and the alternatives available to protect access by minors to certain material, I think the Communications Decency Act would never have become law in the first place. This measure was pushed through Congress with minimal understanding or debate over the far-reaching implications of its provisions, and I think that was a mistake. The issues relating to the Communications Decency Act are larger than the so-called adult expression or communication. The core issue is whether Government, and in particular the Federal Government in Washington, DC, should decide what we see, hear, and write. The Constitution protects every American from this kind of censorship, except for very narrow circumstances, which did not exist in this case. So today, the court in Philadelphia affirmed our basic fundamental right to freedom of expression in this new mode of communication. I think it is a victory for those who support freedom of speech and for those who want to see this new dynamic communications technology develop safe from the chilling threat of Government control and censorship. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to salute the energy, intelligence, and personal strength of a man who is leaving a remarkable career in the U.S. Senate, the majority leader, Senator Robert Dole. Many of my colleagues have worked with Senator Dole far longer than I, but it didn't take me long after I arrived here in 1993 to develop a healthy respect for his skill as a legislator and for his ability to lead his Republican colleagues. Moreover, it quickly became clear to me that Senator Dole is a man shaped and defined by his ability to meet challenges without flinching and to overcome them. He has been accorded well-deserved praise from both sides of the aisle, and his colleagues on the other side have demonstrated their respect for his abilities by making him the longest-serving Republican majority leader in the Senate's history. Mr. President, Senator Dole's government career since he joined the Senate in 1968 is widely known and respected. He has played a pivotal role in the passage of several pieces of important legislation, including, for example, the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990. For many years, Senator Dole was a supporter of legislation to protect civil rights. For example, his efforts were crucial in the passage of the renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 1982. His imprint is also on the Food Stamp Program, on Social Security, and other important measures. One legislative achievement that may not get much notice, but which helps some of our Nation's most vulnerable people, is Senator Dole's support for the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE. Senator Dole and I share an interest in this innovative long-term care program, which is a nationwide effort to integrate services for certain elderly Medicare and Medicaid patients. PACE has managed to provide an extensive array of services while saving money, both laudable goals. On another issue--committing United States forces to Bosnia--Senator Dole and I were in disagreement, but even though we were on opposite sides of the final vote to send American troops there, I recognized his efforts to work for bipartisanship and to take a risk to support what he regarded as the necessary action in this area. Mr. President, it is unfortunate that, during an election year, the Senate is so often consumed by partisan tensions and maneuvers. Nevertheless, the U.S. Senate is an institution where it is possible to reach across the aisle and find common ground. Senator Dole has devoted many, many years to the Senate and to working on issues of enormous public interest. He has earned the respect and admiration of all of his colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike. Mr. President, Bob Dole will be long-remembered in the U.S. Senate, and this Chamber will simply not be the same without him.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the further disintegration of the human rights situation in Nigeria. A few days ago, another assassination occurred which appears to be politically motivated. Kudirat Abiola, the wife of Moshood Abiola, the winner of the 1993 presidential election, was brutally murdered by a group of armed men near a military checkpoint in Lagos, the capital. According to reports, they jumped out of a car, pulled Mrs. Abiola out of her own car, and shot her in the forehead--execution style. Both Mrs. Abiola and her driver died a few hours later in a Lagos hospital. Obviously, at this point in time, the facts have not been established and it is important not to jump to conclusions before full information is available, but according to most accounts, this was a political assassination. Mr. President, just 4 months ago, Alex Ibru, the publisher of the Nation, one of Nigeria's leading newspapers was shot at on a Lagos street. Fortunately, he was only wounded. The shooting this week is yet another indication of the deteriorating human rights situation in Nigeria. The assassination of the spouse of a political leader is an act which is deeply shocking. Political assassination itself is a horrifying assault upon a democratic process, but when the family members of political figures become the targets for this kind of heinous act, the injury goes even deeper. Mrs. Abiola's husband, Moshood Abiola, has been imprisoned for nearly 2 years. Kudirat Abiola herself was detained by the current regime just last month apparently because she had on her person documents which suggested that her husband should be the rightful leader of the country. She was released, but it is difficult not to see a connection between the tragic ending to her life and the earlier detention. Mrs. Abiola had been an outspoken critic of Gen. Sani Abacha's regime. For nearly 2 years, she had been working tirelessly-- both in private and in public for the release of her husband. She had become a prominent individual in her own right, working to bring democracy to her country. Just last week, she met with John Shattuck, our Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights. The assassination of this leading figure, following the executions last year of a group of human rights activists, including the renowned playwright, Ken Sara-Wiwa, has drawn international condemnation and rightly so. According to press reports, thousands of university students marched yesterday in Ibadan, joined by many others. Over 3,000 people attended Ms. Abiola's funeral yesterday, including representatives from a number of nations. Mr. President, Nigeria is an important country in regional and international politics. It is the most populous country in Africa and an active member of many international bodies. Nigeria's fate is thus of great significance. It has the potential to become a major world trading partner and an influential member of the international community. Yet its leadership continues to squander this potential through this horrific behavior. The military regime of Gen. Sani Abacha continues to be associated with rampant corruption, brutal policies of repression and execution and severe economic mismanagement. I spoke yesterday with the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States and communicated my own concern that the most recent assassination is a matter of grave concern and urged that his government conduct a full and transparent investigation of the circumstances leading to Mrs. Abiola's assassination and take steps to bring her murderers to justice. The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, on which I serve as the ranking minority member, recently held a hearing on United States policy on Nigeria. As I said then, and as I have said many times on this floor, the track of decline and violence in Nigeria causes great pain and instability in all of Africa. The brutal assassinations and executions underscore this problem. The situation in Nigeria today stands in stark contrast to the trend in many African countries toward pluralism, transparency, and constitutional guarantees of fundamental human rights. Nigeria continues to move in the opposite direction. The international community needs to send very strong messages that this course of action will make Nigeria an international pariah, shunned by all nations and all people committed to human rights and democracy.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Senator from North Carolina, for his leadership on the MFN issue and for the bipartisan effort which is needed because we have a bipartisan problem on the other side of this issue. Mr. President, on May 31, President Clinton announced his intention to extend for another year most-favored-nation trading status to China, a decision I regret as objectionable and truly perplexing. Our previous President, former President Bush, took that position, and regrettably the majority leader who obviously seeks to be President, also takes the same position. So we have a very serious problem with a past administration, a current administration, and potentially another administration all turning away from this issue of whether or not China deserves most-favored-nation status. I think that is objectionable because it reaffirms an erroneous and even illogical choice made by the administration in 1994: that trade rights and human rights are not interrelated and, yet, that through ``constructive engagement,'' including easy trade terms, human rights will improve. The chairman of the committee and I argued then that this approach was naive and predicted that the dismal human rights situation in China would remain unchanged. Unfortunately and sadly, I and others concerned with the Beijing regime's callous disregard for the basic rights of any individual, have been proven right. De-linking MFN to improvement in human rights has resulted only in despair, prison, and abuse for those struggling in China to guarantee basic freedoms. The President' decision is perplexing because it seems so very clear to me and other, more expert, observers that the Chinese covet and need trade with the United States and that the only pressure they apparently respect is the prospect of economic sanctions. Words and exhortations to improve, to act decently and in conformity with international norms, are pocketed and ignored. It is not working. In fact, things have gotten worse. So I rise today, Mr. President, to join in offering a resolution of disapproval of the President's action, an option available to the Congress under the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment. I recognize that this resolution will draw strong opposition. I know that the leadership in both Houses has already indicated its support for the President's announcement and we will soon be witness to a heavy lobbying effort by the administration and its allies in business and in the Congress to prevent our resolution from prevailing. So the odds are difficult. Of course, the odds are even more difficult for overriding a Presidential veto should we succeed. Nevertheless, I believe denying MFN-status to China is the right thing to do and should be pursued, not just for those suffering at the hands of the Chinese regime, but because it is in our national interest on many fronts: political, economic, and moral. Let me turn first, Mr. President, to the state of human rights in China which the Senator from North Carolina has discussed in some detail. Two years after the administration's de-linking decision, the State Department's annual report on human rights described an abysmal situation, marked by increased repression. I quote here verbatim: Abuses included arbitary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confession, torture and mistreatment of prisoners. Prison conditions remained harsh. The government continues severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, movement and workers rights. The report continued that by the end of 1995 almost all public dissent had been silenced by intimidation, exile or imposition of prison terms or administrative detention. In December 1995 we were witness to a concrete example of how little constructive engagement has accomplished. Wei Jingsheng, a prominent dissident who has dedicated his life to speaking out against the Chinese Government's repression of its own people, was hauled before a show court on charges of subversion. Wei Jingsheng had already spent 16 years looking at the inside of Chinese prison walls, but when he was finally released in 1993 he immediately and courageously took up again the cause of freedom. For his bravery and unstinting devotion to human rights Wei Jingsheng--after a 6-hour court proceeding--was sentenced to another 14 years. The administration issued a condemnation, of course, and an appeal for clemency. It is any surprise, Mr. President, that the Chinese took this statement for what it was--mere words--and that Wei Jingsheng languishes today in an abusive prison system? The impunity with which the Chinese Government acts--and knows it can act--has a debilitating effect on dissent. We know from our own contacts that prominent intellectuals and common citizens temper their statements, carefully refraining from pronouncing on political topics. I anticipate that administration apologists will point to recent reforms in the Chinese legal system as evidence that engagement is reaping benefits. But in a way that is like a Trojan Horse. Many of the reforms are meant to facilitate foreign investment by making clear the rules of the game and providing legal recourse for settling disputes. I imagine, however, that Wei Jingsheng and others take cold comfort in China's version of the Uniform Commercial Code. To be sure, reform of prison procedures and criminal laws are welcome developments. Perhaps they do point to an evolution in the rule of law in China. But unless they are put into practice--and they clearly are not if, as is the case in China, officials can detain individuals without charge or even acknowledgment of detention--the reforms are merely paper promises. The list of human rights horrors goes on. In the past year, we have been witness to a well-documented report by Human Rights Watch/Asia detailing fatal neglect and abuse in Chinese orphanages. Tibetan religious sensitivities were trampled on when Chinese authorities usurped and gave to themselves the right to choose the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism, continuing a nearly 50-year pattern of persecution and repression of the Tibetan people. In fact, the Chinese admitted only on June 1--and here we have truly the phenomena of a wolf in sheep's clothing--that they were holding under house arrest ``for his own protection'' the 7-year-old boy designated by Tibetan Buddhists as the true Panchen Lama. Chinese contempt for construction engagement is evident in other fora: thee bald-faced attempted intimidation of Taiwan in March, sales of nuclear equipment to Pakistan, the utter disregard for agreements to end violation of U.S. intellectual property rights. Is it possible to come to anything but this self-evident conclusion: ``constructive engagement'' has failed so far to improve Chinese human rights behavior. I would say the evidence justifies the exact opposite conclusion: human rights have deteriorated and the regime emboldened to act recklessly in other areas vital to U.S. national interest. In announcing his intent to extend MFN, President Clinton said that the decision, as the chairman has pointed out, ``was not a referendum on China's policies.'' That is what the President indicated. And, of course, I believe firmly that the President abhors the daily repression and abuse in China. That is not the issue. What is the issue is how a tortured United States policy is perceived in Beijing. Recently, the administration announced it was taking the Chinese regime at its word that it had no idea that a Chinese firm--operated by the military--was selling ring magnets to Pakistan for use in that country's nuclear weapons program. This announcement--coming on the heels of tough talk of sanctions for what seems to me to be a clear violation of China's 1992 pledge to abide by the obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty--must have evoked self-satisfied smiles in Beijing. Why? Because the threat of sanctions for ignoring our policies on nonproliferation--at least in this instance--went by the boards, just as our insistence that China respect human rights in return for normal trade relations were jettisoned in 1994. Looming on the horizon is the ballyhooed trade war over our threat to impose higher tariffs on some Chinese goods, in retaliation for China's blatant continuing violation of United States intellectual property rights, IPR. We have been down this road before. It was only in February 1995, when threatened with higher tariffs on $1 billion of its goods, that China signed an agreement to curb IPR piracy. In the 15 months since, by the estimate of the Motion Picture Industry Association, the harm to U.S. copyrighters has actually increased. Let us see if we can briefly discern a pattern here. In 1992, the administration promises to link trade preferences to improvement in human rights. Two years later, that policy is abandoned. In 1995, our intelligence agencies discover Chinese violations of nonproliferation obligations. Sanctions are threatened and then abandoned in the face of promises to do better. Also, in 1995, the Chinese promise to do better on IPR and the problem worsens. Our response: more tough talk, and this time ``we mean it.'' If I were sitting in Beijing, I would come to the conclusion that the threats are empty, the rhetoric hollow. Constructive engagement has failed to alter Chinese behavior to the good. So let us drop the pretense and cut to the quick. We trade with China and extend to it normal trading privileges because our Government believes it benefits American business, the United States economy, and, therefore, the national interest. We look the other way, in practice if not in word, on Chinese violations of human rights, nonproliferation-- perhaps in the end even on IPR--because it is good for business. As I said at the outset, I find this rationale perplexing. Our trading relationship with China is really quite one-sided. Writing in the New York Times, May 16, Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industrial Association, argued that our $34 billion trade deficit with China depresses job creation, wages and growth of the United States economy. This tremendous deficit--which has helped China amass more than $70 billion in foreign reserves, a war chest useful to riding out any trade war--is not the result of fair- trading practices. China is a protectionist nation, Mr. Tonelson notes, with some of the highest tariffs in the world. It dumps artificially low-priced goods--products manufactured by children and convicts--on American markets, hurting U.S. competitors. According to Mr. Tonelson, China extorts know how and high-skill jobs from American companies, such as Boeing, seeking to set up shop in China. Certainly China is a vast market, with tremendous potential. But our 1995 exports to China of $11.7 billion--only 0.12 percent of our GNP--were less than what we send to Belgium or Hong Kong. On the other hand, we buy up to 40 percent of China's exports and that allows China to finance its industrial and military modernization program. We have the leverage to make them play by the rules of the game. Does it not make sense to use that leverage now, from a relative position of strength, than try to make the Chinese play fair 10, 20, or 30 years from now when by many projections it will be a legitimate superpower? As Mr. Tonelson notes, even the higher tariffs imposed on China under a non-MFN scheme would still be lower than China's tariffs on our products. Mr. President, if mortal outrage at blatant abuse of human rights is not reason enough for taking a tough stance with China--and I believe it is and that the American people do as well--then let us do so on grounds of self-interest. United States credibility is at stake; a firm stance which refuses China the privilege--not the right--of MFN will enhance United States stature and, in the long run, benefit United States business, the American consumer, and, we can hope, ultimately leads to an improvement in China's economic and political behavior.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Senator from North Carolina, for his leadership on the MFN issue and for the bipartisan effort which is needed because we have a bipartisan problem on the other side of this issue. Mr. President, on May 31, President Clinton announced his intention to extend for another year most-favored-nation trading status to China, a decision I regret as objectionable and truly perplexing. Our previous President, former President Bush, took that position, and regrettably the majority leader who obviously seeks to be President, also takes the same position. So we have a very serious problem with a past administration, a current administration, and potentially another administration all turning away from this issue of whether or not China deserves most-favored-nation status. I think that is objectionable because it reaffirms an erroneous and even illogical choice made by the administration in 1994: that trade rights and human rights are not interrelated and, yet, that through ``constructive engagement,'' including easy trade terms, human rights will improve. The chairman of the committee and I argued then that this approach was naive and predicted that the dismal human rights situation in China would remain unchanged. Unfortunately and sadly, I and others concerned with the Beijing regime's callous disregard for the basic rights of any individual, have been proven right. De-linking MFN to improvement in human rights has resulted only in despair, prison, and abuse for those struggling in China to guarantee basic freedoms. The President' decision is perplexing because it seems so very clear to me and other, more expert, observers that the Chinese covet and need trade with the United States and that the only pressure they apparently respect is the prospect of economic sanctions. Words and exhortations to improve, to act decently and in conformity with international norms, are pocketed and ignored. It is not working. In fact, things have gotten worse. So I rise today, Mr. President, to join in offering a resolution of disapproval of the President's action, an option available to the Congress under the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment. I recognize that this resolution will draw strong opposition. I know that the leadership in both Houses has already indicated its support for the President's announcement and we will soon be witness to a heavy lobbying effort by the administration and its allies in business and in the Congress to prevent our resolution from prevailing. So the odds are difficult. Of course, the odds are even more difficult for overriding a Presidential veto should we succeed. Nevertheless, I believe denying MFN-status to China is the right thing to do and should be pursued, not just for those suffering at the hands of the Chinese regime, but because it is in our national interest on many fronts: political, economic, and moral. Let me turn first, Mr. President, to the state of human rights in China which the Senator from North Carolina has discussed in some detail. Two years after the administration's de-linking decision, the State Department's annual report on human rights described an abysmal situation, marked by increased repression. I quote here verbatim: Abuses included arbitary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confession, torture and mistreatment of prisoners. Prison conditions remained harsh. The government continues severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, movement and workers rights. The report continued that by the end of 1995 almost all public dissent had been silenced by intimidation, exile or imposition of prison terms or administrative detention. In December 1995 we were witness to a concrete example of how little constructive engagement has accomplished. Wei Jingsheng, a prominent dissident who has dedicated his life to speaking out against the Chinese Government's repression of its own people, was hauled before a show court on charges of subversion. Wei Jingsheng had already spent 16 years looking at the inside of Chinese prison walls, but when he was finally released in 1993 he immediately and courageously took up again the cause of freedom. For his bravery and unstinting devotion to human rights Wei Jingsheng--after a 6-hour court proceeding--was sentenced to another 14 years. The administration issued a condemnation, of course, and an appeal for clemency. It is any surprise, Mr. President, that the Chinese took this statement for what it was--mere words--and that Wei Jingsheng languishes today in an abusive prison system? The impunity with which the Chinese Government acts--and knows it can act--has a debilitating effect on dissent. We know from our own contacts that prominent intellectuals and common citizens temper their statements, carefully refraining from pronouncing on political topics. I anticipate that administration apologists will point to recent reforms in the Chinese legal system as evidence that engagement is reaping benefits. But in a way that is like a Trojan Horse. Many of the reforms are meant to facilitate foreign investment by making clear the rules of the game and providing legal recourse for settling disputes. I imagine, however, that Wei Jingsheng and others take cold comfort in China's version of the Uniform Commercial Code. To be sure, reform of prison procedures and criminal laws are welcome developments. Perhaps they do point to an evolution in the rule of law in China. But unless they are put into practice--and they clearly are not if, as is the case in China, officials can detain individuals without charge or even acknowledgment of detention--the reforms are merely paper promises. The list of human rights horrors goes on. In the past year, we have been witness to a well-documented report by Human Rights Watch/Asia detailing fatal neglect and abuse in Chinese orphanages. Tibetan religious sensitivities were trampled on when Chinese authorities usurped and gave to themselves the right to choose the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism, continuing a nearly 50-year pattern of persecution and repression of the Tibetan people. In fact, the Chinese admitted only on June 1--and here we have truly the phenomena of a wolf in sheep's clothing--that they were holding under house arrest ``for his own protection'' the 7-year-old boy designated by Tibetan Buddhists as the true Panchen Lama. Chinese contempt for construction engagement is evident in other fora: thee bald-faced attempted intimidation of Taiwan in March, sales of nuclear equipment to Pakistan, the utter disregard for agreements to end violation of U.S. intellectual property rights. Is it possible to come to anything but this self-evident conclusion: ``constructive engagement'' has failed so far to improve Chinese human rights behavior. I would say the evidence justifies the exact opposite conclusion: human rights have deteriorated and the regime emboldened to act recklessly in other areas vital to U.S. national interest. In announcing his intent to extend MFN, President Clinton said that the decision, as the chairman has pointed out, ``was not a referendum on China's policies.'' That is what the President indicated. And, of course, I believe firmly that the President abhors the daily repression and abuse in China. That is not the issue. What is the issue is how a tortured United States policy is perceived in Beijing. Recently, the administration announced it was taking the Chinese regime at its word that it had no idea that a Chinese firm--operated by the military--was selling ring magnets to Pakistan for use in that country's nuclear weapons program. This announcement--coming on the heels of tough talk of sanctions for what seems to me to be a clear violation of China's 1992 pledge to abide by the obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty--must have evoked self-satisfied smiles in Beijing. Why? Because the threat of sanctions for ignoring our policies on nonproliferation--at least in this instance--went by the boards, just as our insistence that China respect human rights in return for normal trade relations were jettisoned in 1994. Looming on the horizon is the ballyhooed trade war over our threat to impose higher tariffs on some Chinese goods, in retaliation for China's blatant continuing violation of United States intellectual property rights, IPR. We have been down this road before. It was only in February 1995, when threatened with higher tariffs on $1 billion of its goods, that China signed an agreement to curb IPR piracy. In the 15 months since, by the estimate of the Motion Picture Industry Association, the harm to U.S. copyrighters has actually increased. Let us see if we can briefly discern a pattern here. In 1992, the administration promises to link trade preferences to improvement in human rights. Two years later, that policy is abandoned. In 1995, our intelligence agencies discover Chinese violations of nonproliferation obligations. Sanctions are threatened and then abandoned in the face of promises to do better. Also, in 1995, the Chinese promise to do better on IPR and the problem worsens. Our response: more tough talk, and this time ``we mean it.'' If I were sitting in Beijing, I would come to the conclusion that the threats are empty, the rhetoric hollow. Constructive engagement has failed to alter Chinese behavior to the good. So let us drop the pretense and cut to the quick. We trade with China and extend to it normal trading privileges because our Government believes it benefits American business, the United States economy, and, therefore, the national interest. We look the other way, in practice if not in word, on Chinese violations of human rights, nonproliferation-- perhaps in the end even on IPR--because it is good for business. As I said at the outset, I find this rationale perplexing. Our trading relationship with China is really quite one-sided. Writing in the New York Times, May 16, Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industrial Association, argued that our $34 billion trade deficit with China depresses job creation, wages and growth of the United States economy. This tremendous deficit--which has helped China amass more than $70 billion in foreign reserves, a war chest useful to riding out any trade war--is not the result of fair- trading practices. China is a protectionist nation, Mr. Tonelson notes, with some of the highest tariffs in the world. It dumps artificially low-priced goods--products manufactured by children and convicts--on American markets, hurting U.S. competitors. According to Mr. Tonelson, China extorts know how and high-skill jobs from American companies, such as Boeing, seeking to set up shop in China. Certainly China is a vast market, with tremendous potential. But our 1995 exports to China of $11.7 billion--only 0.12 percent of our GNP--were less than what we send to Belgium or Hong Kong. On the other hand, we buy up to 40 percent of China's exports and that allows China to finance its industrial and military modernization program. We have the leverage to make them play by the rules of the game. Does it not make sense to use that leverage now, from a relative position of strength, than try to make the Chinese play fair 10, 20, or 30 years from now when by many projections it will be a legitimate superpower? As Mr. Tonelson notes, even the higher tariffs imposed on China under a non-MFN scheme would still be lower than China's tariffs on our products. Mr. President, if mortal outrage at blatant abuse of human rights is not reason enough for taking a tough stance with China--and I believe it is and that the American people do as well--then let us do so on grounds of self-interest. United States credibility is at stake; a firm stance which refuses China the privilege--not the right--of MFN will enhance United States stature and, in the long run, benefit United States business, the American consumer, and, we can hope, ultimately leads to an improvement in China's economic and political behavior.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, I note a little over a year ago this body rejected this proposed amendment. A great deal has happened since then, but none of the fundamental flaws of the joint resolution have been corrected. It still raises serious problems related to the role of the courts and the power it might confer on unelected judges to set our national budget policy. It remains a serious and real threat to Social Security. It continues to risk expansion of Presidential impoundment authority. Madam President, all of these faults are still there, they still remain. But there have been significant events in the last year that do bear on the proposed constitutional amendment, and they go to the very heart of the arguments put forward by the proponents of the constitutional amendment. The central reason offered by the proponents of the amendment is that without this constitutional mandate we will not balance the budget. That argument was appealing but ultimately unpersuasive a year ago. It remains unpersuasive today. Prior to the vote in 1995, President Clinton and the 103d Congress had just finished cutting the deficit in half--the first time for 3 years in a row that the deficit had gone down, and not just by a little bit, but by half. The effects of the deficit reduction package we enacted brought the deficit down from what would have been nearly $300 billion in this fiscal year to what is now projected to be $145 billion, or even, based on the very most recent estimates, $130 or $120 billion. In far less than just one Presidential term, what would have been a $300 billion deficit is now something in the range of only $125 or $130 billion. It is a tremendous achievement in the right direction, one which I bet almost no one would have predicted could have happened in this short a time. We were clearly on the road to balancing our Federal budget. Since that time we have seen a number of different balanced budget proposals offered by Republicans, and then others offered by Democrats, and still others offered by bipartisan coalitions. Of course, the President has become the first President in many decades to submit a budget that is actually balanced. All of those plans were drafted without the presence of a constitutional mandate. In fact, I firmly believe those plans would not have been proposed and would not have been forthcoming but for the failure of either party to find political cover in the adoption of a constitutional amendment. Without the ability to hide behind a lengthy, multiyear ratification process, this Congress had no excuse. The Congress, in effect, by not having a balanced budget amendment being considered by the States for several years, is really being forced every day to try to live up to all the rhetoric that has spilled on this floor in the name of balancing the budget. I proposed a specific plan to balance the budget in 5 years when I was running in 1992, and I am especially pleased to be able to say that several dozen of the provisions of that plan have already been enacted into law in some form or another. They are part of the progress that we have made in reducing the deficit by more than half since 1992. I will continue to push individual provisions from that balanced budget plan, as well as add other ideas to it. Madam President, I believe a majority of both Houses strongly supports a balanced budget and is willing, even today, to set aside partisan differences to accomplish this most important of our economic goals. But that is not what this proposed constitutional amendment is all about. What the proposed constitutional amendment is about, or at least the idea of having this vote at this time, tomorrow, is all about, is politics. Does anyone doubt that the outcome of this vote will be any different than the vote taken last year? Nobody has said that on either side. Then why have we returned to this issue right now? The answer is clear. This vote is being taken for purely political purposes. The drive for the constitutional amendment in my view has largely been political from the beginning. We should not be shocked by that. Congress, by its nature, is a political institution. That is understood and to be expected in such an institution. What is disturbing, though, Madam President, is the willingness of some to risk our Constitution in this manner to gain temporary political advantage. The so-called balanced budget amendment is only one of many constitutional proposed changes. Too many of them, I think, are again for largely political ends. I think each of them is unnecessary; some of them are grossly irresponsible. As I noted earlier, the call for this constitutional amendment certainly cannot stem from the lack of discussion and effort and consideration of the issue of balancing the budget. There are a sufficient number of plans to do that now, and though the plans do have some significant differences, I think there is a broad middle ground on which a consensus plan that achieved balance could be enacted. No, Madam President, for a majority of the supporters of this proposal, the constitutional amendment is more of a political device, pure and simple. It is one of a series of political statements that is repeated over and over that those folks hope will gain them the advantage with the voters. How else can one explain the almost incredible contradiction of voting for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget and saying that is your top priority and then at the same time insisting on the fiscally irresponsible deficit increasing tax cuts? As I have noted previously on the floor, we are in the middle of a stampede of proposals for tax cuts: Gasoline tax cuts, adoption tax credits, a whole slew of new business tax cuts, apparently tacked on to the minimum wage bill in the other body, and, of course, a $122 billion tax cut in the current budget resolution which was passed by this body just prior to our recess. The chairman of the Budget Committee in the other body was purported to have suggested the tax cuts provided for in the tax resolution might even total $180 billion. Let me note that not everyone who supports this proposed constitutional amendment has advocated these tax cuts, in fairness. Some of its advocates supported efforts to strip the $122 billion tax cut from the budget resolution and instead dedicate the savings toward deficit reduction. But, unfortunately, Madam President, those people who both supported the balanced budget amendment and were willing to forego the tax cuts--a consistent position--were just too few in number. The overwhelming majority of those who support this amendment to our Constitution have consistently supported tax cuts over deficit reduction when it came to a vote last month. And I have said it many times on this floor, and I will say it again: What is wrong with that? What is wrong is that you cannot spend a dollar twice. You cannot spend it on deficit reduction and spend it on tax cuts. You can only spend it once, but the folks who say they want the balanced budget amendment and want tax cuts want you to think you can spend it twice, and you cannot. The overwhelming majority of those who support this amendment to our Constitution also supported the absurd parliamentary ruling that endorsed the special reconciliation rule for a measure that is intended not to reduce the deficit--not to reduce the deficit--even though that is what supposedly the budget resolution is about, but to increase it by having more tax cuts when we cannot afford them. Madam President, I will make the following not very bold prediction: Before the summer is out, an overwhelming majority of those who support this amendment to the Constitution will be leading the rally behind a massive tax cut plan that will be even larger than those we have seen today. The tax cut frenzy is only beginning to gather steam. There is only one plausible explanation for that inconsistency, and, gee, it looks a little bit like political expedience. For the sake of avoiding a politically difficult stand, the overwhelming majority of those who support this joint resolution will accede to only what can be called, in my view, a reckless tax cut plan that severely undermines the very goal they maintain requires this new constitutional protection. Of course, there will be economic gymnastics to accompany a tax proposal, and we will all be told that plus is minus, that up is down by the same crowd that helped us get into this fiscal mess in the first place with trickle-down economics. And I suspect that because they desire a political victory here, some will actually come to believe their own rationale, despite the clear evidence that it did not work before. A little over a year after failing to get sufficient support for the proposed constitutional amendment, the supporters of the joint resolution will, once again, get what they desire, and that is a vote, a vote they can use for political ends, promoting themselves or attacking others. The age of the 30-second television commercial and the 2-minute news story really does reward this kind of gesture. We all know it. If you say you are for a balanced budget amendment, a lot of people think you are saying you have come up with a plan to actually balance the budget, even though the two things have very little to do with each other. It has spawned dozens of constitutional amendments, and it will produce more. We may live in a political world in which it is uncomfortable to do the right thing, but, Madam President, I do not think we were elected to be comfortable. Our Nation's Founders wisely incorporated the two-thirds threshold to protect against just this kind of politically motivated abuse of our Constitution. I earnestly hope that one-third plus one in this body will tomorrow and in the future continue to have the political will necessary to stand up for that great document and give the American people the kind of Government they truly do deserve: a Government that is focused not on short-term political expedience but on the long-term solutions to our problems and, in particular, the true effort to do what we can and should do here without sending this to the States, and that is a topic and priority of our country to balance the budget within the next very few years. I yield the floor. Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation to expand the Line-Item Veto Act to cover one of the largest and fastest growing areas of the Federal budget, tax expenditures. I am especially proud to be joined in offering this legislation by two colleagues who have worked to ensure that tax expenditures receive the scrutiny that other forms of spending receive, my good friends, the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone]. In addition to our effort here in the Senate, I am pleased that my good friend, Congressman Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, is spearheading this legislation in the other body. Both bills expand the Line-Item Veto Act which was signed into law recently, and which will take effect next January and remain in force for the next 8 years. Mr. President, both Congressman Barrett and I supported the new Line- Item Veto Act that was signed into law a few weeks ago. Though it isn't the whole answer to our deficit problem, I very much hope it will be part of the answer. However, the new Line-Item Veto Act failed to address one of the largest, and fastest growing areas of Federal spending--the program spending done through the Tax Code, often called tax expenditures. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that over the next 7 years, we will spend $3.7 trillion on tax expenditures. In the coming fiscal year, it is estimated that we will spend more on programs through the Tax Code, nearly $480 billion, than we will on discretionary spending for defense, agriculture, the Commerce Department programs, education, the environment, health programs including medical research, housing programs, the Justice Department, transportation, veterans affairs, the space program, the entire Federal judiciary, and the entire legislative branch. Mr. President, despite making up a huge portion of the Federal budget, tax expenditures are off the table with regard to the new Presidential authority which only extends to so-called limited tax benefits, defined in part to be a tax expenditure that benefits 100 or fewer taxpayers. Thus, as long as the tax attorneys can find 101 taxpayers--individuals, corporations, or both--who benefit from the proposed tax expenditure, it is beyond the reach of the new Presidential authority. Mr. President, it may not even be necessary for the tax attorneys to find that one 101st taxpayer. If a tax expenditure gives equal treatment to all persons in the same industry or engaged in the same type of activity, it is exempt from the new Presidential authority no matter how few benefit from the special treatment. Also, if all persons owning the same type of property, or issuing the same type of investment, receive the same treatment from a tax expenditure, that tax expenditure is beyond the reach of the President's new authority. And, there are still more exceptions that make it even harder for a President to trim unnecessary spending done through the Tax Code. For example, if any difference in the treatment of persons by a new tax expenditure is based solely on the size or form of the business or association involved, or, in the case of individuals, general demographic conditions, then the new spending cannot be touched by the President except as part of a veto of the entire piece of legislation which contains the new spending. Mr. President, we find none of these elaborate restrictions on spending done through the appropriations process or through entitlements. The new Presidential authority is handcuffed only for spending done through the Tax Code. Mr. President, this raises several problems. First, and foremost, it partitions off an enormous portion of the Federal budget from this new tool to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that we are spending over $450 billion through the Tax Code this year, nearly $480 billion next year, and a whopping $3.7 trillion over the next 7 years. If the authority established by the Line-Item Veto Act is to have meaning, it cannot be preempted from being used to scrutinize this much spending. A second problem raised by the inability of the new Presidential authority to address new tax expenditures is that it creates an enormous loophole through which questionable spending can escape. The current Line-Item Veto Act power given the President formally covers discretionary spending and new entitlement authority. But a special interest intent on enacting its pork-barrel spending could still do so by avoiding the discretionary or entitlement formats, and instead transform their pork into a tax expenditure. As a tax expenditure, most special interest pork is beyond the reach of the Line-Item Veto Act. Mr. President, this gaping hole is big enough to sink the entire ship. No matter how powerful this new authority is with regard to discretionary spending and entitlement authority, it is virtually useless against tax expenditures, and thus invites special interests to use this avenue to deliver pork. Mr. President, a further problem with the lack of adequate Presidential review in this area is the very real potential for inequities in the implementation of the new Line-Item Veto Act authority. These inequities arise in part from the progressive structure of marginal tax rates--as income rises, higher tax rates are applied. In turn, this means that many tax expenditures are worth more to those in the higher income tax brackets than they are to families with lower incomes. In some instances, tax expenditures provide no benefit at all to individuals with lower incomes. This is not the case with entitlement and discretionary spending programs--both areas covered by the Line-Item Veto Act. The benefits of those programs often are targeted to those with lower income. The net effect is that the scope of the current Line-Item Veto Act covers programs that often benefit those with low and moderate income, while it is powerless with regard to programs that often benefit individuals and corporations with higher incomes. Mr. President, tax expenditures have another feature that makes it especially important that we extend the new Line-Item Veto Act to cover them, namely their status as a kind of superentitlement. Once enacted, a tax expenditure continues to spend money without any additional authorization or appropriation, and without any regular review. In fact, while even funding for entitlements like Medicare or Medicaid can be suspended in rare instances such as a Government shutdown, funding for a tax expenditure is never interrupted. Tax expenditures enjoy a status that is far above any other kind of government spending, and as such, it should receive special scrutiny. Extending the Line-Item Veto Act to cover them will provide some of that needed review. Mr. President, as I have noted, tax expenditures make up a huge portion of the budget. They will soon exceed the entire Federal discretionary budget. Citizens for Tax Justice reports that if all current tax expenditures were suddenly repealed, the deficit could be eliminated and income tax rates could be reduced across the board by about 25 percent. Clearly, tax expenditures have an enormous impact on the deficit, and we need to pursue two tracks with regard to them. First, we must cut some of the $455 billion in existing spending done through the Tax Code. Any balanced plan to eliminate the deficit over the next few years must contain cuts to spending in this area. And second, with so much of our budget already dedicated to this kind of spending, we must bring tax expenditures under the Line-Item Veto Act and give the President the authority to act on new spending in this area as he does in other areas. Our legislation does just that by eliminating the highly restrictive language with respect to tax expenditures. Mr. President, as with the recently enacted Line-Item Veto Act itself, this bill to extend that new authority is not the whole answer to our deficit problems, but it can be part of the answer, and I urge my colleagues to support this effort to put teeth into the new Presidential authority with respect to the tax expenditure portion of the Federal budget. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the U.S. Constitution and what I believe is the essential need to exercise extreme restraint in regard to amending this great document. As recent articles in a number of publications and newspapers have pointed out, this Congress, Mr. President, the 104th Congress, perhaps unlike any in recent memory, seems intent on amending the U.S. Constitution. I do not question the sincerity of those efforts. The history of our Constitution and those amendments that have been adopted, as well as the mechanism crafted by the framers for adopting amendments, counsels that caution govern any efforts to amend this great document, our Constitution. Since its ratification in 1788, the Constitution of the United States has been the single greatest protector of individual rights known to man. It is superior to any of its predecessors, and has been the benchmark against which all other constitutions since adopted have been judged. Perhaps the greatest tribute to the U.S. Constitution, Mr. President, and the greatest tribute to those who drafted the document, is that in the 208 years since its ratification, the people of this Nation have only amended it on 27 occasions. This equates with only about one amendment every 7.7 years. However, Mr. President, this figure is a little bit misleading when one looks closely at the actual history accompanying those 27 amendments. It becomes obvious that those specific instances where the people of this Nation have moved to amend their Constitution have actually been few and far between, and those efforts have typically only been in response to some fundamental deficiency or flaw in our democratic system of government. As we look at the 27 amendments, Mr. President, for example, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, were adopted as part of an agreement to actually garner support for the passage of the underlying Constitution itself; 10 of the 27 were adopted at the very outset of our country. Anti-Federalists who opposed the Federal Constitution were opposed to its adoption unless and until a more explicit statement on the rights of man was added to the Constitution. The fervent belief that certain rights should remain squarely within the province of the individual manifests itself in the Bill of Rights. While the Bill of Rights was adopted almost simultaneously with the Constitution, becoming effective in 1791, what the Bill of Rights did was set a tone which on most subsequent occasions has been followed. That tone was that constitutional amendments should be reserved for response to shortcomings in our democratic way of governance in general, not to attend to the emotion or issue of the day each time. I think this is evidenced by the adoption, following the Civil War of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. These three amendments, much like the Bill of Rights, spoke directly to the rights and equality of men, and extended to African-Americans rights previously that were denied to them, denied to them under the original Constitution, and even under the original Bill of Rights. Further, many of our constitutional amendments deal directly with the ability of citizens to participate in democracy, they go to the very core of whether everyone can participate. The 17th, 19th, 24th and 26th amendments improve citizen involvement in elections by allowing for the direct election of Senators, extending the franchise to women, abolishing the poll tax, and reducing the voting age. The essence of democracy itself, Mr. President, is participation. These amendments fostered that fundamental element of our Nation. For that reason, I think they were all probably appropriate uses of the unusual and unique ability to amend the Constitution. Mr. President, obviously there have been other amendments albeit few rising to the level of the importance of the Bill of Rights and the Civil War amendments. However, I have noted these not to argue their importance, but to illustrate that throughout our history most amendments to the Constitution have been restricted to addressing systemic problems with our Government--problems which actually inhibit one's ability to participate in the benefits of democracy. In other words, these have to do with basic errors or problems that have arisen in our system that simply mean somebody cannot participate fully in our democracy. They have not, almost in every case, been amendments that have to do with one particular issue at a time that is dividing our country. Of course, on one glaring occasion we did depart from this standard and we adopted the ill-fated 18th amendment--the prohibition amendment. The result of this misguided venture into social policy resulted 14 years later in the adoption of another amendment, 1 of the 27, the 21st amendment, which repealed prohibition. So that is 2 of the 27, a lousy idea that did not work, followed by the repeal of this venture into social policy. Another aspect of our Constitution which argues for restraint in amending this document is found in the Constitution in article V. Article V establishes two methods for amending the Constitution. First, the Constitution may be amended by constitutional convention. The second method allows the Constitution to be amended if approved by two- thirds majority of both Houses of Congress, and then, of course, ratified by three-fourths of the States. These explicit methods for amendment were, in essence, a compromise between the unworkable unanimity requirement for amending the Articles of Confederation, one of the reasons that we had a constitutional convention, and the notion held by many of the Framers that some mechanism must exist to address potential shortcomings in the new Constitution. The compromise that is embodied in article V established a difficult but not impossible standard for amendment which, like the Constitution itself, I think, has served this Nation very well. While article V protects the people from constitutional uncertainty and alteration based solely upon the will of an ever-changing political majority, it also provides an avenue for amendment when it is truly necessary. The result of this has been to preserve the Constitution as it was intended to be. With only 27 amendments, it remains a general statement of principles used to help define a new nation, as opposed to a step- by-step method of governance. In so doing, I think article V has prevented the U.S. Constitution from simply becoming littered with a flurry of well-meaning but unnecessary amendments. Article V has prevented the Constitution from evolving into a document that would be almost unrecognizable in terms of length and scope to the Framers, who drafted it over 200 years ago. This is the really important thing, Mr. President, because it points out the fundamental distinction between a Constitution and ordinary statutes. There is a big difference in our system. As I understand it, there is less of a difference in the system in England. There, there is no written Constitution; Parliament is supreme. Technically speaking, Parliament can pass any law, and it then becomes the supreme law of the land. We have broken that system. We chose to have a simple, brief document that was greater than the legislature, that was greater than a parliament, that was greater than a Congress. It is the notion of a limited written Constitution. That is the difference between us and the English system. And, in fact, it was part of the reason, in my view, why the revolution was fought. Our citizens wanted a document over which no legislative body had supremacy, except for in the very unusual circumstances that were outlined in article V, or a combination of a very significant supermajority of Congress and very significant supermajority of States together would have to be the only ones that could ever amend that document. As Prof. Kathleen Sullivan pointed out recently in an article cleverly entitled, ``Constitutional Amendmentitis'': The very idea of a Constitution turns on the separation of the legal and the political realms. The Constitution sets up the framework of the Government. It also sets forth a few fundamental political ideals (equality, representation, individual liberties) that place limits on how far any short- term majority may go. This is our higher law. All the rest is left to politics. Mr. President, let there be no doubt that had this standard that Kathleen Sullivan very eloquently stated had not prevailed throughout our history, the fundamental character of our Constitution would be greatly diminished today. In the course of our history, it is estimated that nearly 11,000 amendments to the Constitution have been introduced. Had not our predecessors and the standards embodied in article V combined to reject the vast majority of these efforts, it is uncertain what our Constitution might look like today. It, obviously, would not look anything like the Constitution. You probably could not find anything in there that the Founding Fathers had put together. It would not be, as Chief Justice John Marshall argued, a framework of the great outlines of our society. So let us say that throughout our history people had proposed in each legislative session and gotten through a constitutional amendment about things like school prayer or balancing the budget, or flag burning--I am sure there would have been a variety of social concerns that each session of our Congress would have tacked onto the Constitution. Let me tell you something else because I believe in the whole Constitution. I think our first amendment would not look anything like it does today. I also think that the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which I believe in, and which protects the right to bear arms, might not be there either. See, that is what happens when you start down this road. When anybody gets a bright idea, instead of trying to pass a bill that can be changed without going through the constitutional process, somebody says, ``Let us do a constitutional amendment.'' Well, that is the greatest threat to our basic liberties than anything we can do legislatively--whether it be the right to free speech or a person's right to simply have a firearm if they want to go hunting. Somebody could try to get rid of that. If we go down this road, there is no end to it. It is with this Nation's reluctance to amend the Constitution in mind that I rise today to voice my concern that the lessons of our constitutional history have been lost in the 104th Congress. I have had the honor of serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee for a little more than a year now, along with the Presiding Officer. And in that time the full committee has voted on three amendments to the Constitution, and, in the near future, as many as four more may be forthcoming. To date in the 104th Congress, over 135 constitutional amendments have been proposed. But what is more troubling is that the 104th Congress has voted on more amendments to the Constitution than any of its predecessors in recent history. The other body has voted on four amendments, while this body has voted on two and debated a third. As the distinguished retired Judge Abner Mikva wrote in the Legal Times recently, ``The 104th Congress has taken floor action on more constitutional amendments than any other Congress in the last 30 years.'' I note that an amendment to require a supermajority to raise taxes was brought to the House floor recently solely because it was tax day-- April 15. They knew they were not going to win on that vote. That was well known. It was brought to the floor simply so that proponents could stand up on tax day and make speeches. The thought that an amendment to the Constitution could be offered solely because it offers a good sound bite opportunity seems to be a little indefensible. I think it is a departure from the time when the Framers met in Philadelphia, guided only by a tenuous opportunity to craft a framework to guide a new Nation. Throughout the course of many of the debates on amendments, the argument has been made that Congress should simply pass proposed amendments and let the people of the Nation decide their fate. However, to do so defies our sworn obligation to uphold the Constitution of this Nation. I fell into this trap here. I think many of my colleagues know of my strong desire to see campaign finance reform in this country. The way we do things around here, sometimes an amendment is tacked onto another bill. On one occasion, I actually voted for a sense-of-the- Senate resolution that would have started us down the road toward a constitutional amendment that would have overturned Buckley versus Valeo. It would have limited how much could be spent in campaigns. I understand how people feel when they are frustrated and want to turn to a constitutional amendment. I think I made a mistake, and I would not vote that way now because I realize that everybody has a bright idea about how to change the Constitution. We need to find a way to solve our problems and do our job without messing up the fundamental document that has helped make this country so great. So this session I am working on legislation, along with the Presiding Officer, where through the legislative process we will try to change the campaign system without changing the U.S. Constitution's first amendment. So all of us have fallen into this trap. This is not an attempt to suggest that it is only Democrats or only Republicans. It is just very tempting. But it is a mistake. The Framers of the Constitution set a very high standard for amendment and explicitly intended that the Members of Congress play a significant role in adopting any changes to our national charter. In my estimation, Mr. President, this is a responsibility of the highest order and not one we should abandon. In fact, what separates the U.S. Constitution from many State constitutions, which can go so far as to protect the right to due process and the right to fish in the same document, is that the Congress and the people must ratify amendments. We should remain mindful of the Framers' intent and the obligations each of us is sworn to uphold. In other words, we are not supposed to kick out constitutional amendments in the Congress and just say let everybody decide on it. That is not what was intended. It was intended that we should give it extremely close scrutiny, and in only very rare circumstances should we send constitutional amendments out for ratification. Mr. President, if adopted, the amendments considered in the 104th Congress would signal the biggest single constitutional remodeling since the Bill of Rights. It is an effort which I believe is unnecessary and ill conceived. It is certainly not consistent with our history of constitutional amendment. There can be little doubt that many great challenges lie before our Nation as we head toward a new century. However, the Constitution cannot provide the courage or answers we need to solve our problems, nor was it intended to do so. Ultimately, the responsibility for this Nation lies with the people, the people in this Congress and the people who send us here to do their work. For over 200 years the Constitution has served this Nation well and it is essential to the continuing development of our young Nation that the Constitution remain a statement of general principles. In charting a different course, one which allows the Constitution to serve as the method of addressing each difficult challenge that faces this Nation, inevitably we sacrifice the integrity of this document. We will lose the fundamental integrity of the Constitution which I believe underlies everything we do. We must guard against the U.S. Constitution becoming what James Madison feared would be little more than a list of special provisos. I hope that as we continue our work here in this highly political year we will bear Madison's concerns in mind as well as the history surrounding efforts to amend the Constitution. It is a history worth following. A history which defines not only the nature of this great document but also defines the fundamental character of this Nation. It is a history which has helped to ensure that this simple, yet brilliant, document has remained the cornerstone of our freedoms. The spate of constitutional amendments considered during this Congress are at odds with this important precedent. By departing from the fundamental notion that our Constitution establishes the framework or the great outlines of our society and seeking to use it to address specific problems, the Constitution will become something less than it was intended to be. We should quell our desire to amend this great document and address the problems that confront this Nation. Although they are many, none can truly be attributed to a constitutional deficiency. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, on Monday, Minnesota District Court Judge David Doty released a decision holding that class I prices used in the Federal milk marketing order system are arbitrary and capricious. I rise today to applaud that ruling. It is the second such ruling by the district court in 2 years. It is my hope that the combination of this most recent ruling and Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman's commitment to restore equity in Federal orders will finally be enough to change this discriminatory pricing system for good. Mr. President, class I prices, prices that farmers receive for fluid milk, increase at a rate of 21 cents for every 100 miles a farmer lives from Eau Claire, WI. This systematic discrimination against Wisconsin dairy farmers has never been adequately defended by the Department of Agriculture which has great administrative latitude to set these prices. Department officials have chosen to continue the discriminatory pricing scheme when they had the authority to change it and the knowledge that it should be changed. Mr. President, this most recent ruling comes more than 5 years after a group of Minnesota dairy farmers filed a class action lawsuit against then-Secretary of Agriculture Clayton Yeutter charging that class I prices were unlawful under the basic authorities of the authorizing statute. The plaintiffs also charged that the system had caused the loss of thousands of Upper Midwest dairy farms as the excessive prices provided to other regions stimulated surplus production driving down prices to farmers in our region. Since this lawsuit was initiated, Wisconsin has lost more than 6,000 family dairy farms who simply could not compete with the mega-dairies in other regions who were enjoying the artificially high fluid milk prices under the Federal order system. As a Wisconsin State senator at that time, I was able to secure funding for the State of Wisconsin to participate in the lawsuit as an amicus curiae. Since that lawsuit was filed, and since I have been a Member of the U.S. Senate, I and other members of the Upper Midwest congressional delegation have taken all steps possible to push for reform of this system. Legislative reform of class I prices has proved nearly impossible as Senators from regions benefiting from this system have rejected all suggestions for reform. Two years ago, a different district court judge directed then- Secretary Espy to issue an amplified decision properly justifying a 1993 final rule on Federal orders which failed to reform class I prices. One-hundred and twenty days later on August 12, 1994, an amplified decision was issued by the Secretary. That decision, devoid of substance, was an insult to Wisconsin dairy farmers who have suffered from the Department's approach to this issue. Following the issuance of that amplified decision, the Minnesota Milk Producers Association filed another motion for summary judgment charging that Secretary Espy's amplified decision was arbitrary and capricious because it was unsupported by evidence and inconsistent with the mandates of the authorizing statute. On Monday, three Secretaries of Agriculture and four sessions of Congress after the initiation of this legal proceeding, the District Court of Minnesota agreed with the plaintiffs. The court concluded that ``the Secretary has wholly failed to provide an explanation of his decision consistent with the requirements of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act.'' With respect to the use of Eau Claire, WI, as the reference point from which most fluid milk prices are determined, the court chided the Department for claiming it does not use Eau Claire as a basing point, despite evidence to the contrary. Judge Doty stated, ``The Secretary may not enforce what is clearly a single basing-point system without explaining how it reflects reasoned consideration of the statutory factors. If Eau Claire is to be the basing point, then the Secretary must explain why, for each market to which a contemplated order relates, distance from Eau Claire is a relevant consideration.'' The court stopped short of finding class I prices illegal but found that they have never been adequately justified by the Department of Agriculture and as such, the decision to maintain them was arbitrary and capricious. Judge Doty remanded the decision to Secretary Glickman for 120 days after which the Secretary is to issue an amplified decision on class I prices that reflects the factors mandated by the authorizing statute. It is my hope that in 120 days our current Secretary of Agriculture will do the right thing and announce comprehensive changes to the classified pricing system with class I prices based upon the economic factors required by the statute--supply-and-demand factors, prices of feeds, other inputs to production, and the public interest. Interestingly, this time frame coincides with USDA's Federal order consolidation process required in the 1996 farm bill. I have always said, Mr. President, that reform of these discriminatory class I prices and the elimination of Eau Claire, WI, as the single basing point for milk prices could be accomplished through the legislative process, the administrative process or the judicial process. The recently enacted 1996 farm bill and Monday's district court ruling represent the confluence of these three processes. The Congress, through the 1996 farm bill, has directed the Secretary to consolidate the number of Federal orders from the current 33 to between 10 and 14. Implicit in that directive is administrative reform of the pricing structure for those new orders--an authority which the Secretary holds under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman has publicly admitted, both to dairy farmers and to Congress, that class I prices are unfair to the Upper Midwest and have produced ``regional inequities.'' He has committed to reduce class I differentials in the reform process. Now the district court ruling has provided a clear ruling that the Secretary shall follow the economic criteria of the original authorizing statute in setting those prices rather than bowing to political pressures from those regions that benefit from this discriminatory pricing system. The Secretary has two choices. He can comply with the court's order by reforming class I prices to bring them more in line with the economic realities in 1996. He can do that both in issuing an amplified decision that complies with the statute as required by the court as well as by implementing pricing reform as part of Federal milk marketing order reform required by 1996 farm bill. Or he can continue to fight the Upper Midwest in this lawsuit by seeking to delay the process further, rubber-stamping bad decisions by previous Secretaries, causing the loss of even more dairy farms in the Upper Midwest and imposing huge costs on our rural communities that depend on a thriving dairy industry. I hope Dan Glickman chooses the first option. This has been a long fight, Mr. President. It is time for it to end. It is time for the Secretary and the administration to do the right thing. I will work with them to make that happen.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am introducing today a new measure to curb the receipt of Federal irrigation subsidies by large agribusiness interests. I am introducing legislation in this area as a deficit reduction measure because I believe that the Federal Government needs to scrutinize carefully all forms of assistance it provides in these times of fiscal constraint. I am also prompted to act in this area, Mr. President, because the Federal Government has been unable to correct fundamental abuses of reclamation law that cost the taxpayer millions of dollars every year. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation, which came to be known as the Reclamation Act, to encourage development of family farms throughout the western United States. The idea was to provide needed water for areas that were otherwise dry and give small farms--those no larger than 160 acres--a chance, with a helping hand from the Federal Government, to establish themselves. Under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982, Congress acted to expand the size of the farms that could receive subsidized water to 960 acres. The RRA of 1982 expressly prohibits farms that exceed 960 acres in size from receiving Federally-subsidized water. These restrictions were added to the Reclamation law to close loopholes through which Federal subsidies were flowing to large agribusinesses rather than the small family farmers that Reclamation projects were designed to serve. Agribusinesses were expected to pay full cost for all water received on land in excess of their 960-acre entitlement. Despite the express mandate of Congress, regulations promulgated under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 have failed to keep big agricultural water users from receiving Federal subsidies. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior continue to find that the acreage limits established in law are circumvented through the creation of arrangements such as farming trusts. These trusts, which in total acreage well exceed the 960 acre limit, are comprised of smaller units that are not subject to the reclamation acreage cap. These smaller units are farmed under a single management agreement often through a combination of leasing and ownership. Three years ago, as part of a settlement of a suit with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to propose new regulations under the reclamation program. At the beginning of February 1996, the Administration issued its final environmental impact statement [EIS] on its proposed regulations. On March 8, 1996 I joined with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley], the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg) and others in writing to the President to express our concern and disappointment that these new regulations would continue to allow the 960-acre loophole to be exploited. Indeed, neither the Bureau's ``preferred option'' for the regulation, nor any of the alternatives they describe in the EIS, would act to curb irrigation water abuses by these agribusiness trusts. Last week, I received a response to the letter I joined in sending to the Department of the Interior. The letter states, ``Last spring's release of a proposed rule making and draft EIS prompted nearly 400 letters and 8 public hearings on these complex issues during the comment period. The FEIS alternative responds to many of the comments we received.'' Mr. President, this letter specifically does not respond to the concerns that I, the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and others raised. Now is the time, in light of the Department's inability to correct this problem, to look back to the statute and attempt to correct the costly loopholes that it facilitates. Presently, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, there are 80 such trusts receiving subsidized water on more than 738,000 acres of land, or about 10 percent of the land for which the Bureau of Reclamation provides water. In a 1989 GAO report, the activities of six of these trusts were fully explored. According to GAO, one 12,345 acre cotton farm--roughly 20 square miles--operating under a single partnership, was reorganized to avoid the 960-acre limitation into 15 separate land holdings through 18 partnerships, 24 corporations, and 11 trusts which were all operated as one large unit. A seventh very large trust was the sole topic of a 1990 GAO report. The Westhaven trust is a 23,238-acre farming operation in California's Central Valley. It was formed for the benefit of 326 salaried employees of the J.G. Boswell Company. Boswell, GAO found, had taken advantage of section 214 of the RRA, which exempts from its 960-acre limit land held for beneficiaries by a trustee in a fiduciary capacity, as long as no single beneficiary's interest exceeds the law's ownership limits. The RRA, as I have mentioned, does not preclude multiple land holdings from being operated collectively under a trust as one farm while qualifying individually for federally subsidized water. Accordingly, the J.G. Boswell Company reorganized 23,238 acres it held as the Boston Ranch by selling them to the Westhaven Trust, with the land holdings attributed to each beneficiary being eligible to receive federally subsidized water. Before the land was sold to Westhaven Trust, the J.G. Boswell Company operated the acreage as one large farm and paid full cost for the Federal irrigation water delivered for the 18-month period ending in May 1989. When the trust bought the land, due to the loopholes in the law, the entire acreage became eligible to receive federally subsidized water because the land holdings attributed to the 326 trust beneficiaries range from 21 acres to 547 acres--all well under the 960- acre limit. In the six cases the GAO reviewed in 1989, owners or lessees paid a total of about $1.3 million less in 1987 for Federal water then they would have paid if their collective land holdings were considered as large farms subject to the Reclamation Act acreage limits. Had Westhaven trust been required to pay full cost, GAO estimated in 1990, it would have paid $2 million more for its water. The GAO also found, in all seven of these cases, that reduced revenues are likely to continue unless Congress amends the Reclamation Act to close the loopholes allowing benefits for trusts. The legislation that I am introducing combines various elements of proposals introduced during previous attempts by other members of Congress to close loopholes in the 1982 legislation and to impose a $500,000 means test. This new approach limits the amount of subsidized irrigation water delivered to any operation in excess of the 960-acre limit which claimed $500,000 or more in gross income, as reported on their most recent IRS tax form. If the $500,000 threshold were exceeded, an income ratio would be used to determine how much of the water should be delivered to the user at the full-cost rate, and how much at the below-cost rate. For example, if a 961-acre operation earned $1 million dollars, a ratio of $500,000 (the means test value) divided by their gross income would determine the full cost rate, thus the water user would pay the full cost rate on half of their acreage and the below cost rate on the remaining half. This means testing proposal was profiled in this year's ``Green Scissors'' report, written by Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for Common Sense and supported by 21 other environmental and consumer groups, including groups like the Concord Coalition, the Progressive Policy Institute. The premise of the report is that there are a number of subsidies and projects, totaling $39 billion dollars in all, that could be cut to both reduce the deficit and benefit the environment. This report coalesces what I and many others in the Senate have long known, we must be diligent in eliminating practices that can no longer be justified in light of our enormous annual deficit and national debt. The ``Green Scissors'' recommendation on means testing water subsidies indicates that if a test is successful in reducing subsidy payments to the highest grossing 10 percent of farms, then the Federal Government would recover at least $440 million per year, or at least $2.2 billion over 5 years. The measure I introduce today is my third legislative effort in the area of irrigation subsidies, all of which have been profiled in the ``Green Scissors'' report. In February of 1995, I introduced two related pieces of legislation aimed at reducing double dipping for irrigation water subsidies that cost the Federal taxpayers millions of dollars each year. I hope that other Members will join me in sponsoring these efforts, as elimination of western water subsidies, and a wide range of reclamation subsidies, should be pursued as legitimate deficit reduction opportunities. When countless Federal program are subjected to various types of means tests to limit benefits to those who truly need assistance, it makes little sense to continue to allow large business interests to dip into a program intended to help small entities struggling to survive. Taxpayers have legitimate concerns when they learn that their hard- earned tax dollars are being expended to assist large corporate interests in select regions of the country who benefit from these loopholes. The Federal Water Program was simply never intended to benefit these large interests. In conclusion, Mr. President, it is clear that the conflicting policies of the Federal Government in this area are in need of reform, and if Federal agencies cannot be diligent in curbing this corporate welfare administratively, Congress should act. Large agribusinesses should not be able to continue to soak the taxpayers. We should act to close these loopholes as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am introducing today a new measure to curb the receipt of Federal irrigation subsidies by large agribusiness interests. I am introducing legislation in this area as a deficit reduction measure because I believe that the Federal Government needs to scrutinize carefully all forms of assistance it provides in these times of fiscal constraint. I am also prompted to act in this area, Mr. President, because the Federal Government has been unable to correct fundamental abuses of reclamation law that cost the taxpayer millions of dollars every year. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation, which came to be known as the Reclamation Act, to encourage development of family farms throughout the western United States. The idea was to provide needed water for areas that were otherwise dry and give small farms--those no larger than 160 acres--a chance, with a helping hand from the Federal Government, to establish themselves. Under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982, Congress acted to expand the size of the farms that could receive subsidized water to 960 acres. The RRA of 1982 expressly prohibits farms that exceed 960 acres in size from receiving Federally-subsidized water. These restrictions were added to the Reclamation law to close loopholes through which Federal subsidies were flowing to large agribusinesses rather than the small family farmers that Reclamation projects were designed to serve. Agribusinesses were expected to pay full cost for all water received on land in excess of their 960-acre entitlement. Despite the express mandate of Congress, regulations promulgated under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 have failed to keep big agricultural water users from receiving Federal subsidies. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior continue to find that the acreage limits established in law are circumvented through the creation of arrangements such as farming trusts. These trusts, which in total acreage well exceed the 960 acre limit, are comprised of smaller units that are not subject to the reclamation acreage cap. These smaller units are farmed under a single management agreement often through a combination of leasing and ownership. Three years ago, as part of a settlement of a suit with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to propose new regulations under the reclamation program. At the beginning of February 1996, the Administration issued its final environmental impact statement [EIS] on its proposed regulations. On March 8, 1996 I joined with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley], the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg) and others in writing to the President to express our concern and disappointment that these new regulations would continue to allow the 960-acre loophole to be exploited. Indeed, neither the Bureau's ``preferred option'' for the regulation, nor any of the alternatives they describe in the EIS, would act to curb irrigation water abuses by these agribusiness trusts. Last week, I received a response to the letter I joined in sending to the Department of the Interior. The letter states, ``Last spring's release of a proposed rule making and draft EIS prompted nearly 400 letters and 8 public hearings on these complex issues during the comment period. The FEIS alternative responds to many of the comments we received.'' Mr. President, this letter specifically does not respond to the concerns that I, the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and others raised. Now is the time, in light of the Department's inability to correct this problem, to look back to the statute and attempt to correct the costly loopholes that it facilitates. Presently, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, there are 80 such trusts receiving subsidized water on more than 738,000 acres of land, or about 10 percent of the land for which the Bureau of Reclamation provides water. In a 1989 GAO report, the activities of six of these trusts were fully explored. According to GAO, one 12,345 acre cotton farm--roughly 20 square miles--operating under a single partnership, was reorganized to avoid the 960-acre limitation into 15 separate land holdings through 18 partnerships, 24 corporations, and 11 trusts which were all operated as one large unit. A seventh very large trust was the sole topic of a 1990 GAO report. The Westhaven trust is a 23,238-acre farming operation in California's Central Valley. It was formed for the benefit of 326 salaried employees of the J.G. Boswell Company. Boswell, GAO found, had taken advantage of section 214 of the RRA, which exempts from its 960-acre limit land held for beneficiaries by a trustee in a fiduciary capacity, as long as no single beneficiary's interest exceeds the law's ownership limits. The RRA, as I have mentioned, does not preclude multiple land holdings from being operated collectively under a trust as one farm while qualifying individually for federally subsidized water. Accordingly, the J.G. Boswell Company reorganized 23,238 acres it held as the Boston Ranch by selling them to the Westhaven Trust, with the land holdings attributed to each beneficiary being eligible to receive federally subsidized water. Before the land was sold to Westhaven Trust, the J.G. Boswell Company operated the acreage as one large farm and paid full cost for the Federal irrigation water delivered for the 18-month period ending in May 1989. When the trust bought the land, due to the loopholes in the law, the entire acreage became eligible to receive federally subsidized water because the land holdings attributed to the 326 trust beneficiaries range from 21 acres to 547 acres--all well under the 960- acre limit. In the six cases the GAO reviewed in 1989, owners or lessees paid a total of about $1.3 million less in 1987 for Federal water then they would have paid if their collective land holdings were considered as large farms subject to the Reclamation Act acreage limits. Had Westhaven trust been required to pay full cost, GAO estimated in 1990, it would have paid $2 million more for its water. The GAO also found, in all seven of these cases, that reduced revenues are likely to continue unless Congress amends the Reclamation Act to close the loopholes allowing benefits for trusts. The legislation that I am introducing combines various elements of proposals introduced during previous attempts by other members of Congress to close loopholes in the 1982 legislation and to impose a $500,000 means test. This new approach limits the amount of subsidized irrigation water delivered to any operation in excess of the 960-acre limit which claimed $500,000 or more in gross income, as reported on their most recent IRS tax form. If the $500,000 threshold were exceeded, an income ratio would be used to determine how much of the water should be delivered to the user at the full-cost rate, and how much at the below-cost rate. For example, if a 961-acre operation earned $1 million dollars, a ratio of $500,000 (the means test value) divided by their gross income would determine the full cost rate, thus the water user would pay the full cost rate on half of their acreage and the below cost rate on the remaining half. This means testing proposal was profiled in this year's ``Green Scissors'' report, written by Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for Common Sense and supported by 21 other environmental and consumer groups, including groups like the Concord Coalition, the Progressive Policy Institute. The premise of the report is that there are a number of subsidies and projects, totaling $39 billion dollars in all, that could be cut to both reduce the deficit and benefit the environment. This report coalesces what I and many others in the Senate have long known, we must be diligent in eliminating practices that can no longer be justified in light of our enormous annual deficit and national debt. The ``Green Scissors'' recommendation on means testing water subsidies indicates that if a test is successful in reducing subsidy payments to the highest grossing 10 percent of farms, then the Federal Government would recover at least $440 million per year, or at least $2.2 billion over 5 years. The measure I introduce today is my third legislative effort in the area of irrigation subsidies, all of which have been profiled in the ``Green Scissors'' report. In February of 1995, I introduced two related pieces of legislation aimed at reducing double dipping for irrigation water subsidies that cost the Federal taxpayers millions of dollars each year. I hope that other Members will join me in sponsoring these efforts, as elimination of western water subsidies, and a wide range of reclamation subsidies, should be pursued as legitimate deficit reduction opportunities. When countless Federal program are subjected to various types of means tests to limit benefits to those who truly need assistance, it makes little sense to continue to allow large business interests to dip into a program intended to help small entities struggling to survive. Taxpayers have legitimate concerns when they learn that their hard- earned tax dollars are being expended to assist large corporate interests in select regions of the country who benefit from these loopholes. The Federal Water Program was simply never intended to benefit these large interests. In conclusion, Mr. President, it is clear that the conflicting policies of the Federal Government in this area are in need of reform, and if Federal agencies cannot be diligent in curbing this corporate welfare administratively, Congress should act. Large agribusinesses should not be able to continue to soak the taxpayers. We should act to close these loopholes as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the debate surrounding this year's budget resolution is tame compared to the debate we heard last year at this time. But we should not be lulled by this relative quiet. This year's model is not much different from the one produced last year. In one key regard, it may be worse. The warnings many of us made last year have come true. Rather than focusing on eliminating the deficit and finally balancing the Federal budget, this year's budget resolution has one overarching goal, namely to provide an election year tax cut. Mr. President, on this issue, the hands of both parties are dirty. Republicans and Democrats both have engaged in this tax cut bidding war. Even the so-called bipartisan budget proposal revolves around a $130 billion tax cut. Mr. President, we have lost a real opportunity. After the debate of the last year, one might have thought that we had reached a consensus that balancing the Federal budget was our most important task. The negotiations that took place between the Republican Congressional leadership and the White House appeared to be moving the parties closer together. Each side had agreed to similar ground rules and a timetable for a balanced budget; each side had offered a budget plan that actually reached balance. Sadly, negotiations broke off, and there was no agreement reached on a plan to balance the budget. Mr. President, a central reason for the failure of those negotiations was that the shared goal of deficit reduction was weighed down with other competing agendas--the structure of Medicare, whether Medicaid should be a block grant, welfare reform, and the amount and structure of the tax cut. All of a sudden, it wasn't enough to balance the budget. Eliminating the deficit took a back seat to those other priorities. Mr. President, of course these other matters have an impact on our ability to achieve and maintain a balanced budget. I support reforms to Medicare and Medicaid not only for their own sake but for the very reason that such reforms are needed if we are to achieve a balanced budget. But we cannot afford to divert our attention from what must be the immediate business of Congress--balancing the budget. Of all the distractions, Mr. President, by far the most dangerous is the promise of a major tax cut. It is already difficult to get agreement on the spending cuts needed to eliminate the deficit. The work of balancing the budget is not pleasant, and it is all too easy to find excuses not to do that work. Proposals to cut taxes make it even more difficult to stay focused on that unpleasant but necessary task. How much easier it is to speak about how one might cut taxes, and by how much. Mr. President, as I noted earlier in this debate, we are now obsessed with enacting tax cuts, no matter what the cost to the integrity of the budget. Every time you turn around you bump into another proposal for some tax cut. Some come clothed as tax reform, such as the so-called flat tax. Others are less subtle. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a ``trendier'' tax cut plan is a 15 percent across-the- board cut in income tax rates, phased in over 3 years. And I have no doubt that the nominees of both parties will each have their own tax cut plan to tout this summer. We've just spent 2 weeks debating the issue of a 4.3 cent gas tax cut, and the other body has sent us a 1.7 billion dollar special adoption tax credit and is working on another 7 billion dollar tax cut for small businesses. Everyone is eager to float a tax cut plan. Mr. President, would that they were equally as eager to offer plans to cut spending and balance the budget. This budget resolution aids and abets this fiscally reckless and irresponsible agenda. Its structure of consecutive reconciliation bills, finishing with a tax cut extravaganza just a few weeks before the election, is a guarantee that it cannot hope to lead to a balanced budget, only political posturing. The budget resolution has other flaws as well. The Medicare and Medicaid programs are underfunded, the direct result of the need to fund the tax cut and to add even more funding to a Defense Department that instead should be asked for significantly more cuts. And as with last year's budget resolution, there is no effort to limit some of the corporate welfare that responsible members of both parties have identified as a top priority for cutting. Mr. President, I suspect that some of this year's budget resolution is the result of the special political dynamics of presidential election year politics. If that is the case, I earnestly hope that once that election is behind us, both parties will seize the opportunity and reach out for a bipartisan plan to balance the budget. I am confident that a majority of the Senate and the other body would support such a plan. Until that time, Mr. President, I will continue working with members form both sides of the aisle to identify areas where we can find savings that will move us closer to completely eliminating our Federal budget deficit.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, our amendment offers a clear choice: tax cuts or deficit reduction. It strikes the $122 billion tax cut and applies every penny to deficit reduction. I think that is our highest economic priority. This is not just a partisan issue. The Republican and Democratic plans have had this flaw. The bipartisan plan has this flaw. This has been endorsed by the Concord Coalition.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. President. After the debate of the past year, a casual observer might believe that we have finally achieved a broad political consensus that we must balance the budget. Republicans and Democrats and bipartisan groups have all offered plans to balance the budget over the next 6 years. The President has submitted a budget that reaches balance in 6 years, and 5 years if you use the assumptions and numbers of the OMB. This budget resolution provides for a balanced budget by 2002, as do several alternatives that we have been debating in the process of looking at that budget resolution. Mr. President, one might think that it is only a matter of moving ahead with these various plans until a proposal that can be enacted simply evolves from the political process. Mr. President, the balanced budget veneer of many of these proposals and of this budget resolution in particular obscures a flaw that will make it difficult and maybe impossible to eliminate the deficit and reach balance despite this apparent consensus. Mr. President, that flaw is the massive tax cut that has been proposed and is still being proposed. Let me quickly add that this problem is certainly not unique to the budget resolution before us. The plan that was discussed extensively tonight, the Chafee-Breaux plan, has this defect, and to a lesser extent, the President's plan has this flaw as well. In fact, of course, I was pleased to hear all the bipartisan cooperation on the Chafee-Breaux plan, but as the distinguished ranking member has pointed out just a few moments ago, the money that is raised from the changes in the Consumer Price Index, in the CPI, are not under the Chafee-Breaux plan going to be used to reduce the deficit. They are going to be used to fund a tax cut. That is not pleasant, but it is the cold, hard fact. In their plan, the Chafee-Breaux plan, there is $126 billion in changes in the CPI, and lo and behold, $130 billion in tax cuts. It is almost a dollar-for-dollar transfer from CPI to tax cuts. It is not a dollar-for-dollar transfer from CPI to deficit reduction. So it is not being used for deficit reduction. As the distinguished ranking member points out, those funds from the CPI are not even being used for purposes of bolstering the Social Security trust fund. These are two purposes that I think rank much higher than a tax cut at this time. So the question is whether this flaw of including a tax cut is a fatal flaw. It is debatable. But I think it may well be a fatal flaw of the plans before us. I think these tax cuts being included are certainly irresponsible budgeting. It is a risk not worth taking when we have the central and critical goal being to actually eliminate the Federal deficit over the very few next years. Mr. President, I have opposed major tax cut plans of both parties for some time now. I was the first Member of either body to do so. I can attest that it is not very much fun to oppose tax cuts or to oppose a President of your own party on such an issue. I am proud to say, though, we have had some good company. Three of the Senate's most ardent champions of deficit reduction, the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Bumpers, the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Robb, and my neighbor and good friend, the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Simon, have consistently opposed these reckless tax cuts. I am pleased that they are cosponsors of the amendment that I have just offered. I am also very pleased, Mr. President, to tell you that we have the support for this amendment of the Concord Coalition, which does believe that tax cuts are not the top priority but that deficit reduction is. Mr. President, in many ways the concerns of those of us who have fought these fiscally irresponsible tax cuts have been realized. The initial call for major tax cuts in the Contract With America, followed by the President's own proposals, has in fact, as we feared, led to a bidding war on tax cuts. We have too easily moved away from the deficit reduction track. We are still consumed with enacting tax cuts no matter what cost that has for the integrity of the budget process. Mr. President, every time you turn around, we are bumping into another proposal for some other kind of tax cut, whether well disguised or not. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some come clothed as tax reform. The so-called flat tax plans we saw offered during the Presidential primaries were really nothing more than plans to cut certain taxes. You did not see anyone calling for a flat tax that raised taxes for anyone. All the plans that were put forward touted tax cuts. In fact, the debate on the flat tax really amounted to which flat tax plan cuts taxes the most. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a trendier tax cut plan is a 15 percent across-the-board cut in income tax rates, phased in over 3 years. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about that before the summer is out. Let me add to this display of a trend on tax cuts, especially in recent weeks. We have just spent 2 weeks debating on and off the issue of a 4.3- cent gas tax cut, and the other body has sent us a $1.7 billion special adoption tax credit and is working on another $7 billion tax cut for small businesses. This is beginning to look, Mr. President, like a stampede for tax cuts. As I said, unfortunately, even the bipartisan budget alternative includes major tax cuts. Mr. President, let me say again, and I know you have been a very valued participant in this process. I have enormous respect for those who participated in putting together the bipartisan plan. I think a majority of that group is committed to a balanced budget plan, and I think they would have supported the plan without including the tax cuts. I regret the views of a few in the group who actually prevailed on the tax cut issue. Rather than broadening the appeal for the plan, as I think some of the group hoped the tax cuts undermined the long term fiscal and political integrity of the budget plan, and I believe it cost the plan some significant support both within the Congress and among the American people who know very well you can only spend a dollar once--either for tax cuts or you can spend it to balance the budget--but you cannot spend it for both. Mr. President, even discounting the short-term effect of election- year politics, we have again really strayed from the course of reducing the deficit. For those whose highest economic priority is a balanced budget, our worst fears may be realized. A tax cut bidding war still dominates the policy debate. Tax cuts, tax cuts--not the need to balance the budget--are the driving force behind many of the policy decisions in this resolution. Mr. President, those who doubt this need only look to the highly unusual, almost unprecedented, unprecedented special tax cut reconciliation measure envisioned in this resolution. In this ``bucket brigade'' construction of three successive reconciliation bills, it is the tax cut legislation that is the end game. That is the end goal of this technique. I am told that the parliamentary skids have been greased for that tax cut reconciliation bill and that there may have been some precedent for it in the past. Nevertheless, it is, at best, ironic and, at worst, offensive to grant a tax cut bill the special procedures normally reserved for legislation to reduce the deficit. Mr. President, let me just close by suggesting this vote is more than just a good vote for the Concord Coalition scorecard, though it certainly is that. It is a vote against this insane tax cut bidding war. It is a vote to get us back on track, to reducing the deficit and balancing the budget. Mr. President, I believe it is a vote for a sensible and sound budgeting process. Mr. President, I urge the body to consider this alternative. If you take a look at the plan offered by the bipartisan group, all you have to do is eliminate the tax cuts and the whole issue of the CPI would be also eliminated and you would have a balanced budget. It is as simple as that. I hope as the negotiations and discussions continue people realize we have an even simpler solution before us, and that is to forego the tax cuts, balance the budget first, and then I think all of us will be eager to find the opportunity to reduce taxes for all Americans. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 3969, and I call it up.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 3969 (Purpose: To eliminate the tax cut)

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. I might inquire of the Chair, prior to the Senator's departure, I intended to ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment I am going to offer. I wonder if I could do that prior to the Senator's departure?

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Up to 15 minutes.