Wendell Ford

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and the Senator from Maryland [Ms. Mikulski] are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray] is necessarily absent. On this vote, the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Pell] is paired with the Senator from Washington [Mrs. Murray]. If present and voting, the Senator from Washington would vote ``nay'' and the Senator from Rhode Island would vote ``aye.''

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, it is always good to listen to my distinguished friend from Arkansas. He tells it like it is, and I think we all enjoy his remarks and the manner in which he expresses his convictions. It is very difficult for some of us in this Chamber to be as eloquent as he is. We are no less sincere than he is, but his sincerity can be put in a way that communicates with all of us. During the debate over the balanced budget amendment, our colleagues from the other side of the aisle put forth grand sounding resolutions about how they would balance the budget by a date certain without using the Social Security trust fund to do it. That was all well and good, and many Democrats voted in favor of the honorable sounding proposals. The problem is, they did not do anything. Those sense-of-the-Senate resolutions, you know, had no teeth. We could vote for that, go back home, pound our chests and say we voted for it, but it did not mean anything. It had no enforcement provisions. Yesterday, several of our colleagues, those who voted for the constitutional amendment and those who voted against the amendment passing this Chamber--but all with the same goal, the same end, and that is a balanced budget--said let us start eliminating the deficit, get to paying off the debt. As the Senator from Arkansas said, we all want the same thing and the way to get there is here and now. It is not later. We can do it today. So our colleagues yesterday held a press conference. We put forth what I feel is a real budget balancing piece of legislation. This proposal replaces words with action. It calls for a 60-vote point of order on any budget resolution that comes before this body that does not lead to a balanced budget by a certain date. This point, a certain date, is important. It may be difficult to get there. But we need, as the Senator from Arkansas said, to tell our constituents that we are making an honest effort. I have heard my colleagues on the other side say, and in the press, making speeches back in their home States: I have never supported a tax increase in my political career. But now, if we pass this balanced budget amendment, I will start considering tax increases. That tells this Senator--and it does not take a brain surgeon to understand it, I do not think--they want a gun to their head to balance the budget. Otherwise, they are not going to do it. They are not going to lean on this amendment to the Constitution to be that gun to their head to start helping. You can hear a lot of things, but in 1993, when it was a tough vote and the hide was coming off politically, we stood here without a Republican; 50 of us voted, and the Vice President of the United States broke that tie. We reduced the deficit over $600 billion, and we did it without any help of those who proposed a constitutional amendment. That proves that the body can, with a capital C--do it. Now, all we have to say is let us get down to it; pass this amendment and say every year, every year, every year the deficit has to be less than it was the year before. With or without a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, Mr. President, we the Congress must still act to implement it. We have the power to achieve the desired goal right now. We do not have to wait until 38 States ratify an amendment. We do not have to wait until 2005, if they do not ratify it until 2003. We can start right now. So let us use that power that the people placed in our hands. Our proposal would force this action--and I underscore force this action. If the constitutional amendment would force that Republican who made the speech, that he would now consider increased taxes if you have the balanced budget amendment in the Constitution, why do we not have the intestinal fortitude to do it now? Our proposal would force this action and get on the path to what we all want. As the Senator from Arkansas said, we all agree on more things than we disagree on. Already this morning, I have seen reports that suggested our colleagues from the other side of the aisle have already labeled our actions that we took yesterday and are attempting to take here as just another political ploy--just another political ploy. Vote for this amendment and see if it is a political ploy. See if we do not start on the right path to get a balanced budget. And we will come closer by this action today, or tomorrow, than we would have had we voted for a balanced budget amendment and waited for the States to ratify it. Try us. That is all I ask. If you think this is a political ploy: Try us. Vote for it and see what happens. I hope they do not mean this, that it is a political ploy. I truly believe that this amendment will do what everybody in this Chamber talks about but we do not have the right kind of action on, such action as this is, to achieve a balanced budget. If they do not join us in this effort, we will never get to a balanced budget. This can be the most political of all actions, trying to take the issue--trying to take the issue. I said last evening that before the vote in the hearts of some of those on the other side of the aisle, and at the national committee, they hope it fails because they want the issue. Boy, it did not take 24 hours to find out they wanted that issue. I want to tell you. My phone calls are still the same. They are still better than 50 percent. If you count the votes, you win by better than 50 percent. You do not lose. So I am still getting more thanking me than those saying you are out of here. They are going to get a chance, I guess, to tell me more in the next few years. But let us not take the issue. Let us take the action. The action is necessary to actually balance the budget. So if this is a political ploy, I say again, Mr. President, try us. Vote for this amendment. Let us start doing something right and leave Social Security alone. I was here in 1983. We made a hard decision then. I think it would have been very, very tough on any of us to vote in 1983 to say in 12 years we are going to take this tax that we are taking out of the pockets of the employees and the employers to pay for foreign aid and welfare, and to attempt to do all these other things. So, Mr. President, I hope that all our colleagues will join on this and not say that it is just anther political ploy.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. The Senator can get it in her own right. Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, in the 21 years I have served in this body, I have never seen the level of partisanship that we are seeing on the balanced budget amendment. So maybe I should not have been shocked last Friday to see my colleague from Mississippi, Senator Lott, blatantly misrepresent my words of 1994. Clearly, his only purpose was to further divide the American public and to tarnish the reputation of Senators who have only sought to pass the best amendment possible. Senator Lott quoted me as saying, Mr. President, and I will quote it verbatim from the Record; this is what Senator Lott said I said: I hear so much about ``if 40-some-odd Governors can operate a balanced budget, why can't the Federal Government.'' * * * I operated under it. When I said ``I,'' Mr. President, as Governor: It worked. * * * I think implementation of this amendment will work. I think we can make it work. * * * I do not understand why it takes a brain surgeon to understand how you operate a budget the way the States do. * * * this is an opportunity to pass a balanced budget amendment that will work and will give us a financially sound future, not only for ourselves but for our children and our grandchildren. End of the quote that Senator Lott put in the Record. To that I say, Mr. President, read the full statement, and the fallacy will become clear. I ask unanimous consent that both of my floor statements from last year be printed in the Record.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, because of the way that the quotes were lifted from my speeches, this action can only be viewed as intentional. Senator Lott falsely states that I was talking about the balanced budget amendment that had been introduced by his side of the aisle when, in fact, I was speaking about my own substitute amendment, with other Senators here, one that, among other things, excluded Social Security. This action can only be viewed as irresponsible. Further reading of my original quote clearly indicates I was advocating the same position a year ago that I advocated on the Senate floor last week and that I remain committed to today: Ensuring that Social Security is not used to balance the budget. The truth of the matter is that this error has backfired. This attempt to discredit me and my intentions has instead shown from day 1 that I have had serious reservations about what could happen to Social Security. While I was voicing my concern about Social Security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were putting together proposals to carve up the Social Security trust fund. Mr. President, I have papers right here, drafted in the form of a bill, which show the amount of Social Security moneys that would be used from the trust fund. That was offered to me as an alternate proposal. They were going to use the Social Security trust fund. This one is for 10 years. Generally, something like this might be passed off as an isolated incident. But, unfortunately, this appears to be one segment of a large Republican National Committee strategy, and I submit further proof of the scurrilous activities RNC releases that commit the same wrongs. Mr. President, I submit those for the record and ask unanimous consent they be printed in the Record.

Mr. FORD. I for one am fed up with this type of political mudslinging. It does a disservice to serious discussion tired of it, too. I hope that this incident forces my colleague and his associates at the RNC to actually read the full text of my speeches and stop the blatant misrepresentation. And Mr. President, from the National Journal's Congressional Daily, they have a quote on page 8 of March 2. On Wednesday, Ford's Washington office received 407 phone calls supporting the balanced budget amendment and 765 opposing it, according to the office spokesman. The ratio has remained about the same throughout the week in the Washington and State offices, he said. In addition, Republican National Chairman Haley Barbour shrugged off a claim by Ford that RNC ads running in Ford's home State of Kentucky backfired and helped solidify Ford's position on the amendment. And I quote Mr. Barbour. Mr. Barbour says, and I quote: ``I was born at night but not last night,'' Barbour said, adding that he does not believe ``any member of the United States Senate could vote against the wishes of his constituents merely because he got his feelings hurt by a TV ad.'' Now, Mr. President, I was born at night, but I was not born last night. What I said was when they started running the ads against me in Kentucky, it stirred up a hornet's nest. It caused other groups that were opposed to the amendment to gear up. They put on radio ads; they put on TV ads, and they stirred it up. If he had left it alone--that is what I am saying. He stirred up the activity himself, and it did not hurt my feelings. I am a grown man. I have been around a long time. Dad told me, in politics, when they tear the hide off of you, just remember it grows back and you are tougher. You are looking at one tough son of a gun today, Mr. President. I just want people to understand, lest we forget, they put that out and misquoted us again. They misquoted us again. I think that the record ought to be made straight, and I have all the documentation necessary to prove that this statement of mine was lifted from the Record, not actually the statement I made. It was a statement I made as it related to a substitute amendment that we thought would be a better amendment that would work better for the American people and, yes, would help our children and our grandchildren. And so, Mr. President, I make this statement just to defend myself because I do not want this statement to hang out there longer because it would, I think, be detrimental to what I hope my constituents understand and what I believe to be the facts.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, the Senator can get the floor in her own right.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor] is absent because of death in the family.

Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor] is absent because of death in the family.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor] is absent because of death in the family.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Will the leader yield? Could he give any indication of what Monday might be?

Mr. FORD. All right, fine. There is some interest in that.

Mr. FORD. I thank the leader.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, time is short and I have only a few minutes to speak on behalf of the Feinstein substitute balanced budget amendment, so I'll keep my remarks to the point. As I have said before, the public trusts Congress to keep the Nation's finances in order. Nowhere is that agreement and that trust more evident or more important than in the governing of the Social Security trust fund. For that reason, I have had a great deal of concern about voting for the version of the balanced budget amendment that is before the Senate and it is that concern which led me to cosponsor with my colleague from California, a substitute amendment exempting Social Security from the equation. The fact is that surpluses in trust funds are being used to hide the true debt of our Nation. As I mentioned on the floor last Friday, the highway and airport improvement trust funds are being used to hide debt. There are billions of dollars in these funds that are expressly raised and set aside for the specific purposes of repairing and building either highways or airports. What are they being used for? I'll tell you, they are being used to hide the actual level of the shortfall that we have around here between what comes in and what goes out. The biggest example of this trickery is in Social Security. The other trust funds amount to a few billion dollars apiece, an amount that pales by comparison to the Social Security fund. From 1994 through the year 2002, the date that the amendment would likely take effect, an additional $706 billion in creative accounting and budgetary illusions will be used to mask the true size of our Nation's red ink. Well, I want to believe that all of us in this body know that these budgetary manipulations are not good for the country and should be stopped. Those that support the Feinstein substitute amendment will actually be doing something about that. Senator Feinstein's amendment respects the contract our Nation made with its people long ago. It reinforces the Social Security pact, makes it stronger, safer, and more secure. By exempting Social Security with the substitute amendment, it secures and fortifies its position as a separate trust fund. Social Security did not cause the deficit, and under our amendment, it will not be used to hide the deficit. Our amendment demands honest budgeting to get us to a balanced budget. I have heard some argue that this amendment would shield any program Congress wanted to protect under the guise of Social Security. This simply is not true. We would require the same mechanisms to change the structure of Social Security as we do today, a 60-vote supermajority to waive the Budget Act. Passage of the much-needed balanced budget amendment could be guaranteed if we're only willing to tell the American people that we will not misplace their trust. Working Americans pay into the Social Security system for the purpose of providing a nest egg in their older years. Perhaps it will give them the freedom and dignity to live independent lives so that they will not be a burden to their children. In any case, these taxes are paid to the Federal Government for retirement--not for Government operating expenses. Mr. President, I will yield the floor shortly so that other Senators may speak, but I must add one more thought. Why is it that we have two separate and distinct Houses of Congress? As I always remembered from my history lessons, the Senate and the House are co-equal bodies. If that is the case--and I don't think I will find anyone in the Chamber who will disagree with me--if that is the case, then why are we being asked to be a rubberstamp for the House? Certainly most things in life are not perfect. The Feinstein substitute is not perfect either, but surely my colleagues must agree that it is better than the present language of the balanced budget amendment. Each body is supposed to review the others' actions and try to improve upon them. Surely if given a chance, the other body will pass the Feinstein amendment language. Why don't we give them a chance? Are we afraid of improving this measure? If not, there is no excuse for what has been going on here.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Is the unanimous consent for those who are able to speak the rest of the afternoon, or is this the last speaker under the unanimous-consent agreement?