John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment by my colleague from New Jersey. I think it is an extremely important amendment. You know, if we were to assign music to some of our proposals here on the Senate floor, I think a good theme song for this particular amendment would be ``Bridge Over Troubled Waters,'' because what this amendment does is to say that those who are in trouble economically, those lowest on our economic scale get a helping hand. It is a bridge over troubled waters for those people on welfare into productive jobs in a productive society. And for people who are paying taxes, too. That is who it is for. It is not just for people who are on welfare. They do not get this. It is for the people who are trying to get up the ladder. They are the poorest of the poor who may once in awhile even get more than they are paying in taxes because it encourages them to work, to job train, to try to get up that economic ladder instead of just sitting on welfare with little incentive to get off. In early April, the Governmental Affairs Committee held 2 days of hearings on EITC. During those hearings, I heard all of the arguments for and against the EITC. I left those hearings more convinced than ever that this tax credit is one of the most important parts of our Tax Code. It has suffered from abuse and mistakes and we have to crack down on fraud and be tough on the error rates. I am happy to report that IRS has taken on this issue, and they are making progress with this. They have made improvements, and are continuing to crack down on those who abuse the system. Unfortunately, the cuts we are talking about in the budget resolution have nothing to do with improving this important tax credit. Instead, the cuts seem to be all about trashing the credit. Instead of addressing fraud, we are going to decimate the EITC and effectively raise taxes on the working poor. I cannot imagine that any Government that says, yes, we are family oriented; yes, we want to help the least advantaged in our society, is about to raise taxes on the working poor. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. It is like cutting your arm to get rid of a wart on your finger. The earned income tax credit is too important for that. The EITC has enjoyed bipartisan support since Russell Long helped create it in 1975. Republicans and Democrats alike have viewed the EITC as a nonbureaucratic way to make work/pay better than welfare. President Reagan called the EITC ``The best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of the Congress.'' That is not someone on this Democratic side of the aisle or this administration, that is President Ronald Reagan. Senator Packwood said in 1991 that the EITC is ``a key means of helping low-income workers with dependent children get off and stay off welfare.'' Senator Domenici said in 1990, ``The EITC is a great way to help low- income families with the cost of raising their children. It sends assistance to those in need, to those who work hard and yet struggle to make a living and provide for their children.'' And I agree with Senator Domenici in that statement. Others who have expressed especially strong support have included Senators Dole, Hatch, and Grassley; Representatives Armey and Petri; and former Representative Kemp. The less fortunate of our society too often find themselves fighting just to feed their families, pay their bills, and stay off public assistance. They are not crooks. They are not tax cheats. They are working hard to earn their tax credit. It is not some sort of a handout. They do not get it if there is no earned income. And it is one of the best tools we have to bridge the gap--bridge the gap, a bridge over troubled waters--between welfare and work. We all talk about making work. We all talk about making work affordable. Well, the EITC is doing just that. In my home State of Ohio, more than half a million working families are getting a little extra back from their paycheck to help make ends meet. I would like to share some of their stories. I think they will shed some light on just what the EITC is all about. [[Page S7142]] Brenda Manders is a divorced mother of a 3 year old who lives in Columbus, OH. She has earned the credit for 3 years. Brenda, who works for Legal Services and has been training to become a legal secretary, this year received a total refund of $2,740. This was very fortunate, because after a separation from her husband, Brenda and her child were left with no place to live. Faced with homelessness, she was able to use her tax credit to pay for a security deposit and rent on an apartment for her and her child. Without it, Brenda and her child may well have wound up on the street. And Zorida Hart of Cleveland, OH, is a single parent who works as a switchboard operator at the Council for Economic Opportunities. She received a credit of $1,978 which she is using to pay for day care. And she's put $900 of that credit in the bank to save it for a rainy day. I wish the U.S. Congress were as pennywise as Zorida. Over the past few days, I have heard from a lot of Ohio parents who rely on the EITC to help them with child care so that they can have a job. This is a tax credit that is working for Americans. More importantly, it is keeping Americans working. We have heard several complaints about the EITC. I would like to address these one at a time, because I suspect we might hear them again and again. I hope we can put them to rest. First, the problems of fraud and error. This is a critical issue. I think if we learned any lesson from the hearings that the Governmental Affairs Committee held in April, it is that we had better keep pushing to prepare the IRS for the 21st century through projects like compliance initiative. Senator Simon and I will be offering an amendment on this shortly to ensure that this important antifraud program continues. As one of the witnesses at the April hearings said, the IRS is seeking to crack down on fraud but is hampered by antiquated systems. We need to change that to uphold public confidence not only in the EITC, but in our Tax Code generally. We have heard dramatic statistics about the EITC error rates. We are told that according to a 1994 IRS study they are as high as 35 to 45 percent. Well, those figures are very deceiving. They deal with those filers whose tax returns were off by just a few dollars and filers who incorrectly claimed too small an amount. Mr. President, I think that bears repeating. These large percentages include those who actually claimed too little. The more important statistic involves not such small discrepancies, but rather whether the EITC was claimed in error. The IRS study found that about 25 percent of the EITC benefits claimed were claimed in error. While there was fraud, most erroneous claims were found to be unintentional. But this 25-percent figure still overstates the problem. It deals with what was claimed, not what was actually paid out, and that is the bottom-line question. The IRS detected many of those erroneous claims, corrected them, and avoided making any overpayments. Unfortunately, the 1994 IRS study did not determine the actual EITC overpayment rate. The error rate figure is deceivingly high for another reason. The 1,000 returns examined in the study were not representative of the EITC returns filed in 1994. They were only the returns filed electronically during the first 2 weeks of the filing season. Error rate is likely to be higher among early electronic returns than among EITC returns overall.

Mr. GLENN. I appreciate the time.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, what is most important is that the IRS, in response to the 1994 study, has initiated tough measures to scrutinize EITC returns. Before sending a payment, the IRS now verifies not only the Social Security numbers of all adult claimants, but also the numbers of all children in the EITC families to make sure that the claims are valid and that no child is claimed twice. Also, the GATT legislation enacted last fall included a provision requiring for the first time that Social security numbers be provided for all infants. Several million returns have been delayed this year because of discrepancies with Social Security numbers. In addition, the IRS now pulls all EITC returns falling into error- prone categories, sends the families a questionnaire and requires the families to provide additional documentation. So Mr. President, all the figures that we have heard, and are about to hear, are outdated. And given the new IRS compliance measures, they are not entirely relevant to the current debate. The IRS has recognized the problem, and its seeking to correct it. Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that fraud and error rates are OK. I am the last one who would imply such a thing. But I believe that, instead of seeking to reduce working people's tax credit, we should instead work with the IRS to reduce error rates. The IRS is making a lot of headway here. And we should all work to make sure it continues. That is progress. Increasing the tax burden on our lowest income working families is not something that we want to sponsor. Next, we have heard that the EITC is simply out of control. Well, I am here to tell you--it is not. The increases that we have seen in this tax credit have been mandated very specifically by Congress. We have scheduled increases by law and phased them in several years at a time. The first major increase in this tax credit took place under President Reagan in 1986. The second was initiated under President Bush in 1990. And in 1993 under President Clinton, the Congress approved this budget reconciliation act which very specifically sets forth the years that program increases will take place. These expansions took place to make work pay. They were done in recognition of the fact that other policies to assist the working poor--like the minimum wage--have become much weaker. And they were done so that a parent who works full time throughout the year would not have to raise his or her family in poverty. In fact, the 1993 increase was designed to do just that--it was designed so that a family of four in which the parent works at the minimum wage would be lifted to the poverty line. But even with these planned expansions, the disposable income of a working mother with two children will be up to $3,000 lower, after adjusting for inflation, than in 1972 before the EITC was even created. Mr. President, after the three expansions specifically enacted under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, the tax credit will return to its normally low rate of growth. In fact, after 1997 it will grow at a rate less than the GDP. I am sure there are not many provisions you could say that about in the tax package that the House put together. We have also heard allegations that 80 percent of the EITC goes to those with no income tax liability at all. Well, the truth of the matter is that the EITC was intended to offset not only income taxes, but also payroll taxes and excise taxes. More than 80 percent of the EITC goes directly to offset all of these taxes which are being paid by workers who are fighting to get out, and stay out, of poverty. Some also say this program discourages work. The argument is that-- because the credit phases out as family income increases spouses will be discouraged from getting jobs. It's an interesting theoretical argument. But what I find more persuasive is the way the tax credit has enabled people to work by helping them pay for things like child care, transportation or work clothes. I have heard from a lot of people who have used the credit for these things. But I have not heard from anyone who turned down job opportunities because it would affect their tax credit. Let me give another example from Ohio. Carol and Roy Wilmonts of Columbus, OH received the EITC for the past 2 years. They used it to help pay bills. And Carol has had the flexibility to care for their kids--Amber, Ashley, Autumn, and Nicholas. You see, that's part of the equation people ignore. Some use the EITC to pay for child care. Others use it to provide the financial flexibility for one spouse to stay at home and care for the kids. It is not a work disincentive for Carol. Roy received a promotion and is now manager at a Muffler King. He and Carol no longer receive a tax credit. But they are glad that they got one when they really needed it most. [[Page S7143]] We have also heard that you get the credit even if you work just a tiny little bit. Well--what do you know--then you get just a tiny little credit. And we heard that those with little earned income but a lot of interest income can take advantage of the system. Well, at the request of the Clinton administration we are putting an end to that through language in the self employed health care deduction bill that has now become law. Then we heard about the so-called marriage penalty. But no one bothered to mention that the EITC can also encourage marriages. Without the EITC, there is a great deal of financial risk for a mother on AFDC who does not work and is considering marrying someone with low earnings. If she marries, she and her children will become ineligible for AFDC and also lose some of their food stamps, not to mention the loss of Medicaid. The EITC helps to offset those losses. By tying the knot, the couple will gain an EITC benefit of up to $2,157 if they have one child and up to $3,564 if they have two or more children. This will partially, and in some States fully, make up for the loss of AFDC benefits. Encouraging single mothers who are on welfare to marry into working families is certainly worthwhile in my book. Some people may view the amount of credit that we are talking about as of little consequence. But let me offer an illustration provided by Dan Grunberg in testimony before the Governmental Affairs Committee. For someone who has a weekly take home pay of less than $200, the average EITC payment of $1,500 is almost 8 weeks pay. That makes a big difference. Mr. President, it is hard to escape the harsh irony that we are discussing tax increases on those fighting to escape poverty, while at the same time the House is proposing a massive package of tax cuts that will benefit the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations. Since I cam to the Senate, I have worked for fairness and progressivity in the Tax Code. The majority's EITC proposal, especially in the face of the House tax cut package, is neither fair nor progressive. It is Robin Hood in reverse. So, Mr. President, count me as a supporter of the EITC. We can sit around here all day with fancy charts, graphics, and statistics. But nothing will substitute for the personal experiences of real people like Roy and Carol Wilmonts. They are working hard to get by. They needed that little extra help that EITC offers. And they worked hard for it. Mr. President, I encourage my colleagues to support the Bradley amendment and oppose tax increases on the working poor.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment proposed by Senators Snowe, Abraham, Grassley, Brown, Kassebaum, Cohen, Lott, and Chafee. I support the goal of the amendment--to provide increased funds for higher education. My record is clear and unequivical on education funding. These funds must be increased, but not in the way proposed by the proponents of this amendment. I would like to speak about two of the offsets that the amendment identifies and discuss the impact which these cuts would have on our economy. First, the amendment would zero out two important NASA programs. These programs are the R&D or seed corn type programs which many of my colleagues have heard me speak about in the past. This amendment would zero out NASA's High-Speed Research Program, and NASA's Advanced Subsonic Technology Program. Before I talk about these specific programs, I would like to observe that NASA has already absorbed more than its share of budget cuts. A couple of figures will illustrate what I am talking about: In fiscal year 1993, NASA's 5-year budget request was about $122 billion. The fiscal year 1996 request is now $82 billion for the next 5 years. NASA has been cut by one-third in just over 2 years. NASA has stepped up to the plate to reduce bureaucracy and improve the way it does business. Under Dan Goldin's leadership the agency is currently going through a painful process of reducing its budget by $5 billion over the next 5 years. Mr. Goldin believes that this can be achieved without eliminating programs. He has a tough row to hoe to achieve this. Further cuts in NASA's budget will simply result in the elimination of current programs. Now, let me talk about the High-Speed Research Program first. The goal of this program is to help develop the technologies industry needs to design and build an environmentally compatible and economically competitive high-speed civil jet transport for the 21st century. The technology developments are to reach an appropriate stage of maturity to enable an industry decision on aircraft production by 2001. Mr. President, the technologies currently needed to develop such a transport are beyond the state of the art. NASA estimates that industry will need to invest more than $20 billion to bring such a transport to market. Studies have identified a substantial market for a future supersonic airliner to meet rapidly growing demand for long-haul travel, particularly across the Pacific. Over the period from 2005 to 2015, this market could support 500 to 1,000 aircraft, creating a multibillion dollar sales opportunity for its producers. Such an aircraft will be essential for capturing the valuable long-haul Pacific rim market. As currently envisioned an HSCT aircraft should be designed to carry 300 [[Page S7214]] passengers at Mach 2.4 on transoceanic routes over distances up to 6,000 nautical miles at fares comparable to subsonic transports. Now let me talk about the Advanced Subsonic Technology Program. The goal of NASA's Advanced Subsonic Technology Program is to develop, in cooperation with the FAA and the U.S. aeronautics industry, high payoff technologies to enable a safe, highly productive global air transportation system that includes a new generation of environmentally compatible, economical U.S. subsonic aircraft. Some of the technologies and issues being studied and developed in this program include: Fly by light/power by wire: a fully digital aircraft control system which would be substantially lighter, more reliable, and efficient than current control systems. Aging aircraft: to develop new ways of inspecting aircraft to determine their airworthiness. New approaches are being developed to determine the residual strength in airframes using advanced nondestructive technologies. It might be worth thinking about this program the next time you are sitting in a 727 that is 20 years old waiting to take off on a cross-country flight. Noise reduction: This program is developing technologies to reduce aircraft noise by 10 decibels or more by the year 2000. Terminal area productivity: Technologies, chiefly involving air traffic control, that can improve the efficiency of operations on the ground at busy airports. Integrated wing design: New concepts, design methodologies, model fabrication and test techniques are being developed to provide industry an integrated capability to achieve increased aircraft performance at lower cost. Propulsion: Technologies to improve fuel efficiency of future commercial engines by at least 8 percent and reduce nitrogen oxides by 70 percent over current technology. These are only some of the technologies being developed under the program which the amendment's proponents would completely gut. It is a truly shortsighted amendment that would eliminate these important applied technology programs. Mr. President, it is no secret that aerospace business is a Government-private sector partnership. Historically our Government has funded aeronautics R&D, and industry has taken this basic technology and developed aircraft that have dominated the world market. Over the last decade or so, other governments have gotten into the act. Currently the U.S. Market share is about 65 percent, down from about 91 percent in the 1960's. Cutting these two important programs will not help us regain this market share--quite the opposite. We will be sending a signal that the U.S. aircraft industry will be less competitive. In summary, the advanced subsonic technology: Meets future technology needs for next generation aircraft. Enables NASA to develop high-risk, high-payoff, precompetitive technology to prove feasibility so that industry may complete development and apply technology to specific products. Will result in accomplishments in noise prediction codes for quieter engines, nondestructive evaluation techniques for detecting corrosion, cracks and disbonds; analytical tools to understand airraft wake cortices for safe landings. Assists in preserving 1 million U.S. high-quality jobs and $25 to $30 billion annual positive balance of trade for U.S. aviation. The High-Speed Research program will: Enable NASA to develop early, high-risk technology for future environmentally compatible, economically competitive, high-speed civil transport aircraft--technologies needed are beyond state of the art; Industry will take NASA technology and invest $20 billion to actually develop aircraft, and If the United States is first to market, the U.S. market share could grow to 80 percent, achieve $200 billion in sales, and create 140,000 new U.S. jobs. Thank you Mr. President. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Snowe-Abraham amendment.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GLENN. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. GLENN. I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. President, what is the time situation?

Mr. GLENN. I yield him another 2 minutes.

Mr. GLENN. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. GLENN. Yes.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President I would like to respond to my colleague from Pennsylvania briefly.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment by my colleague and committee chairman on Governmental Affairs. I do it, although this is a sense of the Senate and is not binding on the Senate. I am afraid that it sets out goals that are not achievable. Let me go back. The new administration came in. One of the things that they set out to do was to downsize Government. They have been doing a pretty good job of it. They have been getting very little credit for it. They have been doing a pretty good job. First off, they do not go about their task of downsizing Government just by picking a number off the top of their head to set out as a goal for reducing the full-time employees of Government, the FTE's. What they did was have the Office of Personnel Management actually make estimates, department by department, agency by agency, all over Government, and come up with a total of what they thought was really doable. Mr. President, they set out to have the Office of Personnel Management do actual estimates, the numbers of full-time employees that the managers, doing the work of Government, thought they could do without. They came up with a total. It came out to 272,900, to be done over a 4-year period. Now, Mr. President, that was doable. That had a basis in fact, a basis in the estimates that were made by the various departments and agencies. Now, that was a very studied approach. As a result of that, we had fewer reductions in force where they are mandatory, where they call people in and fire them. That was not necessary. What we did was we provided for buy-out legislation, put some money in the kitty so they could address this problem of getting people to leave Government, not just solely by attrition, because attrition, unfortunately, occurs in the lower GS ratings and fewer in turnover at the lower level. What they did was they asked Members to go ahead and set up buy-out legislation. We did that. I proposed that in committee. We had it patterned after the civil service ratings, on the same basis we had provided for the Pentagon some time before on reduction in force over there, and doing it in a way where we did not have to really just call people in and fire them. We wanted to do as much as we could by attrition but have buy-out legislation to encourage people to get out if we needed to use it. That has worked very, very well. It was one of our better administered plans in Government. Let me say that along the way we had an additional thing we were trying to achieve with this buy-out legislation. Through the years, great inefficiencies have developed in the Government in our hiring and staffing patterns in that we had about one boss, one supervisor, for every seven employees in the Federal Government, just on an average. Some areas that required higher level GS ratings, as NIH and places like that, would be different, but overall across Government, there was one supervisor for each seven employees. Now, how does that compare to private industry? Private industry averages 1 to 15 on an average across the country for the average business. Some employee-intensive industries will vary from that ratio, obviously. However, there would be many on the other side that would balance it the other way. The overall ratio for the country is about 1 to 15. With this buy-out legislation, we provided a way in which different departments and agencies could help correct that imbalance while we are getting people out. We wanted the buy-out legislation targeted at GS 13's, 14's and 15's so we could correct this imbalance. It has been working very, very well. How far have we come with this goal of 272,900 people? Right now they estimate 108,000 people are actually out, and they are hoping by the end of the year to have the whole 272,900 reduced. This was done on a very studied basis. It was not done just on picking a number off the top of our heads and saying, well, we will shoot for there and see how many more we can get out. Nevertheless, whether this is a studied basis or not, it is set as a goal. How on earth would we meet it? We say that defense would be left out of this equation here except not completely left out. We say no more than 50,000 more shall come out of the Department of Defense. What is to protect NIH? What is to protect those areas--the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta? What is to protect the FDA? What is to protect areas of health and safety that we should be protecting, also? My colleague on the other side of the aisle says, well, commerce is going to be put out of business, perhaps, if the plan goes through and some 150 Federal programs will be out. We do not know that yet for sure. We do not know what ones. It seems to me that the approach we should be using is to set what we want to define as the functions of Government, not just swinging a machete wildly and say, pick a number, any number, off the top of our heads and say we will set that as a goal to meet as though we could do just as good a job in Government no matter how low we cut the FTE's down. I think we should be defining the functions of Government first. I do not know that there was any real thought given on how we arrived at that 200,000. I would ask my colleague, Senator Roth, the Senator from Delaware, how he arrived at that 200,000. Where did he come up with that? Was it a studied approach such as OPM used on behalf of the administration to be used on behalf of the 272,900? That was not a figure just picked wildly at random, but arrived at by totaling the number of people that agencies and departments said they could probably do without. And we came up to 272,900 that could be cut. That was done on a very, very, studied basis. I do not know how we arrived at this 200,000. I do not know, in addition, how much it will cost for a buy-out if we are not to just set out wholesale firing people. I know it was said we would try to do this as much by attrition as possible. Let me say this: Attrition does not work if we are going to correct the imbalance between the supervisors or the bosses in Government and the employees that are the workers across Government. If we were just to take attrition, attrition normally occurs in the lower civil service ranks. It does not occur in the higher ranks. We specifically, in the legislation that was passed before that helped them along to get the administration's reduction of 272,900, we provided money in there, buy- out money, to help attain that goal. That approach was worked very, very well. If we are to do this further downsizing as my distinguished colleague from Delaware indicates, then it seems to me we would want to continue this correction of the imbalance in the GS ratings as much as we possibly could. We are not providing for that in this sense-of-the-Senate proposal. My colleague also talks about the procurement legislation, putting defense procurement all into one section. We still have different functions of Government to be performed, whether they are left in the individual services or combined into one section. We will still have to have people that do the design work, the evaluation work on airplanes, ships, tanks, infantry and tactics, and all of the other things. I do not know whether that will save money or not. I am certainly willing to look at the defense procurement bill in 1995 and see how that works out. What my distinguished colleague from Delaware said a little while ago as far as time limits on this, if it runs 10 percent over dollars or 10 percent over time, that the contract would be canceled, if I understood his proposal correctly, I would say would almost certainly have precluded some of the major advances we have had in military equipment in the past. When we procure military equipment we are not just procuring Ford and Chevy trucks off the line in Detroit, where you can predict exactly, with great accuracy, when they come off the line, how much they will cost, and when they can be delivered. We are talking about tanks that, as you go along, may need some change to the original design. We are talking about the development of lasers, where you do not really know the cost, exactly, nor the time, yet you know it is worthwhile to go ahead and develop that particular capability. On guided missiles, we rarely know exactly when, what date they are going to come into active service on because, as you go along, you find problems. The same thing with aircraft. Yet we do not want to say that every aircraft that we design for the military would have to be such a simplistic design, not getting into state-of-the-art matters, that it could possibly adhere to an absolute 10-percent dollar or 10-percent time limit or have its contract canceled. You are not talking about things that are that neatly developed and that much here and now. Many of these are programs that need to be developed and I do not know how you would take care of something like that. I am happy to look at the defense procurement legislation but I think we have to be very, very careful when we set hard and strict rules that say things will be canceled if they are 10 percent over budget or 10 percent over time. Perhaps bonuses can be given for coming in on time or coming in ahead of time. Maybe that would be a different approach and I will be glad to discuss that and work with my colleague from Delaware in looking into that. But I think, to get back to the original proposal here on passing a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that just automatically says: The total number of full-time equivalent positions in all agencies shall not exceed 1,682,300 during fiscal year 2002; and, No. 2, of the additional reduction of 200,000 full-time equivalent positions provided for under paragraph (1), no more than 50,000 shall be within the Department of Defense. That leaves 150,000 other cuts in Government. I just cannot in good conscience vote for something that maybe some people would interpret to mean cuts in FDA, cuts in NIH, cuts in the Centers for Disease Control; cuts in safety for our people, for health and safety matters for our people. We can say, ``I know it is not likely that would occur.'' But do [[Page S7104]] we have any guarantee it will not occur? And with other things being proposed, the big cuts being proposed in other areas within this budget resolution, I do not have much faith we would not have to take cuts in NIH and CDC and everywhere else. And I do not want to see that happen. I think that would be a major, major mistake. So I rise in opposition to this legislation even though it is only a sense of the Senate. I know it is easy, sometimes, to say it is sense of the Senate so it is not really binding so let us not worry about it, let us pass it and we will work it out later on. But I do not look at this as being quite so innocuous, because what we are doing is we are going on record saying the best judgment of the Senate of the United States is that we can, without defining where they would come from, cut another 200,000 people beyond the 272,900 that will already have been cut by this administration by the end of this year. If we wanted to charge the Office of Personnel Management with going through once again at the end of this 272,900 cut and say OK, let us look at this now, see what the job is of Government, see how many people we need to do it, and can we really safely cut some additional people in Government without hurting the function of Government, whatever it is--NIH or FDA or whatever--then that would make some sense. But to just pick an arbitrary figure and say we will cut 200,000--we could just as well have said cut the work force in half. Cut the work force by 800,000. Cut the work force by half a million. It would have made just as much sense. But the 200,000 to me is a figure I would not want the Senate to go on record as saying that would be the objective, even in a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. So, Mr. President, for all those reasons I oppose the amendment by my distinguished colleague from Delaware. I will be glad to work with him on some of the defense procurement legislation he is proposing, but just to go out and say we will automatically whack another 200,000 people out without knowing exactly where they are coming from or defining this, agency by agency, or department by department, would be a big mistake. I yield the floor. Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. How much time is remaining, Mr. President?

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I yield the Senator 4 minutes.

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I would like to respond very briefly to some of [[Page S7108]] the remarks made by the Senator from Pennsylvania that did not address directly the proposal of this sense of the Senate resolution by my distinguished colleague from Delaware. He talked about the President of the United States and what he has done. I would like to go back a little and take a few minutes to describe what actually has happened over the past 15 years or so. We came out of the Carter years, and President Carter, during his time in office, I think, did a lot of fine things, foreign policy and so on. One thing that did not occur is a real close control of the economy. We hit a time period where there was 21 percent interest rates and 17 percent inflation rates. I think that contributed a lot to President Reagan being elected when he was. What happened? A lot of people were scared and President Reagan proposed the supply side economics and the budget cuts, and we reduced taxes here by 25 percent over a 3-year period--over a 3-year period, 5 percent the first year, 10 percent each of the next 2 years. This was supposed to stimulate the economy so much that it was going to result in such a new level of business activity and consumer confidence that we were going to see the new business level raised to such a point that there was going to be more than enough revenue to make up what had been left and we were going to move on to a new higher level. Now, what happened? That did not occur. Most voted for that, but some with the idea after trying to get it down to 15 percent reduction and trying to make several changes, finally voted for it because we had been scared, too, about what had happened before. We voted for it with the idea that we would try to come back and change it if it did not work. Now, what happened? Over the next 12 years, we saw an additional $3.6 trillion in debt pile up as supply-side economics did not work. Then we came into the time period where Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was placed out here. That did not do the job. Then we came to the election of President Clinton. President Clinton said privately as well as publicly that the first thing we had to do was get control of the economy. What did he do? He proposed a way of getting control of the economy that he sent the Congress and we farmed it out here on the Democratic side, farmed it out to the committees, with targets to hit, targets to try to meet the efforts to balance the budget that President Clinton proposed. Now, we passed that reconciliation bill in the summer of 1993. I think we need to look at what happened on that. Now, President Clinton was honest enough that he said I will not promise people a lot of tax cuts back then. No. What he said was we will cut as many programs as we can and we will increase taxes. Much has been made of that since then. We will increase taxes--what, on the top 1.2 percent income people of the country, not the middle-income people, not the poor folks of the country. He is going to increase taxes on the top income people of the country, the top 1.2 percent. That is where half of that budget balancing effort came from. Now, what happened? After all the dire predictions here on the Senate floor about all the unemployment this would cause if we passed that President Clinton proposal--there would be millions unemployed was one of the statements here on the floor. What happened? Well, I can say at that time when we passed that budget reconciliation bill, we passed it without one single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. Not one single vote. Not a one. And it was a moment of high drama here in the Senate when the vote was tied 50-50, and the Vice President broke the tie and cast a winning vote. What happened? At that time the budget deficit was running right at $300 billion a year. As a result of that reconciliation effort in the summer of 1993, last year the budget deficit was down do $246 billion. This year, it is $192 billion. It is the first time since Harry Truman that the budget deficit has gone down 3 years in a row--the first time since Harry Truman. I say one-half of it was reduction in programs and one-half was the tax on the top 1.2 percent income people of the country. Now, that is real leadership. We can have all the derogatory signs put up on the Senate floor that deride the President and make light of the President if we want to. That is what actually occurred for the first time since Harry Truman. Three years in a row, the budget deficit has gone down as a result of President Clinton's policies. What we should be debating is how we keep that going, how we keep it going down incrementally, rather than some of the schemes that are being proposed. Some of the proposals out of the House here make assumptions on how we can balance the budget now, make assumptions that I cannot go along with. Medicare. We say we will take $87 million out of Medicare over the next 7 years, meaning we assume that it will not grow at the 9 percent it is growing now, that it goes down to 3 percent to 4 percent in growth. We are saying that we will assume that doctors and hospitals will not be allowed to make as much as they can. They will be kept below inflation rate, as a matter of fact, and we will limit the fees for doctors and hospitals. Those assumptions are made. We make assumptions for HMO savings. That is how we get $87 billion proposed. Some of the assumptions, I think, are false. We have to depend on a CPI adjustment downward from where it is now. We have to assume that the average inflation will not go above 2.5 percent. We have to say there will be no inflation increase in administrative costs, and that will save 22 percent in that area. These are assumptions that really are not very realistic when we get into it. Back to the President's proposal. Now, what happened out of that reconciliation bill we passed in the summer of 1993? Since then, we have had the lowest unemployment in 4 years. In cutting back on the size of the Government, the administration has cut over 300 programs out of Government. They set a goal of cutting 272,900 people out of civil service by the end of the administration's term. They are well ahead of schedule. They have 108,000 actually cut up to now and think they will be able to meet the whole 272,900 target by the end of this year. When that occurs, there will be the lowest Federal employment overall since John F. Kennedy was President, the lowest Government employment since John F. Kennedy was the President. Now, along with that, last year we passed a crime bill, a very major bill. I know there will be efforts to override some of it this year. That was a major effort. We passed the GATT legislation, General Agreement on Tariff and Trade. That is a mighty big step forward in recognizing we no longer could be an isolationist nation if we wanted to be in this country, because most of our trade, in fact, about one out of every eight manufacturing jobs in the whole country, and it is certainly true in my State of Ohio, works to make a product that gets exported. We can no longer be an isolationist America. We have moved into the world. And the GATT agreement, with its readjustments being required, indicate our willingness to move into that international world. We passed a family leave bill. We passed a Head Start bill in the first 2 years of this administration that helps over 200,000 kids get a fair start in school. We passed the national service bill. We passed a college loan bill that over the period of 5 years will let an additional 20 million young people go to school. Now, all of these are things that were passed in the first 2 years of this administration in spite of all of the things that are said about this administration on the other side of the aisle. Do Members know what Time magazine said last October? They printed a chart showing what agenda--announced agenda--had been passed by each of our past Presidents. They pointed out that President Bill Clinton had the best record of getting his agenda through in the first 2 years of Congress of any President since Lyndon Baines Johnson, and before that going clear back to Eisenhower. Now, I think that is a remarkable record. It is one I am proud to support the President on. When I hear all these derogatory remarks about the President and what is going on and signs up here on the Senate floor that are meant to be derogatory, then I just have to take exception to that. Now, back to our current sense-of-the-Senate resolution that is up now. [[Page S7109]] This administration has already cut 108,000 jobs out of the Federal work force, and done it in a responsible manner, done it in a way that helps correct the imbalance between the higher GS ratings and the lower GS ratings, through the buyout legislation that we passed out of the Governmental Affairs Committee. I know that a sense of the Senate that would just arbitrarily add another 200,000 to it is not binding, but it certainly sets the course. I do not know how we would meet that. I would rather ask OPM do another study, a follow on and see where we can do this, and do it responsibly rather than just setting what I view as a goal that might result in some real harm being done to our Government. If we want to do the thing that we should do, what we do is define the role we want Government to have in all these different areas or different departments or agencies. If we are eliminating the agency, fine, eliminate it. But rather than just pick an arbitrary figure, we will have OPM study the Government again, each agency, department by department, agency by agency, and decide how many they think can be cut, and do this responsibly and target those departments where we have too big an imbalance yet. That is the way the figure of 272,900 was arrived at. It was not a figure off the top of somebody's head. It was a figure arrived at by study, by canvassing the agencies, by holding their feet to the fire on what they could do or not do. I think that is what we should be doing for the future. I hate to have to oppose my colleague from Delaware but I do. I think to pass this Sense-of-the-Senate would indicate a wrong direction for us to be taking. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining on this side?

Mr. GLENN. How much time remains on this side?

Mr. GLENN. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of passage of the Interstate Transportation of Municipal Solid Waste Act of 1995. Although I support more stringent restrictions on waste imports, I believe that this legislation is a necessary tool for Ohio and other importing States for implementation of their solid waste management plans. The accumulation of solid waste in municipal landfills is one of the most urgent and fundamental environmental problems facing Federal, State, and local officials today. According to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency [OEPA], all the landfills in Ohio have supported and voted for measures to stem the tide of interstate waste, and I commend my colleague, Senator Coats, for his perseverance on this important issue. In 1992, I voted for the Interstate Transportation of Municipal Waste Act which passed the Senate on a vote of 89-2. In 1993, I was an original cosponsor of legislation to restrict imported waste. I am pleased that the Senate is again acting to address this issue, and it is my hope that this year these restrictions will be enacted into law. Mr. President, Ohio currently receives about 1.7 million tons of municipal solid waste annually from other States. As old landfills are closed or reach capacity, Ohio has reached the point where 28 of the 88 counties have no landfill, and 35 have 5 years or less capacity remaining. Clearly, my State cannot implement its environmental objectives and deal with thousands of tons of imported trash at the same time. The increasing flood of waste imports from out-of-State is a serious threat to the health and safety of Ohioans and to the environment in my State and the other States that receive vast quantities of imported waste. Ohio has taken strong and effective actions to reduce its waste generation and to recycle waste. However, my State's efforts are being overwhelmed by trash from other States. Mr. President, this bill takes several steps that will reduce the amount of out-of-State waste coming into Ohio and other States. The bill will allow Governors to immediately freeze out-of-State waste at 1993 levels at facilities that received imported waste in 1993. In addition, the bill contains strengthened authority to impose an import control, or ratchet, on out-of-State waste. I worked with my colleagues from the other largest importing States--Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana--to make this ratchet more effective by placing tougher limitations on waste exports. This legislation also contains provisions to restore local authority to control the flow of municipal solid waste. Many county commissioners and solid waste district managers have expressed concerns to me about the need for flow control authority to enforce solid waste planning goals as well as recycling mandates. Although this bill does not accommodate each individual situation in Ohio, it is a strong statement about the necessity of local flow control authority, and I will continue to work through the House-Senate Conference to ensure that Ohio's specific needs are met. Mr. President, a national solution to the problem of interstate waste is long overdue. We must act decisively, and we must act now to avert a national crisis in solid waste disposal. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, product liability reform is long overdue and I am pleased that the Senate is acting liability reform legislation in three previous Congresses. I believe that this legislation is good for both consumers and businesses. Our product liability system is out of control and reform is desperately needed. Under our current system manufacturers of products are subject to a patchwork of varying State laws whose beneficiaries are most often lawyers instead of litigants. The Congress is currently debating the proper role of the Federal Government across a broad range of issue areas. Many believe that functions now conducted at the Federal level should be moved to the States. On this issue I believe that we need a more uniform system of product liability and therefore Federal standards are necessary. The current system is unfair to consumers. Much too much of the money paid by manufacturers goes to attorneys' fees instead of the injured party. the high cost of product liability insurance means higher costs for consumers. Because of the unpredictability of the current system, many severely injured consumers receive less than they deserve while mildly injured consumers often recover more. Furthermore, because of unpredictability, cases which are substantially similar receive very different results. Product liability cases often require a great deal of time and many claimants are forced to settle because of economic necessity. The current system is unfair to manufacturers. The cost of litigation is a substantial expense to companies. Companies spend more on legal costs and less on other important areas such as research and development. In some cases manufacturers decide not to invest in or develop new products because of product liability concerns. Ultimately this burden or product liability makes our companies less competitive in world markets than foreign companies. During the debate on this legislation, I have been particularly concerned that as we reform our product liability laws we do not affect the rights of individuals to bring suits when they have been harmed. On the contrary, it is my intent to bring rationality to a system that has become more like a lottery. For me, legal reform does not mean putting a padlock on the court house door. There are several very important improvements that this legislation will provide. A statute of repose of 20 years is established for durable goods in the workplace. After 20 years no suit may be brought unless there is an expressed warranty. Joint liability is abolished for noneconomic damages in product liability cases. Defendants are liable only in direct proportion to their responsibility for harm. Therefore, fault will be the controlling factor in the award of damages, not the size of a defendant's wallet. Another important area is punitive damages. I am supportive of raising the standard of proof to clear and convincing evidence. I am very concerned, however, about the establishment of caps on punitive damages and that the bill not impose a one size fits all prescription. In fact this is the issue that kept me from cosponsoring this legislation during this Congress. The bill originally provided for a proportional cap based on economic damages. During the amending process, that cap was improved by including all compensatory damages. Even with that improvement, however, the bill remained too restrictive. I support the further inclusion of the judge additur provision allowing an increase in punitive damage awards in especially egregious cases. However, I believe that an additional provision in the additur section is without merit. That provision would allow a defendant another trial on damages should additur occur. This goes against the fundamental principles behind product liability reform--fairness, simplification and streamlining the system. Instead, this provision could provide a never ending litigation cycle which will insure full employment for all lawyers. And it increases the burden on an already overburdened legal system. This one provision is so egregious, that it prompted my vote against cloture on the Gorton-Rockefeller compromise which I found otherwise acceptable. I am pleased that Senators Rockefeller and Gorton intend to address this language in conference. Unfortunately, the product liability legislation this year turned into a Christmas tree attracting numerous unrelated items that had never been in the bill before. The expansion of the legislation to include medical malpractice and general civil liability litigation, as Senator Rockefeller has accurately pointed out, caused the tree to topple over. Those matters should and will be addressed more completely in separate legislation. During the debate, the Senate considered several amendments addressing medical malpractice. I believe action is needed to ensure timely and appropriate awards for patients who are harmed by negligent medical care, while at the same time protecting health care providers from unwarranted lawsuits and the need to practice costly defensive medicine. I supported a medical malpractice amendment offered by Senator Kennedy which was based on provisions contained in comprehensive health care reform legislation in the last Congress. This approach requires States to establish alternative dispute resolution mechanisms so that cases can get an early hearing, and it limits attorney's contingency fees to one-third of the first $150,000 awarded and 25 percent thereafter. I regret that this amendment, which would have modified Senator McConnell's medical malpractice amendment, was defeated. I oppose Senator McConnell's medical malpractice amendment, for both substantive and procedural reasons. I was concerned that the amendment did not allow States to adopt their own medical malpractice laws if they were more beneficial to consumers, and I opposed its caps on punitive damages. I am hopeful that the Senate will return to the important issue of medical malpractice reform when the Labor and Human Resources Committee reports the bill it has approved and during debate on health care reform measures. With the addition of medical malpractice and general civil liability, efforts to pass product liability bill reform were diminished. All of these extraneous items have threatened passage of a good product liability bill and the White House has also made it clear that they would veto such Christmas tree legislation. In an effort to pare the bill back to its core principles, I opposed motions to cut off debate on the bill. I believe that through this process, the bill now provides effective product liability reform and its chances of enactment are improved. I applaud the efforts of Senators Rockefeller and Gorton in the enormous amount of work undertaken to pass this legislation.

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. Parliamentary inquiry. Is there a 5-minute limit on speeches this morning?