T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last evening the Senate passed what the majority leader described as the most significant bill passed by the Congress during his long and distinguished tenure in this body. I should like to express my agreement with the majority leader's characterization. That Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which will undoubtedly be passed by the House of Representatives today because of the minor changes made in the Senate, represents a degree of responsibility, of fiscal responsibility unmatched by that of any Congress, at least since the end of World War II. That degree of fiscal responsibility, of course, has been required by the habit of huge multi-hundreds of billions of dollars in deficits over the course of the last several years, and, most particularly, it has been required because of the nature of the budget submissions of this President of the United States who, while he was a candidate for the Presidency, claimed that he could and would balance the budget in 5 years, but who, in January of this year, proposed a budget which would never, ever lead the United States to a budget deficit significantly lower than $200 billion. The course of action since 1969, the last year in which there was a balanced budget in this country, has created a debt on our shoulders and on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren of almost $5 trillion. That means, Mr. President, that a child born today inherits a debt, or a bill, of some $187,000 during his or her life, simply to pay interest on the national debt. That statistic alone starkly illustrates not just the fiscal and financial necessity, but the moral necessity of a sharp change in direction. This country can no longer go on providing goods and services for which it is unwilling to pay and sending the bill to our children and grandchildren. Such a change is significant. Such a change does demand dramatic changes in many of our financial priorities. But such a change carries with it great rewards. The Congressional Budget Office tell us that simply by passing this bill, the Government of the United States will gain a fiscal dividend of $170 billion in more taxes and lower interest payments, a $170 billion dividend matched by a dividend of three or four times that size, more than half a trillion dollars to the people of the United States in the form of better jobs, higher wages, lower interest rates on their mortgages and on their car loans. That is the tangible dividend for our having passed this bill if, and only if, the President of the United States signs it. At this point, he has said he will not. At this point, he has said he will veto even the continuing resolution passed by this body two evenings ago which would allow all of the Government workers to go back to work, all of the activities of Government to continue until some time in December, merely in an exchange for a promise on the part of the President that he will agree to a budget that is balanced by the year 2002 by the honest figures and statistics of the Congressional Budget Office. The President, in spite of his promise in 1993 to use just those figures, has refused, prefers to keep the Government out of operation to making that pledge. Now, Mr. President, nothing in that pledge requires him to accept the precise numbers and priorities of our budget. He can insist on more in the way of taxes than we call for and more in the way of spending than we call for, or a different balance of spending. We may or may not agree, but that can be negotiated. What we will not negotiate, Mr. President, is the proposition that the budget will be balanced by the end of 7 years, with firm statutes in place that will assure that balance, and that the figures we will use to determine whether or not that balance is reached are honest figures, not figures cooked up in the White House. At this point, we understand the President wants us simply to say we will have the goal of balancing the budget in 2002 and maybe the goal of using Congressional Budget Office figures. Well, Mr. President, that just does not work. We know, regrettably, that this White House has a different goal every day of the week. In fact, this President has talked about a balanced budget in 5 years, 7 years, 8 years, 9 years, 10 years, and never, and he has used at least two different sources of statistics for each of those promises. So we have to nail down the proposition that the budget will be balanced in 7 years under honest statistics. That is all we ask for. But we can ask for no less because nothing less will result in the people of the United States having this wonderful fiscal dividend for them in the form of better job opportunities and higher wages and lower interest rates, and we will also say that we have been wrong in the past in spending what we would not pay for and sending the bill to someone else, and that we are not going to do it anymore. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, what is the status of business?

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Chafee], the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy], and the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Grams], the Senate stand in recess until 4 p.m., today.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from Mississippi requires.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may use. Mr. President, in the eloquent and impassioned remarks by my friend, the Senator from Nebraska, outlining his reasons and those of the President of the United States for rejecting this historic proposal, the first proposal which offers to balance the budget in almost 30 years, one two-word phrase stood out, and I believe fairly summarizes his position and that of the President of the United States. That phrase was--and I quote--``simple extension.'' Why would not the Republican Party grant to the President, the Democratic Party, a simple extension of what we have already been doing, a simple extension of the policies of the last 30 years, a simple extension of policies which promise us $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see, a simple extension of a policy which was phrased elegantly in yesterday's Washington Post as ``paying not just for the government we have, but for the government we had and did not pay for earlier?'' The policy of the President, the policy of the minority party in this body is to do just that, not to pay for the Government we have, not to pay for the Government we want, but to consume all of these societal goods and send the bill to someone else, in this case, to our children and to our grandchildren. George Will put it in his column yesterday: Having sought in 1992 a mandate for an empty idea-- ``change''--he [that is to say, President Clinton] has come to the arguable conclusion that serious change is more trouble than it is worth. Never a martyr to candor, he will not make that argument. [But] still, he does represent a discernible notion of what the Federal Government ought to do--approximately what it is doing. And between that idea, simple change, that the Government ought to continue to do approximately what it is doing, and the ideas presented in this budget, there is, Mr. President, a great gulf fixed. We do not stand for a simple extension. We do not stand for a Government which continues to do what it has been doing. We stand for a Government which provides no more in services than it is willing to pay for. The road to that conclusion, seemingly too radical for our administration or our friends on the other side of the aisle, is, according to them, fraught with great difficulty. But, in fact, of course, Mr. President, it does not mean that we must cut the budget. The budget of the United States will increase by 3 percent in each and every year from now until the budget is balanced. It does not mean that we will cut Medicare. Medicare will grow at almost 8 percent a year-- interestingly enough, at a slightly greater rate than it would have grown had we adopted the President's proposals for Medicare that were a part of his health care bill just one short year ago. Yet, this course of action is denounced as inhuman, as impossible, as literally throwing millions of Americans into poverty, principally, I suspect, because to argue its specific content would be to show the shallowness of the opposition to this set of ideas. Now, is the proposal which has been laid before us by our wonderfully distinguished friend and colleague, the senior Senator from New Mexico, in pursuit of nothing other than some form of ideology that says it is nice to have two columns of figures balanced against one another? If that were the case, arguments against it might have some fairly considerable validity. But that is not the case. It is this business as usual, this simple extension that caused every American, no matter what his or her age last year, to pay an average of some $800 in taxes just to cover interest on the national debt; it is this simple extension which causes an American born today to inherit an average debt of some $187,000 during his or her lifetime just to cover interest on our national debt; it is this simple extension, this love for the status quo that, according to the Concord Coalition, headed by two former Members of this body, one from each party, to report the debt and deficit spending has lowered the income of American families by an average of $15,000 per year--$15,000 per year, Mr. President; and it is the fact that the proposal that is before us today is believed, by a very conservative Congressional Budget Office, to have such a positive impact on our economy that the Government of the United States itself will be $170 billion better off by the year 2002 than it will be if we grant a simple extension. That $170 billion is a small figure compared to the half trillion dollars or more by which the American people will be better off because of better job and career opportunities, higher incomes, lower interest rates on the homes and the automobiles, and the other goods and services that they buy on a time-payment basis. Those are the reasons, Mr. President, that this proposal is before you. Those are the reasons that this proposal represents such a dramatic change in course, as the Senator from New Mexico reported earlier. In fact, it is perhaps even a greater change in course than he expressed. He reported, as we have frequently, that the last time the budget was balanced was the year 1969. But balancing the budget in 1969 required only modest changes from budget deficits of the previous years. This deficit and this simple extension does require a degree of political courage and a change of course that has not been matched in the memory of any Member of either House of the Congress of the United States; not matched by my party in the early 1980's; not matched by the other party ever, as far as we can tell. We are told that this is too much too fast, and the fundamental rationale behind that conclusion is that while a balanced budget may be a good idea in the abstract, not now, not on our watch. Mr. President, I dredge up into my memory some of my reading in college about St. Augustine, who was reported to have written, and I paraphrase, ``Grant me repentance and a new life, O Lord, but not now.'' That, I think, is the view of those on the other side. The President now, for today at least, holds the belief that maybe we can balance the budget in 10 years, a period of time at least 5 years beyond the end of any term which he could constitutionally hold as President of the United States. ``Lord, let me repent and grant me a new life, but not now, let someone else do it at some later time.'' That is the difference between the positions represented by this responsible budget which offers a dividend to the American people and their Government of almost a trillion dollars and the course of action advocated by my friend from Nebraska, and I quote, ``simple extension.'' We are not for a simple extension; we are for a new and better course of action. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his explanation, and I wish him good luck.

Mr. GORTON. The billboard provisions are relatively minor, but for some reason or other caused a great deal of discussion on this floor a little earlier with appropriate congratulations to the Senator from Virginia for at least subverting some of the House provisions which really would have gutted the billboard control. I simply wish to point out that while most of that damage was contained, if, in fact, it is appropriate to delegate responsibilities to the States as in some minor way this does, why was not the proposition to delegate to the States the right to set billboard controls without having to pay for that billboard controls approach? It seems to me we have a very selective view in this Congress of what powers ought to be delegated to States. I heard, I believe, the Senator from Virginia say he hopes the subject will be taken up next year. I must say I fear they will take it up next year and we will have further weakening rather than any strengthening of those rules.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, while I believe this bill to be extraordinarily progressive from the point of view of engineering and the designation of highways and the degree of flexibility allowed the States in construction projects, I nevertheless am constrained to vote against the bill by reason of a number of its other provisions. First, again, while the Senator from Virginia particularly is to be congratulated on at least severely limiting the damage to billboard control contained in the bill, it is ironic that while there is a provision in this bill to grant States greater flexibility to get out from under billboard controls, nothing is done in this bill to allow States to enforce their own laws with respect to billboard controls if they wish to do it in a different way than present Federal law requires. Mr. President, a great deal has been said about the delegation of responsibility to the States, but the bill denies States the right to use their trust funds to support Amtrak, to support rail transportation as an alternative if they wish to do so. Neither of these provisions, however, Mr. President, would be sufficient to vote against the bill, but the safety provisions are. The collection of provisions relating to safety in this bill are simply going to kill hundreds or thousands of Americans over the next few years. The combination of the removal of any Federal control whatever over speed limits, the removal of any Federal requirement with respect to motorcyclists' helmets, the easing of restrictions on certain trucks, in combination, Mr. President, are going to make our highways less safe to drive on. It is just as simple as that. The 55-mile-per-hour speed limit is, of course, an anachronism. It is not abided by 80 or 90 percent of the drivers on our highways and not enforced by State patrols, but that does not mean that some control over speeds on highways which are interstate or Federal in nature are not appropriate. Far too many States will set either no speed limits at all or speed limits that are far too high. The society is going to end up paying an increased set of health care costs as a result of the absence of motorcycle helmets. We may also lose people and lose time as a result of some of the truck safety provisions in this bill. In short, Mr. President, more people will be killed, more people will be injured, health care costs will be greater, all in the guise of delegating responsibilities to the States where in certain other areas, appropriate delegation has not taken place. I regret this. I believe the Senate conferees did a wonderful job, the best job they possibly could have under the circumstances, but overall this is an unsafe bill.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Utah raises a very good point. Of course the transfer of the Salt Lake City facility would be appropriate. From what the Senator from Utah has explained to me, this is a unique opportunity to accomplish several goals at once. In keeping with our efforts to downsize the Federal Government, we can privatize certain government services, reducing the burden on the taxpayer while retaining essential research capabilities within the State of Utah. Such a transfer would permit the private sector, State university and the State of Utah to work in a cooperative effort to continue important environmental remediation research efforts.

Mr. GORTON. It is my understanding that quick action is essential to the successful transfer of the facilities in Salt Lake City. While the fiscal year 1995 Interior Appropriations Act provides the Secretary of the Interior authority to transfer only certain Bureau facilities, both the House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 1996 Interior bill give the Secretary broader authority to transfer other facilities such as those in Salt Lake City. This authority was requested by the administration, is supported by both the House and Senate, and I have every reason to believe will be signed into law when action on the fiscal year 1996 bill is completed. I would urge the Bureau, the State of Utah, and other entities involved in the proposed transfer of the Salt Lake City facilities to work together in anticipation of this authority being granted. I will do everything in my power to see that the fiscal year 1996 bill is enacted in the coming weeks.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I object.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in the middle of last week, at the suggestion of one of my colleagues from Washington State in the House of Representatives, most of the Washington congressional delegation and several Members from other States in the country began a campaign to allow people in the United States to speak out in a tangible and dramatic fashion their desire that we stop coming up with excuses and pass a budget which could promise a balance to the American people. We wanted individual citizens throughout the country to be able to say we have loaded enough in the way of debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren and that it was time to stop, time to chart a new course of action. The way in which we proposed to do this was to suggest to each and every individual in the country that he or she, if she wished the President to sign a balanced budget bill, should send the President a pen, a pen like the one I hold here in my hand, or, for that matter, a No. 2 pencil, or, in the case of the very children who will be saddled with the debts that we have run up in the past and that this President insists that we continue to run up, even a crayon. We suggested any writing instrument, in other words, Mr. President, except for a red pen, on the ground that there was a sufficient amount of red ink in Washington, DC, already. This announcement took place on Wednesday of last week. On Friday afternoon I was present at radio station KVI in Seattle, a talk radio station, which had not much more than 24 hours earlier taken up this call and had suggested sending those pens either directly to the radio station or to some two dozen drop-off points throughout western Washington. By the time I reached the KVI studios, there were already huge piles of envelopes containing pens--some without notes, almost all with return addresses, some with short notes to the President--stacked on the table surrounding the microphones in the studios. They numbered in the thousands, produced simply by that single radio station. Others in the State of Washington have taken up the cause. This morning the National Taxpayers Union held a news conference attended by myself and by the junior Senator from Georgia and my colleague in the House of Representatives, together with one of these radio talk show hosts, to ask that this cause be taken up by other radio stations across the United States. If those stations have anything like the success that we had, there will literally be hundreds of thousands, perhaps up to five digits, of pens delivered to the White House, each and every one of which asks the President to sign a bill. No more excuses, no more deferrals, no more putting off to next year what we should do this year, but a set of laws, a set of changes and directions that will clearly promise us a balanced budget no later than shortly after the turn of the new century. It is ironic, I believe, that we should have to insist that the President of the United States do this because when he was a candidate for President, Mr. Clinton promised to balance the budget in 5 years. He abandoned that promise on being elected. And by the beginning of this year, 2 years after being sworn in, he submitted a budget that would never be balanced, in fact, a budget that would never have deficits of less than $150 billion a year. Later, he said perhaps he could do the job in 10 years, then 9, then briefly 7, now back to 10, but that he could only do it if he were allowed to set the assumptions, to play with the statistics, so that balancing the budget would become an easy task without any significant changes in spending policies in the United States, a tactic which has been used briefly by Presidents, both Democrat and Republican, with unsurprising results--increasing rather than decreasing budget deficits. In addition, the proposal which we have been debating today, the reconciliation bill which will come before this body before the end of the week and be sent to the President before the end of the week, does much more to keep the President's original promises than simply to balance the budget, as important and difficult as that task is. It also keeps the President's promises, since abandoned, to provide a tax cut for middle-income Americans, and it will also keep the President's promise, to which he continues to give lip service and little more, to end welfare as we have known it. It is over a bill that will carry out these promises of the President of the United States that all of the current furor takes place. Rather than to promise to sign that bill, the President has committed himself to vetoing it. As of the moment at which I speak, he has vetoed one of the two much more modest interim measures that would allow him both time to veto that bill and to discuss with Members of Congress what alternative approach to the same goal he would adopt without causing the Government of the United States to come to a halt. I am not sure precisely what the consequences of this course of action will be. Two bills, one of which has already been vetoed by the President and one of which is likely to be passed here later today and vetoed before the evening is up, will cause a certain degree of disruption. A veto of the reconciliation bill, a repudiation of the President's three promises, will, I suspect, cause somewhat more in the way of disruption because it will be the last of a series of actions on the part of the President that belie his promises and commitments as a candidate in the early days of his Presidency. So far, the President has been unwilling, in any rational and thoughtful fashion, to discuss these goals. So far, he simply says he will not even begin to discuss them until preconditions are met which guarantee that he will never have to discuss them seriously. I suspect, however, that as has been the case so frequently in the past, once the shoe begins to pinch, the President will be willing to discuss this serious question, and I believe he will find Members on this side of the aisle willing to discuss everything with him except for the underlying premise that we must come up with a realistic method of balancing the budget. Once that principle has been reached, we can reach an agreement and the President can use one of those hundreds of thousands of pens to sign a balanced budget. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, may I pose a not-so-hypothetical question? If you were head of a Government agency, and that agency were being criticized by the press, Members of Congress, and the American public for inefficiency and incompetence; if, Mr. President, you knew that the Government--at the American people's behest--was undergoing a massive effort to cut spending in order to balance the budget, what would you do, Mr. President? If you are like most people, your answer might go something like this: I would listen carefully to the criticisms, I would take a good hard look at my department and make the necessary changes, and I would do everything possible to save money. If, however, you are Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, the answer is a bit different. Secretary O'Leary, whose Department of Energy is still justifying its own existence, paid $43,500--taxpayer money, Mr. President--for a media analysis company to track her and her department's coverage in the media. [[Page S 16932]] Here's how today's Wall Street Journal describes it: Mrs. O'Leary quietly hired an investigative service to poke into the reporters who were poking around the DOE. From April through August, the service, Washington-based Carma International, tracked more than two dozen individual reporters and hundreds of newspapers, magazines and newscasts. It also pored over thousands of stories, giving each one a numerical ranking based on how favorable or unfavorable it was. It then calculated scores for how favorably or unfavorably the DOE fared on various issues, from nuclear waste to Mrs. O'Leary's own reputation. And it scrutinized sources quoted in those stories, coming up with its own ``Top 25'' list of ``Unfavorable Sources.'' Wanda Briggs and John Stang, reporters with the Tri-Cities Herald in Washington State, are among those the investigative service monitored. Mr. President, the foolishness and irresponsibility of this venture boggles the mind. The first, most obvious point to raise is the fact that we are on a mission to balance the budget. For Secretary O'Leary to waste taxpayer dollars on her image is inexcusable. While we in Congress are trying to reduce the size and cost of Government so that we may achieve a balanced budget in 7 years, a member of the President's Cabinet feels free to throw money into frivolous projects. Oh, and by the way, the Wall Street Journal quotes Secretary O'Leary's spokeswoman as saying that the investigative service ``wasn't particularly useful,'' and that the Secretary read very little of what the service had to offer since ``she found it too complicated.'' I think it's time the Secretary understood that we can neither afford, nor will we allow, $43,000 mistakes. Second, Mr. President, of all the various responsibilities of the DOE--and they are serious responsibilities indeed--using a private company to analyze Secretary O'Leary's image in the press is, to put it mildly, at the very bottom of the list. The challenges facing DOE in Washington State alone are stupendous: At the Hanford Nuclear Site, thousands of tons of nuclear waste lie underground, yards away from the Columbia River, posing a direct threat to the region's safety. Cleanup at Hanford, while progressing, still demands our utmost attention and concern. The health of the people of the Hanford region, and of the people all over the country who live near nuclear sites, requires that we remain fully committed to cleaning up the nuclear waste. That is just in my home State, Mr. President. Across the country, similar problems exist. So it is disturbing to learn that Secretary O'Leary's attention is being diverted by such trivial concerns as what the press is saying about her. Mr. President, over the last 18 months, almost 5,000 people have lost their jobs at Hanford. They are struggling and will continue to struggle with upheaval and uncertainty in their community. Meanwhile, the Secretary of Energy, someone who has potentially great influence over their fate, pulls a stunt like this. So much for setting an example at the top. There are a lot of people in this town for whom $43,500 is nothing-- less than nothing. In the White House, in Congress, in the agencies, people deal on a daily basis with money in the millions and billions. But Mr. President, for the peopel of Hanford, that's real money. There is a man in the Hanford area who lost his job more than 6 months ago. He has talked with my office, and prefers to remain anonymous. For 15 years he worked at Westinghouse as a technologist. He paid his taxes, he was a Boy Scout, he provided for his family. He was laid off on April 28--in the same month that Secretary O'Leary began her quest for a better image. He has two children and two grandchildren. His wife recently had to quit her job due to illness. He is still looking for work. Coincidentally, Mr. President, this man's salary--before he was laid off--was $44,000. Secretary O'Leary spent over $43,000 for 4 months of useless media analysis. Food on the table, or image enhancement--Mr. President, just where do Hazel O'Leary's priorities lie?

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, for 27 years, Mike Wallace has been a hard-hitting, pull-no-punches investigative journalist primarily on ``60 Minutes.'' Relentless in pursuing a story, there are few tactics he will not employ--bullying, insults, confrontation, ambush journalism. That is fine, because however you feel about Mr. Wallace, he works in America, and here in America the first amendment secures our right to free speech. We Americans can say or write just about anything we like, and, no matter how offensive it may be, how distasteful, repugnant, however uncomfortable it may be to others, we have the right to express our views. Mike Wallace has the inestimable privilege of expressing those views on network television to tens of millions of people. I had been under the impression that, given his profession and his unorthodox modus operandi, Mr. Wallace was a first amendment advocate, but in today's Washington Post we find evidence that suggests the venerable Mr. Wallace has a peculiarly narrow devotion to free speech. Yesterday, Marlin Fitzwater, a long-time spokesman for Presidents Reagan and Bush, was waiting to appear on the cable television show ``Politically Incorrect.'' Mr. Fitzwater has just published his memoirs of his time in the White House, and in that book he offers some mild criticism of both ``60 Minutes,'' calling it ``liberal'' and always framed in terms of ``good versus evil,'' and of Mr. Wallace himself. I quote: As a small boy . . . I would watch Mike Wallace . . . as he insulted his talk show guests, drove women to cry and performed his pioneering version of talk show extremism. Mr. Fitzwater's book also mentions Mr. Wallace's son, ABC reporter Chris Wallace, criticizing the younger Wallace for his privileged background. All this is prefatory to the main event. The studio in which the cable show ``Politically Incorrect'' is taped is located in the CBS building in New York. While Mr. Fitzwater was waiting to go on the air, Mr. Wallace called Mr. Fitzwater in the studio and began shouting at him and then swearing at him over his book. A few minutes later, the Post reports, Mr. Wallace stormed into the studio and continued with the shouting and swearing and obscenities. Mr. Fitzwater, wisely, I believe, and astounded, left the studio posthaste. Now, as they say, Mr. President, what is the deal? What is going on? The Lexis-Nexis system would blow a fuse if you tried to reach all the times Mr. Wallace criticized others on the air. After all the years that he has been in this peculiarly tough field of journalism, you would think he would be accustomed to criticism. A few years ago, for example, ``60 Minutes'' ran a program on the pesticide Alar and helped [[Page S 16811]] destroy the living of a significant number of Washington State apple growers without justification. I see no evidence that that bothered Mr. Wallace in the least. But now he throws a temper tantrum over a mere slight. Indeed, Mr. President, after all the hard-hitting pieces Mr. Wallace has run on people, institutions, and even whole governments, one is amazed at his vitriol and verbal attacks on Marlin Fitzwater. Perhaps, Mr. President, Mr. Wallace's support for the first amendment is a single-edged sword. He can use it, but it cannot be used against him. Perhaps Mr. Fitzwater's criticisms struck a raw nerve. Either way, one fact is certain. Mike Wallace can dish it out, but he cannot take it. Shameful, Mr. President, but funny at the same time. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, recently I received a letter from a constituent named Sue Magruder, who lives in Snohomish, WA. This is what she wrote: Dear Senator Gorton: Hold the line. If the President decides to veto and the Government shuts down, so be it. We don't need all this Government, and compromise is out of the question. Please pass this sentiment on to the rest of your colleagues. We want you to hold the line. Don't compromise with my tax dollars because there is no more to give. Mrs. Magruder and her husband are small business people in the town of Snohomish, WA. They feel--and I think they feel justly--that they are overburdened with regulation and with taxes, with attempting to support themselves, with attempting to make both their own family and their community a better place in which to live. And they, together with millions of other Americans like them, want us to continue on the course that we set out at the beginning of this year--the course that will bring the budget into balance, a course that will remove at least some of the duplicative and unnecessary regulations from their backs, a course which will lessen the burden of taxation, which governments at all levels impose on them. They, unlike many Members of Congress, believe that the money that they earn is their own, and that they can be asked to give some of that to support common purposes. They disagree, however, that somehow or another everything they earn belongs to the Government, which, in its generosity, will allow them to keep some of it. That is a fundamental disagreement that they have with many Members of this body and many others who live and work in this Capital of the United States. They know that every penny the Government gets comes out of the pocket of some hard-working American citizen or some other person who lives and works at some point or another in this country. Sue Magruder wrote that there is no more to give. In that line, she was concentrating on herself and her family and her community. But at least an equally undesirable--no, immoral element in the way in which this Government has been run during the course of the last 20, 30, or 40 years is that we spend money by the hundreds of billions of dollars that we are not taking directly from our citizens in the form of taxes, but are borrowing, at interest, and sending the bill not to the citizens who live and work in the United States now, but to their children and our children and grandchildren. That, Mr. President, is a greater imposition, a greater wrong done to them than can possibly be done by any control over the increase in spending policies, by the cancellation of any marginal Government spending program. We simply do not have the right to spend the money on consumption today and ask our children and their children and their children to pay the bill. That is the central issue; that is the central question which separates us from a White House that believes in the status quo and believes that there really is nothing wrong with the continuation of multibillion-dollar deficits year after year, as far as the eye can see. And it is on that proposition, Mr. President, that I do not believe that constructive compromise is possible. Once the White House, once the administration realizes the depth of our feeling on this issue, once it comes to its senses and is willing to join us in the goal of balancing the budget in 7 long years, on the basis of realistic projections, then, Mr. President, I think many things are said to be compromised. Many elements of the spending program can go up while others go down. I do not believe that there is any absolute bottom line after we have reached that conclusion. Under those circumstances, compromise will be a constructive activity. But to compromise away the proposition that we must stop spending more than we take in would be essentially wrong, would be a repudiation of the commitments that those in the majority made to our voters last year. Mr. President, I am convinced it cannot and will not be done. So, if I may, I will end these comments by repeating one part of Sue Magruder's letter: We want you to hold the line. Don't compromise with my tax dollars because there is no more to give. Mr. President, that is correct and that is the line that we are going to continue to hold. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

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

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended for a period of 5 minutes.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I have been informed by the Senator from Missouri that he has a brief interruption which he would like to make. I yield to him for that purpose. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. What is the state of business, Mr. President?

Mr. GORTON. In the absence of such a request, what would take place?

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I have heard many of the comments of my eloquent and thoughtful Republican colleagues about the reconciliation bill and the budget which has just been passed, their thoughtfulness with respect to the way we have caused the Medicare system to be preserved, protected, and strengthened, the fact that in doing so the percentage of the premium which individuals will pay for their Medicare part B coverage will not be increased, except for those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford and who, for that matter, ought to pay for a greater portion of the cost of their health care rather than passing that cost onto the backs of working Americans. I have heard, particularly, the references of my colleagues to the long-sought and most welcomed reductions in the tax burdens on the American people. But, Mr. President, I want to emphasize one aspect of those tax reductions which have frequently before been overlooked. While there is in total almost $250 billion in tax relief for the American people in the reconciliation bill this body passed early last Saturday morning, the overwhelming bulk of those tax reductions, 80 percent of them, in fact, comes from two sources: The closing of certain corporate and business tax loopholes amounting to about 10 percent of the gross tax reductions and a $170 billion dividend which the Congressional Budget Office has told us will be the benefit to the Federal Treasury of passing a budget which clearly will be balanced by the year 2002. Mr. President, I think that is a vitally important concept. The tangible dividend to the American people of our balancing the budget will be $170 billion in lower interest payments on the Federal debt and an increased tax collection under the present system because of greater prosperity, more opportunity, more employment, a better lifestyle that a balanced budget will give to the people of the United States. Mr. President, that is the overwhelming source of the tax reductions that are included in this bill. We, as Republicans, believe that if we balance the budget, that dividend ought to go to the American people, not to further or for additional spending programs. And that profoundly differentiates ourselves from our opponents in this battle who consistently have demanded more spending on the part of the Federal Government. Now, Mr. President, perhaps the most remarkable illustration of the differences between two of the three sides of this battle is the fact that the President of the United States claims that he has presented a balanced budget when, in fact, he has not done so but has simply estimated the deficit out of existence. The Congressional Budget Office, the agreed upon arbiter of the fiscal direction in which this country is proceeding, has offered us no dividend in connection with President Clinton's budget proposals. Not $170 billion, not $150 billion, not $10 billion have they offered us should we pass the President's budget. Why? Because, of course, under Congressional Budget Office figures, it does not balance in the year 2002. In fact, it barely gets below $200 billion at any time between now and that year. That is perhaps the greatest single illustration of the proposition that the White House offers us stones for bread, that it gives us nothing that will ever lead us to a balanced budget and does nothing in the way of a fiscal dividend to the American people and thus no source for tax relief for the people of the United States. That $170 billion dividend, I wish to emphasize, is only the dividend that a balanced budget provides for the Treasury of the United States. It is perhaps one-quarter to one-third of the overall benefit to the American people. If we pass a law which will cause the budget to be balanced, in addition to that $170 billion in a return of lower taxes, the American people will benefit to the tune of $300, $400, $500 billion in higher wages, in greater income, in broader opportunities, in economic growth in the country as a whole. So, what we have done, Mr. President, is that we have passed a set of proposals which will improve the condition of the American economy and the American people by close to $1 trillion between now and the year 2002. If only we can get the White House to agree to it or to agree to a budget which has the same impact. That is a magnificent triumph, Mr. President. I believe it is unprecedented at any time in the last two or three decades. And in addition to all of the other dividenda that come from a smaller Government, less control and influence on the part of the Government over our lives, a reform of the welfare system, the preservation of Medicare, in addition to all of these other dividends, is this potential for a better and a more prosperous America. And that, Mr. President, is the justification for what we propose to do, and what we passed in this body late last Friday night or early last Saturday morning. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, today I am pleased to join my colleagues Senators Burns, Craig, Grassley, McConnell, Daschle, Harkin, and Kerrey, as an original cosponsor of the Cooperator Program Act of 1995. The Foreign Market Development [FMD] Cooperator Program has been administered by USDA's Foreign Agriculture Service since 1954 without specific legislative authorization. Today we are introducing legislation that will provide the necessary authorization to maintain, preserve, and strengthen the FMD Cooperator Program. The FMD Cooperator Program has proven to be an effective, efficient, cost-shared program, providing trade service and technical assistance for U.S. agriculture commodities in overseas markets. This legislation will ensure that the FMD Cooperator Program is better able to compete for a limited number of discretionary dollars during the annual appropriations process. Many important developments have taken place since the completion of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade [GATT]. I believe that GATT will continue to open new world markets for the United States so programs like FMD are even more important to give U.S. agriculture the tools necessary to develop, maintain, and expand commercial export markets for U.S. agriculture commodities in this new post-GATT environment. As a member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, I have made funding for export programs my top priority. I am convinced that the Foreign Market Development Program, Market Promotion Program and the like are absolutely necessary if U.S. Agriculture is to remain competitive in the international marketplace. It is also in the best interest of the agriculture community specifically to authorize the FMD Cooperator Program. This kind of oversight will ensure that the agriculture community will continue to receive the full benefits of this program. Since 1955, U.S. agriculture exports have increased from $3 billion to $43.5 billion in fiscal year 1994, and are projected to reach a record high of $51.1 billion during fiscal year 1995. USDA has stated that for each dollar of taxpayer money spent on the FMD, 7 dollars' worth of exports are generated, and this figure continues to grow. It is now every day that we appropriate Federal dollars and get a return on our investment as large and as significant as we do with the FMD. In lieu of the reduction or phaseout of USDA's commodity price support programs, it seems only right to provide the agriculture community with the tools necessary to compete in the international marketplace. As I travel around my State of Washington I listen closely to the comments, suggestions, and concerns from my State's agriculture community. The message has been clear: Strengthen, maintain, and preserve the tools necessary for us to export our products. In response to these comments, I believe that this legislation is the key to maintaining export programs important to so many in Washington State and across the Nation. I would also like to acknowledge the overwhelming support we have received from the following State's wheat commissions. Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Nebraska, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming. Among other associations we have received support from include: Washington Education Trade Economic Committee, National Association of Wheat Growers, U.S. Wheat Associates, USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council, National Barley Growers Association, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Western U.S. Agriculture Trade Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Dry Bean Council, American Seed Trade Association, USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, American Soybean Association, National Cotton Council, National Peanut Council of America, and National Sunflower Association. Clearly, Mr. President, this legislation has a tremendous amount of support from U.S. agriculture nationwide. Mr. President, in closing I invite my colleagues to join me as cosponsors of this legislation and ask unanimous consent that a letter of support from the Washington State Wheat Commission be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Both the Senators from Washington and Nevada are speaking on the bill we just passed, deferring their right to speak before the vote in order to accommodate Members who wanted to leave.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I submit a report of the committee of conference on H.R. 2002 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, we are here this morning to present the conference report to accompany H.R. 2002, the fiscal year 1996 Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. As we all know, the Department of Transportation, like many other departments, is operating under the very strict terms of the continuing resolution. This conference report will allow the Department to operate for fiscal year 1996 without the restrictions of the continuing resolution; but more importantly, it will fund vital programs such as air traffic control, Coast Guard search and rescue, and other critical safety functions. I am pleased that, in conference with the House, the Senate was able to increase funding for a number of important programs, since the conference allocation for the bill was $100 million higher in budget authority and $193 million higher in outlays than the Senate-passed bill. This year, the problems facing the conferees were the same as those faced in the past--that is, how to strike the best possible balance between the operational needs of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Coast Guard with sufficient funding for the Nation's infrastructure and transportation safety needs. I believe that this agreement provides a balanced and fair solution for the challenges we faced. The conference report before you today contains a total of $12.5 billion in discretionary budget authority and $36.754 billion in outlays. I will quickly review some of the highlights of the bill. Total Coast Guard funding is $3.375 billion, which is supplemented by an additional $300 million to be transferred to the Coast Guard by the Department of Defense. The conferees are very appreciative of the fine work and cooperation of Senate Defense Subcommittee Chairman Stevens and House Chairman Young. With these funds, the Coast Guard conference total will be approximately $110 million more than the fiscal year 1995 enacted level. For the Federal Aviation Administration, a total of $8.2 billion has been provided, which includes $4.6 billion for FAA's operations; over $1.9 billion for associated facilities and equipment purchases; and $1.45 billion for grants in aid for airport construction. In addition, the conference agreement directs FAA to institute personnel and procurement reforms which are desperately needed. The conferees believe that these reforms will allow the FAA to operate more efficiently. I should point out that these reforms are fully supported by the administration. The reform provisions contained in this bill will not become effective until April 1, 1996, which will allow for sufficient and adequate review by not only the appropriate authorizing committees, but also by all affected FAA employees and systems users. For the Federal Highway Administration, the bill includes a total of almost $20 billion--$17.55 billion for the Federal-aid highway formula program, and $2.3 billion for those highway programs which are exempt from the obligation ceiling. Highway spending in fiscal year 1996 will be nearly $500 million higher than the comparable fiscal year 1995 levels. In the transit area, the bill provides a total of slightly more than $4 billion, which includes $400 million for transit operating assistance; $666 million for transit new starts construction; and $333 million for discretionary grants in the bus and bus-related facilities area. In the rail area, it should be pointed out that Amtrak has been provided a total of $635 million: $305 million will be for operating expenses; $230 million will be for Amtrak's capital purchases; and $100 million is set aside for Amtrak's transition costs. In closing, Mr. President, I would like to point out to the Members that there were several provisions included by the Senate which were dropped in conference. The provision which designates the National Highway System was not included because the conferees were assured by both the chairman of the House authorizing committee, Mr. Shuster, and the chairman of the Senate authorizing committee, Mr. Chafee, that the conference on the National Highway System bill is making progress, though perhaps not as quickly as we had hoped, and that with passage of the NHS bill, States will soon be in receipt of the $5.4 billion in apportionments that are being held in abeyance pending enactment of the NHS. The conferees also agreed to drop a provision which allowed the States flexibility in dealing with an across-the-board cut contained in ISTEA known as section 1003. The National Highway System authorizing conferees have assured us that this issue, too, will be addressed in the NHS conference agreement. The Senate proposal regarding State-regional infrastructure banks has been deleted from the appropriations bill. However, I have it on good assurance from the chairmen of the House Transportation Infrastructure Committee, that the State infrastructure banks proposal, in a somewhat scaled-down form, will be included in the NHS conference agreement, and will allow both transit and highway projects to participate in the infrastructure bank program. I also want to inform the Members that the Senate proposal regarding air traffic controllers' revitalization pay, which would have phased out this 5-percent bonus over a 3-year period, has been deleted. The conferees heard from the administration and from many individual controllers that this would have a demoralizing effect on FAA personnel, and that the cut suggested by the Senate, $45 million, would have been especially detrimental as FAA institutes personnel reforms. Finally, I should point out that the House-initiated proposal which would have moved DOT employees on worker's compensation rolls to retirement rolls, upon eligibility, has been deleted, so that nothing in this bill affects employees' existing rights under worker's compensation and retirement rules. I want to thank all the Members of the conference for their support on reaching this agreement. I especially want to thank my ranking Member, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, for all his valuable time and insights in fashioning this conference agreement. I also want to acknowledge Mr. Frank Wolf of Virginia, who chaired the conference on behalf of the House and Mr. Coleman, the House ranking Member. I believe it was a spirited conference which was entered into in good faith. I believe all the conferees were interested in producing a bill which meets this year's difficult funding challenges in a fair and balanced way. Not at all incidentally, Mr. President, that, I believe, will be signed by the President of the United States and will not be a part of the disputes in which we are continually engaged. We have been told by the administration that the President will sign this bill upon receipt. As a result, I urge adoption of the conference report for H.R. 2002, Fiscal Year 1996 Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.