T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, a fundamental problem facing our country today is increasing economic dependence which serves to fuel the rise of the welfare state. The task for America is to find creative and innovative ways to assist people who are economically deprived. One way to do this is to create systems that will lead to economic self- sufficiency for people trapped by the poverty of inner cities. The Black Dollar Days Task Force [BDDTF], a Seattle-based organization gaining national attention, was established in 1988 to address this problem. This organization has demonstrated that poor communities working together can make a difference and begin to create an economic future for themselves. One of the programs started by BDDTF to address the issue of self- sufficiency is CAMPAIGN 5000. This program is the first minority-owned endowment program in the country. The goal of CAMPAIGN 5000 is to get minority community residents to become owners of their economic future by contributing to an endowment fund and becoming stakeholders. The endowment fund, once established, serves as a means by which corporate, public and private moneys can come together in partnership to foster dignity, hope, and self-esteem. The only present alternative to this endowment fund is federallycontrolled programs which, in some cases, have led to dead end jobs and inner city hopelessness. The CAMPAIGN 5000 Endowment Fund ensures: A self-perpetuating fund that helps solve the problem of deficit spending; a mechanism that creates jobs by fueling the expansion and development of business opportunities; an opportunity for communities to be self-sufficient in solving their own problems. I have here, Mr. President, a list of funding sources which I will submit for the Record. Mr. President, we are now dealing with a great challenge and a great responsibility. In the ongoing budget debate, we must remember that it is not enough just to cut the budget. We must cut the budget, but at the same time we must also be the mechanism to encourage new models that offer hope and promise through self-sufficiency and that get people off welfare. This is the role communities can play in the Contract With America. [[Page S7573]] One model I support enthusiastically is from my home State of Washington. It is the Endowment Program of CAMPAIGN 5000 and the Black Dollar Days Task Force, and it works. I ask that the sources be printed in the Record. The material follows: The Black Dollar Days Task Force Sources of Funding from Grants and Foundations--1989 through 1995 Grants; Presbyterians USA..............................................$4,000 Local Campaign for Human Development............................4,000 Center for Community Change.....................................5,000 City of Seattle, Community Block Grant.........................34,000 City of Seattle, CDBG..........................................15,000 City of Seattle, Department of Neighborhoods...................48,950 City of Seattle, Office of Economic Development................82,750 National Campaign for Human Development........................30,000 United Methodist Commission....................................18,000 Ben and Jerry's Foundation......................................8,000 Charles Mott Foundation........................................12,500 Needmor Fund...................................................60,000 Seattle Foundation.............................................21,000 A Territory Resource...........................................55,500 Self-Development of People......................................9,500 Jewish Fund for Justice........................................12,500 Peace Development Fund..........................................5,000 US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Community Services, JOLI program............................490,000 State of Washington, Office of Community, Trade and Economic Development..................................................40,000 Shurgard, Incorporated..........................................5,000 Catholic Community Services.....................................5,000 Byron & Alice Lockwood Foundation...............................2,000 Levinson Foundation.............................................7,500 SeaFirst Bank...................................................5,500 U.S. West Foundation............................................5,000 The Bon Marche.................................................12,500 First Interstate Bank...........................................2,500 West One Bank...................................................1,500 Safeco Insurance Companies......................................3,500 Washington Mutual Bank..........................................3,000 The Boeing Company..............................................1,000 Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle............................5,000 Presbytery of Seattle...........................................1,000 Family Foundation...............................................1,000

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, my purpose today is to introduce the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Reorganization Act of 1995, which is similar to measures I introduced in 1983, 1989, and 1991. This measure has the cosponsorship of Senators Burns, Murkowski, Stevens, Kempthorne, Craig, Baucus, Packwood, and Hatfield, who represent all the States forming the new proposed circuit. This proposal will divide the ninth circuit, the largest circuit in the country, into two separate circuits of more manageable size and responsibility. This division would leave the ninth circuit composed of Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and would create a new twelfth circuit composed of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Personally, I believe that the ninth circuit should be divided into three new circuits, but the composition for the two southern circuits should be determined by the elected representatives of those States, to whose judgment I will defer. Today the ninth circuit is by far the largest of the thirteen judicial circuits, measured both by number of judges and by caseload. It has 28 active judges, 11 more than any other. Last year it had an astounding 8,092 new filings, almost 2,000 more than the next busiest circuit. It serves over 45 million people, almost 60 percent more than are served by the next largest circuit. Moreover, the population in the States and territories that comprise the ninth circuit is the fastest- growing in the Nation. Mr. President, the deplorable consequence of the massive size of this circuit is a marked decrease in the consistency of justice provided by ninth circuit courts. Judges are unable to keep abreast of legal developments even within their own jurisdiction--to say nothing of lay citizens' inability to keep abreast. The large number of judges scattered over a large area inevitably results in difficulty in reaching consistent circuit decisions. These judges have nearly unmanageable caseloads with little time to review the voluminous case law within the jurisdiction or to consult with their fellow circuit colleagues. As a result, legal opinions tend to be very narrow with little precedential value, merely exacerbating the problem. As a former attorney general for the State of Washington, I personally have experienced the unique frustrations and difficulties of practicing before the ninth circuit. Compounding the problem for the Northwest is that 55 percent of the case filings in the ninth circuit are from California alone. Consequently, the remaining States in the ninth circuit, including my State of Washington and our Northwest neighbors, are dominated by California judges and California judicial philosophy. That trend cannot help but persist as the number of cases filed by California's litigious and exploding population continues to rise. The Northwestern States confront issues that are fundamentally unique to that region, issues that are central to the lives of citizens in the Northwest, but which are little more than one of many newspaper articles in California. In sum, the interests of the Northwest cannot be fully appreciated or addressed from a California perspective. This initiative, Mr. President, is long overdue. As early as 1973, the Congressional Commission on the Revision of the Federal Court Appellate System recommended that the ninth circuit be divided. In addition, the U.S. Judicial Conference found that increasing the number of judges in any circuit court beyond 15 would create an unworkable situation. The American Bar Association also adopted a resolution expressing the desirability of dividing the ninth circuit to help realign the U.S. appellate courts. Earlier bills on the ninth circuit reorganization that I introduced during the 101st and 102d Congresses-- and which were virtually identical to this bill--earned the support of practitioners and judges in the ninth circuit, attorneys general of the western States, the Department of Justice, and the former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Warren E. Burger. The leadership of the ninth circuit has not donned blinders to the difficulties inherent in a circuit court of this size and workload. It has responded, however, by adopting a number of innovative but ultimately ineffectual approaches to these problems. For example the ninth circuit has divided itself into three administrative divisions: the northern unit consists of the five Northwestern States that would comprise the proposed twelfth circuit, and the combined middle and southern units is identical to the restructured ninth circuit. This method, however, does little more than recognize the problem without solving it. Another innovation of the ninth circuit is the limited en banc court, for which a panel of 11 of the 28 judges will be chosen by lot to hear an individual case. Such panels, however, further contribute to the inherent unpredictability of a jurisdiction as large as the ninth circuit. Lawyers often must tell their clients that they cannot begin to predict the likely outcome of an appeal until the panel has been identified. Mr. President, justice should not be determined by lot. Moreover, I have serious reservations about any method which would permit a small minority--as few as six of the sitting judges--to dictate the outcome of a case contrary to the judgment of a large majority, solely depending on the luck of the draw. Despite these attempts to solve the problem, the performance of the ninth circuit has gotten worse, not better. Its judges are falling further and further behind. Despite only a moderate increase in new filings for appeal, the number of pending cases swelled by almost 20 percent in the last year. The ninth circuit now is the slowest of 12 regional circuits in hearing and deciding appeals, on average taking a full 16 months. Mr. President, justice delayed is justice denied. The 45 million residents within the ninth circuit continue to pay the high costs of an unpredictable body of case law and an overburdened court system. They wait years before cases are heard and decided, prompting many to forego their rights to judicial redress. Residents in the Northwest, in particular, [[Page S7505]] are concerned about the growing inability of the ninth circuit to handle the boom in criminal cases stemming from stepped-up enforcement of our drug laws. The swift and sure administration of justice is a right that should no longer be compromised in the ninth circuit. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the complete text of my bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1185 (Purpose: To reduce military spending by $100 to reduce the deficit)

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I am authorized to make an announcement by the majority leader that there will be no further votes until 5 p.m.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, this Senate is now less than 24 hours from one of the most consequential votes it has taken literally in decades. Sometime late tomorrow, it will have the opportunity for the first time in more than 25 years to vote for a budget resolution which will very clearly and very decisively put this country on a path to a balanced budget. Already, we have seen the positive impact of the very fact that this debate has begun. We have seen it in an increase once again in the value of the dollar, a value that collapsed on the occasion of the failure of the balanced budget amendment. We have seen it in lower interest rates, lower interest rates that mean that more and more Americans now can purchase the home of their dreams, can borrow money to begin or to expand a small business, can begin those businesses which will provide opportunities for others. This has taken place just because for the first time the people of the United States believe that this new Congress, the House and the Senate, are serious about terminating a state of affairs in which each year we add $200, $250, and $300 billion to the burdens imposed upon our children and grandchildren for spending for programs we are unwilling to pay for. And yet, in spite of the lip service given by almost all Members to the abstract desirability of a balanced budget, resistance will continue in a rear guard action, in close votes on the floor of this body, from those who are absolutely dedicated to the status quo, who feel that while maybe it might be a good idea someday to have a balanced budget, not, O Lord, in our time, not with our votes. Or, if it is desirable to do it now, always in a different way than that proposed by what I confidently expect to be a majority of this body tomorrow evening. Now, Mr. President, I do not think it appropriate for us to disguise the fact that there will be programs reduced, cut, the growth slowed in programs that provide desirable dollars for a wide range of interest groups in this country, and they will let their views be heard. They are represented eloquently by Members of this body who can see the trees or perhaps the leaves on the trees but not the forest itself, for whom a balanced budget, fiscal responsibility, the exercise of a moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren not further to subject them to debt is less important than a particular group or a particular program. And so this contest which began at the beginning of this Congress and will reach one of its climactic votes tomorrow is a contrast between those who believe in, who speak for, who demand a different and more responsible direction for this country and those who, like the President of the United States, simply believe that the status quo is perfectly all right. Their view is the single worst thing we could possibly do would be to return a single dollar now being taken in the form of taxes from any group in the American people to the pockets of those American people even if that dollar came from a fiscal dividend resulting from a balanced [[Page S7237]] budget, came because we will pay less in interest on the national debt as interest rates decline, came because the economy grew and more people were at work at better jobs as a result of what we do. It is ironic that the President's chief economic adviser, Laura Tyson, is quoted as having said recently, Any effort to reduce Government spending takes a dollar out of the economy which means a dollar in reduction in demand in the economy so it increases the contractionary risks on the economy. Mr. President, I think that states all too well the views of this administration and of those who oppose this budget resolution. Their view is that the only real prosperity comes from dollars spent by the Federal Government. In fact, that statement by Ms. Tyson is so extraordinary that one would expect her to suggest to us that we perhaps spend another $100 billion during the course of this year borrowed from whoever would lend it to us because obviously that is the road to prosperity. If we cannot subtract $1 billion because it will have a contractionary effect, presumably we add $1 billion or $10 billion or $100 billion so we can spend our way into prosperity. But that is exactly what this administration has been doing, and it does not work. Not only will this budget benefit the economy, not only will it mean more dollars in the pockets of individuals as they look to purchase their homes or start or expand their businesses or look for new opportunities, it will also mean a discipline on the Government itself. Perhaps we will not end up having 163 different and competing job training programs. Perhaps we will not have dozens or more of competing specific kinds of educational programs or subsidies for one business or group or another. Perhaps--and I am convinced this will be the case--we will use this budget to reform the Medicare health insurance fund so that it will actually be there in 7 years for the people who need that hospital insurance. Certainly this administration has ignored completely the voices of its own trustees of the Medicare hospital insurance fund who have told us and the administration that something must be done or that insurance fund will go bankrupt. But that is later; that is in the time of another President, another Congress; they can worry about it. That seems to be the status-quo view which we are fighting so diligently to change. So, Mr. President, it is well worth our while, well worth the while of those Senators who have chosen to be here this evening to take one last opportunity to speak to their colleagues and to the country about the radical change in direction that we propose, a direction of fiscal responsibility, a direction of exercising our responsibilities to future generations, a direction which can lead us to prosperity, a direction which can benefit every citizen in this country. That, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a passionate defense of the status quo: Nothing is wrong with this Government; all of the programs it has ought to be continued; we cannot do anything; we should go on automatic pilot. That is a disappointing set of criticisms of our society today, Mr. President. It is not what last fall's election was about. I hope that with the help of the majority of my colleagues that tomorrow a majority in this U.S. Senate will put this country on a different path, a path that it has not trod for many years, a path to a better America. Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am authorized to yield myself such time from Senator Domenici's time as I may use. First, by direction of the leadership, I ask unanimous consent that the vote now scheduled for 3:15 p.m. be advanced to 3:10 p.m.

Mr. GORTON. So the proposal we have before us at the present time will not cure any of the ills of Medicare part A? And may very well unbalance the budget, because it is a contingent amount of money, contingent on our balancing the budget, and certainly will help prevent any kind of dividend in the form of lower taxes to middle-class working Americans; is that not correct?

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, too far too fast. That now is what we hear. We are going too far too fast in our quest to balance the budget and to save the Medicare trust fund. Only here, this budget, if passed and enforced, promises a balanced budget in the year 2002. As I count, that is 7 years from now, but too far too fast, we are being told. Better perhaps the proposal of the President for budget deficits of $200 billion to $300 billion a year, all the way through the year 2002, with no promise of any reduction? That, presumably, is not too far too fast. But, Mr. President, it is too disastrous for our country and too immoral for the children and grandchildren who will have that bill loaded on their backs. Too far too fast to save a Medicare trust fund for hospital insurance scheduled to be bankrupt in the year 2002? Too far too fast to do that now? Will it be easier next year or 3 years from now or when the bankruptcy actually arrives? This amendment is consistent with the view that we are going too far too fast. This proposes to cut $100 billion out of the reduced spending growth in one particular program, and then it will be followed by amendments to cut back on spending reductions or a slowing in spending growth of additional tens or perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars, all consistent with the view that we are going too far too fast. That while a balanced budget may be desirable someday, please, Lord, do not let it take place in our day, send that responsibility on to someone else. This particular amendment is of a rather interesting nature, because this $100 billion of spending over what would be authorized by this budget resolution is not balanced by increasing the amount of money going into the hospital insurance trust fund from payroll taxes at all. In fact, we do not know how much of it would be used to stave off this bankruptcy of that fund. If we assume, however, that half of it would go for that purpose, it would postpone that bankruptcy by about 6 months, Mr. President--6 months of time during which presumably there would be no attempt to deal with the fundamental causes of that bankruptcy, no attempt to deal with the 10.5-percent increase in expenditures for Medicare each and every year. This money simply comes out of a reserve fund. What is the reserve fund, Mr. President? The reserve fund is the economic dividend for balancing the budget. We are told by our Congressional Budget Office that at least this year, we are all using its figures and estimates--we are told by the CBO that if we put laws in effect which reform the spending patterns of the assistance, which preserves that Medicare trust fund, among other things, but which get us to balance in the year 2002, the economy of the United States will react so positively and so affirmatively, interest rates will go down, people will be better off, that we will actually be $170 billion ahead. So we have said in this budget resolution that if in fact we take this hit, if a number of programs do spend less money--no question about that--the American people ought to be entitled to a dividend, a modest tax reduction, 90 percent of which will go to middle-class working Americans under the provisions of this budget. Oh, no, the other side says, we could not possibly do that. We have to spend it. But, of course, they are spending it before they get it. If you put another $100 billion of spending back into this budget, you do not get to a balance. I presume under CBO's figures, you do not get the reserve fund of the dividend at all. So we are spending money not only before we get it, but before there is any assurance that we are going to get it at all. That is the nature of the proposal that we have before us right now. Now, there is no way that I can fault the sincerity or devotion of the senior Senator from Nebraska to a balanced budget. He was one of a relatively small number of Members of his party who voted for a balanced budget amendment which, Mr. President, would have required the budget to be balanced by the year 2002. We could not have argued too far, too fast had that amendment been a part of the Constitution. But most unfortunately, he seems to speak for very few Members on his side of the aisle. Even by his own estimate, we only get 54 votes on this side of the aisle and 60 votes if we do it his way. That assumes that everyone on this side agrees to forego even the remote possibility of any tax cut for a 7-year period, even for middle-class working Americans. But as we have listened to debate on this specific amendment, it has not been limited to a complaint that we should spend more than the budget resolution authorizes on Medicare. Oh, no. We have heard it on money for agriculture, not just for Medicare but for Medicaid, for education, for veterans, and for other health programs. Lord knows, I have been here all the time, perhaps for all kinds of other programs, as well. We could spend that dividend three or four times, Mr. President, and not have satisfied the spending desires of the great bulk of the opponents to this budget resolution. So I ask myself, should we pass this amendment? Will we suddenly have a budget resolution supported by a wide range of Members on the other side? Will it suddenly become almost unanimous? Not from what we have heard so far, Mr. President. This will be only the beginning. There is no way that we will be able to satisfy the desire for spending and have a balanced budget without having a very large increase in taxes, which I may say to this point has not been proposed. Now, my good friend from West Virginia says that this amendment is really just a symbol, a symbol of our need for health care. I agree that it is a symbol. But I believe with what is going to follow on with it that it is a symbol for the need to spend far more money on a wide range of programs than can possibly be accommodated, not only in this budget resolution but in any budget resolution which leads us to a balance by 2002. So ``too far, too fast'' really is the slogan that we are hearing from the other side during the course of this debate. But this amendment goes at our very desire to put Medicare on a path under which spending will increase not only overall in Medicare, but for each individual beneficiary by close to 50 percent--35 to 50 percent--during this 5- to 7-year period. And also it will result in this country's getting all of the dividends from the point of view of greater [[Page S7049]] opportunities, more jobs, higher incomes, that will come out of the fact that we balanced the budget. The trustees of the Medicare health insurance system have told us that it will go bankrupt. They have told us that we need to do something about it. They have not suggested that we just take more money out of the general fund, which does not have any more money, and put it into it. They have told us we need to do something. We propose in this resolution to do exactly that. Yet, Mr. President, even that is not a totally consistent view from the other side. We have had one of the Senators from North Dakota here in the course of the last couple of hours bringing up that argument that was made, and ultimately defeated the balanced budget amendment, that we are not really balancing the budget at all because we are counting Social Security trust funds and expenditures as a part of a unified budget, and that we will still be more than $600 billion out of balance. Now, it may be that the Senators from North Dakota have promised us a budget resolution which will save another $600 billion in some respect or another, though we have not seen it yet. I can only say at this point that when that position was first put forth by the Senators from North Dakota, the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer said this: In my 17 years in Washington, this is the single most fraudulent argument I have heard. I don't mean politically fraudulent, which is routine in Washington in a judgment call anyway. I mean logically, demonstrably, mathematically fraudulent, a condition rare in Washington and not a judgment call at all. Why does he make that point? He makes it for the simple reason that from the perspective of this country and society as a whole, a budget deficit is a very simple proposition. It is the amount by which the number of dollars expended by the Federal Government in any year for any purpose exceeds the number of dollars that are brought in by taxes or fees or anything else. That difference is the amount of money that must be borrowed by the Federal Government for one purpose or the other. That is the amount of money that drives up, or if it goes down, will lower interest rates. That is the amount of money that is taken out of the savings of the country as a whole. Under that definition, with a perfect security for the Social Security trust fund, this budget, the budget which is before us now, will by its best figures lead to a balance in the year 2002. It will prevent the bankruptcy of the Medicare health insurance trust fund by the year 2002. Appropriate reforms will see to it that it can go on indefinitely. That, Mr. President, is why this budget resolution has already had positive impacts on the value of the American dollar and on lowered interest rates, and why it will have far more if it is actually passed and enforced. Without changing, that will turn it from something that is real to something which is a mere fiction.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Washington will be happy to engage in a conversation with the Senator from West Virginia on his time.

Mr. GORTON. At an appropriate time.

Mr. GORTON. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I say to my friend from New Hampshire that I find these arguments intriguing and, of course, persuasive. He and I have talked in private about this for some time, but I wonder if he would, for a moment, take the other half of the question. We have a very specific amendment in front of the Senate, a $100 billion amendment, coming out of the dividends which we firmly believe and the CBO says will arise out of balancing the budget because we have a better economy in the United States. Now, the proponents of the amendment do not want a balanced budget. They have not come up with a proposal for a balanced budget. But they do want to spend most of that dividend in the form of this amendment, some $100 billion, dividing it among part A and part B of Medicare-- part A the hospital insurance portion being that portion which will go bankrupt in the year 2002. Let us assume, I ask the Senator from New Hampshire, that half of that money, $50 billion, just comes in the form of a cash infusion into part A of Medicare but without any other changes because we have not heard of any other changes the other side proposes. What would that do with respect to the projected bankruptcy of Medicare part A in the year 2002?

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I stand corrected by my friend from West Virginia. I understood him to say that the amount of money was symbolic of the problems that he felt this budget resolution created. Symbolic in the sense that even were it restored, it would not solve all of the problems the Senator from West Virginia saw in the health care portions of this budget. I am delighted to have him characterize his position in his own way. Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. I ask the Senator from New Hampshire, is it not true that the trustees said, ``You can either make changes in the rules with respect to eligibility or, alternatively, you can increase the payroll tax?'' Am I correct in feeling that they really did not talk about a one-time general funded infusion into the system of cash money, without any reforms on the other two scores at all?

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, with the consent of the majority leader and at the suggestion of the manager of the bill on the other side, I ask unanimous consent the period of time in this debate between 2 p.m. and the vote at 3:10 p.m. be equally divided and be under the control of the Senators from Nebraska and New Mexico.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Would the President notify me when I use 15 minutes? Mr. President, I must start by saying that perhaps some of the criticisms of the position of the Democratic Party that have been levied in the last few days, and even here this afternoon, may be a little bit overstated. It has been our position that the opposition to this budget resolution are totally defenders of the status quo, that they do not wish to make any changes whatsoever, that they do not care about a balanced budget. But several of them have already told us that is not true, that everything they propose will continue the balance and the resolution produced by my distinguished friend and colleague from New Mexico. Mr. President, if that is the case, the Domenici budget is already a landmark of progress for this country. And I fervently hope that those statements do turn out to be true, though I may be a skeptic until I see it proven. Under those circumstances, the accusation of the defenders of the status quo will be appropriately directed only at the White House and at the administration. My friend from Iowa earlier this afternoon pointed out that this yellow line describes the budget deficit for the next 5 years under figures provided by our Congressional Budget Office if we are to pass the President's proposed budget. This is what happens under the President's budget, and the proposal that was presented by Members on the other side when they offered us a huge tax increase 2 years ago to lower the budget deficit. Well, in all 5 of those years we will have that huge tax increase in place. But the budget deficit will go up each and every year. That, Mr. President, is the status quo. That was what the administration proposed to us. That is what was defended for at least a couple of months by Members on the other side of the aisle while we strove mightily to come up with something that would put this country on this line, a line ending in a balanced budget in 7 years, exactly as promised in the constitutional amendment defeated by only a single vote. So perhaps we have made a huge degree of progress. We have the other party repudiating this line and accepting this line. My colleague from New Mexico has invited any Member of the other party during the course of the day to propose the President's budget, so that we all may vote on it and determine whether or not there is anyone in this body who wants to do this. And I hope and I believe that if no one from the other side of the aisle makes such a proposition, we will put it out here for debate and for a vote ourselves because its repudiation will show that great progress has been made in agreeing at least on the desirability of balancing the budget. But, Mr. President, my skepticism remains because at the same time we are told that all of the amendments will do nothing but redistribute various functions but will continue this line, we are told, no, no, we do not have an alternative budget--not here. Now, that political party in the House of Represenatives has an alternative budget to what is proposed in the House. Do you know what it is, Mr. President? It is essentially the Domenici budget. It looks good over on the other side of the Capitol but not here. No, they say, what we will do is propose individual amendments, each of which will maintain this balance. Now, what, Mr. President, is the difference between going at it that way and making an overall budget proposal which continues us on this line? Well, it is very simple. You can use the same money over and over and over again. Each time an amendment is defeated that would cut the defense budget in order more generously to fund one of their favorite programs or would go into the reserve fund to fund one of their favorite programs, each time such an amendment is lost, you can do it over again. You can use the same money for a different spending program. Between the first two Senators who spoke on that side, there were eloquent demands for more money for education, for veterans, for health care, for the National Institutes of Health, less of a slowdown in the outrageous growth in the earned income tax credit, and more money for agriculture. Now, Mr. President, there is no possibility that they could produce a budget that did all of those things in half the amounts outlined by the Senator from California without a huge tax increase. But if they do it one amendment at a time and lose one amendment at a time, they can use the same money over and over again. And perhaps, Mr. President, my skepticism is fed a little bit by the fact that that is exactly what they did in the Budget Committee. I kept notes as a member of that committee, and 14 amendments from that side proposed increased spending; 6 of them proposed actual tax increases over the present level; 5 used the reserve fund, there for the possibility of tax cuts if we do our job right; 2 others expenditures for defense below the President's proposals which themselves already call for reductions, real reductions in every year covered by his budget. That is what we will get here, Mr. President. The one uniting factor over there is a total anathema with respect to the remote possibility that someone's taxes somewhere in the United States might be reduced. Now, as the Senator from New Mexico said, we do not propose a tax cut directly in this budget. We propose to get to this zero figure on the deficit, and we are told that if we do so, not just in a budget resolution but by passing actual binding laws which change spending policy so that we can get to this point, the economy will react. Interest rates will be lower. We will find 170 billion more dollars because of a better economy over the course of the next 5 years. And incidentally, Mr. President, those reductions in interest rates will knock into a cocked hat all the statements about student loans made by the Senator from California. They are based on what interest rates are going to be if you adopt the President's budget. That is the set of circumstances under which interest rates like that will be charged someone, young people or others. So we say that if we go through this exercise, if we balance the budget, if we improve the economy, if we lower interest rates, perhaps the American people ought to get a dividend. Now, why is it difficult to come to a compromise in cases like this? Because of the way that it is characterized. The Senator from California and others, when they talk about tax cuts, say a tax cut is taking money out of the pockets of the poor and putting it in the hands of the rich. That stems from an attitude that all the money in the United States of America belongs to the Government, and if we are good little children, maybe it will give us back something that we earned ourselves. Our position is that the American people, when we have done our job, ought to be allowed to keep and determine the spending habits of a little bit more of the money they have earned and have less of it taken away from them and handed to someone else, and that is a very, very profound difference.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator from New Hampshire is 100 percent correct. It is interesting that in its initial form that proposal was made by one of the Senators on the other side who already this afternoon in the Chamber has talked about these huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet, it was that Senator who, with our help, earmarked any reduction that we do get for middle-class working Americans. We felt that was a good amendment, and we felt that those middle-class, hard-working Americans ought to be allowed to keep a little bit more of what they earn and determine how to spend it themselves. The Senator from New Hampshire's comments lead me to another point. When we speak about $170 billion in this period in savings in interest on the national debt, which we then can return to the people in the form of lower taxes, but which the other side wants to spend before we have even earned it--they are spending this dividend, and in every one of the amendments we get they will be spending this dividend before it is ever earned. But that is only the savings on the interest on the national debt, on the Government's debt. There are hundreds of billions of dollars more that will be in the pockets of individuals because they will have paid lower interest rates on their mortgages, on their installment credit, on the money they use to begin new small businesses and the like. That is the purpose of the budget which we seek. And I want to return to my first comments. I think we have already had a tremendous triumph. I suspect we are not going to get anyone on the other side coming in and giving us an amendment to pass this budget, and I suspect when they vote on it, they are going to end up voting against that budget. But we have already triumphed. We have already come to an agreement that we ought to be on this road here, the road to a balanced budget. The differences will be that, with all of these huge amounts of spending, trillions of dollars in this period of time, we hope that 1 or 1.5 percent of it, if we do do our job, might be left in the pockets of middle-class working American citizens at the end of this entire debate. We think they can do a better job of spending it than can the Government of the United States. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. I certainly will.

Mr. GORTON. Certainly. Privilege of the Floor

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in less than an hour, the Senate will begin a truly historic debate on a budget resolution reported by the Senate Budget Committee. It is a budget resolution which, for the first time, perhaps, since the Budget Act was passed a quarter of a century ago, seriously proposes to put this Nation on the road to a balanced Federal budget. Mr. President, lip service has been promised to that goal by many of those who voted against a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget, as well as by those who voted for that budget. Most of the former group, however, now find something wrong with this proposal, just as they have with any preceding attempts to balance the budget. In theory, they are in favor of reaching that goal, but in practice they have never actually seen the way in which it ought to be reached. Perhaps the best evidence of this proposition, Mr. President, is that while the minority party in this body is almost--I say almost, not quite--without exception opposed to the budget resolution that is before us, that same minority party in the House of Representatives is putting up as an alternative essentially the Senate budget resolution and praising it as much superior to the one that will actually pass the House of Representatives. I think they do that with full confidence that the proposal will not pass, that the alternative will not pass in the House, and it is therefore safe for them to praise it and, in some cases, to vote in favor of it. This balanced budget here in the Senate, together with the one in the House, will have tremendous positive impacts on the American people. It will result in a significantly greater increase in family income all across this country because of lower interest rates and greater job opportunities. And those positive impacts will vastly overshadow any temporary negative impacts of the loss of various Federal subsidies. Before we begin that formal debate, I want to make a few remarks about the downpayment on a balanced budget, the rescissions bill, which is about to go to the President of the United States and which the President announced yesterday that he intended to veto. This rescissions bill--this cancellation of some of the spending proposed by the last Congress--amounts to about 1 percent of the current year's budget. Yet, to reduce spending this year by 1 percent seems much too drastic a step for this administration to be willing to take. This bill started as a request by the President to spend more money, some for the Department of Defense, essentially to cover the costs of various, dubious peacekeeping missions around the world which was passed as part of a separate bill, and others to spend money on various natural disasters which the President improvidently had refused to include in the budget passed less than a year ago, in spite of the fact that these disasters are always with us, together with a few modest reductions in a handful of programs. The House of Representatives took the bit in its teeth and came up with a cancellation of something more than $17 billion in current spending, about 1 percent of the total budget, as I have already said. The President protested that as being too much and in the wrong places. This body, as the Presiding Officer knows, passed a somewhat more modest rescissions bill, still close to $15 billion or so, with a different mix of canceled or reduced programs. And about that Senate rescissions bill the President said: The bill passed 99 to 0 in the Senate and I will sign the Senate bill if the House and Senate will send it to me. That is how we should be doing the business of America. In the 4 weeks since then, Mr. President, the House and the Senate have met together in a conference committee to settle the differences between these two proposals, in the time-honored fashion under our rules. What was unprecedented during the course of this attempt to work out differences was the almost total absence of people representing the White House or the administration. Unlike the situation during the Bush administration, the Reagan administration, and previous administrations when I was not here, there was no guidance from the White House at all. No statement that, ``Here is our bottom line.'' No attempt to work out differences the way previous administrations did. Silence, except around the margins, until the day after the conference committee finished its work and submitted it to the two bodies. Then the President decided that it ended up reducing a handful of programs and job training and education by so great an amount of money that he had to veto it. I totaled up all of the items that I think could come under that veto threat and they amount to less than $1 billion of the $17 billions. Mr. President, I repeat, no statements of this sort, no bottom lines, were sent to the members of the conference committee while it was working out this situation. Yesterday, the President threatened to veto the bill. He also said that he still wanted to save money but too much money was being spent in this bill on courthouses and on highway projects. Curiously enough, Mr. President, all of these projects which the President now describes as pork were included in last year's appropriations bill that he signed and praised last year. Of course, if his veto stands and no other rescissions bill is passed, all will be built. His veto does not cancel a single one of them. Not a single one of them was criticized at the time which they were originally appropriated for and passed last year. One other curiosity, Mr. President, included in the Senate bill which the White House said would be approved, was certain timber language drafted by this Senator for the relief of timber communities not just in the Pacific Northwest but all across the country. That proposal simply authorized the administration to do what it said it wanted to do, to carry out the provisions of what is known as option 9, its own option in the Pacific Northwest, and to salvage burned and dead and dying timber in national forests all across the country, destroyed either by insects or by forest fires and rapidly becoming kindling for new forest fires. Nothing in the Senate provisions required the administration to do more than it wished to do, but it did enable them to do what they claimed they wanted to do without the interference of outside lawsuits. Not only was that apparently all right, as a result of the Presidential speech that I just read, it was expressly Secretary of Agriculture, whom as we know, is the supervisor of the Forest Service, expressly wrote to Senator Hatfield and said that the Senate version was much preferable than the House version. Yesterday, the result of the conference committee was described by the President of the United States in these words: There is another thing which is in this bill which I really object to which would basically direct us to make timber sales to large companies subsidized by the taxpayers, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, and that will essentially throw out all of our environmental laws and the protections that we have that surround such timber sales. It would also put us back into the courts. Now, Mr. President, the language to which the White House now objects, says is subject to a veto, was first, the language they approved when it passed the Senate in the first place, which was the subject of an explicit letter from the Secretary of Agriculture--a letter of approval, and which was changed only in ways proposed by Members of the President's own party as a result of suggestions from people in the administration themselves. It does not direct timber sales to large companies in any respect whatever. Most of the large companies in the Pacific Northwest are ineligible to bid on Forest Service timber. It is not subsidized by the taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office told the Senate it will net the Treasury some $80 million. It is not mostly in the Pacific Northwest but includes every national forest around the country. It does not throw out the environmental laws at all. It allows the administration to continue to follow every one of them as presumably it has, in connection with its own plans. And it not only does not put them back into the courts, it takes them out. So every single description of this proposal by the President of the United States is in error. Every single element. This proposal merely allows the President to do what he has told the people of the Pacific Northwest and the country he intends to do anyway, and freeze up the lawsuits over that subject. I think the summary, Mr. President, is just this: The administration, and regrettably many of the Members on the other side of the aisle, whether it is in this rescissions bill or the budget resolution, favor the status quo. And $200 to $300 million deficits as far as the eye can see are fine. They have no other proposal, no other alternative. Cutting 1 percent of this year's budget is really too much, too drastic. Has to be vetoed. Allowing the President to keep his own promises to timber communities, too radical a proposal. Everything is just fine with all the laws and all the spending policies right now. That is the message we get. Just fine. We should not make any chains. We will object to everything that is proposed by the new majority party. We will prevent them from keeping their commitments, but we will not offer any alternatives at all. Mr. President, that is not a satisfactory way with which to conduct the Nation's business. It is not what the people of this country want. We have promised them change and a respect for our commitments. And we will continue to struggle, I trust, ultimately successfully, to just that end. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent to proceed in morning business for not to exceed 10 minutes.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, what is the status at the present time? Are we under a time limitation?

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, an inquiry: Are we in morning business?