T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I am convinced that the simplest of all implementing legislation for this kind of constitutional amendment, should it become part of the Constitution, will define the debt in a way which is totally consistent with section 2. So as a practical matter, I do not think such a case of controversy will ever arise.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the debate over the relationship between Social Security and the balanced budget amendment seems now to be drawing to a close. The truly vital vote on the subject was cast just a few hours ago, evidencing the attention this Congress will pay to the security of our Social Security system. Early next week, I believe the Reid amendment will be tabled. A mention of Social Security will not be added to the Constitution of the United States. I believe that both sides in this debate share a deep and sober dedication to the viability of our Social Security system. I am delighted that we had an opportunity earlier today to vote overwhelmingly our dedication to seeing to it that none of the promises made to our senior community are repudiated in any respect whatsoever. Now it is only required of us that we deal decisively with this proposed addition to the Constitution on the subject of Social Security and go on to passing a balanced budget itself, the prospects for which, it seems to me at least, have increased dramatically during the course of this week. Despite the dedication of those who have proposed this addition to the Constitution, in fact, adding this reference to Social Security to the Constitution of the United States would clearly undercut the very security they say they seek. Once you take this large, vital portion of the money which is collected by the Government in the United States and distribute it to beneficiaries by the Government of the United States and place it outside of the constitutional limitations on spending, which we propose, you run the overwhelming risk that some new Congress, faced with the unpleasant task of balancing the budget without ever being able to count Social Security, would simply lower the Social Security payroll tax and substitute for it a new general fund tax to balance an incomplete budget, while at the same time greatly risking the sanctity and the security of the Social Security trust fund. Or perhaps an equally imaginative Congress, faced with the same difficult choices but with this huge loophole, will simply define other programs for the benefit of the elderly; for veterans; or for that matter, for children; as Social Security, and have them paid for out of the trust fund, therefore saving money on the balance of the budget and making the tasks of those Members of Congress easier than they otherwise would have been. The common thread running through these and other similar examples, Mr. President, is the fact that we do not treat the budget of the United States as a unitary whole. We give future Members of Congress the ability overwhelmingly to play games--games which have nothing to do with the amount of money the United States is taking in in taxes and fees, or alternatively with the amount of money that is going out, being spent. A simple spending program without any change in substance, could manipulate the impacts of the balanced budget amendment. Almost certainly, any such manipulation would be to the detriment of the Social Security trust fund. So, Mr. President, rather than buttressing our promises with respect to Social Security, the Reid amendment, over a period of years, will seriously undercut them. Those who drafted and those who most enthusiastically supported the motion of the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Dole, on this subject are, by and large, those in this body like myself who, 2 years ago, repudiated the President's attempt to limit or even eliminate certain Social Security cost-of-living adjustments. They were those, like myself, who fought--unfortunately, unsuccessfully--against a 70-percent tax increase on a number of Social Security recipients' incomes just 2 years ago. They are, by and large, the people who believe, as I do, that we should reduce or eliminate the earnings test on the earned income of Social Security recipients and encourage them to keep on contributing to our society. Those of us who wish to protect Social Security by defeating the Reid amendment, who have shown our dedication to Social Security by our enthusiastic support of the Dole motion, and who have shown that in past years by our actions with respect to Social Security are truly those who will protect those whose lives depend on the security and sanctity of that system. So, as I have said, Mr. President, I believe we are close to the end of this debate and that this debate will end, as it should, in retaining the balanced budget amendment in its original and pristine form, and at the same time providing the highest degree of protection for the Social Security system itself. As a consequence, we will, once again, be back debating the fundamental issue which has been before this body: Are we for the status quo? Do we think the system which has led to a $4 trillion debt, which promises us, through the President's budget, $200 billion, more or less--generally more--in deficits forever; that this is a system with which we should be content; that generalized promises of doing better in the future are all that is required? Or, Mr. President, will we be found with those who say the system is broken down and that only outside discipline, only a discipline which can be provided effectively by the Constitution of the United States itself, will cause Presidents and all Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, to operate under the same rules and will require them to exercise the discipline necessary to balance the budget of the United States? Those who are comfortable with, those who favor, the status quo, those who think that the job that has been done is a fine job will align themselves with the opponents to this constitutional amendment. Those who feel that we need to act differently, that we need to operate under different rules, that we need to be a part of a constructive resolution to do the job this country demands of us will vote in favor of House Joint Resolution 1 and submit this constitutional amendment to the people of the States. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I have always been a strong proponent of Federal funding for cancer research. As a member of the Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee since 1991, I have continually made cancer research one of my highest priorities. One form of this disease, breast cancer, will affect one in eight women and will kill 46,000 Americans this year alone. Whether you have had a sister, a mother, a spouse, or a friend who has been directly affected by breast cancer, the fear of this disease is instilled in all women. Conventional treatment for this type of cancer includes surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and bone-marrow transplants. With this in mind, I am delighted to share with my colleagues the great strides researchers are making at the University of Washington. The scientists in Seattle have been working on a whole new approach to stopping breast cancer--the use of a vaccine. The vaccine, which has been under development for more than 3 years, is designed to stop the disease from recurring in many patients who have already been diagnosed and treated. The research is being financed by a $765,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health and $145,000 from the Boeing Co. The vaccine is now being refined in laboratory animals and the researchers hope to conduct human tests this year. I am proud of the wonderful work that is being done in Seattle, and throughout the whole country, where research is being conducted daily. With the great technological and research advances our society is experiencing, I am excited to see what innovative therapies tomorrow will bring.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, legislation will be introduced soon that takes our Nation an important step closer to avoiding devastating wildfires in our national forests. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the legislation to be introduced by the senior Senator from Idaho--the Forest Health Amendments of 1995. Last year, wildfires raged across the Western United States. The fire season started in early summer and by the time the smoke had cleared nearly 3 million acres of land in the Western United States had burned--double the amount of 1993. In the States of Washington and Oregon alone, nearly 1.4 billion board feet of Federal timber burned. Last summer, after listening closely to the concerns of Washington State residents, I offered an amendment during the House-Senate Interior Appropriations conference to provide the Forest Service with the authority to expedite these salvage sales. Unfortunately, I could not convince the members of the conference committee to include my amendment in the report. And, unfortunately, the burned timber is still sitting on the ground. Today, most, if not all, of the 1.4 billion board feet remains on the ground in Oregon and Washington. Obviously not all of the 1.4 billion board feet of timber that burned last summer would be eligible for harvest. According to the Forest Service calculations, usually 50 percent of the total volume burned in a wildfire can be salvaged. Consequently, roughly 700 million board feet is eligible for some type of salvaging activity. But, once again, the Forest Service has made only token efforts to prepare the sales necessary to get in and get up this valuable timber. The urgency is based upon the fact that burnt, dead, or dying timber loses its value rapidly. The ramifications of inaction by the Forest Service in preparing these sales is twofold: These sales will provide small sawmills and logging companies in the Northwest--literally on verge of going out of business--some much needed wood supply. Beyond this, it is critical to remember that if the timber is left to rot on the forest floor it will be setting the stage for yet another devastating fire season this coming summer. Mr. President, inaction on the part of the Forest Service not only hurts working people, but it also hurts the environment. Regrettably, inaction is exactly what we are getting from the Forest Service. In response to the wildfires from last summer the Forest Service began to study the forest health issue. Last December the Service issued a report on its study entitled the ``Western Forest Health Initiative.'' The report highlighted 330 forest health-related projects in the Western United States. The majority of these projects, however, were not developed in response to the wildfires of the summer. For instance, in Washington and Oregon, only 40 projects were identified in response to the summer fires. Of the 40 projects, only a few were actual salvaging operations. Mr. President, the people in my State are asking themselves ``why?'' Why isn't the Forest Service going into the burned out areas and getting up the timber? Why isn't the Forest Service restoring the health of our forests, and putting people back to work? The answer is, of course, in large part driven by the fact that the Forest Service will most likely go to court if it begins Mr. President, the people in my State are frustrated. They are frustrated with a Federal Government that is so petrified by the potential filing of law suits that it will not undertake even the most limited of management activities in our Nation's forests. The legislation to be introduced by the Senator from Idaho would ease some of this frustration. The Forest Health Amendments of 1995 would require the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to conduct a yearly review on the status of the health of our Nation's forests. The bill would continue to grant the right to appeal a project, but would limit the timeframe for such an appeal. The bill grants the authority to allow for an environmental assessment on an individual project versus the more costly and time consuming environmental impact statement. The bill would also allow for the Forest Service to prioritize forest health needs as an emergency or high-risk area. The legislation to be introduced will not be enacted soon enough to conduct salvage operations in response to last year's wildfires. This Senator has already begun to work with his colleagues in the Northwest congressional delegation to put together an amendment that will address the salvage sitting on the ground from last year's fires, and other short-term timber supply issues for the region. Mr. President, this legislation will provide the Forest Service with some much needed direction. We cannot, and should not, stop managing our forests because of the obstructionists tactics of a few groups and individuals. If we do, we will be confronted with devastating wildfires--like last year--on an annual basis. I encourage my colleagues to work with this Senator and the Senator from Idaho to enact this legislation, and bring some common sense back to the management of our Nation's forests.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, today, together with Senator Murray, I introduce a bill to authorize a land exchange between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Boise Cascade Corp. Unfortunately for its proponents, this legislation has been introduced during both the 102d and 103d Congress. This year, Senator Murray and I will work to pass this legislation and finally get it signed into law. Boise Cascade's plywood and sawmill operations in Kettle Falls, WA are adjacent to 26 acres of land owned by the Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau land provides a buffer between scenic Lake Roosevelt and Boise Cascade's operations. The National Park Service, which manages the Bureau's land, historically has issued a special-use permit allowing Boise Cascade to operate along the edge of the land. However, the Park Service has indicated that it may not reissue the permit when it expires in 1995, and has stated conclusively that the permit will not be reissued upon expiration in 2000. Consequently, passage of this legislation this year is crucial. Without a special use permit, Boise Cascade would not be able to continue its operations at Kettle Falls. Thus, 350 mill jobs would be lost and the community would be devastated. To prevent such a catastrophe, Boise Cascade has proposed exchanging 138 acres of land it owns for 6 of the 26 acres it needs to continue operating. The 138 acres is primarily wildlife habitat located along Lake Roosevelt and the Colville River, and would be conveyed to the Bureau of Reclamation upon passage of this legislation. This land exchange is supported by the Bureau of Reclamation, the Park Service, and Boise Cascade. In addition, a local citizen's group concerned with Columbia River water quality issues has negotiated a series of mitigation measures with Boise Cascade, and has given its full support to the land exchange. Mr. President, this exchange make good sense and will avoid a potentially severe problem. Last year the Energy Committee reported out of committee the exact legislation that I am introducing today. I urge the committee to promptly review this legislation, and I will work with them on this issue. I thank my colleagues for their consideration.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, this morning the time for the two leaders has been reserved, and there will now be a period for the transaction of morning business until the hour of 9:30 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each, and with Senator Lautenberg to speak for up to 15 minutes. At the hour of 9:30, the Senate will resume consideration of House Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional balanced budget amendment and the pending amendments thereto. Under the order entered last night, debate between the hours of 9:30 and 11:30 will be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. At the hour of 11:30 a.m., Senator Daschle will be recognized for 15 minutes, to be followed by Senator Dole for 15 minutes. At 12 noon today, the majority leader will make a motion to table the Daschle motion to recommit, so all Senators should be aware that there will be a rollcall vote at noon today.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I yield myself 6 minutes. Mr. President, at the outset of this debate, I observed that Members of the Senate divided into three distinct groups in connection with the proposal now before us. The first was those who believe that the present budget and financial system of the Government of the United States is broken, broken seriously and requires major surgery in order to fix it. The evidence which we, a majority, in this body have cited is the fact that in 30 years we have had but one balanced budget. In the last 20 years, the total debt has multiplied by more than 10 times to almost $5 trillion, a tremendous burden on the people of the United States of America; that even at the present time, at a time of relative prosperity, we are running deficits of $200 billion a year, adding that amount to our total debt. The cure, it is the belief of the substantial majority of the Members of this body, is the balanced budget amendment in the form in which it passed the House of Representatives. The second group in this debate are those who claim allegiance to the concept of a balanced budget but not in this fashion, not through the provision for such a budget in the Constitution of the United States. Now, I believe that the overwhelming challenge to that second group is if not this way, what way? What indicates to them in the history of the last 30 or 40 years that either a President of the United States or a Congress of the United States without any external discipline whatsoever will change the course of action of several decades and work toward a balanced budget without external discipline? So far, this second group has been quite silent about what there is that has so profoundly changed in America that we will now get what we have lacked over the course of the last 30 years. In fact, it seems to me that it is more the duty of that group to show us how they would reach the goal than it is of those who believe that a constitutional amendment is necessary and who are the subject of the demands in this motion by the distinguished Democratic leader. Third, of course, is the group that does not believe in a balanced budget at all, who feel that the present, the status quo is perfectly appropriate. There are relatively few in number in this body who candidly advocate that position but one certainly can credit their candidness. Probably a number of those in the second group really fall into the third group with the balanced budget as a low priority or no priority at all. That third group, however, got a wonderful new recruit on Monday. On Monday, the President of the United States, William Clinton, joined them by presenting to us a budget with a $200 billion deficit and projections that are very optimistic from the perspective of inflation and economic growth, projections that never bring the budget deficit to significantly less than $200 billion a year, with a deficit that increases after the turn of the century, so that another $1.5 trillion will be added to the debt. That budget, that Presidential budget is the best single advertisement for the passage of this constitutional amendment in its original form. The Daschle motion, the motion of the distinguished Democratic leader, is designed to justify doing nothing, to retain the status quo. I cannot imagine that any of its proponents really believe we ought to include in the Constitution of the United States two pages of detailed instructions which will become irrelevant if the constitutional amendment is actually passed. They cannot believe it. But beyond the inappropriateness of putting such language in the Constitution of the United States is the unconstitutionality of the motion itself because our Constitution tells us that this Congress passes proposed constitutional amendments which are then submitted to the States for their ratification. Under the Daschle motion, no such thing will happen. The submission to the States is conditioned upon Congress passing a series of laws before that submission takes place. The Daschle motion is, therefore, not only bad policy, not only bad aesthetics by putting terrible language in the Constitution of the United States, it is itself blatantly unconstitutional. Both for reasons of policy and for reasons of constitutionality, the Daschle motion should be decisively and swiftly tabled so we can move on to a debate over the merits of the constitutional proposal itself.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. We could certainly do so, and undoubtedly we could provide employment to numerous constitutional scholars and courts to either interpret what we had said in the constitutional amendment and what we said in the later statute, or whether or not the two corresponded with one another. We have examples of this kind of Constitution writing in many States which have constitutions that did go into statutory detail that are 4, 5, 10 times longer than the Constitution of the United States and are universally criticized as not stating general principles. The original House Joint Resolution 1, on which the Senator from Idaho has worked so diligently over the years, is cast in Constitution- type language. Members can agree or disagree with the fundamental principle that it establishes, but it does deal with a fundamental principle. This proposal by the Democratic leader deals with nothing at all that is fundamental, and it takes its language out of a statute which has been changed several times since it was originally passed in the mid-1970's. It does not belong in the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. GORTON. My friend from Idaho is entirely correct. I think in recap we proposes that the Congress of the United States act in a profoundly unconstitutional manner. Second, it proposes that we add to the Constitution of the United States language which no serious person could ever consider ought to be a part of our fundamental document of Government. Third, it proposes a course of action which is irresponsible. We are dealing with a general principle that budgets ought to be balanced. Obviously, if Congress and the States put that in the Constitution, everyone--Presidents, Democrats, Republicans-- together will have to work to meet that constitutional obligation. The details of one particular method of reaching that goal, when there are a multitude of such matters, should play no role in this debate. But, fourth, it seems to me it was designed to hide what many must have known would be the President's total and abject failure to come up with an alternate method of reaching this goal without a constitutional amendment. We now know that the alternate method is never to have a balanced budget--in fact, never to get the budget deficit significantly below $200 billion a year.

Mr. GORTON. I will be happy to yield to my friend.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I wish to express my admiration to my colleague from Idaho on the quality and clarity with which he has outlined both what the President proposes to Members, and the way in which that proposal illustrates better than almost anything we can say the need for this constitutional amendment. Last week, Mr. President, we ended the week in a debate over a motion by the distinguished leader of the Democratic Party that would have the effect of adding to this constitutional amendment for a balanced budget a detailed set of requirements, the net result of which would be to mandate that the Congress pass binding laws which would lead to a balanced budget by the year 2002 before the amendment itself would be submitted to the States. Those requirements themselves were to become, according to the distinguished Democratic leader, a part of the Constitution of the United States. Thus, they would preempt to this Congress not only the statement of a general principle, but an outline of the precise blueprint by which a balanced budget would be reached, taking that power away from three Congresses that are to convene between now and the year 2002, and ignoring totally whatever dynamic changes may and will take place both in our economy and in our situation in the world during that period of time. The proposal was an improvident and unreasonable proposal, in any event. The illustration as to why it was so unreasonable is best drawn by the budget submitted by the President of the United States since the Daschle motion was laid before this body. The view of those of us who favor the constitutional amendment, of course, was that it was more the duty of those who defend the status quo, those who feel that Congress has operated responsibly, along with the President, over the course of the last many years, those who feel that the situation is not broke, that we do not need dramatic change, that it was more their duty to tell us how they would reach a goal to which all of them give lipservice--the goal of a balanced budget-- without any fundamental change in the Constitution than it was for those of us who feel that the situation is flawed at the present time, that the discipline that will lead to a balanced budget will not be imposed internally by either the President or the Congress of the United States and that, therefore, we need to change the Constitution itself to mandate that all of us--Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, Presidents and Members of Congress--work together to reach a balanced budget. We attempted to make that position clear last week. I think to a certain extent we did so. But the President has ended that argument for us by the submission of his budget. His budget, for all practical purposes, never, never, never will result in a budget with a deficit of less than $200 billion. And using the figures of the Congressional Budget Office, which all agreed to use earlier will increase very substantially, upward of $400 billion either at or not long after the time that this constitutional amendment will become effective if promptly ratified by the States. So we now have before us two starkly differing views of the fiscal and financial future of the United States: First, represented by those who back this constitutional amendment, whose view it is that as difficult as it may be it is important 7 years from now to have reached a balanced budget or at least to make it more difficult thereafter to vote an unbalanced budget, as against those whose view it is that the Federal debt can keep on increasing by $200 billion a year, $300 billion a year, $400 billion a year to infinity. These are the two distinctly different points of view represented in this body that will be validated, that will be evidenced by votes on final passage on this constitutional amendment. Once again, it is important to point out that even this amendment, should it be enshrined in our Constitution, will not under any and all circumstances require that the budget be balanced every year. It will simply make it considerably more difficult to vote for an unbalanced budget because that unbalanced budget will have to be, under almost all circumstances, at least bipartisan in nature; that is to say, it will have to get a 60-percent majority vote in both Houses of Congress and, of course, be approved by the President. But the opposing point of view was outlined by the distinguished senior Senator from Idaho magnificently in his remarks, as it was by my senior colleague from the State of New Mexico. The opposing point of view is essentially: Let us give it up; let us pass a budget which does not deal with entitlements in any respect whatsoever; let us pass a budget which admits that even if everything comes out as favorably as the administration hopes, there will never be a deficit significantly less than $200 billion a year. To this Senator at least, that strips away the disguise that opponents to this constitutional amendment do wish for a balanced budget but just feel that to require it by passing an amendment to the Constitution is too drastic a remedy. In fact, those who will support the President's budget this year will be ratifying his decision that a balanced budget is not necessary, is not appropriate, never needs to come into being at all. I may be overstating the case. It may very well be that there are opponents to this amendment in this body who themselves disagree with the President's budget. If so, I hope that during the course of this debate they will tell us how they disagree with the President's budget and how they propose to bring the budget into balance without the discipline of this constitutional amendment. So far, no one has spoken up to that point of view. Nothing more than lip service to fiscal responsibility has been heard from our opponents. Maybe, perhaps there is an outside chance that we will hear how that can be done without this joint resolution having passed, but in the meantime, while our opponents have the opportunity to come up with their contrasting ideas, in the meantime, we are dealing with the Democratic leader's motion to recommit and to send back out to this floor not just the constitutional amendment for the balanced budget, but two additional pages of material, Mr. President--two whole additional pages of material--which are to go into the Constitution of the United States with topical references to the Budget Act of 1974, with specific requirements related to statutes--not constitutional provisions--but statutes on the books at the present time, outlining in detail how the Congress must reach the goal of a balanced budget by law, by changes in our fiscal policies today that will be impossible or at least extremely difficult to change at any time during the next 7 years before this constitutional amendment is even submitted to the people. Leaving aside, Mr. President, the aesthetic considerations of whether such purely statutory material should ever, under any circumstances, be included in the Constitution, a proposition which I find to be outrageous and which I believe most constitutional scholars would find to be outrageous, leaving that aside, the proposal of the distinguished Democratic leader is itself unconstitutional on its face. As I did on Friday, I should like to leave with this body the specific provisions of article V of our Constitution which deal with the way in which constitutional amendments are to be added to that document. Article V, and its material portions, reads as follows: The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution * * * which shall be valid * * * when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States * * *. Mr. President, that provision does not allow for conditional constitutional amendments. This motion proposes a conditional constitutional amendment. It envisages, it imagines that both Houses of Congress with two-thirds votes will pass a long, long constitutional amendment, far longer than any other amendment to be found in that document, but that it would not be submitted to the States until Congress had passed, and the President had signed, another law--a very long and complicated law, a reconciliation bill--thus bringing the President into the process of amending the Constitution, something which the people who wrote the Constitution specifically ignored, specifically barred. This proposal says that the constitutional amendment will not be submitted to the States until that complicated reconciliation bill is passed, signed by the President and becomes law. That, Mr. President, is a clear, open and blatant violation of article V. Under article V, the Congress of the United States passes a constitutional amendment. The States ratify it. Nothing happens in between, no conditions subsequent, no statement that this amendment will not really go to the legislatures of the several States unless we do something or someone else does something in between. Mr. President, not only does the proposition that we should include such language in the Constitution offend the sensibilities of everyone deeply concerned with that document, it is in and of itself unconstitutional. I believe that it should be dealt with by a constitutional point of order. I am convinced that not only will all of the supporters of the constitutional amendment in its present form uphold that constitutional point of order, but I think many of the opponents to the constitutional amendment would do so as well because they have a deep respect, a deep respect which they have spoken to eloquently and at length on this floor, for the Constitution, and I cannot imagine that they would wish to engage in such a blatantly unconstitutional procedure and clutter up our magnificent founding document with such language.

Mr. GORTON. And I yield the floor.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the Senate is not now at this moment debating directly the merits of House Joint Resolution 1, the balanced budget amendment. By reason of actions taken by the distinguished Democratic leader and the distinguished majority leader, the issue before the Senate of the United States at this moment is an amendment proposed by the majority leader to a motion proposed by the Democratic leader on the duties respectively of the President and of the Congress of the United States in reaching a balanced budget. The leader of the Democratic Party proposes to add to the Constitution a longer set of sections than the balanced budget amendment itself, a detailed set of instructions, the fundamental basis of which submitted to the States until there is, in effect, a binding 7-year budget leading to a balance in the year 2002 and overriding the judgment of all Presidents and all the new Congresses which will be elected between the day on which we are engaged in this debate and the year 2002. The obvious purpose for requiring such a totally unprecedented move is to obscure the debate over general principles; that is to say, is our present fiscal system broken? Do we need to take drastic action to enforce a discipline on Congress and on the President to balance the budget? Or to the contrary, is the status quo quite satisfactory? It is to obscure that debate in the details of a hypothetical attempt to see 7 years in the future and say today precisely how the budget will be balanced 7 years from now. The hope, of course, is that a large number of elements in any such proposal could be presented as unacceptable to the American people, and, therefore, undercut the willingness of the States to balance the budget. In response to that attempt to hide, to disguise the true issue before the body, the majority leader has in a much simpler substitute amendment proposed that if this constitutional amendment should fail of adoption, should the judgment of this body be that the status quo is just fine, that we do not need any change, the majority leader has proposed to direct the President of the United States this year to submit a proposal to Congress stating how he would balance the budget. The majority leader has made this proposal, of course, because so many of the Members of this body on the liberal side of the debate have given eloquent lip service to the ideal of balancing the budget but have said at the same time, ``Not this way. Do not touch the Constitution. Do not make any fundamental changes. Just go ahead and do it.'' But on this, the fifth day of this debate, not one of those Members has come up with a single detail outlining how he or she would reach that goal without the stimulus, without the discipline of a change in our Constitution. Each of those Members has defended eloquently the status quo. Each of those Members has said that we do not need a fundamental change. Each of those Members have spoken about tough votes, discipline, political courage. But in each case, depending on how long the Member has served, each of those Members has voted consistently for budgets which would never result in a balance in what we take in and in what we spend. So the majority leader's proposal is one of great simplicity and great logic. If somehow or another there is any duty on the part of the proponents of change of constitutional discipline in this connection to say how they would solve the problem, is there not an overwhelmingly greater reason to require of those who say no change, keep the status quo, to tell us how they would reach this goal, a goal which quite obviously has not been reached in the last year, in the last decade, in the last several decades? Personally, I believe that the majority leader's amendment is designed far more to outline the absurdity and the lack of reason behind the Democratic leader's amendment than it is to become a serious part of the fiscal discipline of this Nation. I do not believe the President of the United States can come up with a detailed item-by-item proposal to balance the budget some years after he will cease to be President of the United States. I regret that all we hear is that the budget that he comes up with next week will include figures indicating that the budget of the United States will never be balanced pursuant to the policies which he proposes. But I do not think that this Congress, on the recommendation of the President, should adopt unchangeable policies 7 years in advance. Well, if the President should not be required to engage in such an activity in the year 1995, how much less reason is there not only for the proponents of this amendment to follow such a discipline but to include that discipline in the Constitution of the United States of America? Mr. President, can you imagine our basic constitutional document referring to sections in the Budget Act of 1974 and speaking of reconciliation bills, talking of details which are enshrined in our statutes, statutes which can be changed by this Congress at will? Can any individual seriously state that he or she would include two extra pages of detailed verbiage in the Constitution of the United States, all of which will become anachronistic before the constitutional amendment is ever ratified by the various States? No, as a matter of policy, the proposal of the Democratic leader is overwhelmingly flawed. It is, by greater measure, his duty in defending the status quo to tell us how he would reach our common goal than it is the proponents of this amendment. So his proposal is flawed as a matter of policy. I have also pointed out, Mr. President, that his proposal is flawed as a matter of aesthetics, a very important branch of aesthetics--the way in which we treat our Constitution. The last speaker on this floor, the distinguished Senator from Maryland, has talked at length and in detail about why we should not include the general proposition about how to balance the budget and a set of supermajority requirements in the Constitution. Yet, I warrant, he intends to vote in favor of the motion made by the leader of his political party to include in the Constitution the most minute detail in reference to evanescent statutes. Finally and overwhelmingly, Mr. President, the proposal of the minority leader should not be adopted because that proposal itself is blatantly, openly, and obviously unconstitutional. It is, Mr. President, unconstitutional on its face. Article V of the Constitution, which we are all bound to obey and to serve, states in relevant parts: The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, which shall be valid when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States. The proposal of the distinguished minority leader says: ``The article''--that is to say the entire proposal with which we are dealing--``shall be submitted to the States upon the adoption of a concurrent resolution as described in section 9 of the article.'' In other words, it proposes something which has never happened in the history of this Republic--that this Congress, in solemn convocation, by two-thirds vote can propose an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which will not go to the States, which will sit here and wait for the Congress to pass another very detailed concurrent resolution, which it may or may not do. Mr. President, that is, in absolute clarity, not what was intended or mandated by the people who wrote our Constitution in 1787. Either we pass a proposal in the form of a constitutional amendment, which goes immediately to the States of this Union for their ratification or rejection, or we do not. We cannot pass a proposed constitutional amendment which we say will only go to the States if it snows on Easter. We cannot set conditions on the submission of an amendment passed by two-thirds of the two bodies of Congress that will be submitted to the States only upon condition. Either it goes or it does not. Mr. President, I take--as I know all other 99 Members of this body do--my constitutional responsibilities very seriously. In fact, much of the debate against this basic proposition has to do with the respect that the opponents to this proposed amendment have for the general terms and general political philosophy of the Constitution, to which they believe no amendment should be added that relates to fiscal policy. And I can respect that fervor to defend this Constitution. But to place before us a proposal, not only a proposal with all of the details that were included in the motion of the Democratic leader, but to do it in a fashion which ignores the very method of amendment outlined in article V of the Constitution of the United States, Mr. President, that is wrong, it is unconstitutional, and it should be rejected out of hand. I hope that, at some point during the course of this debate, a Member deeply concerned with the Constitution--perhaps the majority leader himself--will raise a constitutional point of order against the underlying motion of the leader of the Democratic Party. If any Member does so, of course, as the Presiding Officer recognizes, neither he nor the individual sitting in his seat at on it. Such a point of order is submitted to the Members of this body for their consideration and for their vote. And I, for one, am convinced that every Member of the body would be required, by the oath that a Senator takes, to sustain that point of order and to dismiss this motion, this attempt to disguise what the real issue is before us, to dismiss it out of hand and to return this body to a debate over first principles, over whether or not it is important in discharging our duties to the people we represent today and to generations still to come, that we not continue to pile debt after debt upon their backs; or whether, on the other hand, the status quo is satisfactory. That is the true debate, and until we have voted on House Joint Resolution 1, I trust in exactly the form it was passed by the House of Representatives, we will not have carried out our duties. But an interim duty, Mr. President, is to reject the proposal both in its original form, and as amended by the majority leader, on the clear and absolute basis that it violates the Constitution of the United States. That debate should not take a great deal of time, Mr. President. I suspect it will take some period of time. I suspect there will be a great deal of oratory as to why the policies contained in the proposal of the Democratic leader are a good idea or are a bad idea. I have already spoken several times on that general issue. That is a reasonable debate. But the proposal before us is not a reasonable proposition. It violates the Constitution of the United States, Mr. President, and it should be dismissed as such. Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the Senate appears to be drawing fairly close to the end of a week in which Members have spoken in relatively general terms about the desirability or lack of desirability of a constitutional amendment to nudge this Nation along the road toward a balanced budget. Soon we will be dealing with specific amendments to this proposed constitutional amendment and I wish to speak for just a moment both in general terms and in specific terms. In general terms, we face the proposition that divides this body, I believe at this point, simply into two camps. Earlier this week, I had thought there were three different and distinct attitudes, but I have heard only two. There are those who, like myself, believe that the country is in a serious crisis, that the status quo is unsatisfactory, and that the situation, the set of rules under which we have operated-- not just for years but for generations--will not and cannot serve to lead this country along the road to fiscal sanity and a balanced budget and that, therefore, drastic action in the form of a constitutional amendment is necessary. I believe that expresses the views of a significant majority of the Members of this body--I hope of two-thirds of the Members of this body. Those who oppose this constitutional amendment, however, have either brought up rather narrow technical objections to it or have stated almost without exception their devotion to the idea of a balanced budget but their views that to change the Constitution in order to encourage it is a bad idea. I believe they are wrong. I believe those who feel that we should have a balanced budget but that we can reach that goal without a profound change in the system under which both the Congress and the President of the United States operate have a tremendously difficult burden of proof. Because, of course, the rules that they want to continue in effect have been the rules during the entire time in which this multitrillion-dollar debt has been built up. How is it that they feel that suddenly, without any change in the system under which we operate, we will nevertheless reach a goal which has eluded us for such an extended period of time? That, it seems to me, should be the central focus of this debate by the one group which stands for the status quo, mostly on the liberal side of the spectrum, which nevertheless gives lip service to a balanced budget, but which has given us not the slightest hint as to the road to be traveled in order to reach that end. If I understand it correctly, beginning tomorrow or certainly sometime during the course of the next week, we will be faced, by adding to the Constitution of the United States detailed provisions pursuant to which those who feel the change in the Constitution is necessary will be required to outline, in absolute, binding detail in the laws of the United States, precisely the road by which we will reach that goal by the year 2002, ignoring the fact that there will be three new elections for Congress between now and that year in which different Members will be elected, during which time crises in our international affairs may or may not arise, may not arise, with new Members with new knowledge who may wish an entirely different course of action than any we could possibly outline here. Nevertheless, those who believe in the status quo will be asking us to bind ourselves to a precise, legally binding, detailed blueprint of the way in which this goal will be reached. Mr. President, it is my position that it is they, not we, who should provide us with that detailed blueprint. We believe that dramatic change is necessary. We look at the history of the last decade or decades, and say the system is broke. We wish to fix it. The way in which we wish to fix it is to strongly, in the Constitution of the United States, encourage a balanced budget by requiring a significant supermajority which can unbalance one, which is still to be possible under emergency circumstances when a bipartisan majority feels that it would be necessary. We do not have, and we should not have, a detailed blueprint about how to reach that goal because, if this proposal becomes a part of the Constitution, all will be a part of the solution, those who favor it and those who oppose it, including the President and future Presidents of the United States. The entire challenge will seem quite different to us and to the Nation at that point. And we will learn. I think we will learn that it may be a little bit easier than we had thought because the commitment to do so in and of itself will, I think, lower interest rates, for example, here in the United States. It will be my position, and I think the position of many others here, that the group of Members of this body and the people in this country who believe the status quo is good enough, who do not want change, who do not believe change is necessary, but who nevertheless, as they have almost without exception, given lip service to a balanced budget, it is they who are under the duty of telling us exactly how they will reach that goal without a change in the Constitution, without a change in the rules in which we operate in this Senate. Mark my words, Mr. President. Next week, as we begin to cast votes on these various amendments to the amendment, one fact should remain before all of the American people. We are either for or against this change. We are either for or against a new way of doing business. We are either for or against the status quo. And those who try to hide or obfuscate that issue through changes, through technical objections, through demands for detailed blueprints, essentially are saying the status quo is just fine. Those who hold to the goal of this proposed constitutional amendment in this form, the form in which it passed the House of Representatives, are truly those who are devoted to a new and different way of doing business, a way of doing business in which we no longer spend whatever we like and pass the bill on to our children and grandchildren. That is the issue we began to debate this week. It will be the issue in every vote we take until finally, as I hope we will, we pass this joint resolution and send it to the people of the 50 States for their ratification. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator Santorum, Senator Bryan, and others in introducing a bill to repeal the fuel tax on commercial aviation. The effect of this bill will be simply to disallow the 4.3 cents per gallon fuel tax from going into effect on October 1, 1995. Two years ago, Congress correctly recognized that the airlines had undergone tremendous financial difficulties and that imposing another new tax upon this beleaguered industry made no sense-- this remains true today. The airline industry has lost approximately $12 billion in the last 4 years. The industry is aggressively trying to turn this picture around and is just now beginning to show some signs of success. In the last several years, the industry has had to resort to massive layoffs, wage and benefit concessions, route reductions, and substantial cuts in capital spending. Six of the largest airlines have caneled or deferred orders for 647 aircraft totaling $38 billion. Tens of thousands of airline and aircraft manufacturing employees have lost their jobs. Boeing's employment alone has dropped by 43,000 in the last 5 years due to a substantial decline in both the commercial and the defense business. Three major air carriers--United, Northwest, and TWA--have transferred substantial amounts of ownership to company employees in exchange for wage and benefit concessions. In order to meet stage 3 aircraft noise requirements, it is estimated that the industry will spend $7 to $8 billion a year during the remainder of this decade. The industry cannot afford to add an additional $527 million a year in new taxes--this on top of the many taxes it is already paying. Most people, I believe, would be shocked to learn that the industry pays over $5.4 billion annually in excise taxes and fees, the equivalent to a 45.82 cents per gallon fuel tax. Last year I was proud to serve on the National Airline Commission. In our report, we discussed the proposed fuel tax and other burdensome taxes placed upon the industry. It was our collective conclusion that, ``there are several tax provisions that impede the ability of the industry to return to financial principles of common sense and good public policy.'' I hope the Congress will join with us in rejecting burdensome new taxes on this important industry and will support the enactment of this legislation.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, yesterday when I spoke on the subject of a balanced budget amendment, a vitally important subject which, without doubt, will occupy the next many days of debate in this U.S. Senate, I observed that Members' views on this subject fell into what seemed to be three categories. One category, it seemed to me, consisted of those Senators on the liberal side of the political divide who were essentially uninterested in a balanced budget, who were defenders of the status quo, whose observation was that their priorities had, by and large, been met by Congress operating the way it does without the constraints of a constitutional amendment inhibiting unbalanced budgets, and that they would forthrightly defend the status quo as being far superior to a constitutional amendment on a balanced budget because such a budget was essentially undesirable in the United States. The second category, which was really relatively small given our history, consisted of those Members who were genuinely interested in fiscal responsibility and in a balanced budget, but who felt it was wrong to lock constraints against an unbalanced budget into the Constitution of the United States. In that case, it was my opinion that the experience of the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, showed to most the folly of such a pursuit; that neither statutes nor an abstract sense of fiscal responsibility ever seemed to motivate a sufficient majority in Congress at a sufficiently high degree of priority to be successful, and that that group carried a very heavy burden of proof as to how we could reach the goal of a balanced budget without changing the Constitution. And therefore this group of Senators would be relatively small. And the third group, consisting of the majority of the Senate, who feel that a drastic remedy is in order, who feel indeed we are in something of a revolution, and that in order to satisfy the demands of the American people we should enshrine in the Constitution a provision which makes it much more would of course put forward that point of view eloquently and well, I hope, and ultimately triumph. Only 24 hours have gone by during the course of this debate since I made those observations, and I must confess, at least if I read or hear those who oppose this constitutional amendment correctly, I was wrong about the first two groups. To the best of my knowledge, no single person has come into this body--no Member has come into this body, no matter how liberal, no matter how much in favor of an activist and increasing Federal Government, to state in a forthright fashion that that Member does not believe that a balanced budget is a particularly good idea, or at least a high priority. All of those who object to this constitutional amendment have given lip service to the proposition that a balanced budget is desirable, whatever their record in the past in voting for or against those measures, those items which would lead us to that end. So that first group, that status quo group--while I strongly suspect that it exists--seems, so far in this debate, unwilling to identify itself. We who believe a constitutional amendment to be necessary are challenged with the proposition that we cannot make such a request without coming up with a detailed roadmap as to how we are going to get there. In fact, it is demanded of us that we have binding legislation governing at least three future Congresses, stating precisely how we will get from this point to that without regard to changes in our economy, changes in our international situation, dangers in the world at least, or changes, for that matter, in the majority, in the direction of the Congress of the United States. Personally, I think the demand is an absurd one. It is legally impossible for us to bind future Congresses by a statute. We will in fact come up with a budget this year which will include a very fine downpayment toward a balanced budget, but we must recognize that future Congresses can take us on a different course of action, even if this proposal becomes a part of our Constitution. Many of those who have spoken against the constitutional amendment, should they come back to power, may very well wish to increase taxes rather than decrease spending in reaching that goal. But my point here this afternoon is just this. If in fact I was wrong in dividing the Members into three categories in the course of this debate and there are only two--those who believe the constitutional amendment on a balanced budget to be necessary and those who believe firmly and fervently that we ought to do it but ought to do it without a constitutional amendment--then is it not every bit the obligation of that second group to tell us exactly how they would reach a balanced budget day by day, year by year, item-by-item, as it is for us to favor the constitutional amendment to do so. It seems to me self-evident, if those who say the status quo is fine, that we must discipline ourselves to reach a balanced budget, are to prevail, and if they demand of those who want a constitutional amendment a road map, let us see their road map, too. How do opponents who wish to operate under the same system--under which we have operated throughout our entire history, and most particularly during the course of the last decade without coming close to balancing the budget--how do they propose that we do so? What reductions in spending over a 7-year period do they propose? What new taxes during that period of time do they propose? What changes in entitlements do they propose? In spite of their demand for that kind of detailed blueprint on our side, a map, we have so far received nothing but silence--lip service, statements about discipline, statements about what we ought to do, but not the remotest hint as to how a Congress, which has never been able to reach that goal under the present regime or in the past, can and should do so in the future. Mr. President, I do not expect this request of mine to be honored. I believe it to be every bit as valid--in fact, more valid than their demand of us--as if when a constitutional amendment passes everyone will be in the same boat, its proponents, its opponents, the President of the United States, as well as the Congress of the United States. We will operate under different rules and under different circumstances. We will be dealing with real issues, with real cuts, with real proposals for tax increases. But those who say we do not want to change the regime, we do not want to make that requirement, please vote no on this constitutional amendment. They, it seems to me, have an even more compelling, a greater, a more imperative duty, to say, if we retain the status quo, here is how we reach the goal we all share. That they have not done, Mr. President. That I will warrant they will not do, and their failure to do so will show the falsity, the bankruptcy of the demand that those who propose a constitutional amendment come up with-- that, besides a few more. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, we are, of course, at the outset of a debate on a profound and important issue to the future of the United States, a debate on the Constitution itself and on whether or not it should be amended to require or to encourage balanced budgets and, if so, how. I hope to have a number of occasions on which to speak on this amendment, but in this first try, rather than to outline what is in it or even to deal with the important reasons for its passage which have already been explained with considerable eloquence by previous speakers this afternoon, I would like to share a few observations on the nature of the debate on which we are embarking. First, we will be faced with a demand during the course of this debate that its proponents outline precisely and specifically, perhaps even to the extent of a specific bill with various mandatory requirements included in it how a balanced budget will be reached by the year 2002. And during the course of that debate, what is likely to be obscured will be the alternatives to this constitutional amendment. It seems to me--and I stand to be corrected by my good friend from Utah if he has any addition to this group--that Members of the Senate will be divided essentially into three groups during the course of this debate. First is that group represented by the Senator from Utah himself and the other sponsors, which will include those Members who feel that it is vitally important for the future of this country that the budget of the United States, in most years, absent emergencies, be balanced; that a continuation of the fiscal policies of the past, not just the recent past but almost the entire past since the end of World War II, of increasing budget deficits, of passing on a greater and greater debt to our children and grandchildren must be brought to an end and are unlikely to be brought to an end by any course of action less drastic than certain constitutional requirements. I believe, and I am sure my friend from Utah joins me in this belief, that a significant majority of the Members of this body hold to that belief. The other two groups are less likely, it seems to me, to speak candidly and directly to their fundamental philosophies, but I suspect that there are some Members of this body who believe that it is important to reach a balanced budget but that we should try some method other than a constitutional amendment by which to attain that goal. I can speak rather fervently with respect to that group because 10 years ago that was the group to which I belonged. I voted against predecessor proposals of this nature on the basis that the Congress itself should act responsibly enough to balance the budget without the constraints of a constitutional amendment. And in fact, I played some minor role in the passage of the Gramm-Rudman Act in the mid 1980's, which was a statutory attempt to reach the goal now sought by this constitutional amendment. And in fact, Gramm-Rudman for 2 or 3 years was effective, at least in leading to smaller deficits. real sacrifice, real spending cuts, Gramm-Rudman was effectively abandoned by the Congress and budget deficits once again increased. As a consequence, it is my perspective, at least, that a statutory approach, a year-by-year approach simply will not result in our reaching a goal of a balanced budget. I hope, however, that if there are Members of this body who stand for a balanced budget but against this constitutional amendment, they will clearly and emphatically say this is their goal, and since they are asking for a particular, specific blueprint of how we should reach that goal under the constitutional amendment, those Members should share with us their viewpoint of when and how they believe we should balance the budget without the constraints of this amendment. To this point, Mr. President, while I have heard many pious statements about the necessity for fiscal responsibility on the part of opponents to this amendment, not one, to the best of my ability to judge, either inside this body or outside this body, has told us how we reach that goal without this constraint. The third group, and I believe firmly that this group of Members will embody the great bulk of those who will vote against the constitutional amendment in any event and the great bulk of those who will set up the smokescreen that we must set out exactly the road by which we are going to reach this constitutional amendment, Mr. President, I believe the great bulk of those Members do not believe a balanced budget either to be a desirable goal for the United States of America or at least, if it is a goal, it is only a secondary or tertiary one that does not amount to much and is not nearly as important as the spending programs which they advocate increasing or protecting from reductions. And, as far as I can tell, the debate, at least in this body among its 100 Members, will divide all of us among those three groups and among no others. I predict that the great majority--not all, the great majority of those who want this blueprint want this blueprint not to guide us to a balanced budget but to buttress their arguments that we never should balance the budget under any circumstances, that the pain is simply too great and that for one reason or another, at least during our careers, we can continue to put on the cuff $150 billion, $200 billion, $400 billion a year. We have in this liberal administration great pride expressed as recently as last week in the State of the Union Address, over the reduction in budget deficits during the course of the last 2 or 3 years. We are rarely told, and then only in footnotes or in the back pages of long dusty dry documents, that current policies will result in a turnaround of those budgeted deficit reductions and increases in the deficit to $200, $250, $300, $350, $400 billion a year by and after the turn of the century. So there really are no easy answers. You either believe that a balanced budget is a socially desirable goal, a goal worth sacrificing for, or you do not. If you do not, you ought to be willing to say, expressly, that you do not, that it simply is not as important. That it is more important to carry on with present spending policies than it is to balance the budget. I believe that this grouping of three even applies to those who believe in a balanced budget but believe that it should be attained not primarily or exclusively by cutting spending but primarily or exclusively by increasing tax rates. It is certainly appropriate for a Member here to vote for this constitutional amendment on the basis that he or she will increase taxes to reach those goals in the year 2002 as it is to hold the opposite point of view, that the goal should be reached by reductions in spending, if those Members are willing to stand up and say this is the way, if my ideas are in power, I will reach that goal. In fact, I believe that to be the best argument, the overwhelming argument, against anyone attempting to provide a 7- or 8-year blueprint today on the way in which a balanced budget will be reached. This Congress can bind this Congress, that is the next 2 years. It cannot bind the Congress which will take office in 1997 or in 1999 or in the year 2001. In fact, if we were to pass an express blueprint it would undoubtedly be changed by each of those Congresses. If those of a liberal persuasion who are today in the minority once again take over a majority and operate under the constraints of this constitutional amendment, they may very well decide to reach its goals by increasing taxes on the American people over the objection of those of us who do not believe that is the way to go. If so, let them say so. Let them give us their blueprint for reaching the goals which are set by this constitutional amendment itself. It seems to me, therefore, that this is the argument. Does one believe, against all history, that a balanced budget is a desirable goal, a vitally important goal, but that we can do it by engaging in business as usual? Does one believe that it is not a goal at all? Does one, as many will on the liberal side of this body, believe that business as usual is just fine and we should go on in the future in exactly the way we have gone on in the past, spending more money than we take in, passing new programs that are not paid for? Let them stand up eloquently and firmly for the status quo. But I do not believe the status quo, either with respect to the Constitution or promises that Congress will somehow automatically act differently in the future than it has in the past, are what the people of this country want. I think they want us to change the very way in which we are doing business. I believe they want imposed on us constraints that are, by their very nature, imposed on them in their daily lives, on their families, on them as individuals, and are imposed by the very fact we control the money supply on our local governments and on our State governments, which now must balance their budgets. I am convinced that the vast majority of the American people want imposed on us those individual and local and State government constraints which have been a part of their lives as long as any of them or us have been around, and that the real debate here is between the status quo and a different way of doing business. I believe that those who are promoting this constitutional amendment are not satisfied with the record of Congress for years, for decades, and want a new and different way of doing business. One point which I think is often overlooked is to a certain extent even the title balanced budget amendment is in part a misnomer. This constitutional amendment, when it is in full force and effect, will not mandate a balanced budget in any given year or over a period of years. It will, however, make unbalanced budgets much more difficult to pass in the future. It will require, to pass an unbalanced budget, that the affirmative votes of 60 percent of the Members of this body and of the House of Representatives must be secured. That is to say under most circumstances--under all circumstances, for the better part of the last two decades--it will require a bipartisan majority to create an unbalanced budget. It will not be something which takes place as a result of a narrow partisan party-line vote. It will require the thoughts and the assent of Members of both major political parties in the country and, therefore, almost automatically will be accomplished in a more thoughtful and broadminded fashion when it is accomplished. It will also, however, greatly constrain the ability of Members to begin new, unfunded spending programs. And that is its goal. When there is a crisis, however, it will be possible by that 60 percent majority vote to make an exception and not to balance the budget. It is a flexible and not a rigid constitutional amendment. My final thought in these opening remarks is that I firmly believe that the men who wrote our Constitution in 1787 would have included a supermajority requirement themselves if they had been able to foresee the dynamics of politics in the late 20th century. How many people asking for action by the Government who come into your office come into that office asking for financial restraint, for general responsibility? How many in comparison with those who come into your office asking for a favor from the Federal Government, an appropriation, the protection of an existing program, an increase in an existing program, or the creation of a new one? One to two? who come to us asking us to support one of the thousands of programs financed by the Federal Government. In many cases, in almost all cases, these are sincere, hardworking, and dedicated citizens to a certain end and the programs for which they ask, the program they support, has genuine positive social ends. They may not be well administered, but the goal which they seek is a good one. Therefore, it is easier for Members to say yes than it is to say no, and infinitely easier when we can put the costs on the cut, when we do not have to cut something else, when we do not have to increase taxes, when we can just borrow for that program. This supermajority requirement will make that decision on our part somewhat more difficult because we will be unable to say yes unless we are willing to vote for more taxes at the same time or find a better program which can be cut at the same time. And it will provide a balance between the special interests, the specific interests of the individuals who lobby us and the general interests in a responsible and fiscally sound Federal Government which is I believe exactly the balance that the Founding Fathers wished when they created the Constitution in the first place without any ability to predict the way in which we communicate and deal with issues like this today. So in the finest sense of the word this constitutional amendment is a conservative move. It desires to conserve what is best in our country and in its Government and its governmental programs. It will make us more responsible. It will require us to weigh one desirable program against another in a far better and more evenhanded fashion than we were able to do in the past. As we go through this debate, Mr. President, I hope those who are watching it across the country will remember that there are really only three points of view being expressed here no matter how eloquent or how well those views are given. One is a balanced budget is not a particularly good idea. We do not need it. The status quo is just fine. The way this country has been run in the past is just fine, and we just need more of the same thing. No. 2 is, yes, a balanced budget is a good idea but there are easier ways to get to it, less painful ways to get to it than to do it through the Constitution of the United States. Those people need to explain to us how it is they can do in the future what they have been unable or unwilling to do in the past. The third is we need to do things differently. We need to make changes in this country. We need to require the Congress of the United States to act in a fiscally responsible fashion. Those who hold that point of view will be supporting this constitutional amendment. Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, late last week, the Member of Congress from the First District in the State of Oklahoma [Steve Largent] was voted into the National Football League's Hall of Fame in the first year during which he was eligible for that honor. While Mr. Largent represents a State a long way from my own State of Washington, his entire National Football League career was, of course, as a member of the Seattle Seahawks. And so for many years, for more than half of the year he was a resident of the Puget Sound region. Very rarely have so many distinctions come to a person of the age of Steve Largent, as an outstanding football player, both in college and in the National Football League, as an elected Member of the Congress of the United States, and as a person with a great deal of fame. Rarely, I may say, has anyone so deserved those honors. I think Steve Largent would be the first to say that he was far from the fastest or the most gifted person playing in the National Football League, but due to a tremendous amount of self-discipline and dedication, he became one of the most outstanding persons in our generation to play that fascinating game. But I believe that Mr. Largent and all of us would say that more important than his fame as a football player, more important than his membership in the Congress of the United States, has been the example he has presented to those who have come to know him through those activities as a human being: As a husband, as a father, as an activist Christian. With those as his No. 1 goals, he has nonetheless been different professions. We speak often of the role model nature of professional athletes. In Steve Largent, we have an athlete who is truly a role model for our society; an individual who has shown that fame and high income is not inconsistent with the finest possible family and citizen leadership that it is possible for us to imagine. Last week, Congressman Largent was a part of the debate in the House of Representatives over a balanced budget amendment on which debate will begin in this body in less than an hour. So he is now serving in as distinguished a fashion as a Member of this Congress as he did as a member of the Seattle Seahawks and the National Football League. But most of all, our friend and exemplar, Steve Largent, is a person who shows what citizenship and membership in a family ought to be in the United States of America. So it is that we, from the State of Washington, are grateful for his long association with us. We wish, along with the people of Oklahoma, and especially of his First Congressional District, to congratulate him on an honor well earned and to wish him long years of success in his new career and a lifetime of success as a leader of the people he represents.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, 3 weeks of debate on this bill seems now to be coming to an end and the vote in favor of a restriction on unfunded mandates imposed on State and local governments almost certainly will be overwhelming. During the course of this 3 weeks, however, we have been faced with votes on literally dozens of amendments. Those amendments have covered two fundamentally different sets of subject matter. The first set, the normal politics, a set of amendments that had nothing to do with unfunded mandates but cover much of what the agenda of this Senate is likely to be during the course of the next 6 months with regard to votes that will be overwhelmed by votes on the merits of those issues when they are brought up in due course. So that, in most respects, that debate has been irrelevant to the agenda of the Senate and of the Congress of the United States. But dozens of other amendments, I think, including this last one which is about to be voted on, do relate to unfunded mandates themselves and almost without exception they have attempted to restrict the ambit, the scope of this unfunded mandates bill. Now the bill itself, it seems to me, is already relatively modest. It does not ban unfunded mandates as most States that, if an unfunded mandate crosses modest threshold, it must consciously be weighed if a point of order is raised against it. Unfunded mandates will still be possible on the part of the Congress of the United States, as long as the Congress has voted on and is conscious of the fact that it is creating such mandates. Even so, or perhaps particularly because this is the case, because it is not an absolute ban, what these amendments evidence, it seems to me, is a tremendous lack of trust in those who are elected in our States and in our local governments. It appears to me that there is a high degree, literally, of legislative arrogance involved in the proposition that somehow or another only we know what is best for people in local communities; that only here in Washington, DC, in this body and in the House of Representatives, is lodged a degree of wisdom and responsibility necessary to see to it that there is proper protection for individuals in our society; that somehow or another without unfunded mandates our States and local governments will ignore the young and their schools, will ignore working people, will ignore the elderly, will ignore the very quality of the environment in which these locally elected officials themselves live. I wonder how it is that responsible elected officials are only found here in Washington, DC, and not in our communities. I submit, of course, that that is not the case. The reason for this bill, the reason for an even stronger bill, would be that the responsibility for the lives and careers of people, in most cases, is best conducted by governments which are closest to them. That has been the genius of the American experiment. That is the direction in which many other free countries are moving and the direction in which we should move. We need more personal humility. We need more belief that people elected in the States, in our counties, and our cities and towns, not only have the best interest of their constituents in mind but are able and willing to act on those best interests. This bill is a modest start to return to a system of federalism which has made this country great. I, for one, am delighted that the great bulk of these amendments have been rejected and that we will pass a bill which will have at least some effect in restoring authority to the units of government which can best use it and which were conceived by our Constitution as the units which should exercise those powers.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, one fact is crystal clear as a result of this debate. Our friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle, with a few notable and courageous exceptions, do not want a balanced budget. They want an outline which will make it more difficult to get a balanced budget. Their President has never proposed one. They have not proposed one. They do not plan to propose one. They fear the constitutional amendment because it will require them to be in that game as well. The difference is this side may not know every detail of how it is going to get to a balanced budget, but it wants to get there and will try to do so. The other side does not even want to start the journey. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, if I may, in the midst of this interesting debate, I would like to return the focus of the debate to S. 1 itself; to unfunded mandates, to the impact that those mandates have had on State and on local governments, and to the urgent necessity of seeing to it that this bill is passed and it becomes law. I have gotten a great deal of correspondence from local governments and the State of Washington on the subject of unfunded mandates. But I would like to start with one the focus of which is a little bit different than many of the particular complaints about unfunded mandates. The mayor of the city of Kennewick wrote to me and said: Congress needs to understand the long range impacts of its actions when it passes amendments [to legislation]. I agree. But I am inclined to think that the mayor of Kennewick could have gone considerably further. And I also reflect on why it is that a mayor of a city some 2,500 miles from here should have to say this to us. Of course, the Congress of the United States should have to understand the long-range impacts of the laws that it passes. That is a responsibility we ought to take on ourselves, not one we should have to be reminded of by mayors or Governors or county commissioners. Yet it has been my experience that very frequently we attempt to avoid understanding long-range impacts in passing feel-good legislation, sometimes legislation for valid social purposes but social purposes which we are unwilling to fund. In my case, I think I would make the statement somewhat stronger than the mayor of Kennewick does. I would revise it to say: ``Congress needs to be responsible for the long-range impacts of legislation that it passes.'' No group of individuals is likely to be responsible when they can do something that pleases other groups or other individuals without any consequences for the cost of pleasing those individuals or groups. When one separates the authority to make requirements, to pass mandates, to set policy, from the responsibility to pay for the consequences of those actions, one inevitably is led to irresponsibility. And it is responsibility and accountability that this legislation is all about. In dealing with this legislation I, in common with many of my colleagues, have asked my local governments to report to me the impact of mandates which we have already imposed on them without understanding the consequences and without taking responsibility for the consequences. I should like to share a few of them with my colleagues and with the record here this afternoon. The mayor of Colfax, WA, wrote to me that the money spent to comply with Federal mandates--and I am now quoting him-- * * * no matter how well intentioned, will inhibit the city's ability to provide a pump station to supply the community hospital, provide wellhead protection for our primary water source, and to repair a critical reservoir. These are only a few of the most important projects that may be delayed or not completed. It does seem to me to be self-evident that the citizens of Colfax ought to be allowed to determine whether those are higher priorities than priorities imposed upon them by Members of Congress in a general fashion all across the country. And to a very significant degree that is what this debate is all about. The board of county commissioners of San Juan County wrote to me to say: The excessive testing and monitoring required by [environmental mandates] puts such a burden on the limited financial capabilities of small water systems that they don't have the money left to maintain their systems! The effect is greater and greater cost with no improvement in service or public safety. This particular letter, of course, applies to the Safe Drinking Water Act, a subject on which this Senate debated in the last Congress and did, in fact, remove at least a number of unjustified, unfunded mandates. Unfortunately, the Congress as a whole was not successful in passing amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, and those mandates remain to this day in full force and effect. The mayor of Tenino says that the city has been: forced to shift revenue desperately needed for social services and programs to pay for the costs associated with [mandates]. Although we have not raised taxes to pay for these services, this action will soon become our only recourse. This is a small rural town, the jobs of many of whose citizens have been affected by grave restrictions on harvests in our national and in our private forests, where unemployment is high or where extra money is hard to come by. In the city of Langley, the mayor says that compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act alone will cost each water user an additional $54. The mayor of South Bend, a very poor community in monetary terms, at least, of less than 2,500 people, wrote in to say that: compliance with every phase of its operation while serving approximately 900 customers. Today, we are considered out of compliance and the costs to bring us back in with the Clean Water Act by 1996 will cost us over a million dollars. How we are going to finance this, God only knows. The clerk of the town of Fairfield wrote to say: The effect [of mandates] is, in one word, Disaster! * * * These mandates will do the same thing to small communities as they'll do to small businesses--they will bankrupt them. There is just no way to come up with the dollars these mandates will require. Congress has to come to the realization that the taxpayer's purse is not a bottomless pit. The chairman of the county commissioners of Asotin County described Federal mandates by saying: Frustration is the real issue I guess. We do not know with any degree of certainty which way to go. A small county with a limited revenue base, a population of only 18,000 people and a per capita income of nearly $17,000 has very few alternatives. Finally, the mayor of a very small town, Washtucna, wrote in to say: * * * any federal mandate legislation that requires a local government to comply with, but allows no funds to implement these mandates, places small communities in a financial crisis. In fact, many cases could be prohibitive to the point to force some small towns into bankruptcy and unincorporation. Many of the federally mandated regulations have little or no positive consequence to small rural farm communities and therefore are not beneficial to a community that can ill afford the added tax. If it were possible for our small community to afford an additional tax, we would prefer a new water supply tank, new water lines, sidewalks and street improvements. I am absolutely certain that mayors of small towns and large towns, county commissioners and State governments, have written to each and every Member of this body with similar stories. They come down to one major point: We in our communities want to set our own priorities. We are not necessarily objecting to national priorities or national mandates. But if you Members of Congress and members of the executive wish to impose these mandates on us, please pay for them. By an overwhelming majority, these men and women who constitute our State and local governments have written to us and called to us to ask us to pass this bill. My only fear with respect to this bill, with all of the admiration I have for the two Senators who are managing it, is that it is likely to be a disappointment to these local officials because, of course, it is not retroactive. We are having enough difficulty with the bill as it is. It would be impossible to pass it if it were retroactive. So it will not solve a single one of the specific problems created by mandates already in existence. Nor will this bill guarantee that there are no further unfunded mandates. It will still be possible, even if this bill becomes law, to impose an unfunded mandate of a considerable nature on our local communities if we simply waive the point of order which is appropriate to present in the case of a bill carrying with an unfunded mandate, and we will be able to grant that waiver by a mere 51-vote majority here in the U.S. Senate, a simple majority here and in the House of Representatives. Does this mean that the bill is of little or no meaning? No, Mr. President, I do not think that is the case. I think this is an important piece of legislation because at the very least, that waiver vote will mean that Members who vote for the waiver must be conscious of the fact that they are imposing an unfunded mandate. In most cases, they will have a fiscal note attached to it that will indicate just how much that unfunded mandate is likely to cost. And they therefore will be accountable to the people of our States, our counties, and our local communities for having imposed that unfunded mandate. They will lack the excuse that they did not know what they did. Those mandates will be imposed consciously and deliberately. As a consequence, Mr. President, I think while unfunded mandates will not end in the Congress, people being what they are, they will probably be somewhat less frequent in the future. If this Congress succeeds in passing some of the priorities which led to this Congress having such a different face as its predecessors and removing at least some of the present unfunded mandate burdens, we will have more of our States and communities able to set their own priorities in the way which has been so important in the development of the United States of America throughout its entire history. So I know that the sponsors would like an even stronger bill. I believe that they are to be congratulated on doing as much as they have done in connection with this bill. While I find the other debates which are going on in connection with this bill, those on consumer price indexes, on the metric system, and on the Federal Reserve Board to be most interesting, it seems to me at least in the third week of debate upon this bill, on this charter of independence, on this liberation for our States and local governments, that the time is nigh on us that we should deal squarely and directly with the subject matter of this bill, that we should pass it and settle any possible minor differences with the House of Representatives, send it to the President, and liberate our States and local governments from the immense burden of unfunded mandates, at least as far as the future is concerned.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask that this Senator be added as a cosponsor to the amendment as modified.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I answer my friend, it is the second- degree amendment to my original first-degree amendment that was prepared by the majority leader as a courtesy to me. I have worked it out with his office and he agrees to it.