Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senator Lieberman, Senator Bayh, and others of the Senate New Democrats today in introducing the Three R's bill: the Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention and Responsibility Act of 2001. This legislation is important for several reasons: It re-establishes the education of our children, all our children, as a national priority. It is a sterling example of ``finding the center.'' We take the best of many ideas, and forge what we hope will be common ground. It is ``unfinished business'' from last year. The 106th Congress had the responsibility to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Authorization Act. We debated for a while, gridlock set in, and all progress ended for the year. By coming forward early in the 107th Congress with a centrist proposal--we hope for a different outcome in 2001. The concepts in the Three R's are simple, but resonant with teachers, parents and administrators: More money is needed. State and local governments have the primary responsibility toward funding K-12 education, but the federal government can do more. We offer $35 billion more over the next five years. Accountability assures that we are getting the most effective use of federal dollars in education. There is strong accountability here. Struggling schools are offered extra help, but then they must show results in student progress. Schools that exceed goals are rewarded. Flexibility is essential so that each local school district is able to meet specific local needs and challenges. The three R's ensures that federal priorities in education receive a focus, but allow state and local decision makers to implement what they most need. In the first week of February last year, I hosted a roundtable discussion of parents, teachers and administrators in Tampa, Florida. All of them asked for the same thing: more resources more flexibility, and a focus on results--not procedure. simply put, that's what we try to do here. My discussion in Tampa also highlighted the urgent need for the federal government's commitment to education. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, scores show: Only 17 percent of 8th graders in Florida score at or above the proficient level in mathematics. Only 3 percent of African American 8th graders score at or above proficient standards in math. Only 23 percent of 4th graders are at or above proficient standards in reading. 18 percent of the classes in Florida are taught by instructors who lack a college major in the subject matter that they teach. The ``achievement gap'' is real. White students in Florida on average score 1001 points on the SAT. African American students, on average, score 856 points. Hispanic students score a 957. We need to do more to give all Florida's students, and all of our nation's students, the best education possible. The introduction of this legislation is the first step toward finding the common ground and making the changes that are needed. I look forward to working with each of my colleagues as we focus on this in the 107th Congress.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senator Lieberman, Senator Bayh, and others of the Senate New Democrats today in introducing the Three R's bill: the Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention and Responsibility Act of 2001. This legislation is important for several reasons: It re-establishes the education of our children, all our children, as a national priority. It is a sterling example of ``finding the center.'' We take the best of many ideas, and forge what we hope will be common ground. It is ``unfinished business'' from last year. The 106th Congress had the responsibility to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Authorization Act. We debated for a while, gridlock set in, and all progress ended for the year. By coming forward early in the 107th Congress with a centrist proposal--we hope for a different outcome in 2001. The concepts in the Three R's are simple, but resonant with teachers, parents and administrators: More money is needed. State and local governments have the primary responsibility toward funding K-12 education, but the federal government can do more. We offer $35 billion more over the next five years. Accountability assures that we are getting the most effective use of federal dollars in education. There is strong accountability here. Struggling schools are offered extra help, but then they must show results in student progress. Schools that exceed goals are rewarded. Flexibility is essential so that each local school district is able to meet specific local needs and challenges. The three R's ensures that federal priorities in education receive a focus, but allow state and local decision makers to implement what they most need. In the first week of February last year, I hosted a roundtable discussion of parents, teachers and administrators in Tampa, Florida. All of them asked for the same thing: more resources more flexibility, and a focus on results--not procedure. simply put, that's what we try to do here. My discussion in Tampa also highlighted the urgent need for the federal government's commitment to education. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, scores show: Only 17 percent of 8th graders in Florida score at or above the proficient level in mathematics. Only 3 percent of African American 8th graders score at or above proficient standards in math. Only 23 percent of 4th graders are at or above proficient standards in reading. 18 percent of the classes in Florida are taught by instructors who lack a college major in the subject matter that they teach. The ``achievement gap'' is real. White students in Florida on average score 1001 points on the SAT. African American students, on average, score 856 points. Hispanic students score a 957. We need to do more to give all Florida's students, and all of our nation's students, the best education possible. The introduction of this legislation is the first step toward finding the common ground and making the changes that are needed. I look forward to working with each of my colleagues as we focus on this in the 107th Congress.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Sessions and my other Senate colleagues in launching an initiative to increase Americans' access to college education. Today, we are introducing the Collegiate Learning and Student Savings Act. This bill extends tax-free treatment to all state sponsored prepaid tuition plans and state savings plans. This legislation also gives prepaid tuition plans established by private colleges and universities tax-deferred treatment in 2001, and tax-exempt status by 2005. Prepaid college tuition and savings programs have flourished at the State level in the face of spiraling college costs. According to the College Board, between 1980 and 2000, the cost of going to a four-year college has increased 115 percent above the rate of inflation. The cause of this dramatic increase in tuition is the subject of significant debate. But whether these increases are attributable to increased costs to the universities, reductions in state funding for public universities, or the increased value of a college degree, the fact remains that financing a college education has become increasingly difficult. In response to higher college costs the States have engineered innovative ways to help its families afford college. Michigan implemented the first prepaid tuition plan in 1986. Florida followed in 1988. Today 49 States have either implemented or are in the process of implementing prepaid tuition plans or state education savings plans. Prepaid college tuition plans allow parents to pay prospectively for their children's higher education at participating universities. States pool these funds and invest them in a manner that will match or exceed the pace of educational inflation. This ``locks in'' current tuition and guarantees financial access to a future college education. In 1996, Congress acted to ensure that the tax on the earnings in these state- sponsored programs is tax-deferred. Mr. Sessions and I believe the 107th Congress must move to make these programs completely tax free. Students should be able to enroll in college without the fear of incurring a significant tax liability just because they went to school. The legislation extends this same tax treatment to private college prepaid programs beginning in 2005. We believe that these programs should be tax free for numerous reasons. First, prepaid tuition and savings programs help middle income families afford a college education. Florida's experience shows that it is not higher income families who take most advantage of these plans. It is middle income families who want the discipline of monthly payments. They know that they would have a difficult time coming up with funds necessary to pay for college if they waited until their child enrolled. In Florida, more than 70 percent of participants in the state tuition program have family income of less than $50,000. Second, Congress should make these programs tax free in order to encourage savings and college attendance. Finally, for most families, these plans simply represent the purchase of service to be provided in the future. The accounts are not liquid, and the funds are transferred from the state directly to the college or university. The imposition of a tax liability on earnings represents a substantial burden, because the student is required to find other means of generating the funds to pay the tax. I am pleased to have this opportunity to join my colleagues in introducing this bill which makes a college education easier to obtain.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Sessions and my other Senate colleagues in launching an initiative to increase Americans' access to college education. Today, we are introducing the Collegiate Learning and Student Savings Act. This bill extends tax-free treatment to all state sponsored prepaid tuition plans and state savings plans. This legislation also gives prepaid tuition plans established by private colleges and universities tax-deferred treatment in 2001, and tax-exempt status by 2005. Prepaid college tuition and savings programs have flourished at the State level in the face of spiraling college costs. According to the College Board, between 1980 and 2000, the cost of going to a four-year college has increased 115 percent above the rate of inflation. The cause of this dramatic increase in tuition is the subject of significant debate. But whether these increases are attributable to increased costs to the universities, reductions in state funding for public universities, or the increased value of a college degree, the fact remains that financing a college education has become increasingly difficult. In response to higher college costs the States have engineered innovative ways to help its families afford college. Michigan implemented the first prepaid tuition plan in 1986. Florida followed in 1988. Today 49 States have either implemented or are in the process of implementing prepaid tuition plans or state education savings plans. Prepaid college tuition plans allow parents to pay prospectively for their children's higher education at participating universities. States pool these funds and invest them in a manner that will match or exceed the pace of educational inflation. This ``locks in'' current tuition and guarantees financial access to a future college education. In 1996, Congress acted to ensure that the tax on the earnings in these state- sponsored programs is tax-deferred. Mr. Sessions and I believe the 107th Congress must move to make these programs completely tax free. Students should be able to enroll in college without the fear of incurring a significant tax liability just because they went to school. The legislation extends this same tax treatment to private college prepaid programs beginning in 2005. We believe that these programs should be tax free for numerous reasons. First, prepaid tuition and savings programs help middle income families afford a college education. Florida's experience shows that it is not higher income families who take most advantage of these plans. It is middle income families who want the discipline of monthly payments. They know that they would have a difficult time coming up with funds necessary to pay for college if they waited until their child enrolled. In Florida, more than 70 percent of participants in the state tuition program have family income of less than $50,000. Second, Congress should make these programs tax free in order to encourage savings and college attendance. Finally, for most families, these plans simply represent the purchase of service to be provided in the future. The accounts are not liquid, and the funds are transferred from the state directly to the college or university. The imposition of a tax liability on earnings represents a substantial burden, because the student is required to find other means of generating the funds to pay the tax. I am pleased to have this opportunity to join my colleagues in introducing this bill which makes a college education easier to obtain.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleagues Senator Johnson, Senator Campbell, Senator Craig, and Senator Cleland to introduce the Consumer Right to Know Act of 2001. This bill would require country of origin labeling of perishable agricultural commodities and meat products sold in retail establishments. I offer this legislation to ensure that Americans know the origin of every orange, banana, tomato, cucumber, and green pepper on display in the grocery store. For two decades, Floridians shopping at their local grocery stores have been able to make educated choices about the food products they purchase for their families. In 1979, during my first year as governor, I proudly signed legislation to make country-of-origin labels mandatory for produce sold in Florida. This labeling requirement has proven to be neither complicated nor burdensome for Florida's farmers or retailers. Country of origin labeling is not new to the American marketplace. For decades, ``Made In'' labels have been as visible as price tags on clothes, toys, television sets, watches, and many other products. It makes little sense that such labels are nowhere to be found in the produce or meat sections of grocery stores in the vast majority of states. The current lack of identifying information on produce means that Americans who wish to heed government health warnings about foreign products don't have the information they need to protect themselves. Nor can Americans show justifiable concerns about other nations' labor, environmental, and agricultural standards by choosing other perishables. According to nationwide surveys, between 74 and 83 percent of consumers favor mandatory country of origin labeling for fresh produce. This is a low-cost, common sense method of informing consumers, as retailers will simply be asked to provide this information by means of a label, stamp, or placard. It is estimated that implementing produce labeling would take about two hours per grocery store per week. At the current minimum wage, this equates to about $10.30 per store per week. This is a remarkable small price to pay to provide American consumers with the information they need to make informed produce purchases. In addition, a study by the General Accounting Office found that all of the 28 countries that account for must of the U.S. produce imports and exports have requirements for fruit and vegetable labeling. By adopting this legislation, our law will become more consistent with the laws of our trading partners. Consumers have the right to know basic information about the fruits and vegetables that they bring home to their families. Congress can take a major step toward achieving this simple goal by adopting this amendment, thereby restoring American shoppers' ability to make an informed decision. Both Senator Johnson and I have worked on this legislation for several Congresses. I am very pleased to be introducing one legislative package this year which contains both fruit and vegetable and meat labeling requirements. Both have passed the Senate in the 105th and 106th Congress. I urge my colleagues who have supported this concept in the past to co-sponsor our legislation. I urge those of you who are new to this issue to review this legislation and ask yourselves if American consumers deserve this basic level of information about their food supply--the country of origin. I ask for your support, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Agriculture Committee to move this legislation expeditiously through the Committee process.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleagues Senator Johnson, Senator Campbell, Senator Craig, and Senator Cleland to introduce the Consumer Right to Know Act of 2001. This bill would require country of origin labeling of perishable agricultural commodities and meat products sold in retail establishments. I offer this legislation to ensure that Americans know the origin of every orange, banana, tomato, cucumber, and green pepper on display in the grocery store. For two decades, Floridians shopping at their local grocery stores have been able to make educated choices about the food products they purchase for their families. In 1979, during my first year as governor, I proudly signed legislation to make country-of-origin labels mandatory for produce sold in Florida. This labeling requirement has proven to be neither complicated nor burdensome for Florida's farmers or retailers. Country of origin labeling is not new to the American marketplace. For decades, ``Made In'' labels have been as visible as price tags on clothes, toys, television sets, watches, and many other products. It makes little sense that such labels are nowhere to be found in the produce or meat sections of grocery stores in the vast majority of states. The current lack of identifying information on produce means that Americans who wish to heed government health warnings about foreign products don't have the information they need to protect themselves. Nor can Americans show justifiable concerns about other nations' labor, environmental, and agricultural standards by choosing other perishables. According to nationwide surveys, between 74 and 83 percent of consumers favor mandatory country of origin labeling for fresh produce. This is a low-cost, common sense method of informing consumers, as retailers will simply be asked to provide this information by means of a label, stamp, or placard. It is estimated that implementing produce labeling would take about two hours per grocery store per week. At the current minimum wage, this equates to about $10.30 per store per week. This is a remarkable small price to pay to provide American consumers with the information they need to make informed produce purchases. In addition, a study by the General Accounting Office found that all of the 28 countries that account for must of the U.S. produce imports and exports have requirements for fruit and vegetable labeling. By adopting this legislation, our law will become more consistent with the laws of our trading partners. Consumers have the right to know basic information about the fruits and vegetables that they bring home to their families. Congress can take a major step toward achieving this simple goal by adopting this amendment, thereby restoring American shoppers' ability to make an informed decision. Both Senator Johnson and I have worked on this legislation for several Congresses. I am very pleased to be introducing one legislative package this year which contains both fruit and vegetable and meat labeling requirements. Both have passed the Senate in the 105th and 106th Congress. I urge my colleagues who have supported this concept in the past to co-sponsor our legislation. I urge those of you who are new to this issue to review this legislation and ask yourselves if American consumers deserve this basic level of information about their food supply--the country of origin. I ask for your support, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Agriculture Committee to move this legislation expeditiously through the Committee process.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the position of United States Attorney General is the most sensitive in the executive branch. I have made a practice of setting a different standard for approval of persons nominated to serve in the president's cabinet and those the president has chosen for federal judgeships. In the former instance, there is a very strong presumption that the president should have the right to choose whomever he feels would effectively carry out his administration's policies. With a federal judge nominee, that presumption is lessened. Federal judges serve not at the pleasure of the president, but rather for a lifetime and represent the third, equal branch of government. I place the appointment of an attorney general in between these two standards because of the office's unique role. The attorney general has far more autonomy than does any other cabinet head. The attorney general decides when and how to take legal action and use government resources supplied by taxpayer dollars. Attorneys general do not just enforce the law. They have broad discretion to interpret the law, then enforce it based on that interpretation. Traditionally, the attorney general does not attend political functions or otherwise engage in partisan politics to preserve the appearance of neutrality. Rarely does the president interfere in the realm of the attorney general--a notable exception being when Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned to avoid complying with President Nixon's order to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate burglary. More often, the president consults the attorney general for legal counsel and follows that advice. The attorney general's interpretations then become government policy. Interpretation of a law by a United States attorney general has been responsible for some of this country's proudest moments, and some of its most shameful. It was a United States attorney general, in the cabinet of President Martin Van Buren, who argued that the men and women who had rebelled against their slave masters on the Spanish ship Amistad, were property and should be returned to captivity. It was also the interpretation of civil rights statutes that led Attorney General Robert Kennedy to use federal troops to desegregate schools. Kennedy also chose to use the government's resources to ensure the right of African-Americans to vote--filing more than 50 law suits in four states that were resisting change. In large part because of this legacy, the attorney general has come to be seen as the primary defender of individuals' basic civil rights. Because of this protective role, and because of the discretionary nature of the job, the attorney general must be a person who commands the respect of all people in the country. That doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with everything the attorney general has done in the past. But the attorney general must be able to carry out the covenant with America that comes with the job--the agreement to look at the law with an unbiased eye and enforce it without personal or political prejudice. I submitted questions to Senator Ashcroft to help me ascertain his level of commitment to that covenant. Specifically, I am concerned about the investigation by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division into allegations of discrimination in the November 7, 2000 election in Florida. These are serious allegations. These are not about chads, or butterflies or any of the other arcane voting terms that have made their way into the wider American lexicon. These are about Americans and their fundamental rights. These must be investigated by someone who has the trust and confidence of the public. Investigations are now being conducted by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights division and the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The focus of these investigations is to determine whether these individual acts, which denied citizens the right to vote, were just that--individual acts of incompetence and inefficiency--or whether they represented a conscious pattern intended to deny thousands of Floridians the right to vote. Allow me to share a few of the allegations. Donnise DeSouza, a Miami attorney, wanted to teach her 5-year-old son about democracy by letting him punch her ballot. Instead she was told her name was not on the proper list, and was sent home without having cast a vote. Ernest Duval is a Haitian American who lives in Palm Beach County. He, like many others, found the ballot layout confusing. He punched the wrong hole, recognized his mistake, and asked for a new ballot. His request was denied. He was left with no choice but to repunch the original. His ballot became an official ``overvote'' and was discarded. He told the NAACP ``I left Haiti for the freedom to live in a free land. We have the right to choose the right person.'' Radio host Stacey Powers visited polling sites to encourage African- American voters and saw police officers harassing an elderly African- American man for doing nothing more than being in the neighborhood. After she reported it on the air, a police car followed her for five and a half miles. These were not just the complaints of a few disenfranchised or intimidated voters. In an operation of this scale, reasonable people recognize that unfortunate mistakes will happen. But on Election Day, complaints came from every corner of the state. Voters in the City of Plantation were never notified that their polling place, Plantation Elementary School, had been demolished two weeks before Election Day. Reports were made of police officers' blocking roads in close proximity to polling places and of minority voters being forced to show identification that white voters didn't need to have. Phones in a number of minority precincts were not working, leaving precinct workers unable to call central election offices for help with broken machines and other problems. Just as troubling was the information that came out after the election. Statistical analyses by civil rights groups and news organizations suggest that outdated or dilapidated voting equipment was most likely to be found in areas with a high concentration of minority voters. And so it followed that minorities were far more likely to have their votes thrown out than were white Florida voters. The question that remains is whether these were isolated, though widespread incidences, or if there is a broad, systematic pattern of discouraging or preventing minority votes. If these allegations are swept under the rug, if they go without a thorough review--and prosecutions if necessary--there will be a permanent scar on the face of our democracy. These allegations are germane to these proceedings because the attorney general, by congressional statute, has almost total discretion to enforce federal voting rights laws. The attorney general will decide how the investigation into these allegations proceeds--if it does at all--and what will come of the findings. I asked Senator Ashcroft several questions to further understand his commitment to this investigation: Whether he could assure us that such an investigation could be completed in a timely matter. What was his plan of action for remedies if violations of the Voting Rights Act are identified? Would he consider appropriate decertification of all punch- card voting methods and other unreliable methods, or discontinue purges of the voter registration rolls until procedures are put in place to ensure that such purges are done in a uniform and non-discriminatory fashion? If the United States Commission on Civil Rights does discover instances of voter disenfranchisement, will the Department of Justice expand its investigation and aggressively prosecute violations of the Voting Rights Act? How will the Department of Justice use information from this election to make sure discrimination is not given free reign in the future? In answering my questions, Senator Ashcroft said the right thing, but did so in a perfunctory manner. The answers were long on platitudes, short on specificity. He did not present a course of action in pursuit of the truth, nor offer potential solutions. Had these answers been the only information available about Senator Ashcroft's commitment to civil rights, I may have accepted them on their face and approved this nomination. But Senator Ashcroft has a long record of public service that suggests enforcement of civil rights is not his highest priority. My colleagues on the Judiciary Committee raised questions about several of these incidents. I share their concern. I also believe, as his supporters have said, that Senator Ashcroft has a good heart and that he is a man of integrity. I hope that my apprehensions about Senator Ashcroft turn out to have been unwarranted and that if confirmed, as I assume he will be, he will prove me wrong by carrying on a full, fair hearing of the allegations raised by thousands of Floridians. I look forward to the opportunity to acknowledge my mistake. But I am not prepared to take the risk that Senator Ashcroft's longstanding practice of not defending the civil rights of minorities will be prologue to his policies as attorney general. Since the birth of this country people have died fighting for the right to vote. Our own American Revolution was about lack of representation, lack of voice and choice in governance. Nearly two centuries later Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, were brutally murdered for trying to register African-Americans to vote. More recently, Americans have been lulled into complacency about voting rights. We seem to believe that if there are no obvious deterrents to voting, like poll taxes, then there are no voting-rights violations. The events of the past election should wake us up. The right to vote can be violated by armed men lurking menacingly at the door of the polling place. The right to vote can also be stolen by antiquated voting equipment and careless or discriminatory purging of the voter rolls. Coupled with his record, Senator Ashcroft's answers to my inquiries do not convince me of a genuine commitment to a forceful investigation and follow-up action of voting-rights violations in Florida. I am not confident that action will follow words. Therefore, I will vote ``no'' on the confirmation of John Ashcroft for United States Attorney General.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Dan Wenk, a congressional fellow in our office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of today's session.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am extremely pleased to join my colleague Senator Kohl in introducing the Child Care Infrastructure Act of 2001. This measure will make child care more accessible and affordable to the many millions of Americans who find it not only important, but necessary, to work. This legislation grants tax credits to employers who assist their employees with child care expenses, either by providing child care on- site, reimbursing employees for the cost of child care, or establishing a referral service to help employees locate a child care provider. An employer is eligible for an income tax credit equal to 25 percent of its child care expenses. Expenses eligible for the credit include: The cost of acquiring, constructing, rehabilitating or expanding employer property used to provide employees with child care; the cost of operating an employer child care facility; costs incurred under a contract with a qualified child care facility to provide child care services to employees; and to reimburse employees for the cost of child care. Employers may also be eligible for a separate credit equal to 10 percent of child care resource and referral expenses. The bill establishes an overall limit on the amount of child care credits an employer can qualify to receive. That limit is $150,000 per year. Why is this legislation important? First, the workplace has changed over the years. In 1947, one in four mothers with children between the ages of 6 and 17 were in the labor force. By 1996, their labor force participation rate had tripled to nearly three in four. Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 65 percent of all women with children under 18 years of age are now working and that the growth in the number of working women will continue into the next century. Second, child care is one of the most pressing social issues of the day. It impacts every family, rich or poor. In June of 1998, I hosted a Florida statewide summit on child care where over 500 residents of my State shared with me their concerns and frustrations on child care issues. They told me that quality child care is either unavailable or unaffordable. Those who had found affordable child care often were faced with long waiting lists. They told me that working parents struggle to cope with the often conflicting time demands of work and child care. They told me of their concerns with school-age children who often are at risk because before and after-school supervised care programs are not readily available. Mr. President, quality child care should be a concern to all Americans. The care and nurturing that children receive early in life has a profound influence on their future--and their future is our future. In the 21st century, women will comprise more than 60 percent of all new entrants into the labor market. A large proportion of these women are expected to be mothers of children under the age of 6. The implications for employers are clear. They understand the rapidly changing nature of our Nation's work force and that those employers who can help their employees with child care will have a competitive advantage. Many smaller businesses would like to join them, but do not have the resources to offer child care to their employees. Our legislation would help to lower the obstacle to on-site child care. Mr. President, we believe that this legislation will assist businesses in providing attractive, cost-effective tools for recruiting and retaining employees in a tight labor market. We believe that encouraging businesses to help employees care for children will make it easier for parents to be more involved in their children's education. Most of all, Mr. President, we believe that this bill is good for employers and families and will go far in addressing the issue of child care for working families of America. I urge all of my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I do not mean to be the skunk at the picnic party, but I believe there are some realities to be faced. Those realities are that we are establishing on the last evening of the 106th Congress some standards that are going to be either positive paths towards greater cooperation in the next Congress or will be impediments to achieving success in what will be the most divided National Government in our Nation's history. I am afraid what we are doing tonight will not make a positive contribution. The fact is that at 7:08 p.m. on a Friday evening, we are taking up in one enormous piece of legislation--a piece of legislation which dwarfs the New York City telephone directory in size, a piece of legislation which not one single Member of this body or the House of Representatives has ever had an opportunity to read. The fact that we are about to adopt this legislation without the normal debate and opportunity to understand what is in this bill is not a positive sign because, in my judgment, the kinds of bipartisan cooperation that we will require in the future are going to be based upon respect, understanding, and a due regard for our constituents who also deserve to be served better than we are doing this evening. It also, frankly, has to be based on a level of trust among Members when commitments are made, that there is a sense of a solemn obligation. This body cannot function, as no human institution can function, unless there is a fundamental level of trust and regard among its membership. This document does not reflect that trust. My fundamental concern about this appropriations bill, which will expend approximately $180 billion of our taxpayers' money, is that it takes the wrong fundamental path. Contrary to myth, the 21st century has not begun. The new century will actually commence at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2001. The first Congress of the new millennium, the 107th Congress, will convene on January 3. This historic Congress will find itself at the proverbial commencement of the century and a fork in the road. Two very different fiscal paths will lie in front of it. The path we select will play a major role in shaping our country's future in the 21st century. One path maintains the fiscal discipline that has marked the latter half of this decade. It has played an integral part in creating the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. This expansion has created over 20 million jobs since 1993. It has reduced unemployment to a 30-year low of 3.9 percent in October of this year. During all of this, inflation has remained at its lowest core rate since 1965. Those are all achievements for which we can take considerable pride. This first path views the projected budget surplus as a means to continue this economic success by continuing to pay down the national debt. This first path also recognizes that a portion of the surplus should be used to address some of the long-time intergenerational challenges which are confronting our Nation--securing Social Security's future and modernizing Medicaid. Social Security is in fine shape today. Payroll tax revenues exceed the funds needed to pay current benefits by record amounts. This positive cash-flow, however, will not last long. In just 15 years, payroll tax revenue will no longer be sufficient to pay benefits. We need to act now to strengthen the program's finances so that today's workers and tomorrow's retirees will have the security of knowing that their Social Security benefits will also be paid. Medicare faces a similar long-term funding shortfall, only it begins 5 years earlier, in 2010. In addition, Medicare has one substantial deficiency. That is its focus on sickness rather than wellness. Thus, Medicare needs to be fundamentally reformed to conform with modern medicine and the desires of its beneficiaries. That will require the inclusion in Medicare of a prescription drug benefit. Virtually every preventive program currently in use has prescription drugs as a substantial component of its treatment modality. A portion of the surplus should be devoted to fixing these deficiencies in Social Security and Medicare. I just described the first path. There is a second path. That alternate path veers off to a far different destination. That path focuses on short-term desires, the here and now, and foregoes fiscal discipline in favor of new spending programs and tax cuts. It views the surplus as a giant windfall to be doled out to favored constituencies as if Christmas lasted 365 days. In short, this is a path back to the past. This final bill of the 106th Congress represents another step down the wrong path, the path to the past. The Senate is considering the final 2001 appropriations bill, a bill that combines the Department of Labor and HHS, the Departments of Treasury, Postal, and the legislative branch. This agreement also clears the Department of Commerce, Department of State, and Department of Justice bill for signature. Discretionary spending in these combined bills totals nearly $182 billion. This bill follows the pattern established by most of the previous appropriations bills considered by the Senate. Its total spending greatly exceeds the standard established by the Senate in the budget resolution adopted in April of this year. Section 206 of the budget resolution proposed a cap on discretionary appropriation spending for the fiscal year 2001 at $600 billion. That level would have allowed discretionary spending to grow at a rate that was above inflation, a rate of approximately 3.5 percent. What do we have before the Senate at 7:15 in the evening of December 15? We have a bill which allows spending to grow by 8 percent, more than twice that tolerated under the budget resolution. I admit I support many of the programs funded in this bill, but we must exercise restraint. We must establish some sense of priorities. I have spoken on the Senate floor on several occasions earlier this year to decry specific appropriations bills as they were being considered. The common complaint I have had with each of these bills has been that they have been crafted in a vacuum without a clearly defined blueprint to give Congress the full picture of the implications of its actions before it acts. It is as if a carpenter about to build a home would start to build the living room without any awareness of what the rest of the house was going to look like. The budget resolution should have provided exactly such a blueprint. But it has failed to do so. A good part of the reason it has failed to do so is that it was developed without the full participation of all Members of the Senate. It was a partisan document, representing one point of view but not providing the context around which all Members of this body as reflective of the public of the United States could give their support. In addition, it was crafted with wholly unrealistic expectations of where we were headed. Let me demonstrate in this chart back to the year 1997. In 1997, we passed a budget resolution that capped discretionary spending at $528 billion; we actually spent $538 billion. By 1998, our commitment to fiscal discipline had grown stronger and we only exceeded the budget resolution by $2 billion. Since that year, every year, we have had substantial deviations from our budget resolution. In every year, we have spent substantially more than we had committed ourselves to do in our budget resolution. To go back to that example of the carpenter and the house, it is as if the family said: we have a budget. We can afford, based on our income, to build a $100,000 house. But they build a $125,000 house which stretches their financial capability. This year we had a resolution that said we spent $600 billion; with this legislation tonight, we will spend $634 billion. We have overspent our budget by $34 billion. This chart exposes the failure of our current budget process. Each year we pass a budget resolution which establishes limits, and each year we break the resolution. The fiscal year 1999 budget resolution which was supposed to be a spending limit of $533 billion had a final tally of $583 billion. In the year 2000, the limit was supposed to be $540 billion and the final tally was $587 billion. As I indicated, this year was supposed to be $600 billion and we have concluded now at $634 billion. The last 3 years highlight the dangers of considering spending bills without a credible budget, one that establishes reasonable parameters and results from the participation of both parties. While that is my fundamental objection to this budget and why I will request to be counted as voting no when we take the final voice vote on this matter, this legislation also includes changes to the Medicare program that will result in greater payments to providers. This bill increases payments to Medicare providers by $35 billion over the next 5 years, $85 billion over the next 10 years. My primary objection to these changes is that too much of the $35 billion for the first 5 years and $85 billion for the next decade is funneled into one aspect of the Medicare program--health maintenance organizations, HMOs. In my opinion, and more importantly, in the opinion of the experts, the HMOs do not need and cannot justify the level of additional appropriations which they are about to receive. While I appreciate the modest improvements for beneficiaries which are included in this bill, the fact remains that HMOs, which enroll less than one out of six Medicare beneficiaries, will receive almost one-third of the overall funding. I am alarmed by increasing payments to HMOs because we are told by the experts that the payments are already too high. The General Accounting Office says under current law: Medicare's overly generous payment rates to HMOs well exceed what Medicare would have paid had these individuals remained in the traditional fee-for-service program. The General Accounting Office concluded that Medicare HMOs have never been a bargain for the taxpayers. Increasing HMO payments will not keep them from leaving the markets where they are most needed. One of the several outrages in this area is the requests that were made that if we were going to provide this generous additional payment to HMOs, one-third of the money for less than one-sixth of the Medicare beneficiaries, that they would have to commit they would not, as they have done in many areas in my State and virtually every other State, pack up leaving beneficiaries without coverage. Or in other areas, as I recently experienced in the city of Jacksonville, HMOs have been driving down the benefits within their plans. I found while working at a pharmacy in Jacksonville earlier this year, most of the HMOs in that city have now put a cap on the annual payments of prescription drugs, and that cap is $500. As anyone who knows about the cost of prescription drugs, a $500 annual limit, particularly for an elderly population, is a very meager benefit. If you take this overly generous additional payment, you have to make some commitments to the beneficiaries relative to your willingness to stay and serve in the communities where you are currently providing services and to maintain your service benefit level. None of that is in this final bill. This is a check being written with no response, in terms of protection for beneficiaries. According to the testimony from Gail Wilensky, chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, she states that plan withdrawals--that is, withdrawals from HMOs: . . . have been disproportionately lower in counties where payment growth has been the most constrained. What Ms. Wilensky is saying is that where you have constrained reimbursements to HMOs, you have less withdrawals than you do where you are, as we proposed to be in this legislation, excessively generous. It comes down to priorities. Should we spend billions on HMOs or try to help frail and low-income seniors, people with disabilities and children? The managed care industry and its advocates in Congress have thwarted every effort to reform the Medicare+Choice Program so that it does what it was designed to do--save money while providing reliable, effective health care services. A prime example of this occurred almost a year ago in this Chamber. In 1997, under the Balanced Budget Act, we provided for two demonstration projects to provide for the outrageous idea that there be competitive bidding among HMOs, to let the marketplace--which we all laud as being the best distributor of resources--let the marketplace decide what should an HMO be paid. This happens to be the same practice which is used in the private sector in its selection of HMOs and in some of the largest public employee HMO plans. Implementation of such a process had the potential of saving taxpayers and the Medicare program millions of dollars. It could have ensured that HMOs with the best bids were awarded contracts. It would have eliminated the discrimination against rural and smaller communities vis-a-vis the large communities which now get the largest HMO reimbursement. Unfortunately for the American public, last year the managed care industry convinced their friends in Congress to beat back even these two demonstration projects. In so doing, they assured that we would not have a competitive system, a system that based contracts on merit. In fact, they would not have to compete at all. In fact, there would be no basis by demonstration of what would be the potential benefits to competition. This year the HMOs have launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to pressure Congress to increase their payment rates, and they have been successful. The HMOs are claiming that their current rates are too low, yet these are the same HMOs that committed congressional homicide when they killed a proposal that would have allowed a more market oriented system which would have resulted in higher reimbursement rates if the market indicated that was appropriate. This is the equivalent of a man shooting his mother and father and throwing himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. Worse yet, the bill fails to provide adequate accountability requirements for these plans. The House bill, when it was originally passed, required that any new funds be used for beneficiary improvements. This bill, this conference bill, contains no such requirement. To be honest, there are some high points in this bill, as few and far between as they might be. I was pleased to learn the bill being considered added new preventive benefits for Medicare beneficiaries. I strongly believe Medicare must be reformed from a system based on illness to one based on maintaining the highest standard of health. I have introduced legislation to this effect. The benefits I included were based on recommendations made by the experts in the field: the United States Preventive Services Task Force. Therefore, I was disappointed to find that this bill fails to provide Medicare coverage for hypertension screening and smoking cessation counseling, which are the highest two priorities as identified by the United States Prevention Services Task Force in its ``Guide to Clinical Preventive Services.'' This bill also provides access to nutrition therapy for people with renal disease and diabetes, but leaves out the largest group of individuals for whom the Institute of Medicine recommends nutrition therapy, people with cardiovascular disease. This is the recommendation of the Institute of Medicine, a recommendation which has been politically rejected. I believe strongly that additions to the Medicare program must be based on scientific evidence and medical science, not on the power of a particular lobbying group or the bias of a single Member. It appears to me that instead of taking a rational, scientific approach to prevention, the Members who constructed this Medicare add-back provision used a ``disease of the month'' philosophy, leaving those who need help the most without relevant new Medicare services. When I asked why did the authors of this bill ignore the expert recommendations, why did they provide that seniors with cardiovascular disease could not take advantage of the nutrition therapy, what was the answer? I was told that it was excluded because it was too expensive. It does not take a Sherlock Holmes, or even a Dr. Watson, to understand what is happening. This bill provides $1.5 billion over 5 years for prevention services to our older citizens. It provides a whopping $11.1 billion for the HMO industry. Clearly, the money is there but the real goal is not to direct it to the greatest need. It is, rather, to herd seniors into HMOs as a means of avoiding the addition of a meaningful Medicare prescription drug benefit for our Nation's seniors. Whether you believe in the broad Government subsidization of the managed care industry or in providing benefits to seniors and children, we should all agree that taxpayers' money should be spent responsibly. This legislation does not meet that test. Congress has the responsibility to make certain that the payment increases we offer are based on actual data rather than anecdotal evidence or speculation. How can we justify that over the next 10 years the managed care industry-- Mr. President, I ask you and our Members to listen to this startling fact--over the next 10 years the HMO industry will walk away with almost the same amount of funding increase as hospitals, home health care centers, skilled nursing facilities, community health centers, and the beneficiaries combined. That allocation makes no sense. One of the most appalling omissions of this bill is the exclusion of a provision which would have given the States the option, under another important program, Medicaid and children's health insurance coverage, to make that coverage available to legal immigrant children and pregnant women. Current census data shows us that last year nearly half of low-income immigrant children in America had no health coverage. Congressional Republicans and Democrats, Governors--and I am proud to say including Gov. Jeb Bush of the State of Florida, Christie Todd Whitman of New Jersey, Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts, and the Clinton administration--have been advocating for the inclusion of this commonsense provision in this balanced budget add-back bill. But some in Congress have opposed the inclusion of a provision that will provide health care coverage for indigent immigrant women and children, arguing that the welfare reform law removed legal immigrants from the health rolls. There was a reason why they were removed, and that reason was money. By limiting the number of people eligible for Medicaid and children's health insurance, the Federal Government was able to save some dollars. This provision had nothing to do with the overall worthy goals of welfare reform, which were encouraging self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and discouraging single parenting. There is no evidence that legal immigrants come to the United States to secure health benefits. In fact, in the last decade immigrants have been moving from high benefit States such as California and New York to low benefit States such as North Carolina and Virginia. There is also no denying that the money to cover this population of approximately 200,000 persons is available if we choose to use it. The proof is covering children and pregnant women is not only humane, it is fiscally responsible. The Medicare ``give back'' package is aimed at keeping strapped hospitals solvent. These same struggling hospitals bear the brunt of providing uncompensated emergency room care for children without health insurance whose families cannot afford to pay. Taxpayers are eventually going to wind up paying the cost of citizen children born prematurely because their legal immigrant mothers could not get prenatal care. This bill is disturbing for both what it has and what it does not have. As I said, it does not have a clear blueprint towards a path of sustained fiscal responsibility. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks an article written by Dr. Robert Reischauer entitled ``Bye-Bye Surplus'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM. Dr. Reischauer outlines the four ingredients present in today's political environment that are likely to lead to a feeding frenzy that will lay waste to the surplus that we have until now guarded. Those ingredients are: No. 1, the need for the next President to affirm his administration's legitimacy; No. 2, even larger budget provisions; and a compliant Congress, and finally a weakening economy. Why should we worry about all this? Why should we at this stage, at 7:35 on a Friday evening, suddenly become exercised about the issue of fiscal discipline? Some budget observers believe the Federal surplus may be revised upward by as much as $1 trillion when the new budget estimates are revealed. If that is the case, the unified budget surplus for the next 10 years will rise to roughly $5.5 trillion. Given these larger surplus projections, one may ask why Americans should be concerned with the deterioration of budget discipline. Americans should worry because Congress is frittering away the hard-won surplus without a real plan for utilizing those surpluses, without addressing the long-term, major challenges facing Americans--Social Security, Medicare, and paying down a $5.5 trillion national debt. Americans should care because we are sleepwalking through the surplus. We are denying ourselves the chance to face major national challenges. We are leaving to our grandchildren the credit card bills that our generation has accumulated. The Congressional Budget Office recently released its long-term budget outlook. The findings in that report are not encouraging, but they are not surprising. That may explain why the report garnered such little attention. What were the Congressional Budget Office findings? The Federal Government spending on health and retirement programs-- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security--will dominate the long-term budget outlook. Spending on major health and retirement programs will more than double, rising from 7.5 percent of gross domestic product today to 16.7 percent 40 years from now. Why? The retirement of the baby boom generation will drastically increase the number of Americans receiving retirement and health care benefits, and the cost of providing health care is growing faster than the overall economy. Saving most or all of the budget surpluses that CBO projects over the next 10 years--using them to pay down the debt--would have a positive impact on these projections and substantially delay the emergence of a serious fiscal imbalance. There could be no more clear delineation of the long-term problem. Equally clear is the proffered outline of the short-term steps Congress can take to begin to address this problem: Save the surplus; pay down the debt. Yet despite the obvious, Congress seems content to take the easier path and to fritter away the surplus. We have an obligation not to let this happen. The ugly days of deficits taught Congress some very valuable lessons. One of those lessons was the need to prioritize. We all have expectations. We all are representing our constituents to the best of our ability. We all have a sense of our national responsibility. But the tool that forced us to do what was required was the one that said that for each additional dollar of spending, a dollar of spending had to be reduced or a dollar of taxes had to be raised. That is what discipline is about. The surplus has eroded that discipline. We are failing the American public by not having honest, open debate about the tradeoffs that are necessary if we create programs, build projects, or cut taxes. Few Congresses in the history of this Nation have squandered their opportunities as much as the 106th. Few Congresses in the history of this Nation have had the opportunity of redemption that awaits the 107th Congress. Few Congresses will be judged more harshly for avoiding, trivializing, and ultimately failing to seize that opportunity. For those reasons, I have asked that I be recorded as ``no'' on the final vote on the omnibus appropriations bill. I thank the Chair. Exhibit 1 [From the Washington Post, Dec. 5, 2000] Bye-Bye, Surplus (By Robert D. Reischauer) A president with no mandate to pursue his campaign promises. A Congress hardened by four years of partisan combat, scarred by a bitter election and immobilized by the lack of a party with a clear majority. Isn't this the recipe for continued gridlock? Won't legislative paralysis leave the growing budget surpluses safe from plunder for another two years? Don't bet on it. A torrent of legislation that squanders much of the projected surplus is much more likely than continued gridlock, because four key ingredients needed to cook up a fiscal feast of historic proportions will all be present next year. First, there will be the new president's desperate need to affirm his administration's legitimacy. There's no better way to do this than to quickly build a solid record of legislative accomplishment, one that convinces Americans that the era of partisan gridlock is over and the new occupant of the Oval Office deserves to be president of all the people, even if he didn't win a convincing majority of the popular vote. The second ingredient will be new and even larger projections of future surpluses. These will make the president's legislative agenda look like the well-deserved reward for a decade of fiscal fasting rather than a return to reckless budget profligacy. During the presidential campaign, the two candidates debated how best to divide an estimated $2.2 trillion 10-year surplus among tax cuts, spending increases and debt reduction. The budget offices' new projections, which will be released early next year, will almost certainly promise even fatter, juicier surpluses, surpluses that will boost the expectations of all of the greedy supplicants. Rather than being bound by gridlock, the 107th Congress will be poised for a feeding frenzy, the third ingredient for the fiscal feast. Nervously eyeing the 2002 election, when each party will have a reasonable shot at gaining effective control of Congress, Democrats and Republicans will curry favor with all important--and many not so important--interest groups. While the election campaign underscored the different priorities of the two parties, it also revealed many areas where there was bipartisan agreement that more should be spent. Education, the top priority of both candidates and the public's primary concern, could benefit from a bidding war if each side tries to prove that it is the ``Education Party.'' Increases in defense spending also have broad bipartisan support. And then there is the irresistible impulse to shower resources on health research (NIH), Medicare providers and farmers, to name but a few. The size of the projected surpluses, the uncertain political environment, and the argument that those surpluses are ``the hardworking people of America's money . . . not the government's money'' will make a large tax cut almost inevitable. No one will stop to ask whose money it was when the hard-working people's representatives racked up $3.7 trillion in deficits between 1980 and 1998 or whether we owe it to our kids to pay down the increased public debt these deficits generated. Instead, large bipartisan majorities will rally around and add to a presidential proposal that includes marriage penalty relief, rate cuts, tax credits for health insurance, new incentives for retirement saving, and an easing of the estate tax for struggling millionaires who have had to suffer through a period of unprecedented prosperity and soaring stock values. A weakening economy--the final ingredient--will wipe away any lingering qualms lawmakers may have about wallowing again in waters of fiscal excess. No matter that the vast majority of economists welcome slower growth because they believe that the current 4 percent unemployment rate is incompatible with price stability. If the unemployment rate drifts up close to 5 percent--a level that labor, business and the Fed considered unattainable as recently as 1995--the summer soldiers of fiscal prudence will cut and run, slashing taxes and boosting spending, claiming as they retreat that these actions are the only way to save the nation from another Great Depression. The current fiscal year will be the third consecutive one in which the budget, excluding Social Security, has been in surplus. The last time such a record was achieved was 1928 to 1930. If the new president and the 107th Congress do what comes most naturally, we may have to wait another 70 years to celebrate such an accomplishment. Worse yet, we will wake up after the fiscal feast to discover that the surplus has been squandered while the nation's foremost fiscal challenge-- providing for the baby boomers' retirement--has not been addressed because that required difficult choices and political courage.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I appreciate the positive remarks that have just been made about our leadership and those who have supported them throughout these difficult 2 years, and look forward at an appropriate time to hearing the comments of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee on this legislation.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield such time as he would use to my friend and colleague from North Dakota.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, my primary purpose this morning is to make some remarks relative to my retiring colleague, Connie Mack. But while he is still here, I would like to also express my admiration for Senator Ashcroft. Senator Dorgan talked about some of the times they worked together. Those are always rewarding, and they help build relationships. I have had some of those times with Senator Ashcroft. I have also had some times when we disagreed--such as on the same issue that Senator Dorgan referred to as the wisdom of our policy towards Cuba. In those times of disagreement, you also learn something about the character of the person. I found Senator Ashcroft to be a person who listens to what the other side thinks is the proper course. He wouldn't necessarily agree with it, but he would take it into account and would try to use that as the basis of finding a broader common ground. Those are important qualities which I think our colleague, Connie Mack, also represents and which I will discuss in a few moments. But I wish to extend my best wishes to Senator Ashcroft who I did not have the opportunity to serve with as a Governor, but I admire his service to the State of Missouri and to America in many ways. I wish him well for a happy, rewarding future.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am pleased to yield such time as my colleague and friend from Missouri would like and to add my accommodation to the service of Senator Ashcroft and for the remarks he has presented to the Senate.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States provides that each State, regardless of other circumstances, will have two Members in the Senate. It says nothing about how those two Senators will get along. Sometimes they don't. I think we had a good demonstration a few moments ago with the very heartfelt comments of Senator Bond to his colleague, Senator Ashcroft. They are two Senators who have a very close, constructive relationship for the people of their State. It is my pleasure and my honor to be able to say the same relationship has existed for the last 12 years between myself and Senator Connie Mack. I am proud to call Connie a friend, and I am proud to have served with him as a colleague. There are a number of reasons that may have led to this good relationship--one of which is that we have a great deal in common. We both grew up in a Florida which was undergoing massive change. When Senator Mack and I were born in the late 1930s, the State of Florida had a population of about 1.5 million. As we start the 21st century, Florida has a population of over 15 million. That demographic change has brought a floodtide of other economic, cultural, social, and political changes to our State. They have affected both Senator Mack and myself as we have seen and participated in those changes. We went to the same college. We are both graduates of the University of Florida, and we share a deep, abiding interest in that institution. It is my hope that there will be a very appropriate tribute to Senator Mack, and that there will be an institute at our alma mater which will symbolize and continue his deep commitment to the work of science and health. Our personal lives have also overlapped. We both had the good fortune of marrying substantially above ourselves. Adele, Priscilla, Connie, and myself have grown to be not only neighbors living across the street on Capitol Hill but also very close personal friends. We are about the same age. We have now been blessed with a growing number of what is one of life's greatest gifts--grandchildren. I believe if you ask either of us what our favorite title is, it would probably be the title of grandfather. But we have also had some differences. Lest we try to ignore the big white elephant in the living room of relationships between myself and Connie; indeed Connie is a Republican. He is very proud and loyal to his party. In fact, recently Connie told me a story which indicates the risk he was willing to take in support of his party. At the early age of seven in what was clearly a foreshadowing of what was to come, young Connie Mack was invited to the Democratic National Convention which was being held in Philadelphia. He was not just being invited; he was being invited by his step grandfather, a Democratic Senator from Texas, Tom Connally, one of the most prestigious Members of this body, particularly in the period of World War II. While attending this Democratic luncheon at the national convention, young 7-year-old Connie stood up and began yelling ``I'm a Republican; I'm a Republican.'' That behavior, needless to say, earned him the wrath of his step grandfather who threatened to call the police if the display was not terminated. Now, despite this highly partisan launch to Connie's political career, Senator Mack and I have been working together in the closest manner for what is best for Florida and for the Nation. Just a few of the items on which we both take considerable pride, in our joint efforts we have battled against offshore drilling in Florida. We battled for a highway funding formula that takes into account States with rapidly growing populations. As a team, we worked to help rebuild Dade County after the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. We are particularly proud of our success in filling Federal judicial vacancies, which is a direct result of cooperation of working together to put quality judges on the Federal bench, not judges of a particular political party. We interviewed applicants together. We made joint recommendations to the Judiciary Committee. We cointroduced the nominees to the committee. And we applauded, together, when they were confirmed on the Senate floor. I am very pleased in the last 4 years the Senate has confirmed 15 Federal judges from Florida. Our close cooperation isn't limited to just the two of us. Our staffs have worked closely together on issues of mutual importance. And most recently, in fact, the last act of the Congress before it recessed for the election period, we helped participate in legislation that will forever cement Senator Mack's legacy, the restoration of America's Everglades. Connie should be justifiably proud of each one of these and many other accomplishments. But I suggest he would be most proud of the fact that he worked hard at, and made it look easy, bipartisanship. Connie is a consummate gentleman, a man of unwavering civility in a body that often yearns for more of that quality. This is no small matter. In today's political world, we shrug off a notion of being polite, as if it is a relic from a world that no longer exists. But being polite is far more than knowing your table manners. Civility, collegiality, and respect are the building blocks of political bipartisanship. And bipartisanship, in turn, is the foundation of constructive legislation. When funding for the National Institutes of Health advances, many Members on both sides of the aisle will be able to claim a small measure of credit, but none more so than Senator Mack. No Member of this body has worked harder to build the coalitions based on understanding of the importance of the issue and the opportunity which we had as a nation to roll back the barriers of disease than Senator Mack. In the future, when science beats cancer, we will look back and thank Senator Mack who worked with many others, particularly Senator Rockefeller, to allow Medicare payments for clinical cancer trials. These are major achievements and they required the support and hard work of both parties. It is no secret that this Congress has had few such serious legislative accomplishments. How can we enact any innovative legislation when we can't even agree on the future bills such as the remaining appropriations bills that we must pass to keep our Government running? We are now 10 weeks beyond the beginning of the fiscal year and still have much necessary work to be done. Certainly there is plenty of blame to go around for this overly long session, and it is hardly a surprise that the American people are tuning out while we battle inside the beltway over issues that seem to affect no one other than ourselves. Senator Mack has always said it doesn't have to be that way. And he has lived up to that creed. He was a founding member of the Centrist Coalition when it came together in 1997 to stop the hemorrhaging of annual fiscal deficits. One of the other areas in which he should justifiably take great pride is his contribution to bringing America from an era of accumulated national debt to one in which we are starting to pay down the debt. To a lesser degree, we will be asking Connie's grandchildren to be paying our credit card bills. Maybe we have heard too many times that nice guys finish last. I submit Senator Mack proves that adage to be dead wrong. Nice guys, in fact, get results. Those who can't get along with their colleagues get gridlock. And the American public pays for their posturing. There is another danger in the culture of swagger that has too often characterized this Congress. That danger is arrogance. Somehow, many Members have convinced ourselves that the reason we can't reach an accommodation is not that we haven't really tried and not because we are playing politics; instead, the problem is simply that we are completely, totally, right, and the other side is wholly and utterly wrong. Now, clearly that attitude is not conducive to getting much done on a bipartisan basis. The easy excuse for arrogance is that we were elected for our opinion and to change them would be a betrayal to our constituents. But Senator Mack has found a better way, a way that I describe as nonarrogant self-confidence. That is not an oxymoron despite how it may occasionally appear when this room is filled with enough hot air to melt the polar ice cap. Nonarrogant self- confidence is, in fact, a foundation for public service. Nonarrogant self-confidence is the product of sustained and diverse life experiences prior to and during a political career. It is the ability to look beyond one's world, to reach out to people of different beliefs, different values, different backgrounds. It is not a person who wakes up every morning and puts his proverbial finger in the wind to see which way it is blowing and decides what his position will be that day. It is the quality of having the strength to hold well- grounded opinions and values, and yet to be open and persuadable in the face of new information and logical arguments. Nonarrogant self- confidence is the ability to be a leader in your party, but not necessarily a follower of the party line. This is how Connie Mack has worked throughout his tenure in the Congress, and it is a model to which we should all aspire. It could be that confidence convinced Connie Mack of the importance of playing by the rules which we have so carelessly shunted aside in this session of the Congress. Connie is a leader of his party, a key member of the Banking and Finance Committees, and has served as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. In all of these positions, he has had a respect for the process of senatorial decisionmaking. He has been confident enough to let what he believes is right to be in full view of the American people. Now, few would argue that the process we have is cumbersome and, frankly, often dull. We rarely hear of someone setting up a VCR or rushing home after work to catch our latest pontifications on C-SPAN. But the seriousness of this process has added purpose. Time and public debate are the key ingredients that go into solid, sustainable public policy. Legislating behind closed doors is breaking our promise to the American public, the promise that if they, the American people, made the effort, their voice would be heard and would influence public policy on Capitol Hill. The rules of this body rely on keeping promises in an informal way as well as formally. We must all be able to trust that our colleagues will do as they say and vote as they claim to do. Connie Mack is a man of his word. He keeps his promise to his colleagues. He keeps his promise to the people of Florida. Connie's strength of character, his respect for this institution, and his ability to reach across party lines became apparent to me early in our time together in the Senate. Our service in the Senate overlapped with his last term in the House in 1987 and 1988. I got to know Connie when he came to the Senate after the 1988 election, when he won the seat that had previously been vacated by Senator, later Governor, Lawton Chiles. When the campaign was over, we vowed to work together. This has been an easy commitment to fulfill because Connie Mack is a fine person, as he is a fine representative of his State. He is blessed with a sense of humor. He understands that the business we conduct is serious, but he does not take himself too seriously. He is hard working, an always reliable coworker. I have walked out of meetings with pages of notes and reams of paper. Connie generally writes down little. But when we divide assignments, without fail he completes his homework, generally before I do. He not only remembers the names of various members of my staff, he recollects the schools they went to and the football teams they support. Senator Mack is devoted to his family. In fact, I have said that Connie and Priscilla Mack are the living embodiment of family values. Adele and I have been honored to call the Macks friends now for well over a decade. We have compared notes on our children and grandchildren. We have watched our families grow and grow up. For his legislative and personal qualities, Senator Mack will be sorely missed. I call on my colleagues, colleagues from both sides of the aisle, to join me in tribute to our friend Senator Connie Mack, his wife Priscilla, and the Mack family. Connie, while they call what you are doing retirement, I prefer to think it is more like you are being traded to another team, a practice in which your grandfather participated on a regular basis, or maybe playing another position. I have no doubt you will continue to work hard for the people of Florida and America. We will all be a better and especially a healthier nation because of your commitment and Priscilla's commitment. May your next step bring you as much personal and professional satisfaction as your days in the Senate have brought to all of us. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Florida to clarify one section of the Water Resources Development Act of 2000. Section 2(h)(3)(C)(ii) includes language from the House clarifying the applicability of programmatic regulations. One of the most important elements of the formula for success which brings us to the floor of the Senate with this conference report today is the open process used by the Corps of Engineers to develop consensus positions on a course of action. I want to clarify my colleague's views on the language in this section. Do you believe that this language will limit the public's ability to participate and comment on the development of project implementation reports, project cooperation agreements, operating manuals, and any other documents relating to the development, implementation, and management of individual features of the Plan?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, Members of the 106th Congress, thank you for this opportunity to stand before you today as a proud Member of this body. We are on the verge of passing historic, comprehensive legislation to restore America's Everglades. This is a dream I have had since early childhood when I lived on the edge of the Everglades in a coral rock house. I witnessed the manipulation of the Everglades from a serene, river of grass into a funnel built for human purposes. Over the decades, I joined other Floridians in finding that moment of truth--the moment when we realized that our actions were destroying this ecosystem which is the very heart of Florida. I was proud to start the ``Save Our Everglades'' program in Florida during my tenure as Governor. I thank everyone who took that giant leap with me in 1983 to begin to do what appeared to be impossible--to make the Everglades look more like it had in 1900 than it did in 1983 by the year 2000. We have taken several first steps. In 1992 the Kissimmee River restoration project demonstrated that we can, in fact, restore portions of a damaged ecosystem. In 1996 the critical projects authorization allowed us to begin on projects with an immediate benefit to the environment. That same year, we began the ``restudy'' of America's Everglades. I offer my thanks again to the people of Florida who toiled endlessly to produce the consensus document, the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan which is the basis for the legislation we will pass today. Names like Colonel Joe Miller, Dick Pettigrew, Stu Appelbaum, and Tom Teets and will ring in Florida's history as people who sacrificed personal gain for the future of this project, people who built consensus where none could even be visualized, and people whose expertise built the very foundation of our plan to restore the Everglades. Today, we are ending one chapter and beginning another in the history of America's Everglades. We are officially ending the chain of events that we began in 1948 with the authorization of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project which, according to the National Parks and Conservation Association, brought the parks and preserves of the Everglades to a prominent spot on the list of the 10 most endangered in the country. We are beginning the chapter of restoration. After 17 years of bipartisan progress in the context of a strong Federal-State partnership, we are seeing the dream that many of us shared in 1983 become reality. I want to speak for a moment about this unprecedented Federal-State partnership. I often compare this unique partnership to a marriage. If both partners respect each other, and pledge to work through any challenges together, the marriage will be strong and successful. Today, we are again celebrating the strength of that marriage. This legislation contains several provisions born out of the respect that sustains this marriage. It offers assurances to both the Federal and State governments on the use and distribution of water in the Everglades ecosystem. It requires that the State government pay half the costs of construction. It requires that the Federal Government pay half of the costs of operations and maintenance. Everglades restoration can't work unless the executive branch, Congress, and State government move forward hand- in-hand. The legislation before us today accomplishes this goal. With the vote we are about to take--to pass the Water Resources Development Act of 2000--we are truly making history. We will be one step closer to restoring the damage done when humankind had the arrogance to second-guess nature. With this project we are doing nothing less than turning back time, returning this dying place to the wild splendor of its past and in doing so, ensuring its future. If we accomplish the historic goal of restoring America's Everglades then today will be one our children and grandchildren will remember. They will look back on this as the day that our generation had the courage and the foresight to make a commitment to restoring one of America's richest national treasures. In the words of President Lyndon B. Johnson: If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it. Today is the day we will make the choice to leave a glimpse of America's Everglades as they were when we first found them for future generations--an undisturbed river of grass, unmatched in serenity and beauty. Mr. BAUCUS, Mr. President, I rise to join Senator Smith in supporting the conference report on S. 2796, the Water Resources Development Act of 2000. This conference report authorizes projects for flood control, navigation, shore protection, environmental restoration, water supply storage, and recreation. The bill also modifies existing projects and directs the Corps to study other proposed projects. All projects in this bill have the support of a local sponsor who is willing to share the cost of the project. Even a brief review of the projects demonstrates the importance of passing this conference report. A number of the projects are needed to protect our shorelines, along oceans, lakes, and rivers. Several of the navigation projects will ensure that our ports remain competitive in the increasingly global marketplace. Furthermore, the studies authorized in the bill will help us make informed decisions about the future use and management of our water resources. Let me mention two projects that are very important for my state of Montana. First, the authorization for design and construction of a fish hatchery at Fort Peck. This fish hatchery will make good on a long awaited promise of the Fort Peck project; namely, more recreational and economic opportunities for the folks in eastern Montana. Fort Peck Lake is one of the greatest resources in our state. It not only plays a major role in power production and water supply, but it is an increasingly important center for recreation. People from around the state--as well as from around the world--come to Fort Peak for our annual walleye tournaments. The local community really puts a lot of effort into these tournaments. And they've put a lot of effort into the Fort Peck hatchery. Communities across eastern Montana have raised funds for the matching share of the project's feasibility study. And the state legislature has contributed as well. It passed a special warm water fishery stamp to help provide additional financial support for the hatchery. The fish hatchery will help to ensure the continued development of opportunities at Fort Peck Lake. And it will also represent a major source of jobs and economic development for this part of the state. I would also like to point out the bill's provision relating to the exchange of cabin sites leased by private individuals on federal land at Fort Peck Lake. The lake is surrounded by the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. Yet, there are many private in holdings in the refuge. This provision will allow the cabin leases to be exchanged for other private land within the refuge that has higher value for fish, wildlife, and recreation. By consolidating management of the refuge lands, the provision will reduce costs to the Corps associated with managing these cabin sites. It will also enhance public access to the refuge. This exchange is modeled on a similar project near Helena, Montana, which Congress authorized in 1998. It represents a win-win-win for the public, the wildlife, and the cabin site owners. Mr. President, let me further mention a truly landmark provision in this conference report. In addition to the usual project authorizations contained in a water resource development act, this report represents Congress with a historic opportunity. Title VI of this report contains the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Restoration of the Everglades has been many years in the making. In the 1970s, the State of Florida became concerned that the previously authorized Central and South Florida project was doing too good a job at draining the swampy areas of the state. In fact, it was draining the life out of the Everglades. Our colleague from Florida, Senator Graham, who was then Governor Graham, began the effort to restore the Everglades by establishing the ``Save Our Everglades'' program. And Senator Graham has worked tirelessly to achieve restoration ever since. The comprehensive plan to restore this invaluable ecosystem that is contained in the conference report before us is the culmination of his work. In closing, I would like to thank the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Smith, for his unwavering commitment to making this Water Resource Development Act a reality. Further, I would like to thank him for the personal investment he made in keeping this conference report focused on projects central to the mission of the Corps. I know he was under tremendous pressure to open this report up to any number of inappropriate provisions, but he remained steadfast in his opposition and he should be commended for this. So, too, should his staff. They worked tirelessly to craft a Water Resources Development Act of which they can be proud. Finally, I would like to thank Jo-Ellen Darcy and Peter Washburn of my staff for their dedication to this legislation. A tremendous amount of work goes into a Water Resources Development Act. So, I particularly acknowledge and commend the effort that Jo-Ellen and Peter devoted to making this conference report such a success.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. In the legislation we are considering today, we have found yet another smoking gun to validate our suspicions that the Republican Party--and, I am afraid, its Presidential candidate--are seeking to do as Newt Gingrich was candid enough to say publicly: Let Medicare ``wither on the vine.'' I believe the cynical way in which this bill purports to provide a prescription medication benefit by pumping enormous amounts of money away from beneficiaries in more effective prevention programs, and away from institutions such as hospitals and home care centers which have demonstrated a legitimate basis to receive additional compensation, and toward the institutions which have fought against every reform and which, by the General Accounting Office report, has not made a justifiable case for additional reimbursement. We are doing this in order to create the facade that by forcing seniors into private HMOs, that would be the means by which they would receive prescription drugs. That in itself is enough of a reason to vote against this proposal. Let me comment on a second reason. Just as the first, prescription drugs, is an area on which the Presiding Officer and I have worked to try to develop a bipartisan, rational means by which prescription drugs can be made available to Medicare beneficiaries, the next area is another on which I, along with many colleagues on both sides of the aisle, have worked, and that is to reform our pension laws. In my judgment, the primary objective of reforming our pension laws should be to increase the number of Americans with access to employer-based pensions. At first glance, the retirement savings section of this bill looks very similar to S. 741, the Pension Coverage and Portability Act, which I introduced with my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, which has the support of 17 of our colleagues in the Senate. In fact, there are some very attractive and useful provisions that will make existing pensions work better. To these, I give my wholehearted support. For example, the bill makes it easier for employees to take their pensions with them as they move from job to job. This is an important improvement to existing law and will help workers accumulate assets for retirement. On further review, however, it becomes clear that in many ways this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The principal goal of the Pension Coverage Portability Act is expanding retirement plan coverage to those Americans who currently do not have an employer-sponsored plan available to them. The measure focuses particularly on encouraging small employers to offer pension coverage. Let me use some examples and statistics from my State of Florida, which I think are not unrelated to the national scene. Florida has benefited greatly from the strong economic growth in America in the last 8 years. Almost 2 million new jobs have been created in our State during that time. Of those almost 2 million jobs, more than 70 percent are in firms that employ fewer than 25 people. The vast growth in employment in my State of Florida--and, I suggest, in America--has been through small entrepreneurial firms. It is these small employers who have the greatest difficulty offering pension coverage to their employees. A recent report from the General Accounting Office highlights this fact. According to the GAO report, slightly more than half--53 percent--of all employed Americans lack employer-based pension coverage. The good news is that that is 5 percentage points more than it was a decade ago. So more Americans than 10 years ago are now getting a pension through their place of employment. The more troubling finding in the GAO report is that workers' chances of having access to a pension plan are strongly influenced by the size of the firm that employs them. While 53 percent of Americans, in general, lack an employer-based pension, if you happen to work for a firm that employs fewer than 25 people, 82 percent lack an employer- based pension. It is in precisely on those small firms that the Pension Coverage and Portability Act targeted its attention. Unfortunately, the bill before us today falls woefully short in encouraging those small firms to provide coverage to their workers. The Pension Coverage and Portability Act contained two important provisions to assist small businesses in offering retirement plans to their employees. One of those was an income tax credit to help small businesses defray the administrative costs associated with establishing a retirement plan. Second is an income tax credit for small employers who make employer contributions into pension plans for the benefit of their employees. So there were two critical provisions in the Pension Coverage and Portability Act, both targeted at encouraging, facilitating, and making more likely that small employers would provide pensions for their employees an income tax credit to help defray the initial establishment of the plan costs; and, second, an income tax credit for the employers who made contributions on behalf of their employees into their employees' pension plan. Both of these important provisions were excluded from the tax bill before us today. In addition, to the pension bill that was unanimously reported by the Senate Finance Committee included both of those provisions, and another important element of retirement security encouraged personal savings. This was achieved through a separate tax credit to help low- and moderate-income families save for their retirement. The bill was unanimously reported. Every Republican and every Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee supported the provisions that would have encouraged small businesses to set up pension plans for the employer to contribute to employee pension plans, and it also creates an incentive for increased savings for low- and moderate-income families. The bill crafted by the Republican leadership contains none of these important proposals. Finally, the bill even has the potential to actually create incentives for small businesses to drop their existing pension coverage. Approximately 18 percent of small businesses with less than 25 employees might actually be encouraged by this bill to drop that pension coverage. How can this possibly be? Frequently, the employers in a small business set up pension coverage not only to benefit their employees and attempt to encourage a greater sense of commitment to employment with a small firm, but they also do it out of self-interest. As long as an employer is willing to cover his employees, he generally can set aside more funds for his own retirement through an employer-based plan than is possible to be done through an IRA, individual retirement account. This bill includes a substantial increase in the maximum contribution allowable to an individual retirement account. That amount today is $2,000 a year and will be increased to $5,000 a year by the year 2003. By securing a separate IRA for the employer's spouse, effectively $10,000 can be tax sheltered for retirement. By making IRAs more attractive to small employers, those small employers might decide that it is in their self-interest to discontinue the employer-based plans which they now sponsor and rely on their own and their spouse's IRA as the means of providing for their retirement security. Thus, the unintended consequence of increasing IRA limits without providing incentives to encourage small businesses to provide pension coverage and then for the employers to contribute to their employees' plan may be to erode the retirement plan coverage for employees in small businesses. The percentage of those workers in small firms without coverage--82 percent already--could grow even higher. As disappointed as I am in this legislation as a whole, I am not in the least bit surprised. This legislation is the work of lobbyists--not statesmen. Instead of a strategic vision of what will be required in order to convert Medicare into a wellness program and what will be required to assure that the large and growing number of Americans who work for small businesses will have the benefit of a pension and retirement fund--instead of those strategic visions--this is the work of special interest tunnel vision. Instead of balancing the interests of all Americans, this bill goes full tilt towards the luckiest few. I suggest when legislation is drafted in the dark this is what we can expect. Behind those closed doors, the drafters seem to forget basic math. That basic math is that every dollar we spend--such as pumping excessive funds into HMOs--is $1 that we take directly out of the surplus. Every dollar spent on tax cuts is one that will not be spent on saving Social Security by paying down the national debt, and will not be spent on modernizing Medicare to make it a wellness program. I have used words such as ``squandering,'' ``flittering,'' and ``wasting'' before this body more often in the last 2 weeks than I would have liked. I have watched any chance that this body had to create a comprehensive strategic spending plan for our future die a small and painful death. I am left with the hope that President Clinton will indeed veto this bill as promised, and that a few billion dollars can be spent paying down the national debt before the next Congress gets its hands on the purse strings again. I am not surprised that we are at this point. But I must admit I am a bit puzzled. Is it really possible that some of my colleagues don't realize that a slice here and a snack there will eventually leave nothing but crumbs? Can it be that they truly believe we can have our surplus and eat it too? Or are they feasting on the surplus behind closed doors fully aware that they are telling the system, starve for reform, that we will be fine, and go ahead, eat cake? Thank you Mr. President. Exhibit 1 [From the Washington Post] Ad Blitz Erodes Democrats' Edge on Prescription Drugs (By Juliet Eilperin and Thomas B. Edsall) Buoyed by a massive advertising blitz from business groups, Republicans have managed to erode some of the Democrats' political advantage on the issue of prescription drugs for seniors, according to polling data and independent analysts. Republicans have had some success neutralizing an issue the Democrats had hoped to ride to victory in both the presidential race and many congressional contests across the country, the analysts said. In fact, in a few key races, Republicans have successfully used the issue to skewer the Democrats as big government spenders. Fueling the Republicans have been tens of millions of dollars in ads from the pharmaceutical industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups lauding the GOP's private-sector-oriented approach to providing drug coverage for seniors. Republican ads for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and other candidates have also portrayed Democratic proposals to add a drug benefit to the Medicare program as a potential bureaucratic nightmare. Democrats ``just assumed we would roll over and say, `You know, we are against seniors and for the big drug companies, so come on over and take the House and Senate back with it,' '' said GOP pollster Glen Bolger. ``But Republicans decided not to do what the Democrats wanted.'' Just three months ago, Bush had no plan to provide prescription drug coverage for seniors and was badly trailing Vice President Gore on the issue. A Washington Post/Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University poll in July showed Gore with a strong advantage over Bush, 49 percent to 38 percent, when voters were asked which candidate would do a better job ``helping people 65 and over to pay for prescription medicines.'' Three months later, after an onslaught of Republican National Committee advertising on the drug issue, the Gore advantage had disappeared: When voters were asked whom they trusted to handle ``Medicare and prescription drug coverage,'' they were evenly split, 45 percent saying Gore and 43 percent Bush. Democratic operatives acknowledge that Republicans have had some success muddying the waters on prescription drugs. In mid-September, the party's own internal surveys showed that Gore's advantage on the issue has slipped to single digits, one top pollster said. But a fall advertising campaign has helped put the issue back into the Democratic column, this pollster said, and Gore and his party now hold a 15-point advantage on the question of who would better address the prescription drug problem. Robert Blendon, a health policy specialist involved in the Post/Kaiser/Harvard poll, said surveys suggest the public, in fact, prefers Gore's proposal to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare over Bush's plan to encourage insurance companies to provide the coverage. But he added that most voters ``don't exactly understand the nuances between the two policies,'' making it difficult for Gore to gain an advantage. On the congressional level, Republicans have tried to defuse the issue by approving a measure allowing the reimportation of cheaper prescription drugs and, in the case of the House, passing their own drug coverage bill along the lines of what Bush is proposing. And when Republican candidates have had the money to spend, they have been able to tarnish their opponents: Sen. Spencer Abraham (Mich.) saw his numbers surge this summer after he ran a series of unanswered attacks against the drug proposal of Rep. Deborah Ann Stabenow (D-Mich); and both Sen. Conrad Burns (Mont.) and Senate hopeful John Ensign of Nevada improved their standing in the polls after launching similar ads. But according to Michigan-based pollster Ed Sarpolus, older voters who became confused on the drug issue are now beginning to gravitate back to Gore and Stabenow. ``It's human nature. If you're confused, you vote for what you know,'' said Sarpolus, who added that voters tend to trust Democrats more on health care. Individual House Republicans, bolstered by their party committees and business groups, have also aggressively defended their records on drug coverage in recent months. Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) saw her poll numbers rise significantly among seniors once she began running ads on the GOP plan. Ohio Republican Pat Tiberi--who is hoping to succeed his former boss, Rep. John R. Kasich--also expanded his lead in the polls after the National Republican Congressional Committee funded ads attacking his opponent's position on prescription drugs. Former representative Scotty Baesler (D-Ky.), who is hoping to defeat freshman Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.), said the Republicans ``muddied the waters very well'' on the question of prescription drugs, prompting him to air ads on gun control instead because ``it's a definite separation between myself and Fletcher.'' Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.) has even turned the issue into a liability for his opponent Elaine Bloom, blanketing his district with ads highlighting how she served on the board of directors of a company that makes generic drugs and that received payments from a competitor in exchange for keeping a heart medicine off the market. The party committees are not the only groups touting the GOP's drug plan in recent weeks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has run several commercials decrying the Democrats' proposal as a potential bureaucratic nightmare while Citizens for Better Medicare--a group funded by the pharmaceutical industry--has spent $50 million on an ad campaign supporting the position taken by House and Senate Republicans. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Patrick J. Kennedy (R.I.) said, ``The $50 million in independent expenditures from the major pharmaceutical companies has validated the Republicans' belief that money can buy anything including their inaction on a real prescription drug benefit for Medicare.'' Republican pollster Bill McInturff said that in the battleground states where GOP advertising on prescription drugs has been concentrated, ``these are roughly parallel numbers'' concerning which party and which candidate has the advantage. ``This is clearly a case where advertising has affected people's opinions,'' he said.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I come on this early Friday evening with a sense of extreme disappointment, extreme disappointment that we are concluding the last Congress of the 20th century with so little commitment to provide a vision and a sense of assistance and help to Americans as they prepare for the 21st century. I would describe it as the ``lack of vision thing.'' We cannot seem to envisage the surplus as a once-in-a-century chance to tackle the most important issues for our day, issues that will affect our children and grandchildren, issues such as Social Security and Medicare, the two great programs in which the U.S. Government has a contract with its people, and how to deal with the national debt, which grew so explosively over the last 30 years, and that we now have an opportunity to substantially reduce. Instead, we see the surplus as a giant windfall that allows us to dole out favors to favored constituencies, as if Halloween has already arrived. The result of this ``tunnel vision thing,'' is a bill that will absorb $320 billion of the non-Social Security surplus faster than the kids next Tuesday will be able to empty their Halloween bags. As troubling as the specifics of this legislation is the process by which it found its way to the Senate floor. This legislation, which would propose substantial tax reductions and additional provider funding under the Medicare program, is a major assault against our ability to use the budget surplus in a rational way. As we all remember from Abraham Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg address, ours is a Government ``of the people, by the people and for the people.'' For such a government of, by, and for the people to function, it must be conducted in full view of the people. As several of my colleagues have already discussed earlier today, this program of tax cuts and paybacks to additional reimbursement to Medicare providers was created by a self-appointed, elite group of Members in the proverbial smoke-filled room of old-style machine politics. The irony is that the very Republicans who snuck into the closet, locked the door behind them, and emerged with this poor excuse for a fiscal plan are the same leaders who are now encouraging George W. Bush to be elected President of the United States on a promise to be a uniter, not a divider, and a builder of coalitions and bipartisan consensus. If this is what the blueprint is for bipartisanship and consensus building, I shudder to imagine the legislation that will ooze out from this closed door should Governor Bush win the Presidency and follow the counsel of those who have brought us to this sad end on this fall evening. Governor Bush would do well to consider that the Republican Congress lacks the vision thing. It is always more difficult to see the big picture when you are in the dark. The legislation before us is a prime example of what happens when you try to see the big picture in the dark. I will not claim that this bill is without some positive qualities, some redeeming features. Many of those features I have strongly advocated and, in a number of instances, have been a prime sponsor. But the bill has serious deficiencies. I choose this evening to focus only on two of those deficiencies: First, the high level of additional funding being given under the Medicare program to managed care providers at the expense of the beneficiaries; and, second, the failure to provide adequate incentives for small employers to offer pensions to their employees. Both of these deficiencies have a common theme, and that is that we are not just proposing measures as a means of adding back or increasing the payments to Medicare providers. We are not providing tax incentives just to reward certain people with additional pension or retirement benefits. We are trying to achieve objectives. In the case of Medicare, we are trying to achieve the objectives of changing the orientation of this program from one which focuses on illness, one which focuses on treating people after they have become sick enough to go into a hospital or have suffered a major accident, to one which focuses on wellness, keeping people healthy as long as possible, and which recognizes that a fundamental part of any wellness strategy is providing access to prescription drugs which are the means by which conditions are appropriately managed or reversed so that wellness can be achieved or maintained. We also have as a vision to provide a balanced retirement security for older Americans, a retirement security that is based on three pillars: Social Security, employer-based pensions, and private savings. It is to achieve this goal of a balanced, secure retirement program that we should be directing our attention in terms of how we fashion tax incentives and other measures that use public incentives and funds in order to achieve that objective. I am disappointed that this tax legislation, this Medicare reimbursement legislation that we have before us, fails on both of those accounts, and I will elaborate on the nature of that failure. First, by making health maintenance organizations the only Medicare- based means by which a prescription drug benefit can be achieved, we are, in effect, herding seniors who need prescription drug coverage into private health maintenance organizations. This bill, by any account, gives disproportionately too much money to the health maintenance organizations, organizations that do not need it and do too little to seniors and health care providers who do. We give too much money to the HMOs, too little to the beneficiaries, and too little to other health care providers. While I appreciate the modest improvements for beneficiaries included in this bill, the fact remains that health maintenance organizations will receive substantially more than one-third of the overall package over the first 5 years and even more over 10 years. I am alarmed by the attempt at offering substantial increases in payments to HMOs because experts tell us that these payments are already too high. The General Accounting Office says that under current law--under current law, not the increases we are considering here--and I quote from the General Accounting Office report: Medicare's overly generous payments rates to health maintenance organizations well exceed what Medicare would have paid had these individuals remained in the traditional fee-for-service program. The General Accounting Office concluded that Medicare health maintenance organizations ``have never been a bargain for taxpayers.'' Increasing HMO payments will not keep them from leaving the markets where they are most needed. According to the testimony from Gail Wilensky, chair of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and a former Administrator of the Federal Health Care Financing Administration, HCFA: Plan withdrawals have been disproportionately lower in counties where payment growth has been most constrained. The withdrawal of HMOs from counties has actually been lower where the payment growth to HMOs has been most constrained. It comes down to priorities: Should we spend billions more on HMOs or should we try to help frail and low-income beneficiaries, people with disabilities, and children? The managed care industry and its advocates in Congress have thwarted every effort to reform the Medicare+Choice Program so that it does what it is designed to do: provide services while saving the Government money. There is a complex formula by which Medicare+Choice plans are reimbursed. In a simplified form, it works this way. It is an arithmetic formula: A calculation is done in each county in the country as to how much fee-for-service medicine is costing per Medicare beneficiary. Ninety- five percent of that number then becomes the method by which the HMO+Choice plans are reimbursed. If you happen to have a county that has a high fee-for-service medicine, for instance, because it has tertiary medical care or particularly because it has a teaching hospital, which tend to result in driving up the overall fee-for-service costs within that county because they are providing exceptional and generally exceptionally expensive services, then you have a high reimbursement level to HMOs. That is why you tend to find lots of HMOs wanting to do business in those high-cost, fee-for-service counties. Conversely, if you happen to be in a county that has no hospitals or only primary care hospitals and relatively low fee-for-service costs, then you have low HMO reimbursements, which frankly is a formula that makes no sense. For many years, there has been an effort to find a new way to reimburse HMOs that is more market oriented as opposed to relying on the accident of whether you happen to be in a high fee-for-service county or a low fee-for-service county. Several times in recent years Congress has initiated a program to do a demonstration project using some of the competitive bidding processes which are prevalent in the way in which private corporations and State and local governments determine how to reimburse their HMOs. They put their HMO contracts out for competitive bid and see what HMOs will offer in order to secure the business of a large corporation or a State or local government. I believe strongly that we should at least experiment with this approach to reimbursing HMOs through Medicare. In 1997, as an example, two demonstration projects were included in the Balanced Budget Act. These were to provide information on the competitive bidding process for Medicare+Choice contracts. What happened? As soon as two cities--in this case Kansas City and Phoenix-- were selected to be the sites for the demonstration projects, the HMOs and their allies in those communities led an assault against the demonstration project, and in an end-of-the-session, largely clandestine attack, those demonstration projects were terminated even before they had started. In so doing, the HMOs have been able to assure that they will not have to compete for Medicare's business based on merit and the marketplace. In fact, they would not have to compete at all. This year, the HMOs have again launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to pressure Congress to increase their payment rates based on this discredited 95-percent formula. The HMOs are claiming their current reimbursement rates are too low. Yet these are the same HMOs that committed congressional homicide when they killed the proposal that would have allowed a more market-oriented system, which could have resulted in higher reimbursement rates or lower reimbursement rates; at least they would have been the reimbursement rates that were set by market competition, not by an arbitrary discredited formula. This action, of claiming that you need to have higher reimbursement rates after you have just killed the method by which we were going to determine what would be the means of setting those appropriate rates, is the equivalent of the child who shoots his mother and father and then claims to deserve the mercy of the court because he is an orphan. The HMO industry has shot every effort to establish a rational means of reimbursement. Then they come here late at night, late in the session, saying that they need to have a third or more--a third or more--of all the money that is going to be used to provide reimbursement to Medicare providers because their rates are too low. They are providing services to approximately one out of six Medicare beneficiaries. Yet they want to have a third or more of all of the money that goes for additional reimbursement. I was pleased to learn that within this bill one positive thing that was being considered was additional preventative benefits for Medicare beneficiaries. This is a cause I have long advocated as part of the fundamental conversion of Medicare from a sickness system to a wellness system. I strongly believe that Medicare must be reformed from a system which is based on treating illness to one that is based on maintaining wellness. I have introduced many bills to this effect, some of which are now the law of the land. The benefits that I have included have been based on recommendations made by experts in the field. We have used the medical expertise to determine which preventive modalities have been proven to be efficacious and cost-effective. Therefore, I was disappointed to find that this bill fails to provide Medicare coverage for those areas of prevention which have been identified by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force as being the most efficacious and cost- effective. What were these areas of prevention? Hypertension screening and smoking cessation counseling. These were the highest priorities identified by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force. But these apparently did not meet the ``political correctness'' standards of those who were writing this final bill. The bill also provides one of the other priorities: Access to nutrition therapy for people with renal disease and diabetes. But it leaves out the largest group of individuals for whom the Institute of Medicine recommends nutrition therapy--people with cardiovascular disease. This is the publication of the Institute of Medicine on ``The Role of Nutrition in Maintaining Health in the Nation's Elderly,'' which urges that access to nutrition therapy be made available to people with cardiovascular disease. Again, apparently they did not meet the standard of ``political correctness'' to be included in the prevention modalities that will be funded in this bill. I believe strongly that additions to the Medicare program must be based on scientific evidence and medical science, not on the power of a particular lobbying group or on the bias of a single Member. It appears that instead of taking a rational, scientific approach to prevention, the Members use a ``disease of the month'' philosophy, leaving those who need help the most without relevant new Medicare preventative services. When I asked why the authors of this bill ignored the expert recommendations, such as providing seniors with cardiovascular disease with nutritional therapy, I was told it was excluded because it was too expensive; we could not afford to provide nutrition therapy to seniors with cardiovascular disease. It does not take a Sherlock Holmes, or even a Dr. Watson, for that matter, to understand what is happening here. This bill provides $1.5 billion over 5 years for all of the prevention programs and a whopping $11.1 billion for the HMOs. But it is just too expensive to provide adequate, rational, prioritized prevention services for our elderly. Clearly, the money is there. But the real goal of those who wrote this plan is to herd seniors into private HMOs as a means of avoiding the addition of a meaningful Medicare prescription drug benefit for our Nation's seniors. Whether you believe in the broad Government subsidization of the managed care industry or in providing benefits to seniors and children, we should all agree that taxpayers' money should be spent responsibly. Congress has the responsibility to make certain that the payment increases we offer are based on actual data rather than anecdotal evidence or speculation. How then can we justify that over the next 10 years the managed care industry is set to walk away with almost the same amount of funding increases as hospitals, home health care centers, skilled nursing facilities, community health centers, and beneficiaries combined. Over the next 10 years, under this plan, health maintenance organizations will receive, in additional funding, the amount that hospitals, home health care centers, skilled nursing facilities, community health centers, and beneficiaries will receive combined. The most disturbing problem with this bill is that it does nothing to address our efforts to pass a Medicare prescription drug bill in the year 2000. The Republican leadership would like for you to believe that their bill will solve the problem of providing a prescription drug benefit for seniors. According to a story in the October 26 Washington Post: Unlike the rest of Medicare, this plan provides some prescription drug benefits; and by pumping more money into it, the GOP can defuse Democratic charges that the Republican Congress has failed to act on prescription drug benefits for seniors. What we have here is the attempt to use this exorbitant amount of money, more money than is going into hospitals, home health care centers, skilled nursing facilities, community health centers, and beneficiaries combined, pumping all that money into HMOs in order to create the facade that we are providing a prescription medication benefit and therefore don't have to provide a prescription medication benefit to the rest of the Medicare beneficiaries, the five out of six Medicare beneficiaries who get their health care through the traditional fee-for-service program as opposed to an HMO. The Republican leadership and George W. Bush criticize our prescription drug plan by claiming that we are forcing seniors into a Government-run HMO. By that so-called HMO, they mean Medicare, traditional Medicare, Medicare on which nearly 85 percent of the beneficiaries rely today. In reality, the Republican plan to strengthen Medicare is to force seniors into private HMOs in order to get their prescription drugs. Here is what seniors can count on in this plan of forcing seniors into private HMOs as the means of securing their prescription drugs. First, the plan will cover less than one in six Medicare beneficiaries. Very few seniors have elected or in many cases even have the opportunity to participate in Medicare+Choice. Only 16 percent of the 39 million Medicare beneficiaries have joined a Medicare HMO plan. Second, Medicare beneficiaries can look forward to plans that are here today and gone tomorrow. Nearly 1 million seniors will be abandoned by their HMOs in this year of 2000 alone. More than 87,000 of those are in my State of Florida. Seniors in 33 counties of the 67 counties in Florida either never had a Medicare+Choice plan or had one only briefly before it packed up and left town. Third, seniors will have no guarantee of their prescription drug benefits. What is unlimited coverage today may be a capped benefit tomorrow. Listen to these numbers. This is what the prescription drug benefit is for some of the most significant HMOs in the country operating in communities with very large Medicare beneficiary populations. In Hernando County, FL, north of Tampa, there are two Medicare+Choice plans, Wellcare and United. Both offer a prescription drug benefit, the type of benefit we are hoping to expand by pumping more money through this Medicare additional reimbursement into HMOs. Both of those plans cap their benefits for prescription drugs, in the one case at $748 a year and in the other at $500 a year. There are many Medicare beneficiaries who spend more than that in 1 month. Yet that is the annual cap on prescription drugs for those two HMOs which claim they are providing effective prescription drug coverage for their beneficiaries. Another example is the HIP Health Plan of Florida which offers seniors in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties a drug plan that covers up to $700 annually for brand name drugs. Seniors in the same plan in Palm Beach County, which is immediately north of Broward County, have an annual limit of $250 for brand name drugs. What kind of prescription drug benefit is that? For many seniors, such as a constituent to whom I have referred frequently, Elaine Kett of Vero Beach, these annual capped amounts represent less than 30 days' worth of their prescription drug needs. The HMOs' tendency toward denying choice and rationing of health care will not benefit our Nation's seniors and people with disabilities. Talk about denying people choice; talk about rationing of health care; This is it. Fourth, seniors can expect no guaranteed choice of a doctor. HMOs have networks of doctors that are constantly changing. If Mrs. Smith's doctor is not in her HMO network, Mrs. Smith can't see the doctor. She can't see the doctor who knows her the best. She can't see the doctor she trusts to treat her and prescribe the medications she needs. Even if Mrs. Smith's doctor writes a prescription drug, her HMO may have a restrictive formulary and substitute her doctor's wisdom for theirs by filling her prescription drug with something else. Even if Mrs. Smith's doctor writes her a prescription drug, her HMO may have a restrictive formulary which will deny her the medicine that her doctor believed was medically necessary. To continue looking at the facts, let's look at the materials that Humana, one of the largest Medicare+Choice providers, HMOs, in the country, provides to seniors as it explains their prescription drug benefit. Here is what Humana says: For medications with dispensing limits and age limits, additional information may be required for approval. These requests can only be made by your physician to be considered. Please have your physician contact the Humana clinical hotline at the number below. So it is not the patient relying on the best medical advice of the doctor and then taking that medical advice in the form of a drug prescription to a pharmacist in whom they have confidence to be filled. It is the patient relying on the goodwill of the HMO to allow the best judgment of the doctor to be fulfilled. Reading further in the Humana preferred drug list publication: All of the above is not a complete list and is subject to change. So what you think may be your relationship with your doctor and your pharmacist today may be different tomorrow, if your HMO decides it wants to make it different tomorrow. If Mrs. Smith's doctor prescribes a medication that is not on Humana's formulary, she can only get it filled with prior authorization from Humana. That means upon learning that her medication is not on Humana's formulary, probably when she is standing at the pharmacist's counter trying to get her drug prescription filled, Mrs. Smith will have to call her doctor and ask her doctor to call a 1-800 number on her behalf. Once the doctor gets through, Mrs. Smith's doctor will have to consult with an HMO bureaucrat and provide additional information regarding Mrs. Smith's health so the bureaucrat can determine whether Mrs. Smith is eligible to receive the medication her own doctor prescribed. After all of this, the request to have Humana cover the drug may still be denied. To add to the difficulty of having a drug prescription filled, Humana states in its materials that the list of covered drugs is subject to change. A drug that is covered for Mrs. Smith today may be excluded on her next visit to the pharmacy. Fifth, there are few, often no, options to participate in Medicare+Choice in rural areas. Because of this perverse formula that relates the fee-for-service costs within that county to the amount of reimbursement that HMOs will receive, while seniors in urban centers may have access to Medicare+Choice plans, many of our seniors do not have that option. In over 20 counties in Florida and in the entire States of North Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia, there are no managed care programs for Medicare beneficiaries. I wonder, do those who would advocate that this managed care approach provides meaningful prescription drug coverage for our Medicare beneficiaries think the people in North Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia do not need prescription medications? All of these factors beg the question: If seniors don't have access to or don't like Medicare managed care now, because of their own experience, why would they like it better just because we are about to decide to throw an enormous amount of money at it, without any rational justification, without any sense of the priorities among Medicare health care providers? Why, just because we are about to act in an irrational way, would it suddenly make these plans better in the eyes of the ultimate beneficiary? As I have said in a series of floor statements, the attack on a Medicare prescription drug benefit is, in reality, an attack on the Medicare program itself. Let me repeat that. This attack on using fee- for-service Medicare as the fundamental means by which prescription drug benefits will be delivered is but a veiled attack, an assault on the basic principles of Medicare itself; universality, comprehensive service, affordability, those are principles that are under assault under the veil of denying prescription medication benefits through traditional Medicare. The Washington Post article of October 27 entitled ``Ad Blitz Erodes Democrats' Edge on Prescription Drugs'' describes how Republicans have used ads to achieve ``some success in muddying the waters on prescription drugs.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record immediately after my remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM

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

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, how much time remains under my 30 minutes?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as is necessary. For the last several weeks, I have been raising concerns about the direction of our fiscal policy. Today, we reach a historic moment. Many were here in the 1980's and 1990's when the Federal Government, through annual deficits, acquired a record national debt of almost $5.5 trillion. In 1992, we reached the peak of this when we had a 1-year deficit of in excess of $290 billion. In the 1990s, we took a number of steps to try to rectify this situation and to mitigate this constant increase in the national debt. A key part of that process occurred in 1997. In 1997, we set spending limits for ourselves, including spending limits on the discretionary accounts of the Federal Government such as the account that we are dealing with today. We promised ourselves and the public that for every tax dollar cut there would be $1 less spent, and vice versa. That is the way in which a family would approach having to restrain its budget in order to come into line with its income. It would buy the holiday gifts that it could afford but not necessarily the ones that everyone in the family wants because for those family budgets there are some very real caps. But, for Congress, the commitment to realistic budget and fiscal responsibility was a novel, even a radical idea. We had not even thought about it that much in the preceding 20 or 30 years. Apparently, it was so radical that it was too much to ask. It is almost as if this Halloween season we have all turned into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the campaign trail we put on one costume; that is, the costume of our better selves where we boast about the courage and foresight it took to balance the budget. We talk about all the good things we are going to do, whether it is saving Social Security, providing a prescription drug benefit for Medicare, cutting taxes, or adding spending in other favorable programs. Then we return to Congress and we take off our mask. We begin grabbing for what we can get, a few billion here, a few billion there, regardless of the long-term consequences. We have doled out treats to line our political pockets while we are playing a trick on the American public. That trick is that we are sleepwalking through the surplus. We are about to deny ourselves and future generations one of the greatest opportunities that we have had in American political and economic history: to use this enormous period of prosperity to deal with some of those long-term issues that will affect, not just ourselves, but future generations. But as we vote to set the deficit monster free, we make the promise that this is only for this year. We are not really going to let him out of the cage; we are just going to open the door a bit and let him sniff some of the desirable consequences of profligate spending. This year we tell the American public this is our chance to celebrate this American prosperity. Next year we will cut the monster down to size, put him back in his cage, and no long-term harm will have been done. But the truth is for our children and our grandchildren this could be a very scary Halloween. My friends, are we really so humble as to believe that what we do today will not resonate through future years? I personally find it hard to believe that this will be just a 1-year exception to a constancy of fiscal discipline. In 1997, we planned for the future because we knew that what we did with the taxpayers' dollars would have real consequences. They are having real consequences. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Washington Post article aptly entitled ``Binges Becoming Regular Budget Fare'' be printed in the Record immediately after my remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this story chronicles the crumbling of our wall of fiscal resolve in the face of a behemoth of appropriations bills. The bill we have before us, the foreign operations bill, carries a $14.9 billion price tag. It has been stated that this bill is actually lower than the bill that we passed last year. If I am in error--and it is very difficult to respond since we have only in the last few hours gotten a copy of a multipage bill, but as I read through the bill, it is my analysis that in calculating last year's $15.5 billion expenditure, we have included an almost $2 billion item, the Wye Plantation commitments for the Middle Eastern peace, which are nonrecurring. So if you are comparing apples to apples, those things that we spent money on last year and those things we are going to spend money on this year, actually last year's comparable appropriation for foreign operations was closer to $13.5 billion. So instead of the $14.9 billion being a reduction, it actually represents approximately a 10-percent increase over the spending that we had on this same account last year, a 10-percent increase, while we are operating under the rule that we are only supposed to spend the rate of inflation, which is 3.5 percent, as an increase from 1 year's budget to the next. But that is not what is the true monster in this bill. The true monster in this bill is stuck into the appropriations language, which for us on the floor is printed in the Congressional Record, since we do not have a copy of the actual bill and conference report. It is specifically stuck on page H10776, nestled in between a provision that relates to gifts to the United States for reduction of the public debt--and I am glad to know that we get some gifts to reduce the public debt--and a provision that provides debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries. It may be appropriate that this language I am about to quote is inserted in between those two provisions. In section 701(a), this language appears: Section 251 (c)(5) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 . . . is amended by striking subparagraph (A) and inserting the following: ``(A) for discretionary category: $637,000,000,000 in new budget authority and $612,695,000,000 in outlays;''. That might seem fairly unexciting, but let me tell you what we are preparing to do. In that Balanced Budget Act of 1997, we provided a spending limit for discretionary accounts for each of the future years. For the fiscal year 2001, the year for which we are now appropriating, the spending limit was established at $542 billion. The legislation we are about to vote upon will increase that figure from $542 billion to $637 billion, a 17.5-percent increase in the allowable expenditure in this 1 year alone. That is the scale of the monster that we are about to let out of the cage by adopting this legislation. This figure will put far more than a dent in the surplus that we promised. It will put a massive hole in our budget projections. The fact is, by the time we are done, Social Security is more likely to be floundering midstream without a life vest than to be in a secure lockbox on dry land. Instead of fiscal responsibility, we are now practicing fiscal myopia. We are honing in on the magic number, a $4.6 trillion surplus over the next 10 years. However, what we are forgetting to completely level with the American people about is that that $4.6 trillion is predicated on the assumption we are only going to spend $542 billion this year. We are about to authorize a number that is almost $100 billion larger. The forecasters of the Congressional Budget Office do not have a crystal ball. They can only see the future the way we look at it and the degree of confidence they place in our actions. The CBO numbers, upon which the $4.6 trillion surplus is predicated, are based on those commitments made in 1997. This appropriations bill demonstrates that we are not committed to those commitments of 1997. The surplus projections assume that discretionary spending increases each year would be restrained to the rate of inflation. We are about to completely abandon that facade. What are we about to do as we go into this new reckless era? The best case scenario--and we can assume under that that we will, indeed, be able to increase discretionary spending for the future only by the rate of inflation, that this is just a 1-year aberration through which we are living; that Halloween is going to be repealed for future years--if we have that best case scenario, we can anticipate that our surplus will sink by about $100 billion over the next 10 years--$100 billion less than the projections. I do not think that is a credible scenario. I do not believe there is any reason to believe that what we are doing today is exceptional. Rather, what we are doing today is going to be precedential for the future. And assume that it is precedential. The discretionary spending each year increases by the same rate that we are increasing it this year; that is, approximately 9 percent, or 5.5 percent more than the rate of inflation. If we act in each of the next 10 years with the same abandon that we do this year, we will spend the entire 10-year projected surplus on this increased spending. There will be no money to strengthen Social Security. There will be no money to finance a tax cut. There will be no money to provide for prescription drugs through Medicare. In fact, spending at this rate will not only eliminate all of those potentials, but Congress will be forced to dip into the Social Security surplus, that thing which it has committed it would never ever do, by $400 billion over 10 years. So we are making some very serious decisions as we pass this appropriations bill with its enormous increase in the limitation on discretionary spending. Save Social Security, indeed. Could it be that when we talked about saving Social Security, we really meant preserving it as a museum piece so we could talk to our grandchildren about what it used to be like? We will tell them that back when we were young, the Government actually sent you money when you grew older and deserved a rest. But if discretionary spending will dent the surplus, the direction we are taking on mandatory spending will virtually hollow it out. Our lack of fiscal discipline is not only to be found in the appropriations bill but also in the creation of new entitlements. We have already passed the Defense Department authorization bill that changes the health benefits as a new entitlement and will reduce the surplus by $60 billion over the next 10 years. We are poised to approve give-backs to Medicare providers that will cost another estimated $75 to $80 billion of our surplus over the next 10 years. Another $260 billion disappears if we pass a tax bill, which it is rumored that it is about to be presented to us by our colleagues from across the hall in the House of Representatives. So when you add up all of this laundry list, you will find that we have reduced our surplus to another return to deficits. It is very easy to add up these numbers and simply say it is too much, but I am well aware that much of the spending is for worthy causes, many of which I myself support. But what these individual pieces of legislation do not add up to is a solid plan for the future. What they do not add up to is the requirement that we make choices, that we set priorities, that we decide which of all of these good things is most important, and that we have the discipline to stick to those priorities. I ask again, whatever happened to ``Save Social Security first''? Can we really say we have done anything to shore up the Medicare system which is desperately in need of an infusion if it is to remain viable for today's seniors, their children, and grandchildren? Are we ever going to be able to pay down the debt? Our colleagues in the House have suggested that 90 percent of the surplus for this year go to debt reduction. That proposal was for this year only, for fiscal year 2001, however, because they cannot do it over the next 10 years. Ten percent of the surplus would be $456 billion. Congress may very well enact legislation in the next few years that will exceed that amount by in excess of $100 billion. We have already committed ourselves to more spending than the House of Representatives pledge would require using 90 percent of the surplus to pay down the national debt. Mr. President, $100 billion is more money than most Americans can ever conceive of. In a few short months, history will move forward again and we will gather together in the Chamber of the House of Representatives to greet a newly elected President to hear his first State of the Union Address. By almost any measure, the state of our Union is strong. Our economy is the envy of the world. Incomes are up. Unemployment is down. Home ownership is up. Inflation is low. Mortgage rates remain modest. As we await a new President, and the first State of the Union Address from that new President--the first new President elected in the 21st century--I am reminded of the historic State of the Union speech delivered by President Clinton at the beginning of 1998. To provide context from that time, we, as a nation, were on the verge of shifting from annual deficits to a hope for a promised projected surplus. We were looking at a prospect we had not faced in years: What do we do with a possible surplus? In his 1998 State of the Union Address, President Clinton answered that question. If I could quote from his eloquent words of that evening: For three decades, six Presidents have come before you to warn of the damage deficits pose to our nation. Tonight, I come before you to announce that the federal deficit--once so incomprehensibly large that it had eleven zeros--will be, simply, zero. If we balance the budget for the next year, it is projected that we'll then have a sizable surplus in the years that immediately follow. What should we do with this projected surplus? I have a simple, four-word answer: Save Social Security first. Mr. President, that simple four-word answer, ``Save Social Security first,'' brought all of us to our feet in January of 1998. And, Mr. President at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, your greatest legacy will be the restoration of fiscal discipline here in Washington. Mr. President, you are being challenged as to the fidelity and sustainability of that commitment to fiscal discipline. We should now resist the temptation to allow the deficit monster to escape from the cage again. We should give to President Clinton the rightful recognition for reversing decades of rampant borrowing and, as a result of that courage, producing sustained national prosperity and the potential for even more prosperity. But, Mr. President, at the end of your administration, we need you to remain true to the principles that have produced this legacy. If we in the Congress are unable to exercise fiscal discipline, we will have to turn to you to provide us with the necessary restraints. We are talking here about our children and our grandchildren. Are we again going to return to the days when we expect them to pay our bills or are we going to accept the responsibility that virtually every generation of Americans--but for those who have lived in the last 30 years--were prepared to accept? And that is that we would--each generation, each year--pay our bills and not ask future generations to do so. That is the fundamental issue we face with this appropriations bill. Because I believe it fails to meet that test, I will vote no. Thank you, Mr. President. Exhibit 1 [From the Washington Post, Oct. 25, 2000] Binges Becoming Regular Budget Fare (By Eric Pianin) Rules created more than two decades ago to impose fiscal restraint on Congress have broken down, helping fuel a year- end spending spree that is resulting in billions of extra dollars for highways and bridges, water projects, emergency farm aid, school construction and scores of other projects. Many budget hawks have derided the binge as a typical election year ``porkfest.'' But key lawmakers and experts on federal budgeting say another less visible problem is that the law aimed at reining in such spending has been effectively gutted by the congressional leadership. In particular, lawmakers are increasingly ignoring the annual congressional budge resolution, the document that is supposed to guide spending and tax decisions in the House and Senate every year. In years past, lawmakers might miss their budget targets by a few billion dollars, but now they are busting the budget by as much as $50 billion a year. This year's budget resolution, for instance, called for about $600 billion in spending this fiscal year on defense, health, education and other non-entitlement programs. When Congress and the White House finally complete their negotiations, probably this week, the total will be $640 billion or more. One reason, lawmakers say, is that the GOP congressional leadership has adopted--largely for political reasons-- unrealistic budgets that understate the amount of spending members want. Another is that the emergence of big surpluses has made Congress much less vigilant bout living within its means--and more prone to make up the rules as it goes along. ``I think the budget process has been destroyed and I think, unfortunately, Republicans have been heavily numbered among the assassins,'' said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), a veteran of budget skirmishes. ``I think we've made a mockery of the process and it will be very difficult to revive it.'' Stanley Collender, a prominent expert on federal spending, added: ``What we're seeing is budget decision-making by the seat of their pants.'' Collender and other experts say the increased spending being approved by Congress could begin to cut into projected surpluses, leaving less for the spending and tax cut initiatives proposed by Vice President Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Outside of the Social Security program, analysts have projected the federal government will run a $2.2 trillion surplus over the next decade. But the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan budget watchdog group, estimates that the forecast surpluses are likely to shrink by two-thirds, to about $172 billion, if congressional spending patterns persist. Congress is on track to boost non-defense discretionary spending by 5.2 percent above the rate of inflation during fiscal 2001--the sharpest spending increase of its type in 25 years--according to a new analysis by Democrats on the House Budget Committee. The decision to ignore the budget resolution is only one sign of a general brreakdown of fiscal discipline on Capitol Hill, according to fiscal experts. Congress and the Clinton administration are also ignoring spending caps both agreed to as part of the 1997 legislation to balance the federal budget. Congress's enthusiasm for real budget constraints began to wane almost as soon as deficits gave way to surpluses beginning three years ago. Until then, the specter of towering annual deficits of as much as $290 billion had fostered a series of hardnosed policies, including a 1990 budget deal that for the first time imposed caps on spending and required Congress to offset tax cuts by reducing spending or raising other revenue. The emergence of surpluses has left it to lawmakers to produce budget plans that would impose spending discipline with an eye to the time when Medicare and Social Security will begin to run short of money. But that has not happened. In the politically charged environment of Capitol Hill, the House and Senate budget committees in recent years produced plans that budget experts say were more GOP political manifestors than practical blueprints. The problem came to a head in 1998, when House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (Ohio), then a Republican presidential aspirant, produced a House budget resolution so top-heavy with tax cuts and tough on domestic spending that he could not sell it to Senate Republicans or the White House. For the first time in nearly 25 years, Congress completed that year without a budget. The following year Republicans managed to agree among themselves on a budget, but the document was largely ignored by GOP leaders when they negotiated a final spending agreement with the White House. This year's plan was somewhat more pragmatic, but even so it called for $150 billion of tax cuts--about twice what Congress will finally settle for--and spending cuts in many areas that GOP members of the appropriations committees refused to accept. Some of the additional funding this year will go for emergencies, such as restoration of western forest lands hit by fires last summer and security problems at the national nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos, NM. But much of the additional money will go to satisfy the election year demands of Clinton and special projects sought by GOP and Democratic lawmakers--ranging from $2 billion for extra highway and bridge projects to $5 million for an insect-rearing facility in Stoneville, Miss. ``The budget process can only do what the political will can support,'' said G. William Hoagland, the Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. ``I would argue that, if anything, what this year shows is that you need a [tough] budget process even more in times of surpluses than in times of deficits.'' Another phenomenon in recent years has been a growing propensity on the part of congressional leaders to overrule key committees--even in promoting big policy changes. Last year, for example, Republican leaders waited until late in the year to unveil details of a plan to wall off the Social Security surplus from the rest of the budget. They returned from this year's August recess with a new idea for using nine-tenths of next year's surplus for debt reduction. While both proposals, arguably, will help to impose some limitations on spending, they were presented without any meaningful debate or review by the committees with jurisdiction. House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) defended the practice, noting that ``the leadership can't have any idea that holds water unless the [GOP] conference holds it with them.''