Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I believe I have approximately 3 minutes remaining, which I would like to use to close after the opponents of the amendment have completed their arguments. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the Senator from Idaho raised several points. I want to focus on three. First, he raises the issue of, are we adding a speculative element into this balanced budget amendment by applying debt to the total debt rather than to only that component of the national debt which is held by the public. I suggest quite to the contrary--that it is exactly the definition that we are using which this Congress has written into the statute. It is the definition that we use when we are required to assess whether we are about to exceed the national debt. So it is the definition that is not speculative. It is the definition that we are accustomed to using. It is the definition that the American people understand, in part because we have helped them understand it by using things like the debt clock, which focuses on the total national debt. Finally, and most fundamentally, the debt is not a projected amount, it is a fiscal reality. It is, as anyone knows who has ever balanced a family budget or dealt with the books of a business, the last number on the page after you have looked at what your revenues are, what your expenses are, and you can see whether you are in a profit or a debt situation. That is the circumstance that the U.S. Government is in when we look at that bottom number and say, oh, my goodness, we have just added another $107 billion of deficit in the fiscal year 1997 that will then become an additional layer on top of our national debt. Second, the Senator from Idaho raises a very significant and interesting issue. That is what are we going to do after the year 2019. I might say the chart that the Senator has could be replicated precisely on the chart of the balanced budget amendment as submitted. That is the amendment that only restricts debt held by the public. This constitutional amendment and the constitutional amendment with my amendment, all are going to face the very difficult issue of what do you do when you reach that point sometime in the second decade of the 21st century when, instead of running a surplus in the Social Security system, as we are today, and will for the next 20 or so years, we suddenly start to run big deficits as all of those people born after 1945 begin to retire? It is their turn to become eligible for Social Security. And enormous deficits are going to be run in the Social Security system. Those are not speculative or imaginative. They are exactly what the 1983 Social Security Commission contemplated. Add surpluses during periods of relatively limited numbers of Americans benefiting by Social Security so that we can meet the obligations when we are in a demographic period with large numbers of retirees. So what are we going to do when we get out here to around the year 2019? Frankly, there is no free lunch. What we have been doing is, we have been borrowing from the general fund from Social Security. Social Security does not have a great bank filled up with stocks and bonds, or real estate deeds, or other assets that have a market value. What it has is IOU's from the General Treasury. Beginning in about the year 2019, the Social Security beneficiaries are going to be knocking on the door of that vault, saying, ``We want to redeem these IOU's.'' What are we going to do? We basically have three choices. We have the choice of reducing spending every place else in the Federal Government sufficient to release the money to be able to redeem the IOU's and pay off this obligation. We can raise taxes sufficiently to do the same thing. Or, we can begin again to borrow from the public, in order to be able to substitute borrowing from the public, in order to meet the borrowing that we have been doing for the last three decades from the Social Security trust fund. If somebody has another alternative to those three, or some combination, I would suggest that they might want to identify them. What is going to be the difference between where we will be under the bill as it is introduced and where we will be under the bill as my amendment would have it? First, instead of having to repay, dealing with a Federal deficit at $8.5 trillion, we are going to be approximately $2 trillion less in debt. If you had a big obligation coming, wouldn't you feel better about your ability to meet it if you were relatively less indebted than if you were more indebted? Clearly, the Nation will be better off, better positioned to meet its obligations, if it starts from a lower position of national debt. Under the amendment that we have, when we come to this period in the year 2019, and we elect not to cut spending and we don't want to raise taxes as the only two ways to meet this obligation to meet the payment of the IOU's that the General Treasury will owe to the Social Security trust fund, but we would like to consider borrowing from the public, what is our position going to be? For two decades we will have been operating under a constitutional amendment that says you can borrow from these trust funds by a majority vote, which is relatively not easy but past history has shown is not politically a Mount Everest to climb. But we are going to say you have to have a three-fifths vote to borrow from the public. So we are going to find ourselves in about 20 years facing the prospect of having to, for the first time, use that three-fifths vote requirement to increase the debt held by the public, having ballooned the debt by a majority vote from our borrowings from these other trust funds. And I would suggest that is not going to be a very happy time to be a Member of the U.S. Congress. I think that what we are doing today is leaving to our successors-- not in the far distant future but just about 20 years from now--an extremely indebted America with a constitutional structure that is going to make it very difficult for us to meet our obligations to those Social Security beneficiaries. My amendment would have us enter that period with substantially less indebtedness. We would have been applying this three-fifths vote to all borrowing, not just to that held by the public. But the most significant difference of how we will be in the year 2019 goes to the very first point that the Senator from Idaho talked about. It is not correct to say that the only thing you can do with Social Security surpluses is borrow. If that is the case, then clearly we are locked into this chart. Clearly, we are looking like a plane that is on automatic pilot and all the members of the cockpit have bailed out. We know where we are heading. We are heading to an $8.5 trillion national debt, if, in fact, we are required to borrow all of the money from these trust funds and add it to the national debt. That is not what the Greenspan commission contemplated in 1983. That is not what my amendment would allow us to do; that is, instead of adding to the national debt, why don't we take those surpluses and pay off some of the debt we have already so we don't have to continually place our children and grandchildren under a greater and greater burden? But, rather, we can face the day when we will have to make substantial repayments of these Social Security IOU's. This is the best possible fiscal condition for America, and with our debt to the general public at the lowest level that our fiscal condition over the next two decades will allow us to be. So, Mr. President, we do have an alternative. We are not obligated to have $8.5 trillion in debt. We can make that debt clock tick in the future as we are representing. We can make it a means by which we can protect our future, not enslave our future. Mr. President, just to summarize again with greater brevity why I think this amendment is critical, it is honest. It does what the American people expect us to do. It is fiscally conservative. It saves almost $2 trillion in borrowing. It is simple and direct. It is not complicated. It will have a positive impact on our Nation's economy by releasing $2 trillion into the private sector. The only real long-term salvation of Social Security--and our retirement systems, whether they are Government or otherwise--is a strong American economy. And if we can put $2 trillion more into that private economy, we will be making a fundamental contribution to the strength of our Social Security and all of our other retirement programs. We would avoid the temptation, as the National Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare points out, to use the Social Security system as the cash cow, as the point of first preference for borrowing for the Federal Government by saying we are not going to establish a different standard for borrowing from the Social Security fund than we apply to borrowing from the general public. Both would be subject to a supermajority of three-fifths of the Members of the Congress in order to increase the total national debt. So, Mr. President, for those reasons, I respectfully suggest the analysis of the Senator from Idaho is not an appropriate projection of the consequences of this amendment and that, rather, the honesty, the reduction of the total national debt and the protection of Social Security by, among other things, stimulating a higher rate of economic growth in America are the goals which are sought and I believe will be accomplished by the adoption of this amendment. I thank the Chair. Exhibit 1 National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Washington, DC, February 26, 1997. Dear Senator Graham: On behalf of its five and a half million members and supporters, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare wishes to express our support for your proposed amendment to S.J. Res. 1, a resolution to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. Among our concerns about S.J. Res. 1 is that it would change the current definition of federal debt. Your proposed amendment would change the current language ``debt held by the public'' in S.J. Res. 1, to include all federal debt, particularly that which the government holds for itself--i.e. the federal trust funds. We appreciate your leadership on this important issue. As drafted, S.J. Res. 1 contains a provision which intentionally removes Social Security trust fund holdings of U.S. securities from the definition of ``public debt,'' even though the trust fund money was borrowed to finance the deficit. This change would permit the Treasury to increase its debt by borrowing from the trust funds without obtaining the Congressional approval required to borrow money from other sources. S.J. Res. 1 requires a three-fifths, super-majority vote to increase ``public'' borrowing, but since it does not require such Congressional approval for trust fund borrowing, it provides a powerful incentive for the increased use of trust fund borrowing as a means to pay for general fund programs. We support your effort to correct this definition of ``debt'' as a needed improvement. Sincerely, Martha A. McSteen, President.

Mr. GRAHAM. I yield myself such time as is necessary.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I am an original cosponsor of the balanced budget amendment. I support the amendment. It is an important measure, both to maintain the momentum toward a balanced budget and to assure that, once we have reached a point of balance, we will stay there. For far too long, our Nation has been living on borrowed money, the credit cards of our children and our grandchildren. Our children and grandchildren deserve better. They deserve to inherit a nation whose fiscal house is in order. Today, every child in America is saddled with a debt at birth of more than $20,000. That debt is growing. I believe strongly that the long- term economic future of our country is in jeopardy. It is in jeopardy unless we are able to arrest this mountain of annual deficits and the cumulative national debt. Arresting this increase is the only way to assure fiscal restraint over the future decades. This administration deserves a great deal of credit. When President Clinton came into office, he was faced with the largest annual deficit in the history of America, $290 billion. Over the past 4 years, that deficit has been reduced to $107 billion--a very significant accomplishment. However, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution can guarantee that future Presidents and future Congresses cannot repeat the mistakes of recent history. We cannot do as we have done in the last 20 years, add $4.5 trillion to our national debt. I believe, therefore, that in its current form, the balanced budget amendment is clearly superior to the alternative, which is the status quo that has served us so poorly over the last two decades. That said, I want to point out that the balanced budget amendment as it is currently written is, in my judgment, flawed. Section 2 of the balanced budget amendment--and I ask my colleagues who are here today, and those who might be watching on television, if they would take this opportunity to read section 2--section 2 purports to control the limit on debt held by the public. But I believe that the complex policy implications of this section make it one of the least understood provisions of this constitutional amendment. Without a doubt, section 2 is the key to ensuring the enforcement of the balanced budget amendment. It has been referred to as the safety lock of the balanced budget amendment. But it simply does not go far enough to control the growth of the Federal debt, and it denies us some important policy objectives which could be accomplished by the adoption of the amendment which I offer. I would like to first read the precise language of section 2. Section 2 states: The limit of debt held by the public shall not be increased unless three-fifths of the whole number of each House shall provide by law for such an increase by a rollcall vote. That is, verbatim, the language of section 2. My amendment would strike four words from section 2. Those words are ``held by the public,'' therefore, leaving the amendment as originally written except ``the limit of debt shall not be increased unless three-fifths of the whole number. These four words constitute less than a sentence within the balanced budget amendment. They carry with them a number of important policy implications. Under the proposed amendment, three-fifths of the whole number of each House would be needed to raise the debt ceiling as it relates only--and I emphasize only--to that debt held by the public, not to the total Federal debt. This provision will assist in enforcing the balanced budget amendment by creating a voting requirement of 40 percent plus 1 to increase the debt. Simply that 41 Senators will refuse to go along with the proposal to raise the debt held by the public should serve as a powerful enforcement mechanism, but it does not go far enough to halt the growth of the Federal debt. Mr. President, let me provide a little background regarding the distinction between debt held by the public, the language that is currently in section 2, and the total national debt, which would be the application of section 2 if my amendment were adopted. The total national debt, sometimes referred to as debt subject to limit, is divided into two categories: debt held by the public and debt that the Government owes itself. On this chart, the blue section is that portion of our national debt which is held by the public. Today, it is approximately $3.9 trillion. Debt held by the public is that debt which is issued to individuals, corporations, State or local government, the Federal Reserve System, foreign governments, and central banks. All of that constitutes debt held by the public which today represents $3.9 trillion. Debt the Government owes to itself is the total of all trust fund surpluses, including those of Social Security, Medicare, and Federal retirement programs. Under current law, surpluses in these trust funds must be invested in Federal Government securities. Social Security is the largest of these, currently accounting for $638 billion of trust fund balances. Mr. President, the red component of this chart represents the amount of the total Federal debt which is owed to the Social Security trust fund. Today, it is $638 billion. The green represents the borrowing of the Federal Government from all other Federal trust funds. That number has been, over time, approximately $900 billion. And I have depicted it on this chart, for purposes of display, as a consistent $900 billion. The total of the Federal Government debt that is not held by the public--that is, that debt which would not be subject to constraint under this amendment--is currently $1.6 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the total Federal debt, all debt owed by the Federal Government, will be $5.4 trillion at the end of this fiscal year. I am not surprised that there is some confusion about this arcane subject of the allocation of the total Federal debt among various categories. That confusion has permeated the committee that reported this bill, it has permeated Members of the executive branch and the media. Let me just cite some examples of that misunderstanding. Mr. President, on our desks, each Senator has a copy of the report of the Judiciary Committee when it recommended favorably the adoption of the balanced budget amendment. Let me quote from the committee report on page 20. It states: To run a deficit, the Federal Government must borrow funds to cover its obligations. Section 2 removes the borrowing power from the Government, unless three-fifths of the total membership of both Houses vote to raise the debt limit. Wrong. This statement is inaccurate, because section 2 does not limit the Government's ability to borrow. In fact, as this chart indicates, under current law and the requirement that the Federal Government borrow all of the surpluses that are available from these trust funds, by the midpoint of the second decade of the 21st century, the Federal Government will have an indebtedness of $8.5 trillion, and everything above the blue line can be encumbered by a majority vote of the Congress, without the protection of the three-fifths vote. This is not speculation, this is ordained by the laws that we have passed and the absence of a three-fifths vote for all of the debt above the blue line. The Government will borrow almost $2 trillion of additional indebtedness between the year 2002 and 2019. But it is not just our own Judiciary Committee that misunderstands the application of section 2. The Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin, blurred the distinction in an opinion column he wrote in the Washington Post on February 2 of this year, where he said: Finally, as we saw in 1995 and 1996, the history of debt limit shows that raising the statutory debt limit is never an easy process. Yet, right now it is possible to raise the debt limit with a simple majority vote in both Houses. By requiring a three-fifths supermajority vote, the amendment would make it far more difficult. Again, the Secretary fails to point out the distinction that the three-fifths vote only applies to that portion of the debt which is held by the public, not to that growing portion of debt which is going to be represented by borrowings from the surpluses of the Federal trust funds, especially that enormous trust fund of Social Security. Even more, the news media has led the American people to believe that this amendment will provide a safety lock on all future borrowings. The February 21, 1997, edition of the Washington Post, for example, indicated that ``a three-fifths majority of both Houses would be required to waive the requirement and to raise the national debt limit.'' Wrong. The only three-fifths requirement would be to that dwindling portion of the national debt which is represented by that which we borrow from the general public and would not apply to the indebtedness which we borrow, essentially, from ourselves through the Federal surpluses in trust funds. Mr. President, I believe that we should deliver to the American people what the American people expect. They expect an amendment that would provide for control on the total national debt. That is what we have led them to believe we are considering. Probably one of the most commonly used examples of our runaway national debt is the debt clock. It is not on the floor today, but it was in the Judiciary Committee on the day that I testified in favor of the balanced budget amendment. What are the numbers on that clock? The numbers on that clock are not the numbers that reflect debt held by the public. The numbers on that clock are those that are consistent with the national debt of $5.4 trillion. That is the debt that the American people have been led by us to believe that we are trying to control. I believe that in order to avoid further adding to the skepticism and cynicism of the American people, we ought to give them an amendment which is consistent with what they believe we are providing to them because that is what we have told them we are trying to accomplish. Unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise, we should pass a balanced budget amendment that meets the expectations of the American people and places a constraint on total national debt. It will be to those who wish to use their portion of the time to oppose my amendment to explain what that compelling national interest is that says that we should only limit one segment of the national debt and should let the other balloon to an $8.5 trillion national debt within the lifetime of most of the people who are in this room and listening to this on television. I find no such compelling reason. I find, to the contrary, powerful reasons to deliver an amendment that the people expect. Not only would such an amendment be consistent with our representations and the expectations of the American people, this amendment would have some powerful policy benefits. First, it would have the effect of avoiding another massive increase in national debt. Adopting the amendment that I offer would say that as of the effective date, the year 2002, that rather than have the then $6.7 trillion continue to grow to $8.5 trillion, that $6.7 trillion--an enormous, staggering national debt as it is--at least would become the plateau for our national debt, that we would not allow further growth in our total debt without a three-fifths vote of the Congress to do so. I believe that would be a tremendous benefit to the American people. I would like to talk about some of the other policy implications that are involved in subjecting total national debt, as opposed to only that component of debt held by the public, to the three-fifths requirement. Applying the three-fifths restraint to debt held by the public is going to create an unintended consequence. That unintended consequence is that there will be an incentive to borrow from these trust funds because you can borrow from the trust funds by a majority vote. It takes a three-fifths vote to issue debt to the public. Therefore, the likelihood is that we will see, as the chart indicates, a dramatic expansion in the proportion of our national debt which is held by these trust funds. Those who are concerned about the long-term security of Social Security ought to be very concerned when they see that not only is the national debt rising to $8.5 trillion, and every one of those trillion dollars will require in the range of $65 to $75 billion a year in debt service, but also they will see that we have not accomplished what the Greenspan commission in 1983 contemplated would be accomplished in terms of the use of the Social Security surpluses. Let me just divert for a moment to go back to where we were in the late 1970's and the early 1980's. Up until that time Social Security was a pay-as-you-go system. Every year the Congress would look at the amount of money that was likely to be required to meet obligations in the next year, would examine how much was coming into the trust fund and, if there was a gap, would appropriate what was required in order to meet that year's obligations for Social Security. There was recognition that as our demographics were changing and larger and larger numbers of people were coming into the Social Security system and they were living longer and therefore utilizing the system for more years, that that pay-as-you-go system was a certain railroad track to disaster. So in 1983, under President Reagan, a commission was established to look at the long-term well-being of Social Security. That commission recommended that the United States adopt a system, which is used by most other industrialized countries which have a Social Security System, that rather than have a pay-as-you-go program, we would have a program in which the Social Security System would consciously and purposefully operate in a surplus position during those years when there was relatively less demand on the system so that when the demand increased, there would be a pool of resources in order to meet those additional obligations of the Federal Government to America's retirees. This all occurred at a time when we were still operating in the national tradition of relatively modest national debt. As recently as 1980, we had a national debt of less than $1 trillion. That was the environment in which the Greenspan commission was making its recommendations. So what did they expect we would do with all of these surpluses that their proposal was directing be accumulated in order to have a pool of resources to meet future demands? What they contemplated was that the Social Security surpluses would be used to buy down the debt held by the public. In fact, their calculations in the early 1980's were that we would have virtually eliminated the debt held by the public, the surpluses in Social Security would have been so great. What they failed to anticipate was the fact that we would lose all this tradition of fiscal discipline in the country and would go into an unprecedented period of a binge of deficits that would escalate our national debt from less than $1 trillion to today's $5.4 trillion. My amendment will return us to what was the expectation of the Greenspan commission, albeit not to the extent that they had contemplated because conditions are different in 1997 than they were in 1983. What we will be doing with this amendment is we will be not adding to the national debt through the additions to the Social Security surplus, but rather will be buying down the debt which is currently held by the public so that when we reach the point that we will start making substantial payments to the baby-boomer wave of retirees, we will be operating from a dramatically lower level of total national debt and an equally dramatically lower level of debt held by the public. If you are concerned about the security of the Social Security System, if you want to say, ``I want to have a balanced budget amendment, but I don't want to have a balanced budget amendment that is excessively complex which is written in statutory terms rather than constitutional terms,'' my friends, I would suggest that the way to accomplish all of those objectives and to do what the commission that gave us our current Social Security System contemplated is to adopt my amendment and direct that these Social Security surpluses will not be used as the basis of new national debt but rather will be used as the basis for substitution for the debt that is currently held by the public. In my opinion, and representing a State which has proportionately more Social Security beneficiaries than any other State in the Nation, this is the way to protect Social Security at the same time we protect our grandchildren against an enormous layering on of additional debt. Mr. President, the amendment that I have offered would eliminate the current amendment's incentive to excessively borrow from Social Security because all national debt, whether it is held by the general public or held from internal accounts such as Social Security, will be treated equally in terms of the three-fifths requirement in order to exceed the level of debt that existed in the year 2002. Mr. President, I recognize that this is a somewhat difficult subject matter, however, it is critical subject matter if we are to accomplish our objective of providing to the American people what they believe they are getting from this balanced budget amendment, to save the American people almost $2 trillion in debt between now and the year 2019. I point out, Mr. President, that all of the numbers I have used in these charts are numbers that have been provided by the Congressional Budget Office. They are the numbers that we as Members of Congress are obligated to use in our budget analysis in our budgetary decisions. Mr. President, I believe, in summary, that there are five reasons why we should adopt this amendment. It is honest. It limits debt as it has been defined historically. It is the same definition of debt that we use when we have to periodically pass resolutions to raise the national debt. We are raising the total national debt limit, not just that component that is held by the public. We will be doing what the American people think they have directed us to do. Second, it is fiscally conservative. It will prevent adding another $2 trillion to the national debt in the next 25 years. In fact, this amendment is the most conservative of any amendment which is currently being considered by the Senate. Third, it is simple. It does not add complex additional theories to the balanced budget amendment. It deletes words which may appear to be benign but which, in my opinion, have serious negative policy implications when we only restrict the national debt to that held by the public. Fourth, it will have a very positive impact on the Nation's economy. It will release the $2 trillion, which under the amendment, the balanced budget amendment section 2 language that is currently before the Senate, will be used to fund additional national debt, will become $2 trillion that can be used to invest in the private sector, contribute to lower interest rates, stimulating economy growth and more jobs. When the Social Security surpluses are used to buy down the debt held by the public, less private capital will be tied up in Government borrowing. Those private investment resources will be redirected to the private sector, creating positive economic growth. Fifth, it will protect the Social Security from those in Congress who would exploit its unique standing as the easiest source of capital from which to borrow. Social Security trust funds will be treated equally and fairly under my amendment with all other sources of borrowing by the Federal Government, without giving any program any special standing in the Constitution and not creating the perverse incentive to go first to the Social Security trust fund for borrowing. Mr. President, again, I recognize we are dealing with an arcane, frequently misunderstood section of the balanced budget amendment. From the Judiciary Committee report, to opinion columns, to leaders in the administration, there is confusion about what section 2 means and what it will do. But there is no excuse for this Senate to misunderstand what this provision means. Our whole purpose in the constitutional scheme is to be that part of the Government that can deliberate, can consider complex matters and reach resolutions that are in the national interest. Let us not allow this opportunity to pass us by. We have the chance here to save almost $2 trillion in financial obligations for our children and grandchildren. To release that $2 trillion to help create the jobs for our children and grandchildren, to preserve the Social Security trust fund, and to give the American people what they have a right to expect from this balanced budget amendment, a restriction on the total national debt that they will be required to pay. I urge the adoption of this amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, since this debate started, I have received a letter from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, dated today, which I would like to submit for the Record. To quote one paragraph: S.J. Res. 1 requires a three-fifths, super-majority vote to increase ``public'' borrowing, but since it does not require such Congressional approval for trust fund borrowing, it provides a powerful incentive for the increased use of trust fund borrowing as a means to pay for general fund programs. We support your effort to correct this definition of ``debt'' as a needed improvement. The letter is signed by Martha McSteen, president of the National Committee to Preserve National Security and Medicare. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record immediately after my remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, finally, by using these surpluses, as the 1983 Social Security Commission had anticipated they would be used, to reduce the amount of Federal debt which is currently owed to the general public and, therefore, place our Nation in a stronger fiscal position to meet our future obligations to Social Security, we will be strengthening the Social Security system. And for that reason, the National Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare has endorsed this amendment. I urge the adoption of this amendment which I believe is exactly consistent with the purposes of the balanced budget amendment, will add to its strength, and will add to the acceptance of the American people, because it will be the amendment that they believe we are about to adopt and submit to the States for ratification. I urge the adoption of this amendment. Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, to close briefly, let me underscore that I support the balanced budget amendment. I will vote for the balanced budget amendment in the form it was reported by the Judiciary Committee. I do so because I believe it is superior to the alternative of continuing with the status quo, a status quo that had added $4.5 trillion to our national debt in less than 20 years. I believe, however, that the balanced budget amendment can be improved. I have suggested what I think is an important area of that improvement, and that is that after we have achieved the objective of section 1 of the balanced budget amendment, which is to see that we will bring as rapidly as possible our annual accounts into balance, we will not be adding to the national deficit, that we will then place a safety lock on that gain by saying there shall not be any further increases in the national debt without a three-fifths vote of both Houses of Congress. The amendment that is before us does not do that, although there are many who believe that it does that, because the three-fifths vote only applies to that portion of the national debt which is held by the public, by individuals, by corporations, by State and local governments, by all the people who buy Federal securities. My amendment would strike that limitation and have the requirement of a three-fifths vote of both Houses of Congress apply to all of the national debt. It would apply to the totality of the $5.4 trillion national debt that we now have. Mr. President, there was some suggestion in the concluding remarks of the Senator from Idaho that in some way by my amendment I had weakened the existing three-fifths requirement that is in the constitutional amendment as it relates to debt held by the public. Absolutely to the contrary. I am extending the same three-fifths requirement to the rest of the debt of the Federal Government, continuing to apply it to debt held by the public, but also applying it to that debt which the Federal Government borrows from its own trust funds. In brief summary, Mr. President, I believe the following reasons are why this amendment should be adopted: It is honest. It comports with what the American people believe we are doing when we say we are restricting national debt. It is fiscally conservative. It will result in almost $2 trillion less national debt over the next 20 years than will be almost certainly the case if we do not adopt this amendment. It is simple. It does not add new or complex concepts to the balanced budget constitutional amendment. It will have a very positive effect on the Nation's economy. The result of releasing $2 trillion that otherwise would be used to finance unnecessary and excessive national debt into the private sector will increase our Nation's economic growth and strength. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 60 seconds to conclude my remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Ms. Barbara Ramey, a fellow working in my office, and Mr. David Hawkins, an intern, be permitted the privilege of the floor during debate this morning on the amendment which I offered.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I would like to make a statement at this point in the Record prior to the disposition of this matter.

Mr. GRAHAM. Approximately 10 minutes.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I recognize we are now in morning business, but I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to offer an amendment at this time, which I previously filed, listed as amendment No. 7 to Senate Joint Resolution 1. It is my intention that the amendment be taken up and then laid aside for consideration later in the debate on Senate Joint Resolution 1.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that Senator Robb of Virginia be added as a cosponsor of amendment No. 7.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I speak to my colleagues and to the American public today about a quiet crisis that is occurring in our Nation. This is the crisis that has resulted from our failure to adequately invest in the basic services that will render our Nation economically productive, with a strong national security, and prepare the next generation of our citizens to meet their responsibilities. All over our Nation, from the largest cities to the smallest rural communities, we are seeing a deterioration of our basic public support system. Our schools, our bridges, our highways, our water and sewer systems are deteriorating. In areas of growth, we do not have enough resources to meet the needs of an expanding population. Too many children are learning in overcrowded and unsafe classrooms. Too many motorists are driving on inadequate roads and highways. Too many communities are being forced to make do with inadequate water, sewer, and environmental systems. Our ability to compete in the economy of the future, and to maintain and enhance the quality of life of our citizens, will, in large part, hinge on whether and how we correct those problems. As we enter the 21st century, we must build and rebuild the foundations which will serve our people and their needs for years to come. In the near future, I intend to continue the efforts that are underway with my Republican and Democratic colleagues who have expressed similar concerns. Out of this will come legislation which will assist States and local communities to build the schools, roads, and water systems that they need now and in the future. The numbers tell the story. A recent General Accounting Office report says that one-third of our Nation's school districts have buildings in need of immediate and extensive repair. The same report states that 25 million students go to schools with poor lighting and heating, bad ventilation or air quality, or a lack of physical security; 25 million boys and girls attend schools with those deteriorating conditions. It has been estimated that $150 billion will be needed to remedy this situation. That dollar amount does not include the cost to meet new school construction for expanding populations. This affects my State. It affects all of the States of the Nation. The school facility crisis is estimated, for instance, in the State of North Dakota, to cost $450 million to remedy; $5 billion is needed in Texas, $7.5 billion in Florida, $15 billion in New York State, and $20 billion in the State of California. In Louisiana, 88 percent of the 1,500 public schools are in need of repair; 77 percent of Connecticut's more than 1,000 schools need some rehabilitation. In Illinois, 89 percent of more than 4,000 schools need improvement. I firmly believe the administration of elementary and secondary education is the responsibility of State and local communities. It is not a Federal responsibility. The Federal Government should restrain itself from interfering with curriculum, personnel and other educational policies. But I believe there is a role for the Federal Government in helping increasingly underfunded and overburdened school districts in the construction of badly needed new schools and the renovation of existing schools. That is a role in which the Federal Government has had some history. I recently spent a day working in a rehabilitation project on Opa- Locka Elementary School in Dade County, FL. I was impressed when I looked at the plaque on the wall of Opa-Locka Elementary School, a school which is 60 years old this year. It was built by the U.S. Public Works Administration as a Depression-era job-creation project. The Federal Government has a history of assisting school districts in meeting their capital needs and has done so without the criticism of inappropriate Federal intrusion. Mr. President, I applaud the President's proposed school construction initiative. It was one of the 10 points in the education program that he presented to the Nation during his State of the Union Address. He has opened the door to an important Federal-State-local partnership, and we must walk through that door. However, I believe the door needs to be widened. Our school construction needs are much greater than the President's proposal would address. States and local school districts need to have a wider range of policy and fiscal options to meet their needs. We must aggressively build on the President's plan so that States and local governments can solve their tremendous needs. School construction is obviously not the only capital issue facing States and local governments. For example, the United States has 39 million miles of roads and 574,000 bridges. Recent estimates show that 60 percent of our roads and a third of our bridges are substandard and in need of repair. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that we currently invest $35 billion annually in highway construction. This is $15 billion less than is needed to keep up with deterioration and $33 billion less than the amount estimated to keep ahead of growth, change, and congestion. Nationally, our water and sewer management investment needs are in excess of $138 billion. The key question for us and for America is, how will we face these problems? We must address these problems in a way that is responsible, both to our commitment to a balanced budget and to the needs of States and local communities. It is vital that we find a funding source that is limited, stable and viable over an extended period of time. I suggest that some of the principles of this new partnership of the Federal Government with State and local communities in meeting their education, transportation and environmental infrastructure needs would include these: We must form an expanded and long-term partnership. It must be a partnership built on a basic respect for the responsibilities of State and local government to make the key policy decisions. It must also be built on a requirement that it be a true partnership with the States and as a condition of participation that they provide a matching source of funds to that which will come from the Federal Government and that they maintain their current level of effort so that this will truly be an additional effort toward meeting our unmet needs, not a substitution for current effort, and that there be maximum flexibility to the States in the form in which they choose to meet those needs and the priorities which they establish. I am going to suggest, Mr. President, as we develop these concepts into legislation, that one of the most appealing ways in which to provide that stable and sustainable revenue source in order to be able to form this partnership is to utilize the 4.3 cents per gallon of motor fuels tax which was enacted in 1993 and which goes directly to the Federal Treasury, not as does most other federally imposed motor fuels tax into a highway trust fund. This revenue source is currently generating in excess of $6 billion. If States and local communities are willing to provide a substantial match to these funds--and I will suggest that that match should be in the ratio of one-third State and local to two-thirds Federal--the total effect of this Federal contribution for educational, transportation, environmental needs over the next 5 to 10 years could be in excess of $200 billion, if these funds were used as the basis of innovative financing methods. Mr. President, this will have the potential of tremendous positive impact on our Nation's economy. Clearly, the economy will benefit by having children who are educated in appropriate environments. The country will benefit by having a transportation system that can meet our current and future needs that will not impose excessive costs due to congestion and inadequacy of facilities. Our Nation will be enhanced by having quality environmental systems that will protect our water and our air and our natural resources. Those are some of the benefits. But in addition to those, a program of this scale will provide employment for literally hundreds of thousands of people, as we strive to construct these facilities that will have such positive long-term benefits. Mr. President, in the next weeks I expect to continue to work with my colleagues in developing this into specific legislative proposals. Our motorists and our Nation's commercial interests need safe, modern, and reliable highways. Our communities deserve responsible water and sewer and other environmental systems. Our children will require the best quality of educational facilities in order to achieve world-class standards of educational performance. We can wait no longer to meet the needs of this quiet crisis of deteriorating infrastructure in America. Now is the time to act. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, we as a Nation have come to an important crossroads in our history. We must decide whether or not we should alter our supreme and most respected document, the U.S. Constitution, to establish the principle of a balanced Federal budget. As we all know, regrettably our Nation is deeply in debt and goes more so each year. The budget deficit has become a permanent fixture of our Nation's fiscal policy. While there are those who say we can without a constitutional amendment balance the budget, recent history raises serious doubts. Mr. President, I should like to humanize this issue by putting it in the context of a family, my family. My father was born in Croswell, MI, in 1885--February 10, 1885, to be exact. When he was born, the national debt, after almost 100 years of American history, after having purchased Louisiana from the French, having fought the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, we had accumulated a total national debt on the day my dad was born of $1.6 billion. If you took the population of the United States in February of 1885 and divided it by that $1.6 billion national debt, my father came into the Earth owing $28. That was his share of the national debt. I was born in November 1936. On that date, the national debt was $33.8 billion. Between my dad's birth and my birth, we had fought the Spanish-American War, the First World War, and suffered a deep depression, which we still were in the midst of on the date of my birth. On that day, dividing the then national debt by the then population, I owed $264. That was my indebtedness to the Nation at the time of my arrival. My first child was born in January 1963. When Gwen was born, the national debt was $310 billion. In 1963. That was not very long ago in the scale of life. And my daughter owed $1,640. That was her share of the national debt as recently as January of 1963. And 27 years after her birth, my daughter Gwen had a daughter, Sarah. Sarah was born in 1990, and upon her birth the national debt, if you can believe it, had soared from $310 billion 27 years earlier to $3.2 trillion when my first granddaughter, Sarah Logan, was born. Sarah came into this world with a proportion of the national debt of $12,830. Since Sarah's birth, I have had seven other grandchildren, the most recent born in 1995. When those four grandchildren, triplet granddaughters and a grandson, Mark Ernest, were born, the national debt had soared again now to $4.9 trillion, or they came into the Earth with a indebtedness of $18,932. Between my father's birth, with a $28 indebtedness, to my youngest grandchild's birth, $18,932 per person is what we have inflicted upon our children, our grandchildren, and generations beyond. Such history has brought me to the conclusion that if we are to reverse this profligate policy, if we are to begin to return to the principles of our parents and grandparents, we, unlike they, must have the discipline of a constitutional amendment which will require that each generation assume responsibility for its indebtedness. I make these observations not without recognition that we have made considerable progress in recent years in terms of gaining some control over our deficit. America reached its all-time high, in terms of an annual deficit, in 1992. In 1992 the national deficit soared to over $290 billion in that one year. It took us 100 years to get to $1.6 billion. In one year we had a deficit of $290 billion. This year, the estimate is that our deficit will be $107 billion. So we have made substantial progress and I believe that President Clinton and the Members of Congress during this period deserve some recognition for the fact that we have pulled that line of deficits in a downward position, albeit still, each year, contributing substantially to our accumulated national debt. But, despite this progress, current projections forecast large deficits into the future. Our national debt is expected to reach not the $4.9 trillion that it was in 1995, but $5.4 trillion at the end of this fiscal year, by the end of September of 1997. With this history in mind, and witnessing numerous attempts--many of which carry the names of Members of Congress--attempts and failures to enact legislation to force ourselves to meet the standard of a balanced budget, I believe the time has come to pass an amendment to the Constitution to mandate a balanced budget. It is unfortunate that we need a constitutional amendment to force us to do something that we ought to do voluntarily. However, a constitutional amendment is necessary to provide Congress and Presidents, today and in the future, with the necessary constitutional backbone to maintain a policy of a balanced budget. I have long supported a balanced budget amendment. I am an original cosponsor of the current amendment that is before us this afternoon. I support an amendment as an important principle, both to maintain the momentum of the last 4 years toward reducing and eliminating the annual deficits, and to assure that, once we are at a point of balance, we will stay there. It is imperative that we not let this opportunity pass by, that we not lose the progress of the last 4 years. We must continue on a path toward a balanced Federal budget by the year 2002. If I could speak in the context of my State of Florida, we have a unique interest in the outcome of this debate. Florida will continue to grow. It will be one of the fastest growing States in the Nation. Our population, which today is something over 14 million people, is projected to reach over 16 million by the year 2005. The benefits of a balanced budget amendment are national and numerous, but one of the most important benefits, as recognized by virtually all economists, is that a balanced Federal budget will lead to lower interest rates and increased economic growth. Americans deserve the benefits that a balanced budget will bring and the people of my State, citizens in a State which each year must finance the consequences of growth--additional homes, schools, all of the things that a growing population requires--with money which has largely been borrowed, will benefit especially by the lower interest rates that a balanced Federal budget will bring. If capital is readily available at reduce cost, virtually everything Americans do that involves borrowing money is easier and will have a positive financial impact on States with expanding population, such as Florida. Most States have a constitutional requirement for a balanced budget within their own fiscal houses. As a State legislator, and for 8 years as Governor of Florida, I operated with a balanced budget amendment to our State Constitution and with a balanced budget. I can say from that experience that this requirement of a balanced budget in our State constitution, and the fidelity of generations of State officials to that objective, has served my State well. It will serve America well. I will support the specifics of this amendment because I believe that this specific amendment is better than the status quo, is better than the history of the last century. But I think we should not let this opportunity pass without striving for additional perfection in this amendment. The U.S. Constitution appropriately is not amended frequently, or without the most serious considerations. Therefore, whenever its amendment is considered, we should give attention to the details of that amendment and strive to assure that we are leaving to future Americans the best possible statement of national policy. To this end, next week or as soon thereafter as possible, I will offer an amendment to the balanced budget amendment that will strive to accomplish four things. First, it will eliminate almost $2 trillion in the total debt that we will accumulate over the next 25 years under the amendment in its current form. Second, the amendment to the balanced budget amendment that I will offer will protect our Social Security trust fund. Third, it will stimulate economic growth. Finally, it will be honest with the American people, by being consistent with their expectations of what a balanced budget truly means. The failure to pass a balanced budget amendment this year will be a great mistake. For too many years we have delayed the hard discussions until tomorrow. Mr. President, tomorrow has come. It is our generation's duty to assure that we pay our Nation's bills rather than asking our children and grandchildren to do so. It is our challenge to pass a constitutional amendment to establish as a national policy that each generation of Americans will balance its Nation's budget.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. yes.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this morning, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of an important set of provisions in the Democratic program of putting families first--in this case, the provision that gives families some additional security for their pension and retirement. There is no generation in American history which needs to plan more carefully for their retirement years than that which is currently in America's work force. Two fundamental things have occurred. First, people are living longer. One of the great successes of our generation has been its capacity to extend life and extend the quality of life. Today a person who retires can look forward to almost 18 years of quality of life after they leave the workplace. A second thing that has occurred is tremendous mobility within the work force. Our grandparents had an expectation when they completed their formal education of finding a place of employment and in many instances staying in that one employment for the rest of their work careers. Today people are much more mobile and change their jobs at frequent intervals. The chart behind me indicates what has happened just in the last decade in terms of job mobility. To focus on one group of Americans, American males between the ages of 35 and 44, in 1987 the average American male in that middle-age active employment group had been with their current employer for 7.6 years. Less than 10 years later, the average has dropped to 6 years. The same is true of virtually every other category of males and females from the beginning worker to the worker who is on the edge of retirement. Workers can no longer expect to spend a career with a single employer. The work force patterns of the last hundred years have evolved as industries, technologies, and the American economy has evolved. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if you are an average employee between the ages of 18 and 29 you have held 7.6 jobs in that brief work career. On the occasion of a 30th birthday, 40 percent of Americans have been in their current jobs less than 2 years, making it easier for working Americans to successfully save for their retirement in this context of extended age after retirement, and the mobility of the work force is a matter of tremendous national importance. It is obviously important to the individual and their families to be well prepared for those retirement years, but also it has important implications to the communities in which they will live and to the Nation as a whole. A retiree who is financially well prepared will not risk being a financial burden to their children, or to State, local, or Federal Government social service providers. They will be able to strengthen the economy in their local communities with home purchases and a variety of leisure and recreation activities. They will be able to use their free time for volunteer efforts to help the next generation with things like the President spoke of in his inaugural address, helping young people to learn to read, building homes for Habitat for Humanity, all the ways in which that discretionary time has served the community and the Nation. Financial security retirement is valuable to the retiree. It is valuable to the Nation. Our Nation's businesses offer a variety of benefits to their workers to give them a secure retirement to help them start saving for their postemployment life. These range from the traditional defined benefit programs to profit-sharing to 401(k) retirement accounts. I am going to focus on that third area in which employers have assisted their employees in preparing for retirement; that is, through incentives and encouragement to persons to voluntarily save for their own retirement, and how can we make that a more expansive and a more stable source of retirement income. Generally, the 401(k) retirement benefits become available to employees after they have worked 5 to 7 years with a particular company. If an employee leaves before that time, some or all of the benefits which they derived can be lost. I applaud the Democratic leadership and specifically Senator Daschle for a legislative response that will greatly assist hard-working Americans in continuing their ability to prepare for their retirement even as they undergo these dramatic changes in their employment career. This legislation provides for more rapid vesting for the employer contribution to a 401(k) plan as retirement savings. 401(k) plans have grown tremendously over the past two decades. In 1984, there were 17,300 qualified plans. Today there are over 140,000 such plans. Currently, 22 million American workers contribute part of their salary to a 401(k) plan to help prepare for retirement. In the aggregate, 401(k) plans now hold $675 billion in assets for American workers. Employees are contributing large sums to their 401(k) in part because many employers match the employee contribution. But under current law, if an employee terminates his or her employment with a company prior to 5 years of service, then the employee may not get any of the employer's contribution to the plan. In today's mobile work force, many employees switch jobs in less than 5 years. We should recognize this reality of the mobility of the work force. We should recognize that it is a strength of the American economy. We should mitigate the current practice of penalizing mobility at less than 5 years by vesting an employer match after 3 years. That is one of the proposals for reform in the 401(k) program. But faster vesting alone is not enough. We need to explore other proposals that will make it easier on employers to transfer pension funds with an employee when the worker changes jobs. As an example, under current law, if a new employer accepts pension funds that came from a new employee's previous company, a worker who has worked at company A, they have accumulated savings in their 401(k) plan and they want to carry those funds to their new employer B, the new employer has to make certain that pension funds are part of a plan that meets all the Federal requirements. Failing to do so, they can be subject to Internal Revenue Service penalties. Many businesses, particularly small businesses, would like to let employees bring pension funds with them, but the regulatory hassle makes it not worthwhile. We need to assure employers that if they allow an employee to roll over his or her old pension plan to carry it with them to their new point of employment, that the new employer will not risk IRS penalties. Mr. President, 5 million American workers participate in retirement savings plans and change jobs every year. Some will be completely vested and have a smooth transition. Some will put themselves, their family and their retirement security at risk by losing a portion of the company's matching contributions. Mr. President, the next chart indicates the percentage distribution of worker by years of tenure in their current job. For instance, for American workers in the 35 to 44 age group, 14.7 percent have been in their current employment for less than 1 year, 29 percent for less than 4 years, which means that 29 percent of Americans within that age group would not be in a status in which an employer contribution to their retirement would be mandatory vesting. This issue of making it more secure for employers to be able to provide a continuation of retirement benefits to their new employee, to give the new employee a greater assurance that their contribution and the employer contribution upon which they counted will be there when they reach retirement, are critical issues to the large population of Americans who will increasingly be looking to their own efforts in order to provide for their retirement years. Mr. President, this planning for retirement will make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans today and in the future and in the communities in which they live. If we take steps today to secure the pension and retirement benefits of Americans, we will be making a contribution to the well-being of those families, communities, and the Nation. I commend the leadership for having brought this important issue to such a level of priority in this 105th Congress and urge all of my colleagues to give it the appropriate consideration and support for the security of American families. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, to keep on this historical plane as we conclude, what would be more appropriate than to conclude the session by adopting singularly a bill that we already adopted as part of the coin bill package, and that is the one to recognize our first President, George Washington? So, Mr. Leader, with your permission, I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to a bill, H.R. 2026, which is at the desk, which is the bill to commemorate, by coin, President Washington. I ask unanimous consent to proceed to that bill.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to add my voice, first to the great warmth of which we feel towards our esteemed colleague from Alabama and how much we will miss his presence. And I appreciate the leadership that has been provided by both the majority and minority leaders during the session.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to thank all the people who worked hard on this issue. It sounds like a fairly simple process, to authorize the issuance of a commemorative coin. We have all found it is not such a simple process. One of those coins with which I am particularly involved relates to issuing a coin on the 200th anniversary of the passing of our first President, George Washington, the proceeds to be used for the restoration and enhancement of his home at Mount Vernon. I appreciate the efforts of Senator D'Amato and the others who have worked to see that this legislation is adopted. There are many thousands of people who will be very pleased at this action we are about to take. I thank my colleagues for this very significant step.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, on October 5, 1996, the Children's Cancer Caring Center will dedicate the Shirley L. Miller Pavilion at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic of Broward County, FL. The pavilion will house facilities used by the Clinic to treat its hundreds of young outpatients. Mr. President, it is fitting that this pavilion memorialize the good name and extraordinary life of Shirley L. Miller of Miami, FL who passed away on September 24, 1996. Shirley L. Miller, along with her close friends, Lee Klein and Erma Podvin, have been deeply involved in providing medical care to children with cancer for 35 years. The Children's Cancer Caring Center, of which Shirley was a cofounder and vice president, provides totally free cancer treatment for hundreds of children from Florida and elsewhere. In addition to medical treatment, the caring center provides ancillary services--counseling, special events, and an overnight summer camp--to afflicted children and their families. Beyond donating thousands of volunteer hours, Shirley and her colleagues have raised tens of millions of dollars to support their efforts over the years. Mr. President, Shirley L. Miller represents what is great in America. Her dear friend and president of the caring center, Lee Klein, called her ``a beautiful gift to the thousands of children who confronted this disease and whose lives she touched.'' Shirley L. Miller was a great credit to her community and her family, including her husband of 46 years, Irving, and her brother, Samuel Levine, and sister, Gloria Berger. Her children, Roger Miller, Sherri Gersten, Miki Goldstein, Renee Simmons, and Cary Caster, and her 13 grandchildren, have much to be proud of. She received numerous awards in recognition of her civic activities on behalf of Mount Sinai Medical Center, Hebrew Academy, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, the Girl Scouts of America, the National Council of Jewish Women, Temple Beth Shalom of Miami Beach, and the Youth Orchestra of Florida. Her son, Roger, explained ``She was a woman who spent so many waking hours helping others less fortunate than she.'' Mr. President, although the Shirley L. Miller Pavilion at the Cleveland Clinic in Broward County will serve to memorialize her name, the lifetime of unlimited caring Shirley L. Miller provided to thousands of children and their families will be our greatest monument to this extraordinary woman.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I too, would like to join with my colleagues in support of a technical amendment to section 2241 after we reconvene. I agree that any change that section 2241 would make to foreign bank operations in the United States is unintentional and is in error. I think that my colleagues are correct to instruct the OCC that this change is an error and should not be implemented.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity this afternoon to join my friend and colleague from Virginia in the introduction of this important legislation. I believe there are a couple of historical notes that should be made at this time. First is, we are introducing legislation to carry on a program which will expire 368 days from today. By introducing this legislation today, we are giving to our colleagues--but more important to the millions of Americans who will be affected by this legislation--more than a year to give full consideration to the policy proposals which we are advancing. We are doing that at the very time that, here on the Senate floor, other important matters are being denied that kind of full attention and exploration. I commend the Senator from Virginia for his vision and his farsightedness in making it possible for such a dispassionate, thoughtful consideration of this important legislation.

Mr. GRAHAM. The second historical point is consistent with what my friend from Virginia has just said, and that is we are at a new point of departure for our surface transportation system. We could date the current era with adoption of the Interstate Highway Act during the administration of President Eisenhower. We have had a great national objective over almost a half century, to link America with the highest standards of highway engineering, design and construction and maintenance. We have largely accomplished the task that we set out for ourselves in the 1950's. Now the question is, what will this generation's contribution be to America's transportation for the first half of the 21st century? The decisions that we will be making in 1997 will be an important step toward answering that question of what we shall do for the future of America's transportation. I am pleased to cosponsor this important legislation which has a number of significant provisions. One of those provisions is the need for equity in the funding of our highway system. In report after report--and I bring to the Senate's attention just two of many. One, a report in 1985, ``Highway Funding, Federal Distribution Formulas Should Be Changed,'' which was produced prior to the 1991 act upon which we are currently distributing our Federal highway funds, and then a second dated November of 1995, 4 years after the adoption of the 1991 Highway Act, which is entitled ``Highway Funding Alternatives for Distributing Highway Funds'' in which it states that ``the formula process in the current law is cumbersome, yielding a largely predetermined outcome and partially relies on outdated and irrelevant factors.'' So, Mr. President, in spite of repeated reports pointing out shortcomings in our past and current distribution laws, we still are subject to the criticism of being cumbersome, predetermined, and outdated and irrelevant in our distribution facts. One of the important objectives of this legislation that we introduced today is to bring greater rationality and modernity into our distribution of highway funds while we also strive to give greater flexibility to the States that have the responsibility for administering these funds. I am glad that we commenced the debate today. I look forward to more than a year of opportunity to move this idea into a form that can come before the Senate and our colleagues in the House for passage and to usher in a new postinterstate era for American highway transportation.