Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am somewhat puzzled by this debate because what has happened is that the error has been corrected. No one is saying that there is a problem in the allocation in the bill before us. What we are seeing here is an effort to use an appropriations bill to try to go back and impose a change on a formula which this year is fair to correct a problem which it is asserted existed last year. Let me remind my colleagues of how we came to this point. The apportionment of highway dollars to States is based in part on the actual motor fuel taxes collected in the State. And the law says that the most recent data available will be used. In fiscal year 1996, the most recent data available was an estimate of fiscal year 1994 collections. The Secretary of the Treasury certified that that was the data that was available. On the basis of that data and the law, an allocation was made. The Department of the Treasury was late in reporting the 1994 actual data collection to the Department of Transportation and therefore they relied on the data that was available at that time. What we are being asked to do now is to go back and change a formula which has already been adjusted. In listening to our colleague from Rhode Island, one would get the view that the current appropriations bill before us has an unfair allocation of funds under ISTEA or an allocation which is based on old data. But unless I am wrong--and I would be happy to be corrected--that is not the case. No one is asserting that this appropriations bill in any way is in error in allocating funds. What is instead being asserted is, that since the most recent data available when this was done last year was the estimated 1994 data, which therefore under law was used, that if the actual 1994 data had been available, that the funding formulas would have generated a different result. Are we, Mr. President, every year, going to go back and second-guess the formula? Or are we going to follow the law? Now we have one of these things that, from time-to-time, happens, where by going back and changing the base-year data, more States benefit than lose. The bottom line is that no one here has asserted that the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary of Transportation did not comply with the law. The law says that the allocation will be based on the most recent data available. It was based on the most recent data available last year. No one asserts that the current formula is wrong. But what is being asserted is that, using data that was not available last year, we could go back and reallocate these funds and take an allocation which this year no one disputes is a fair allocation, but we would go back and take money away from States in a formula that no one argues is unfair, to basically allocate funds, not according to the law last year, since the estimated 1994 data was the most recent year available, but according to how it would have been allocated if data had been available which was not available. Here is my point: I think you can argue endlessly on these things, but I do not think this is the place where the argument should occur. This is an appropriations bill. Obviously, what we have here is an attempt to change the allocation. The amendment changes an allocation, which no one disputes as being valid, to try to reallocate funds from last year. It is true that nobody here would dispute that if the actual 1994 data was available last year, instead of the estimate, the allocation might have been different. But it was not. The law says very clearly that the allocation is based on the most recent data available. I believe if we are going to deal with this issue, we need to deal with it when we are reauthorizing ISTEA, and we need to deal with it not just for this year but we ought to set out a principle. I think it makes absolutely no sense to simply go back and say, if data had been available then, which was not available, the allocation might have been different, and therefore take a year where no one disputes the allocation and reallocate the money, because 31 States will benefit and only 19 States will lose. I hope we will table this amendment because it clearly is legislating on an appropriations bill. I think if we start opening these formulas up to this kind of debate, it is going to make it very, very difficult for us to be able to pass these appropriations bills. I am not at this point ready to give a time limit on this bill. I think we should vote on tabling it, and then I think we will want to look at second-degree amendments. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me reiterate that there is no mistake involved here. In fact, nobody has said there is a mistake involved here.

Mr. GRAMM. That is not correct. California loses the most dollars under your amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I do not know that we are gaining very much in dragging this dead cat back and forth across the table here, but let me go back to the point which I think is relevant. Where is this snafu? I see no documentation of a snafu. Let me go back and outline exactly what the law says and how it works and make clear what the Senator is calling a bureaucratic snafu, the pressing of a button by a mindless, nameless bureaucrat. If the Senator has data to show that, if the Senator has documentation to show that a bureaucrat pushed the wrong button, this Senator would like to see it. But I do not have it. Now, here is what I understand the facts to be. Under ISTEA, the Department of Treasury, based on the newest data available to them, gives an estimate to the Department of Transportation as to how much in highway trust funds is collected by States. When this estimate was given for last year's appropriation, the Department of Treasury did not have the final 1994 data, as I understand it. If someone has evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it. But based on everything that I have seen, based on all the correspondence that is available, the Treasury Department, based on the newest data they had, gave an estimate of tax collections by State to the Department of Transportation, which, based on that data, which at that point, to the best of my knowledge or anyone else's knowledge, was the best data that was available, on the basis of that data the Department of Transportation allocated funds in last year's appropriations bill which in fact we voted on and it became law and the funds were allocated. What is being called a snafu here is that based on the best data they had last year, the Department of the Treasury made an estimate, and if they had data that is now available 1 year later they would have made a different estimate and the allocation formula would have been different. But that is not a snafu. Basically, they were using the best data they had last year just as we are using the best data we have this year. My point is that it is distinctly possible, in fact probable, likely, that next year when we have 1995 and 1996 data we will find the allocation used for 1997 would have been different had we had this data, which we did not have this year. The point being each and every year we can go back and second-guess last year's estimate based on data that the estimators did not have. I would be able, if we set this principle, to offer an amendment to next year's appropriation based on actual data that will be available next year which is not available this year to say that the formula this year would have been different had we had another year of data. And it will be. Invariably it will be. There is no mistake in the current allocation based on the newest and best estimate we have, but what the Senator from Montana is saying is that the estimate made last year was made on the data which was available then. I do not know that he is arguing a conspiracy by the Treasury. I hear the word snafu, pressed the wrong button, but I do not have any data to substantiate that, and I would be willing to look at it if there is data. But based on everything they knew, the Treasury made an estimate last year, and on the basis of that estimate we allocated money. Based on everything they know this year, they made an estimate, and we are allocating money again. But if we are going to go back and change this year's formula based on new data that was not available last year, why can we not do that next year and the next year and the next year? The whole purpose of this system is to take the best data available and allocate funds on the basis of it. That is what, based on all the information that I have, the Department of the Transportation did. And relying on this data--and the law requires the Department of Transportation to rely on this data--they allocated funds. Now the Senator is saying a year later that if we had had new data that has since become available, the allocation would be different. He is right. But the point is the same will be true next year about this year. The same will be true year after next about next year. If we are going to get into a situation where every year we are going to look back at the last allocation based on data that was not available when the allocation was made, we are going to be able to reestimate everything. Was it a snafu that the estimate they had last year based on the best data turned out not to be right when they got the final data? I do not think it was a snafu. It was an estimate based on what they had. It is no more a snafu than the data we are using this year, when next year we have an additional year, will clearly be different. And by the same logic I could stand up here and say it was a snafu last year. Based on the data the Treasury had last year, we had an allocation of money, but now 1 year later with actual data they did not have, I want to go back and reestimate the allocation. I think we are inviting chaos if we go down this road because we could do it every single year. Was the estimate last year more inaccurate than the estimate this year will turn out to be? I do not know. Maybe it was. Maybe it will be less inaccurate than the estimate this year will turn out to be. The point is, the law requires the use of the best available data. Based on everything I know, that was done. The Senator talks about snafus, about pushing the wrong key on the computer. I do not know about any of those things. I see no documentation whatsoever. All I have seen documentation on is that, based on the best data they had, the Treasury made an estimate. We allocated funds on it. Now that they have another year of data, if they were making the estimate today, it would be different. That is like saying, if I am predicting what is going to happen next year, that it is a snafu that I have imperfect knowledge relative to what I will have next year after I have lived out the year. I do not call that a snafu. I simply call it having to make decisions on the best data that is available. I think this is a fundamental issue. I think many of my colleagues started this debate saying there was a mistake made in last year's estimation because they did not have data which we now have. It just so happens, in that mistake, 31 States gain and 19 States lose. The point is the exact same facts will exist next year and the next year and the next year and the next year, and maybe it will be other States who will gain next year and other States who will lose. But we are creating a chaotic situation if we are going to try to go back each year and redo last year's formula, based on data that was not available last year. That is why, while this is not be-all and end-all of the planet, this is a bad principle and it is a principle we are going to end up refighting every year. In fact, if we start down this road, we might as well have a 1-year lag of collecting the money to allocate it because we are going to end up, every single year, rewriting this formula. Because every Senator is going to check the allocation based on the new data that will be available next year, reestimate the allocation this year, and all those who will gain are going to stand up, as our dear colleague is saying, and say, ``There was a snafu. Somebody pushed the wrong computer key. Somebody made a mistake. They predicted the future and the future turned out to be different, and therefore we ought to go back and correct that.'' The point is, that is not how the system works. If we are going to do that, we are going to create chaos, and that is why I hope we will not do it.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, one of the things I always try to tell my children is you should never debate about facts. You go look up facts, you debate about ideas, you debate about what they mean. Our dear colleague from Montana just quoted from correspondence that, so far as I can determine in talking to the majority and the minority side, no one else has. What I would like to propose is this--and I would like to have a copy of it. What I would like to propose is that we set this amendment aside to give all of us an opportunity to talk to the Treasury Department in the morning and ascertain exactly what the facts are so that we can debate tomorrow where we all are dealing with the same facts. We are all, obviously, entitled to our ideas. Jefferson once said good people with the same facts are going to disagree. But what I think is important that we do is that we be certain that we are all dealing with the same facts. What I will promise my colleague is that I will, obviously, read this memo, and I will talk tomorrow to the Treasury Department to ascertain exactly what happened. All of the documentation that I have that was made available to my office by the Department of Transportation shows that this simply was a best available estimate, which, obviously, is different now that we have additional data, as you would expect it to be. But I would certainly be willing to look at additional information from the Treasury Department. I think probably the best thing to do is to set this amendment aside and give us all an opportunity to talk to the Treasury Department to try to ascertain what the facts are. That would be my suggestion.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I think we have put together a good compromise here. It sets up three conditions that have to be met. It mandates that the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Transportation will look at the issue, which has been raised by our colleague from Montana, and if they make three findings concerning its significance--if the President, based on their study, makes those three findings, then the provision of the Senator from Montana will be offered in the bill. The Senator from Montana has agreed to this amendment. I thank him for working with us on this.

Mr. GRAMM. No.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me get back the copy of the amendment. The three findings are--let me make it clear because I want to be certain, given what the Senator from Indiana said, we are not making the judgment here of whether or not an error was made. It is my belief that probably is not the case, as the Senator from Montana believes that it was the case. We are setting up objective criteria to have a judgment, so we are not prejudging that based on anything we say here. Let me just read it. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Transportation shall conduct a review of the reporting of excise tax data by the Department of Treasury to the Department of Transportation for FY '94 and its impact on the allocation of Federal aid highways. If the President certificates that all of the following conditions are met: 1. A significant error was made by Treasury in its estimate of highway trust fund revenues collected in FY '94; 2. The error is fundamentally different from errors routinely made in such estimates in the past; 3. The error is significant enough to justify that FY '97 apportionments and allocations of highway trust funds be adjusted; and finds that provisions in B-- That is the Baucus amendment. appropriately corrects these deficiencies, then subsection

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

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, we have before us a bill that relates to tracking and identifying sex-offenders. Senator Biden, myself, and a number of other Senators have worked very hard on this bill. Forty-nine States in the Union have set up systems which track known sexual predators because, of all the types of criminal activity, the probability that someone who commits a sexual predatory act will commit that type of crime again--especially against a child--is 10 times higher than the probability that any other type of crime will be repeated. The problem with only having State laws is that people are moving across State lines to try to avoid detection. What our bill does is it sets up an FBI-based Federal tracking system which will track all movements of sexual predators, whether they move across town or across State lines. This system will give us an interactive database, and it will greatly enhance the ability of our communities, our law enforcement officials, and our families to protect our children against sexual predators. Mr. President, again, I have named this bill, in working with Senator Biden, for Pam Lychner, one of the victims of the tragic TWA crash. We have named this bill for her not because of how she tragically died, but because of how she lived. Pam Lychner was one of our Nation's greatest victim's rights advocates. She cared enough for that cause, in the words of the old Hallmark Card commercial, ``to give her very best.'' And in doing so, she reminded people all over my State and people all over America that we are never going to be able to deal with the violent crime problem in this country until those of us who are not victims of crime are as outraged by these atrocities as are the victims themselves. I thank my colleagues for letting this bill pass the Senate. I think it is vitally important that we identify and try to monitor sexual predators and I think we owe it to our society and to law-abiding citizens to do this. I believe that this bill will provide society with a very strong tool which will strengthen local law enforcement, give our families the ability to protect our children, and which will establish a data base that the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and other youth organizations can use to check out those who want to be trusted with our children. I think this bill will save lives and I think it will provide greater comfort and greater security to our families. I am very proud of this effort and I thank Senator Biden for his leadership on this issue. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, again, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and agreed to, the bill be deemed to have been read the third time, and passed, as amended, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements related to the bill be placed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1675, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. This is compromise language. I hope on a bipartisan basis that we will preserve this compromise. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, if there is a hallmark of this bill, it is work. If there is one thing that every Democrat and every Republican boasts about in this bill, it is that it requires able-bodied men and women to work. Last year's bill simply had a one-time penalty for not meeting the work requirements. Members of the Finance Committee were concerned that a State, or the District of Columbia, would simply take the 5-percent penalty each year rather than make a good-faith effort to meet the work requirements in this bill--even with the ability to exempt 20 percent of welfare recipients. Without this compounding provision, we have no real ability to produce a good-faith effort on the part of the States. We have had meetings between the House and the Senate on this issue. We met with the Governors. We worked out what we believe is a compromise. I hope my colleagues will stay with this provision. If you want a work requirement, you have to enforce it.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, first of all, only a tortured view of the Byrd rule would say that our language on the family cap does not save money. But what I want to focus on here is that this is not a controversial provision of the bill but is an integral part of the overall welfare reform measure. As I am sure colleagues on both sides of the aisle will remember, we have had serious debate over this issue. We have gone back and forth. There have been differences. There are some people who believe--I am one of those people--that we should have a family cap and that we ought not to give people more and more money in return for having more and more children while on welfare. There are other people who believe that we should have no family cap and that the current incentives built into the system should continue. What we have in this bill is a crafted compromise that was adopted in committee with broad support. We allow States, at their option, through their action, to opt out of the family cap if they choose. This is a broad-based compromise. It has been supported on a bipartisan basis, and for that reason, I feel very strongly that to preserve common sense in this bill in a way that is coherent and can work, we need to preserve this compromise language. So I ask Members on both sides of the aisle to vote to waive the Byrd rule and keep this provision in place. This provision simply says the family cap exists unless the State opts out. If States decides that they want to continue to give additional cash payments to those who have more and more children while on welfare, the States can do that.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I believe my amendment is the pending amendment. I think the regular order is for 1 minute of debate on each side. I had hoped this amendment might be accepted by a voice vote. But I will go ahead and take my minute now. What my amendment does is denies means-tested benefits to people who are convicted of possessing, using, or selling drugs. In minor cases, they lose welfare for 5 years. In major cases, they lose it for life. What an individual does does not affect the eligibility of that individual's children or other family members. We have an exemption in the bill for emergency medical services, emergency disaster relief, and assistance necessary to protect public health from communicable diseases. None of these provisions applies until date of enactment. These provisions will apply only on convictions after that date. But the bottom line is, if we are serious about our drug laws, we ought not to give people welfare benefits who are violating the Nation's drug laws. I hope my colleagues will adopt this provision and do so with a resounding vote.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President. I would like to discuss with the distinguished Chairman and ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee an important matter that I and a number of our colleagues have been working on. As I am sure they are aware, the Senate adopted an amendment I offered to the fiscal year 1997 Senate Defense Authorization bill that would require the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services to jointly submit to the Congress no later than September 6, 1996 a detailed military retiree Medicare subvention demonstration program implementation plan. That amendment also authorized funds to pay for the demonstration program. Currently, however, the fiscal year 1997 Defense Appropriations bill does not include funding for this important effort. I would like to bring this matter to the attention of my colleagues, and to propose expediting a reprogramming request in fiscal year 1997 to fund the demonstration program should the Congress authorize it for fiscal year 1997.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, there is no issue that better defines the differences that exist between the two parties than the issue that is now before the Senate. It is a simple, straightforward issue that many Members of the Senate hope the public does not understand. Should a man or a woman in the greatest and freest country in the history of the world be forced to join a union in order to have the right to work? That is the issue. If, in order to exercise one of our basic rights--the right to contract our labor--we are forced to pay an institution that we do not wish to join, are we free, or is our freedom abridged? That is the question that is before the Senate, and I think the American people understand it.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, recognizing that we are unlikely here on the floor of the Senate to repeal the law of supply and demand, as many of our Members would like us to try to do, we have included in this debate a tax bill, H.R. 3448, the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, which was put together on a bipartisan basis to try to offset some of the negative impacts of an increase in the minimum wage, especially as it relates to increasing unemployment among young people with low skill levels. What I would like to do this morning is talk about some very positive provisions in that bill and explain why I am for the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996. I want to talk specifically about four provisions of this bill that I have been directly involved in, and explain to my colleagues why they are important and why it is critical that this bill pass and why we must send a bill to the President which can be signed. The first issue I want to talk about has to do with agricultural club dues. We have had, since 1987, a running dispute between the Internal Revenue Service and the Farm Bureau about Farm Bureau dues. In this bill, we have a provision that I and others have pushed which says to the Internal Revenue Service that: First, dues to the Farm Bureau are not taxable Farm Bureau income; second, that the Farm Bureau is a nonprofit agricultural research and business promotion institution which is owned by its members; and third, that being part of the Farm Bureau is being part of agriculture. Interestingly enough, the Internal Revenue Service did not oppose our effort to say to them that in the future, Farm Bureau dues will not be viewed as income to the Farm Bureau. Yet for some unexplainable reason, the Internal Revenue Service has continued to press ongoing lawsuits against Farm Bureaus in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington State and Alabama. In these States, there is ongoing litigation--instituted by the Internal Revenue Service--where the IRS is trying to force the Farm Bureau to pay taxes they do not owe. I do not understand how the Internal Revenue Service can say that they are willing to be supportive of an act of Congress that defines that for all future times, dues to the Farm Bureau are not taxable income, but yet refuses to go back and drop all these lawsuits. We had hoped in the Finance Committee to work out an agreement on this issue. I worked with the chairman and the ranking member who were hopeful that the Internal Revenue Service would issue a position paper saying that it would drop these existing lawsuits, but the Internal Revenue Service has refused to do that. In fact, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter to this effect, from the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy, be printed in the Record.