Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Yes, I will yield.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me just respond very briefly. I do not think there is anyone here who argues that there is no racism in America or that we do not have any discrimination today. I think we all know that, thank God, there is not as much as there used to be, but if there is any, and there clearly is, it is too much. The point is, however, that we cannot correct unfairness in America by making unfairness the law of the land. We cannot correct injustices of the present or the past by legislating injustice in the present to carry us into the future. The point is that any time people are judged on the basis of anything but merit, it is unfair. That is our definition of discrimination. That is our definition of prejudice. What we are doing with set-asides is legislating discrimination into the law of the land, the idea being that if wrongs have existed, if wrongs exist today, that somehow we can correct them by making another wrong the law of the land. I reject that. I think that is faulty logic, and making unfairness the law of the land, it seems to me, simply holds the system up as being corrupt. Second, I want to make it clear that I have not used the term ``affirmative action'' once in this debate, and I never use the term ``affirmative action.'' When Lyndon Johnson chose the term ``affirmative action'' in 1965, it is clear to me that he chose it for one and only one reason: Nobody knew what it meant. And it is equally clear that nobody knows what it means today. I have sought to deal with one issue, set-asides, the granting of contracts on the basis of something other than merit. I make it very clear in the amendment, something that I have worked on with Members of the House and the Senate and outside groups, that there is nothing in this amendment that prohibits outreach, that prohibits recruitment. The legislative branch of Government could spend an unlimited amount of money trying to get people to bid on contracts, trying to help them bid, trying to outreach to them, trying to school them, trying to be of assistance to them. All of that is perfectly allowable under this amendment. But where this amendment draws the line is that once the contracts are submitted, you cannot decide who gets the contract on the basis of race, color, national origin, or gender. You have to decide it on merit. That is the American way of doing things. Any other way is inherently unfair, is inherently discriminatory, and it is discrimination written into the law of the land. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, if the Senator uses her time up, I will, at that point, yield for a question.

Mr. GRAMM

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

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I rise today in support of the budget agreement. I want to congratulate Senator Domenici. I want to congratulate Congressman Kasich. It is very seldom in American politics that you get an opportunity to vote for a big bill--a budget in this case--that takes a step toward fundamentally changing the way our Government does its business. I am not saying that this is the be-all and end-all of budgeting. I am not saying that this budget in and of itself is going to fundamentally change the future of America. But I am saying that it is an important step in the right direction. It is clearly the most dramatic and important budget that we have adopted in the U.S. Congress since 1981. I believe that the American people will be beneficiaries of this budget. And it is not perfect, from my point of view. I think we could have cut spending more. I think we could have let working people keep more of what they earned. I think we could have done more to change fundamentally American Government. The bottom-line truth is that this is a dramatic change in policy, and I think everybody who has had anything to do with this budget can be proud of what they have done. Let me set in perspective what we are doing here today. We are writing, over a 7-year period, a binding budget that, if enforced over that 7-year period, will balance the Federal budget. That is something that we have not done since 1969. The important thing to note about this budget is that we are not promising to do things in the future that will balance the budget. What we are doing in this budget, and in the follow-on legislation that we will adopt this year, is we are making changes now that will, over the next 7 years, if the economy stays roughly as we now anticipate it will stay, in a modest recovery mode, balance the Federal budget and will, for the first time in over a quarter-century, mean that the Federal Government is living within its means. That is a very important change in public policy. What did it take to achieve this change? Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to talk about deep cuts, about denying benefits, but let me try to set that in perspective. Since 1950, Federal spending has grown, on average, about 7\1/2\ percent a year. Federal spending since 1950 has grown 2.5 times as fast as family income has grown. An interesting number is, that if the family budget since 1950 had grown as fast as the Federal budget has grown, and if the Federal budget had grown as fast as the budget of the average family in America has grown, the average income of working families in America today would be almost $130,000 a year and the Federal Government would be one-third the size it is today. Given a choice between the America we have and that America, I would take the America of higher family income and smaller government. What we are doing in this budget is limiting the growth of Federal spending to no more than 3 percent a year, each year, for the next 7 years. Now I know we have many people on the other side who will say, well, after having grown at 7\1/2\ percent a year for 40 years that to limit the growth to 3 percent a year is going to decimate Government programs. I would just like to remind my colleagues that every day in America, businesses make tougher decisions than that just to keep their doors open. Every day in America, families make far tougher decisions than that in dealing with the real world problems that families in America face every single day. The difference is that families and businesses live in the real world in America where you have to make tough choices. Our Government has not lived in the real world for the past 40 years. I think we can take a little pride in the fact that this budget is a major step toward bringing our Government in Washington back into the real world that everybody else lives in. Under the old budget, under the Clinton budget, the Federal Government over the next 7 years would have spent $13 trillion. Under this budget, we are still going to spend $12 trillion. We are talking about spending roughly $1 trillion less than we would have spent. But we are talking about more than simply controlling the growth of Government. We are talking about something that I fought for in the Senate. I offered an amendment to cut spending further so we could let working families keep more of what they earn. That amendment was not successful. But I am very proud of the fact that the conference accepted, basically, a variant of the House language that allows working families to keep more of what they earned. In 1950, the average family with two little children in America sent $1 out of every $50 it earned to Washington, DC. Today that average family with two children is sending $1 out of every $4 it earns to Washington, DC. I do not think there are many people in America that believe that Washington is doing a better job of spending that family's money than that family would do if we let them keep more of what they earn, to invest in their own children, in their own family, in their own business. I am very proud of the fact that we are making a major step in this budget that is going to let us enact a $500 tax credit per child so that families can spend more of their own money on their own children on their own future. In our tax cut, we call for a cut in the capital gains tax rate. I know the President says if you cut tax rates, rich people will exploit the situation. They will invest their money. If they are successful they will earn profits. Welcome to America. That is how our system works. We want to encourage more people to invest money. I do not understand a country and a Government and people who love jobs but hate people who create them. I do not understand all this class warfare that we are always debating about. If we want people to invest money, we have to provide incentives to people who have money. Those are basically people who have been successful. What a different world our President is from than the world I am from. When I was growing up and we rode by the nicest house in town, never once did my mama point her finger out and say, ``We ought to tax those people, and give us their money.'' My mother always pointed her finger out and said, ``If you work hard and you make good grades, you can have a house like that.'' I like my mama's America a lot better than I like Bill Clinton's America. I am proud of the fact that in our budget we provide incentives for people to invest their money to create jobs and growth and opportunity so that other Americans can get their foot on the bottom rung of the economic ladder and climb up and begin to create success for themselves, their family, and their country. This tax cut that we are talking about in this bill sounds like a small amount of money in Washington, DC, $500 per child. Many have said, well, it is not enough money to make any difference. Well, to a two-child family in Texas, that is $1,000. And $1,000 is real money. The fact that $1,000 is not real money in Washington, DC, tells more about the problems in Washington, DC, than it does about anything else. The tax credit for children that we contemplate in our budget will mean that a family with four children, that makes $35,000 a year, will be taken off the income tax rolls. A family with two children that earns $45,000 a year, if we go on now and adopt the tax cut that goes with this budget, will see its income taxes cut by one-fourth. This will mean that working families can keep more of their own money to invest in education, in housing, in nutrition. The President, in criticizing our budget, says this budget cuts spending on children. This is not a debate about how much money we spend on children, but it is certainly a debate about who will do the spending. President Clinton and the Democrats want the Government to do the spending. We want the family to do the spending. We know the Government and we know the family. We know the difference. We believe that letting families keep more of what they earn to invest in their own children will mean that they will do a better job and they will be richer and freer and happier. When we concluded the debate on this budget, I was concerned that we were not going to fulfill the promises that Republicans made in the campaign. We promised the American people three things if they made Republicans the majority: No. 1, we would balance the budget; No. 2, we would let working families keep more of what they earn; No. 3, we would provide incentives for economic growth. I am proud of the fact that in this final budget we are balancing the budget over a 7-year period. We are letting families keep more of what they earn. We are providing incentives for economic growth. Promises made, promises kept. That is something that there has not been enough of in Washington, DC. I am very proud to have been part of an effort where we have fulfilled our promises and where we are, in fact, beginning to change the way our Government does its business. I served in the House and in the Senate. I have never had an opportunity to vote for a budget that if fully enforced, under realistic assumptions, would do the job of balancing the Federal budget. I am very proud that I am going to have an opportunity to cast my vote for this budget. It may very well be that 2 years from now or 4 years from now we will have to go back and make an adjustment. It may very well be that we will have to reduce the growth in spending further at some point to get the job done. I am certainly willing to do that. The important thing today is--and I think every Member of the Senate, whether they vote for this budget or not, can be proud of the fact-- that we have written a budget that is a fundamental change. This budget would never have been written had the 1994 elections not been held, had there not been a fundamental change in the makeup and control of Congress. But we are writing, today, a budget that under realistic assumptions will balance the budget over the next 7 years. It represents a change in policy. It represents the fulfillment of a commitment that we have made to the American people. I think every person who is privileged to serve in the Senate today can be proud of the fact that this budget does what the American people wanted done, change the way we do business in Washington. It does not complete the job. In and of it itself today, it does not balance the budget. But it lays the foundation for a 7-year program that if we stay with it, if we are willing to make changes when things go wrong--and they inevitably go wrong--with modest adjustments over the next 7 years, we can guarantee the American people that we will balance the Federal budget, and if things go well, we can do it without further action. I think that is a tremendous achievement. I am very proud to have played a small role in it. I congratulate Senator Domenici. I congratulate Members of the House and Senate. And I am delighted to have an opportunity to cast a vote for this budget. I reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I yield myself 15 minutes. Madam President, I think we are all happy today that there is going to be no trade war between the United States and Japan, and I congratulate the President for avoiding that crisis. But I think it is interesting to look back at all the political bravado of the Clinton administration in the last several months, to look back at all of their statements saying they were not going to budge an inch. Yet, today, when the final agreement came out, it is a voluntary agreement with no specifically defined targets. I think we have seen, once again, in dealing with the Clinton administration, after all is said and done, there is always more said than done.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding. We are coming down to the final moments of the debate. We will have our final vote here in a few minutes. I would like simply to review the key issues. First of all, let me address the issue of the cloture vote. To listen to our colleagues, it would sound as if we never vote on cloture in the U.S. Senate. Yet, hardly a week goes by that we do not have a cloture vote. It is part of the fabric of American democracy. It was part of the process making the Senate the deliberative body of Congress that George Washington described to Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson came back from France. Thomas Jefferson had been the American Minister to France while the Constitutional Convention was occurring. Our colleagues talk about cloture votes and filibuster. Yet, since 1968, 24 times we have had cloture votes on nominations, and nearly every one of them occurring when we had Democratically controlled Congresses. The way our system works is, if there is a determined minority, that minority has the right to speak in the U.S. Senate. There is, today, a determined minority. And to accommodate the Senate, an agreement was worked out so that the proponents of this nomination had not one vote, but two. That was agreed to by unanimous consent. Any Member of the Senate could have objected. No one objected. So this is a process that we chose and that every Member agreed to. This is a process that we all understand, and it is a process called ``democracy.'' It has served us well in the past. It will serve us well today when we reject this nomination. I remind my colleagues that there was a Democratic effort to stop the confirmation of Chief Justice Rehnquist of the Supreme Court. That nomination went to a cloture vote. In that case, cloture was invoked. But the point was somebody on the Democratic side of the aisle felt so strongly about that nomination to one of the three most important offices in the land--the head of an entire branch of American Government--that they exercised their right. Many people did not like it, but that is how our system works. In that case, the process worked. We invoked cloture. Judge Rehnquist was confirmed. And in this case it is going to work as well. We are not going to invoke cloture, and Dr. Foster is not going to be confirmed. Now, let me address the issue of Dr. Foster's credentials, and let me make it very clear that there is absolutely nothing in this debate that has anything to do with anything other than his qualifications to hold this office. There are two principal qualifications that our colleagues go on and on about with Dr. Foster. No. 1, he was the department head at a medical school in America. That is true. It is also true that the department he headed lost its accreditation while he was head of that department. Was it his fault? Were there extenuating circumstances? Were there other factors involved? Certainly there were. There always are. But the bottom line is that he served as the department head of a department that lost its accreditation. The second argument given is that he established a program with a wonderful name, ``I Have a Future.'' That program's stated goal was to reduce teen pregnancy. Our colleagues make a big point that this program was given a Point of Light Award. It was given that award because of its objective, a noble and great objective, and one that we need to promote all over America. But the bottom line is there were two objective assessments of that program, and both of them were made after it was given this award. Both evaluations concluded exactly the same thing: This program did not in any statistically significant way reduce teen pregnancy among those who participated in the program. I said it yesterday. I will say it again today. And every Member of the Senate knows it. If we had set up a distinguished panel of physicians to go out and look at qualifications of physicians in America and to come up with a list of 1,000 physicians who were eminently qualified to hold the position as America's first physician, Surgeon General, Dr. Foster's name would not have been on that list. I do not think anybody here believes that Dr. Foster is qualified to be Surgeon General when considering his two major credentials: One being the head of a department that lost its accreditation; the other being the director of wonderful-sounding program with a noble objective which, according to two objective assessments, proved totally ineffective in promoting those objectives. Because it has been the focal point of the debate, as it should be, I am not going to get into again the problem of Dr. Foster's credibility. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was the White House's fault, maybe it is failing memory, maybe it is simply a lack of understanding of the political process and how it works. But the bottom line is, on virtually every issue that has been raised, there has been a problem of credibility. Finally, on the whole issue of abortion. I did not see the presentation that my dear colleague, Senator Smith, made about partial- birth abortions. Maybe some people were offended by the presentation. But I am offended that this is happening in America. I think people do have different views on abortion, and I respect the opinion of people who disagree with me. But I think it is an extreme view when you take the view which Dr. Foster takes, in opposition to parental consent in cases involving abortion and minors. Polls show that is an extreme view; 80 percent of the people in America think that parents ought to be notified when abortion is going to be performed on a minor. I think it is an extreme view when a child is in the process of being born, and its life is extinguished. I think it is an extreme view that when a lady is being taken down the hallway toward the delivery room, that it is perfectly acceptable in America to make a left turn to perform an abortion. The American people, by a margin of over 70 percent, think that is an extreme view. Why filibuster? Why force a 60-percent vote? The answer to that is very, very simple. A lot of us felt very strongly about Joycelyn Elders. When I read the things that she had said about the Roman Catholic Church, when I read the her comments which made her sound more potentially successful as a radio talk show host than a Surgeon General of the United States, when I looked at how extreme her views were, I did not think she ought to have that job. But this was the President's first nomination for this position, and there was no way of knowing in advance exactly what she would be like. I voted no; I opposed her nomination; I fought it; I wanted to defeat it, but I did not use the power that the minority has in the Senate, and that is the power to debate. Having made that mistake on Joycelyn Elders, I and others were determined that we were not going to make that mistake again. I believe Dr. Foster is not qualified for this position. I believe that there are real credibility problems concerning the facts that have been presented to the country and the Congress. And [[Page S 8865]] finally, I believe that his views are radical and outside the mainstream of American thinking. Yesterday, I quoted our President four times from his campaign, talking about the values of our people, talking about family values, talking about traditional values. I do not believe that Dr. Foster's views match the President's 1992 campaign rhetoric. I think one thing we have a right to expect Presidents to do once they are elected is to put forth nominees whose views are consistent with their campaign rhetoric. We have a right to expect that those campaign views will be reflected in their nominees. Do not get me wrong. When people voted for Bill Clinton, they voted for more spending, more taxes, more regulation, more Government, and for the appointment of liberals. If they did not know it, they should have known it. That is what democracy is about. But they did not vote for the radicals that this President has appointed. This is an appointment where the views of this candidate are outside the mainstream of American thinking, and I believe we are making the right decision in saying no.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I have had an opportunity to look at that. But I think the fact remains, whatever you are going to say about an individual and about his efforts, when you are talking about promoting a person to be the Nation's chief physician, it is not a qualification under any circumstance to say that under his stewardship his department at his medical school lost its accreditation. No matter how or why or what the circumstances, I do not think [[Page S 8728]] anybody would say that is a qualification. Nor do I believe that his I Have A Future Program, when the only two evaluations that were ever done, to the best of my knowledge, showed it had absolutely no statistically significant effect on the objective it sought, should be considered a qualification.

Mr. GRAMM. I will not yield. I would be happy to yield when I finish. If you want to yield on your time, Senator Kennedy, I would be happy to yield on your time, but I only have 15 minutes. No. 2, Dr. Foster served as director of the I Have a Future Program. In the [[Page S 8727]] stated mission is, to ``address the burgeoning problem of adolescent pregnancy.'' That is the stated goal of the program. We have heard repeatedly Dr. Foster's leadership in this program stated as a qualification for being Surgeon General. Now, on two occasions, and only two occasions that I am aware of, there were evaluations of this program. In both evaluations, the 1992 evaluation and the 1994 evaluation, evidence, that was in no way challenged by the people who were running this program, was clearly presented that showed the program had failed to produce any change in adolescent pregnancy among the people who were involved in the program as compared to the people who were not involved. In both evaluations, any difference in pregnancy rates that existed-- apparently a slightly higher level in the first study, a slightly lower level in the second study--were considered statistically insignificant. In neither case did these two evaluations find any statistically significant difference in teen pregnancy rates among people in this program. On the two major positions that Dr. Foster has held--the head of a department of a medical school which lost its accreditation under his leadership, and a program funded by charitable contributions which did not, in either study reporting on its achievements, achieve its goal--I do not believe that any private personnel firm in America would have recommended Henry Foster for a position in the private sector of the economy, based on these two factors, or would have ever come forward with his name as someone qualified to be Surgeon General. I am not going to get into the credibility issue because it will be discussed at length by my colleagues. On virtually every issue, from the number of abortions he performed, to whether or not it was standard practice to have involuntary sterilization of mentally incompetent people, to the very nature of the I Have a Future Program, or from the simple question of whether Dr. Foster had ever had a malpractice suit or been the subject of litigation, on almost every subject which was raised in the hearing, in almost everything which has been debated, in almost every issue that has come from the White House or come from Dr. Foster, there has been a consistent credibility problem. Now, I want to get to the real reason that I am opposed to this nomination. We have two good reasons that anybody could be opposed to it. I oppose it for those reasons. But the real reason I oppose it is, the American people would have had no reason to believe that the Bill Clinton running for office in 1992 who became President would have appointed such a person. They would have every reason to believe it today. In 1995, after Joycelyn Elders, after gays in the military, after the Clinton Justice Department has entered every suit involving quotas and set-asides on the side of quotas and set-asides, after a series of appointments of people who hold radical views, today, no one is surprised. Let me read four brief statements that in 1992, as candidate for President, Bill Clinton said. No. 1, ``I want the American people to know that a Clinton administration will put their values into our social policy at home;'' No. 2, ``I want an America where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches;'' No. 3, ``The thing that makes me angriest about what's gone wrong in the last 12 years is that our Government has lost touch with our values while our politicians continue to shout about them;'' and finally, ``We offer our people a new choice based on old values.'' Now, some people have said this is a debate about abortion. To some extent, it is a debate about abortion. But it is a debate about radical views on abortion that were held by Joycelyn Elders and that are held totally and completely by Dr. Foster. The view that, No. 1, we should not have parental notification for minors, a view that the vast majority of American people do not share. A view that abortion on demand should everywhere be the rule and the guiding principle, even in late abortions, even in those cases where States, today, are trying to exercise their legitimate rights under the Webster decision. I do not believe those views represent traditional American values. I do not believe they represent the will of the American people. And, finally, let me read one little quote which tells the whole story, from the ``I Have A Future, Family Life Module Staff Manual'' from September 1994, which was sent by the White House to the committee as a summation of the work of Dr. Foster on this program. Let me read one quote. Values are neither good nor bad. They are the way you feel. Values are neither good nor bad. They are the way you feel. That in no way represents in any degree the statements that Bill Clinton made throughout his 1992 campaign. The Foster nomination is a nomination of a person who does not represent the traditional values of the American people and a person whose views are radical as compared to theirs and outside the mainstream that could have been expected of Bill Clinton when he was a candidate in 1992. Final point: Why filibuster? Why not bring this up for just a simple vote and let the majority rule? The Founders, in setting the rules of the Senate, felt that if a determined minority had strong views that in order to shut off debate, it would require a supermajority. That provision has been used on numerous occasions by both parties and, by and large, it has served the interests of the public well. When Joycelyn Elders was nominated by the President, based on her record, based on her credibility, based on her qualifications, and based on how her views compared to the views of candidate Bill Clinton in 1992, I strongly opposed her nomination. But this was early in the process. We did not know what she would be like as a Surgeon General, and so no one prevented the vote. We now have seen a disastrous tenure by Joycelyn Elders. We have seen a tenure that has divided the country. And I do not believe that we should confirm a candidate for Surgeon General whose views are identical to Joycelyn Elders' in nearly every way. We made a mistake on Joycelyn Elders by not denying a vote on her nomination. That was a mistake I, for one, was determined not to make again. Now, I believe that this is a nominee who is wrong for this job. If there is one position in Government that ought to be easy to fill, it ought to be Surgeon General. The duty of Surgeon General is to use moral suasion on public health issues. The duty of the Surgeon General is to unite the Nation in promoting good public health. And that ought to be an easy thing to do because nobody is opposed to good public health. Surely, there must be one physician in America who voted for Bill Clinton, who supports him, who shares his views as stated in the campaign, who could do that job. Unfortunately, Dr. Foster is not such a nominee. I oppose his nomination. I have determined, along with my colleagues, to vigorously oppose it, to require that there be a vote on ending debate. For the sake of saving the time of the Senate, we have agreed to a procedure to vote on it not once but twice so certainly no one can say they did not get the opportunity to end this debate. But I oppose this nomination. This is the wrong person with the wrong views for the wrong job. I think we can serve the public interest by saying ``no.'' I think ``no'' is the right answer. I am confident we are going to say it. I thank my colleague for yielding me the time and I yield back my time.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding. I rise in opposition to the Foster nomination. Elections have consequences. I think democracy is based on the principle that when the American people go to the polls and vote, that vote has an impact on government. I think when the American people voted for Bill Clinton, they either knew or should have known that his Presidency was going to mean a bigger Government. It was going to mean more spending. It was going to mean more taxes. It was going to mean more decisions made in Washington and fewer decisions made around the kitchen table. It was going to mean, on political appointments, that liberals were going to be nominated. Let me say, Mr. President, we have considered hundreds of Clinton nominees. I am not aware of one who represented my philosophy or my values. Yet, with the exception of a small handful of those nominees, I have either voted for them or I have allowed them to pass without a vote. Why? Because I think philosophy alone is not grounds for voting against confirmation of any nominee, including Dr. Foster. What I have tried to do is to set out three criteria for considering a nominee: No. 1, is the nominee competent for the position? No. 2, is the nominee credible? Can you believe what the nominee says? Is the nominee trustworthy in his or her career? No. 3, are the nominee's views--in the case of Bill Clinton--mainstream Democrat Party views of the type that the American people could have believed, could have known, or could have been expected to have known would be reflected in the people that Bill Clinton--as they would have known him and perceived him in the 1992 election--would nominate? It is on the basis of these three criteria that I oppose the Foster nomination and will resist the nomination with my colleagues. It is on the basis of that opposition, on these three criteria, that we are going to have two votes on cloture. I hope and believe that those cloture motions will be defeated, and that the Foster nomination will not go forward. Let me start with competence. Dr. Foster has held two important positions in his career that have been pointed out as his qualifications for this office. No. 1, Dr. Foster was the head of Meharry Medical College's obstetrics-gynecology residency program. During his tenure as head of that department, that program lost its accreditation. I do not believe that is a strong recommendation. I do not believe Dr. Foster's record of having allowed the department, under his leadership, to lose its accreditation, is a qualification to hold a position which, in essence, is a position as America's physician. In that position he would oversee the presentation of reports and would actually make substantive decisions that would be binding on other members of the Government.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 1446

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Commerce Department Dismantling Act of 1995. I want to compliment Senator Abraham and Senator [[Page S8501]] Faircloth for their hard work in producing this legislation, and I look forward to working with them as this legislation is considered in committee and the Senate. The Commerce Department is the only Cabinet-level agency terminated in the Senate budget resolution, and it is important that we keep our promise to the American people to put the Federal Government on a budget, say no to more Federal spending, and allow American families to keep more of what they earn. Mr. President, I do have concerns about some specific transfers of Commerce authority to other Departments and feel that, with further study, we can find a more appropriate destination for those functions that are retained. Nevertheless, I am strongly supportive of our effort to eliminate the Commerce Department, and will work with my colleagues to strengthen the bill we are introducing today.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, there are many things to praise in this budget, and I want to begin by praising the man who made it happen, and his name is Pete Domenici. I think he has provided great leadership in the Senate, and given the numbers we had to work with, given the disposition of our Members, I do not think anybody can have anything to say about Pete Domenici other than to give him the credit he is due. But I want all my colleagues to understand exactly where we are as we pass this budget. With the adoption of the Snowe amendment, this budget now before the Senate spends $184 billion over the 7-year period, more on nondefense programs than the budget that was adopted in the House. That is $184 billion worth of additional nondefense program spending that is going to have to be taken out in conference, if we are going to have any opportunity to have a real cut in taxes for working families, and if we are going to have any real opportunity to provide incentives for growth. I want my colleagues to know that I am going to vote for this budget. I want to urge every person in the Senate who wants to balance the Federal budget to vote for this budget, and I hope we get a sound vote. But I want my colleagues to understand that unless we cut this excessive spending out, unless we let working families keep more of what they earn, unless we provide incentives for growth, and unless we balance the budget while doing those things in the final product that will come out of the House Senate conference, I am not going to vote for that budget. I believe we can do these things. Our House colleagues have shown us that it can be done. And I am hopeful, when we go to conference with the House, that we will look at our mandate from the election, we will look at what our colleagues in the House did, we will take heart and leadership from them, and that we will come back with a budget that is balanced over a 7-year period, that lets working families keep more of what they earn, and that provides incentives for people to work, save, and invest. That is what I favor. I believe that is what the American people favor. And by passing this budget today, we have an opportunity to begin to make that happen. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, 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 rise today in support of the conference report to accompany H.R. 1158, the Emergency Supplemental and Rescission Act. I am proud of the fact that my colleagues and I on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have cut more spending in this bill than in any rescission bill in the history of this country. I want to compliment Chairman Hatfield and Chairman Livingston for their leadership on this legislation. The bill cuts $16.4 billion in spending and provides supplemental funding for disaster relief and increased anti-terrorism funding to respond to the Oklahoma City bombing. I, for one, am outraged that President Clinton announced last Wednesday that he intends to veto this rescission bill. The President should sign the rescission bill and join our efforts to put the Federal Government on a budget like everybody else. When President Clinton vetoes a $16 billion cut in Government spending to protect a few pet programs, he is putting the interests of his administration and his part in front of the interests of the people of America. I would like to comment briefly on the supplemental funding provided for the FBI and the Justice Department in the Commerce, Justice, State section of the bill. The President requested $71 million for the Justice Department's response to the Oklahoma City bombing and to enhance Federal law enforcement's ability to respond to domestic terrorism. The conferees were concerned that, in many cases, the President's request failed to provide the true, full-year cost of hiring additional FBI and other Justice Department personnel, since the President assumes that many of these new personnel will be hired late in the fiscal year. As a strong supporter of federal law enforcement, I wanted to ensure that the FBI and the Justice Department have the resources they need to prosecute and convict the violent criminals who committed the Oklahoma City bombing. I also wanted to begin the process of strengthening Federal law enforcement so that we can do everything possible to prevent anything like this terrible crime from ever happening again. To accomplish these goals, the conferees have provided $113 million for the Justice Department, including $90 million for the FBI, and an additional $16.6 million for increased security at Federal courthouses. These amounts are within the parameters set for this bill by the full committee chairmen, and I intend to provide additional resources for these purposes when I present my recommendations for the fiscal year 1996 Justice Department appropriation. I am dismayed that, in many cases, the additional resources requested by the President to respond to the Oklahoma City bombing are for items previously requested by the FBI and the Justice Department in their regular budget requests, but previously rejected by the Clinton White House. Under the Clinton administration, the FBI endured a nearly 2-year hiring freeze, while normal attrition reduced the number of special agents by 765. The FBI crime laboratory has been forced to curtail the services it provides State and local law enforcement agencies due to budget constraints. As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the FBI, I am committed to reversing this trend, and I am confident that these efforts will have the strong support of the American people and the vast majority of the Senate. Finally, I am proud that the conference agreement on the Commerce, Justice, State section of the bill includes more new spending reductions than either of the House- or Senate-passed bills. The budget resolution currently under consideration in the Congress will build on the good work of [[Page S7381]] this rescission bill and ultimately lead us to the first balanced Federal budget since 1969. When we complete our work on these measures, we will have fulfilled the promise Republicans made to the American people last November, to put the Federal Government on a budget, to say not to more Federal spending, and to allow more families to say yes to their own spending priorities for their own children. national korean war veterans armistice day

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, if this amendment is adopted, both the House and the Senate will have adopted the tax cut in the Contract With America. We will have cut the growth in spending sufficiently to balance the Federal budget and to let working men and women keep more of what they earn to invest in their future, to invest in their children, to invest in their businesses. If we reject this amendment we will have a budget in the Senate that spends $175 billion more on nondefense spending over the next 7 years than the House budget does, and by not reducing spending as much, we will not give a tax cut to working families, we will not cut the capital gains tax rate, we will not transfer spending authority back to parents. We will continue to take the position, as this budget does, that the Congress of the United States knows better how to spend $175 billion than parents would know how to spend it, if they got to keep it to invest in their own children; that we, by spending $175 billion more than the House in this budget, believe we can do more to help the economy through Government subsidies than the private sector can do by cutting the capital gains tax rate and by having real investment in the private sector of the economy. A new day is dawning in the House of Representatives. They did something virtually unheard of in the modern era of American politics. They set out in black and white what they would do if we gave them a majority in the House of Representatives, as we did in the Senate, and then they did it. What we are doing here is fulfilling only half of our contract. Now, I know from having talked to enough of my colleagues that the fix is in, that there is talk about coming up with a compromise. There is discussion of cutting a deal so that we can go on in the Senate spending substantially more than the House is spending and yet we are going to act as if we are giving a tax cut, possibly in some kind of temporary tax-cut proposal. I do not believe that is what Americans had in mind when for the first time in 40 years they gave us a majority in both Houses of Congress. I think they believe that we were going to change the way our Government does our business. This amendment gives us a very, very clear choice. If you support the Contract With America, if you want to control spending so we can balance the budget and so that we can let working men and women keep more of what they earn to invest in their own children, in their own businesses, in their own future, then vote for this amendment and guarantee that the Contract With America will be embodied in the final budget we adopt. But if you want the Senate to be able to spend $175 billion more than the House budget, if you think we can spend money better than the people who earn it, then you want to vote no. I think that coming back later with some temporary tax cut, with some cut-a-deal proposal, undermines what we committed to the American people we would do, and I am opposed to it. I support this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

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

Mr. GRAMM. It is beautiful both inside and out. I would like to make a couple of simple points. No. 1, our colleagues always get confused when we are talking about tax cuts. They are always thinking about welfare. So they cannot understand when we cut taxes that people who do not pay any taxes do not get a tax cut. Those people are already riding in the wagon. I did not see 40 million people on welfare riding in that wagon. I did not see $350 billion taken away last year from working people to give to the people riding in the wagon. When our colleague says that someone with a certain income level only got a $120 tax reduction, since the credit is $1,000 for a two-child family, that means they were only paying $120 in taxes. Tax cuts are for people who are paying taxes. In terms of all this business about rich people, I go back to my point: How can we be a country that loves jobs and hates the people that create them? The only way rich people will benefit from the capital gains tax rate is to invest money and be successful. If they invest money and they are successful and they do create jobs and the Federal Government takes a substantial portion of what they earn, why should they not benefit? What is wrong with profits? Is America the only country in the world as we are going into the 21st century where capitalism is a dirty word? This is something I do not understand. This is a different perspective on America than I have ever seen. Again, I think it does clearly define the vision that I am talking about versus the old and tired vision which has dominated American Government for 40 years. It is almost as if it is better to have people in misery as long as we can rub everybody's nose in it, rather than trying to create incentives for economic growth. Redistributing wealth does not solve poverty. Creating wealth does solve it, and that is what the debate is about. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I would like to say to my dear colleague from Connecticut that that is a fine looking wagon.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print a series of letters in the Record in support of the amendment by the National Taxpayers Union, by Citizens for a Sound Economy, by the Christian Coalition, by Traditional Values Coalition, by the Family Research Council, by Concerned Women of America, by the Business and Industrial Council, and by the National Federation of Independent Business.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. GRAMM. I yield to the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have to give our dear colleagues on the left credit for one thing. They do not propose budgets. They do not vote for balanced budget amendments to the Constitution. They never propose cutting anything. But they can stand up in front of God and everybody else and say they are for balancing the budget. It is like Bill Clinton, who feels our pain and does not share with us that he causes it all the time. I believe that we have a clear and stark choice here. You can support or not support Senator Domenici's budget, but he makes the hard choices to balance the budget over the next 7 years. What my amendment does is make more hard choices, cut spending more so that in addition to balancing the budget, we can let the working men and women of America keep more of what they earn.

Mr. GRAMM. Tax cuts, not increases.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I yield the junior Senator from Arizona 6 minutes.