Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I wanted to come over this morning and join my colleagues in talking about our dear friend and colleague, Slade Gorton. I don't have enough time this morning to list all the things this good man has done for America. It is hard to even contemplate lifting all of the times he has provided critical leadership for the Senate. The thing that stands out most about Slade is that he is wise. There is a difference between intellect and wisdom. Intellect is, in my opinion, often overrated. I see intellect as being like the lens on your camera. The better that lens is, the wider your frame can be on the picture and the finer the detail can be on that picture. So if you are blessed to have good intellect, you are advantaged. What is important is the ability to take the information that your lens on the world can see and put that into a perspective where it has meaning. That is where wisdom comes in. Slade Gorton, we would agree by almost acclamation, is one of the smartest Members of the Senate. But he is more than that. He is wise. He has the ability to recognize when something is important and when it should be pushed forward and when it represents a potential consensus; but he has the judgment in knowing, in pushing for the things he is for. In the end, it is seldom good policy and it seldom makes good public policy to run over people. I say to our colleagues, Slade Gorton is one of the most extraordinary men who has served in the Senate during my tenure in the Senate. He will be missed in the Senate. I believe Slade is the kind of person that we grew up as children reading about in history books. I think even in this age of cynicism about people who serve in public office, Slade Gorton stands out as exactly the kind of person the founders had in mind when they wrote the Senate into the Constitution. I think Slade Gorton in his record would stand up in a comparison to anyone who has ever served in this body or anyone who has served in any legislative body ever. For those who know and love Slade and who have worked with him in Washington, it is hard to understand how people back in the other Washington, a continent away, could not reelect Slade Gorton to the Senate. I think it is important to remember the final judgment ultimately comes as people look in perspective at somebody's service. In my State, our greatest hero, our most beloved citizen, was defeated by the voters of Texas not once, but twice. He was defeated the first time after he came close to casting the deciding vote, he was on the losing side, on the Kansas-Nebraska Act which he saw as producing the Civil War. And it did. And then as Governor, Sam Houston refused to sign the bill taking Texas out of the Union. So he was rejected by the voters of Texas twice. Yet he is the most honored of our citizens. For those who serve in public office, it is important to remember that it is not personal; that people change their mind; that people have their own will; that people have their own perspective. In the end, it is good service, it is dedication, and it is effectiveness on behalf of the people who elect you that makes a great elected public official. I join my colleagues this morning in thanking Slade Gorton for serving. I am confident in the future when names are listed who belong in the Senate, names that will be remembered here, Slade Gorton's name will be on the list. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, today the Senate is taking up H.R. 5640, the American Homeownership and Economic Opportunity Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives on December 5, 2000. Companion legislation, sponsored by Senator Allard and myself, together with Senators Sarbanes, Santorum, Grams, Shelby, Campbell, and Kerry, was introduced on December 5. This legislation is the product of bipartisan work and negotiations in both bodies, and I urge the Senate to pass this bill today. As Chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, I have had the privilege of working closely with Housing and Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Allard and want to express my appreciation for his strong leadership and commend him for the successful stewardship of this legislation. The legislation we are considering today will improve and modernize a variety of federal housing programs. The proposed changes to our nation's housing laws will increase the efficiencies of subsidized housing programs and provide that a greater number of truly needy Americans may be assisted at no greater cost to the American taxpayer. I am particularly pleased that this legislation includes the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act--signifying a cooperative product involving input from industry and other interested parties that successfully ends a 10-year legislative stalemate. The bill modernizes the requirements of the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974, a 26 year-old statute in serious need of revision. Manufactured housing reform is of great importance to the State of Texas, which leads the Nation in the production and sale of manufactured homes. Across America, manufactured homes are a significant source of affordable housing--representing 25 percent of all new single-family housing starts. I also want to give special thanks to Senator Shelby, the original lead sponsor of the manufactured housing bill, who has worked tirelessly over the years for its passage. Without Senator Shelby's dedication and perseverance, the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act title of this bill would not be before the Senate for consideration today. The American Homeownership and Economic Opportunity Act contains many other significant housing provisions, including modernization of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's, HUD, Section 202 elderly housing and Section 811 disabled housing programs; the Department of Agriculture's rural housing programs; HUD Native American housing programs; and the HUD home equity conversion mortgage program, which allows our cash-poor but house-rich senior citizens the opportunity to utilize their home equity for needed expenses. This legislation also renews some 45 reporting requirements of Executive Branch and regulatory agencies, including the report of the Federal Reserve Board on the conduct of monetary policy. H.R. 5640 directs that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve appear before the Congress twice annually, once in February and again in July, to report on the Federal Reserve's activities with respect to the conduct of monetary policy and its outlook regarding economic developments and prospects in the future. This legislation eliminates the requirement of the Federal Reserve to report on many of the outdated economic indicators required in the past, such as measures of money supply that are no longer useful. Among other reports reinstated in this legislation are the Annual Economic Report of the President and annual reports from numerous banking and housing agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Thrift Supervision, Federal Housing Finance Board, and National Credit Union Administration. All of these reports are important in helping Congress conduct its constitutional oversight responsibilities and ensuring that agencies and departments are ultimately accountable to the American taxpayer. Mr. President, these are but a few of the highlights of the important provisions in H.R. 5640. I am grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, both in the Senate and the House, in crafting this compromise legislation. In particular, I would like to note the extensive cooperation of Senators Sarbanes and Kerry in working out many of the provisions of this bill. I urge adoption of the bill by the Senate.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I agree with the Senator. I believe that the Secretary's actions are counter productive and I strongly urge including language in the Congressional Record that would make our intent clear.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am very concerned about how the Medicare program has chosen to pay the 10 freestanding cancer hospitals for outpatient services. It appears that the Health Care Financing Administration has ignored the explicit intent of the provisions we enacted last year as part of the Balanced Budget Refinement Act-- provisions intended to help these critically important health care institutions.

Mr. GRAMM. The Secretary has ignored our concerns and intent. The Secretary has allowed the Medicare program to withhold 15 to 20 percent of the interim payments owed to cancer facilities. The Medicare program will not pay cancer hospitals these withheld funds for up to 4 years.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Could we have order, Mr. President.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, if the Senator from Illinois is going to talk about the issue before us, I would like to grant him the courtesy of letting him go ahead and speak. I am going to thank the Senator from New York, as I always do. But I want to speak about another subject. If he wants to talk about this subject, let me yield to him, and if the Chair will come back to me when he finishes his 10 minutes.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I congratulate our dear colleague from New York. I thank him for his leadership in defense of trade. We had these running debates, most of them related to the Presidential campaign. Most have nothing to do with the business of the Senate in these waning hours of the session. Instead they are about who deserves or what deserves credit for the golden economic era in which we live. I think the plain answer is, more than anything else, the creation of a wealth- generating machine through world trade is responsible for this economic golden age in which we live. Our colleague is what I think of as an ``old-timey'' Democrat. There used to be a lot more of them here than there are now. Unfortunately, there is going to be one fewer. Some might think the number would be zero after Senator Moynihan. But there was a time when there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of world trade. Unfortunately, now it is so easy to demagog against trade because you can identify a potential loser. If a company shuts down, whether it was inefficient or ``moved off to Mexico,'' the claim is, ``They moved off to Mexico.'' Everybody who loses a job there knows it. But the 10 or 100 jobs we create for every 1 we lose, people do not know why they were created. So it is hard, politically, to stand up for economic freedom. But what is a more basic economic freedom than the right to produce things and sell them all around the world? I would also like to say, in an era where a lot of people are running away and hiding on the issue of Social Security or pretending the problem is somehow going to go away, I again congratulate our colleague from New York for being willing to stand up on that issue. He has made it clear that unless we do something about Social Security, unless we create a wealth source to pay benefits, we are perpetuating a cruel hoax where we are going to end up, in 12 or 15 years, having to make excruciatingly painful choices. These are not just choices about spending cuts versus taxes, but really they are choices we will have to make between our parents and our children, between the security of our parents and the economic opportunity of our children. We will have to make those choices because of failed leadership right now to deal with this issue. I did not want to pass up this chance to say to my colleague from New York I am glad he came our way. I am proud to call him my friend and colleague. I remember the first dealing I ever had with the Senator from New York. It was on a TV talk show. I don't know if he remembers it. We sort of had a sharp exchange. I would like to say I am not as ignorant as I used to be. I thank our colleague from New York for being an instructor for me and for America. I am proud of his academic background. I am proud to share it with him.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I want to comment on where we are. I am sure the American people are confused. They hear the President saying one thing, they hear Congress saying another. They see chaos, they see gridlock, they see politics as usual. I am sure they are wondering what is this all about. Let me try, in the remaining moments I have, to explain. We are at the end of an 8-year Presidency. Americans are going to the polls next Tuesday to make a fundamental decision. But we have a President in the White House now who would like to make the decision for the future while he is still President, by forcing Congress to spend far beyond the budget we wrote and far beyond the budget he wrote. The President has, in essence, said that if we will spend 30 percent more on social programs in Health and Human Services than we spent last year, if we will then make some permanent changes in law in addition to that spending, such as giving amnesty to people who have broken the Nation's laws and come to the country illegally, he will sign this bill and let us go home. Let me tell you why we are not going to do that and why we are going to resist. First, I do not believe the American people want Bill Clinton, or this Congress for that matter, making decisions for the new President and the new Congress. It is time to have an election. It is time to move on. What we have is a President who almost is unhappy because the focus of attention is on the two men who are now running for President. And so, he believes that by vetoing bills he has agreed to sign and by demanding more and more spending, he gets his name back in the paper and gets on television. Let me tell you why we should say no. We should say no because the American people ought to decide. If we did what Bill Clinton is calling on us to do, before the new President ever took his hand off the Bible we would have spent between a third and a half of the budget surplus. I think the American people think they are deciding in this election. If people want to spend this money, they can vote for Al Gore. If they want to use the money to let working people have a tax cut and to invest it in rebuilding Social Security and Medicare, they can vote for George Bush. But however they are going to vote, Bill Clinton should not be making the decision to spend it before the American people can vote. Let me convert it down to a simple number. For every day that we simply fund at this year's level the remaining parts of Government that are not yet appropriated for, we save between $88 and $133 million a year. By just continuing to fund at this year's level and waiting for the next President to arrive, over a 12-month period we would spend $32 billion less by not creating all these new programs, by not hiring all these new Government employees, by not making the President the president of every school board in America. Nobody knows what $132 billion is so let me convert it into something you know. As you know, you can buy a very nice pickup truck for $20,000. You can buy basically a loaded Chevrolet or Ford pickup, full- size pickup, for $20,000. By simply saying no to Bill Clinton for 6 more days and simply leaving spending at its current level, we could buy 1.6 million pickup trucks. I think the American people understand what 1.6 million pickup trucks are. I know there are some people who hope, even at this last minute, to cut a deal with Bill Clinton and bring to the floor of the Senate a bill that will spend $32 billion more on social programs. Let me tell you, today is Wednesday. We are going to have an election on Tuesday. They have never put an election off in American history. I just want to say to people, a deal is not going to happen. If a deal is cut today, spending $32 billion, basically taking 1.6 million pickup trucks right off people's driveways and out of their garages, I am going to object. We are not going to vote to spend that money before the people of America can vote in this election. They are going to decide, depending on how they vote. They may tell us to spend it and a lot more, or they may say give some of it back. We may create a wealth base for Social Security but that is going to be decided by voters. But what is not going to be decided by this President and what is not going to be decided by this Congress before the election is that we are going to go on a massive spending spree. That is not going to happen. How do I know it is not going to happen? Because today is Wednesday. Under the rules of the Senate, if a few people say no, it can't be done, it will not be done. I think what we ought to do on a bipartisan basis is to pass a resolution funding the Government through the election, let the American people speak, and let them say what they want to happen with this money. Not Bill Clinton because he is on the way out. Let them say through this election and whom they elect what they want done. It is not the time to be listening to the voices of the past. It is time to be looking to the future. Let's pass this CR through the election, keep spending where it is right now, and let the American people speak on Tuesday. Then we can come back here, we will have heard the message from back home, and we can respond to it. I think that is the rational thing to do, and that is what I am going to support. I also believe that is what is going to happen. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. The point I want to make is: Look, there is plenty of credit to go around for the good things that have happened in America. I am not trying to deny the President some of the credit. I do believe a lot of credit goes to the Federal Reserve Bank. But the idea that by imposing the largest tax increase in American history, by taxing gasoline, by taxing Social Security benefits, and that somehow this produced a balanced budget and set off this economic boom is laughable from a logical point of view. It is not borne out by the facts. The truth is, these good things that started happening largely started happening in November of 1994. It was a good story. Maybe somebody believes it, but they should not. If they look at the facts, they will see that basically that story is not true. The final point I want to make: We are now coming to the end of this session. In the waning hours of this Congress, the President is saying: If you don't spend more money, I am not going to let the Congress go home. If you do not further inflate an already inflated budget, I am going to veto these bills and not allow us to go home. He is saying to us: If you do not grant amnesty to people who violated the laws of America by coming to the country illegally, I am going to veto the Commerce-Justice-State bill and potentially shut down the FBI, the DEA, the criminal justice system, and the courts. We are at the end of the Clinton administration, not at the beginning. President Clinton had his opportunity. He raised taxes. He tried to implement a $26 billion stimulus package. He tried to have the Government take over and run the health care business. He had his chance. We ought to have this election and let people decide. Do they want to spend this surplus? If they do, they will know how to vote. If they do not----

Mr. GRAMM. We ought to let them vote before we do.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank Senator Domenici. I want to try to add a few things to what he said, and then go on and say what I was going to say. I want to begin with the Secretary of Treasury, Larry Summers. Let me say that we are both good friends as well as economists. We both used to teach economics. Yet, I think a lot of people are unhappy in that the Secretary of Treasury injected himself into politics--something that the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense have not done in the past. I think that made people unhappy. But let me say this with regard to Al Gore's plan, a plan which simply adds IOUs to the Social Security trust fund. I believe Larry Summers would have given an ``F'' to any freshman economics student in his class who thought that you could strengthen Social Security by simply printing paper--IOUs; I have a copy of one here--and putting them into a filing cabinet in West Virginia. Let me give a high authority on this issue, the President of the United States. Our Vice President said if we would simply print more of these IOUs-- you notice, Senator Domenici, that they say ``nontransferable''--if we printed more of these IOUs and put them in a metal filing cabinet in West Virginia, which is all the Social Security trust fund is, we could pay benefits with these IOUs. But let me quote from the economic report of the President. This is President Clinton speaking. This is the Fiscal Year 2000 Budget of the President, and on page 337, here is what he says about these paper IOUs. He says: These [Social Security trust fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures--but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the fund of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the government's ability to pay benefits. That is Bill Clinton. So Al Gore's proposal to simply print more IOUs and put them in a file cabinet is deemed as phony--not by Pete Domenici, not by Phil Gramm, not by the Republican Congress, but by the President of the United States, Bill Clinton. The President's own budget says it very clearly. This is a bookkeeping entry. No benefits can be paid from these IOUs. The Gore plan means, in essence, raising taxes. Just one other point to amplify what Senator Domenici said. A picture is worth 1,000 words. This is page D11 of the Washington Post of this past Tuesday. This is a want-ad page. You have used want-ads yourself. So have I when looking for a job. These are jobs that range from pet groomers, to painters, to data entry, to day labor, to dispatchers, to retail sales jobs, and everything in between. You might look at this want-ad page in Tuesday's Washington Post and ask yourself, how many people who took these jobs would get an Al Gore tax cut where they could keep part of what they earned and spend it on what they chose to spend it on? Here are all the jobs from pet groomer, to custodian, and the list goes on and on. You see all the jobs. They are the people who, if they took those jobs and were married, could get marriage penalty tax relief from Republicans. I am tempted to go through and read the jobs. But I am not going to denigrate good jobs in America. But the point is that all of the jobs listed on page D11 in Tuesday's Washington Post want-ad page for jobs, for every one of those jobs, if you took it, you would be to rich to get Al Gore's marriage penalty tax relief. This is what would be left.

Mr. GRAMM. The question is, if married couples took these jobs, are they too rich for Al Gore's tax cut? All of them are, except that handful--about 89 percent of the jobs on that page are too rich. Let me get to what I wanted to say. Some people at home probably wonder why we are talking about the Presidential campaign on the floor of the Senate. I think it is a good question. We weren't doing it. Our colleagues have come out here every day and talked about the Presidential campaign, I guess, because they are losing it in America. They think they might win it on the floor of the Senate. One of the wonderful stories that has been told is that Bill Clinton was elected President, and he courageously proposed the largest tax increase in American history. They did everything from proposing to tax your utility bill, to taxing gasoline, to taxing 75 percent of Social Security benefits if you made over $25,000. Courageously, the Vice President, sitting in that very chair, and Senator Domenici was here along with me, when it came down to a tie vote, the Vice President courageously broke the tie in voting to tax gasoline and tax Social Security benefits. And then as if the sky opened and God spoke, interest rates came down, the stock market went up, the economy prospered, and, therefore, our Vice President and the Democrats deserve credit. Senator Domenici, myself, and every other Republican were too ignorant to understand that by taxing gasoline and taxing Social Security and having the largest tax increase in American history, we could produce prosperity.

Mr. GRAMM. That is right. They had a majority in both Houses of Congress when Bill Clinton became President, and when they voted they had a substantial majority here, I think 54 or 55 Democrats. Six of them voted with us against this largest tax increase in American history, but there was a tie and Al Gore broke the tie. It was then that the sky opened, interest rates came down, the stock market spiraled, and prosperity ensued. There are only a couple of problems with that. One, it is totally unbelievable. It makes absolutely no sense. Finally, it is verifiably false. This is the rest of the story. This is the budget that included this largest tax cut in American history. In this budget, ``A Vision of Change for America,'' Bill Clinton tells us on page 22 that if we raise taxes with the largest tax increase in American history, and 6 years later, if we implement the largest tax increase in American history, 6 years later he states the deficit will be $241 billion. Nowhere in this budget is Bill Clinton promising to balance the Federal budget. His promise is, if you have the largest tax cut in American history--and then they forget or our Democrat colleagues want us to forget the rest of the story--if you spend $26 billion on a new stimulus package, they were going to stimulate the economy. Remember they had ice skating huts in Connecticut, they had Alpine slides, these water slides in Puerto Rico. This was their economic plan. We killed that. The final part of their proposal that Senator Domenici will not have forgotten but our Democrat colleagues want to forget was having the Government take over and run the health care system. That was part of this vision, too. But we killed it deader than Elvis. It never came into reality. Here is my point: we didn't adopt the Clinton plan. They raised taxes, they taxed Social Security benefits, they taxed gasoline. But we killed their $26 billion spending program, and we killed the Government takeover of health care. Now, their first budget, with the largest tax increase in American history, promised $241 billion of deficits 6 years later. Then, in their midsession review in September of 1993, they discovered we hadn't done the stimulus package. So with their tax increase, we were headed for a $181 billion deficit in 6 years. Then, in 1995, the President proposed another budget. But in 1995, President Clinton, who now has courageously raised taxes on Social Security and gasoline and most other things, is asked, well, Mr. President, when are you going to balance the budget? Remember that, Senator Domenici? This is what he said: In 9 years, 10 years, 8 years, 9 years, 7 years, 7 to 9 years, 7 years, 9 years, 10 years. In other words, 2 years after his tax increase went into effect, our colleagues were asking Bill Clinton when he wants to balance the budget. Two years after his tax hike, he was still saying we are 9, 10, 7 years away from ever balancing the Federal budget. Now, what happened in 1994? Our colleagues joshed around yesterday saying when they proposed to have the Government take over the health care system, when they proposed this $26 billion of stimulus package, and when they adopted the largest tax increase in American history, I said this is going to cost people their jobs. So they josh around saying: Well, where did it cost jobs? Let me state what happened: In 1994, 52 Democrats in the House of Representatives lost their jobs. The Speaker of the House lost his job; the first time in 132 years that it ever happened. Three powerful committee chairmen--Rostenkowski, Brooks, and Glickman--lost their jobs. Not one Republican incumbent in Congress was defeated. Now, supposedly the sky had opened. Everything was wonderful with this tax increase. But guess what. When the new Republican Congress came to Washington, this is the first thing that landed on our desk, and this is Bill Clinton's budget. He is still President. He sends us a new budget. He says that by the end of 1999, if we will adopt his budget, the deficit will be $181 billion. Now, his tax increase has been the law of the land now for 2 years. Yet he is still saying virtually $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see. Let me make a final point that I think takes the cake. In his midsession review, this is in September of 1995, we have a Republican Congress. Bill Clinton says: If you will forget what these Republicans are saying and adopt my budget, if you are willing to cut $927 billion of programs over the next 10 years, then we might have a surplus in 10 years. We didn't adopt Bill Clinton's budget. His budget said we were going to have a $200 billion deficit from 1994 to the year 2000. Instead, we adopted our own budget. We reformed welfare. Bill Clinton now says the greatest achievement of his administration is welfare reform. He not only had nothing to do with it, he fought it every step of the way. He vetoed it once, then twice, and he has tried to repeal it every day since it has passed. Republicans reformed welfare and it set into motion--and I have to say as Democrats accused us of not knowing what was going on that I never dreamed it would be as successful as it has been--a 40-percent decline in welfare rolls as people have begun to work and America has prospered. What happened under the Republican Congress? We started it at a $200 billion deficit, but under the Republican Congress the deficit started to decline. By 1997, we balanced the budget and we have a surplus. When Bill Clinton signed this heroic tax increase, and this is from his official documents, he gave a statement in signing the bill. How many times do you think he mentioned balancing the budget when he signed that tax increase? None. How many times do you think he talked about saving and reforming Social Security and Medicare? None. Those things were the furthest thing from his mind. If you listen to the mythology that we have been forced to listen to here, the mythology runs as follows. They raised taxes, and then interest rates declined and the stock market boomed--right? The problem is that is wrong. If you look at their numbers, when Bill Clinton became President, 10-year Treasury interest rates were 5.87 percent. He raised taxes, and what do you think happened to interest rates? They went up to 7.9 percent. And if you look at the chart on interest, the big turning point in interest occurred in November of 1994. Why? Because help was on the way. Help was on the way. We elected a Republican Congress, interest rates went down, and that interest rate, which had risen to 7.9 percent on 10-year Treasury bonds is, today, 5.71 percent. What about this booming stock market? By raising taxes on gasoline and Social Security and the largest tax increase in American history, their mythology is that Bill Clinton set off this boom in the stock market. There is only one problem: It ain't so. When you look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average between 1993 and 1994, over that 2-year period when Bill Clinton's tax increase went into effect, the Dow went up by 13 points, about 6.5 or 7 percent a year--around there. I don't have the exact day of the tax and the day Clinton became President-- just looking at the numbers. What do you think happened when we elected a Republican Congress? What happened was the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from 4,493 to 10,836, today. So the problem with their story which they are trying to tell the American people is that it is not believable, it does not make sense, and it is verifiably false. When they raised taxes, none of their budgets showed these tax increases ever balancing the Federal budget. When they raised taxes, there was no decline in interest rates. Interest rates went up, not down. When they raised taxes, the stock market was relatively flat. All of that changed when we elected a Republican Congress in 1994. All of that changed. So basically the point I want to make--how much time have I left in the 20 minutes?

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, I wanted to take a moment to discuss H.R. 5239, the Export Administration Modification and Clarification Act. The Senate approved H.R. 5239 with a substitute amendment on October 11, and the House took up and passed the bill, as amended, earlier this afternoon. Since 1994 our export control system has been maintained under a regulatory framework pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act based on the provisions of the Export Administration Act of 1979. The Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), which administers our export controls, recently has faced court challenges regarding the integrity of that framework. Specifically, the courts have questioned BXA's authority--known as 12(c) authority--to maintain the confidentiality of sensitive information submitted by industry pursuant to our export control rules. While comprehensive review and updating of the Export Administration Act will be early on the agenda of the Senate Banking Committee next year, we are undertaking a simple extension of the 1979 Act at this time to set the stage for that review. It is important to note, however, that replacing the 1994 expiration date with a 2001 expiration date will make clear that BXA's authority to apply the 12(c) confidentiality provision of the 1979 act is to be considered as covering any information regarding license applications obtained during that time period, as if there had been no interruption of authority.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Do not run my time. Let me give the time I do have to Senator Byrd.

Mr. GRAMM. I would like him to take that time.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me tell you how it works. Let me take two individuals. Let's say one works for General Motors and one works at the Exxon station in College Station. The one who works for General Motors gets health insurance as part of his employment contract. General Motors provides health insurance and it is a nontaxable benefit to the employee. So, in essence, the employee who works for General Motors gets health insurance and the company can deduct from its taxable income the cost of buying the insurance. Joe Brown, who works at the Exxon station changing tires, may work for a small, independent filling station operator who cannot afford to buy health insurance for the employees at the station. So for Joe Brown to get health insurance, he has to earn income, he has to take what is left after the Government takes its share and then, with after-tax dollars, he has to buy health insurance for him and his family and he gets no deduction for the cost of his insurance. What does it mean? It means if you are a high-income worker and you work for a company that provides health insurance, the company gets a tax break but if you are a low-income wage earner who has to buy his health insurance himself, you don't get the tax break. We think that is wrong. What this bill does, in its best provision, is it treats everybody the same and says Joe Brown can buy health insurance with pretax dollars, just as General Motors can. It is expensive because we have a lot of Americans, moderate-income people, who are now buying health insurance with after-tax dollars. We think it is a question of fairness. So we fix it in the bill. What does President Clinton say? ``This is a provision that is helping rich people.'' I just simply pose the question: Do you know any rich person who does not get health insurance through his or her job? I do not know any. I have never met a poor person--excuse me--a rich person like that; I have met plenty of poor people who do not get health insurance through their jobs--but I have never met any high- income person who did not have health insurance through his or her job. How the President can stand up with a straight face and say this provision is for rich people, I do not understand. I also do not understand why the Washington Post and other people in the media write it in the paper, as if it were believable, that somehow people who buy their own health insurance because they do not get it through their job--principally low-income or moderate-income people--are suddenly rich merely because we are trying to treat them like everybody else. Let me make one final comment about the tax bill before I run out of time. Our dear colleague from Nebraska, Senator Kerrey--Democrat, for anyone who was not here listening--remarked that this did not look like a Republican tax bill. In fact, he wondered what we were doing with a tax bill that looks like a grab bag of 300 different parts. Let me say, to be bipartisan today, he is absolutely right. But why do we have a tax bill that looks like a 300-part grab bag with one little provision here and one little provision there? It doesn't sound very Republican. Repeal the marriage penalty, repeal the death tax, cut rates across the board is what we want to do. We have the bill we have because we have the President we have. This was the only bill we had any chance of getting him to sign. He's vetoed the others. The President is threatening, and apparently being supported by Members of his party in Congress, that he is going to veto this bill. Let me say to my colleagues, and say to the President, have at it. The bad news is that Bill Clinton is going to veto this bill. The good news is he is not going to be President next year. The good news is we are going to have a President, I believe, who will sign a repeal of the marriage penalty, a repeal of the death tax, and cut rates across-the-board. And that is what we are really for. So, Mr. President--and I am talking to the President downtown--we wrote this bill because we thought this was what we had to do to get you to sign it. But if you do not want to sign it, veto it. I will vote to sustain your veto. I am going to be here next year. And next year we will write a much better bill than this bill. This is like the threat-- the President reminds me of the guy who is holding a gun to his head and saying: Do what I say, or I will shoot. ``If you do not legalize criminal activity, I am going to shut down the FBI,'' he says. If we don't take this tax cut bill and write it his way, adding more and more of his provisions and fewer things that we are for, he says he is going to veto it. I say: Look, free country. Bill Clinton is President. We tried to write a bill we thought would help America that he might sign, but this is not our bill. This is not our agenda. This does not represent our philosophy. If the President wants to sign it, great. If he wants to veto it, veto it. But remember this. There is not going to be another tax bill. If the President wants to veto this tax bill, this is going to be the last tax bill this year because we are going to be back here next year, we will have a new President next year, and we will produce a better product.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, there are two issues I wish to talk about and they are related to the two bills that are before the Senate. Let me begin with the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill. As my colleagues are aware, we currently have a situation--Senator Domenici has been here longer than I have--that I don't ever remember. A President is threatening to veto a bill based on an issue other than what is in the bill. Obviously, there have been many vetoes as part of our constitutional process. But normally when we are dealing with an appropriations bill, it has to do with funding or not funding various priorities. What we have before the Senate is an extraordinary circumstance where the President of the United States is literally threatening to veto this bill, saying if we don't add a totally extraneous matter that has nothing whatever to do with funding the law enforcement effort in America, then he is going to veto the bill appropriating funds for the criminal justice system and law enforcement in America. What is even a greater paradox, in my opinion--I have to say, in my period of public life I have never seen anything like it--the President is saying, if we don't grant amnesty to people who violated the law, he will veto a bill that funds DEA, the FBI, the Justice Department, the prison system. He is literally threatening if we don't pass a law forgiving people who violated the law by coming into this country illegally, if we don't grant them amnesty and therefore forgiveness for having violated the law, his threat to us is that he is going to risk shutting down the FBI, the DEA, the criminal justice system, the courts, and the prisons. That is an extraordinary threat. It is a threat that, I am happy to say, is opposed on a bipartisan basis by at least one Democrat who happens to be the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. It is opposed very strongly by many Republicans. I want to say on this bill to our President, I want him to sign the bill funding our drug enforcement effort, the FBI, the prison system, our criminal justice system, our courts. I want to urge the President to do that, but I want to make it clear to him there is at least one Member of the Senate who is never going to grant amnesty for illegal aliens to pay a political bribe to the President. That is what this issue is about. This is about electioneering, where the President is putting politics in front of people. He is willing to play politics with law enforcement and the criminal justice system, to try to pressure us to grant amnesty for law breakers. I despair of trying to reason with the President in the waning hours of his administration, but I say again to the extent that any one Member can influence this decision, we will not grant amnesty to illegal aliens in this Congress or, hopefully, ever again. We did that once. Everybody said it was a one-time deal. We were never going to do it again. The problem with doing it was we reward people who violated the law. We reward people who came into the country illegally. Granting amnesty to people who broke the law penalizes the millions of people who are waiting to come to America legally. What we have proposed, and what is in the bill before us, is a provision which I believe is strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans. That provision basically says if you came to America legally, if you played by the rules, if you have been self-supporting while you are here, we will expedite the process to allow you to bring your spouse and your dependent children. We are for family unification. The President, by vetoing this bill, will be denying family unification. We also say, where there is a legal dispute, a legitimate dispute as to whether people have gotten justice through the courts based on recent court rulings, we give them their day in court because we believe in due process. I do not need to say any more about this issue other than to simply say I hope the President will sign this bill. I know he probably believes he is going to force us to grant amnesty to illegal aliens in return for funding the DEA and the FBI, but I want to tell him I am not going to support it, I am going to oppose it vigorously. There are many Members of the Senate, I believe, who share my views. The President may win it, but he is not going to win it without one big terrific fight. In the end, I think nobody benefits from that kind of politics as usual. I want to now say something about the tax bill that is before us. I would have to say it is pretty extraordinary that the President picked out and attacked as a rich person's provision the one provision in this bill that I would have thought was absolutely unassailable. In fact, our President can say things with a straight face that Shakespeare's Richard III would blush in saying. That is a strong statement, but let me give an example. As I am sure everybody in this chamber knows, the general pattern in America is, if you have a good job, if you are making good wages, part of your employment package is health insurance. I have the standard Blue Cross/ Blue Shield policy. People who work for the Government are blessed with good health insurance. People who make high wages in America get their health insurance through their job. One of the good things in this tax bill is that we think it is wrong that, if the Federal Government helps buy me health insurance, it is tax deductible; if General Motors buys health insurance for its employees, it is tax deductible; but if somebody makes a low wage and their company does not provide health insurance, they have to buy their health insurance with after-tax dollars, they get no deduction. In what I think is excellent public policy in this bill, we make health insurance tax deductible for everybody: For the self-employed, for the small business person, and for the person who is working at $7 an hour and who is not provided health insurance where they work. You would think that would be pretty unassailable, but it is not unassailable by Bill Clinton, because this morning on the radio, Bill Clinton, through his spokesman, was saying that we are giving health benefits to rich people by providing deductibility for health insurance. I ask my colleagues, do you know any rich people who do not get health insurance through their jobs? Do you know any rich people who do not get health insurance by being members of corporate boards? The point is, this is a bill, at least in this provision, that is targeted precisely at moderate-income people who get cheated in the system because their employer cannot afford to buy them health insurance and they have to buy it with after-tax dollars. That would seem to me to be an unassailable position. But to Bill Clinton, it is helping rich people and he is not for it. The plain truth is, any tax cut in Bill Clinton's mind helps rich people, so he is not for it.

Mr. GRAMM. Yes.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I would be very happy to listen to Senator Dorgan. I will learn something.

Mr. GRAMM. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator have as long as he would like.

Mr. GRAMM. Why don't we do Senator Dorgan, and I will speak. I think I have 20 minutes reserved.