Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2966 (Purpose: To establish a reserve fund for additional ESEA funding)

Mr. GRAMM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2911 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding after school programs)

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. He tells us what he wants, but he does not tell us the bad news about how we get it.

Mr. GRAMM. It would take 3 years to consume the entire surplus. Why is it less dangerous to let them spend the whole thing in 3 years than giving a tax cut and giving most of that surplus back? The reason this amendment is so important is that I do not think we are ready to debate the Presidential campaign on the floor of the Senate. The point is, our colleague from Illinois has offered an amendment that he claims will have us voting on the Bush tax cut. Here is the dilemma: We cannot have Clinton spending and the Bush tax cut. We have to choose between the two. That is what the election is about. If you want this spending, you ought to vote for Al Gore, and if you would rather repeal the marriage penalty so we do not charge young couples $1,200 a year for the right to be married, if you think we ought to repeal the death tax so that you do not have to sell your daddy's and mama's farm when they die on which they spent a lifetime and paid taxes on every dollar they earned, plowed money back into that farm, skimped for it, sacrificed for it--or if you are a small business--if you think you should not have to sell it just because they die, then you ought to vote for Governor Bush. We cannot adopt the Bush tax cut now because we have the Clinton budget before us. We are going to get an opportunity next year to have a Bush budget and the Bush tax cut. At that time, I hope we will get votes from some of our Democrats. I predict today that we will get at least 15 of them who will vote for it.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, in his book ``Earth in the Balance,'' the Vice President calls for the complete elimination of the internal combustion engine. I have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that says we should not undertake that activity, that raising the price of gasoline to the degree that would be required to achieve that goal would be devastating to the American economy. I believe the Vice President saying we should have a policy to completely eliminate the internal combustion engine in 25 years is irresponsible policy. It ought to be rejected. The only way to achieve it would be astronomical taxes, rationing, and confiscating people's cars or trucks. I want the world to know and the Vice President to know we are against it.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I want to close the debate.

Mr. GRAMM. I would be happy to respond by saying he calls for the elimination of the internal combustion engine over 25 years. Does anybody believe that you could achieve that without taxes driving up the price of gasoline? I think----

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

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

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time on the Durbin amendment. Amendment No. 2973 to Amendment No. 2953 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate on proposals ``to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenety-five year period'')

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President after listening to that, I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony. I don't know quite where to hit. Let me start at the beginning. Bill Clinton's plan was not just the largest tax increase in American history; it was a stimulation package of $16 billion where spending exploded before the tax increase ever went into effect. Republicans in the Senate killed that stimulation plan. Bill Clinton's plan was to have the Government take over and run the health care bill. I remember distinctly somebody standing up and saying the Clinton health care bill will pass over my cold, dead, political body. That political body is still alive and the Clinton health care bill is dead. Bill Clinton, when he sent Congress a budget in 1995, proposed a $200 billion deficit, and his budget had a $200 billion deficit through this year. Who lost their jobs? When we killed the Clinton health care bill and defeated the stimulus package, they lost their jobs. We elected a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress. When we elected a Republican majority, we rejected the Clinton budget and the deficit started to go away and we have a surplus today. In terms of a reasonable policy to protect the environment, forgive me, but completely eliminating the internal combustion engine is not a reasonable policy to protect the environment. It is an extremist policy that deserves to be rejected and it will be rejected. They are ashamed of it. I ask the following question: How is he going to eliminate the internal combustion engine? Maybe they are just going to confiscate the cars or trucks. Maybe they are going to take us off to prison. If you don't do it with taxes, how do you do it? The point is, they don't know how you would do it--at least they don't know before the election. The American people are going to want to know. They are for eliminating the marriage penalty--baloney. Where's the beef? Their tax cut actually raises taxes for 5 years. Middle-income Americans would get virtually no tax relief under their policy. Finally, as to this ``tax the wealthy,'' what a phony issue that is. In the President's first budget, they proposed raising taxes on people earning $25,000 a year who were drawing Social Security. That is what they call ``rich.'' They were able to take a family making $44,000 a year and under Clinton's first budget make it $75,000 by saying: To tax somebody, you count the rent value of the home they own; you count the value of their life insurance; you count the value of their parking place. To the Democrats, anybody who works and makes money is rich. Whenever we try to cut anybody's taxes, they are always rich. They have every excuse in the world to do anything except to give the American people a tax cut. Finally, let me say again the part of the story that they are not telling is the following: Their budget, which they support, proposes that over the next 5 years we spend $494 billion on new and expanded programs. That is the Clinton budget. What Governor Bush is proposing is that rather than spend all this money on these programs, we give part of it back to working families. Why is it not risky for us to spend $494 billion on new programs, which is the Clinton budget that they support, and why is it risky for Governor Bush to propose giving less than that amount back to families to let them spend it? I have 3 minutes remaining. I yield to Senator Domenici.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin for offering his version of the tax cut proposed by Governor Bush. I believe he will get an opportunity next year to vote on it. I look forward to having that opportunity. I intend to vote for it when it is offered by then- President George Bush. I hope and believe it will pass the Senate by an overwhelming margin. But let me try, if I might, to explain the dilemma we have in terms of trying to do the Bush tax cut now, as if this were a serious proposal. Then I want to discuss my substitute. Quite aside from the fact the years do not actually match up because if George Bush is elected President, he will take the oath on January 20 of next year, and therefore his tax cut would begin in fiscal year 2002 in all probability, but let me explain the problem. I am grateful for the opportunity because it tells a story that miraculously the general public does not appear to understand; that is, why can't we have Clinton's budget and George Bush's tax cut? The reason we cannot--it is an old fact of life--you can't have your cake and eat it too. President Clinton has proposed a budget that, in the 5 years from 2002 through 2006, would spend, relative to what we are spending now, an additional $494 billion. For the years that this tax cut amendment would be in force, the President's budget that was submitted this year, if enacted, would raise spending by $494 billion. During that same period, the Bush tax cut, if adopted, would reduce taxes by $483 billion. That gives rise to two points. First of all, we cannot increase spending on some 80 new programs and program expansions which President Clinton has proposed, increasing spending by half a trillion dollars in 5 years--we cannot have the Government spend all that money and at the same time give it back to working families so they can spend it. We cannot do both. We are going to have to choose. The question we are all going to have to answer--and by ``all'' I do not mean just 100 Members of the Senate; I mean every voter in America--the question we are going to have to answer is: Do we want these 80 new programs and program expansions so we can spend in Washington another $500 billion over the first 5 years of the new Presidency, or would we rather eliminate the marriage penalty? Today, Americans meet, fall in love and get married and they discover they end up paying about $1,200 of additional taxes for the right to be married. Let me make it clear. My wife is worth $1,200--a bargain at the price. But it seems to me she ought to get the money and not the Federal Government. How can it make sense in America, if you have a janitor with three children and a waitress with two children, they meet, their dreams come true, they fall in love--under the American Tax Code they both lose their earned-income tax credit and they are suddenly in the 28-percent tax bracket? So they look at the dollars and cents and many of them decide not to get married. How does it make sense? If two people get out of college, meet, and fall in love and get married, forming the most powerful bond for human happiness and progress in world history, why is that a taxable event? Why is love and marriage taxed by the Federal Government? Governor Bush says it should not be taxed. If he is elected President, he wants to repeal the marriage penalty so love and marriage are not taxable events. If you agree with Senator Durbin, and if you agree with the Vice President, Al Gore, then you believe you can spend that money in Washington better than all of those married couples could spend it, and you do not want to eliminate the marriage penalty. You want all these new government programs. Rather than starting a new spending spree, spending $494 billion on some 80 new and expanded programs, Governor Bush has proposed that he would rather eliminate the death tax. What does the death tax do? Death is a taxable event under the American Tax Code. Americans work their whole lives, they build up a small business, they build up a family farm, they pay taxes on every dollar they earn in their lives. Yet when they die and leave their life's work to their children, the people they built the life's work for, too often in America those children have to sell the farm or sell the business to give Government up to 55 cents out of every dollar of their life's work. They paid taxes on every dollar they earned, but because they accumulated, because they saved, because they sacrificed, their children end up having to sell the business and sell the family farm in order to give another tax to Government. Senator Durbin and Vice President Gore say: Don't do that. Don't repeal the marriage penalty. Don't repeal the death tax. Let us spend this money for you in Washington. You think that by keeping the farm your daddy and mama worked a lifetime for that you would be better off, but they say: You would not. Let us take your farm because we are going to give you all these Government programs. They say: Look, you think you know how to spend an extra $1,200 on your children, but you are wrong. Al Gore and Senator Durbin know better how to spend that money than you do. This amendment is really about choice. President Clinton gives us one choice, and George Bush gives us another. President Clinton's choice is, between 2004 and 2006, some 80 new and expanded programs will get $494 billion. That is what he wants to do. He can spend this money and make everything wonderful for you and your family, and if you believe that, you ought to elect Al Gore as President because that is his program. In fact, he wants to spend far more than President Clinton does. Governor Bush believes you can spend that money better than the Government. So rather than giving the Government another $494 billion to spend--we are not talking about Social Security; we are not talking about Medicare; we are talking about spending basically on discretionary programs. The President's discretionary nondefense budget goes up by a whopping 14 percent when one makes the adjustments for all the phony revenues and shifting when somebody is paying and when they are not paying. If you believe President Clinton and Vice President Gore are right, that we would be better off spending the $494 billion in Washington on your behalf to help you and your family, then you ought to be for spending this money. But if you believe repealing the marriage penalty and repealing the death tax so your family can keep more money to spend on their children so you don't have to sell your farm or sell your business--and 73 percent of small businesses do not make it into the second generation, in part because of death taxes. If you believe you would be better off spending $483 billion, along with every other family in America, than having Washington spend $494 billion for you, then you are going to get to vote on it. This is going to be on the ballot in November, but it is going to have Al Gore's name next to the spending and it is going to have George Bush's name next to the tax reductions. How people are being confused is that many of our colleagues and the Vice President and President say George Bush wants to give $483 billion in tax cuts, he wants to stop penalizing couples for getting married, he wants to stop taking farms away from people when they die, and he wants to reduce tax rates across the board, and that is dangerous. I say to Senator Domenici, they say it is dangerous to give back $483 billion in tax refunds to working people, but they do not say it is dangerous to spend $494 billion. I ask the question: If it is dangerous to give it back to the American people and let them spend it, how come it is not dangerous to spend it right here in Washington, DC? How can it be irresponsible for Governor Bush to be talking about $483 billion in tax reductions, letting working people keep more of what they earn, and how come it is not irresponsible for President Clinton to be talking about spending $494 billion more in Washington?

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I would hate to have to make a living negotiating with Senator Stevens. In the dull moments when we sit here and listen to some droning speech and look at the names written in our desk drawers--many of which we do not even recognize and never heard of--my guess is that someday people will see Senator Stevens' name in one of these drawers and they will know who he was. I believe we have a stronger budget as a result of this agreement. I think we have a stronger enforcement process as a result of this agreement because Senator Domenici and I had words written on paper, but we didn't have a consensus in the majority party to enforce those words. We have that consensus today. I take the word of the distinguished senior Senator from Alaska to be more powerful and worth more than points of order. When he says he will lead the effort to the best of his ability to live within the nondefense discretionary numbers of this budget and to stay with the limit we have agreed to on advanced appropriations, I believe that is the strongest enforcement mechanism we can have. We have preserved our 60-vote point of order for emergencies that are nondefense in nature. Senator Stevens raised the point that in an emergency for defense, you could require a supermajority, and if you had a partisan issue on defense, you could deny the ability to meet the defense needs of the Nation. A point well made and a point well taken. But we have the enforcement mechanism that prevents the piling of items of a nondefense nature into bills and designating them as emergencies when, in fact, they are not emergencies. We kept the firewalls so when we get money for defense, it stays in defense. We have adjusted the advanced appropriation level to the level we had last year, the level that is in the House, with a strong 60-vote point of order to hold it in place. We prohibit nondefense delayed obligations, which is an important new power in the budget process. We have a unified Republican commitment to live within a discretionary budget written here and to stay with that number through the process. This has been a long and difficult negotiation. We are dealing with people who have jobs to do. I think as a result of this agreement we can move forward together to do that job. I thank Senator Domenici. I thank Senator Stevens. I believe we have a good product. I believe it is worthy of support. I believe we have a fighting chance to hold it through the appropriations process. If we do, the Nation will be the big beneficiary. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. The Senator will get his 30 minutes. I have my 30 minutes, with all due respect. What I have done is offer an amendment that says it is the sense of the Senate we should not to be doing this; we should not be raising gasoline taxes so the Vice President can get rid of our cars and our trucks. Since the Senator from Illinois decided today we ought to vote on the two alternatives, his argument is that it is OK for President Clinton in his budget to spend a new $494 billion in taxes but it is not all right, it is risky, I say to Senator Domenici, it is terribly risky if, instead of us spending it, we let the taxpayers spend it. I do not get it. I do not understand how it is not risky for us to spend it but somehow it is risky to repeal the marriage penalty or the death tax. So what I have offered, since we cannot do the Bush tax cut until George Bush becomes President--and I would like to hurry the day; if we could do something today that could make it come sooner, God knows, I would sign on as a cosponsor. But I do not think we are going to be able to do it before the Constitution says we can. In any case, what I have done, since we have started this debate, is I have taken the Vice President's book, and I have put in the first installments of what would be required to get rid of all the internal combustion engines, and the first installment would be a $1.50 tax on gasoline today, then another $1.50 tax 4 years from now. That would only start it. We would have to go up from there. But I want to take a conservative approach, as I always do. Finally, for those who say, OK, the Vice President wrote this book, but he did not mean it. This book was written for environmentalists. He meant it for them, but he did not mean it for people in Texas or New Mexico--let me read his response when he was asked about it. He said, ``There is not a statement in that book that I don't endorse, not one.'' I do not endorse them. I am against raising gasoline taxes. I am against taking away my pickup truck. I am opposed to it. I thought this was going to be saved for us to vote on in the election. But since our colleague from Illinois decided to debate the Presidential campaign today, let's debate it. Let me conclude with this remark, and then I will reserve the remainder of my time and let our colleague speak. I am happy to say the man I support for President wants to cut your taxes. I am proud of it. I want the world to know it. I suspect our colleague from Illinois is not going to be proud of the fact that Al Gore wants to raise gasoline taxes as part of a program for a ``coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine.'' So we are offering a sense of the Senate today to say we are not for that. He may be for it. Al Gore is for it. He says he is for it. He wrote the book. He said he was for it as late as 4-26-99. The point is, not that he is not for it--he is for it --but that we are against it. That is the purpose of this amendment. Should we be debating the Presidential campaign on the floor of the Senate? I do not know whether we should or not. But since our colleague from Illinois decided to bring it up, I thought we ought to give people an alternative. It is the same choice they are going to have on election day, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of this year. It is a profound choice. The lives of every American family will be changed if we repeal the death tax, if we repeal the marriage penalty, if we cut tax rates. The life of every American family will be changed if we have confiscatory taxes on gasoline to achieve some extremist goal of eliminating the internal combustion engine. Improve it? Yes. Make it more efficient? Yes. Make it more environmental friendly? Yes. But kiss it and modern civilization good- bye as part of some extremist environmental agenda? I say, no. I say, no. I believe the Senate will say no today. They are going to say no today. I would not be surprised if all 100 Senators said no. The American people are going to say no in November. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield so I can respond?

Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield. Let me talk a little bit about my amendment, and then I will yield. Now that we are into Presidential politics, I have offered a substitute, and that is, we ought to vote on the Gore tax increase. As many of my colleagues know, because they probably received a signed copy, our Vice President has written a book, ``Earth in the Balance.'' The principal proposal of this book is as follows: He wants a coordinated program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, 25 years. That means the pickup you have your umbrella and gun slung across the back of is going to be gone. That means this new car you either have today or are hoping to buy is going to be gone. Eliminating the internal combustion engine is a pretty dramatic change, especially over a 25-year period. He goes on to say the reason he wants to do this is--talking again about these cars and these trucks: Their cumulative impact on the global environment is posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than any military enemy we are ever again likely to face. There is no way we can eliminate the internal combustion engine without starting out over the next 5 years, maybe now with a $1.50-a- gallon tax, maybe in 4 years another $1.50, and to get rid of the internal combustion engine we would have to get gasoline up $10, $20, $50 a gallon. Since our colleague from Illinois decided today was the day we ought to begin to debate the Presidential campaign on the floor of the Senate, I thought we ought to have an opportunity for Senators to go on record saying they do not agree with the Vice President; they are not quite ready to kiss the internal combustion engine goodbye. I am still hoping to get a four-wheel-drive truck. I am not ready to let Al Gore come in and impose his values that say it is OK for my people who live in rural areas of my State and commute 40, 50 miles a day to work to try another mode of transportation to get rid of their car or pickup.

Mr. GRAMM. I am not ready to do that.

Mr. GRAMM. Exactly.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object, and I will not object. I was passed a note saying, given the makeup of time, that it would be helpful if I would ask for 30 minutes off the resolution. I made that request. If the Senator objects to it, I will be glad to withdraw it.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am sure that anybody following this debate might get confused as to what the Democrats are for, but there is not any way on Earth they can fail to figure out what they are against. They are against a tax cut. They are against eliminating the marriage penalty. They are perfectly willing to allow the Tax Code, which penalizes people who fall in love and get married, to stand. They are opposed to repealing the death tax. They are perfectly willing to leave in place a Tax Code that says: You work your whole life to build up a family business or a family farm, you pay taxes on every dollar you earn, and when you die, your children still may be forced to sell off the business or sell off the farm to give the Federal Government another 55 percent of your life's work. They are against those things, and in trying to kill the tax cut, they are for many other things. As to education, there are a lot of reasons for which one can criticize this budget, but not spending enough money on education is simply not one of them. This budget provides $47.9 billion for the Department of Education, which is $600 million more than the President proposed. In fact, last year in our budget and in the appropriations process, we spent more money on education than the President proposed. Unless we get carried away with euphoria and believe that spending a whole bunch of money on education is somehow going to change anything, that somehow having a smaller class size is going to improve performance--we have been lowering class size since 1965 and performance has been declining. The real debate about education is about whether or not we ought to be the national school board in Congress or whether we ought to let the States decide how to spend this money. That is the real debate between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats believe we ought to have Congress say how the money is going to be spent, and Republicans believe we ought to let the States say how the money is going to be spent. Mr. President, Senator Domenici yielded me 30 minutes to speak. I ask unanimous consent that the 30 minutes come off the resolution.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I want to talk about the evolution of this budget. I want to talk about the last 8 years of the Clinton administration and how we came to be where we are today with a balanced budget. The one thing about history is everybody wants to rewrite it to suit themselves, but facts are persistent things. What I want to do today is begin with the first budget President Clinton ever submitted to the Congress. I want to trace his budgets through Congress until we get to the last budget he will ever submit to Congress, which is the one we are considering today. The objective is to basically try to get a clear picture of what has been proposed and what has been done. When President Clinton took office, he sent to the Congress on February 17 of 1993 a budget entitled ``A Vision of Change for America.'' I have the budget in my hand today. Many people have made a great point about the fact that the President did impose the largest tax increase in American history, but the result of it was a balanced budget. I begin by noting that on page 22 of the first budget President Clinton ever submitted to Congress, the deficit he started with was $319 billion. His first act as President, in addition to proposing the largest tax increase in American history, was to raise that deficit in 1993 from $319 billion to $332 billion. He did that by proposing that spending actually go up by more than his tax increase in the first year and, in fact, he proposed a stimulus package of $16.262 billion of brand new spending. Some of my colleagues will remember the proposal was to spend this out of a projects book. We were able to defeat this proposal on the floor of the Senate, after it passed the House, by pointing out that in this projects book were such proposals as an ice skating warming hut in Connecticut and an alpine slide in Puerto Rico. In the last budget that was adopted when the Democrats had a majority in Congress--and I have the conference report from that fiscal year 1995 budget, which was adopted on May 4 of 1994--that budget has on page 4 their deficit for fiscal year 1995 which, not counting the money that was being plundered from Social Security, was $239.5 billion. It was projected to rise in 1996 to $253 billion, in 1997 to $278 billion, in 1998 to $281 billion, and finally, the fiscal year 1999 deficit they were projecting in the last budget when the Democrats controlled Congress was going to be $300.7 billion. When the American people looked at those numbers and looked at the Clinton health care bill which proposed having the Government take over and run the health care system, they elected a Republican majority. When the Republican majority showed up in January of 1995, it was greeted by the President's fiscal year 1996 budget. This was a budget that Bill Clinton sent to the Republican Congress in February 1995. Actually he began to write it in large part before he knew there would be a Republican Congress. That budget proposed in January of 1995 that we adopt a budget that had a deficit of $203 billion, and it proposed in the year 2000 that the deficit would be $194.4 billion. This was the budget that Bill Clinton submitted to the new Republican Congress. In 1995, Bill Clinton was asked on many occasions, because the Republican Congress started talking about balancing the budget, when he thought we could balance the budget. He had many different answers. This is what he said in 1995: How many years will it take to balance the budget? He said: Nine years. Then he was asked the question again, and he said: Well, 10 years. Then he said 8 years. Then he said 9 years. Then he said 7 years. Then he said 7 to 9 years. Then he said 7 years. Then he said 9 years. And then he said 10 years. These are all statements that President Clinton made in 1995 when Republicans on the floor of the House and on the floor of the Senate, for the first time in the modern era, were talking about balancing the Federal budget. He was saying: Yes, we might balance the budget. We could balance it 4 years after I leave office; 5 years after I leave office; 3 years after I leave office. But he never, ever proposed that we balance the budget while he was President. Nor did he ever submit any budgets that would require it, until it had already been accomplished. What happened to the deficit? When Congress arrived in January of 1995, this was the Clinton budget proposal as it related to the deficit: Basically, it was a $200 billion deficit that went on forever. The American people in 1994 elected a Republican majority in Congress, and it took office in 1995. I ask the people to look at what happened to the deficit under a Republican Congress. The deficit fell very rapidly, and by 1998 we had a balanced Federal budget. Let me, if I might, make the following point, and do it in taking the President's new budget. First of all, there is one thing that is totally consistent in every Clinton budget. For 8 years, he has submitted budgets, and in every year they have had one thing in common: massive increases in nondefense discretionary spending.

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

Mr. GRAMM. I was not a party to the agreement. I really did not know the details of the agreement. I was simply trying to accommodate other people who wanted to debate the amendment. I did not get an opportunity yesterday, because I was working on a lot of other things, to talk about the budget itself. Normally I resent deals that I am not part of, but in this case I would be happy to try to comply with it. The point I wish to make, in concluding, in looking at the 8 years of the Clinton budget, is that on one point they are totally consistent; and that point is, they always proposed dramatic increases in nondefense discretionary spending. It is an interesting paradox that in the first budget that President Clinton ever proposed, his first proposal was to increase nondefense discretionary by 12.5 percent. We rejected it when we rejected his stimulus package. In the last budget that he will ever propose, remarkably, he proposes to increase nondefense discretionary by 12.5 percent, which brings me to my final point on the budget. Increasingly, we are hearing from our Democrat colleagues, and we are hearing, in fact, from the President and from the Vice President, that somehow our effort to let working people keep more of what they earn is risky, that somehow repealing the marriage penalty is risky, that somehow repealing the death tax is risky. I guess they say it is risky because that is money that we are giving back to the American people. But I would ask my colleagues to understand and remember that if you take last year's budget, and you take President Clinton's proposal for this year's budget, he is proposing an increase in spending over the 5 years--from 2002 to 2006--he is proposing new spending of $494 billion. That is brand new spending in this budget. Some 80 new programs in this budget would be funded at a level of $494 billion above the level we are spending now. So what President Clinton is saying, what Vice President Gore is saying, what our Democrat colleagues are saying, is, let us start 80 new programs and let us spend $494 billion. It is interesting. My Governor, who has been criticized by the President and the Vice President, and many of our Democrat colleagues, said: No. Let's take $483 billion and give it back to working Americans by repealing things such as the marriage penalty and by repealing things such as the death tax. Here is what I do not understand. Why is it risky to give $483 billion of non-Social Security surplus back to working families but it is not risky to spend $494 billion on some 80 new programs? Why is it risky to let the American families spend the money and why is it not risky to let the Government spend the money? Do our Democrat colleagues believe that the Government can spend this money better than the family can spend it? Does anybody believe that if we have a crisis that we will really go back and eliminate these 80 programs and get the $494 billion back? If we did, it would make history because we have not done it. There have been numerous occasions that Congress has raised taxes after giving a tax cut. I simply repeat the point that gets lost in all this political rhetoric, with all the talk about debt reduction: You have to go back to when Jimmy Carter was President to find a budget that spends as much money as does the new Clinton budget. It spends $494 billion on new programs over the next 5 years. That is more money than anyone has talked about in terms of tax cuts. Why is it risky to give the money back to working people and not risky to have Government spend it? That is the unanswered question in this whole debate. Let me conclude by making two additional points. We have had a lot of amendments on Medicare. The President is talking about Medicare. I want to remind my colleagues that five Members of the Senate and 12 other Americans who had some knowledge of Medicare and health care in general were appointed to a bipartisan commission where President Clinton appointed four of the members; the leadership of both Houses appointed six members each; and they jointly appointed a Chairman, Senator John Breaux. With all this talk about Medicare, we had an emerging consensus in the Breaux commission that would have reformed Medicare and would have provided prescription drugs to Americans who had a modest income and had a difficult time paying for their pharmaceutical benefits. We would have done it in the context of reform, where we did not jeopardize other Medicare benefits, where we did not jeopardize the pharmaceutical coverage that other Americans had who had the ability to pay for it; but we had a responsible, bipartisan reform program, and we provided pharmaceuticals for seniors who needed the help. Help those who need the help; do not destroy the coverage of those who already have it--roughly 65 percent of all seniors--and do not jeopardize the future of Medicare. It was a pretty good proposal. What happened to the Breaux commission report? It failed by one vote because every single appointee of President Clinton voted no. So while we have all this rhetoric today about Medicare, I think it is important to remember that the Medicare commission failed by one vote to reach a consensus, and four of the ``no'' votes were by the four people the President appointed. At some point, I would like to get that commission back together to try again to come up with a bipartisan solution. A final point, and then I will yield the floor. What we have shown on this chart is the history of spending on nondefense discretionary spending. This is money that we are not required by law to spend on things such as Medicare and Social Security. These are discretionary programs. And we are not talking about defense. We are talking about nondefense programs. What this shows is, over the last 5 years we have done a relatively good job of controlling spending. The President has consistently urged us to start massive new spending sprees, but we have refused to do that over the 5-year period. One of the reasons this budget has been difficult to write is that in looking at the last 5 years individually, in 1996, when we had just elected a Republican majority, we actually were able to reduce spending in real terms by 4.1 percent. Then real spending grew by 1.8 in 1997; 0.8 in 1998; 3.6 percent in 1999; and then by a whopping real 4.7 percent in the year 2000. The point is, there is a real danger that this surplus is going to burn a hole in our pocket. There is a real danger that in the midst of this great opportunity to rebuild the base of Social Security, to reform Medicare and provide prescription benefits to people who cannot afford the benefits themselves, with an opportunity to let working Americans who face the highest tax rates ever in American history keep more of what they earn, unless we are careful, we are going to end up spending this non-Social Security surplus. We will have some votes later today or tomorrow where there will be efforts to strike points of order in the budget which represent our discipline in trying to stay with the budget we have adopted. Despite all the rhetoric about cuts, there are no cuts in this budget. Defense spending grows by almost 5 percent, and nondefense spending grows faster than inflation. How many families in America would say they have a lower family budget if their income grew by more than inflation did this year? Nobody would say that. But then we are not constrained to logic or reason or fact when we are talking about these budgets. I urge my colleagues, in this golden moment of economic prosperity, when revenues are gushing into the Treasury, when Americans are working and prospering and rejoicing in it, we have an opportunity to fix Social Security forever with an investment-based system so that we don't have to cut benefits of people who are retired today and so that young people will own their own investments to pay for their retirement. We have an opportunity to fix Medicare with reasonable reforms that promote economy and efficiency and that help people who cannot afford pharmaceuticals to get them without destroying the coverage that 65 percent of our citizens have. And we have a chance to do things that need to be done--repeal the marriage penalty, repeal the death tax. If we keep this spending spree underway, if we keep spending more and more money, in the end those things are not going to get done. What we need to do is to try to exercise the kind of responsibility that American families exercise when they look further than just the moment, when they look at their future and look at the problems they face and opportunities they have. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Control, and Risk Assessment be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 30, 10:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing to receive testimony regarding the Administration's FY 2001 budget for programs within EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.