Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I ask for 10 minutes off the leader time.

Mr. GRAMM. This time would not count toward our hour. Madam President, Senator Miller and I have spent 4 weeks listening and participating in this debate. We have looked at the House bill, a bill that the President says he would sign. We have looked at the President's proposal, a bill the President would sign. And we have looked at the bill before us, a bill the President has said he would veto. I do not know how we promote homeland security by giving the President a bill he would veto. We have made some 25 changes in the President's proposal. Quite frankly, the President has compromised more than I would have compromised had I been in his position. But the President wants to try to work on a bipartisan basis, and he wants this bill because lives are at stake. We have limited, very narrowly limited, the President's power to use his emergency waiver in civil service. We have limited it by setting out parameters which he cannot violate in terms of his personnel flexibility. We have adopted some 95 percent of the Lieberman bill. We have adopted provisions of the House bill that represented bipartisan consensus. And we have talked to some 25 Members of the Senate and we have adopted some 18 measures that have been influenced by Members. The President has said this is as far as he can go. What does that mean? Is it as far as he can go because he is mad about something? Is it as far as he can go because he is tired of the Democrats being successful, the Democrat leadership being successful in stopping him from doing what he wants? No. The President has said this is as far as he can go because he does not believe that he can effectively do the job if he gives up any more power. He doesn't believe if he gives up more power that he is getting the tools he needs to fight and win the war on terrorism. And I agree with him. I think he is right. What are the issues we come to? The biggest issue we come down to is the issue I have already talked about at great lengths, and that is the issue of letting the President keep the powers that every President since Jimmy Carter has had. The Lieberman bill takes away power to declare a national emergency and to take extraordinary action that President Carter had, that President Reagan had, that President Bush had, and that President Clinton had. The President has said he is not going to let power that he had on September 11 be taken away in a bill that is supposed to be responding to September 11. Interestingly enough, the President has offered a compromise where he will do things that President Clinton did not have to do when he used that power. He will have to notify Congress in advance, he will have to make public a declaration as to why he did what he did and his justification, something that President Clinton did not have to do. That is how much our President wants to get this job done. But has that been met by reasonable compromise on the other side? No. We have a bill before us that takes that power away from the President. That is not going to happen. It is just not going to happen. We are not going to let it happen. The world may come to an end, but we are not going to take powers away from this President that four other Presidents have had when we are trying to fight and win a war on terrorism. It is just not going to happen. The idea that it should be asked for is an idea that I would hate to have to defend. I would hate to have to go back to Mexia and stand up in front of the print shop of my dear friend Dicky Flatt and explain to people that we are going to take some of power the President has to protect us and we are going to do it in a bill that is supposed to be responding to the death of thousands of our citizens in Washington and New York. Maybe you can make that sale in Mexia. But I cannot. I am not that good at it. I am talking about political ability. I could not make that sale, and I don't believe anybody else can make that sale in Mexia. Maybe they can make that somewhere else. I don't think they can make that sale in Young and Harris Counties, either. But that is the first issue. What we have gotten from our colleagues on the other side of this issue is a series of proposals that all boil down to one thing: The power of the unions, and the power of doing it the same old way it has been done since the 1950s will be preserved, and the power of the President in the name of national security will be reduced. That is the first major issue where we are at an impasse. We have language now that was written by the Public Employee Labor Union. It was offered in the House. It was rejected in the House. Yet that is being proposed once again. The answer is no. I don't know what part of that old country and western song they do not understand, What part of ``no'' don't you understand? But the answer is no. The second issue is: When lives are on the line, should the President have the ability to hire people and have the flexibility to do it without waiting 6 months? Should he have the power if somebody comes to work drunk in a national security department to fire him without having to go through 18 months of rigmarole? I think the answer is yes. I think the answer is yes. But, obviously, the people on the other side of this issue think the answer is no. Those are the two issues. You might say this is a great big, old, thick bill, and you sent a great big, old, thick amendment. Let me make it clear. I sent that amendment for myself, for Senator Miller, for Senator Thompson, for the President, and for some 40 Members of the Senate. That was our best effort at a real compromise where the President gave up powers he really, honestly to God, believes he needs. But he did it to try to solve this problem and to get this Department established and to get on with defending national security. The terrorists are not waiting for this debate. I don't know what they are doing. But it scares me. When you look at these great big, thick bills, we are really apart only on two issues. What should come first? Business as usual, or national security? And should the President have the power when lives are at stake to hire, to promote, and to operate in the most efficient manner possible this part of the Federal Government when the goal is to protect the lives and safety of our people? That, I think, is the choice. Final point: Senator Miller and I have worked hard with the White House for 4 weeks to provide what we believe is a compromise. It is the first real compromise that has been proposed, in my opinion. We want a vote on it. There is going to be an effort later by people on the other side of the issue to defy us that vote by amending our bill in these two critical areas so we never get an up-or-down vote on the President's program. I am not crying foul by saying it is against the Senate rules to do that. I am not saying it is wrong to do it in terms of the way the Senate operates. I am saying I think the President deserves an up-or- down vote on his program. If you want to vote no, you have the right to vote no. But don't you think we ought to let the President have an opportunity to have his program voted on in the way he would like to see it voted on? When that amendment is offered, we are going to use our rights under the Senate rules to hold out for a vote on our substitute. I believe in the end we will get it. I am sure some people on the other side of the aisle will stand up and say, you are delaying, you are delaying, you are doing this, you are doing that. All we want is to vote. We have about 40 Members of the Senate who want to speak on it. They want to be heard. They will be heard. But, in the end, the President is going to be heard. In the end, the people are going to be heard. We want an up-or-down vote on the President's program. I hope we are going to win. If we don't win, then we are going to be in a situation of trying to pass a bill the President will veto, and maybe we will have to wait until after the election and try again. That will mean that for 3 months we are not going to have the program in effect to protect national security. I think that is a risk. As a result, I want us to pass a bill. I don't think any Member of the Senate can stand up and say they wanted to talk about this issue but Senator Miller, Senator Thompson, or I have not been willing to try to work this thing out. But so far, we have seen no effort to work it out. So far it has been that we are going to take power away from the President, and if you don't like it, that is all right. Well, we don't like it, and it is not all right. It is not going to happen. Ultimately, the debate ends here and the public has to make a decision. Is this a partisan issue? God knows that it should not be partisan. But, if you define partisan as being divided roughly along party lines, it is a partisan issue. It shouldn't be. I don't want it to be. There are many people on the other side of the aisle who don't want it to be, but it is. In saying that, it is simply telling the truth. It is a terrible indictment of us, a terrible indictment of the Senate, but it is telling the truth. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield? If the Senator is going to quote me, he ought to do it accurately.

Mr. GRAMM. Yes. The only point I was going to make is, never in my remarks did I say anything about people being a member of a union. And if I am going to be quoted--and I like to be quoted; and I think it improves the Senator's speech to quote me--I would like him to do it accurately. I never said anything about a member of a union. I simply said that when you have work rules that prevent you from deploying more patrol agents where there is no laundry, or where you are not able to change an inspection room without renegotiating a union contract, and lives are at stake, there needs to be some give. That is all I said. I did not say anything about joining a union or never mentioned a union in terms of the right of people to belong to it or their union membership or lack thereof having any relevance to do with this whatsoever.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield on that?

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, will the Senator yield for 2 minutes? I do not want the Senator to lose the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I would like to make a couple responses. First, let me give you the actual figures of people being fired from the Federal Government. There are 1.8 million people on the Federal payroll. In the year 2001, three of them were fired outright. The previous administration, the Clinton administration, found that 64,340 Federal workers were poor performers.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me finish my point. Only 434 of them went through the removal process, and that process takes as long as 18 months, and many of them remained on the payroll. That is the first point. The second point, the Senator talks about INS. In 1990, at the Honolulu Airport, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was worried about a surge in flights and the long lines, and they wanted to hire more INS agents to enforce the law. The American Federation of Government Employees filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board saying, under their contract, INS could not hire more agents without renegotiating its union contract. Guess what. The National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of the union, prohibiting the people from being hired. The Senator talks about a vote. I ask unanimous consent that on Friday morning at 10 o'clock, we have an up-or-down vote on the substitute I have offered with Senator Miller. That way, there will be no doubt about the fact we are ready to bring it to a vote at that point. We would like an up-or-down vote on our amendment at 10 o'clock.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, the point I want to make--and I am sorry I had to put our colleague in a position like that to object.

Mr. GRAMM. I will yield, but the point I want to make is we want an up-or-down vote on our amendment. This is the President's substitute, and the President's supporters should have a chance to speak on it. We have gone on for 4 weeks on this bill, not because of what supporters of the President have done, but because we have had amendments offered, probably 90 percent of that time taken up by people who do not support the President's position. That is where we are. I will be happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. GRAMM. Yes.

Mr. GRAMM. The question is a totally fair question. As I said earlier, people have a right to offer amendments, but the point is, this is the President's best effort to reach a compromise with the Senator and with those who oppose his proposal, and he would like to have an up-or-down vote on his compromise as we have written it, not as it would be rewritten by others. The Senator has every right to offer an amendment. We have every right to resist it and not let the Senator have a vote on it. But we would like at some point to have people vote yes or no on the President's proposal. That is all.

Mr. GRAMM. There is the rub. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me respond--

Mr. GRAMM. Does the Senator know how long it took to work it out?

Mr. GRAMM. While they were working it out, what if somebody brought a chemical weapon in to Hawaii where my kinfolk live. What if they had been killed? I am constantly capable of misstating facts and figures. I always tell my children: Do not get into a debate about facts, look them up. All I am saying is, the facts I have--and I do have as much faith in mine as anybody else's--say the Clinton administration found 64,340 Federal workers to be poor performers; 434 went through the process to be terminated, and that can take as long as 18 months. Maybe it does not matter unless somebody's life is at stake. That is all I am saying. If somebody's life is at stake, you do not do business as usual. You can defend business as usual, but when it puts somebody's life at stake, when a man, woman, or child has their life at stake, business as usual is not usual. I think there is some urgency here. That is all I am saying. I am not trying to indict any of these work rules or say they are crazy. I would hate to have to run my business under these work rules. I would go broke. All I am saying is, when people's lives are at stake, there is some urgency. I yield back to the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, are we going back and forth? We do not have to, but we normally have.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, all we have asked for, from the very beginning, is to have an opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on the President's proposal, not having an up-or- down vote on it as amended by somebody else. The Senator has every right to amend it. It just seems to me, in a wartime situation, when the President has proposed a compromise and has asked that we vote on it, that we ought to do that. And on that basis, I will object.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I want to try to summarize my thoughts so the distinguished Senator from Tennessee can preserve some of his time. When 9/11 happened, and after that terrible day when we all stood together in front of the Capitol and sang ``God Bless America,'' I thought that coming together on a proposal to defend our country and its people was going to be about as easy as it had been after December 7, 1941. I was absolutely and totally wrong. As strange as it sounds, as unbelievable as it is, the Lieberman bill takes power away from President Bush to declare a national emergency and, in the process, override business as usual in the Federal bureaucracy, a power that Jimmy Carter had, a power that Ronald Reagan had, a power that the first President Bush had, a power that Bill Clinton had and used. Incredibly, after thousands of our people have died, after all of the suffering and all the trauma, we now have in a bill--a bill that is shameless enough to call itself related to homeland security--an effort to take power away from the President that he had on 9/11. I am not sure the American people truly understand that President Bush has asked for no additional emergency powers to set aside work rules within the Federal bureaucracy. In fact, he has already agreed to reduce those powers very slightly as compared to what his four predecessors possessed. But that is not enough for the supporters of the Lieberman bill. They want to deny the President the power to declare, on a national security basis, that we change the way the bureaucracy works to allow him to put the right person in the right place at the right time. Let me give a concrete example of it. At Logan Airport in 1987, Customs agents decided they needed to change the way a room was structured in order to do inspections and in order to improve the quality of the inspections. The Treasury employees labor union objected and filed a complaint with the Federal Labor Relations Authority that said, under their union work rules, they had to sign off on a change in the work space, and the FLRA ruled that the Customs Service could not change their inspections facility because it overrode a provision of that union contract. Let me remind my colleagues that two of those planes that were involved in terrorist attacks flew out of Logan Airport. Are we today to allow a work agreement and the Federal Labor Relations Authority to override the President if he wants to improve security at Logan Airport? I do not think so. I do not think the American people believe that we should, but that is exactly what is being proposed. So I urge my colleagues to reject this idea that in the name of national security we should take national security power away from the President. If this cloture motion prevails, we will have only been allowed to offer one amendment, the Thompson amendment. A vote to kill it failed, but then for 3\1/2\ days it was held in limbo. If this cloture motion is agreed to, a substitute amendment, which perhaps is supported by between 40 and 50 Senators, would not be able to be offered. The majority had a right to file a cloture motion--that is the way the Senate works--but with all due respect I think it was wrong to file it. I do not think it can be justified given we have had an opportunity to offer one amendment, and I do not believe the American people would be in favor of ending debate on this bill while its major feature takes power away from the President to use national security waivers instead of preserving that power. So I urge my colleagues to vote no on this cloture motion. I conclude by reading a quote from Dwight David Eisenhower. I think it is very appropriate as we debate the Homeland Security Department and its structure. Ike said: The right organization will not guarantee success, but the wrong organization will guarantee failure. I believe the bill, as it is now structured, is an unworkable organization. The President has said he will veto it, that he would rather have no bill than this. When are we going to awaken and give the President the tools he needs to finish the job? I hope it is soon, and I hope we begin today by voting down this motion to deny us the ability to give the Senate an opportunity to work its will on the President's proposal. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I have been in Congress for 24 years, and I have never heard a better speech. I have never heard a clearer statement of principle. I congratulate the Senator from Georgia. Tomorrow, the Senator from Georgia and I will announce the completion of an effort we have had underway for several weeks. We will try to look at concerns about the President's bill that have been raised in the House, we will try to look at concerns that have been raised in the Senate, we will try to look at changes that were made in the House bill and the Senate bill, and even try to come up with a bill that addresses those concerns, but does it in such a way as to protect the President's ability to fight and to win this war on terrorism. Also, Madam President, let me make it clear: When 9/11 happened and the President decided he wanted to create a new independent agency by taking parts of the Government that were not working together, that were not communicating effectively, and putting them into a coherent whole, I would have thought 100 Members of the Senate would have supported that effort. I was wrong. If anybody had told me that in light of 9/11, the death of thousands of our people and the imminent danger we face every day that we would have an effort in the Senate to actually take power away from the President. This is power that President Carter had, power that President Reagan had, power that President Bush had, power that President Clinton had, and power that President Bush has today, I wouldn't have believed it. Who would believe that a bill that could not have been passed before 9/11, a bill that literally strips away the power of the President to designate a national emergency and in the process waive work rules that impede efficiency and jeopardize lives? Who would have believed, after thousands of our citizens were dead, after millions of our citizens are in danger, that the Senate would come forward with a bill that says: What is our response to 9/11? Our response is the President has too many national security powers. That is exactly what the Lieberman bill does. Incredibly, the President today has the power, in the name of national security, to set aside union work rules. The majority leader said yesterday: Show me one time in history when the circumstances threatening our country demanded we forgo the protections built into laws for Federal workers. Well, let me give you, very quickly, some concrete examples of exactly why, after 9/11, we need to preserve the powers the President has today. Let me remind my colleagues, today, prior to 9/11, the President had used these powers, as President Clinton did, to set aside union contracts in the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Air Marshals Office of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Office of Criminal Enforcement, and the Office of Enforcement and Intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Agency. Workers in those offices today are working under the procedures the President has asked that he be allowed to continue to exercise. What kinds of problems do you run into with these silly union work rules? Let me say to my colleagues, I don't see how anybody with a straight face can stand on the floor of the Senate and defend the civil service system as it exists today, when you are talking about threats to the lives of our children and our families. It is not as if we have not been warned. The Grace Commission warned us. The Volcker Commission stated: The current system is slow. It is legally trampled and intellectually confused. It is impossible to explain to potential candidates. It is almost certainly not fulfilling the spirit of our mandate to hire the most meritorious candidates. That is Paul Volcker, and that is in 1989. Our colleague, Senator Rudman headed the U.S. Commission on National Security. We all know Warren Rudman. We all know he is no union basher. We all know he has good judgment and good sense. This is what he said: Today's Civil Service system has become a drag on our national security. The morass of rules, regulation and bureaucracy prevent the government from hiring and retaining the workforce that is required to combat the threats of the future. I could go on. For example, the Brookings Institution has shown study after study that the system is broken. Now, after giving President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush, President Clinton, and the current President Bush the power to set aside these union work rules for national security reasons, and after the events of 9/11, the majority brings forth a bill that says: Well, we gave this power to President Clinton and we gave the power to President Carter, but after 9/11, we are going to take away security powers of the President. That is offensive and ludicrous on its face, and when the American people discover it, they are going to go absolutely crazy. When they discover that we currently have eight agencies operating under these rules today, and the Congress, in its response to 9/11, wants to say: Well, we are going to take away powers from this President that President Clinton needed and President Carter needed--I don't think so. I don't think people are going to buy it. What kinds of impediments are we talking about? Well, let me touch a few. These are actual cases. I am not talking about theoretical cases. The majority leader says, show him examples of where these work rules interfere with national security. Let me quickly give you a handful of them. We had an effort in Customs, in 1987, to change the makeup of our inspection center in the Customs office at Logan Airport. The idea was, change the makeup of the office in order to make it more efficient in fulfilling the functions of Customs. Guess what? Customs tried to change the configuration of the room. The public employee labor union, representing Customs officials, appealed to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and the power of the Administration to change the configuration of the inspection room was rejected. Do we really want some work rule negotiated prior to 9/11 to prevent us from finding somebody who is carrying a bomb on a plane with your momma? Have people gone completely crazy? What is going on here? Let me touch on a couple of these. Union work rules prohibited an agency from working together to protect the border. Literally, as our former drug czar Barry McCaffrey pointed out, the union work rules prohibited one of the agencies from opening trunks. The drug smugglers were aware of it, had people at the border watching, and decided to move drugs based on those work rules. What if that is poisonous gas or biological weapons or a nuclear weapon coming into New York Harbor? We are going to go to the National Labor Relations Authority to renegotiate a union contract when millions of lives are at stake? I don't think so. And the idea that our colleagues would believe such a thing is possible just shows you how out of touch some people are with their commitment to the status quo as compared to their commitment to the job at hand. Very quickly, because I am running out of time, there was a prohibition of agencies for increasing the number of immigration inspectors. We had an effort to increase the number of inspections of immigration inspectors in 1990. And under union work rules, it was rejected because of a union contract. Do people really think, in light of 9/11, we should allow a union contract to stand in our way and spend months and months and months before the National Labor Relations Authority trying to change that contract, rather than saying there is a clear and present danger to America and we want to change it today? Now, the President has that power. But under the Lieberman bill, that power would be taken away. I could go on and give you dozens of real- life examples of how ridiculous these union work rules are. Look, if we were not talking about people's lives, we could all play this game of just saying how sacred these union work rules are that make our Federal Government the laughingstock of the country and the world. But when we are talking about lives and talking about the powers that four Presidents have had, the idea that we are going to take that power away from this President, at this time, is totally unacceptable. To add insult to injury, the President has asked for flexibility. He has asked for the right to promote good people and put them in the right place, and not wait 5 months to hire somebody, and to fire incompetents. The President cannot promote the lady from the FBI who sent a memo to the home office saying: Hey, we have people with terrorist links who are learning to fly planes and not land them, and maybe we ought to do something about it.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.

Mr. GRAMM. Yes, I can do it in 5 minutes.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, the President wanted the ability to do things such as promote that FBI agent because, had we been able to get through that massive, incoherent system in which we are working, we might have prevented the attacks. I also think we might want to fire the people at INS who gave visas to the people who had flown a plane into the World Trade Center after their picture had been on every television in the world and on the front page of every newspaper. We have, as a Senate, approved those flexibilities, those powers, for the Transportation Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the FAA, and we did that prior to 9/11. But after 9/11, we are told that the President, under national security circumstances, with a declaration of a clear and present danger to our people, cannot have the kind of flexibility in homeland security that we gave to a previous President for the Internal Revenue Service. To make the Internal Revenue Service more responsible, we gave President Bill Clinton, personnel flexibility. But now, to protect the lives of our people in homeland security, are we not willing to give the same flexibility to President Bush? When the American people finally discover what is going on here, they are going to be outraged, and they are going to discover it because, despite our best efforts of saying let's work together, let's do this on a bipartisan effort, it is clear now that there is going to be a battle. It is clear now that we are going to have to choose between the status quo, the old way of doing business, and the health, safety, and lives of our people. The choice is as stark as a choice can be. The bill that is before us literally takes power away from the President that every President since Jimmy Carter has had to use national security waivers. It takes that power away from the President in the aftermath of 9/11. The American people will never understand that, and they will never accept it. They will never accept a compromise on it. When the American people realize we were concerned enough about the Internal Revenue Service's operation that we gave President Clinton personnel flexibility to hire and fire and promote, because we thought it was important, but we are not willing to give President Bush the same flexibility to protect the lives of our people, I don't think they are going to take kindly to that. The plain truth is that we have a bill before us that protects everything except national security. It protects every special interest group in the American Government. The plain truth is, the people who work for the Government want these changes. An OPM poll looking at accountability in the Federal Government. By very large margins, two- thirds of the people who are Federal workers believe that Federal performers are not adequately disciplined. Nearly half of all workers believe job performance has little or nothing to do with promotion and raises, and 99 percent of people who got bad evaluations last year in the Federal Government got pay raises. When we are talking about national security, when we are looking at the aftermath of 9/11, it is time for change. It is not time for the same old special interests. So what we are asking, in essence, is very simply--and I will conclude on this--let this President keep the power that every President since Jimmy Carter has had, which is to use national security waivers. That hardly seems extreme given the attack on America and the deaths of thousands of our people. Give this President the same flexibility in national security and homeland security that we gave Bill Clinton with the Internal Revenue Service. If that sounds extreme, you are looking at things differently than I.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I listened intently as the majority leader spoke. I remind my colleagues, we are debating homeland security and that we are preparing for a debate and a vote on Iraq. I don't think it ever does any harm, however, to talk about the fact that the country has additional challenges. I guess I would express two sources of disappointment with the speech the majority leader gave. The first source of disappointment would have to do with the absence of a program to deal with a single one of these problems. Anybody who goes back and listens to that long litany of woe would say: What did the majority leader say we are supposed to do about it? One would search in vain, except for the hint of a program which I would have to say is sort of modeled after the Peronist economic program in Argentina today, which is to increase taxes and to spend more money. In fact, I remind my colleagues, if we are as concerned as we say about the economy and about the security of our people, the logical place to start doing something about it is in the Senate. The plain truth is, if there has been one place where there has been inaction on issues relevant to the economy and relevant to the American people, it is the Senate. In fact, the President proposed a budget in January. The House adopted a budget. The Senate not only has not adopted a budget, but we have made it eminently clear that we have no intention of adopting a budget. I would have to say that if the majority is concerned about all these problems and the majority leader has the ability to bring a budget to the floor of the Senate tomorrow, a logical place to show that concern would be to do something about it by adopting a budget. The plain truth is, we have adopted no budget, and we have continued to spend as if we still had the surplus that existed prior to the downturn and prior to the war. In terms of prescription drugs for seniors under Medicare, the President has proposed a program. The House has adopted a program. But in the Senate, there is no program. The Finance Committee was never allowed to meet on the subject to put forward a bill. A hodgepodge of ideas came to the floor of the Senate. No consensus was built. It became a partisan issue. There was no action. One thing that we could clearly do to bring stability to the economy and to promote job creation and economic growth would be to make the tax cuts permanent. What is more destabilizing to investment and economic growth than the fact that 9 years from today we will have the largest tax increase in American history? And it will occur automatically if we don't act. In terms of homeland security, the President proposed a bill. The House acted. In the Senate, we have had inaction. We have had endless debate. We have talked about working together. We have talked about bipartisanship, but there is no bipartisanship on this issue. In fact, the Democrats have come forward with a bill that takes power away from the Presidency and the national security powers that President Carter had, President Reagan had, President Bush had, President Clinton had. But now, in the wake of thousands of our people being killed in a terrorist attack, suddenly our Democrat brethren say the President has too much national security power and they want to take some of it away from him. The American people are going to go absolutely crazy when they realize that this is the case. In terms of welfare reform, the 1996 reforms were the greatest success in public policy in the postwar period. Now, the President has proposed a welfare reform bill. The House has adopted a welfare reform bill. But there is no action on welfare reform in the Senate. Finally, the President proposed appropriations. Not one appropriations bill in its final form has passed the Congress, and only three have passed the Senate. I would have to say there is a missing ingredient in the Majority Leader's speech when he talks about all the problems we face economically. When you look at the record of the Senate, let's begin at home. Let's begin to solve the problem where we live. That problem is in the Senate. I will address two other issues because I know our Republican Leader wishes to speak. I would have to take exception, as I said last Tuesday that I would, on the issue about deficits. I do not understand how our Democrat colleagues can continue to stand up and moan and grown and cry about deficits as if they come from heaven, as if somehow God just said: We are going to have deficits. Deficits don't come from heaven; they are created right here on the floor of the Senate. I would have to say that when we are talking about a commitment not to raid Social Security, when we are talking about concern about the deficit, I remind my colleagues, last Tuesday I stood right at that desk and raised a point of order that we were taking $6 billion right out of the Social Security Trust Fund. The Majority Leader led the fight to take it out. Today, he is alarmed about the deficit. Today, he is upset about the deficit. Today, he is bemoaning the deficit. But Tuesday he helped create the deficit. You can't have it both ways. You can't keep spending as if there is no tomorrow and then complain about the deficit. Let me remind my colleagues, lest they think that suddenly the Government has become so tightfisted we are hurting our people: Over the last 5 years, inflation has been 1.8 percent on a year on average. Average family income has risen by 4.5 percent. And yet the discretionary spending of the Federal Government, driven largely by actions in the Senate--I am not talking about Medicare and Social Security and mandatory programs; I am talking about discretionary spending, something every family understands--at the time when family income was growing by 4.5 percent, discretionary spending, not counting the September 11 emergency funding, was growing by almost 7 percent. When you look at what that means by program, this is the inflation rate, this red line, and this, by parts of the Government, is how fast the Government has grown as compared to inflation: six times as fast for Labor-HHS; five times as fast for Interior, five times as fast for Treasury. It goes on and on. Yet the Majority Leader comes to the floor of the Senate today and says: We have a crisis. We need, in essence, to raise taxes--taxes are too low--so we can fund more spending. Anybody who looks at the facts is going to conclude that not only have higher taxes and higher spending never helped any economy anywhere, but that we already have the higher spending and that we are creating these deficits as we go every day in the Senate. Finally, I have to respond to this constant effort to try to pit people against each other based on their income. Envy destroyed ancient Athens; it destroyed ancient Rome. It is a dangerous thing for Americans to use, and it is outrageous, unfair, and unjustified. Look at the people who make up the Senate and look at the families they come from and give me an argument that somehow there is some kind of elitism in America. It won't hold water. And we hear all this talk that these rich people are getting all these tax cuts--the top 1 percent. Senator Daschle reminds us they get the $50,000 tax cut. He didn't bother to point out that they are paying $400,000 in taxes. And as far as the low-income people who are not getting tax cuts are concerned, he didn't point out that they are not paying any taxes. Income tax cuts are for taxpayers. We have already been funding programs for nontaxpayers. We had not had a real tax cut of any significance since 1981. And the reality is that our tax cut made the Tax Code more progressive and not less progressive. Under our tax cut, the top 1 percent of income earners will pay more taxes as a percentage than they pay now. So I think what we are seeing here is that some of our colleagues are obviously embarrassed about the fact that we are not getting the job done in the Senate, and that the American people want a homeland security bill passed. I don't think changing the subject helps our effort. In the end, if we are really concerned about those things--and we should be--we ought to go back and adopt a budget. We need to address these concerns the American public has. But it is never going to be enough to say that there is unhappiness in the country. Ultimately, you have to say what your program is to deal with it. The only program I heard today is we need more spending. When Alan Greenspan was asked before the House Banking Committee what one thing we could do that would help the economy the most, he said: ``Stop spending.'' Yet, last Thursday, we added $6 billion to the deficit, led by the very people who, today--last Thursday, they were for deficits; today, they are against deficits. But you cannot be for something on Tuesday and against it last Thursday and have any credibility in that debate. So, in the end, we have work to do here. In my opinion, we need to pass a homeland security bill. That is lives today. We have to deal with the Iraq situation. And nothing would make me happier than to do something to help the economy. But that something is not spending and it is not tax increases. In fact, it would be exactly the opposite. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I spoke earlier today under our time limit and I was grateful for the opportunity and said much of what I wanted to say on this subject today. But I wanted to come over this afternoon to talk a little bit about the Byrd amendment and to focus in on where I think our problem is, in coming to what I believe should be a bipartisan consensus. Let me, first, say that Senator Byrd has spoken at great length on this issue. On Friday I was running on a treadmill--coming as close to running on a treadmill as an old man comes , to exercise my mind as well as my body--I listened to Senator Byrd speak for almost an hour. I had, on two occasions, listened before. I want to make the following observations. First, there is one point that I am convinced on by Senator Byrd and that is the point about appropriations. Senator Byrd has talked about the Constitution and talked about our responsibility as an independent and equal branch of the Government. I think nowhere has his argument been stronger and more to the point than on the issue of the power of the purse. I want to make it clear that tomorrow Senator Zell Miller and I will be presenting a substitute. Maybe not on the floor. I don't know where we will be, in terms of ability to offer an amendment on the floor, but in the morning we are going to put out a substitute that we have been working on intensively for some 3 weeks. One of the changes we have made is we have eliminated this 5-percent flexibility in appropriations. I believe that for every one problem that we have in trying to deal with homeland security and deal with a massive new Government agency, for every one problem we have where the President would want to reprogram funds unilaterally, we are probably going to have 500 problems with administrative flexibility and with the ability to put the right person in the right place at the right time. So in listening to Senator Byrd and working with Senator Stevens, at least in terms of what we are offering as an alternative that we believe has some bipartisan appeal, that takes much of what is done in this bill and in the House bill, we have been convinced that Senator Byrd is correct in noting that a fundamental power of Congress is the power of the purse. It is a power that the Congress has to be very jealous about relinquishing, and it is something that should not be done. I am also convinced, as we begin the process of making this new Department work, that we can come up with a process whereby efforts to reprogram funds can be dealt with on an expedited basis. I had the privilege of being a subcommittee chairman for 2 years at the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations subcommittee. I do not think there was ever a time where any of those agencies asked for reprogramming of funds that we ended up denying them. So I think that is something that can be worked out. I think the points that were raised were strong points. It is an area where I find myself in agreement with Senator Byrd, and it is something that I believe we can and will fix. And the administration does support this substitute.