Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, what a pity it is that America today is focused on the fact that the President has vetoed the tax bill and is not paying a bit of attention to this debate. So much passion, it is a shame it is wasted, but it is. The President has vetoed the tax bill. It means the average working couple in America will bear $1,400 a year of marriage penalty because the President doesn't believe they ought to get relief. It means all over America people who inherit family farms and small businesses from their parents, who worked a lifetime to build the farms and businesses up, will have to sell them to give the Government 55 cents out of every dollar of value for which their parents worked a lifetime. Because the President has vetoed the tax bill, it means we are not going to have a small across-the-board tax cut for every working American who pays income taxes. Because the President vetoed the tax bill, we are not going to make health insurance deductible for Joe and Sarah Brown, the same as it is deductible for General Motors or General Electric. We know, based on the makeup of the House and Senate and based on the votes of our Democrat colleagues who have been steadfastly opposed to cutting taxes for working families, that we can't override the President's veto. So the tax debate is over. Thank goodness we will have a new President in 15 months. The American people are going to get to vote in part on whether or not Government ought to spend a surplus or give part of it back. When they vote, we will vote again. I say this to the President: I hope the President will not send down to Congress more spending bills, because they will pass over my cold, dead political body. I hope the President is not going to propose raising taxes and spending money because they are going to pass over my cold, dead political body. We can't make Bill Clinton cut taxes, but we can stop him from spending the Social Security surplus. That is exactly what we are going to do. We are going to hear all kinds of whining from the White House about how the President has ``got to, got to, got to'' have more money, even though we are spending more than ever in American history. He has to have more, and we have to steal it from Social Security or raise taxes to pay for it. It is not going to happen. End of that debate. Now, I want to say I have never, since I have been in the Senate, seen a debate so out of kilter with the real issue that is before the Senate. Quite frankly, I have seen few debates that are as mean- spirited as this debate. Here is the issue in a nutshell: For 4 years, the Congress has decided, when we wrote a law setting out royalties on oil production that would be paid to the Federal Government and establishing a system to collect them, we meant what we said; that when the Government entered into contracts with people, that those contracts were binding; and that if people wanted to raise those royalties, that ought to be voted on in Congress. After all, we went to the inconvenience to run for public office, and the Constitution says Congress shall have the power to raise taxes and to spend money. It must be wonderful to have all these things my colleagues hate--big oil, big medicine, big pharmaceuticals--but we are talking about $22 million a year worth of royalties. This is not about money, this is about principle. It is about whether or not Congress ought to set the law and whether Congress has the power to tax, or whether the Federal bureaucracy, through its own power and by its own agenda, with no support from Congress, can override Congress' will and make law. I am proud of my dear, wonderful colleague from Texas. I love my colleague from Texas because she is tough. I have never seen an issue so demagogued as this issue. I have to say to her, she has not backed up an inch and she has won. I think it is a great testament to her courage and to her toughness. I congratulate her on both. The issue is not big oil versus schoolchildren. If the Federal Government raises royalties and therefore raises the deliverable price at the filling station, or when you buy home heating oil, who pays for it? Who pays for it is working men and women. That is food, clothing, shelter, and education they take away from their children. This is not an issue about oil companies versus children; this is an issue of whether we want to take an action through regulation on which Congress constitutionally should be voting. Second, do we want to raise those prices? I do not. In terms of all of this stuff, big oil and political power, they do not have anything to do with this debate. This debate is about whether or not the Mineral Management Service should have unilateral powers to change royalty rates, or whether Congress, which set the rates to begin with, established the process, should have the power to make those changes if they choose. Our Democrat colleagues use terms such as ``fairness'' and ``big oil'' and ``excess profits.'' It all reminds me of when their policy was in effect under President Carter, and we all waited in line to buy gasoline; when their policy was in force under President Carter and we had double-digit inflation. Maybe they want to go back to that. I do not. But to turn this into some kind of political shouting match when we are talking about a debate that involves $22 million a year, which is a small amount but a fundamental principle of American government which is beyond setting a price on, and that is who makes the law in this country? Does the bureaucracy make law or does the Congress make law? Our colleague from Texas has, for 4 years in a row, set out in law the principle that Congress made the law to begin with, and when we are ready to change it, we will change it. We do not need the Clinton administration acting as executive branch, legislative branch, and regulator all combined. So I say to my colleague, I am proud of what she has done. I am proud that she has won, and all the whining and all the moaning and all the groaning does not change the fact that the Senator from Texas stands on the firmest ground that you could stand on, on the floor of the Senate. The Constitution, in article I, gives Congress the power to impose taxes. It does not give the Mineral Management Service the power to impose taxes. Nor will we ever give them that power. That is what this issue is about. I think we demean the legislative process and demean debate by trying to turn this into something that it is not. I know someone from the Mineral Management Service has said --and our colleague from Texas is going to give the exact quote --that we need this issue to demagog. Maybe they need this issue to demagog. But this is the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. Here we are supposed to be debating real issues.

Mr. GRAMM. Will my colleague read what the quote said again? I want to be sure that is what I was referring to.

Mr. GRAMM. That is the quote I am talking about. I thank our colleague for using it. Let me say this. He can demagog all he wants to. But if he wants to raise taxes, let me suggest to him he quit his job, go back wherever he is from, and that he convince millions of people to elect him to the Senate. Then he can come up here and vote to raise taxes. But as long as he is there and not here, I do not care what he thinks about taxes. It is not his duty to raise them. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Louisiana for working with me. I think we have worked out language that I can live with and which I think basically does what she wants, which is gather information, and then as a policy-making arm of government we could choose how to deal with it and what to do with it. I will not object to the modification of her amendment. I think it deals with that problem. I say to the Senator from New Jersey that it is a stormy Thursday and we all want to finish the bill. But my objection is for preserving private property with the sanctity of contracts and free enterprise. If the government could run airlines better we all would be trying to rebuild our airlines based on the Soviet model. It didn't quite work out that way. We had an empirical test in the world, and our approach won. I am not trying to defend any interest here other than private property and contracting, and simply noting that for some reason on this stormy day all of a sudden everybody wants to run the airlines. I want to especially thank the Senator from Louisiana. She has been very kind to me. Thank you.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, at the request of the Honorable Elton Bomer, Secretary of State for Texas, I rise today to bring to the attention of my colleagues House Concurrent Resolutions 2, 59 and 133, as passed by the 76th Legislature of the State of Texas. House Concurrent Resolution 2 urges the United States Congress to provide funding for infrastructure improvements, additional personnel and extended hours of operation at border crossings between Texas and Mexico. In order for all Americans to fully enjoy the economic benefits of trade, we must ensure that the Customs Service obtains the resources necessary to reduce delays, promote commerce and combat illicit drug trafficking. The Senate recently passed the Customs Authorization Act of 1999--largely based on legislation I crafted to facilitate trade along the Southwest border--which authorizes the funds necessary to improve our border infrastructure and stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. Secondly, House Concurrent Resolution 59 urges the United States Congress to pass legislation allocating a portion of federal offshore drilling royalties to coastal states and local communities. I believe coastal states deserve more than the 5 percent of the $120 billion they helped generate during the past 43 years. States and local communities are more qualified than bureaucrats in Washington to allocate resources to address their specific local needs, and should be given the freedom to do so. By passing this resolution, the Texas Legislature has sent a clear message, and it is time for Congress to act. Common sense invites it, and fairness demands it. In addition, House Concurrent Resolution 133 supports the United States Congress in ensuring that the critical infrastructure for the United States military defense strategy be maintained by withdrawing from public use the McGregor Range land beyond the year 2001. The Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1986 requires that the withdrawal from public use of all military land governed by the Army, including the McGregor Range, must be terminated on November 6, 2001, unless the withdrawal is renewed by an Act of Congress. As my colleagues may know, the McGregor Range at Ft. Bliss is America's principal training facility for air defense systems, maintaining our military readiness in air-to-ground combat by providing the highest level of missile defense testing for advanced missile defense systems. Texas has a long and impressive history of supporting America's defense, both at home and on the front lines, and I strongly believe that no state contributes more to the defense of our nation than Texas. I look forward to working to ensure that if the lion and the lamb lie to down together in this world, that the United States of America always be the lion. Mr. President, I commend the Texas Legislature for passing these resolutions and ask that they be printed in the Record. The material follows: The State of Texas, Office of the Secretary of State, Austin, TX, August 20, 1999. Hon. Phil Gramm, U.S. Senator, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Gramm: Enclosed is an official copy of Senate Concurrent Resolution 2, as passed by the 76th Legislature, Regular Session, 1999, of the State of Texas, wherein the 76th Legislature of the State of Texas respectfully urges the United States Congress to provide funding for infrastructure improvements, more customs inspection lanes and customs officials, and 24-hour customs operations at border crossings between Texas and Mexico. The 76th Legislature of the State of Texas requests that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States. Sincerely, Elton Bomer, Secretary of State. Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 2 Whereas, Bottlenecks at customs inspection lanes have contributed to traffic congestion at Texas-Mexico border crossing areas, slowing the flow of commerce and detracting from the economic potential of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); and Whereas, Smuggling of drugs inside truck parts and cargo containers compounds the problem, necessitating lengthy vehicle searches that put federal customs officials in a crossfire between their mandate to speed the movement of goods and their mandate to reduce the flow of illegal substances; and Whereas, At the state level, the Texas comptroller of public accounts has released a report titled Bordering the Future, recommending among other items that U.S. customs inspection facilities at major international border crossings stay open around the clock; and Whereas, At the federal level, the U.S. General Accounting Office is conducting a similar study of border commerce and NAFTA issues, and the U.S. Customs Service is working with a private trade entity to review and analyze the relationship between its inspector numbers and its inspection workload; and Whereas, Efficiency in the flow of NAFTA commerce requires two federal customs-related funding commitments: (1) improved infrastructure, including additional customs inspection lanes; and (2) a concurrent expansion in customs personnel and customs operating hours; and Whereas, Section 1119 of the federal Transportation Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), creating the Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program, serves as a funding source for border and infrastructure improvements and regulatory enhancements; and Whereas, Domestic profits and income increase in tandem with exports and imports, generating federal revenue, some portion of which deserves channeling into the customs activity that supports increased international trade; and Whereas, Texas legislators and businesses, being close to the situation geographically, are acutely aware of the fixes and upgrades that require attention if NAFTA prosperity is truly to live up to the expectations of this state and nation; now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the 76th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to provide funding for infrastructure improvements, more customs inspection lanes and customs officials, and 24-hour customs operations at border crossings between Texas and Mexico; and, be it further Resolved, That the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the Texas delegation to the Congress with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am eager for this bill to be complete. I don't intend to offer an amendment, but I would like to say a couple of words. I am somewhat taken by the fact that suddenly the Senate is made up of numerous Members who want to run the airlines. We have undertaken tremendous efforts to be elected to the Senate. In doing so, we have taken up a high calling. We have a responsibility in American Government. But for some reason, yesterday and today, all of a sudden Members of the Senate have decided we ought to take it upon ourselves to tell the airlines in the United States how they ought to be run, and we want to do it without the inconvenience of having to go out and invest billions of dollars. My point is a very simple point. That is, for some reason --I don't know if it is the weather, the change in the barometric pressure, whatever--suddenly Members of the Senate have become experts in running airlines, all without the inconvenience of having to go out and raise money or invest their own money and without the inconvenience of having to take responsibility if their plans go bad. My basic view is that we have good airlines in America. All of us have had bad experiences on airlines: The weather went bad. We have had experiences where we bought a cheaper ticket and would have liked to have flown on a different flight. We wanted a cheap fare, but it would have been nice had they let us fly on the other flight. The point is, we deregulated the airlines. We have benefited from a dramatic decline in the cost of air transportation. Millions of average Americans have moved out of the bus station and into the airport. Now all of a sudden it has become the popular mania in the Senate to want to start having the Congress--in this case, the Senate--run the airlines. I just didn't want it all to pass without making some comment on it. I thank the Chair for the time. Amendment No. 1679 (Purpose: To make available funds for the monitoring and reporting on the transfer of passenger air transportation tickets among airlines)

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I do object to this amendment. Here is the issue in a nutshell. It happens all the time. Someone buys a discount ticket. They get a lower price. They get a lower price because they commit that they are going to use that ticket on that day and they are going to use it as a through ticket. If it is round trip, they commit they are going to use it going and coming. What happens is, they get to the airport early. They find out there is another flight going exactly where they want to go that is getting there an hour earlier. So they go to that other airline and say: Will you take my excursion ticket or my discount ticket? The airline says: Yes, we have an empty seat; we would like to have the money. But they go on to say: The airline you bought the discount ticket from does not allow us to take this excursion ticket. Now, why is that? Basically when they entered into a contract with the airline, they got the discount fare because they committed to fly on that plane on that day. Now, they could have gotten a ticket that would have allowed them to change airlines, but they would have had to pay a higher price for it. Many people agonize constantly when they go on vacation and buy a discount ticket and have to lock in those tickets in advance. It can be misery wondering whether or not you are actually going to be able to leave that day. But the point is, the reason you are getting the lower rate is you are committing to use the full ticket. So the original way the amendment was written is subject to rule XVI. The amendment was not filed at the desk prior to the deadline. I don't doubt anybody's intention, but it is not the sense of the Senate--at least this part of the Senate--that we ought to be getting into the business of trying to tell airlines how their ticket structure should be made. If you don't want to buy a discount ticket, don't buy it. But the idea that we are going to set up a study where we are going to have the Government recommend to Congress, and we are going to begin to try to change laws that say you can have a discount fare, and then you can do things that the discount fare is not based on, that violates the contract. The contract you entered into with the discount ticket is a contract, whereby you agreed you are going to use that ticket on that day or you are going to lose it. It might be convenient to change the day. It might be convenient to fly on another airline, which would mean that the airline you entered into the discount fare with would lose their half of the fare to another airline. But the point is, that is a violation of the contract. I don't need the Government to study whether or not we ought to abrogate private contracts. Therefore, I object to this amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. I am. It was not timely filed at the desk.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I have been recognized for 15 minutes, as I understand it.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me remind everyone how we came to this point under the leadership of Senator Coverdell. A resolution was introduced condemning the President's decision to grant clemency to 16 terrorists who were part of a wave of violence and death across the country that started in the mid-1970s and ended when these terrorists were incarcerated. We sought to bring that resolution to a vote on the floor of the Senate. Our Democrat colleagues, using their rights under the rules of the Senate, objected. We were forced to file cloture to force the consideration of this resolution, and that cloture motion carried. Now we are in the process of debating a resolution where Congress, in this instance, takes the strongest action it can under the Constitution, and that is condemn the President's actions. The President is given, under the Constitution, the power of pardon. There is nothing we can do that would override that constitutional prerogative. But while the President has the right to pardon, I believe the President is profoundly wrong in pardoning these terrorists. Now, I wish I had the ability of our President to articulate so clearly and to put a human face on so many of the public policy issues he discusses because there is a very real human issue involved here. It started with a bombing of historic Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan. This is the front page of the New York Times from Saturday, January 25, 1975. In this article, in excruciatingly painful and bloody detail, it outlines how a bomb was set the day before, how it decimated this restaurant, injured 44 people, killed 4 people, decapitated 1 person. These were innocent people who just had the bad luck to go to lunch at this place, at that time on Friday, January 24, 1975. Some of my colleagues may have read a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, written by two sons of a man who had the bad luck of going to lunch that day in that tavern. Basically, they put a human face on that one brutal murder. The picture they drew was that of a young man who grew up in a very poor family. Actually, he grew up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York and worked his way up to be successful. Today, both of his sons are investment bankers. So in that sense, he was successful. But he died--and he was 33 years old--because a group of brutal murderers, calling themselves a ``liberation army,'' planted a bomb that day in New York that took this man's life, took him away from his family. The FALN--this terrorist group--claimed responsibility and, in fact, left a note near the bomb scene outlining their grievances. They said they had grievances. So they injured 44 people and brutally murdered four people. That started a reign of terror--the greatest terrorist assault in the history of the United States of America in our homeland among our people, innocent people. This reign of terror continued until these terrorists, now pardoned by the President, were arrested and incarcerated. Our President says, and I quote, talking about these terrorists: They had served very long sentences for offenses that did not involve bodily harm to other people. It is true that while they are the core, or were the core, of this terrorist organization, while they were its leadership, and while they were arrested and convicted for engaging in terrorist activities--they were convicted of things such as unlawful storage of explosive materials--it is also true that the terrorist attacks ended when they went to jail. So you can say they weren't convicted of these specific, brutal tavern murders in New York. They weren't convicted of the bombing on New Year's Eve in 1982 when a New York City police headquarters and other sites were bombed, and in the process you had victims who were blinded in both eyes, who lost five fingers on their right hand, who lost hearing, who required 13 major surgical operations on their face alone, and had 20 titanium screws put in place to hold their face together. They weren't convicted of those particular crimes, but they were leadership, the core, of the organization that claimed credit. Those crimes ended when they went to prison. They were part of the leadership of that organization. They were accessories whether they were there and planted the bomb or not; we do not know, we may never know, but they were accessories before and after the fact as part of FALN. Yet the President says they were nonviolent. If you are going to put a human face on it, you would have to go back and talk to these police officers who have been blinded, and who have had their faces destroyed. You would have to talk to the children and grandchildren of these people who were murdered in the tavern in New York. I call that violence. I call that a fundamental assault on the American people. This is not a violence where someone is selected for retribution, wrong as it may be, for an act they committed. This is violence against people who had nothing to do with this desire to see Puerto Rico an independent nation. These were people living their lives, routinely going about their business, who certainly didn't know about this group, or if they knew, they weren't in any way involved. So to say that these people were nonviolent, who were the core of this terrorist organization that planted 130 bombs that killed and maimed across America, is an outrage. While I know our President has no shame, he ought to be ashamed of that statement. What are we doing? We are here because the President of the United States decided, based on pleas made by various individuals and groups around the country to grant a pardon--clemency--to these people who were leadership of a group that planted 130 bombs in America over a 7- year period and that brutally killed and maimed our fellow citizens. I don't understand the President's action. The FBI was reported to be opposed to it. The Justice Department and the prosecutors who were involved were opposed to it. Maybe I should take the Justice Department out. I don't know. They probably have not heard about it yet. But the prosecutors who were involved were opposed to it. Law enforcement officials across the country were opposed to it. It was supported by some political leaders of the Puerto Rican community in New York. Quite frankly, I don't understand that. Many of these terrorists weren't even from Puerto Rico. They were born in the United States of America. Yet somehow, despite the fact that Americans were killed and maimed, these terrorists are given special status, seemingly because they could identify a cause, a cause, interestingly enough supported by only 2.5 percent of the people who voted in the December 1998 plebiscite in Puerto Rico. We will never know why the President did this. If he did it to court political support for Mrs. Clinton running for the Senate in New York, it turned out to be a bad deal. It turned out to be something that probably was harmful and not helpful. But let me tell you why I am concerned, which goes beyond politics. What the President did was lower the cost for committing acts of terrorism in America. He lowered the cost for committing acts of terrorism in America by pardoning people who participated in a reign of terror that, as far as I am aware, is unparalleled in America's history. If we are going to pardon people who brutally murdered innocent citizens, who maimed and mutilated police officers, then what is the penalty for terrorism? The President says President Carter urged him to pardon them. It is very interesting to note when these acts of terrorism accelerated. In fact, the police headquarters in New York City was bombed 3 years after then-President Carter pardoned the Puerto Rican terrorists who came into this sacred temple of American democracy--the Capitol Building--when there was a quorum call on in the House of Representatives and stood in the House balcony and shot and wounded Members of the House of Representatives. In fact, there is still a bullet hole in the ceiling of the House of Representatives. There is still a bullet hole in the drawer of the Republican leader's desk from that day in 1954. President Carter decided in 1979, 4 years after the Fraunces Tavern bombing, to pardon the Puerto Rican terrorists--which is an inaccurate media description because many of these people were born on the mainland of America--who in this great temple of democracy assaulted civilization itself. He pardoned them and let them out of prison. Three years later, this terrorist group bombed New York City police headquarters, the Manhattan office of the FBI, and the Metropolitan Corrections Center in New York. Here is the point. Jimmy Carter, as President, lowered the cost of committing terrorist acts. Those terrorist acts accelerated after that pardon in 1979. Now the President has pardoned the members of the very group that claimed credit for those acts, and who were convicted, among other offenses, of storage of explosives and conspiracy to make bombs. So, obviously, they were planning more attacks and more bombing. They claimed credit for the bombings in New York--the bombing of the police headquarters, the killing of innocent citizens, the mutilation of police officers. Now the President has pardoned them. I would like to conclude with these points. The President and his spokesman on many occasions have said that fighting terrorism is the No. 1 objective of his administration, that the greatest threat we face in the world today is the threat of terrorists. Obviously, there is some other objective somewhere that is of a higher order because for some reason the President pardoned these terrorists. I think it was a terrible mistake. I believe the American people will hold President Clinton accountable for it. I want to know how the process occurred and whether the process outlined in law was followed. Whatever the process was, the decision was wrong. I believe we should condemn it in the strongest possible language. I hope we get strong bipartisan support. I hope we don't have in the Senate what we saw in the House when some Democrat Members of the House didn't vote yes and didn't vote no. The best they could do is to say they were there that day, and they voted ``present.'' I don't think this is an issue where Members want to vote ``present.'' I want people to know I think it was an absolute outrage that the President did this. He ought to be ashamed of it. The American people ought to hold him accountable. The Congress, in the strongest action we can take in this matter, is deploring the President's action. I thank our colleague from Georgia for his leadership on this issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, today I want to talk about the tax cut. But I can't help but comment, if only very briefly, about the fact that some of the terrorists pardoned by the President are schedule to be released today. They were imprisoned for up to 90 years in response to the convictions that were achieved following some 130 bombings in America--the worst terrorist assault in the history of the United States. We are told by the White House that fighting terrorism is a No. 1 priority. But obviously it is not as important as politics. It is outrageous that at a time when the greatest national security threat facing America is terrorism, that the President of the United States is pardoning radical Puerto Rican nationalists who helped carry out the worst wave of terrorist violence in the history of our country. I think it sends a terrible signal. I notice the President was saying yesterday that among those who had recommended to him that he pardon these terrorists was former President Jimmy Carter. What an interesting paradox it is that this wave of terrorism, in fact, increased in intensity after then-President Carter pardoned the terrorists who were in prison as a result of an attempt to kill President Truman and were in prison as a result of a shooting in the Chamber of the House of Representatives where Members of Congress were wounded. Those acts of violence were perpetrated in the name of the same cause as that espoused by the terrorists who have now been granted clemency by President Clinton. I don't know how long it will take President Carter and President Clinton to understand that terrorism is a threat to America and to every American. When you pardon terrorists, you lower the cost for committing terrorist acts. Our Democrat colleagues have objected for the second time to a simple resolution that condemns the President's actions in pardoning these convicted terrorists. I don't know whether they intend to vote no or whether they intend to vote present, but I don't think there is much confusion. You either believe the President ought to be pardoning these convicted terrorists, or you believe he shouldn't. I wish our Democrat colleagues would let the Senate state its opinion on this important subject as the House did.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, turning to the whole tax issue, I would like to try to set it in perspective. Our President is a master of defining an issue in such a way as to induce the public to support his position. One of his secrets is, he doesn't always tell the truth. So I will try to set this in perspective by trying to define why we believe there should be a tax cut and then outlining the two options that we actually face. I have several charts that I think will speed the process along. The first chart shows the 7 years in American history where the tax burden on the American people has been highest. Interestingly enough, the highest tax burden in American history, as one might expect, was under President Truman in 1945. National defense was taking 38 cents out of every dollar earned by every American as we were winning World War II. The second highest tax burden in American history is the tax burden we'll have on Oct. 1. That tax burden is occurring, by the way, when national defense is taking only about 3 cents out of every dollar earned by every American. The third highest tax burden we have ever had in American history is right now under President Clinton. The fourth highest tax burden occurred last year under President Clinton. The fifth highest occurred in 1944 under President Roosevelt. National defense spending was 38 percent of the national economy. The sixth highest tax level was in 1997, under President Clinton, and the seventh highest tax level was the day President Reagan became President. As we all know, soon after his inauguration, we set about an effort, a successful effort, to cut taxes 25 percent across the board. If you look at these 7 years, you will see that we are facing the second highest tax burden on working Americans in the history of the United States and we have never, except during World War II and under President Clinton, faced tax burdens that approached this level, the only one that was close was the year that we initiated the 1981 tax cut. As to my second point, while the President continues to talk about how risky and dangerous it is to let working Americans keep more of what they earn and why we shouldn't repeal the marriage tax penalty and the death tax, the reality is as shown in this chart, which shows three circumstances. First, it shows the tax burden the day President Clinton came into office. The day President Clinton became President, the Federal Government was taking 17.8 cents out of every dollar earned by every American. Today, the Federal Government is taking 20.6 cents out of every dollar earned by every American. If we adopted a tax cut that took the entire non-Social Security surplus,--and our tax cut is significantly less than the entire non- Social Security surplus because we have finally reached an agreement, which the President initially opposed but finally was shamed into accepting, that we will not spend the Social Security surplus. But if you took the whole non-Social Security surplus and gave it back in tax cuts, the tax burden, when that tax cut was fully implemented, would be 18.8 cents out of every dollar earned by every American, which is still substantially above the tax burden that existed the day Bill Clinton became President. So the adoption of our smaller tax cut and its full implementation would still mean that during the Clinton Presidency, the tax burden on the American people rose dramatically. A final chart has to do with the part of the story that President Clinton is not telling the American people. President Clinton, interestingly, has it both ways. He says: Don't cut taxes; let's pay down the debt. Then he says: But if you cut taxes--Senator Domenici has heard this; Senator Nickles has heard this--if you do cut taxes, it will jeopardize all these spending programs. I ask my colleagues: If the President's plan is to use the revenues that we are not using to cut taxes and instead pay down debt, why does that jeopardize spending programs? How is that possible? What the President is doing, interestingly enough, is he is getting credit with some Americans for saying let's pay down the debt. He is getting credit with other Americans for saying let me spend it, and in an incredible paradox, he can have it both ways. But facts are stubborn things, and they don't lie. It is hard to cover up facts. I want to remind my colleagues, using the final chart here, that earlier this year, in fact on July 21, the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan budgeting arm of Congress, looked at the President's budget and asked the question: How much does it propose to spend and how much would it pay down debt? What the Congressional Budget Office found is that over the next 10 years, the President is proposing spending a net new $1 trillion 33 billion. The President, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is proposing to spend every penny of the non-Social Security surplus, plus spend part of the Social Security surplus. So when the President says: Don't give this money back to working Americans in tax cuts, let's pay down the debt, he is saying something that does not comport with his own budget because the reality is, the President's own budget calls for spending every penny of this surplus on some 81 Government programs. The reality we face is that the President, as he outlined in the State of the Union, has set out some 81 Government programs on which he wants to spend this non-Social Security surplus and part of the Social Security surplus. The real choice is not do you want to buy down debt or do you want to give a tax cut to working Americans. The real choice is, do you want to spend this surplus on 81 Government programs, or do you want to give the money back to the American taxpayers. If I could run the Government by myself, or if the Presiding Officer and I could run the Federal Government, I know exactly what we would do. We would take every penny of the surplus and we would pay down the debt. We would wait until after the election--I am no longer speaking for the Presiding Officer but for myself; I believe my Governor is going to be elected President--and then we would set about doing a real tax cut. The only reason I supported cutting taxes now is we are spending this surplus as fast as we can spend it, and I am worried that it will be gone on 81 new Government programs before we can have an election and elect a new President and address this issue again. So if it were up to me, I would do what President Clinton claims he is doing but something he is not doing; that is, I would stay with the spending caps which have already been broken. I would draw the absolute line and not let a penny of Social Security money be plundered. The President is already proposing to plunder it and is going to veto appropriation bills this year because we don't plunder Social Security money. Remember I made that prediction. I will remind you when it happens. So basically the proof of what I am saying is the following: When the President talks about his budget paying down debt and says our plan does not pay down as much debt, the truth is, when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office looked at our tax cut, our budget, and looked at the President's budget, CBO found that the President's budget, for the next 10 years, actually pays down $219 billion less in the debt that we owe as a nation than the Republican budget does even with our tax cut. Now, how is that possible? It is possible because the President proposes to spend $1.33 trillion on new spending programs, which is the entire non-Social Security surplus, plus part of Social Security money. So that is the real choice. I think what the American people need to think about next week when the President vetoes the tax bill is they need to look at those 81 Government programs, and they need to look at our tax cut. Look at the 81 Government programs the President wants to expand, or create and then look at our tax cut and decide which would benefit their family more. I think if they benefit more from the Government spending, they ought to support the President and they ought to vote for a Democrat for President and Democrats to control Congress. But if they believe they can spend their money better than the Government can spend it for them, I think they ought to vote for a Republican President and for Republican Members of Congress. Lest anybody has forgotten, let me conclude by simply going over what our tax cut does. Our tax cut repeals the marriage tax penalty. As many Americans are aware, because a married couple has a lower standard deduction than two single individuals, and since a married couple gets into the 28-percent tax bracket quicker than two single individuals, the average American couple actually pays the Federal Government $1,400 a year for the privilege of being married. Now, as I like to point out, I want to make it clear that my wife is worth $1,400 a year--a bargain at the price. But I think she ought to get the money and not the Government. So that is the first thing our tax change does. It eliminates the marriage tax penalty. Now, marriage may not be for everybody, but it is the most powerful institution for human happiness and progress in history. I think having a Tax Code that discriminates against people who get married is a bad mistake and ought to be corrected. The second thing we do is lower tax rates. We lower each individual bracket by 1 percent, so that every person in that bracket is taxed 1 percentage point less. If you are being taxed at 15 percent, we lower it to 14. If it is 28 percent, we lower it to 27. If it is 31 percent, we lower it to 30. We repeal the death tax. We believe when Americans work a lifetime to build up a business, to build up a farm, and they pay taxes on every penny they earn, and then they invest their aftertax money in building up a family business or family farm, it is wrong for the Government to force their children to sell that business or that farm in order to give Government up to 55 cents out of every dollar that they built up in that farm or business in their working life. I know we have Democrat colleagues who say, well, some rich people will benefit. That may be true. But this tax is wrong. It is not right. It is double taxation, and it is very harmful to force children to sell off farms and businesses to give the Government taxes when somebody dies. It is not right when your parents die that the first official contact you get from the Government is from the Internal Revenue Service, in essence, telling you that the lifetime work of your parents has to be sold off to give the Government up to 55 cents out of every dollar that they have earned and set aside in their lives. It is not right. Another provision of our bill is that we make health insurance tax deductible for the self-employed and for those people who work for companies that don't provide health insurance. Why should health insurance be tax deductible for General Motors but not for Joe Brown? We think that is discrimination. We think everybody ought to be treated the same. Now, my final point. You have heard our Democrat colleagues and our President say that the Republican tax cut is unfair. Normally, what they mean in saying it is unfair is something like: Do you realize that about 30 percent of Americans will get no tax cut from the Republican tax cut? You hear that and you say that doesn't sound right. But what they never point out is, roughly 30 percent of American families pay no taxes. We are talking about cutting income taxes, and about a third of American families pay no income tax. Let me tell you how I feel about this. Taxes are for taxpayers. Tax cuts are for taxpayers. Everybody doesn't get Medicaid. Everybody doesn't get Medicare. Everybody doesn't get food stamps. Everybody doesn't get welfare. You have to qualify for those programs by either paying money in, in the case of Medicare, or being poor, in the case of Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare. Republicans feel very strongly that tax cuts are for taxpayers. If you don't pay taxes, you don't qualify for a tax cut. That brings me to the final point I want to make. Some people say, well, maybe there could be a compromise between Congress and the President. Let me tell you why there can't and why there is not going to be. It looks as if the President has proposed a $300 billion tax cut, we have proposed almost $800 billion, and there is $500 billion between us. So it doesn't take a genius to figure out you could end up somewhere in the middle. Let me tell you why it is not going to happen. When the Congressional Budget Office looked at the President's tax plan, they found $245 billion for USA accounts and concluded that it actually increases spending by $95 billion, net, over 10 years. Basically the President's tax cut is a set of subsidies that are given to people who by and large do not pay taxes, so that it is really an expenditure instead of a tax cut. Instead of being $500 billion apart, the plain truth is, we are closer to $1 trillion apart. I think in this case, rather than fool around in trying to find some midpoint between minus $95 billion, which is a tax increase of $95 billion, and an $800 billion tax cut, the best thing to do when the President vetoes the tax cut is to let the veto stand. We don't have the votes to override the veto. The best thing to do is to take it to the American voters and let the voters decide in November of next year what they want. I don't think at this point that a compromise can be worked out. I think basically we are going to have to make a decision as to what we want. That is how democracy works. You make a decision when the American people go to the polls. I think on this tax cut we are not going to find a middle ground. I think we are going to have to let the American people move the middle ground in the election. But I think there is something we have to do. I want to stay with the spending caps. It is clear now, when you count all the emergency spending, much of which is not emergency, when you get into all of the bookkeeping gimmicks that ultimately will be used, that we are not going to stay within the spending caps, that we are going to spend beyond those caps. I am sorry about that. I think it is a mistake. But there is one barrier we have not yet broken. It is a barrier where I believe, when the President vetoes the tax bill, we have to draw the line. We have to draw the line in saying, Mr. President, we can't make you give this money back to the American people but we can stop you from spending the Social Security surplus. I hope Republicans will have courage enough to stand up and say no to any proposal that takes the Social Security surplus, plunders it, and spends it on general government. I can tell you that I intend to stand by that position. I am hopeful that Republicans in the Senate and the House will stand by it. It is not going to be easy. Our appropriators in both the House and the Senate and the President tell us that unless we spend vast amounts of additional money, the world is going to come to an end in one of a variety of ways. I think the time has basically come to say to the President that we can't make you cut taxes but we can stop you from spending this money. That is what we want to do. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I begin by thanking the majority leader for offering the resolution condemning the President's action in granting this clemency to convicted terrorists. What I want to do is begin by reminding people about the activities conducted by the organization to which these 16 terrorists belong. I then will remind people that we are about to see history repeat itself because a President has pardoned and given clemency to Puerto Rican nationalist terrorists before. Then I will make some basic observations about how outrageous I believe the President's action is. First, I remind my colleagues that on November 1, 1950, two terrorists who were, or at least claimed to be, promoting independence for Puerto Rico attempted to shoot and kill President Truman. One of the gunmen was killed and the other was sentenced to death but President Truman subsequently commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. On March 1, 1954, three such terrorists opened fire from the gallery of the United States' House of Representatives--in fact, there is a bullet hole in the ceiling of the gallery of the House of Representatives to this day and to this day, a bullet hole remains in the desk of the Republican leader on the House floor. Several Congressmen were wounded in the attack, one of them quite seriously. This was in 1954. In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter pardoned the three Puerto Rican terrorists who were involved in the House of Representatives attack and the terrorist who attempted to take the life of President Truman. The point I want to make, and I think if you will listen to this pattern of activity you will see that we are in grave danger of history repeating itself. Several terrorists tried to kill the President; others actually shot and wounded Members of Congress; Jimmy Carter becomes President and pardons them, and I believe you will see when I go through the list of terrorist acts committed by those terrorists who are now being given clemency by President Clinton that there was a surge in such terrorist activity after the Carter pardons, when it appeared to became clear that you could actually attempt to murder the President, shoot Members of Congress, commit terrorist acts, and be pardoned by the President of the United States. In short, history is about to repeat itself. We use clinical terms in talking about these people. But I want to go back and give first a review of history and then I want to talk about four of their acts. Then I will talk about three of their victims. I will make my point and get out of the way and let other people have an opportunity to speak. Let me review the following facts. On Wednesday, August 11, President Clinton offered clemency to 16 terrorists who were members of the notorious FALN, Armed Forces of National Liberation, terrorist group in exchange for the simple act of agreeing not to use violence to promote their political agenda. I wonder if one looked at every felon, every murderer, every terrorist, every drug dealer in every prison in America and asked them, Would you be willing to say you won't do it again if we let you out, my guess is there would be no one left in any prison anywhere in America. That is the President's standard. The New York Times reported on August 27 that the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. attorneys in Illinois and Connecticut, flatly opposed President Clinton's offer of clemency to these terrorists. Newsweek reported this week that some of the 16 terrorists offered clemency were captured on tape by the Bureau of Prisons discussing a return to violence upon release from prison. The FALN carried out 130 bombings of key political and military locations throughout the United States. The number of such attacks, and their frequency, has never been rivaled by any terrorist group in the history of the United States. The 16 terrorists who were offered clemency are serving prison sentences ranging from 15 to 105 years. Most of the 16 terrorists were charged with seditious conspiracy and weapons possession connected to 28 bombings that occurred in northern Illinois in the late 1970s. Despite the President's generous deal, and demonstrating a clear lack of remorse for their reign of terror and destruction, 13 of the 16 terrorists have called the President's offer of clemency ``intolerable.'' On Wednesday, September 8, 12 of the jailed Puerto Rican terrorists accepted President Clinton's offer of clemency. That is a recounting of the recent events. Let me talk about four of the crimes that were committed because, again, it is easy to talk about this act of clemency and pardon by the President, and sometimes it is hard to remember what happened. In January of 1975, members of this terrorist group bombed a historical site in lower Manhattan and killed 4 people and injured 53 people. In August of 1977, they bombed the Mobil Oil Corporation building on East 42nd Street in Manhattan and killed a 26-year-old young man. On New Year's Eve in 1982, their terrorist acts accelerated; they bombed the New York City Police Headquarters, the Manhattan office of the FBI, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and other locations, seriously injuring several New York City police officers, including Detective Richard Pastorella. Let me tell you about him. Detective Pastorella was blinded in both eyes. He lost all five fingers on his right hand. He is deaf in his right ear and lost 70 percent of his hearing in his left ear. He required 13 major operations on his face alone. He had 20 titanium screws used to hold his facial bones together. Let me give you a quote from him: ``You wake up with nightmares at night, cold sweats. It never leaves. It never goes away.'' The second police detective who was wounded in this terrorist attack on New Year's Eve in 1982 was Anthony Senft. He underwent five operations in 1983 alone. He is blind in his right eye. He has diminished hearing in both ears. His nose, eyeball sockets, and hip have been reconstructed. Police Officer Rocco Pascarella had his left leg amputated below the knee. He is deaf in his left ear. He lost 20 percent of his hearing in his right ear. He is legally blind in his left eye. Let me make two other points of fact, and then I will say what I have to say. Carmen Valentin, one of the 16 terrorists offered clemency, called the judge a terrorist when she was being sentenced and said that only the chains around her waist and wrists prevented her from doing what she would like to do; and that is, kill the judge. Ricardo Jiminez shouted to the judge, when he was sentenced to prison, ``We're going to fight . . . revolutionary justice will take care of you and everybody else!'' The worst wave of terrorist attacks in the history of America were committed by the group to which the 16 people whom the President is in the process of pardoning and letting out of jail, belong and all he asked is that they say they won't do it again. Joe Lockhart, the White House Press Secretary, on September 8, 1999, when he was talking about the Osama bin Laden terrorist case, said: ``You know, I think that our efforts to bring terrorists to justice are one of the highest priorities of the president's national security agenda.'' I ask my colleagues, if bringing terrorists to justice, if deterring terrorism is one of the President's top priorities, what is he doing pardoning 16 terrorists who killed Americans on our own soil? When we are facing, as our greatest national security crisis in the world, terrorist acts, when we are threatened with terrorism in our homes and in our cities and in our businesses, in our capital, in the Capitol Building, in our embassies, when we are trying to deter terrorist acts, what is the President of the United States doing pardoning people who have committed such acts? I think I know what he is doing. I think he is playing New York politics. We have offered a resolution condemning this action by the President. I wonder, if the First Lady were a Senator, if she would cosponsor this resolution. I wonder if our Vice President, who is running for President, supports the President's policy. I wonder if he would support this resolution. But I say I think it is an absolute outrage, at the very moment when we face terrorist attacks and threats to our embassies all over the world, when we face the very real threat of terrorism in the heartland of America, at the very moment when our No. 1 national security problem in the world is terrorism, we have the President of the United States pardoning terrorists who are reported to have no remorse about the acts they have taken, and at least some evidence is available that they have said they will commit these acts again if they are freed. As I have said earlier, I do not know what kind of standard it is, saying you are sorry and you won't do it again. By that standard, we would release every criminal in every prison in America. But I believe Congress should go on record. Let me also say that if we could overturn the President's decision, I would be in favor of doing it. The President has the right to pardon under the Constitution. We have no powers, as far as I am aware, to overturn that decision. But if we could, I would offer an amendment to do it. Let me say to the minority leader, it is true that this resolution was just introduced last night. But there is hardly anything startling in this resolution. Basically, this resolution says that we deplore what the President has done. You either deplore it or you do not deplore it. So I think we can engage in these parliamentary gimmicks for a while, but I think eventually people are going to understand. I say, as one Member of the Senate, we are going to vote on this resolution or we are going to vote on a cloture motion related to it. We are going to have Senators on record. I think people have a right to know whether you think it is a good idea for the President of the United States to be pardoning terrorists who have killed Americans. I think this is a very serious matter. It is a very serious matter, not because it has to do with New York politics, not because we have gotten into this absurd charade where the President clearly undertakes this action to respond to a political constituency in New York only to see it backfire--the First Lady is opposed to it unless they say they are sorry and they won't do it again--I think that is, to a large extent, beside the point. The real point is, at a time when the greatest threat we face to national security is terrorism, what are we doing pardoning terrorists? I conclude by asking my colleagues, do we never learn anything? When we had terrorists promoting with violence and attempted murder exactly the same cause of the terrorists that the President is pardoning today, when we had terrorists with the same goal shoot Members of Congress in 1954 and try to kill President Truman in 1950, and when we see Jimmy Carter as President in 1979, pardon those terrorists. What happened in the 1970s and 1980s? New members of the terrorist group committed acts of violence in the same name to promote the same objective. We have a process. If people in Puerto Rico want to be an independent nation, let them choose to do it. But let's not use violence to promote an objective. I think civilization breaks down when we allow that to happen. We saw terrorist acts in 1950 and 1954. Jimmy Carter came into office, pardoned the terrorists in 1979, and you have heard me describe some of the terrorist acts that took place in the early 1980s, and now we are about to repeat, in my opinion, the same sad history. I think this is a bad idea. I think it is wrong. I am opposed to it. I think it is outrageous. I think the President ought to be ashamed of it. I think the American people need to hold him accountable. I think the American people have a right to know who finds the President's act deplorable. I do. I want people to know it. I think our colleagues ought to be on record, and they will be as a result of this resolution. I yield the floor. Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. The second part of the program that everybody doesn't talk about is a proposal to spend $17 billion to ``stimulate the economy.'' Our colleague from Oklahoma remembers it because we discovered, in one of the happiest discoveries in recent political history, that when you looked at that program, it was going to spend money on programs off a list submitted by communities, and on that list was an Alpine slide in Puerto Rico and an ice-skating warming hut in Connecticut. We had endless good times about that and, in the end, while we had a Republican minority and a Democrat majority, we actually filibustered and killed the $17 billion of spending. I don't have my copy of the Clinton health care plan here, and that is probably good because if I picked it up, I might get a hernia. The third part of the program was for the Government to take over one- eighth of the economy by having one giant HMO--I think it was called a health care purchasing collective, or something--and all the doctors would work for the Government and the Government would run the health care system. So if we are going to be fair in quoting my statement, let's remember that the plan had three parts; we killed two of the three. The final thing--and I probably ought not do this, but we are getting ready to go on recess, so why not. ``Bill Clinton balanced the budget and made everything wonderful.'' We have all heard that. We heard it right before I got up to speak. But I have in my hand President Clinton's budget for fiscal year 1996. This was the budget that the new Republican Congress got in January of 1995. I do remember this. One of my staff provided me with these unkind remarks, when I said in 1993, regarding this Clinton health care bill, ``If we pass it, we will be hunting Democrats down with dogs all over America.'' Well, we didn't pass it, but we did elect the first Republican majority in both Houses of Congress since 1952. In any case, to finish my point, when this new Republican Congress got here, this was the budget the President had sent them. This budget, right on page 2, projected a deficit of roughly $200 billion through the year 2000. The new Republican majority took this budget and threw it into the trash can, and we adopted a new budget. On this chart, here is the Clinton deficit projected in 1996. This is what we achieved with the Republican majority. Now, did we really do all that? No. Did Clinton do all that? No. The plain truth is that we had basically a stalemate, and we stopped virtually all new spending. In fact, with all this talk about the gloom and doom, we were able to control spending a little bit. The economy took off and we balanced the Federal budget. So let me sum up by simply saying this. I want to congratulate our chairman, who has put together a tax bill that is as good a tax bill as you can write in the Senate and get 51 people to vote for. I want to congratulate him for his leadership. If you trust the American people and their ability to spend their own money better than the Government, vote for this tax cut. If you believe the Government can spend it better and will make America richer, freer, and happier by spending it, rather than letting them have it, then you ought to vote against it. That is the choice. I yield the floor. Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I yield myself 20 minutes.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have been called many things, some not always so flattering or nice, but I have never been called unconservative because I thought we ought not to let Government spend working people's money rather than giving it back to them. There have been a lot of issues raised, and I want to go through and answer each and every one of them. Let me start with the rhetoric of our dear Democrat colleagues about, let's pay down this debt; don't give this money back to working people; we don't know what they are going to do with it; they might waste it; they might use it in an unwise way. Let Government keep it and we will pay down the debt, our Democrat colleagues say. But the problem with that rhetoric is it does not comport with the facts. Our problem is what they are doing speaks so loudly on this issue that we cannot hear their words. I have here a chart. I know this chart is hard to read because my mama saw it on television and could not read it. But believe me, I can read it, and I am going to read it to you. Both sides tend to claim we are right about figures. But to make Government work, we have a nonpartisan organization called the Congressional Budget Office that is made up of experts, accountants, economists, that basically serve as a reality check on both Democrats and Republicans. They just completed what they call their Mid-Session Review, where in the middle of the year they looked at the President's budget, which our Democrat colleagues are supporting, and they looked at our budget resolution, which included our $792 billion; and they reported to the Congress and the American people about these two competing programs and what they would mean in terms of the Government budget. If you listened to our Democrat colleagues, they are trying to tell you it is a bad idea for us to give back roughly 25 cents out of every dollar of the projected surplus to working people. They say: Let us pay down debt. But when the Congressional Budget Office looked at the President's budget, they found that the President is proposing, over the next 10 years, in his budget, to spend $1.033 trillion on increases for 81 Government programs. They found that the President proposes spending $1.033 trillion on 81 programs as an alternative to our tax cut, and since our tax cut under the Republican budget is $792 billion, we actually pay off $219 billion more in debt than the President does. They talk about this money being used to pay down debt, but the President not only spends every penny of the non-Social Security surplus, he has to plunder the Social Security trust fund in 3 of the 10 years just to pay for all of his new spending. So when you hear one of our Democrat colleagues say: Oh, it is a terrible idea to give working people back roughly 25 cents out of every dollar of the surplus because wouldn't it be better to use it to buy down debt? Please remember that the budget they support, written by President Clinton, spends every penny of the non-Social Security surplus, plus roughly $29 billion. So while they say: Let us buy down debt. Their program is to spend every penny of that money on increasing 81 government programs. The reason this is so important that people understand is, this is not a debate between buying down debt and tax cuts. In fact, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has shown, after you look at all the spending the President wants to do, he would buy down debt $1.959 trillion. Our budget, with this tax cut, would buy down debt $2.178 trillion, or $219 billion more. The debate is not between buying down debt--in fact, we pay off more debt than the Democrats do. The debate is between spending the money on these 81 Government programs versus letting Americans keep more of what they earn. If we were going to have a totally honest debate, it would be our Democrat colleagues standing up and talking about these 81 Government programs and the $1 trillion they would spend, and asking working Americans tonight to listen to what they say; listen to our tax cut; and then sit down around their kitchen table and ask themselves a question: Can Government in Washington, with President Clinton's programs, spend this money to help our family more than we could if we got to keep the money to spend on our own family? Can they do a better job spending our money than we can? Obviously, that is a very different debate. Our colleagues do not want to have that debate. But their budget would spend every penny of the non-Social Security surplus. So when people are saying: Don't give this tax cut. Let us buy down debt, their budget spends every penny of this money, plus plundering some of the Social Security trust fund. So the debate is about whether we let the American people have the money and save it or spend it or invest it or whether they want to let Government spend it. Our colleague said: Let's put some money away in case the good times don't last. Who is better to put money away in case the good times don't last? Working people, with their own money, or Government? When is the last time anybody remembers the Government putting money away for a rainy day? I don't remember it. We are already $21 billion over the spending totals that the President and the Congress agreed to. We are not putting any money away here in Washington. Yesterday, we had the adoption of a farm bill that spent another $7.4 billion, taking every penny of it right out of the surplus. So this money is being spent, is the first point, and that is the debate. The second point is, some of our colleagues have said: Well, boy, this is a huge tax cut, and we don't need this tax cut. And so I have two sets of figures I want to ask you to look at. The first is very interesting to me. These are the 7 years in American history where the tax burden on the American people has been at its highest level. One of my staffers, clever as he is, summed this up by saying, the ``Causes of Record Taxes: War and Clinton.'' Because if you look at the record tax burdens in American history, out of the six highest, four of them are Clinton years, and two of them are World War II--Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt--when defense was 38 percent of the economy and 37 percent of the economy. Now it is less than 3 percent. The only other year where we have had a tax burden even approaching the one we have now was the year Ronald Reagan became President, and we were debating cutting taxes across the board by 25 percent. Our colleagues say: Well, it was just a terrible thing to do. We should have never cut taxes when Ronald Reagan was President. A couple making $50,000 a year, had we not had the Roth-Kemp tax cut, would have been paying $12,626 a year now in income taxes instead of paying $6,242. Our Democrat colleagues think that would be great. We thought it was a bad idea. So in the Reagan budget we cut taxes. The economy started to grow. We rebuilt defense. We won the cold war. We tore down the Berlin Wall. A lot of good things happened. But this is the most telling chart of all. You hear all this stuff about: Oh, this is a huge tax cut, and many of the writers and many of the columnists are beginning to pick this up. But nobody goes back and looks at the facts.

Mr. GRAMM. I ask for 5 additional minutes.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be glad to yield when I get through if I have time. Now here are the facts. If you take revenues over the next 10 years that are projected, our tax cut is less than 3.5 percent. In other words, our tax cut cuts taxes, in terms of projected revenue, by under 3.5 percent. That is this huge tax cut we are talking about. But this chart is really telling. The day Bill Clinton became President, before we raised taxes--or President Clinton raised taxes-- many of our colleagues have pointed out that not one Republican voted for that tax increase; and I am proud to say that is true--before he raised taxes in 1993, the Government was taking 17.8 cents out of every dollar earned by every American in Federal taxes. Today the Federal Government is taking 20.6 cents out of every dollar earned by every American in Federal taxes. That is the highest peacetime level of government taxes in American history, the second highest tax burden, second only to 1944 in American history. If we took the whole $1 trillion non-Social Security surplus--and I note that we are taking less than $800 billion--if we took all of it and cut taxes, we would still be taking, when the full tax cut is in effect 10 years from now, 18.8 cents out of every dollar earned by every American in Federal taxes. Why is that important? It is important because what is being called a huge tax cut actually leaves taxes substantially above where they were the day Bill Clinton became President. So what is being called a huge, irresponsible, riverboat gamble--I was thinking Senator Breaux might want to defend riverboat gambling--what is being called a huge gamble, we are simply talking about giving back some of this huge tax increase. By the way, the President said later, at a fund-raiser, that he raised taxes too much in 1993. Our tax cut would still leave the tax burden substantially above where it was when Bill Clinton became President. Let me address the issue very briefly about rich people getting this tax cut. You need to understand when our Democrat colleagues speak that they have a code. The code is, every tax increase is on rich people; every tax cut is for rich people. So you don't ever want to cut taxes because it helps rich people. You always want to raise them because it hurts rich people. You are not for rich people. The problem is, when that argument was made on the President's tax increase in 1993, they taxed gasoline, and gasoline is bought by both the rich and the poor. They taxed Social Security benefits on incomes of $25,000 or more. That is hardly what we call rich. When we debated this issue when it first came to the Senate, one of our colleagues got up and said: The Roth tax bill gives 60 percent of the tax cut to the top 25 percent of income earners in America. Can you imagine that this tax cut gives 60 percent of the benefits to the top 25 percent of income earners? But nobody bothered to point out that the top 25 percent of income earners pay 81.3 percent of the taxes. The truth is that the Roth tax cut, in terms of the rate cut, actually makes taxes more progressive, even though it reduces everybody's taxes. It reduces lower-income people's taxes more. Actually, I wanted it to be cut across the board. You have heard many people say: Some 30 percent of Americans under this tax cut get no tax cut. Can you imagine a tax cut where almost 30 percent of the people get no income tax cut? That sounds crazy until you realize that roughly 30 percent of Americans pay no income taxes. Most taxpayers don't get food stamps. They don't get TANF. They don't get Medicaid because they are not poor. Those programs are not for them. Tax cuts are for taxpayers. If you don't pay taxes, you don't get a tax cut. It is not because we don't love you. It is not because there is something wrong with you. It is just that tax cuts are for taxpayers. So we are cutting income taxes. If you don't pay income taxes, you don't get a tax cut. Remember that when you hear all this business about rich people and poor people. Quite frankly, I think we do our country an injustice when we keep trying to pit people against each other based on their income. The plain truth is, if we could calculate this out, the Roth tax cut, the parts of it that we have enough data on in this short period of time to look at, it probably makes the tax code a little more progressive than it is. I don't think we ought to be doing that. I don't have any problem in saying, if you don't pay any taxes, you don't get a tax cut. If you pay a lot of taxes, you get a lot of tax cut. If we had a 10-percent across-the-board cut--unfortunately, we don't quite get that; I am proud of what we got--but if Senator Rockefeller makes 10 times as much money as I do, he would get 10 times as big a tax cut. Some people get upset about that, but I don't get upset about it. Alan Greenspan has become, his utterances at least, almost like a bible. Everybody quotes him to make their point. Generally the people quote him to make points that are 180 degrees out of sync. If you listen to the quotes by many of our Democrat colleagues, you would believe that Alan Greenspan has said: Never, ever, ever, under any circumstance, should we give anybody a tax cut. The reality is, what Alan Greenspan has said is very clear. His first preference would be to not spend any of the surplus and to not give any of it back in taxes. But Alan Greenspan says: If you find that as a consequence of those surpluses they tend to be spent, then I would be more in the camp of cutting taxes, because the least desirable outcome is using those surpluses for expanded outlays. I submit that is exactly where we find ourselves when we look at the fact that we are spending the surplus as quickly as we can spend it, and the President has proposed spending $1 trillion of it over the next 10 years. The final point I will make, before summing up, is that several of my colleagues have been joshing me--and boy, it is legitimate. When I was in economics, I never made predictions that would either prove true or false within 100 years. And then I didn't worry about it. It is true that when President Clinton submitted his economic program, as we debated it in those first 2 years, I said some awfully unkind things about it--not things you couldn't print in the paper, but they weren't generous. I suggested that if it was adopted, we would have a recession. Our colleagues have said: Well, look at the wonderful economy we have. In my final, major points, I will, as Paul Harvey, give you the rest of the story. To listen to our colleagues today, they would have you believe that all of the Clinton program was just a tax increase. But there were two other parts of it. If we are going to be fair to my quote, we need to be fair in saying there were two other parts of the Clinton program in those first 2 years. It certainly did raise taxes. I certainly was against it, and I still believe the economy would be better off if we had not done it. But the other two parts our Democrat colleagues want to forget. The first was a major spending program that spent $17 billion in the first year.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. You looked down.

Mr. GRAMM. It is tough.

Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to.