Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, Senator Levin and I every year or two have this debate. It is well known. We have debated it before. People have voted before. In fact, 61 Members of the Senate voted with me 2 years ago to substitute a study for the Levin amendment. Let me add, the amendment is a little different than it was then. The thrust of it is basically the same. Two years ago, the Levin amendment applied to all procurement related to the prison industry system. This year, it applies to only defense procurement. But while its focus has narrowed, its impact on the work system within our prisons remains very broad. I remind my colleagues that we took up this issue on July 10 of 1997. There was a vote at that time, and 62 Members--61 of whom are still Members of the Senate--voted on this issue on a different day in a slightly different version. But the thrust of the issue, in terms of procurement from the Federal prison industry system, is and was basically the same. Let me set out what I want to do in my opening statement. I want to try to explain the problem in historical context, and I want to begin with Alexis de Tocqueville. Then I want to come to the Depression, which was really fork in the road with regard to prison labor in America. I want to talk about the fork we took, the wrong fork in my opinion. I want to talk about how the Levin amendment fits into the system which has evolved since then. I want to talk about why this provision by Senator Levin, which Senator Hatch and Senator Thurmond and I hope to strike from the bill, is so devastating to the prison industry system in America and why that, in turn, is harmful to every taxpayer, to every victim of crime, to everyone who wants prisoners rehabilitated when they go back out on the street. In fact, there is no good argument, it seems to me, when you fully understand this issue, for the Levin amendment. I then want to talk in some detail about each of these items and then, obviously, at that point we will begin the debate. Let me start with de Tocqueville. As many of my colleagues will remember, de Tocqueville came to America in the 1830s. He wrote a book that has become the greatest critique of America ever written-- ``Democracy in America.'' We forget that de Tocqueville came to America not to study democracy but to study prisons. In fact, he wrote a book on prisons, together with a fellow named Beaumont. We have forgotten Beaumont, but we remember de Tocqueville. In his analysis of American prisons, which were very much studied in the 1830s because they were part of the most enlightened prison system in the world, de Tocqueville praised at great length the fact that we required American prisoners to work. In that period, prison labor of 12 hours a day, 6 days a week was the norm. De Tocqueville says in his analysis on American prisons: It would be inaccurate to say that in the Philadelphia penitentiary labor is imposed. We may say with more justice that the favor of labor is granted. When we visit this penitentiary, we successively conversed with all its inmates. There was not a single one among them who did not speak of labor with a kind of gratitude and who did not express the idea that without the relief of constant occupation, life would be insufferable. The principal characteristic of the American prison system in the age that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that remark was that prisoners worked and they worked hard. They helped pay for the cost of incarceration by working, and they produced things. Those products were sold on the open market in many cases. So the first obligation for feeding prisoners and incarcerating prisoners was borne not by the taxpayer but by the prisoner and, as de Tocqueville argues, I think quite impressively in the book and in the quote I used, prisoners actually benefited from labor because of the extreme boredom of being incarcerated with nothing to do. This was the norm in America from the 1830s, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, for 100 years, until the 1930s. What happened in the 1930s was that we passed a series of laws driven by special interests, principally labor and business, and you cannot get bigger special interests than that. These laws consisted basically of the following laws: the Hawes-Cooper Act which authorized States to ban commerce in prison-made goods within their borders; the Sumners- Ashurst Act which made it a Federal crime to transport prison-made goods across State lines; and then another provision that said not only can you not sell what prisoners produce, not only can you not transport it for sale, but if you do force prisoners to work, you have to pay them the union scale set by the local union. Guess what the result of those three laws was. The result of those three laws was that we destroyed the greatest prison industry system that the world had ever known. We destroyed that prison system by eliminating our ability to force people in prison to work; and in doing so, force them to pay for part of the cost of their incarceration; and we eliminated our ability to collect from them part of what they would earn working in prison or what would be earned by their work to pay for restitution to victims of crime. What was left after we destroyed the ability of American prisons to force prisoners to work was the ability of prisoners to produce things that were used by Government. As a result, we now find ourselves in a situation where we have 1,100,000 Americans in prison. They are almost all male. They are almost all of prime working age. We spend $22,000 a year keeping people in prison, which is nearly the cost of sending somebody to the University of Chicago or to Harvard, and the cost of keeping Americans in prison costs the average American taxpayer $200 a year in taxes--just to keep people in prison. The impact of the Levin amendment--I am sure he is going to gild this lily with lots of gold around the edges--but the impact of his amendment is to take another major step in destroying prison labor in America. What his bill would do is, for all practical purposes, take away about 60 percent of the work that Federal prisoners do now. There are, obviously, two sides to these arguments. You can argue that when people are working in prison that there is someone else who might benefit from getting the job if the prisoner were not working. It is hard to make that argument in America today when we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years and when, in towns like my hometown of College Station, college students go out and relax after classes and impressment gangs come and virtually knock them in the head and drag them off to a factory. So if there ever was an argument here that we needed to take away prison work to protect American jobs, it is very hard to make that argument in May of 1999. But here is the system we have now. We have a system called Federal Prison Industries where the Federal Government has work programs for prisoners. It pays them a very small incentive payment. It withholds about 20 percent of that payment as restitution to victims of the crimes they have committed. It produces component parts for various things used by the Government. It produces furniture, it produces some electronic components. Through this system, we have about 20,000 Federal prisoners who work. Under this amendment, about 60 percent of that work would be taken away. Not only do I oppose this amendment, but the administration, in its Statement of Administration Policy on this defense bill, on page 3, ``Federal Prison Industries Mandatory Source Exemption,'' opposes the Levin amendment. I have a letter here from the Attorney General. Among other things, she says: I am extremely concerned about this legislation because it could have a negative impact on [the Federal Prison Industries], which is the Bureau of Prisons most important, efficient, and cost-effective tool for managing inmates and for preparing them to be productive, law abiding citizens upon release from prison. I also have a letter from the National Center for Victims of Crime. And they say, among other things: Dollars that go to the crime victims through the [Federal Prison Industries] program are coming out of criminal offenders' pockets--the notion that the offender must be held accountable and pay for the harm caused by crimes he [or] she committed is at the heart of jurisprudence. Crime victims often tell us that the amount of restitution an offender pays is far less important to them than the fact that their offender is paying restitution. Financial assistance from offenders has a tremendous healing and restorative power for criminal victims. No. 1, the administration opposes the Levin amendment, supports our effort to knock it out of the bill. The Attorney General, the Director of Federal Prisons, and the National Center for Victims of Crime all oppose this amendment. They all oppose it basically for the same reason; and that is, it will end up raising the cost of incarceration. It will end up lowering the amount of restitution going to victims. It will idle prisoners, and you do not get rehabilitated sitting around in air-conditioning watching color television. If there is anything we know about the Federal prison work system, and about the work system in States, it is that working is an important part of rehabilitation. I personally would support proposals that would force every able prisoner in America to work. I would like them to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and go to school at night. But I know with the vested interest that is built up against that, that we cannot succeed in changing it today. I hope we will someday. But I do not want to destroy what we have now. Let me talk about recidivism. In South Carolina--and you are going to hear from the distinguished former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond, a very active member of the Judiciary Committee. In South Carolina, the probability that a person who serves in a penitentiary in South Carolina, when they will be released, will ever come back into a State or Federal penitentiary again is 17 times higher for those who did not work while they were in prison than it is for those who did work in prison. Part of the reason is that people acquire skills in working that allow them to go out into the private sector and get a job when they get out of prison. In Florida, the probability that a person in prison, when they are released, will ever come back to prison is three times as high for people who did not work while they were in the penitentiary in Florida as it is for those who did work while they were in the penitentiary in Florida. For Wisconsin, it is twice as high; for Kentucky, it is almost twice as high. In the Federal system, the recidivism rate, the chances that someone will come back to Federal prison, after having been released, is 24 percent lower for those who participate in work programs. We have estimates that a 10-percent reduction in recidivism rates would lower the overall social cost of crime and incarceration by $6.1 billion. So another strong argument against the Levin amendment is that we have hard data, not just from the Federal Government, but from many States, that indicate conclusively if people work when they are in prison, the probability that they will go out and commit another crime that will get them sent back to prison is substantially, markedly lower if they work than if they do not work. You are going to hear Senator Levin argue that, well, this is not price competition. And it is not. Let's make it clear, this is not a competitive issue. I would defy anyone to pick up this defense authorization bill and hold it out as a paragon of virtue in terms of defense procurement efficiency. The defense procurement system is full of protectionism and special interests, where we give all kinds of special deals to all kinds of producers in selling things to the Defense Department. I say competition in procurement is a good thing. I swear by it. I support it. But when you have page after page of acquisition rules that say we pay inflated prices to buy things domestically rather than buying them on the world market, it is hard to suddenly be concerned about competition in prices with regard to prison-made goods. This is not about competition. This is about using a resource we have with 1.1 million people in prison. Now, having said that, the GAO recently did a study of the Federal Prison Industries of 20 different products that were bought by the Defense Department. What the GAO concluded was the Federal Prison Industries prices were within the market range for virtually every product that was bought by the Defense Department. So it is true that in the strictest terms, we don't have competitive bidding on goods produced in prison, but we have market surveys. We have negotiations between the Defense Department and the prison, and we have a simulation of what the market system would look like if you had a competitive bidding system. Also, the Department of Defense Inspector General recently completed a study of the Federal Prison Industries prices and concluded that DOD could have saved millions of dollars by buying more items from the Federal Prison Industries if it had bought more items from them rather than buying them in the open market. Now, let me remind my colleagues--I know Senator Thurmond is here and is very busy; I want to give him an opportunity to speak--that 2 years ago, when we debated this same issue in a slightly different form with the thrust identical, I offered a substitute amendment that mandated a study be done by the Department of Defense and by the Federal Prison Industries and Department of Justice. That study has just been completed, and it was reported to the Armed Services Committee and then to Members of the Senate. I draw my colleagues' attention to page 4 of the executive summary to the conclusions that were reached in the study. The question was what recommendations did they have as to changes we might make in current law with regard to the Defense Department buying things produced in Federal prisons. They concluded, the recommendations can be made within existing statutory authority and will not require legislative action. Department of Defense and Federal Prison Industries say they believe that implementing the recommendations will improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of procurement transactions between the two agencies. Implementation of the administrative actions should facilitate and enhance the working relationship between the two agencies. So in short, 2 years ago when we debated this issue and we decided to study the problem that was raised by Senator Levin, we had that study completed jointly by the Defense Department and the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and they have concluded that they should undertake a modernization system, but they do not need any legislative authority to do it. I urge my colleagues to remember, if we adopt this amendment and we kill off 60 percent of the remaining prison labor in America, we are going to spend more money to incarcerate prisoners. We are going to have less money go to victims. We are going to have a higher recidivism rate as people come out of prison and commit crimes again. And the net result will be that we will have taken work that was being done in prison, and we will have put it into the private sector. But in a period when we have an acute labor shortage and in a period when we have 1.1 million people in prison, 1 percent of the labor force, it makes absolutely no sense, it is destructive of our criminal justice system to destroy the remnants of prison labor. I remind my colleagues that when you bring Senator Thurmond, Senator Hatch and myself into an alliance with the administration, into an alliance with Janet Reno, the Attorney General, and then you have the support of victims' rights groups all over the country, that is a pretty broad coalition. What each and every one of these entities is saying is, do not kill off prison labor. When we have 130 million Americans who go to work every day and struggle to make ends meet, I do not understand what is wrong with forcing prisoners to work. I want prisoners to work. It is good for them. It is good for the taxpayer. It is good policy, and we should not allow that system to be destroyed. I reserve the remainder of my time, but I yield whatever time he might need to our distinguished colleague, Senator Thurmond, who today was recognized for the 75th anniversary of being commissioned an officer and a gentleman in the U.S. Army. For 75 years, three quarters of a century, Senator Thurmond has borne that commission to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and whether it was on D-Day in Normandy or whether it was on the Supreme Court of South Carolina or whether it was Governor or whether it is our most distinguished Member of the Senate, Strom Thurmond is truly a man to hold against the mountain and the sky. I yield whatever time he might need to Senator Thurmond.

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

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

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, hopefully, we can beat this 90-minute time limit and have this debate more quickly. Amendment No. 392 (Purpose: To delete language which the Department of Justice has stated would ``. . . seriously undermine the safety and security of America's federal prisons'')

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, just so everybody can figure out when we are likely to vote, how much time remains on the Specter amendment?

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

Mr. GRAMM. My intention would be to try to have the reconsideration tomorrow.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have a motion to reconsider. I enter a motion to reconsider the vote, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GRAMM. Yes, I have.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, first of all, let me make it clear, the Defense Department does not support this amendment. The Defense Department issued a joint report with the Department of Prisons, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, outlining ways of improving the system that required no legislation. The administration, on behalf of the Defense Department and the Department of Justice, opposes the Levin provision and supports the amendment that we have offered to strike it. The Attorney General supports our motion to strike the Levin amendment, as do many groups such as the National Center for Victims of Crime. It is obviously a very strong argument with me to talk about, ``why not competition?'' The problem is, you have to understand the history that competition was the rule prior to the Depression. Prior to the Depression, virtually everyone in prison in America worked on average 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. But during the Depression, we passed three pieces of legislation, all of them driven by special interests, triggered by the Depression, which made it illegal for prisoners to work to sell goods in the market. There had been previous provisions so that they didn't glut the market in one area, but the problem is, now it is criminal for prisoners to work to produce anything to sell in America. When my colleagues say why not have competition, my answer is, yes, let's have it. But you cannot have it without letting prison labor compete, and now that is prohibited all over America. The only thing left for prisoners today is to produce things that the Government uses. That is the only thing that we have not prohibited by law. As a result, we have 1.1 million prisoners and about 900,000 of them have no work to do. If the amendment of Senator Levin passed, 60 percent of the prison labor at the Federal level in America would be eliminated because there would be no work for these people to do. So this is an argument about competition that sounds great until you understand that Government, driven by the same groups that support this amendment, eliminated the ability to use prison labor to produce and sell anything. When you are talking about the taxpayer, it sounds great. But what about the taxpayer that is spending $22,000 a year to keep somebody in prison and we are not allowing them to work? If taxpayers are working, why are they better than taxpayers? Why should they not have to work? Why can't we find things in the private sector for them to produce? If we can do that, I would support this amendment. I know that many of the people who support it would never do that. The Defense Department is not for this amendment. They are not for the Levin amendment. They are not objecting to the provisions. In fact, they just put out a joint report saying the Defense Department supports the program with these reforms, which they can undertake without legislation. So, basically, I believe that the system is not perfect, but it is basically a good system where prices are negotiated and the Defense Department gets 90 percent of the waivers that they seek. If they don't think the quality is right or the price is right or the delivery is right, they can ask for a waiver. In 90 percent of the cases, they get the waiver. This is basically an amendment, I am sad to say, that would idle 60 percent of Federal prisoners. It would allow private companies to come in and take the business. But the point is, when we have full employment in America and we have a million prisoners idle, how does it make sense to prohibit them from working? I thank my colleague for giving me this time.

Mr. GRAMM. I do not want to throw off the vote, but I made an opening statement. I had several other of my colleagues speak on behalf of my amendment more articulately than I was able to, and I am grateful, but I would like to have 4 minutes to sort of answer some of the points that have been made. It just turned out, because people that were for the amendment came to the floor, that they all spoke before any of those that were opposed to it had the opportunity to speak. So if it doesn't mess up our timetable, I would like to have 4 minutes to respond to some of the issues that have been raised.

Mr. GRAMM. I am sorry. I didn't hear.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request. I had the good fortune of having Senator Byrd, Senator Hatch and Senator Thurmond speak on behalf of my amendment, and those are riches you don't turn down. But there have been many points made that I have not had an opportunity to respond to. If the Senator is not going to use the rest of his time, I would like about 4 minutes to respond. I ask unanimous consent that I might have it.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have the highest regard for Senator Roth, our distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee. One can tell by looking at all the books on his desk that he has done considerable research in this area. I have not done similar research in this area. But this is an issue that I have followed for my period of service in Congress, and I have followed it in part because of an interest in it, and in part because of my interest in the efforts of Dr. Samuel Mudd to exonerate his name from the role that he is alleged to have played and in fact was convicted of playing in the post-assassination activities related to President Lincoln. But I have come to the floor today to oppose this amendment because I strongly object to Congress getting into the business of rewriting history. This is an old issue. There has been a lot of talk over the years about Admiral Kimmel and about General Short, and about the facts in the wake of the greatest military disaster in American history at Pearl Harbor. And there is no question about the fact that we were asleep on December 7th of 1941. There is no question about the fact that Kimmel and Short had a great shortcoming in that they did not talk to each other and put together the information they had. But there is probably no question about the fact that in the wake of that disaster, there was an effort to put the blame on someone. It is also true that subsequent studies have concluded there was broad culpability. But here is the point I want to make. We have a Board for the Correction of Military Records. We have an on-going process within the Department of Defense to reevaluate decisions that have been made. This decision about Kimmel and Short bubbled all the way up to President Bush, who as you know, was the youngest naval aviator in American history in World War II. President Bush decided to let contemporaries be the judge of historical events, and so he made the decision not to override the decision of military leaders at the time of Pearl Harbor. We had another review that ended on December 15th of 1995. That review was headed by Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Edwin S. Dorn. Dorn concluded that, while it was clear that there was broad culpability, there was not sufficient evidence available now to override the previous decision, which did not include court-martial of these two military leaders; it simply included retiring them at their permanent rank rather than their temporary rank. Some of you will remember this issue because we went through it with a four-star admiral when there were questions about the abuse of women on his watch in the Navy. Some of you will remember that we actually had to cast a vote in that case. The issue was whether he should retire at his permanent rank, which was a two-star admiral, or as a four-star admiral. We had a very close vote on the decision to allow him to retire with his four-star rank, which he held on the day he left the military. It is true that normally, military flag officers are allowed to retire above their permanent rank to the higher temporary rank held on the day they are severed from the military. But that is not always the case, and it is normally done as an indication that they have provided excellent service. It was not an extraordinary thing in the wake of Pearl Harbor to, No. 1, retire the two officers in charge and, No. 2, retire them at their permanent rank rather than elevating their rank upon retirement. I urge my colleagues, with all due respect to Senator Roth, to let history be the judge of what happened at Pearl Harbor. We have a process within the Defense Department where recommendations can be made, where facts can be gathered on an objective basis, where the review can come up to the level of the Secretary of Defense and then come to the President, if necessary, to make a final decision. President Bush refused to override the judgment of history. The Clinton administration, through Under Secretary Dorn, has refused to override the judgment of history. Now, there is no doubt about the fact that Senator Roth believes he is sufficiently knowledgeable about this case to override the judgment of history here. But I ask the other 99 Members of the Senate, are we sufficiently informed? Do we want to set a precedent here or build on precedents, bad precedents in my opinion, that have been set in the past, of trying to write history on the floor of the Senate? I think we need to leave it to the official process. We need to leave it to historians to make these judgments. I have been personally involved now for several years with the Dr. Mudd case. What has happened in that case is that Dr. Mudd has many influential heirs and they have set a goal of exonerating him. We now have gone through this extraordinary process where we literally are on the verge of making a decision, where the Federal courts have gotten involved, not on the issue of whether Dr. Mudd was guilty. Having met John Wilkes Booth three times, being a physician whose job it was to recognize traits in people, he supposedly treated John Wilkes Booth and never recognized him. Contemporaries at the time said no. As a result, they sent him to prison. He was later pardoned due to some of the good work he did in prison. Never again in his lifetime did he challenge the judgment. But yet now we are on the verge of having, because of the political influence of that family, a decision in the Defense Department to override history. I think we make a mistake by doing that. In this case, we have had a judgment by President Bush, a naval aviator, a hero of the very war where this decision was made, who decided not to rewrite history. I think we should not decide to rewrite history here today. I think this amendment is well intended and based on tremendous research and on a great deal of fact. The point is, we are not the body that should be making this judgment. There is a process underway. That process has come to the level of the President once; it has come to the level of the Under Secretary of Defense once; and in both cases, they have said they would allow the judgment of history to stand. It is not as if these two military leaders were court-martialed. They were simply retired, something that happens every day in the military. And they were retired at their permanent rank, which is not ordinary but it is certainly not extraordinary. What should be extraordinary is that retirement at temporary rank ought to be a reward for conspicuous service. And while each of us can make our judgment about history that occurred in 1941, almost 58 years ago, I do not believe we have the ability, nor do I believe we have the moral authority as a political body, to go back and rewrite history. I ask my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I understand under the previous order I have 10 minutes.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from New Mexico for helping me see that in an effort to derail this point of order that we didn't do something that could undercut the whole budget. I am very grateful for his help on that. I want to disagree with the points that have been made by my two colleagues and do it in such a way as to not be disagreeable. First of all, our dear colleague, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, says that the violating expenditures here that are not offset are only sixteen-hundredths of a percent of overall Government spending. Well, my point is, if it is that small an amount of money, why don't we pay for it? In a budget of $1.7 trillion, we are in essence saying that $3.4 billion of nondefense spending is so important we are willing to violate the budget in terms of spending beyond our cap. But it is not important enough that we are willing to cut somewhere else to fund it? It seems to me if it is that important, we ought to be willing to pay for it. As to whether the budget is out of control relative to much of the world, our budget is not out of control. I agree with our colleagues. I am not making a statement trying to send the stock market down at 2, nor do I think any statement I could make would be capable of doing that. But I am not comparing America to Honduras. I am not comparing America to Japan. I am comparing what America is doing relative to what Congress promised the American people we would do. I do say that when we are spending, in emergency spending in 1999, three times as much as we have ever spent before, that suggests to me that something is out of control. As we all know, we read every day in the paper where Members are saying there is no way we can live up to these spending caps, and that this is only the beginning of our violation of the budget. My view is this ought to be the beginning of the fight to preserve the budget numbers we adopted. Let me tell you how the budget is out of control. It is not out of control the way we keep our books, even though we are beginning to lose control by designating all the spending as an emergency. But if we used accrual accounting, like American business has to, with Medicare and Social Security, we would be running huge deficits today. I agree with our colleague from New Mexico. Many of our worst problems are in areas like Social Security and Medicare. But the point is, we have to have Presidential leadership, we have to put together a program to deal with those problems; and it takes a concerted effort to do that. But the one area that we can control by ourselves is discretionary spending. The point is, if we don't have the will to prevent $3.4 billion of new spending, how are we going to have the will to reform Social Security or Medicare? In terms of comparing the checkbook of a family to a great nation and a great economy, I think it is a good comparison. In fact, Adam Smith once observed: What is wisdom in every household can hardly be folly in the economy of a great nation. Where can we find a better blueprint for fiscal responsibility than looking at working American families sitting around the kitchen table? The fact that they are dealing with thousands of dollars and we are dealing with billions of dollars doesn't fundamentally change things. They have to set priorities. They have to say no. And they have to say no to their children, the people they love, and to real needs. All I am saying is that we need to say no more often so that working families can say yes more often. I want to save Social Security so we don't have to double the payroll tax. I want to save Social Security so we don't have to cut benefits for the elderly. But we can't do that if we keep spending the Social Security surplus. In terms of across-the-board cuts, if it is not worth cutting to pay for, then why is it worth spending? If it is not worth taking it from a lower priority, is Social Security the lowest priority? Is taking this money out of the Social Security surplus of lower significance than funding all the thousands of other programs we fund? I don't think so. The final point. This is a point of order under the Budget Act against the nondefense portions of this bill. I would have raised a point of order against all the emergency designations in the bill had the point of order existed. I don't want people to think this is somehow nondefense versus defense. I believe in a strong defense. My dad was a sergeant in the Army for 28 years 7 months and 27 days. I have voted for defense. I have helped write budgets that rebuilt defense. But I want to pay for defense. I think where the difference is, I am willing to cut other programs to fund defense. But I don't understand why we are not willing to take it away from something else to fund defense but we are willing to violate our spending caps to fund defense. And if this war is so vitally important--let me make it clear that I don't see the vital national interest here. I don't see this as a vote on the war. But let me make it very clear, if this war is so vital, we ought to be willing to cut other Government programs to fund it. The idea that we ought to take the money out of Social Security to fund this war, I think, is wrong. So, again, this is a hard issue. I don't doubt the sincerity of our colleagues who are trying to do a difficult job in writing these appropriations. But there are two reasons I am here making this point of order. No. 1, we busted the budget by $21 billion on the last day of the last Congress. We are already at almost $30 billion of busting it now. We have to stop this from happening at some point. Let's do it now.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me be sure to clarify: There are 29 provisions in the bill that are subject to a point of order because they are not funded. Let me explain to my colleagues what this point of order does and what it does not do. This point of order does not kill the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. This point of order does not strike any funding measure in the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. What this point of order does, by striking the emergency designation for these 29 unfunded, nondefense provisions, is that it will trigger an across-the- board cut in all nondefense programs to fund these items. That across-the-board cut will fund $3.4 billion of unfunded programs. It will do it, according to the Office of Management and Budget, with a 1.25-percent across-the-board cut in discretionary nondefense programs. Obviously, our bill--if this point of order is sustained--will differ from the House bill. Under the procedures of our budget the bill would go back to the House, which could adopt the bill with this point of order made and therefore require the across-the-board cuts to offset this new spending, or the House could amend the bill to throw out the point of order, and the bill would come back and we would vote on the bill again and see if we could sustain it. So that is basically what we are doing. This point of order does not kill the supplemental appropriation, it simply pays for it. It simply says, in the $3.4 billion of programs that are not funded, that under the Budget Act you can make a point of order that they are not funded, and insist on that point of order so that 60 Members of the Senate would have to vote to say we do not want to fund these programs, we want to bust the budget, and we are willing to take the money out of the Social Security surplus in order to pay for it--which is what you will be saying if you vote to waive this Budget Act point of order. Have no doubt about that. If we sustain this point of order, there will be a 1.25-percent across-the-board cut in the same accounts, same section of the budget, nondefense discretionary, to fund these programs. The Appropriations Committee will have a decision at that point as to whether they really want these programs if they have to fund them. My guess is for many of them, they will not. My guess is, if you have to fund these programs, you will decide you do not really want them all. Why have I made this point of order? And why is it important? Why it is important is that our budget is so different from real budgets in the real world. Every time we want to bust our budget, we say we have an emergency. But American families have emergencies every day. They are not able to bust their budgets. What we basically do here would be equivalent to a family--they have written out their budget, and they decide to buy a new refrigerator this year or they are going to go on vacation this year or they are going to buy a new car this year; and Johnny falls down the steps, breaks his arm. The way the Government does it, they say: Well, that is an emergency, so we are going to waive our budget. We just won't have to count that as part of what we are spending. But that is not the way families work. Families have to sit back down around their kitchen table, get out an envelope and a pencil, and they have to figure out that if they have spent $400 setting Johnny's arm, they are not going to be able to buy that refrigerator or they are not going to be able to go on that vacation. They do not like it, but that is what they have to do, because that is the real world. All I am asking here is that on these $3.4 billion worth of programs, if they are so good and they are so important, let's pay for them. It is not as if we are going to do great violence to the budget of the United States if we are required to pay for it. We are talking about a 1.25-percent across the board reduction in order to pay for these programs. My view is that if you really wanted these programs, you would be willing to pay for them. If you are not willing to pay for them, we ought not to be spending it. So I want to reserve the remainder of my time and conclude by just saying this. If you meant it when you set those caps on spending, if you meant it when you said you want to lock away this money for Social Security or use it for Social Security reform, we have an opportunity today to save $3.4 billion that belongs to Social Security. It does not belong to general government. It does not belong to all of these projects we are funding here. It belongs to Social Security. If you want to save that $3.4 billion for Social Security, if you want to lock it away or use it to save Social Security, vote to sustain this point of order. I hope my colleagues will vote to sustain this point of order, because I think it is important. I think if we do not stand up now, we will now be at $29.8 billion by which we have overspent the 1999 budget before we have ever passed a single regular appropriations bill--all in the name of emergencies. So if we are ever going to stand up and stop this plundering of Social Security and stop this runaway spending train, we have to do it now. I urge my colleagues to vote with me if you want to protect Social Security and if you want to live up to the budget. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. I get half the time on the motion to waive since I am against waiving. Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the conference report contains nondefense emergency designations in violation of section 206 of House Concurrent Resolution 68. I send a list of those designations to the desk. There are 29 nondefense emergency designations in this bill that are in violation and that are subject to a point of order, and I raise the point of order against each of these 29 designations.

Mr. GRAMM. If the Senator wants me to yield the floor so he can speak now----

Mr. GRAMM. I have a right to under the unanimous consent request.

Mr. GRAMM. The Senator gave me 20 minutes to speak against the bill. I have done that. I am ready to raise the point of order.

Mr. GRAMM. On this. Why don't I go ahead and raise the point of order and take my 15 minutes and explain it, if that is OK with the chairman.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be very happy to have this vote on waiving the point of order at any point that will convenience the Senator. There is nothing magic about doing it now. I had thought at the end of this 7\1/ 2\ minutes that I would raise the point of order, we could go ahead and have this vote and dispose of it, and therefore there will be no trouble being off the bill or potentially finishing the bill before the meeting. If the Senator wants to delay it, I will be happy to do that. The time is not of any importance to me. Whatever will convenience the Senator.

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?