Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

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

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, how much time do I have?

Mr. GRAMM. I can protect private property, and that is why I am in the Senate.

Mr. GRAMM. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, we will vote at 5:30 on an amendment I have offered, an amendment that is supported by every Republican on the Banking Committee. This amendment would strike an unwise and, I believe, unfair provision that was put into this credit union bill in the House. What I would like to try to do in a few moments is to explain what credit unions are and how they work. I would like to explain why this provision is unwise and unfair. I would like then to read for my colleagues the language of this provision to show, by the very words of the provision, how it is unworkable and how it is subject to tremendous variance in interpretation. Then, contrary to what others might say about a provision called ``community reinvestment,'' I would like to give some real examples of abuses that are not of benefit to the community but rather to special interests. Those are basically the points that I want to cover. Credit unions are voluntary organizations. They are not for-profit organizations. They are organizations that were established under Federal law or State law, many during the Great Depression, whereby people of modest means pooled their savings and then, from that pool of savings, they made loans to others who had joined the pool, often making it possible for people to borrow money in small amounts that would not have been available through other, commercial sources. And in the process, credit unions brought credit literally to millions of American families of modest means. Recognizing this in their charter, they, as other cooperatives that were born during the Great Depression, were granted tax exemption. They are totally voluntary organizations tied together by a common bond. We have written a bill in the Senate and House because of a court ruling which jeopardizes the current status of credit unions. In the House of Representatives, a provision was added to this bill to require for the first time ever in the history of this country that Federal credit unions, and not only Federal credit unions but State credit unions as well, be forced to make loans and grant services at subsidized rates to people who are not members of the credit union. This is following a principle that has been established with the Community Reinvestment Act for banks, and I want to argue that it does not fit the model of credit unions, and that it has certainly been abused in its use for banks. I personally will vote for the Shelby amendment to exempt small banks from CRA, but my amendment deals with a different subject. We should not be imposing with Federal power a mandate that voluntary, nonprofit organizations, chartered for the sole purpose of promoting the private interests of their members and the cooperative interests of their members, provide services, loans and other services, to people who are not members of the credit union, people who had an opportunity to join but chose not to join. And might I point out, it generally costs nothing more than a deposit of five dollars to join a credit union, yet these people to be served under these mandates in the bill chose not to join. Let me read the language. In three different instances this bill imposes these new Federal mandates. First of all, it imposes on credit unions ``a continuing and affirmative obligation to meet the financial services needs of persons of modest means.'' It then requires that the Federal Government conduct a periodic review of the records of each insured credit union to see that each and every credit union is ``providing affordable,''--and ``affordable'' is undefined and undefinable--``credit union services to all individuals of modest means within the field of membership of the credit union.'' Let me remind my colleagues that not only does the bill mandate that the credit union be ``providing,'' not offering to provide but actually providing, its services, meaning that they must be offered and accepted in order to meet the standard, but the bill mandates that the services and credit be ``affordable,'' an undefined and undefinable term. The bill then uses equally expansive terms to identify to whom these affordable services and loans are to be provided: ``All individuals . . . within the field of membership of the credit union.'' That is far different from the number of people who chose to join a credit union. If a credit union represents a common bond of people who work for a company or people who live in a community, a credit union is very successful if 20 percent of the people who had the opportunity to join the credit union actually chose to do it. If this House provision remains in the bill, we will be mandating that the hard-earned savings of credit union members be used to provide subsidized services to people who had an opportunity to join the credit union but who chose not to afford themselves that opportunity. This provision also requires that the evaluation of the credit union made by the Federal examiners be made public. With regard to community credit unions, the provision requires that the credit union meet the credit needs and credit union service needs of the entire field of membership, and that procedures for remedying a failure be established--again, for the first time ever in the history of this country requiring voluntary nonprofit organizations to grant subsidized services to people who are not members of those organizations. And, finally, a third time the legislation mandates, and again in words that are undefinable, that the credit union, as a condition tied to its federal deposit insurance, insurance that it pays for out of its capital provided by its members in a self-financing system, must be satisfactorily providing affordable credit union services to all individuals of modest means within its field of membership--again, not people who joined the credit union. And, as before, the terms ``satisfactorily'' and ``affordable'' are undefined and totally undefinable. What is this really about? I want to use, I am afraid, somewhat harsh language to describe what this is about, there are not any other terms which really describe it. We must begin by recognizing that we had to pass a bill to deal with a court decision with regard to credit unions. Then we are seeing a rider added to this bill, in essence an effort to hold this bill hostage, these CRA provisions that for the first time will force credit unions to use their resources for something other than promoting the well-being of their members. These so-called community reinvestment provisions are often abused and often can turn into something very different than the term ``community reinvestment'' would suggest. I want to give you three examples of the kind of problems that are happening on a regular basis with regard to the application of CRA to banks. We do not want these things to happen to credit unions, and someday we are going to stop them from happening to banks. I would like to begin that soon. The first has to do with California First Bank. California First Bank sought to merge in 1989 with Union Bank. When the merger was announced, protesters showed up and filed a protest under the Community Reinvestment Act opposing the merger of California First Bank and Union Bank. They met with the leadership of the California First Bank, and after delaying that merger, an agreement was entered into in return for removing the protest to the merger. California First Bank agreed to increase purchases from women and minority-owned vendors to 20 percent of total purchases. They agreed to make charitable contributions in the amount of 1.4 percent of net income in 1989 and 1.5 percent of net income in 1990. They made a commitment that 60 percent of employees placed in middle and senior management positions within 5 years would be minorities and women. And finally, they agreed, as a condition for the removal of this protest, that they would appoint three minority and women directors to the bank. Sumitomo Bank in California is a bank that I do not know, but I assume it is an affiliate bank of the Japanese bank operating in California. I suspect that it has specialized in providing services, corresponding bank services to companies that do business in Japan and Japanese companies that do business in the United States. Sumitomo Bank had an action filed against them under the Community Reinvestment Act, and as a result of this filing, they were ultimately forced into the following agreement. And I would like to ask you, if this were a bank from one of our States that was operating in the Dominican Republic and a group of professional protesters came into the bank and protested its operations and demanded and received the following things, what would we call it? This Japanese affiliate bank was required under this agreement to make $500 million of CRA-related loans over 10 years; to spend 2 percent of income on charitable or not-for-profit organizations, two- thirds of the money going to inner-city organizations; appoint minority board members to the bank; appoint a paid five-member minority advisory board to consult with management; and give 20 to 25 percent of outside contracts to minority-owned vendors. I submit that, while it is a harsh word to say, if an American bank in the Dominican Republic had been forced to do these things, we would have called it extortion. Yet this is happening every year in America. Let me give another example. When NationsBank and the Bank of America recently sought to merge, both banks had excellent CRA reports. They had been graded annually, and they had historically invested substantially in the inner-city areas that they served. Yet, despite the fact that both banks had excellent CRA reports, a group of professional protesters opposed the merger. Currently, they are endeavoring to hold up the merger, and one of the protesters was recently quoted as saying, ``We will close down their branches and ensure they fail in California. This is going to be a street fight and we are prepared to engage in it.'' Madam President, what has really happened to CRA provisions for banks is that we have literally set up a procedure whereby professional protesters lodge a complaint in the name of community reinvestment every time banks seek official approval of any action, and based on those complaints, in holding up that action, they are able to force companies to sign agreements to set quotas in purchasing, quotas in hiring, quotas in promotion, and they literally force the bank to donate money to organizations of which they themselves, on occasion, are part or beneficiaries. I submit that community reinvestment, while the name is a wonderful name, and we all support it, has really turned into a system that is terribly abused. It has become virtually a system of legalized extortion whereby a small number of professional protesters are able to go into a bank and literally threaten that bank with the inability to do its business unless they are, in some form, in some fashion, paid off. I think this is fundamentally wrong. It is very difficult to get banks to talk about it, obviously, because when people have been extorted, it is hard to get them to go public. But the plain truth is, I think if people look at what is happening to NationsBank and Bank of America, even though both of them have excellent records, and in the reports that are filed annually have consistently received high ratings, yet they are being shaken down by protesters who are trying to hold up their merger, asking for additional concessions. When we look at what California First Bank and this Japanese affiliate were forced to do, in terms of payments of cash, in terms of hiring people to serve on ``advisory boards,'' it reminds me of an immigrant merchant working with his family. This immigrant merchant is trying to eke out a living in a little store, when these big heavies walk into his store and say: You know, you need protection. You need somebody to make sure that somebody doesn't come in here and tear up your business or hurt you. And you give us 5 percent of what you earn and we will protect you. I think it is fundamentally wrong, when we have established terms that are so undefined as ``affordable,'' terms such as ``satisfactorily providing affordable,'' so that we are literally allowing American business to be shaken down. I don't want this to happen to credit unions. I don't like the fact that it is happening to banks. I believe that we will ultimately fix this problem. I think we should. Some people are going to say that the credit unions are not actively opposing the CRA mandates in the bill. The credit unions were told that if they opposed this provision in the bill that they might not get the bill, that it might be held up. So needless to say, I am not surprised under those circumstances that they have not come forward to say that they oppose these mandates. But I believe these mandates should be stricken. I think that they have no role in the credit union bill. I think it is fundamentally wrong, to require that voluntary nonprofit organizations, established to provide cooperative financial services to people who voluntarily come together in a credit union--it is wrong to force them to take their money and their services and, in essence, give them to people who are not members of their credit union. I think it is fundamentally wrong. Striking those mandates is what my amendment is about. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I only have a limited amount of time. Let me be quick. No one is against community investment. Everyone is for community investment, and virtually every financial institution in America engages in it, and engages in it as much as they can in terms of prudent investments. Our colleague talks about financial institutions taking money out of the community and then the government, through CRA, making them put it back into the community. I want to remind my colleagues that credit unions do not take money out of the community. Credit unions are voluntary organizations which people can choose to join or not to join. They cannot take money away, because they can only loan their money to their own members. Our colleague objects to talk about being forced to grant credit, at a subsidized rate, to people that are not members of the credit union. But in three different places in the bill it requires that credit unions are ``satisfactorily,'' whatever that means, ``providing affordable,'' whatever that means, credit to the entire field of membership. Not trying to do it, not offering to, but doing it, something that clearly is open to any kind of subjective evaluation by a regulator. In fact, Senator D'Amato has read from the Federal agency that regulates credit unions, how burdensome this is going to be. Two final points: Our colleague quotes someone from this Sumitomo Bank, about how happy they are. Well, I think you would be saying that, too, if in 1993 you had been forced, under the CRA, to give 2 percent of your income away, to appoint people to your board that you didn't choose to appoint, to set up an advisory board and pay them, the very people who are protesting your bank under CRA, make then now a part of your organization, and, finally, if had been forced to engage in quotas. So I am not surprised that this bank is saying how great everything is now. They don't want the same people back in their place of business. Finally, I appreciate the fact that the Senator gave us the wonderful record of the Bank of America in California under CRA, but it doesn't seem to have done Bank of America any good. I quote a CRA protester who at this moment has lodged a complaint with this financial institution against its merger with NationsBank. Despite all their good work, he says, ``We will close down their branches and assure they fail in California. This is going to be a street fight and we are prepared to engage in it.'' What tyrant in history has not claimed that he was serving the public interest when he took private property --not one ever in the history of the world.

Mr. GRAMM

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

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it is my understanding this will be the first vote we have on Monday. It is also my understanding that there will probably be an hour set aside so each side will have 30 minutes to debate the amendment. Rather than stay around today and debate it, I will use my 30 minutes on Monday. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. This is an important amendment. We ought not to add these onerous CRA provisions to credit unions, which are investor owned, which are set up as cooperatives to serve the people who are members. Imagine, for example, in New York, where you have a credit union that was set up so cabdrivers could save their money and lend it to one another, and the loans, then, would be made to buy a Medallion so somebody could own their own cab. Now, with CRA, the Federal Government comes in and says, ``Hey, how many loans have you made to people who aren't members of your credit union who could have been--they are in your field of membership, but they didn't choose to join your credit union; how many Medallions have you helped them buy?'' So Joe Brown, who put money into the credit union for 15 years, finally gets to the point where he thinks he can buy his Medallion, but because of this provision, the credit union has to take Joe's money and lend it to somebody who never joined the credit union, never wanted to be in the credit union. If you can defend that, good luck. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, as a result of not wanting that to happen, I send this amendment to the desk to strike these provisions, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me add my voice to those who have congratulated Senator D'Amato and Senator Sarbanes for this bill. I believe we have put together a good bill. I think it is a dramatic improvement over the House bill. It does, for the first time, in an effective manner begin to look at capital requirements and safety and soundness, and, in doing so, it will dramatically improve the quality and regulation of credit unions all over the country. I think those who are part of the credit union movement want people to know that their deposits are safe, sound, insured, regulated and protected in the savers' interest. Second, the bill, for the first time, begins to put appropriate limits on the amount of business loans that credit unions can make. There are those who believe, and I happen to be one of them, that credit unions were chartered to provide consumer credit to their members as part of a cooperative effort. A dramatic movement of credit unions into commercial lending would circumvent the whole intent of the credit union movement, and in my opinion, it would be a negative factor on the progress of the credit union movement. In this bill, we for the first time set limits on the amount of credit union assets that can go into commercial loans. That is a very positive step. We deal with the common bond issue, and we settle once and for all the principle that every American ought to have the right to join a credit union--not any credit union--but join a credit union within an appropriate field of membership. it my view, and I believe that we achieve this with this bill, that it should be possible for every American citizen to find an appropriate field of membership by which he or she can associate with others, and have the opportunity to join a credit union and to affiliate with that credit union if they choose to do it. Those are the positive things about this bill. I am a strong supporter of the bill. I intend to vote for this bill, but there is one provision in the bill to which I am very strongly opposed. In this bill, for the first time ever, we begin to have the Federal Government direct credit unions as to how they will use their members' money. In this bill, for the first time ever, we begin the process of telling credit unions that the government is going to allocate some of a credit union's resources to promote a ``public purpose,'' even though it may not be the purpose of credit union members. I believe that not only is this very bad and dangerous public policy, but I think the logic of it is totally inapplicable to credit unions and the credit union movement. The name--it is a wonderful sounding name for a program that has nothing to do with any one word in the name--is Community Reinvestment Act. In this bill, for the first time ever, we apply in three different ways this Federal mandate and credit allocation to credit unions. Let me explain why, despite all the arguments you can make on the merits or demerits of the Community Reinvestment Act, why it does not belong on this bill. Credit unions are voluntary, private associations. They are nonprofit organizations. They are tax-exempt organizations. They represent a collective effort of members to pool their savings with a common objective. They pool their savings and they lend to each other, the members of the credit union. In doing so, they perform a cooperative credit function. In many cases, they provide credit that would not be available, certainly at rates that would not be available, in many cases, to the consumer. They are not in the business of promoting any broad, general purposes, such as the general welfare of the country or the community. They are small, private associations that are organized for the purpose of promoting the welfare of their members. The whole purpose is to pool nickels, dimes and dollars to build a cash base that can be lent to members for things such as buying a new car or new truck, buying a new tractor. The objective of the credit union is to promote the interest of credit union members. It is not a for-profit organization, and there is no logic to applying to it a provision of law where the Government adds an additional mandate that the credit unions should direct the money of those members to support some end other than the well-being of the people who put up the money in the first place. Let me explain how this works, and I want to read you some language-- in my mind, shocking language--that has been included in this bill in the House, and language that I believe should be removed. In the bill, the House has set up this requirement for a Federal mandate and capital allocation that goes by the name of community reinvestment. I will talk in a moment as to why this provision has nothing to do with community or reinvestment. This bill mandates that credit unions conform to this Federal capital allocation. Here is how it is defined, and here is basically how it works: In three different places, we have a reference to it in the bill. The first way that the bill would measure whether a credit union is complying with this Federal mandate allocating their members' hard- earned money is on page 58 in new section 215. In subsection (b), it is set out that credit unions have to comply with this community reinvestment, and that in doing so, they will be regularly evaluated by the Federal Government, and their record will be looked at to see if the credit union is ``providing''--I want you to remember, that is ``ing''--``. . . providing affordable credit union services to all individuals of modest means . . . within the field of membership of the credit union. . . .'' In other words, in this section, the Federal Government will evaluate whether or not this credit union, in making loans, in allocating the money of the people who have joined the credit union, is providing affordable services--and I don't know how you define ``affordable.'' I think I know how you define ``providing;'' you test whether they are actually doing it, although I could imagine some very interesting and intrusive methods of testing that the regulators might conjure up. But the test of ``providing'' can be a very rigorous test, since the standard is not whether the credit union is offering its services, it is not whether they are trying to do it. They are required to do it. They are to be ``providing''--you are evaluating whether they are ``. . . providing affordable credit union services to all individuals of modest means . . . within the field of membership of the credit union.'' You need to understand, field of membership and membership are two different things. A credit union considers itself successful if it is able to get about 20 percent of the people who could join that credit union to join it. So that in any field of membership, normally about 80 percent of the people in the field of membership who were invited to join the credit union, who were invited to put up their money, said ``No, I don't want to join your credit union; I don't want to put my money into your credit union.'' But the first provision of this bill requires that the credit union, to comply with this law on Federally mandated capital allocation, must be ``. . . providing affordable''-- and where are these terms defined? Nowhere--``credit union services to all individuals of modest means . . . within the field of membership.'' Now, I do not believe we ought to be forcing credit union members, who put up their own money, to provide services to people that had an opportunity to join the credit union but decided not to join it. I think that violates the whole spirit of the credit union movement because a credit union is a cooperative, and if you want credit union services, you join the credit union. You participate in putting up the capital and you apply for loans or services from the credit union. The second evaluation has to do with community credit unions. And those are credit unions that serve an entire community. This second provision requires that credit unions are ``meeting''--not trying to meet--and please note, the law does not say that you ``offer'' services, that you offer ``affordable'' services, whatever that means, to all people of modest means within your field of membership. The law requires that you ``provide'' it. Now, the second reference is, that you are ``meeting the credit needs and credit union service needs of the entire field of membership of the credit union.'' That is on page 59--``the entire field of membership. * * *'' So again, you are in a community. This little credit union is providing services to people in a town with 5,000 people; roughly 20 percent of those people have joined the credit union. But this law requires that they provide ``affordable'' services--whatever that means--to people who did not even join the credit union. How can that be right? Clearly, in my opinion, it cannot be right. Now, the third case, very similar to the first, except the language gets even more grandiose. Imagine writing a Federal law where you can threaten the deposit insurance of a credit union and put it completely out of business. If it does not have Federal deposit insurance, it is not going to be able to operate. This law applies to both Federal credit unions and State credit unions, as long as they receive Federal deposit insurance. Listen to this language. You have regulation to see if the credit union is ``satisfactorily''--satisfactorily, mind you--``providing,'' ``affordable''--I do not know how you define these terms. I have discussed ``providing.'' The credit union is actually doing it. It is not ``offering'' services; it is ``providing'' them, services are being accepted and received, not just offered. ``Satisfactorily'' is an undefined term, satisfactory to whom? ``Affordable'' is undefined and undefinable --that the ``credit union is satisfactorily providing affordable credit union services to all individuals of modest means within the field of membership of the credit union,'' whether or not they join the credit union in the first place. Mr. President, this provision does not belong in this bill. This provision is piracy. This provision came about because we have a crisis in the credit union movement because of the court ruling, a crisis which requires congressional action. And what those in the House, who put this provision in the bill, have, in essence, said is, that in order to resolve your crisis, you have to pay tribute. And the tribute you have to pay is that we are writing a provision of law which says that every year you will be evaluated by a group of Federal bureaucrats who will determine whether you are satisfactorily providing affordable credit union services to people who are not even members of the credit union. And then they will publish their findings. Now, what does this produce? What this produces is a situation where you literally--I am going to use some strong language here; and I mean every word of it--this produces a situation where literally you have professional protesters who extort resources from banks, and if this bill passes unchanged, they will be extorting resources from credit unions. Here is how it works. And I am going to give you some examples. And you are going to be shocked by these examples. What happens is that periodically you have this evaluation that is made public, and whether or not the evaluation is satisfactory, you have a group of people who show up from various organizations to tell you how to use your resource for their benefit. ACORN is very active in this effort, and there are many other organizations, it is a growing industry--they show up at the bank and they say, ``You're not meeting your CRA requirements. And here are some things we want you to do. And if you'll do these things, then we will say that you're meeting these requirements, and we will stop protesting for now.'' It works like this. You have a bank who may have a perfect record on CRA requirements, but they want to merge with another bank. Even though they may have never had anything other than an exemplary rating, protesters can enter the process and challenge the merger on the grounds of community reinvestment and cost the banks millions of dollars because of the delays that their protests cause. Now, let me give you two examples of where this has occurred. The first I will refer to happened in 1989 in California. And let me say, Mr. President, it is hard to get banks to talk about this. I recently spoke to the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company, and I mentioned to him an effort I am supporting, an effort Senator Shelby is undertaking to provide CRA relief for small community banks. When I mentioned CRA, he said, ``It's extortion.'' If I called him up and asked, ``Could I use your name?'' how many people who are being extorted want their name used? They do not. They are afraid to have their name used. When a CEO of a Fortune 500 company in America is afraid to say his mind publicly, to expose extortion, something is wrong in America. Now, let me give you my examples and offer my amendment, and then we will debate this again on Monday. In 1989, California First Bank wanted to merge with Union Bank. But when they sought to merge, opposition was lodged under the CRA provisions of banking law, and in order for these protests to be withdrawn so that delays could be ended and the merger could go forward, here is what California First Bank agreed to: One, to increase purchases from women and minority-owned vendors to 20 percent of purchases within the next 5 years. Second, they agreed to give charitable contributions, cash grants, not loans, in the amount of 1.4 percent of income in 1989 and 1.5 percent of income in 1990. Now, I do not know this, but if I were a U.S. attorney in that district, I would go look and see if they gave those contributions to the groups that protested the merger. That would be a very interesting inquiry. Next, California First Bank committed that 60 percent of the employees placed in middle and senior management positions within the next 5 years would be minorities and women. And finally, they committed to appoint three minority and women directors. That is what they had to do in order to get the right to merge with another bank. Now, listen to this next one. Sumitomo Bank of California--now I do not know, but I guess that Sumitomo Bank is a Japanese affiliate. I think it is relevant because I want you to put yourself in this position. Let us assume that an Ohio bank had opened an affiliate in the Dominican Republic and that some government agency there had said that, ``You are not meeting your CRA requirements.'' And then they published that, and then a group of people came to the bank and said, ``We want you to do some things so that we then will tell the government that you are meeting these requirements.'' Let's see what the things were that our Government in effect forced this bank to do. Let me read to you what they did. No. 1, $500 million was committed to CRA-related loans. No. 2, the bank committed to spend 2 percent of income on charity, nonprofit organizations, with two-thirds of the money going to inner-city development, this being cash, grant money. No. 3, the bank committed to appoint minority board members. No. 4, the bank agreed to appoint a paid five-member minority advisory board to consult with management. And, No. 5, the bank agreed to give 20 to 25 percent of outside contracts to minority-owned vendors. Now if that happened to an Ohio bank operating in the Dominican Republic, what would you call it? I would call it extortion. That is what I would call it. I would call it extortion, or maybe even expropriation, a taking of private property. Now, how does something like that happen? How it happens is that we let people write into law provisions like ``satisfactorily providing affordable services,'' which no one can define, nobody knows what it means, and if you have to comply--a regulator that is willing to let protest groups file objections to banks merging, for example, by simply the ability to hold that merger up--they are able to extort resources. Now, I could go on for quite a while and add to the list. For example, when Bank One wanted to merge with First Chicago. But what do you think happened when they filed that merger? What happened was, they had a group of protesters who showed up, who filed a boilerplate objection which could be drawn up in 15 minutes by any lawyer who deals in this area. I am sure the bank president said, ``Well, we have an exemplary CRA record.'' The protestors said, ``We have objected to your merger.'' So weeks go by, time goes by, and this is the Woodstock Institute that objected in Chicago--I better be careful to get the name right-- yes, in Chicago, the Woodstock Institute objected. So what happens in such cases? The bank ends up allocating the resources of its stockholders in order to eliminate the objection just to be able to move forward with its business. Now, let me read a quote to just show the arrogance of these people who we are empowering under these laws. Forgive me if I get a little excited about it, but it is the kind of practice I hate worst. This comes from the proposed merger of NationsBank and Bank of America. They have received outstanding CRA grades, but in spite of their unprecedented $350 billion CRA packages of loans and services to inner cities, et cetera, CRA activists are raising protests against the merger. One of the activist leaders has said the following--remember, this is about banks that have exemplary CRA records, at least according to the Government regulators who regulate this activity. These banks have exemplary records. But here is what the protester said, ``We will close down their branches and ensure they fail in California.'' That is what they said. ``We will close down their branches and ensure they fail in California. This is going to be a street fight and we're prepared to engage in it.'' Do you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of a little immigrant storeowner. He and his wife and three children are running a little store, and these great big hoods come knock on his door. They come in and say, ``Somebody could do you some harm. There might be people who could come and break in your store, steal your goods. They might beat you up; they might break your arm. But I will tell you what we will do. If you will pay us 5 percent of what you earn in this store, we will see that nobody comes and breaks your arm.'' That is what this reminds me of. That is exactly what this reminds me of. Now, I don't like the fact that it is going on. Some day I will get rid of it. Some day this is going to be gone. I intend to speak out on this for so long with such great passion that in good time Congress is ultimately going to rise up and stop this. That is not likely to happen here today, but some day it will happen. What I don't want to do is, I don't want to start this business with credit unions. Now, I am sure that we are going to hear from someone who will say credit unions don't support this amendment. Well, the credit unions have been told, ``You support the Gramm amendment, and maybe your bill won't get passed. You support this amendment, and maybe the President won't sign your bill. You support this amendment, and maybe it will mean endless delays.'' Now, that is like saying to someone sticking a gun to your temple, saying, ``You feel good about things, don't you?'' We will vote on this amendment on Monday afternoon. I don't want credit unions to have to be evaluated on whether or not they are providing satisfactory, affordable services to people who didn't even join the credit union. Amendment No. 3336 (Purpose: To strike provisions requiring credit unions to use the funds of credit union members to serve persons not members of the credit union)

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I don't doubt the sincerity of our dear colleague, who is one of our more respected Members, in offering a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that the Japanese ought to promote economic growth. However, I have to say, having been here to almost midnight last night, it makes little sense to me that we are going to have a 100-0--if everybody is here--rollcall vote on this sense-of-the- Senate resolution when nobody is opposed to Japan having economic growth. I don't know how we are going to pass the appropriations and adjourn and keep the Government running if we are going to continue to do this. It is not just Democrats, it is Republicans as well. We are for the amendment, but why we have to have a rollcall vote on it, I don't understand. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I thank the chairman of the Commerce, State, Justice Committee for yielding. Every once in awhile, we have a debate on something that really defines the choice that the American people face every 2 years when they go to the polls and decide whether they want a Republican majority in Congress or a Democrat majority in Congress. Many of the things we vote on, we agree on. Often, the distinctions are not so clear. And often the issues where they are clear, don't appear to be big at the time. But why I think the vote we are about to have at 4:15 is a very important vote and why I think the issue is significant--or at least it should be--to Americans who sit down every night around their kitchen table and get out a pencil and have the back of an envelope, and at the first of the month they take the amount of the paycheck and write it at the top of the envelope and they start subtracting bills they have to pay and try to figure out if they are going to make ends meet and whether they are coming out ahead that month--why this issue is a defining issue between the two parties is that there is one small, but significant, difference between the two resolutions that are before us. First of all, there are two very fine resolutions. They both talk about the fact that we are blessed by having a very strong and vibrant economy. We are blessed by having a lot of Americans who are working, and that we have joined together, at least to this point, in a bipartisan commitment to try to save Social Security, which implies two things-- No. 1, we admit, on a bipartisan basis, that it needs saving; No. 2, we are willing to do the heavy lifting to get the job done. I know Senator Gregg has a plan and has been willing to take a courageous stand in showing us how we can save Social Security. Senator Domenici and I are working on a program to try to save Social Security and protect its benefits. So the difference here is not about Social Security, the difference is, What do you do if you save Social Security and there is still some money left? Our resolution says that, A, we want to save Social Security first, but we want to return all remaining surpluses to the American taxpayer. That is the difference between these two resolutions. Why is that important? Why that is important is that if you take Federal, State, and local taxes, the tax burden on American families today is at the highest level in American history. Never in the history of this country--at the peak of the war effort in World War II, at the peak of the war effort in the Civil War--have we ever had working Americans face and bear a higher tax burden than they have today. What Republicans are saying is, first of all, we want to live up to our obligations; we want to save Social Security not with a slogan but with a real program, to begin to shift from a Social Security based on the debt of the Federal Government to a Social Security based on investment and wealth. That is the way we believe we can save Social Security. Obviously, we are going to have a debate on that. But the resolutions before us--both fine resolutions, but the difference is, our resolution has a part 4; and the part 4 is: Return all remaining surplus after we save Social Security to the American taxpayer. We believe the tax burden is too high. So we want to save Social Security first. But if money remains after we do that job, we want to give it back to taxpayers. Let me tell you why we are concerned, why we think Congress needs to go on record. The President proposed a budget this year. At the same moment he was saying save Social Security first, he proposed a budget that had $56 billion worth of new discretionary spending programs busting the spending caps that we agreed to only last year. What we are saying in our resolution is, we do not intend to see those spending caps breached, we do not intend to increase Government spending; we intend to hold the line on spending, tax the surplus, save Social Security with a real investment-based system that belongs to the individual worker, and then to the extent that there is any money left--and if we hold the line on spending, there will be money left, tens, hundreds, of billions of dollars left ultimately--we want that to go back to American families. What would we like it to go back in the form of? We would like to repeal the marriage penalty. We have voted on an amendment that I offered this year to repeal the marriage penalty so that we don't have this absurd situation where people fall in love and get married and they end up giving the Government $1,400 additional income for the right to live in holy matrimony. Unfortunately, that was a bill that didn't become law. One of the things we want to do with the money that is left when we save Social Security, if there is money, is we want to repeal the marriage penalty. We happen to believe that families are important. I believe, and believe very strongly, that we are overfeeding government. We are starving the one institution in America that really works. That institution is the family. I would like to stretch out the income tax brackets. The average family in America is a two-wage-earner family. It earns $49,000 a year. It is in the 28-percent marginal tax bracket. I would like to link them to a 15-percent bracket so that more struggling American families who are trying to own their own home, trying to send their children to college, can continue to stay in that lower tax bracket longer. Finally, I would like to junk the current unfair, complicated--and unfath- omable to most Americans, including me--Tax Code we have now and go to a simple system that has flatter rates and that is comprehensible to the taxpayer, so that people can fill their tax return out in some semblance of some form they understand. This is a big issue on a relatively minor resolution. What is the sense of the Senate? Some would say that it is sort of an oxymoron to be talking about it. But to the extent there is, are we simply trying to save Social Security, or do we want to go a step further and say that, if we save Social Security, if any money is left, we want it to go back to the taxpayer instead of being spent? That is what we say. I hope people will vote for our resolution. I thank the Chair. Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I withhold. I withhold my suggestion of the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM. I will be 20 seconds. If the Senator has support, if he has a good bill, let us bring it before the Senate and vote on it.

Mr. GRAMM. I thank the Senator from West Virginia, and I thank the Chair. Mr. President, on this side of the aisle, we have spent a tremendous amount of time, individual Members' time--not just the time of our staffs--in putting together our bill to promote patients' rights, to get the gatekeepers of Health Maintenance Organizations out of the examining rooms where medical care is being provided in America. We now have a situation where we have Senator Kennedy's proposal, which is strongly supported by our Democratic colleagues, and we have our proposal, which is strongly supported by our Republican colleagues. What we have sought to do since we have a limited number of legislative days--we have many appropriations bills to pass--is to try to reach an agreement where we would allow something that majorities normally do not do under the Senate rules, and that is to allow the minority to have an up-or-down vote on their so-called Patients' Bill of Rights. Then, if they are unsuccessful, to have an up-or-down vote on our bill, and if we are successful, that would be the bill. We now find that our colleagues say, ``No; we want 20 amendments,'' or, ``We want 10 amendments.'' I wanted to explain to my colleagues why I am going to object to any unanimous consent request that does not allow us to simply have the two choices. It is unusual in the sense that someone would object to narrowing down amendments, so I would like to explain my concern. First of all, I don't think it is unreasonable, given our legislative schedule, to say to those who have a health care bill that we are going to give them an up-or-down vote on their bill. I don't think that is unreasonable. Obviously, a unanimous consent request alters the basic procedures of the Senate, and any Senator has the right to object to doing that. Secondly, I am not interested in amending Senator Kennedy's bill. I don't want to try to change his bill. I want him to write the best bill he can write to try to improve our health care system and enhance the rights of health care consumers, and I don't have any interest in amending his bill. Now, let me tell you why I don't have any interest in Senator Kennedy and others amending our bill. I have not forgotten that the Senator from Massachusetts and many of the supporters of the Kennedy bill 5 years ago were for a Government-run HMO, the Clinton health care bill. I have not forgotten that the President was not only in favor of the Government taking over and running the health care system 5 years ago; within the past year he has said that he had not changed his objective in having a Government-run system but that he was now simply trying to implement it piece by piece. Here is the problem this late in the legislative session of getting into endless amendments on the two bills: Not only do we not have time to do it, but we have a very unequal situation. Let me explain, and I will try to do it briefly so we can get on with this bill. I am not interested, and I don't believe anyone on our side of the aisle is interested, in amending the Kennedy bill. I believe that we have a better bill. I think he ought to write the best bill he can, we will write the best bill we can, and then, with the limited time we have, give people a choice. But there is an additional problem here, and the problem is the unequal situation we are in. I desperately do not want to do anything to destroy the private practice of medicine in America. I don't believe that a Government-run system is the best system. In offering amendments and writing our bill, we are constrained in that we don't want to do anything that is going to drive up costs, cost millions of American families their health insurance, and ultimately force people into a Government-run HMO. It appears that many of our colleagues, including the author of the Democratic alternative, support a Government-run HMO, support a Government takeover, so that while we are constrained in amendments that we can offer by our desire to be certain that we don't end up killing off private medicine, many on the other side of the aisle seem to believe that private medicine should be killed off so that we can have a system that they sincerely believe will work better, and that is a system where the Government would run health care in America. The best analogy, interestingly enough, is biblical. Some of my colleagues will remember the story in the Bible about the two women who had infants. While they slept, one infant died, and the lady whose child had died got up and took the dead baby and put the dead baby by the mother of the living baby and took the living baby herself. When the mother woke up and saw the dead child, she realized it was not her child. To make a long biblical story short, the women appeared before King Solomon. Solomon, being wise, asked that a sword be brought. He suggested that since there was no way that anybody other than the two mothers would know whose child was really alive, that he would take the sword and divide the child. When he proposed that this be done, the real mother, of course, as all of us remember from our schooldays and reading the story in the Bible, the real mother said, ``No; give her the child.'' The woman who was not the real mother said, ``No; divide the child.'' Solomon, of course, then knew who the real mother was, gave her the child, and the people were awed by his wisdom. Here is our problem. We are debating over a child on the health care bill, and the child is the private practice of medicine in America. The child is a viable system run in the private sector by doctors and nurses and hospitals that are not run by the Government, but we are in an unequal debate because many on the other side seem to want that system to die so that we can have a Government-run system. Under those circumstances, to simply have endless amendments would not serve any purpose, given not only the limited amount of time we have, but also because, more importantly, it puts us at a disadvantage because we have no interest in offering amendments that would drive up cost, kill off private health insurance, and leave people uninsured, whereas those who really believe that you first have to prove that the private health care sector cannot work and therefore you must have a Government-run system would view such an amendment exercise potentially as a step toward improving the health care system. I simply state to my colleagues while this negotiating is going on, I will certainly support, and do support, a unanimous consent request where Senator Kennedy and those who support him write the very best proposal they can write to strengthen patients' rights. We have written--and if we come up with better ideas, we will incorporate them--the best bill we can write that we believe achieves those objectives. Let's give Senator Kennedy and those who support him an up- or-down, freestanding vote, unamended, to put before the Senate his best proposal, and let us vote yea or nay. Then give us an opportunity to put our bill--our best proposal--in front of the Senate and vote yea or nay. But I am not interested in allowing amendments where one side of the debate can view it as positive to kill off the private sector of medicine in America and whereas those of us who believe that its survival is critical to quality medicine in America would be forever disadvantaged in that debate. So I want to call on those who have for 6 months said to us: ``The No. 1 issue in the country is patients' rights. Give us an opportunity to vote on our bill.'' I want to call on them to bring their bill to the floor of the Senate and let us vote on it. Let us vote up or down. We will not amend Senator Kennedy's bill. If he has reached legislative perfection, at least in terms of what he thinks he can pass, then let us vote on it. And then let us vote on our bill. But I intend to object to any unanimous consent request that would have the effect I've described. I hope that reason will prevail and we will have an up-or-down vote on the two alternatives. Those who want a bill, I do not see how they could view that as being an unfair proposal. It is a proposal that 6 months ago I would think that the minority would have jumped at. Today, they want the ability to have 20 amendments. They do not want to set a calendar time limit. That process could go on and on and on. I do not have any desire to amend their bill. We want an opportunity to vote on ours. Let the Senate choose. I think it would be the right way to go about it, and the only way we can be successful in the end. I yield the floor. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, while we are waiting for someone to come over with an amendment, I want to say something about health care and about the health care debate. As long as I have been in the Senate, the minority party has always sought to have the opportunity to have an up- or-down vote on their alternatives. Senator Kennedy has now for months demanded that he have an opportunity to offer his proposal to remake the American health care system. We on the majority side of the aisle have spent tremendous amounts of time putting together our proposal to strengthen patients' rights to empower consumers----

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator yield----

Mr. GRAMM. I object and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRAMM. If we are going to have a unanimous consent request, we have to have the agreement of the Members. And I am not going to agree to that particular process. I yield the floor. Mr. McCAINN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, this is the second amendment we have had today on this bill that has, in essence, raised tobacco taxes and spent the money. I want our colleagues to understand that both parties can play this game. If we are going to continue, by bits and pieces, to raise tobacco taxes and spend the money, we are going to raise tobacco taxes and give the money back to the working men and women of America by cutting their taxes. I think we are making an absolute sham out of the appropriations process. I think we need to stop this kind of business. I am confident we are going to sustain the point of order against this amendment. But I want to put people on record, if we are going to continue to raise tobacco taxes and spend the money, then I am going to move--and I am sure others will join in that effort--to take that same money and cut taxes for the working men and women of America.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, how much time do we have left?

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I notice no one is on the floor debating this bill, so I thought I would take the opportunity to say a little bit about health care. I understand our President has come to Capitol Hill today to tell us about how, having rejected his proposal to take over the health care system 4 years ago, we now ought to join the President and Senator Kennedy in letting the Government tell us how to run that health care system. Obviously, we are always flattered when the President comes to Capitol Hill to talk to us, to tell us about his views. I want to make a couple of things clear. Yesterday, we offered the Republican alternative. The Republican health care proposal is superior in a lot of ways, but there are several ways that I think are very important. No. 1, we don't preempt States in those areas where they have already acted to deal with problems in providing health care. We differ with the President and with Senator Kennedy in that we don't believe we know more about the interest of each individual State than their Governor and their State legislature do. What we do in our alternative proposal is deal with the parts of the problem that the Federal Government has jurisdiction over. I notice the President and some of our colleagues made a big point out of the fact that their bill affects 140 million people, whereas our bill affects a smaller number. Why is that? The reason our bill affects a smaller number is, in those areas where the States have the power to deal with their own medical problems, we don't get involved in telling them how to do it. In those areas where they don't have jurisdiction because of ERISA, then we step in and try to deal with the problem. We differ with the President on the whole issue of how to deal with the denial of services. The President says we can improve the situation by taking it to court. The President and Senator Kennedy say it is indispensable that we give people the power to sue. We think there is a better way. We think the better way is setting up an appellate process on an expedited basis, both internal and external, to an HMO so that people can get a resolution. What happens when you take it to court is that it really does not solve the problem that you are trying to deal with. It may, after the fact, put money--most of it in the hands of a lawyer, maybe some of it in the hands of the patient. I assert that when a mother has a sick baby she wants medical attention for the infant. She doesn't want the ability to go out and hire a lawyer and go to court and 2 years later get a judgment when it is too late to deal with the health care concerns of her baby. We believe we need to get a resolution in 72 hours on those issues rather than going into court, exploding the cost of health care, and denying millions of Americans their right to health care. We also believe in freedom. Here is the problem as stated very simply. We have a situation today where there is only one part of our health care system where anybody has any incentive to control cost. That is in the health maintenance organization, the HMO. Twenty years ago, very few people, outside of a very small number of States, were enrolled in HMOs. In the last 25 years, we have had an explosion of enrollment because the cost of health care has literally skyrocketed. The positive effect has been that for the first time since 1965 we have brought the cost of medical care and its growth below the Consumer Price Index. For the first time since 1965, we are not pricing blue- collar working families in America out of the health care market. That is the good news. The bad news is that a lot of Americans are unhappy about a system where they have to get approval from the HMO in order to get certain kinds of treatment. I liken it to the situation where you go into the examining room and you expect to be in the examining room with only your physician and you find that you have a gatekeeper in the examining room with you. Now, Senator Kennedy's solution, President Clinton's solution, is to put a government bureaucrat and a lawyer in the examining room with the gatekeeper, with your doctor, and with you. That way, the government bureaucrat can be there to regulate the gatekeeper and the lawyer can be there to sue the doctor. We believe there is a better solution. The better solution is something we call medical savings accounts. I have two cards here. One is from the Mellon Bank. It is a medical savings account on MasterCard. The other is with American Health Value, and it is a medical savings account on Visa. How the medical savings account will work is, for the first time it will empower the individual family to make their own health care decisions and to control cost. How will it do that? It will do it in the following way: Say today that your family has a Blue Cross-Blue Shield policy, family of four, and that Blue Cross-Blue Shield policy costs $4,000 a year. If they had standard option, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, that would be about the average cost. That Blue Cross-Blue Shield policy gives you very low deductibles. Under the medical savings account, you would buy the Blue Cross-Blue Shield policy with a $3,000 deductible and it would cost about half as much as it costs now. You would take the $4,000 that your employer is currently spending, $2,000 would buy the high-deductible insurance policy and $2,000 would go into your medical savings account. Then, you would take the $1,000 that is typically spent annually on premiums and deductibles and deposit that in the medical savings account, adding it to the $2,000 contributed by the employer. Then you would make the health care decisions on when and how to spend that first $3,000 of health care. After meeting that deductible, your health insurance policy would kick in and cover all remaining costs. Now, there are two things that are very important about this program. One is, you have an incentive to be cost conscious; the other is, you are in charge. Under Senator Kennedy's proposal and under the President's bill, if you call up the gatekeeper and you can't get to see your doctor, you can then call a government bureaucrat and you can talk to him, he talks to the gatekeeper, and then if you can't see your doctor, then you can call a lawyer, who will talk to the Government bureaucrat and the gatekeeper, and he might file suit, and 2 years from now you might get a resolution. That is the Kennedy-Clinton alternative. Here is our alternative: When you want to see your doctor, under the medical savings account, you pick up your card and you pick up the phone and you make the decision: Do you need a general practitioner? Is it an OB/GYN? Should you call a pediatrician? Is it Dr. Frist, who does heart and lung surgery? You pick up the Yellow Pages, you call the doctor of your choice, and you have to ask only one question--not, ``Is it approved?'' or, ``Are you at our point-of-service option?'' Your simple question is, ``Doc, do you take Mastercard or Visa, or do you take a check?'' If he takes Mastercard, Visa, or a check, you walk into the doctor's office and you make the choice for yourself. Now, which would you rather have? Would you rather be alone with your doctor in the examining room, where you are in control, because you have the ability to give him your medical savings account credit card, without anybody saying ``yes,'' ``no,'' or ``maybe''? Or would you rather go into the examining room with your doctor, with the gatekeeper from the HMO, with a Federal bureaucrat, and with a lawyer? I think most Americans would rather do it themselves. They want to get everybody out of the examining room, except their doctor. They want the freedom to choose. The Republican health care bill gives them the freedom to choose, because it empowers them. Now, as I said yesterday, Senator Kennedy and the President are as afraid of this credit card, this Mastercard and this Visa, they are as afraid of these cards as a vampire is afraid of a cross. They fear these cards because they fear choice, because they know that if we empower families to make their own health care decisions, they will never, ever tolerate the Federal Government taking over and running the health care system. And we know that, deep in their hearts, the President and Senator Kennedy want the Government to take over and run the health care system, and they want the Government to run the health care system because they ``feel our pain,'' and they believe that the Government could do it better. They know that if they could make everybody go to a Government-run health care system, it would all work better, and that the Government would be caring, and that a Government that does not work well in any other area of our lives would be magic in health care. And so they give us the alternative, which is to regulate HMOs so that they can't control costs, so that then we can have one HMO--the Government HMO--and it, of course, will control costs, because when it says ``no,'' you have nowhere else to go. I do think it is an incredible paradox that the same people who, 4 years ago, wanted to put every American family into a Government-run HMO, where the government would have had absolute authority to say ``yes'' and ``no,'' now they want to tell private HMOs how to be run, and they suddenly are concerned that HMOs have too much power. We have an alternative, and the alternative is to take the power away from HMOs and give it to families. Let families have medical savings accounts so that they can determine which doctor they go to see and they can decide when they go. Finally, I want to respond to two charges that are made by the Democrats against medical savings accounts. The first one is that they are for rich people. Well, why would rich people need or want high- deductible insurance? They can buy any insurance they want. But if you cut the cost of health insurance in half, you let working families, for the first time, have coverage for those expenses when they have to go to the hospital, or when something terrible happens. Working families can begin, over the years, to build up their medical savings account until they have the same kind of coverage everybody else has. Medical savings accounts cut in half the cost of the insurance you really need and have to have. That is not for rich people, that is for working people. Secondly, the charge is made that only people who are healthy will go into medical savings accounts. I think exactly the opposite is true. If you have a chronic health problem, do you want to go to an HMO where some gatekeeper makes the decision about your health care? It seems to me that if you have a chronic health care problem and any morning you might wake up with a life-threatening illness, you would much rather be in a position, instead of calling the gatekeeper, the Government, a lawyer, or a Government bureaucrat, to call up a doctor and say, ``I would like to come in. Do you take Mastercard or Visa?'' So I think we have a very clear choice, and we are ready to vote. We are glad the President has come to Capitol Hill to tell us, once again, that he knows what is best for our health care. Four years ago, he told us he wanted the Government to take over and run the health care system, and we listened with respect and reverence, and we said ``No,'' and the American people said ``No,'' with an expletive in front of the ``no.'' Now the President is telling us, 4 years later--he appears before Government employee groups and says, ``I haven't changed my mind; I still want the Government to take over and run the health care system, only we have to do it one step at a time.'' It seems that he believes the next step is to let the Government run the HMOs. How does he think that make the patient better off? Well, it presumable makes the patient better off because when we go into the examining room with the doctor and the gatekeeper, a Federal bureaucrat and a lawyer will now join us. I don't think that is what people want. People want to be alone in the examining room with their doctor. The Republican plan, which empowers the family to decide, puts only the patient and the doctor in the examining room. It throws out the Government bureaucrat, it throws out the lawyer, it throws out the gatekeeper, and it replaces all of that mechanism of Government bureaucracy with one simple question: ``Do you take Mastercard, or do you take Visa, or do you take a check?'' If the answer to any of those questions is ``yes''--and it will be yes to all three--then you go to the doctor of your choice. That is our alternative. It is a better alternative. That is why we are going to defeat the President and Senator Kennedy once again. The American people do not want a Government-run or a Government-controlled health care system, and we can give them an alternative. The alternative is freedom. Once again, America is at a crossroads. We are going to have to choose. Do we believe the solution to our problems in medicine will be found with more Government interference, with more time in court, with more time working under the control of Government bureaucrats? Or do we believe the solution is to be found in freedom? Well, I am going to bet the future of my family and the future of the 19 million people in Texas, who hired me to represent them in the Senate, on freedom because I know freedom works, and I know something else--I know Government does not work. Four years ago, the American people didn't want Government to run the health care system, and today they don't want Government to control the health care system. So Republicans and Democrats agree on one thing: There are problems in the health care system. But where we disagree is, we want to empower families with innovations like medical savings accounts, and the President and Senator Kennedy want to empower the Federal Government. That is the choice. It is a clear choice. I yield the floor.