Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Zero-nine?

Mr. GRAMM. I want to thank you for the recognition. Let me try to go back and explain to people who may have come into this debate in the middle what this is all about, why it is so important, why four of us have in essence held the Senate up for 7 days in considering this bill and why the issue is important to you whether or not your State will ever have a private contractor who competes for a contract or not. Let me go back 3 or 4 years and try to set the whole thing in perspective. First of all, as we are all painfully aware, we have cut defense spending since 1985 by about 35 percent. That has taken a very, very heavy toll on maintenance and procurement and modernization. We have not correspondingly reduced the overhead of the military. We have more nurses in Europe than we have combat infantry officers. We still have a bureaucracy that is leftover from the cold war. So this 35 percent cut that has been implemented since 1985 has had a profound impact on the military. That is something that all sides of this dispute agree on. Obviously, you would think that with defense being cut by 35 percent, with the modernization program being dramatically reduced, with operations and maintenance being bled by cuts, and with the President spending billions of dollars now on a deployment in Bosnia, that the one thing we would all agree on is that we want to spend the money that we do have efficiently. You would think that this real tight budget that we have would at least produce unanimity that we ought to try to spend the money as effectively as we can spend it. In one of the most incredible paradoxes that I have observed, exactly the opposite is occurring. At the very time when we do not have enough money for defense, at the very time that we are not modernizing the weapons systems that need to be modernized, at the very time that we are not maintaining our equipment, at the very time that recruitment and retention in the military is being affected and we are not meeting our quality goals in recruitment in the services, at the very time that all of those things are happening, rather than pulling together to try to get the most we can out of the money that we are spending by having more competition, we have exactly the opposite occurring. The opposite is occurring because there is a group of Members in the House that have an organization called the Depot Caucus. Basically, these are House Members who have a military depot in their district. A military depot is a Government facility that does defense work, principally maintenance. What these Congressmen have done is concluded that with declining defense work, what they want to do is stop price competition and force the taxpayer to do defense maintenance work in their depots. That is what this whole issue is about. Now, it has been building for 3 years. For 3 years we have had this battle with the Depot Caucus in the House. For 3 years they have tried to get language in the defense bill that mandates that money be spent inefficiently by limiting competition. Finally, this year, after a 3-year knock-down, drag-out fight, they have in the bill as it is now printed 12 pages of language that have one objective. That one objective is to guarantee, to the extent that they could guarantee it, that price competition will not be allowed in those areas where we have these defense depots and that defense maintenance work will go to these Government facilities. That is basically what this issue is about. Now, under our current system where we are beginning competitive bidding, let me give you one example of what it produced. We had competitive bidding for the maintenance of the C-5. That is the great big transport plane, for those who do not know what the C-5 is. It was put up for bids. Interestingly enough, a Government depot won the bid. But they bid $190 million less than the costs that we are currently performing the work for. How were they able to do it for $190 million less? They were able to do it for $190 million less because they had 500 workers hidden away in their overhead that they were able to put doing work on the C-5, and they were able to do the work with 700 employees rather than the 1,200 that are doing it now. Who benefited from that? Well, I guess you could say these 500 people who were hidden away in the overhead, maybe they did not benefit. But every taxpayer in America benefited because we are doing the same work on the same critical weapons system, and we are doing it for $190 million less. What the language of this bill would do, to the extent that they were capable of doing it, would be to stop that type of competition from occurring and mandate that that work be done in a Government depot, even though it might mean $190 million of additional cost to the taxpayer. Now, what is it that we want? Then I will explain to you why we want it. What we want is competition. What we want is to give the Defense Department the ability to compete this work, which they support. This is one of these rare instances where President Clinton and some Republicans are on the same side. The President wants to put this work out for competitive bidding, and he wants the contracts to go to the people who can do it for the smallest amount of money. The language of this bill attempts to stop that from happening. Now, why are we specifically involved? Well, partly we are involved because I care about $190 million on one contract and potentially a couple of billion dollars a year--a couple of billion dollars a year--that will be squandered if we do not have effective competitive bidding. Second, my State is a State that wants to have the opportunity to bid. So does California. Now, let me digress for a minute and talk about base closings. We have had three Base Closing Commissions. I was an original cosponsor of the Base Closing Commission bill. I vigorously supported it. I have voted for the conclusions of every Base Closing Commission. And every one of them has closed a base in my State. Did I like it? No. I hated it. Did I think you should close bases in other States where their Senators were not as supportive of defense as Senator Hutchison and I are? Yes. That would have been eminently fair and reasonable in my mind and would have probably been good for the country. But the point is, I am committed to the process of closing bases. I could not very well say, when the commission decided to close them in my State, that I am for closing them in Massachusetts; I am just not for closing them in Texas. Well, when we committed to a technical process, I supported it. Now, when the decision was made to close Kelly Air Force Base in Texas and McClellan Air Force base in California, we were in the midst of a Presidential campaign. So is anybody surprised that the most talented politician of our era, Bill Clinton, jumped right in the middle of it with both feet up to his eyeballs? I was not surprised. Nor is there any Member of the Senate that in similar circumstances would not have done exactly what Bill Clinton did and probably more. What did Bill Clinton do? He came to Texas. He went to California. We are the two largest States in the Union. I do not need to explain to people how the electoral college works in electing Presidents. And he stood there, tears welling in his eyes, and talked about feeling our pain. He did not go so far as to lay down in front of the bulldozers, and just as they were getting ready to grind him into dust, to have his faithful staff run in and pull him out, him shouting that he wanted to die rather than see it happen. He did not go quite that far, but he was very effective. For our colleagues who say, ``Well, the President played politics,'' he played it very effectively. And any one of us would have. But the point is, he did not do anything. The Base Closing Commission report said that one of the options that was available to the Air Force--they wrote it out in the Base Closing Commission report--was to put the work up for competitive bids. And if private contractors could come into the empty facility that would no longer be an Air Force base in Texas, would no longer be an Air Force base in California, if they could compete for the work and win it, they would get it. The President, of course, wanting the electoral votes of Texas and California, thought this was just one great idea. And he talked about it. He was supportive of it. And he was effective at it. But the point is, the Base Closing Commission made the decision. And now the Pentagon is trying to carry it out. Now some of our colleagues say, well, because the President gave a political speech in Texas or California, somehow he tainted the whole process. That, Mr. President, is not borne out by the facts. The Base Closing Commission report specifically set out the option of competitive bidding. We have had our first competitive bid, saving $190 million. Interestingly enough, a depot, a Government facility, won the bid by taking 500 workers out of featherbedding and by putting them on the project, and everybody benefited $190 million. Now, what our colleagues are trying to do is to come in and say that has to stop, that we cannot let contracts on any competitive basis until all these conditions are met with regard to using these Government facilities, and they have 12 pages of all of these conditions, which boil down to no competition. In trying to reach a compromise, in working with the Pentagon and the White House, we came up with four simple changes that we said, if you will make these four simple changes, we will swallow hard and we will take this bad language. What were the changes? No. 1, was for commercial items. Those are items that are sold on the general economy; for example, maintaining the engine that is used on airliners. Obviously, airlines maintain their own engines. They are very efficient at it and can do it much cheaper than the Government can do it. So the Pentagon said don't force us to do routine maintenance on things in defense depots that are used by the private sector. Let us competitively bid it, and airlines will compete. We might save 40 or 50 percent on bids. That is the first thing they wanted. Those who are for this language say, no, we don't want American Airlines to maintain the same engines they maintain. We want the Government to do it. The second thing we asked for was the change of one word. It is a very important word. It is complicated, but the principle is very simple. The principle is that our colleagues tried to write into the bill language to ``ensure the full utilization'' of all of these Government depots. The problem is, if you are forced to fully utilize them, then you can't have competitive bidding because there is not that much work. What the Defense Department wanted to do, they were willing to commit to promote the utilization of them, to try to utilize them, but they wanted to have the ability to engage in competitive bidding. So they asked that we substitute ``promote'' for ``ensure.'' They asked when you are going to have public-private teaming on these bids, they at least have an opportunity to figure out how they could keep Government facilities from hiding costs to balance the bidding process. Finally, they wanted the ability to take into account cost and performance risk in these competitive bids. The answer on all of these things was ``no.'' So what is the issue that is before the Senate? The issue that is before the Senate is, in a defense budget that is inadequate, in a defense budget that is bleeding modernization and maintenance, should we have 12 pages of language that attempts to preclude competitive bidding that could save billions of dollars for the taxpayer, could allow us to improve pay and benefits, that could help us recruit and retain the finest young men and women who have ever worn the uniform of the country, savings that could help us procure miracle weapons that could protect American lives in the future, and that could maintain the quality maintenance of our equipment and the training of our people? Or should we forgo those savings and simply guarantee Government depots a monopoly, for all practical purposes, on doing this work? That is the question.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, we are coming to the end of the debate. I will conclude by making just a couple of points. I first thank the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Thurmond. I am always unhappy when I am not on his side. I don't think I need to tell the Senator from South Carolina about the high esteem in which I hold him. Let me also say to my dear colleague from Oklahoma that there is nothing personal about this battle. It really comes down to principles and where you stand on those key issues. I don't question that everyone involved in this debate is trying to do the best and that their intentions are good. Let me conclude with the following points. First of all, a great deal has been made about what the President and what the White House and what the Defense Department have said. So let me let the President and the White House speak for themselves. I sent a letter to the desk and asked that it be printed in the Record 9 days ago after this conference report had been written. I just want to read three paragraphs from the letter. I think anybody who listens to these three paragraphs can be in no doubt as to what the position of the White House and the President is on this bill. I am reading from a letter from the Executive Office of the President dated October 28: This bill includes provisions whose intent is to protect public depots by limiting private industries' ability to compete for the depot maintenance of military systems and components. If enacted, these provisions, which run counter to the ongoing efforts by Congress and the administration to use competition to improve DOD business practices, would severely limit the Department's flexibility to increase efficiency and save taxpayer dollars. We need to encourage more competition from private industry, not less. Billions of dollars in potential savings are at issue. These resources should be used to maintain the U.S. fighting edge not to preserve excess infrastructure. If the numerous problems cited above cannot be overcome, the impact on the Department's costs and on our Nation's military capacity would be profound. The President's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill. That is not me talking, that is the Executive Office of the President. I think that defines the issue and where they stand. Our colleague from Utah talked about a GAO study. We have heard this GAO study discussed over and over and over again in this debate. It is a typical problem of where a study is directed to look at one thing, and then we all talk about it as if it concluded another. Let me read you one sentence from the GAO study and then put this issue, hopefully, to rest forever. The GAO study says: The Air Force's planning has not progressed far enough to support a precise comparison of the cost of privatizing depot workloads in place with a cost of transferring the work to other underutilized depots. So what the GAO study concludes is something with which I completely agree. That is if the choice is between maintaining five depots or three, it is better to maintain three. That is what the GAO study is about. Nobody disputes what it is about. But what it is not about is any conclusion that funds can be saved by consolidating into a depot as compared to having price competition. So the GAO study is relevant for a point that we all agree on, which is why we are closing two depots. But it is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether we should have price competition. I hope and believe the President will veto this bill. Then the question is, what do we do about it? Let me conclude on a positive note by making a suggestion as to how we can simply solve the problem. We all say we are for competition. It reminds me of one of Abraham Lincoln's speeches where he talked about how the Confederates and the Union supporters all prayed to the same God; they both felt they were in the right; they both felt God was on their side, but one of them had to be wrong. We all say we are for competition, but, obviously, we have great differences as to what that is. Let me remind my colleagues that I offered to try to break this logjam with a definition of competition that would have given a 10-percent premium for depot work. In other words, I offered that if depots could do it for only 10 percent more than the private sector, that we would let them do it. But if the private sector could go do it and save more than 10 percent, that they would do it. So let me remind my colleagues that I have not been unwilling to try to find a solution. But let me propose one that is very simple. We now have five major accounting firms in America. We used to have six, but two of them consolidated. If the President vetoes this bill and if that veto stands, either we don't vote on it in February when we come back or we sustain it, I propose that we ask each of the five major accounting firms who, in language the people understand, don't have a dog in this fight, to each appoint one of their major partners and let them form a commission. Let them define what a level playing surface is in competition between Government depots and the private sector. Let them look at all costs from retirement to capital. Let the five accounting firms come up with what they believe is a free and fair competition, and then let's agree that whatever they decide is a free and fair competition, whatever they say is a level playing surface, then let's agree to accept it. I, for one, agree to accept it. Whatever the five major accounting firms in the Nation conclude is a fair way to have price competition, I am for it. My proposal is, if the bill is vetoed, we change it very simply by taking out this anticompetitive language, set up a simple commission made up of the representatives of the five major private accounting firms in America, and let them tell us how to have a fair competition. We will give them 6 months to do it. Whatever they conclude becomes the practice of the Defense Department, and we have this competition. That is a simple way to solve this problem, and we have been fighting over this issue for 3 long years. I submit that I hope this will happen. The President has said that he will veto the bill; that the bill, as it is now written, despite the best intentions of many, will cost the taxpayers billions of dollars that will not go to weapons, that will not go to maintenance, that will not go to pay and benefits, but instead will go to preserve the status quo and to prevent competition. We need competition. We all agree we don't have enough money. We can get more use of our money through competition. I urge my colleagues, if you are concerned about these things, to join us in voting ``no.'' I urge the President to deliver on the veto so that we can end this debate and have price competition. I yield the floor. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator have 1 additional minute.

Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I don't want to object but I am here ready to debate. I am waiting for people who want to defend this bill to come to the floor to speak. What we are doing is we are running off time that I have to debate because people don't want to come over here and debate. If I knew they weren't coming, I could close out, make about 2 or 3 minutes of statements, and we could vote. Our colleagues are ready to vote. Let me ask unanimous consent that we might conclude this debate, that we might have 3 minutes for each person holding time to conclude, and that we might then have a vote.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask our colleagues who want to speak to come over and speak. It becomes a sort of curious game when people want to be heard, but they don't come over, and one side is forced to use up all of its time, or else see the time run off, when we would like to have a debate. I wish those who wanted to debate would come over. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Those of us who oppose this bill say we want competition. That competition is critically important. We have asked and the President has committed to veto this bill. He is going to veto this bill because it is anticompetitive, because it cheats the taxpayer, because it cheats the men and women who wear the uniform of this country by squandering money that could go to improve the operation and maintenance of their equipment, to modernize their equipment and to provide pay and benefits that would keep the best and the brightest in the service. So that is what this issue is about. It is about competition. This is a debate that has been building for 3 years. Every year we have had this cry that really boils down to this: Defense is being cut and so Government depots have a right to be monopolists on this defense work. Even if it costs more, even if billions of dollars could be saved, they have a right to it. What we have done in this bill, I am sad to say, is we have turned defense into welfare. At the very time when we need efficiency and economy, we are denying it in the name of protecting special interests. I think it is fundamentally wrong. Now, I don't deny that competition would benefit my State because we have facilities that private contractors would like to use to bid. But the point is they can't get the work if they don't do it cheaper and if they don't do it better. What we want is competition. That is what we have fought for. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I am pleased to respond to the inquiry from my colleague from Maine. I would fully agree that there is nothing in the fast track legislation that would affect any ongoing trade cases involving salmon, or indeed any other product. My comments were intended to underscore the impact of trade on consumers and in no way should be interpreted as affecting any of the formal processes involved with reviewing the pending salmon cases or suggesting that the fast track legislation would affect any pending salmon trade cases.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, that is also correct. This is a procedural bill regarding negotiations. It does not change any of our existing laws regarding unfair trade practices.

Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to do so and appreciate the inquiry.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, this afternoon, at this hour, we are dedicating the George Bush Library and the George Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University, which is in my hometown, and a school that I taught at for 12 years. It is a place that is very close to my heart. We, today, live in a world that is very different than the world we lived in 10 years ago. The Berlin wall has come down, Eastern Europe has been liberated, the Soviet Union has been transformed, and we have seen more people achieve their freedom than in any victory in any war in the history of mankind. There are two people on this planet who have had more to do with that than any other people who have lived, and those two people are Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Today, we honor George Bush with his library. We are proud of his achievements. But it is more than just his achievements, we are proud of George Bush. George Bush is a great man. George Bush is the kind of man you would want your son to grow up to be. He is in many ways an old-fashioned man--as some would say, maybe fashion that is out of style today. But I don't think so. George Bush is the kind of man who tries and tries--tried as President and in everything in his life to try to figure out what was right--and he tried to figure out then how to do it. George Bush is a man that has a keen sense of duty. And whether he was a young naval officer risking his life for his country, or serving as President, when George Bush was on watch for America, he was dedicated to the task. We are honoring him today in College Station. We are dedicating his school and his library. Senator Hutchison and I are unable to be there because we are here doing the work of the people and doing our duty. We wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate President Bush and his family--to congratulate him on his great library; on what it will mean to Texas A&M and our State, and what it means to us. I just simply wanted to say, Mr. President, to George Bush and to his family that we are all proud of you. We are proud of your Texas, and we love you. I yield whatever time she might use to Senator Hutchison.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I rise in support of the fast-track legislation, and I yield myself so much time as I might use.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I think it is important that people understand that the debate about fast track is a debate about trade. If we reject fast track in the Congress, we are sending a signal to the whole world that the United States of America, which has been the strongest proponent of trade in the post-World War II period, is backing away from that commitment. If we reject fast track, we are saying to the world that the position we have taken in the post-World War II period is a position that we are now vacating. We are saying to emerging markets all over the world that we are not going to be the dominant force in trade on this planet. That message, in my opinion, would be a devastating message for world trade. It would be a devastating message in terms of America's leadership. And I am prayerfully hopeful that in the end reason will prevail and that we will not send that message. Mr. President, I have had an opportunity, as a Member of the Senate for 13 years and as a Member of the House for 6 years before that, to speak on many subjects. My colleagues have heard me speak on the budget on many occasions. I think my colleagues understand that I have great passion about that subject. But as compared with world trade, the budget is a secondary issue. The issue that we debate today is the most important issue that we will debate during this Congress. Americans by and large do not understand the trade issue. One of the great frustrations of my political career has been that of all the issues that we deal with, the hardest issue to get people to understand is the trade issue. This is not a new problem. Disraeli, the British Prime Minister in the 19th century, once said, ``Not one person in 10,000 understands the currency question, and yet we meet him every day.'' And by ``the currency question,'' he meant the value of the pound relative to foreign currency in international trade. What Disraeli said would certainly be reflected in the debate here today. I would like in my speech to try to do several things. No. 1, I want to try to explain why this issue is so critically important. No. 2, I want to respond to those who say they are opposed to expanding trade, that they are opposed to fast track because they are concerned about low-wage workers, because they are concerned about child labor, because they are concerned about poverty, because they are concerned about the environment. Finally, I want to do something that we don't do enough of here, and that is we don't attack this trade issue head on. I know I have many colleagues who come to the floor and talk for endless hours about how wonderful it would be to build a wall around America and go hide under a rock somewhere, how if we could simply imitate the economic isolation of North Korea, that all would be wonderful and well in America. And generally those of us who know better don't take the time to come over and respond. I want to be sure I take the time to respond today. First of all, trade is critically important. The most important contribution of America in the post-World War II period has been the explosion of world trade. We didn't rebuild Europe with the Marshall plan. We didn't rebuild Japan with foreign aid. We didn't stop communism in Greece and Turkey with economic assistance. I don't in any way mean to criticize the Marshall plan or the Truman doctrine. They were both critically important. They sent a very clear signal to the world that we intended to learn from the lessons of World War II and that we were going to resist the expansion of communism. But what stopped communism in Europe, what preserved freedom in Greece and Turkey, what rebuilt Japan, what created an economic miracle in Taiwan and Korea, what changed the balance of power, what won the cold war, what tore down the Berlin Wall, what liberated Eastern Europe, and what set more people free than any victory in any war in the history of mankind was the growth of world trade. By opening up American markets and expanding trade first with Europe and Japan, then with a special focus on Turkey and Greece, then with a focus on Korea and Taiwan, we literally created a wealth machine, and that wealth machine brought prosperity to America such as we had never imagined possible. It created new, massive economic superpowers in places like South Korea, a poor agricultural country. South Korea is a perfect example. In 1953, they had a per capita income of $50 a year. They were devastated by the Korean conflict. But through world trade their per capita income grew to over $6,000. The same thing happened in Taiwan. And the attraction of that economic growth in Taiwan, in Hong Kong and Singapore, the sheer ability of the market system in world trade to feed the hungry, to create opportunity and freedom and happiness, the shift in the balance of power that that economic explosion created literally tore down the Berlin wall and liberated Eastern Europe. And while Chiang Kai-shek had long since been in the grave, the economic miracle on the little island that he fled to and the economic miracle in Hong Kong built by world trade was so powerful that it literally forced mainland China to begin to change its system and converted an enemy into a trading partner. It holds out the great prospect of creating cooperation with the one country in the world that can be our rival in the 21st century, and that is China. Now, we know the lessons of the 20th century. We know the wars that involved conflicts over resources; where Germany invaded Russia to get access to resources; where the Japanese invaded Manchuria to try to get access to mineral resources that in many cases were denied in trade agreements around the world. We know the totalitarianism of the 20th century. When I am talking about trade, I am not just talking about goods and services. I am talking about a profoundly moral issue, a moral issue that really boils down to the question of whether we are going to repeat, beginning with a vote on fast track, the policies that created the terrible crises that we faced in the 20th century. Did we learn from history or are we going to repeat it? I hope we learned. This is a profoundly moral issue because it is about freedom. It is about doing something about grinding poverty that for the great mass of mankind literally beats down the humanity of working men and women and their children all over the world. Mr. President, I respect my colleagues and I know they mean well, but it is hard for me to sit here and listen to people say that they want to reduce trade because they are concerned about poverty. It is very difficult for me as an old economics professor to sit here and listen to people say, ``Well, I would like to trade with China or Mexico or Chile or any other place in the world but I am concerned that workers are poor. I am concerned about child labor. And so as a result I do not want to trade.'' Why does child labor exist? In the War of 1812 we had 8-year-olds in the Navy. We had child labor in America up until the Civil War. Why did we have it? Why does it exist all over the world in poor countries? It exists because it is a product of poverty. Wages are low because of poverty. Working conditions are poor because of poverty. If you really care about workers in another country, you want to trade with that country because only by trade, only by expanding prosperity both here and there can we do something about child labor, can we do something about poverty. So if you really care about workers' rights in other countries, you do not solve their problem, you do not deal with child labor by building a wall between us and that country. You eradicate child labor by promoting trade, which promotes prosperity, which allows parents to put their children in schools and keep them there until they are educated. So I reject the argument that is made by people who oppose trade and oppose fast track, because that is what this fast track debate is about. It is about trade. It is about whether we are going to continue to trade or whether we are going to start building walls. And I totally reject the idea that those who oppose this bill are protecting low- income workers and children. I am protecting low-income workers and children. The policy that I promote of trade, expanded economic opportunity, expanded freedom and expanded prosperity, that is the only system in history that has ever done anything about poverty. Trade, free enterprise, individual freedom, those are the great tools for destroying poverty. So if you really want to stop child labor in the world, if you really care about workers' rights, then join the President and join me in tearing down barriers and expanding trade. Likewise, I reject the notion that those who want to promote a good environment worldwide can do it by preventing trade. I ask my colleagues, and I ask those who are listening, to understand that the population of the world is growing, that people are going to be hungry, and unless we can create an economic system worldwide that is going to feed them, they are going to continue to destroy the environment in their countries. Environmentalism, the concern about your surroundings, is a product of affluence. You can only be concerned about the environment when you have enough to eat. And if you really care about the environment, if you really are concerned about global warming, if you are concerned about the expansion of pollution, you ought to be for trade because trade creates prosperity, and prosperity makes it possible for people to improve the technology and in the process to improve the environment. Our colleague from Massachusetts talked about Mexico. Mexico is a relatively poor country, but as a Senator from a State that shares 1,200 miles of border with Mexico, I can tell you that the expansion of trade with Mexico has meant bringing 1990's technology into Mexico, especially along the border, to replace 1950's technology, and the net result is that our new investments and the expansion of growth and opportunity in Mexico give them the first real opportunity that they have ever had to improve their environment. So if you really care about workers and children, if you really care about the environment, use the one tool, the one tool that we have that can help people in other countries share in the great bounty we share, and that tool is trade. Now, I have never heard so much poor mouthing in my life as the poor mouthing we have heard about trade. You would think Americans are a bunch of incompetents, that our workers are all these guys standing on assembly lines with big pot bellies, who are, in the words of that old country and western song, ``having daydreams about night things in the middle of the afternoon.'' In listening to our colleagues, you would think that we are just complete incompetents and that we need to build a wall around America to protect us from having to compete with other people. That is totally out of sync with reality. America dominates the world market. Study after study of competitiveness concludes that America is the lowest-cost producer in the world of manufactured products, not because we have low wages but because we have skilled workers and because we have the best tools in the world. We dominate the world marketplace. We are the world's largest exporter, the world's largest importer. Our living standards are 20 percent higher than Japanese living standards. Germany has a living standard about 74 percent of our level. The American economy has grown in the last 10 years by 17.8 million new permanent, productive, taxpaying jobs. And since employment in Government has declined, this represents a net addition to the number of people who are involved in the marketplace creating goods and services. That is 5.7 million more jobs than Germany and Japan combined have created in the last 10 years. And yet, to listen to our colleagues, our jobs are running offshore; our jobs are going to Japan; our jobs are going to Germany; our jobs are going to China. We have the highest levels of employment we have had in the history of the country. We have created 17.8 million new jobs in the last 10 years. Our economy is booming. And yet to listen to our colleagues pour ashes over their heads and talk about helpless, incompetent Americans, you would think we were incapable of producing or selling anything. The reality is that in 10 years our exports are up by 130 percent. The exports of Europe are up by 55 percent. The exports of Japan are up by 24 percent. But if there is one thing that I could rejoice in, it is we are not hearing people say today, as they did in this debate 2 years ago, that we ought to copy Japan. We used to have Members of the Senate who would get up and talk about how wonderful it would be if our economy could be like Japan's, if we put up barriers to cheat our consumers and drive up the price of goods, if we had Government and business conspire to have these massive plans to dominate the world market. If we could just do what Japan does, they said, things would be wonderful. I do rejoice that nobody says that anymore. They don't say it anymore because the Japanese economy is on its back. Government-dominated trade fails. The marketplace succeeds. You hear all of these tales of woe about how manufacturing jobs every day are leaving the country. The truth is that our exports in manufacturing are up 180 percent in the last 10 years. That is nine times the rate of growth of manufacturing exports in Japan. That is six times the rate of growth in exports in Germany. One of the problems the President has on fast track today is that for the last 6 years he has pussyfooted with all these protectionists. He has engaged in little acts of protectionism and now all of a sudden he comes back to the same proponents of protectionism that he has been coddling with political favors for 6 years and says, ``Oh, by the way, we have a profound national interest now and you have to stand up for trade.'' No wonder he is having trouble. The President has been on three sides of a two-sided issue for 6 years. But he is on the right side of this issue, and I am very proud to be with him. Let me make another point about trade. Let me give two examples of how we benefit from trade even when we are not buying goods from abroad, and then I want to talk about how we benefit from trade by buying foreign goods. Some of you will remember that in the 1980's, there was this massive push to get Ronald Reagan to protect the American automobile industry. In fact, I bought a Chevrolet truck in 1983. It was a clunker. That truck never was any good from the first day I bought it until the Lord provided somebody from an ad in the newspaper who came and bought that truck. Everything you can imagine happened to it. And, if you will remember, in the early 1980's, all these protectionists were coming, banging on our doors, saying, ``We are going to be driven out of the automobile industry. General Motors is going to be broke. Ford is in crisis. Chrysler is on the verge of collapse and has to have a Government bailout.'' Thank God Ronald Reagan said, in essence, ``compete or die.'' In 1983 you didn't want to buy a car or truck produced on Monday because on Monday autoworkers were still thinking about the weekend. And you didn't want to buy a car or truck produced on Friday because on Friday they were thinking about the coming weekend. And you probably didn't want to buy one produced in the middle of the week because they weren't doing much thinking. I am not just talking about people on the assembly line, I am talking about all those white collar managers in all those fancy offices in Detroit. They were getting their fannies kicked because they were doing a rotten job and they were ripping off the American consumer. So, rather than make tough decisions and go to work, they came to Washington and they whined and they begged and they pleaded and they said, ``Protect us, protect our jobs.'' And they wrapped themselves in the American flag. It was our duty, they said. We couldn't let all our automobile jobs go to Japan and Korea and all those places where people worked hard. So we were supposed to protect them. Ronald Reagan said no. And what happened? Well, in 1991, I bought a new truck. This time I bought a Ford, but that didn't make the difference. In fact, I just recently bought a Chevrolet with the same result. That 1991 truck was the best vehicle I have ever bought in my life. Not only did I drive it; now my son is driving it. It has never broken down. It has never had a major mechanical problem. It is an absolute marvel. Where did it come from? I owe the quality of that truck to the Japanese and to the Koreans, and I would like to thank them today. I owe it to them because they forced companies and the United Auto Workers to stop this crazy system where workers and managers were always in conflict. So when I bought that Ford Explorer in 1991, the United Auto Workers were proud to have their name on it along with Ford Motor Co. Quality was job 1. I never will forget when General Motors said they had to determine whether they were going to be in the automobile business in the year 2000. They are still the automobile business, big time in the business. They are producing some of the best cars and the best trucks in the world. If we had engaged in protectionism in 1982 and 1983, we would be getting the same lousy cars, the same lousy trucks, and we would be paying more. In fact, when Bill Clinton became President and, as a sop to the automobile industry and the labor unions, put a tariff of several thousand dollars on sport utility vehicles, what do you think happened? The price of sport utility vehicles went up by thousands of dollars. It was just theft, reaching right in the pockets of working families and pulling out thousands of dollars. That is an example of what I am talking about. I think one of the mistakes we made--I am not going to go much deeper into this--but one of the mistakes we made is that we talk so much about jobs we forget why we work. There are a few people in America who have remarkable jobs. I see two of them here today who are at least listening to me with one ear, two Senators. If we could afford to do this job for nothing, we would probably do it for nothing. But most Americans work because they want to earn money to buy things. The end result of economic activity is consumption. It never ceases to amaze me how perverted things get. I will give an example. We now have a suit filed with the International Trade Commission by salmon producers. I think we have about 500 people in America, mostly in the State of Maine, who are involved in growing salmon. They have filed an unfair trade practice suit against Chile. Chile produces massive amounts of salmon. They have a comparative advantage because they raise salmon all year long. They start out with eggs, they produce these little fingerlings, they feed them--the whole process is absolutely an economic marvel. When the salmon are 14 pounds, they harvest them, they clean them, the fillets are shipped fresh to America and Europe. And what has happened? Salmon prices have gone down dramatically. Salmon is a superior product. When I was growing up I never ate any salmon. Rich folks ate salmon. Salmon has the right kind of cholesterol, as our colleague from Alaska would say. Because of the ability of Chile to produce salmon, literally tens of millions of Americans have changed their diets, and now eating salmon is becoming almost as common as eating steak. So what now are we doing? Right now we have the International Trade Commission which, thanks to a President who today is for trade, is full of protectionists, and they are in the process of determining whether we should literally take quality food out of the mouths of tens of millions of Americans. Does that make any sense whatsoever, to take food out of the mouths of tens of millions of people to protect the jobs of 500 people. God never granted them or anyone else the eternal right to be in the salmon business. An argument that carries no weight here but carries weight with me-- and I always love to make it because I feel good when I make it--is, who gives anybody that right? Who has the right to tell me, a free man in a free country, that some 500 workers in the State of Maine can rob me by making me buy their product instead of buying a cheaper, better product produced somewhere else? Who gives them the right to do that in a free country? Am I only free to go to the street corner and shout, ``Bill Clinton is a dope,'' or ``Phil Gramm is crazy''? Or do I have a right to do something that is real, like go and use my money to feed my family in the way I choose? The argument for protectionism is really an argument for theft. I want to give another example. Every day we hear about textiles. Every day we hear this clamor of protectionist arguments about how we have to protect textiles. And do you remember this big deal about how we were successful in reducing tariffs to China and so now we are not going to be importing as many textiles from China. It was just hailed as a great victory. Well, go to the places where real, honest-to-God Americans shop and look at the quality goods and look at the prices. By protecting the textile industry, we are literally taking the shirts off the backs of children of working families in this country, and nobody seems to care. It is astounding to me in the U.S. Senate that we all care about producers, but nobody cares about consumers. We can get a couple of rich executives, business owners, textile manufacturers to come to Washington and holler, and pretty soon we are falling all over ourselves to protect them from competition. Nobody seems to care that American children and their parents pay twice what they should for textiles today. The paradox is that it is a losing battle. Britain lost the textile industry to New England, because the textile business is noncompetitive in a high-wage country. The exception, of course, is the part that is done by machines. We dominate the world in machine-made textiles, in fact, we are making a lot of money in the textile business today, but where you have to do hand work and where you have a lot of people involved, you tend to be noncompetitive. This is not a new phenomenon. England lost the textile mills to New England, and then New England lost them to the South. In fact, the Congress first adopted the minimum wage to try to prevent textile mills from moving from New Hampshire to Georgia. But it didn't do any good; they moved anyway. And New Hampshire is much better off for it because they became a high-tech State. Japan has lost the textile industry, Korea is losing the textile industry, and China will lose the textile industry, because the textile industry, at least in hand work, goes where there are low wages. But to protect a handful of jobs, we are willing to literally steal from millions of working families. Every day these arguments are made and people cloak themselves in the American flag when they are arguing for greedy, petty special interests to cheat the consumer. And I thought somebody ought to say something about it. Now, I want to sum up with three quotes. I thought about a way to end this speech, and I want to end it with a quote from Ronald Reagan, one of the last things he ever said on trade during his Presidency. But I want to quote first from a Democrat, a Member of Congress from New York, who was a Member of Congress at the turn of the century. Nobody has ever heard of him, but I discovered him in reading a biography on Winston Churchill. I discovered him because Bourke Cockran, from New York, was a friend of Churchill's mama, and he profoundly influenced Churchill on trade. In fact, Churchill changed parties several times, as we all know, but he never, ever changed his position on trade. Churchill from the beginning of his career to the end of his career was a free trader. He was a free trader principally because of Bourke Cockran, who was one of the great orators in the history of this country. I just want to read a short statement from him because it says more than I can. I am not a very good reader, and so I apologize. We forget what trade is about. In the midst of all this special interest and ignorance that dominates this debate, we forget what it is about. Cockran is an American. He is in London. It is July 15, 1903. America is a protectionist country. England is the only country in the world that has relatively open markets. Cockran is speaking to the Liberal Club in England, and ``liberal'' at the turn of the century means what ``conservative'' means today--freedom. With this relatively short paragraph he sums up what trade is about. I want to read it: ``Your free trade system makes the whole industrial life of the world one vast scheme of cooperation for your benefit.'' He is talking to the British people. At this moment, in every quarter of the globe, forces are at work to supply your necessities and improve your condition. As I speak, men are tending flocks on Australian fields and shearing wool which will clothe you during the coming winter. On western lands, men are reaping grain to supply your daily bread. In mines deep underground, men are swinging pickaxes and shovels to wrest from the bosom of the Earth the ores essential to the efficiency of your industry. Under tropical skies, hands are gathering, from bending boughs, luscious fruits which in a few days will be offered for your consumption in the streets of London. Over shining rails, locomotives are drawing trains, on heaving surges, sailors are piloting barks, through arid deserts Arabs are guiding caravans, all charged with the fruits of industry to be placed here freely at your feet. You alone, among all the peoples of the Earth, encourage this gracious tribute and enjoy its full benefit, for here alone it is received freely, without imposition, restriction or tax, while everywhere else, barriers are raised against it by stupidity and folly. That speech could be given today about the United States of America. Ultimately, England went protectionist, and when it did, it declined as a world power. Ultimately, America promoted trade, and when we did, we rose to world prominence. What a different world we live in than the world we have evolved from. We now have leaders who talk about trade as a problem, who talk about imports as if something is wrong with buying something from someone else. When Pericles was delivering his funeral oration, honoring the dead of Athens, one of the great speeches in history, he talked of trade as a sign of greatness. Once a year, they had a ceremony where they would bring the bones of Athenian warriors who had died defending Athens during that year, and they would all be buried together. When Pericles came to the point in the speech where he wanted to explain how you could know that Athens was a great city, here is what he said, and interestingly enough, he measured the greatness of Athens by its imports. What a far cry it is from today; what he understood, we have forgotten. And he understood it 2,500 years ago: ``The magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.'' Only a great country has the capacity through trade to get the whole world to work cooperatively to promote its prosperity. Trade is like love. That is the miracle of this thing. It is not as if we are getting rich by trade at the expense of other countries, because trade makes us rich and it makes them rich. It is like love: The more of it you give away, the more of it you have. That is why it is magic. That is why it is so hard to understand. I want to end with a quote from Ronald Reagan. President Reagan has never gotten the credit he deserves for standing up for trade. It was one of his great achievements in an era that was dominated by protectionism. But here is what he said, and I urge my colleagues, especially on my side of the aisle, people who love Ronald Reagan, to look at these words before we have our final vote on this issue. Ronald Reagan said this about trade, and it is so accurate in terms of fears versus hopes: ``Where others fear trade and economic growth, we see opportunities for creating new wealth and undreamed-of opportunities for millions in our own land and beyond. Where others seek to throw up barriers, we seek to bring them down; where others take counsel of their fears, we follow our hopes.'' I am for free trade. I am for the fast-track bill. These two issues cannot be separated. We have colleagues who say, ``Oh, I'm for trade, but I'm against fast track.'' We all know that without fast track, we are not going to have an expansion in trade. We all know that without fast track, Europe will tie itself to South America in their new free trade area, and we will end up with less and less trade and less and less influence and with less and less prosperity. So the issue here is trade, and the issue is freedom. Do you care about working people in America and around the world? If you do, you ought to be for trade, because trade will raise our living standards, and it will raise the living standards of others. If you are really concerned about child labor, about low wages, about grinding poverty around the world, the way you help do something about it is through trade. You don't do something about it by building a wall around America. If you really care about the environment, you are not going to improve the world environment by promoting poverty. We are going to promote it by expanding trade and by expanding prosperity. This is a very important vote we are going to have. We have not voted on anything in this Congress that is more important than giving the President fast track. If we reject fast track, we are saying that special interests dominate the trade policies of America, that the world's great trading nation, the most successful nation at trade in the history of the world, the nation that has benefited more from trade than any other country in the history of the planet, we are going to be saying that for the first time in the postwar period we are giving up our position of world leadership in trade, that we fear to trade. I don't say that, and I don't believe it. I hope that we are going to give the President fast-track authority and continue a process that will continue our prosperity and economic growth. I yield the floor. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM

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

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I wanted to come over today and talk about the IRS and about reforming the IRS. We are on the floor considering the nomination of Charles Rossotti to be head of the IRS. We had an excellent hearing on the nomination in the Committee on Finance. His background is somewhat different in that he is an information management person, a very successful businessperson. I believe that he will be an excellent head of the IRS. I intend to vote for him. However, like most people who have spoken during this time, I want to talk about reforming the IRS, not the naming of the new head of the agency. First of all, Madam President, I want to reject the idea that what is wrong at the IRS is sort of a sociological environment that has developed there. We heard a little of that during our hearings. We heard a lot of it from the Treasury Department when an effort was undertaken to try to change the IRS. The whole logic of this argument, which I reject, is that the problem at the IRS is that an atmosphere has developed, that there is this sociological environment that has come into existence over a long period of time, and what we really need is to have some counselors come in and have sensitivity training for IRS agents and that will make everything great. We then have terms used, and I would have to say by Members of both parties, such as, ``Let's make the IRS a consumer-friendly agency.'' I am afraid that just reeks of nonsense to me. Let us not forget that we did not create the IRS with the best of intentions. Congress created the IRS to get money from people who, by and large, did not want to joyfully give. When it comes to the IRS, most Americans are not happy givers. They believe that Government spends too much money. I share that belief. They believe that the Government spends it inefficiently and unwisely. I share that belief. In fact, both of those beliefs would be strengthened if the average citizen could spend 1 week as a Member of the Senate. People do not like paying taxes. They object to much that the Government does, and the IRS uses the power of the State to force people to provide money that, by and large, they do not want to provide. But there has developed a notion that somehow at the end of this process, when the agent calls up and says, ``I'm from the Internal Revenue Service and I want to help,'' people would say, ``Well, gosh, great; it's awfully nice that you called. This is the beginning of a good day, possibly a good week or year and may be a turning point in my life.'' If we are going to approach the IRS problem from the point of view that the agents simply need sensitivity training or that this can become such a friendly Government agency that people will be happy to hear from it, I think we are making a terrible mistake. I think the problem with the IRS is very easy to define and quite hard to do something about. The problem with the IRS, to paraphrase an ancient Greek, is that power corrupts. The basic problem with the Internal Revenue Service is that IRS agents, in the bureaucracy that has developed to collect taxes, have tremendous power. I guess the best way I found to try to get people to visualize it is to talk about a courtroom. Most of us, fortunately, have never been in a courtroom, but almost everybody has seen it on television or at the movies. Think of yourself as going into a courtroom and the judge is from the IRS. You look over at the jury, and the 12 jurors are all from the IRS. And then you look over at the prosecutor's table, and the prosecutor is from the IRS. And the policeman who is going to testify, having arrested you, is from the IRS. And you walk into the courtroom faced with a presumption that you are guilty. Now, that sounds like a picture that is completely out of focus as far as the American system of justice is concerned. But in reality that is an accurate picture of a taxpayer dealing with the Internal Revenue Service. Now, the question is, how do you change that picture? How do you do it in such a way as to guarantee due process? How do you separate the powers of the IRS to eliminate the abuse? And how do you do it all in such a way that you do not undermine the ability of the Internal Revenue Service to collect $1.6 trillion a year in taxes from working Americans. That is our challenge. I want to congratulate our colleagues in the House for their efforts. I want to congratulate Senators Grassley and Kerrey for their IRS restructuring commission effort. I think that effort gave us a good starting point. I think Chairman Archer's bill is a good bill. But I would have to say that I agree with Chairman Roth, that what we need to do is to carry this issue over until next year. We had very productive hearings, hearings that awakened not only us but the American people to abuses in the IRS. But now, before we legislate, we need to hear from some people who have ideas as to how we fix the problem. I think we need to hear from financial experts, including people from the Internal Revenue Service. I think we need to be certain that this issue has been thoroughly examined. I would like to share just a few thoughts and then yield the floor, because I see that we have other colleagues who have come to the floor. First, I believe that we need, to the maximum extent possible, to try to find a way to separate powers that are currently joined together in the Internal Revenue Service. It seems to me, if you look at the criminal justice system, that the separation of functions represents a separation of powers that, while it doesn't always succeed, while there are failures and abuses in the system, at least in the criminal justice system you have the police that do the investigating and then they take their evidence to the district attorney and the district attorney evaluates their evidence and in the process evaluates them. And then the district attorney goes to a grand jury and the grand jury evaluates the evidence and makes the determination as to whether there is sufficient evidence to take you into court. If they decide there is, you go into a court where you have a judge and where you have a jury. And the investigating police, the district attorney, the grand jury, the judge, and the jury all represent separations of power and checks on the potential abuses of one or the other. Our problem in the Internal Revenue Service is that this one agency performs all of those functions. It seems to me that the first thing that we have to try to do is to find a way to separate those functions so that each of these different levels of our dealings with the Internal Revenue Service represents a check on the potential abuses of the other level or function that we are dealing with. Obviously, this is a golden opportunity for us to look at the Tax Code, to look at its complexity, to look at the degree to which it is unfair, and try to fix it. I am not one of those who believes that short of Heaven we will ever eliminate the Internal Revenue Service. We can change its name, we can change the plaque, we can take down the flag, but in reality, as long as the Government spends massive sums of money, somebody, some agency is going to have to collect that money. But I think, with a simplified system, we could dramatically change the way the IRS works by making it easier for citizens who intend to abide by the law to do it. I think also that, to the degree that we control Government spending so that Government takes less, to the degree that we spend the money more wisely, then I think we would make people more willing to pay taxes. The great Abraham Lincoln was quoted during the Civil War as having said that he was a joyful taxpayer. He perhaps was the last one in America. Because he supported winning the Civil War. I think, to the extent that we can make the system simpler and fairer, to the extent that we can be wiser in our expenditure of money, that we can improve the situation. But, in the end, the Internal Revenue Service has too much power. We need to shift the burden of proof. The Internal Revenue Service should have the burden of proving that someone is a lawbreaker. We should not begin with the presumption, when you are dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, that the taxpayer is guilty. It seems to me that we ought to also look at a system where, if I am trying to run a business and the IRS comes in and audits me and I spend $250,000 on accountants and lawyers, defending myself from the IRS, and at the end the IRS says, or the judge and jury say: This was all a mistake. You didn't do anything wrong. If that turns out to be the case, it seems to me that small business ought to be able to go into court and say: Look, I spent $250,000. I didn't do anything wrong. The IRS didn't even say it's sorry. Maybe the IRS ought to have to pay that small business $250,000 and pay their court costs. A final point which has almost never been mentioned in this debate but which I want to mention here because I think it has to be a factor in our deliberations, is that at the end of the day, with whatever we do in reforming the IRS, it still has to be able to collect taxes. I have no sympathy for people who cheat on their taxes. People who cheat on their taxes make the rest pay more. And as we strengthen the rights of taxpayers--which I am in favor of, and I intend to fight hard for-- as we shift the burden of proof, as we divide the powers of the IRS and make it less intrusive, to the extent that such reforms make it easier for people to cheat we have to have stiffer penalties for those who knowingly violate the law. So I think we have quite a legislative effort ahead of us. I think we have a golden opportunity to do something that is important. I want to congratulate Chairman Roth and the Finance Committee because I do believe we had an excellent set of hearings. But simply because we know more about the problem does not mean that we yet know the solution. I am hoping that we can have equally productive hearings on ideas from people around the country as to what could be done to fix the IRS, how we could change the system. We should take the time to get it right, be more comprehensive in what we want to achieve, and build on an excellent bill that came over from the House. We have an opportunity to dramatically change the Internal Revenue Service and convince Americans that, while the Government is still spending too much money and is not spending it as wisely as it should, that the tax system is fairer and that the collection process is fairer as a result of the reform efforts that we are about to undertake. I don't think people expect to love their Internal Revenue agent, unless they married one or unless one is their child or their parent. But they expect to be treated fairly. And obviously they know when they are contacted by the IRS that they are potentially in deep trouble, and it is that threat that drives many people to go ahead and declare income that they might have hidden and to pay taxes that they didn't want to pay. So, finding this balance, I submit, is going to be a difficult task. I am very grateful that I am on the Finance Committee and I am going to have an opportunity to play a small role in it. I think it is important. I am glad that we are waiting to gather more facts, not just on the problem but the solution. I thank my colleagues for their tolerance and I yield the floor.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I yield myself such time as I might use off the leader's time.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. How much time do I have?

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, of course, I will not object. I would like to suggest that they have an opportunity to speak for more than 1 minute. I amend the request to ask unanimous consent that each of them be given 5 minutes.

Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. GRAMM. We have 30 pages that are limited simply to that. So I hope nobody is deceived. And I am sure they are not. I thank the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Well, Mr. President, I will be happy to go ahead and take my minute. The normal procedure would be both sides would run off their time equally. I think we are the challenger here and should go last, but that is not of any real significance. I think, Mr. President, I can sum up what this is about very simply. We have 30 pages in this bill that were written with one and only one purpose, and that purpose was to derail price competition, to prevent price competition with the depots. The people who wrote the provision are quoted publicly as saying that that was the objective. They say in the newspaper that it would be virtually impossible for a private firm to compete with a Government depot under their language. That is not me talking, that is not the Senator from California talking. That is the proponents of this language and the people who help write the language. Second, it has to strike you as funny that this language only applies to competition that would involve private companies who would choose to locate either at Kelly or at McClellan.

Mr. GRAMM. I yield the Senator a full minute.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

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