Phil Gramm

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, we have cut defense since 1985 by 34 percent. We have closed 18 percent of the military bases. We have more nurses in Europe than we have combat infantry officers in Europe. We have a huge overhang of bureaucracy, a huge overhang of bases that we have to shear down to the size that is required for the force that we are now willing to fund in the House and Senate. In short, with this huge overhang of bureaucracy and bases, we have a tiger but increasingly the tooth is too small and the tail is too long. Nobody wants base closings. We have closed five bases in my State. But we all know it is something that needs to happen. So I intend to support the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. I intend to oppose the Dorgan amendment, which for all practical purposes kills the underlying amendment. I think basically we have to recognize defense has been cut by 34 percent. We have closed only 18 percent of the military bases. If we are going to preserve modernization, if we are going to keep the pay and benefits to maintain the finest people in uniform we have ever had, we are going to have to close more military bases. So, I hate it, as I am sure many of our colleagues do, but there is no alternative, given the amount of money that the House and Senate are willing to appropriate. I urge my colleagues to defeat the Dorgan amendment and to support the McCain amendment. I yield the remainder of my time to Senator McCain.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, could we have order? We are limited to the time we have, and I think it is important everybody be heard.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, I would like the 1 minute on the Biden- Gramm second-degree amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, from the very beginning of this tax debate we have talked about a $500 tax credit per child. And the logic has been to let working families decide how to spend their money on their children. Then suddenly out of the Finance Committee on a very close vote has come a provision that says we are going to give you a $500 tax credit but you get it only if you use it the way we determine you should use it, which is to have an educational IRA. I think educational IRAs are wonderful, if you can afford them. But the whole purpose of the $500 tax credit was to let working families decide. I know the Senate is full of brilliant people, and we think we can decide things for families better than they can. But that violates the agreement we had with the American people on this bill. We hear every time an issue is debated that this violates the commitment to the Congress, or it violates the commitment to the President. This provision violates the commitment to the American people, and all of us talk about a $500 tax credit. We talk about parents choosing. Let's let them choose. Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Why don't we put it on my amendment?

Mr. GRAMM. No, being a sweet, wonderful person, I will not object.

Mr. GRAMM. But we have a second-degree amendment that was added to the Domenici amendment by unanimous consent. We would like it.

Mr. GRAMM. I thank the chairman. aviation taxes

Mr. GRAMM. Is it also the chairman's understanding that this provision clarifies the tax-exempt status of these funds under current law by codifying the existing standards?

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it seems to me we have had enough fun now. I think we ought to reject this amendment and get on with final passage of this bill. This is a tax cut. This is not a place to change the way we do accounting for mining. If you go out and find a body of ore, you don't have an investment you made in a piece of equipment. You have the asset that you are depleting as you produce it. Every developed nation in the world has depletion allowance, because they want to produce the riches of their lands. This is a bad amendment and ought to be rejected.

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, under section 904 of the Budget Act, I move to waive the point of order against the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, let me remind everybody that in the budget that we are enforcing here, we had $7 billion of net deficit reduction as compared to current policy. Ninety-seven percent of deficit reduction was simply assumed. That deficit reduction and policy changes has now fallen to $1 billion because we are short on spectrum. Everything we are doing in balancing the budget is based on assumptions. The only enforcement mechanism we now have is on discretionary spending, and the first act in considering this budget was waiving that discretionary spending cap in the last budget. My amendment sets out the deficit reduction targets that we have committed to and enforces them with an across-the-board cut if we refuse to meet them. Also, my provision says that in paying for a tax cut, you can pay for it by cutting entitlements, by raising other taxes or by lowering the discretionary spending caps. So it gives us the option in the future, if we ever do another tax cut, to not have to cut Medicare in order to pay for tax cuts, so that if we want to reduce discretionary spending and put a spending cap in place, we can do it. This budget has a lot of assumptions in it. We need as strong as possible an enforcement. If you want strong enforcement, vote for this amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. Let me take 30 seconds and allow Senator Biden to have the other 30 seconds. Our colleagues will remember that we set up a violent crime trust fund to guarantee adequate funding for law enforcement, and for our antidrug effort. That provision was set to expire and all we are doing in this amendment is simply extending that trust fund. This is a mightily important matter. I am confident no one is going to oppose it. I simply wanted to make note of what we are doing. I yield the remainder of the time.

Mr. GRAMM

Mr. GRAMM. I believe there will be four. Senator Biden will offer one for himself. Once that is adopted, I will offer a second-degree amendment. And then we have two other Senators who want to offer second-degree amendments, so they will be seriatim.

Mr. GRAMM. Why don't you do yours last?

Mr. GRAMM. Take it off. Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAMM. Regular order, Mr. President. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.

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

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

Mr. GRAMM. This abrogates the deal with the working men and women of America. Some may see it as rotten and some may not. Some may see it--

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have sent this amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator Coats, Senator Nickles, Senator Hutchinson of Arkansas, Senator Grams, Senator Smith of New Hampshire, Senator Sessions of Alabama, and Senator Abraham of Michigan. I am going to try to be very brief. I have a couple of my cosponsors here who have waited to speak on this amendment, and I hope we can accommodate them. We will all try to be brief. This is a very simple amendment. For the last 4 years we have been talking about a $500-per-child tax credit. Our argument has always been the same: We want to let families decide how to invest their own money in their own children and for their own futures. The whole purpose of a $500 tax credit was to allow families to invest their own money--which after all they earned--in the education, housing, nutrition, nurturing, and health care of their children. This is what the whole tax debate is about: It was in the Contract With America and even President Clinton has endorsed it. Nobody ever disputed the fact that the purpose here was a clear-cut tax cut to let families decide how to spend their own money on their own children. Remember, this is not all of their money; only $500 per child. Out of the Finance Committee has come a provision that says for children 13 to 16, in order to get the tax credit, you have to put it into an education account. And remarkably, it saves money for one, and only one, reason: because some people will not take the tax credit. Mr. President, if there has ever been an effort to go back on a deal, this is it. I think families ought to be able to invest in an individual retirement account. I think they ought to be able to set aside the money for that purpose. But the idea of making them do it is Government paternalism in its worst form. So what I am asking that we do is live up to what we said. I am asking that we give the $500 tax credit and that we give it for every age of a child covered, and that we let that child's father and that child's mother decide what is in their best interest. I think what we are trying to do here is dissuade people from taking their $500 tax credit by playing God with what they are supposed to use that money for. I know the intentions are good. I know they were aimed at trying to bring people together. But a deal is a deal. I have heard everybody here talk about a budget deal and what the President got and what we got and what we agreed to; but we had a deal with the American family. The deal with the American family was a $500 tax credit that the family got to spend. If we were reneging on a deal with the President, oh, people would be jumping up and down screaming, hollering, ``But we promised the President,'' or if the Democrats were trying to do something that was not in the budget deal, some would say, ``Well, the President promised us.'' This does not have to do with the President. This does not have to do with us--it has to do with the families of America. We are not living up to the deal. This is a lousy provision, and it should be removed. I am not saying there are not good intentions and I am not saying this is not part of some political deal. I am saying it is an unacceptable provision. It should not be in here. It fails to live up to the deal we made with the American people, and it needs to come out. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have two letters printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Thurmond as a cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. GRAMM. Some may see it as an acceptable deal and some may see it as a rotten deal. But the point is--I am happy to strike the word if it offends our dear colleague. But I feel strongly about it because the tax cut, after all, is about families. That is what it has been about to begin with. I have several of my colleagues here. If I could just let them all speak for 2 or 3 minutes, we would all be happy. I ask unanimous consent that each of them may have 2 minutes each.

Mr. GRAMM. We have one, two, three, four; and they will speak 2 minutes each.