Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise, along with my colleague Senator John Breaux, to introduce the 21st Century Retirement Savings Act. Earlier this year, I joined Senator Breaux as two of six co-sponsors of S. 2313, a bill to strengthen and preserve Social Security. This legislation was developed through the expertise of the National Commission on Retirement Policy, convened by the Center of Strategic and International Studies. The Commission was unique among such efforts in that it looked at the entire picture surrounding retirement saving, and did not seek to increase income through one venue at the expense of another. It was our finding that income through all of the components of the national retirement structures--Social Security, employer-provided pensions, and individual savings--needed to be increased if we are to meet the needs of the 21st century. This legislation to shore up private retirement savings is a companion piece to S. 2313, which dealt with Social Security. I am pleased that it will also be introduced by Congressmen Kolbe and Stenholm in the House.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we have heard a lot of talk about education in the last few days, especially from the White House, and about adequate funding for education. I think no item more clearly defines the difference between the two parties on the issue of funding education than the issue of special education. This White House has been so enthusiastic for creating new programs, that are controlled here in Washington, which tell the teachers, principals, parents, and students back in my State, and in the State of Mississippi, where the occupant of the Chair comes from, and every State of this country, how they shall run their schools on a day-to-day basis, how to manage curriculums, whom they shall hire, when they shall hire them, what they will do after school. This administration has been so insistent in trying to move the control of education to the Federal level and now has come forward with a new series of efforts to accomplish that. But this administration has failed consistently to fund the most fundamental obligation of the Federal Government in the area of education--specifically, the obligation under special education. Back in 1976, I think, when the special education bill was passed, which was a major step forward in this Nation toward caring for kids who have special needs, the Federal Government committed to the local communities of this country that it would pay 40 percent of the cost of those children's educational needs. But what has happened? Well, when the Republican Congress took control of Congress 4 years ago, at that point, the obligations being paid by the Federal Government weren't 40 percent of the cost of special ed needs, they were only 6 percent of the costs. The difference, 34 percent, which was supposed to be picked up by the Federal Government, was being borne by the local taxpayer. What was the practical effect of that? The practical effect of that was that the local tax burden was skewed and the local school districts' ability to support their educational agenda was controlled not by what they wanted to do but by their need to meet a Federal mandate that was not being paid for by the Federal Government-- specifically, special education. So where a local school board might have wanted to add new teachers, or an afterschool program, or a new language program, or put in new computers, they could not do it. Why? Because they had to pay the cost of the special education students, which costs were supposed to be borne by the Federal Government, at least to the extent of 40 percent. So you would have thought that this ``education Presidency''--as it tries to proclaim itself--would have wanted to correct that problem, would have recognized that as the first step in its efforts on education, and would have fulfilled the underlying obligation to special needs kids and paid the 40 percent the Federal Government is obliged to pay under the law. What actually happened? In every budget that the President of the United States has sent up to this Congress since this Congress was taken over by the Republican Party, there has been essentially no increase in funding for special education. As a result, what this administration has said is: Rather than funding the needs of special ed kids, we want to create brand new programs, we want to go out and tell the school districts what they are going to have to do with Federal dollars, rather than using the Federal dollars to fund the needs of the special needs kids the way we are supposed to under the law. So they set up this scenario where they say to local school districts: We are not going to pay you what we are supposed to and allow you to free up your money to spend it on what you need, such as books and teachers--or whatever the local school district thinks it needs. Rather, we are going to tell you what you need, and we are going to make you come to the Federal Government, come to the Federal bureaucrat, and say, ``Please, Federal bureaucrat, give us back some of our money so we can pay for new educational initiatives.'' But we have to do exactly what you tell us in initiating those initiatives. It obviously makes no sense. What did the Republican Congress do? It said let's live up to our obligations as a Congress first. So we made a priority. In fact, S. 1, the No. 1 bill of the Senate, made as its priority setting a course to fully fund special education at the 40 percent required under the law. We made great strides in this under the leadership of the majority leader, under the leadership of the Senator from Pennsylvania, who is the head of the appropriations subcommittee, with the strong effort of the coalition here on our side of the aisle. We have increased funding for special education dramatically in the last 3 years, with no help from the administration. Three years ago, we put it up; we increased special education funding by almost $700 million. Last year, we increased it by almost $690 million. This year, we have increased it again by $500 million. So we have taken the percentage which the Federal Government is paying for special education from 6 percent when we took control of the Congress up to over 10 percent now, and it is moving in the right direction. Now, one more time this week, we hear this disingenuous argument coming from the administration that if we are going to have good education, we have to create a new program where the Federal Government, the President, and his friends at some national labor union and down here at the Department of Education tell local educators how to spend their dollars and what they must spend their dollars on. If the President really wanted to address the educational needs of this country, he would say to local school districts: I want another $1 billion, but I want to give it back to the local school districts to help them with special education, and that will free up the local school districts to be able to spend money for what they think they need. Not every school district in this country needs more teachers. Not every school district in this country has a terrible school building. Some school districts need more computers. Some school districts want to expand their language programs. Some school districts want to expand their dance programs. Some may want to expand their math programs. That decision should be made at the local level. Only the parents, only the teachers, only the principals really know what a local school district needs in order to make it a better place for kids to learn in. We don't know in Washington. Yet, the President and his friends and his supporters seem to feel that they know best, that they can run all the school districts in this country out of some building down here on Constitution Avenue. It doesn't work that way. If we really want to help out local school districts, what we will do is relieve them of having to fulfill the obligations of the Federal Government by paying the costs of special education and free up those dollars so that the local school districts can spend them where they see fit, where they feel they will get the best return. If we really want to help local education, what we will do as a Congress and what the President should be suggesting is that we will fund the special education needs of kids in this country to the tune of 40 percent, which we committed to. Ironically, if you take the dollars being proposed by the President to be spent on his new categorical programs where he tells everybody in the country how to run their school districts, and you add them up, in 5 years--which is the goal that we have set as a Republican Congress-- in 5 years, you will be at just about the 40 percent that the Federal Government said it was going to spend on special education. If you take those dollars and you move them over to special education, you will be accomplishing what we said we were going to do back in the 1970s. But, more importantly, we will be freeing up the local school districts to educate kids the way they know they must be educated rather than the way some bureaucrat down here in Washington thinks they should be educated. That is the difference. That is what the debate is about. The Republicans believe that schools should be operated at the local level, that it should be the parents, the teachers, and the principals who make the decisions on education. Regrettably, some of our colleagues on the other side, and clearly the people down on Pennsylvania Avenue, feel that they know better than parents, teachers, and principals--they should be the ones operating our schools. This is not a dollar fight. It is not a question of putting more dollars in education. It is a question of where the dollars go, how they are better managed, how they can give the best return for the dollars spent for education which we need. So there is the difference. The Republican Congress is showing the right way. We have put our money in the right programs. We have committed to special education the huge increase in spending. I just wish the President would join us in that. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise, along with my colleague Senator John Breaux, to introduce the 21st Century Retirement Savings Act. Earlier this year, I joined Senator Breaux as two of six co-sponsors of S. 2313, a bill to strengthen and preserve Social Security. This legislation was developed through the expertise of the National Commission on Retirement Policy, convened by the Center of Strategic and International Studies. The Commission was unique among such efforts in that it looked at the entire picture surrounding retirement saving, and did not seek to increase income through one venue at the expense of another. It was our finding that income through all of the components of the national retirement structures--Social Security, employer-provided pensions, and individual savings--needed to be increased if we are to meet the needs of the 21st century. This legislation to shore up private retirement savings is a companion piece to S. 2313, which dealt with Social Security. I am pleased that it will also be introduced by Congressmen Kolbe and Stenholm in the House.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas as a second degree to the amendment offered by myself, Senator McCain, and Senator Lieberman, which is the underlying amendment here. I think the Senator from Oregon, who has certainly been a core player in bringing this matter to the Senate, outlined the issue rather well by pointing out that the purpose of this moratorium and the commission that is created under the moratorium should be to review the electronic commerce under the Internet and to pursue a path which will make that commerce more efficient. This bill, this attempt to protect the Internet from arbitrary taxation across the country with the 30,000 potential municipalities that could assess against the Internet and thus create chaos in what is truly one of the great engines of prosperity and economic entrepreneurship which has occurred within this century, and may be the economic engine for the next century--this bill, which is an attempt to put a hold on that sort of tax policy which might undermine, fundamentally harm, the expansion of the Internet during this formative period is a good bill, but it should not be used to bootstrap other issues onto the question. What is being attempted here is a backdoor bootstrapping of the whole issue of tax policy as it relates to the question of sales at distant points, whether it happens to be under the Internet, cable, catalogs or by telephone. And another study in this area, which is the proposal that is put forward by the Senator from Arkansas, is simply an attempt to broaden the scope of the underlying effort, which is to protect and address the issues that evolve around the Internet. It is totally inappropriate. There is no reason we should go down that road. There have been enumerable studies of this issue already. In fact, I have two right here, one done by the League of Cities and the other done by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. I also understand there has been one done by the Governors' Association, I believe. The fact is, the issues which are being raised by the Senator from Arkansas have been studied and studied extensively. Putting another study into this bill is not going to in any way change the tenor of the debate. It is simply going to attempt to expand the debate into a whole separate arena, which is inappropriate to this moratorium. The bottom line of this moratorium--and I will come to that after we have disposed of the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas, but the bottom line issue here is whether or not by voting to expand the moratorium and to get into areas such as the Senator from Arkansas has proposed we wish to dramatically expand the taxing authority of States and local jurisdictions and basically use this bill to become a huge vehicle for expansion in tax policy and expansion of taxes. I do not think that most Members of this body want to do that, and we already voted on this issue once with the Bumpers amendment. The vote was overwhelming. This body said no, it did not want to use this vehicle for the purposes of creating an explosion in new taxes. And yet there is another attempt being made now to do that, this time through a study. We will hear another attempt, I suspect, from the Senator from Florida who will do that with his amendment to this bill and this underlying amendment. So I guess what it comes down to is that this body has to make a policy decision: Does it want to use the Internet bill and the protection of the Internet, which has been proposed through the moratorium, which has been energized in large part by the Senator from Oregon, and obviously the Senator from Arizona, and which I have strongly supported, does it want to use that effort to try to protect the Internet to also be an effort to grossly expand the tax laws of this country and the tax policy of this country and the tax activity of municipalities and States, or do we want to stay focused on the subject at hand, which is how to make the Internet an efficient and effective place to do business, how to keep it as a dynamic engine for entrepreneurship and prosperity that it has become through a moratorium on taxes which might be assessed at the local community level? Although this amendment is couched in the terms of a study, it really gets back to that core issue of whether or not we want to have a moratorium which addresses the Internet or whether we want to use this moratorium as a bootstrapping event for purposes of dramatically increasing taxes and the tax collection capacity of local communities and States across the country. I oppose this study. I think it is misdirected to be attached to this bill, and I would say that if you really are interested in such a study, here is one you can read. Here is another one you can read. And the Governors' Association has one you can read. You don't have to pay for a new one. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GREGG. Wouldn't the business as usual be that the majority would take action rather than having a supermajority take place?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to support the position of the chairman of the committee on this issue in opposition to the Senator from Florida. The proposal which the Senator from Florida is suggesting goes really to the essence of this debate, which is whether or not 30,000 municipalities and State agencies across this country are going to have the right to essentially assess taxes in an arbitrary way on one of the most dynamic vehicles of commerce that has never come forward in the experience of the world. The chaos which those 30,000 municipalities and State agencies would create should they be able to assess that type of taxation on the Internet would be overwhelming. It might totally defeat what has been one of the great engines of economic activity and prosperity which our Nation has enjoyed over the last few years. It is not a unique situation. We can go all the way back to John Marshall to determine that the Congress has the right to make the decision on the issue of policy relative to taxation in commerce. It was, of course, Chief Justice Marshall who determined that when a ferry was crossing a river between two States that that ferry could not be taxed by the local State if it was going to interfere with interstate commerce. This concept has carried through our jurisprudence since that time-- that the Federal Government reserves the unique right to determine the taxation of commerce. There is no reason why we should arbitrarily handicap ourselves by creating a supermajority within our own institution to exercise that right, which is what the Senator from Florida is proposing. Let's continue the policies which have done us so well in the area of tax policy for the last 200 years, which is a majority of the Congress to make a decision as to what tax policy shall be in international trade. Let's not create some artificial barrier for us to jump over as an institution as we try to deal with what is a tremendous real ferry that may be created by having 30,000 municipalities and State agencies across the country assess taxes against the Internet. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG. I object.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of the distinguished chairman of the Committee, Senator Jeffords, I would like to engage him in a brief discussion of a proposal that was raised during Senate consideration of the higher education reauthorization bill. As the chairman will recall, the managers' amendment offered during Senate consideration included sense-of-the-Senate language regarding the need for greater flexibility in federal student loan programs. Specifically, there were some of us interested in increasing the annual limits on unsubsidized loans while maintaining the aggregate limits, so that students could take greater advantage of federal loans available at lower interest rates. Unfortunately, a substantive amendment to advance that proposal was scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as increasing mandatory spending, and adequate offsets could not be found. My purpose in raising this matter again today is to elicit from the chairman an indication of his support for this loan flexibility proposal on a substantive policy basis, in the hope that, if we can ever find the additional resources necessary to cover its costs, we might enjoy the chairman's support in pressing for its enactment.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the chairman's comments and his support and look forward to our continued work together.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Five minutes.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for a period of 5 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with the sad task of informing the Senate of the passing of one of my staff, Connie Drakeley. Connie died in her sleep last week and coming to terms with her sudden passing has been difficult. Connie was a very important member of my staff and will be greatly missed. She will be missed not only for the large contributions she made to the office, but also because she was our friend. Connie joined my staff in March, 1995 in the position of Editor. She came aboard during a time when the mail was building up and a significant backlog was forming--in short order, Connie alleviated the problem. The mail we receive from our constituents and, in return, answer is the lifeblood of our representative government. It was in this context and with this attitude that Connie worked as Editor on my staff. She, in many ways, had the hardest job in the office--with red pen, she pointed out everyone's mistakes! But she always worked very diligently, professionally and responsibly. She worked long hours and often took work home with her; she made us all better writers. She labored in this manner to make sure that my mail was without fault. Connie was always ready with advice and assistance when someone on staff needed help right away with a letter, speech or a press release. Though the work load sometimes could have overwhelmed her, she always rose to the challenge and kept her promises to get her editing done on time. She was very knowledgeable and up-to-date on legislation--she watched the floor, read Congress Daily--she didn't just correct grammar, but content as well. She knew the issues and could spot a mistake a mile away. We realized how much the entire process depended on her whenever she took vacation. Mail came first to Connie! I will always be thankful for her remarkable commitment to a demanding and stressful job and her respect for the English language. Connie dedicated her life to being the best editor one can be. Before she came to my office, she worked as an editor for Senator Harry Reid, for the National Archives, for Bechtel, and as a picture researcher for LIFE magazine. I would like to extend my deepest sympathies to Connie's daughter, brother and other family members. On behalf of my entire office, I wish to let them know that our prayers and thoughts are with them. Connie was an indispensable member of our team; her energy, vitality, and dedication will be missed for a long time. We simply couldn't have accomplished what we did on a weekly basis for the past few years without her. Personally and professionally, we have lost a good friend and coworker.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I wanted to return to the floor; I have spoken about this issue before, but I wanted to continue to raise the issue because as we move into the final weeks of this session of the Congress, it is one of the core issues we have to address; that is, the question of budget discipline as a Congress. It has taken us a long time--29 years, I believe--to get to a surplus, but this year we finally have a surplus. The American people place great faith in that and appreciation in that, and we as a Congress, obviously, are proud of the fact we finally reached a surplus. It was done as a result of a lot of hard work. We made some difficult decisions. We tightened down on the spending of the Federal Government and we especially maintained fiscal discipline here in the Congress. We did that through the use of what are known as caps. We set a budget in place, we had a 5-year budget agreement with the President last year, and it has led us on a glidepath to a surplus. The key to that budget agreement was that we set spending limits. We said: ``We shall not exceed those spending limits.'' Unfortunately, as we move towards the closing days of this Congress, we appear to be at the point of almost saying that the caps are irrelevant, that the disciplining effects which they had which got us to this surplus are going to be cast overboard. That is because we have something coming at us called an emergency supplemental. An emergency supplemental is not an emergency, it is simply a bunch of spending which is going to be done outside the budget process, independent of the caps. On top of the spending which we said we would make, we are going to add new spending. It is as if you were running a household and you had income of $100 a week and you set your spending on your grocery bills and your electric bills so they would meet that $100. And then suddenly you said, ``I happened to make $110 this week so I am going to spend $110--well, no, maybe I'll spend $120. I am not going to limit my spending by what I had originally planned, I am simply going to raise it arbitrarily.'' That is what is happening here. We are using a vehicle called an emergency supplemental to arbitrarily increase the spending of the Federal Government. The projection now is that we are going to have an emergency supplemental somewhere in the vicinity of $20 billion. That is a lot of money. That is going to have a very dramatic impact on the surplus, because the surplus is projected to be not a great deal higher than $20 billion. It could literally, depending on the economic effects of the Asian situation and the slowdown of the American economy, it could literally slow down arriving at the surplus if we spend $20 billion more than we budgeted for, to exceed the caps in that way. Why does it get designated as an emergency? It gets designated as an emergency because, if it didn't get designated as an emergency, it would be subject to a point of order and you would have to get 60 votes in order to spend it. But if it is designated as an emergency, it does not get hit with a point of order and therefore it can be spent with just a majority of Congress supporting it. So the budget discipline is lifted off. What are these emergencies? One of the emergencies is that the year 2000 is coming. As my colleague from North Carolina, Senator Faircloth, who happens to be one of the more original folks around here, said: Are we just suddenly learning that the year 2000 is coming? That is hardly an emergency. We know and we have known for a long time that the year 2000 is coming. Thus, the additional $3 billion to address that is not an emergency. It should have been budgeted for. Another emergency is Bosnia. Did we suddenly find out that we are in Bosnia? No. We have known we have been in Bosnia for quite a while. Obviously, that is not an emergency. Another emergency happens to be the farm program. Originally it was asking for $2 billion in emergency spending. Now it is up to $4 billion. The leader on the other side wants to make it $7 billion. I have to tell you, every year that I have been in the Congress the farm program has come to us and asked for an emergency spending bill. There is no emergency here, other than the fact that that is the way the money gets spent--outside of the budget process. We all know that certain areas of this country every year are going to have problems with their farm program. It is simply a function of weather and factors like weather. In this case, it is a function of the international economy going flat. But every year we have this. It is a predictable event, so it is not an emergency. It is something that we should be anticipating. Then we hear also that the President is going to come forward with emergency spending for defense. Clearly, defense needs more money. It is rather unusual that the President should be saying this, because for the last 6 years he has essentially tried to cut defense and increase spending on all the other programs in the Federal Government on the back of defense, and now it suddenly becomes an emergency that he has figured out that after 6 years he has cut defense so dramatically that it is in a horrendous situation and we are basically heading towards a military establishment which may be a shell, which may not be able to deliver the defense of the United States. That may be an emergency in the sense that it is a clear threat to this country, but from a fiscal standpoint it was a known action which was taken by this administration over the last 6 years, to savage the defense budget, which has led us to this point. If it is the desire of the administration to suddenly increase defense funding, they should do it within the context of the budget process and take money from some of their beloved programs for which they have moved money out of defense and into those programs--take it back from those beloved programs and put it back in defense spending so this country is adequately defended. So the fact is, as we head towards the closing days of this session, we confront a potential hemorrhaging of the budget process through an emergency supplemental. We are hearing with crocodile tears, I think, a lot of talk from the leader of the other body and from the Vice President, and even the President to some degree, that any tax cut would be an attack on the Social Security trust fund because any tax cut would come out of surplus and thus would be taken from the Social Security trust fund. That is the mantra, now, of the political operatives of this world who work for the Democratic Party, the James Carvilles. That is what they are going to try to label Republicans: ``You are going to cut taxes and you are going to cut Social Security, because that's going to come out of the surplus.'' What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If that is the case when the President sends up here a $20 billion supplemental request, many of which are not emergencies but which are predictable events--like the year 2000, like the agricultural situation, like Bosnia, like the defense issues--if they are going to send that amount of money up and ask that it come out of the emergency supplemental funding process, which means it comes directly out of the surplus, that also is an attack on Social Security in the same context as a tax cut on the Social Security trust fund. You can't have it both ways, Mr. President and members of the administration. You can't be saying a tax reduction has an impact on Social Security but the emergency supplemental doesn't. They both do, because the surplus is a function of excess tax revenue coming in under the Social Security trust fund. What should we do? The proper fiscal thing to do is to offset this funding, these expenditures which we are going to undertake on the emergency supplemental. Granted, we can't do it all, I accept that, but we should certainly offset a large percentage of it. So before we come out here and hemorrhage the discipline that got us to a surplus, undermining the core elements that gave us fiscal solvency as a Nation for the first time in 29 years, I think we should pause and think about that and say, ``Listen, maybe we ought to step back, try to figure out a way to pay for this supplemental so we don't undermine the budget process and undermine the surplus and, to some degree, undermine the Social Security trust fund. Madam President, I yield the floor. Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, Not too many businesses last a generation or two, much less for 175 years, but the Argus Champion seems to be Energizer Bunny of the newspaper business. This longevity, which is rare, is due primarily to its commitment to the local community. The Argus Champion has served its community well by providing local news and national news of interest. As a result, the Argus Champion has developed a loyal following in its hometown of Newport and the surrounding areas. Although the paper has had numerous owners, editors, reporters, and staff over the years, the Argus Champion has consistently published a high-quality newspaper that reflects New Hampshire's traditions and heritage. The paper also has changed with the times, switching to color formats in 1997 and expanding news coverage in surrounding areas in an effort to bring a better product to more Granite Staters. In many ways, our local newspaper is the chronicler of the times, printing important stories about the local community and the people who live in it. The Argus itself recognizes this special role, and each week offers to its readers a variety of local historical information through a feature column. We look forward to seeing pictures of our neighbors and their children volunteering to raise money for a worthwhile cause, or participating in the Boys and Girls Scouts and the Little League Baseball team. We also value our local paper for all of the announcements about milestones in our lives, including weddings, births, deaths, promotions, and others. We also appreciate the political coverage provided to the community as it helps the voters make informed decisions in the ballot booth and understand how the actions of their elected officials affect their everyday lives. The Argus Champion has brought the community together by focusing on local news and it is that tradition that we celebrate today on the 175th Anniversary of the paper's beginning. A warm congratulations to all of those who have contributed to the success of the Argus Champion and best wishes for the future.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, there are three issues which I think we need to be thinking about addressing as we move into the end of this session. The first is an emergency spending bill which is coming at us and how we pay for that. Traditionally, emergency spending bills have been paid for outside the budget process. We have worked very hard, however, as a Congress and as a country to get our budget in balance. It has not been an easy task. It has taken us 29 years to get the budget in balance. This year we will have a $60 billion surplus, and that surplus is projected to continue for a number of years into the future. But that surplus will be quickly frittered away if we add new spending programs that are not paid for, or if we arbitrarily increase the spending of the Federal Government in programs that already exist without looking at our budgeting process. The emergency supplemental, as well meaning as it is intended to be, represents, in my opinion, and raises the issue of how we are going to maintain our surplus and threatens that surplus. Since 1993, we have had $37 billion of spending under emergency bills. That is $37 billion that has been spent outside the budget process and has essentially added to the deficit, or in the case of this year, reduced the surplus. This year, the emergency supplemental is being talked about as a rather huge bill. In the past, since 1993, the average of those bills has been somewhere in the vicinity of $5 billion or $6 billion. But now we are talking about an emergency supplemental of--I have heard a number as high as $20 billion. But anything in the range of even $10 billion or $15 billion would be a huge number and would significantly reduce the surplus unless it was offset. The purpose of an emergency supplemental is to address issues which we had not anticipated which need immediate action and to do so promptly. I can agree with all those purposes, but unfortunately, the emergency supplemental process has become a process which has basically been used as a giant loophole through which we have generated new spending and, thus, are putting at risk, in many instances, our surplus as we finally reached it. Secondly, we have to ask ourselves, From where is this money coming? In the past, we were borrowing it and creating debt, which was bad enough. This time when we fund this emergency supplemental, if it is anywhere near the range of $15 billion or $20 billion, that is all basically going to come out of the Social Security trust fund. We will be borrowing from the Social Security trust fund because this year the surplus is essentially generated by the Social Security taxes which exceed the Social Security expenses. That, in and of itself, raises huge public policy issues. I hope that before we step into this or step off on to this road which leads to this giant loophole in our budgeting process, which generates expenditures outside of our budget caps, that we will think about the process and, hopefully, take a hard look at offsetting a significant amount of this emergency supplemental. Much of it was anticipated. We already spent $1.5 billion emergency for Bosnia. We should have been able to anticipate it and offset it. Clearly, the situation that has occurred in the farming communities is a severe emergency, but almost every year we appear to have an emergency in the farming communities. We should be able to budget and offset it. Disaster events have become, regrettably, all too commonplace. They are severe, and they need to be responded to, but we should be able to anticipate and budget it with some sort of reserve account and be setting it off. The only event which is truly an emergency which we could not anticipate was the blowing up of the embassies in Africa. I happen to chair the committee that has jurisdiction over that. If I were asked by the appropriating authorities, by the leadership around here to find offsets for the purposes of paying for that, I would be willing to do that, or at least some portion of that. So as to the extent that emergency has occurred, I am willing to go back and see if we can't find some ways to pay the cost of that emergency with some sort of offset, some percentage of it anyway, maybe not the whole amount, but a percentage of it. I am simply saying in throwing up a word of caution here, before we step on to this emergency spending process without any offsets, let's look at what it will do to the budget in the outyear and what it will do to the Social Security fund and is it proper to do it without offsets. I don't think it is. Some percentage should be offset. Second, I want to talk about caps. Caps are ways we as Congress discipline ourselves, where we say we will not spend more than this amount in any one year. That is what the emergency issue is about, as I alluded to. The emergency spending designation allows you to exceed the caps, which is an appropriate action in the budget process, but is not necessarily a fiscally sound action. The caps are in place only for the next 2 years because we do not have in place a budget. We did not reach a budget agreement, and it does not appear we are going to reach a budget agreement this year which would extend the caps over the lifetime of the budget agreement which we reached last year with the President. Last year, we reached the balanced budget agreement, a very important act in the history of this country, which has led to the surplus, in large part, this year and will lead to projected surpluses in the future years. But that budget agreement only had caps for 3 years. It was a 5-year agreement. So we are closing in now on the point when those caps are no longer in existence and we will no longer have any fiscal discipline around here. I intend, and I hope I will receive the support of my colleagues, to offer an amendment to whatever the emergency supplemental is to extend the caps for the last 2 years of the budget agreement which we reached with the President. I think that is only reasonable that we do that so that we can be sure that as we move forward in the future that we will have fiscal discipline here and we will stay on the glide path toward maintaining our surplus, which has been so difficult to attain and which is so important to the future of our country. That is the second fiscal point I wanted to make. The fiscal third point I want to make is about taxes. It is obvious we are running a surplus, and, yes, that surplus is significant and there is a big demand to cut taxes, which is totally reasonable. What is a surplus? It basically means people are paying more in taxes than we are spending in Government. So whose right is it to get the money back? It is the taxpayers' right to get the money back. So we should be looking at a tax cut. There are lots of different discussions around here looking at what the tax cut should be. But in looking at this tax cut, we have to look at where the revenue is coming from. Revenues for this surplus are coming from the Social Security tax. They are not coming from the general revenue tax. They are not coming from the income tax or the corporate tax or a variety of fees that we charge as a society, as a Government. They are coming from the fact that people are paying more into the Social Security trust fund than the Social Security trust fund is paying out today. As a result, we are running a surplus. That is true through about the year 2001 or maybe even the year 2002, that the surplus of this Government as it is projected will be primarily a Social Security trust fund surplus. So when we are looking at a tax cut around here, I think we ought to look at the people who are paying the taxes. That would only be logical. People who are generating the surplus should get the return of the taxes. And that should be the Social Security taxpayer. More importantly, there is no more regressive tax that we have on the books than the FICA tax. It is paid across the board. It is paid by everybody. No matter what your earned income is, you pay the FICA tax at the same rate. It is a regressive tax by any stretch of the imagination. No deductions, no exemptions, you pay it. Thus, if we are looking for a place to cut taxes which would benefit the most Americans and be the fairest place to cut taxes, we should be looking at cutting the Social Security tax. So as we move down the road to the discussion on tax cuts, let us take a hard look at cutting the FICA tax, returning to the American people more of their tax dollars through a FICA tax cut. In doing that, we ought to also be looking at increasing the savings of the American people and trying to make the Social Security system more solvent in the outyears. One way to do that is a proposal that I put forth with Senator Breaux. And a number of other people have talked about it in different machinations--including Senator Moynihan, Senator Grams, Senator Domenici, Senator Kerrey--to take the tax cut and put it into a personal savings account which would be owned by the individual who pays the taxes; and it will be their money, they will have it as an asset, and it will be available for them when they retire. I hope we will consider that as an option also. So as we move into this tax cut debate, I intend to raise this whole issue. And I believe we should raise this whole issue of where the taxes are coming from and who appropriately should be getting a tax cut. I ask unanimous consent for another 2 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. So three things we need to be concerned about are, first, as we step into this emergency spending water, let us be careful about where the money comes from, let us look at an offset; second, let us get those caps extended so we can have sound fiscal policy throughout the 5 years of the balanced budget agreement we reached with the President; and third is, we look at a tax cut, let us have a tax cut that flows back to the people who are paying the taxes, those folks who are paying Social Security taxes. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I object.