Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Utah for purposes of a colloquy.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, this is a Gorton amendment allowing expenditures for the FCC. It has no budgetary impact. It has been cleared on both sides. I urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I wish to acknowledge and congratulate the Senator from Utah, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for pointing out this concern and this issue, which is a very legitimate concern. I believe that with our staffs working together, we can work out the concerns the Appropriations Committee has relative to how we manage the funding of this issue, and I look forward to having such an agreement worked out and will direct our staffs to work together. I yield the floor. Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I suggest we go to vote. vote on amendment no. 3474 THE PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the amendment. The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, the first amendment is the Lautenberg- Hollings amendment which has been cleared on both sides. The amendment would provide $7 million for the FBI and $3 million for Treasury to combat Middle Eastern terrorism. Funds would only be available if and to the extent the President designates such an emergency. The second amendment is the Reid amendment dealing with female genital mutilation. It has been cleared on both sides. I ask unanimous consent that both amendments be agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that the yeas and nays be vitiated and that my amendment to strike be withdrawn.

Mr. GREGG. It is my understanding that water storage and elevating roadways are essential to the area's economy, and that only those projects recommended by the Interagency Task Force or identified by the Corps of Engineers' contingency plan would be appropriate uses of the emergency supplemental funds for Devils Lake under this bill. Is it the Senators' understanding that the State of North Dakota would provide the customarily required non-Federal cost share?

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his cooperation.

Mr. GREGG. That motion ran to the Hollings amendment, which was offered two amendments prior to this.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote on the Hollings amendment.

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

Mr. GREGG. I continue my opposition to this amendment. I do not think ATP is a program we can fund at this time. I think we should go with the initial proposal.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask that the yeas and nays be ordered on the underlying amendment of the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I send two amendments to the desk and ask for their immediate consideration.

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

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

Mr. GREGG. So, I am going to send an amendment in the second degree which strikes chapter 3, which is the emergency language of this amendment, to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the long and tireless commitment of the Senator from South Carolina to this issue, certainly items such as the Hollings Centers for Excellence, which involves working with industry and the Government in attempting to disseminate knowledge on how to better manufacture, and on which he has, appropriately, his name. But this proposal which he has brought forth today has a number of fundamental flaws. The first flaw is that it has not been scored by CBO, so we really do not know how much it costs. The second flaw is that it does not seem to be offset. The third flaw is to the extent it is offset, the offset has not been scored. To the extent it is offset by the terms of the amendment itself, no offset occurs with this coming fiscal year. So to the extent that this amendment generates costs this coming year, there is no offset. So it adds to the deficit. In order to get around that, the Senator from South Carolina has invoked the emergency clause. The emergency clause was not, I do not think, ever conceived of to be used for the purposes of funding what amounts to corporate welfare. That is what this is. You know, a lot of people are walking around here saying ``corporate welfare, corporate welfare,'' looking for the face of corporate welfare. This is the face of corporate welfare. The emergency clause is for floods and other crises of significant proportions which are inordinate and which are unusual and which we need to respond to because there is an emergency. But what we have here is a desire by the Senator to fund an undertaking which the committee decided not to fund, and in so doing he would be violating the budgetary rules because it would add to the deficit this year. In order to avoid a point of order, he has claimed it as an emergency. I know, as many people know, that technology is an important part of our economy and that it creates a lot of jobs, especially in my part of the country, but I do not think that the Federal Government going out and picking winners and losers in the field of technology represents an emergency under any definition of what an emergency is. Even if you could agree with this program, the program itself has some very severe, fundamental flaws because it is a picking of winners and losers by the Government, for which the Government has never been very good at picking winners and losers in the area of technology. And I point out a large number of very significant failures of the Government in deciding where the appropriate technology of the time should be, such as the Synfuels Program, such as the Clinch River breeder reactor. And the list goes on and on. But, even if you were to give the Government some credibility and the ability to go into the marketplace and pick winners and losers, which I happen to think is foolish on its face, but even if you were to give it that credibility, you could under no circumstances--under no circumstances--conceive of that as an emergency. That is like saying whether we lay out a four-lane highway or a two-lane highway determines an emergency. This is the business of the Government. This is the ordinary and common business of the Government. And to claim it as an emergency is, on its face, farfetched and hard to accept. So just on the technical grounds that this clearly is not an emergency and therefore should not be raised to the level of an emergency--if we are going to do that, we might as well fund all functions of Government as an emergency and just ignore the concept of the deficit, ignore the concept of fiscal responsibility as put upon us by the Budget Act. On those grounds, I am going to strongly oppose this amendment. I also happen to oppose it on substantive grounds in that I think this program is of questionable value. Let me list a few things here that have been funded under this program. I suspect they are good programs, but I want you to ask, are these emergencies? These are almost all experimental undertakings. We do not know if they have any commercial use at all. We do not know if anybody is going to benefit from them at all except people who happen to be doing the work and get paid. It is like going down to your local technology company and saying, ``Hey, we will hire a few folks for you to do this project.'' Is that an emergency? I hardly think so. Let me list some of these things: a Nobel x ray source for CT scanners; a flexible, low-cost laser machine for motor vehicle manufacturing; an ultrahigh-performance optical tape drive using a short wavelength laser; adaptive video coding for information networks; and the list goes on and on and on-- real-time micro-PCR analysis systems. Is it an emergency that we fund real-time micro-PCR analysis systems? Has this Government come to the point where that is defined as an emergency? I really have to say that, on the face of it, this is a bit hard to talk about with a straight face. Amendment No. 3475 to Amendment No. 3474

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I withdraw my suggestion.

Mr. GREGG. Yes.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly--about 10 minutes-- about where we are on this piece of legislation, and then later in the day I will be offering an amendment relative to the amendment offered by the Democratic leader. We have heard a great deal of discussion from the other side of the aisle. We have heard from both Senators from Massachusetts, from the Senator from Minnesota, and I believe the Senator from Michigan. There must be something about States that start with the letter M. But we have heard a great deal from the other side of the aisle about how, if we do not proceed on this course, if we do not add in this additional $3 billion-plus into--I guess it may be more than that--education, that all sorts of disaster and plague will occur with the educational system of the United States. One must ask the question, how can that sort of representation be made in light of the history of the educational experience over the last 15 to 20 years? We know, I think, as a country because we have seen--and we have had enough experience with it now over the last 15 to 20 years--that putting more into education is not necessarily the way to resolve the underlying problem in education. Yet, there is no question that more money in some instances significantly improves education. Take, for example, title 94-142, the IDA accounts for handicapped disability education. Yes, there is no question, to put more money into those accounts would certainly assist us in helping those individuals to be educated. It would take the pressure off our local school systems. Later in the day maybe I will even offer an amendment that will try to address that. But the concept generally of putting more dollars into education will improve education is, I think, one that has been fundamentally disproved. There is study after study. In fact, the University of Rochester reviewed something like over 400 different studies and concluded after looking at those 400 different studies that there is very little correlation between the significant increase in dollars spent on education and the improvement in education. If we look at the academic performance of our students over the last 10 to 15 years, where we have seen a significant decline in our students' ability to score well in internationally evaluated exams, especially in the math-science area, while at the same time we have seen a significant increase in dollars in education, I think we must conclude that there is very little direct correlation between the amount of money you spend and the type of education you get. Yes, there is a correlation, but it is not a formula that says 1 equals 1--for every new dollar you spend in education you get an equal increase in quality. In fact, the formula for increasing and improving education is much more complex than that, and it involves, I think, primarily maintaining individual and parental involvement in education, maintaining local control over education, especially at the principal level and at the teacher level, with parent input, and allowing the school systems to have an activist approach from the community rather than have them told how to educate their children by either the State government or the Federal Government. Buried within this amendment is the funding, of course, for Goals 2000, which takes us in exactly the opposite direction from local control, the basic theory of Goals 2000 being that there should be a national agenda, a national curriculum in fact designed to control the manner in which local education is delivered and which as a practical matter would probably be the most single debilitating event in the panoply of debilitating events that have impacted our education system were it carried to its true goals and fruition, which is basically to have a nationalization of the education curriculum in this country. So not only do we not necessarily get better education by spending more dollars in some instances, but in this instance by spending more dollars we get worse education because what we are going to get is more Federal control over education and the loss of local control which is, I happen to think, the essence of good education. But the real core problem here is not the application of these dollars. It is the illogic of putting forward the increase in these dollars while at the same time being unwilling to face up to the underlying threat to our students which far exceeds anything else that they may be threatened by relative to their future which is the deficit of this country and the fact that we are passing on to the next generation of Americans who are today in school a Nation which is fiscally bankrupt. We hear from the other side that, well, if we will just put more money into that program and more money, and give me another program and put more money into that program, and give me another program and put more money into that program, we will correct all the ills of our society and manage this country in a much more efficient way, which begs the fundamental question of, who is going to pay for all this that is being spent? Who is going to pay for all these additional dollars that are being spent? I would be willing to consider the amendment brought forward by the Senator from South Dakota, the Democratic leader, if he and his party and his President at the same time had the responsibility to come forward and say, well, we are going to pay for this by controlling those discretionary accounts in the Federal Government which are driving us into these tight fiscal times. I would be willing to consider it under those terms. But we hear nothing from the other side. In fact, we have heard a rejection from the other side of any attempt to try to bring under control those functions of the Federal Government, specifically the entitlement programs, which are forcing us to contract our ability to spend moneys in the area of education that we might otherwise wish to spend. In fact, the irresponsibility of the other side is so excessive now that you have the President of the United States, having once agreed to welfare reform, which is one of the core entitlements which we should be getting under control, now rejecting a plan which was passed out of this Congress, this House of the Congress by 87 votes in favor of it. While the President at the same time has claimed that this was going to be the essence of his Presidency, or an essence of his Presidency, that he would reform welfare as we know it, change it fundamentally, now he has rejected a plan which once he accepted and which the Senate accepted by an 87-vote majority. Then we have the same administration and the leadership on the other side of the aisle rejecting a plan brought forward by the Governors of the States, all 50 Governors in unison, saying let us use this as a way to bring under control this entitlement program, welfare. They are rejecting that program. And then when the Governors came forward as a unified body, all 50 Governors, Democrats and Republicans, and said let us correct the entitlement program, Medicaid, once again we hear from the other side of the aisle, no, we cannot do that because we will be giving up control here in Washington; we will be giving it back to the Governors; we cannot afford to do that so we are not going to correct that. When you have the trustees of the Medicare trust fund coming forward and saying, if you continue to spend money the way you are spending money today, the Medicare trust fund is going to go bankrupt in the year 2002--now it is going to be bankrupt in the year 2001--trustees who were appointed by the President of the United States who serve in his Cabinet, you have the President of the United States and the other side of the body walking away from that issue as if it does not exist, either turning a blind eye to that problem and not being willing to address that problem or wishing to use the politics of fear and scare tactics against senior citizens in alleging that any proposal to address fundamentally the improvement in Medicare is a proposal to undermine the quality of Medicare. It is totally inappropriate for the administration and the other side of the aisle to say that. So where are the proposals from the other side which would bring under control that function of the Federal Government which is going up at such a rate that it is leading the Nation into bankruptcy and is forcing us to have to limit our capacity to put funds into those accounts which many of us feel we might like to do such as special education in the area of IDA, 94-142, or chapter 1, which is also a good program. Where is the other side in coming forward with proposals on the entitlement accounts, because until they come forward with proposals on the entitlement accounts, they have no credibility on this issue. When they bring forward an amendment which simply says spend the money and uses some fallacious offsets, when they bring forward such an amendment and at the same time fail consistently to address the underlying problem which is driving the fact that we do not have the resources necessary to address accounts which we think are appropriate in the discretionary side of the budget because of the rate of growth of entitlements, then they have no credibility. That is what I find disingenuous in the arguments from the Senators from Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Michigan because there appears to be no program that they are not willing to spend more money on, but there appears to be no proposals to bring under control those programs which are bankrupting this Government and our children's future, which is what it comes down to as the bottom line, of course. Passing on to our children a finer education is something we all wish to do. There are ways to improve our educational system, and money does not happen to be the only way to do that. But there are things we could do here at the Federal Government level that would obviously improve our children's educational system. But passing on to our children a better education system is going to do very little good for them if at the same time we pass on to them a Nation that is bankrupt, where their opportunities for prosperity are dramatically limited because their Government was irresponsible and unwilling to address the core problems of expenditures growing so fast that they were outstripping the country's capacity to fund them, such as the entitlement programs of Medicare, welfare, and Medicaid. So when the other side comes forward with these proposals, I think you have to take them with a grain of salt. You have to recognize that this is an election year; that they are going to continue to propose ideas to spend money without being accountable until they feel that they have identified all constituencies necessary to build the voting majority. But I hope the American people will be a little more sophisticated; that they will understand this issue is about how you make the Federal Government responsible, how you pass on to our children not only excellent education but a chance for a prosperous and fulfilling lifestyle, and that that second part of the exercise involves addressing the issues of how this Government spends its money in the entitlement accounts, something about which, unfortunately, the other side of the aisle has decided to bury its head in the sand and the President of the United States has decided to join them. I thank the Chair for his courtesy. I note the absence of a quorum.

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