Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, at this point, I believe Senator Enzi is ready to go with his amendment. Rather than tie him up and since he was also the chairman of the HELP Committee, he may have some thoughts on this issue of how we are doing on special education. But in any event, so he can get started, I yield the remaining time so Senator Enzi can go forward.

Mr. GREGG. Yes.

Mr. GREGG. To clarify further from our side of the aisle, in those time slots we have already had requests for 10 speakers. We are basically allocating 15 minutes per speaker so we are well into 2\1/2\ hours of our time we will be using on our side of the aisle. If other people wish to speak, it will be after those first 10 who have already gotten in touch with us and told us they need time. Please get in touch with us if people want to say something. At that time it will be a convenient time for people who have an amendment to talk about the amendment so they can get a little more on the record about the amendment because tomorrow on the vote-arama they will be limited to 1 minute to explain their amendments.

Mr. GREGG. I would suggest that we settle up the post-6 o'clock period, if the chairman is agreeable with that at this time, with a unanimous consent request along the lines of what the chairman earlier outlined.

Mr. GREGG. The previous schedule assumed Senator Kyl.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, also I would note, for the edification of our side of the aisle, our first group of speakers will be in this order: Senators Domenici, Specter--they will go 15 minutes each-- starting at 6; Senator Grassley and Senator Hatch, second half hour; Senator Voinovich and Senator Brownback, the third half hour; Senator Chambliss, Senator Thomas, the fourth half hour; Senator Graham, Senator Burr, the fifth half hour. If there are Members, additional Republican Members, who wish to get time in this post-6 o'clock period, I wish they would get in touch with us. If any of these Members whom I just listed who had gotten in touch with us--we basically listed them in the order they got in touch with us--wish to adjust their time, we will try to work with them. But that is the game plan at the moment, so everyone is on notice.

Mr. GREGG. Does the debate start at 9:30 on the half hour that is reserved?

Mr. GREGG. That is fine.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I have agreement with Senator Thomas that his amendment will be voted on on Friday. That is not a part of the next tranche of votes. It will be in order on Friday to be voted on. He therefore no longer wishes to speak this evening. He made his points just now. I would advise Senator Graham and Senator Burr that they have both moved up on the list. It looks to me that we will have seven votes, maybe eight or nine potentially in order starting at 4:15. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, what is the Senator's offset for this? As I understand it, it is money selected from the tax gap; is that correct?

Mr. GREGG. Well, obviously, I agree with the Senator's initiative relative to the education tax credit. That was in the original Bush tax cuts, which have done so much good for this economy and for people who have benefitted from them, and tuition tax credits is a big part of that benefit. People going to college are more readily able to afford it as a result of the President putting that in his plan, and I think we should extend it. I regret that the amendment we offered earlier, which did extend it, was voted down, the Kyl amendment. The Senator has now come forward with a rifle shot on this item. The tax gap is an illusory number. It doesn't exist. We have already more than used it. It has sort of gotten to be like Customs fees around here, where a few years ago they just kept getting used over and over again. As a practical matter, however, we are certainly going to be supportive of this proposal, and if the Senator doesn't need a vote on it, we will take a voice vote.

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

Mr. GREGG. I was going to suggest, Madam President, that if the chairman was ready, we should start voting now. Why wait?

Mr. GREGG. Reserving the right to object, and I don't expect to object, but I want to be sure Senator Hutchison has signed off on the modification.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, in a bill which is already a big- spending, big-tax bill, this would supersize the tax element of the bill. This is sort of like when you go into McDonald's, you can order a regular, a large, or a super size. This is a supersized tax increase, $44 billion of new taxes, and 83 percent of the people who are going to pay it are small businesspeople, small businesspeople across this country. We have done a great--not a great job; we have done a strong job in the area of IDEA. This administration has had larger increases in IDEA spending than any administration in history, dramatic increases. We still need to go further, but you do not go further by increasing taxes by $44 billion on America's workers. I hope we will vote down this amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GREGG. Could we get order, Mr. President?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be 2 minutes equally divided, that we go to the vote, and that the yeas and nays be deemed ordered on the Coleman amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are now going to go to a period we have discussed before, where people will be speaking on various amendments but not offering them. The speaking order on our side, and we are presuming this is going to start about 6:30, will be a half hour on our side, then a half hour to the majority, then a half hour to our side, and then the majority, back and forth. The people we expect to speak are in this order: Senator Specter, as soon as we start, and Senator Domenici after Senator Specter. Then, after the majority response or period, it will be Senator Hatch, probably around 7:30, and then a combination of Senator Murkowski and Senator Allard around 7:45. Then the majority position. Then it will be Senator Chambliss and a group around 8:30; Senator Brownback around 9:30, and Senator Voinovich around 9:45. All those times may move up depending on what happens, with Members either coming or going or not showing up, but that is the present lineup.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to reinforce the point made by the chairman, which is there has to be reason in this process. We have been through these vote-athons before. We know they tend to be a little chaotic. Quite honestly, there are a lot of people who come in late with ideas that are good ideas, but let's be reasonable and make sure there is an orderly process, and let's cut this list down to something that is manageable so we can all get back to our districts or our homes and enjoy the weekend with our families.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I will take.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to speak in support of the amendment of the Senator from Nevada. I think it is a critical amendment as we look at the budget with which we are dealing. We know the budget we received from the other side of the aisle is a classic tax-and-spend budget. It raises taxes by $900 billion. It raises spending $144 billion in nondefense discretionary. The practical effect of that is very clear. The size of Government is going to grow dramatically, and the American workers are going to have to pay a heck of a lot more in taxes. But there is something else we need to be sensitive to, and that is-- and I credit the Senator from North Dakota for doing this--the Senator from North Dakota has put in place the numbers the President asked for to fight the war--$145 billion I believe is the number; something like that--for the 2008 budget. The problem is that unless that money is secured in a way that it cannot be gamed or used or reallocated, it can be used to grow the Government in nondefense discretionary activity. We have seen that happen. We have seen that happen, regrettably, all too often around here where money, which is defense money, is taken out of the Defense Department, moved over to the social spending side of the ledger because there is some account somebody wants to spend money on, and then halfway through the year, the Defense Department starts to run out of money and everybody is going to vote to replenish the Defense Department with a supplemental. That is the way it works around here. Regrettably, it happened last year that way. Regrettably, it happened the year before last that way. Regrettably, it happened the year before the year before last that way. That is exactly what happens around here. Money is taken out of the Defense Department, put into the social spending accounts, it grows the base of the social spending accounts, and then the Defense Department is replenished through a supplemental because everybody knows we have to fund the Defense Department, especially during a time of war. What the Senator from Nevada is trying to do is make sure that where we have this massive amount of money sitting there, these warfighting funds, and where we have increased the defense base by so much money, we essentially protect that money from being raided for the purposes of being used for everyday accounts around the operation of Government and for building the base of the operation of Government. When we look at the history of the Congress, that type of action is needed. We need that type of protection. So a defense firewall is absolutely critical to fiscal discipline, and, I would argue--and I think history stands with me on this argument--if we don't have a defense firewall, it is very clear that the social nondefense, nondiscretionary spending number isn't going to increase by $144 billion, which is the number which is in this bill, which is a pretty significant increase over the President's number, by the way--the President jumped it up by a significant amount--it is going to increase by a lot more because we know defense money is going to flow into those accounts throughout the appropriations process in order to take care of this issue or that issue that somebody believes is important to their agenda. We heard yesterday the Senator from Massachusetts talk about how No Child Left Behind had to receive more money, how IDEA had to receive more money, how Pell grants had to receive more money. The Senator from North Dakota has put more money into those accounts, significantly more money, and the President has put more money into those accounts, significantly more money. But I can assure my colleagues that when that appropriations bill hits the floor with those dollars in it, it is going to go up even further because there is going to be money taken out of the Defense Department and put into the Labor-HHS bill for the purpose of expanding those programs because that money is sitting there and the money is defenseless, to use a term of art. The money is defenseless. It is going to be raided and taken over to the social side of the ledger from the Defense Department. The Senator from Nevada has the right approach to set up this firewall and make it clear that we are going to have fiscal discipline. That is what we need, fiscal discipline. This budget doesn't have much fiscal discipline in it. In fact, it doesn't have any to speak of. But as a practical matter, it shouldn't get worse. We should put in place some limits that allow us to make sure even with this massive increase in nondefense discretionary money, that is where it stops, and we don't end up with the Defense Department being used as the piggy bank to fund even more nondefense discretionary spending. The Senator is on the right track. It has been done before. It was actually quite effective before. I disagree with the characterization of it by the Senator from North Dakota. It made life a little more difficult with the appropriators and others who wanted to take advantage of defense dollars in order to use them on the nondefense discretionary side of the ledger, for social spending or whatever projects were floating around they wanted to do. It will also have a direct impact, quite honestly, on earmarks. It will make it more difficult to earmark because there won't be money available with which to earmark. If you are opposed to earmarks, for fiscal discipline, if you think the Defense Department should get the money we promised them to fight the war, you have to vote for the Ensign amendment.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield at that point?