Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will yield.

Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will yield.

Mr. HATCH. On my time. I have to say that you did get a voice vote last time, not a recorded vote. I am offering you a recorded vote. I happen to believe sense-of-the-Senate resolutions mean a lot. But I certainly could not accept this language as part of a balanced budget constitutional amendment. If for no other reason, what does the term ``disproportionate'' mean? Which programs have to be preferred above others? There are a thousand programs we are talking about here. I know, because I worked with most all of them when I was ranking member and chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, on which the Senator from Minnesota now sits. I will get you the votes. I will work my side to try to get 100 of these people to vote for it. I happen to believe when Senators in this body vote for a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, it means something, especially if you get 100 percent. I cannot guarantee it, but I would work to get 100 percent. It would be adopted, because I think virtually everybody here would like to have children's programs treated fairly. The distinguished Senator makes a tremendous point. We treat seniors very well. They get about 20 times the help from the Federal Government that individual children get, and we are not doing what we should do for children in our country. There are a lot of children in poverty who are in serious straits who do not have the health care that they need. On the other hand, the question is, how do we best solve that problem? I do not think you single it out, because once you do that in this amendment, there must be a thousand other things that do not want to be treated disproportionately. Frankly, it just makes the amendment a nullity. I would be happy to work for a significant up-or-down vote for the Senator, no motion to table, up-or-down vote if he would make it a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that does not go into this constitutional amendment. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Minnesota. I believe he is devoted to children. But he is not alone. There are 99 others in this body who are devoted to children. Frankly, children's programs can compete very successfully with other programs, just like Social Security can. To do a risky gimmick of putting this type of language into the Constitution, like those who want to take Social Security out of the Constitution, the purview of the balanced budget, I think would be highly risky and very, very dangerous. I was talking with the junior Senator from Wyoming, Senator Enzi. He indicated to me, he said, you know, if you use the language ``not disproportionate,'' which is what this language is, it can force proportionate reductions in all parts of the budget in order to comply with this amendment, because this would be an amendment to this amendment to the Constitution. The worst budgeting for kids could come from across-the-board budget cuts. That is how the courts could easily interpret the amendment. Mr. President, for the information of every Senator, I have offered to give the Senator an up-or-down vote on a true sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying the same thing which he did not get last year and which I will get him today, and I have offered to try to get him 100 percent of the Senators to vote for this so we would be on record as not wanting to have children's programs reduced disproportionately. However, to put this into the Constitution is the wrong thing to do. This is not language that you would normally see in the Constitution. The Wellstone amendment is not an appropriate amendment for inclusion in the Constitution. I want to point out to my colleagues that the Wellstone amendment would place in the text of the Constitution itself a statement of ``policy.'' I put policy in quotes because I think there is a lot of room to disagree with the Senator. It would put a statement of policy of the United States with regard to the budget priorities into the Constitution, the first time in history to do that. Mr. President, I do not believe that it is appropriate to put what is essentially a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in the actual text of the Constitution. That is why I am suggesting that our colleagues vote against this amendment because that is not what should be done. I believe that such a policy statement would either be surplusage or produce confusion and difficulties if it became part of the Constitution. Now, the distinguished Senator from Minnesota sincerely said we are not locking ourselves into a harsh set of priorities if we take this amendment. I think you are. Let me paraphrase that better. He said if we take the amendment as it is we are locking ourselves into a harsh set of priorities. I think it makes it more harsh if you put his amendment in because, first of all, nobody knows what the word disproportionate means vis-a-vis constitutional language or interpretation; and, second, you are referring one item in the budget for one group of people in the Constitution over everybody else and there are a lot of people in this country who would like to not be treated in a disproportionate way. So we are not locking ourselves into a harsh set of priorities by having this balanced budget amendment passed. We are simply saying everything in the unified budget must be on the table. These programs for children are totally capable of competing with all other programs in the budget, as they should be. The fact is we have to have everything on the table because we are going to hit some very, very difficult times in the future and it will be difficult to know what to do to balance this budget. As we begin today's debate on Senate Joint Resolution 1, I do welcome the discussion of this amendment, because after all what this debate and the balanced budget amendment are all about is the legacy we intend to pass on to our children and our children's children. Unfortunately, as it stands today, the legacy is not one of health and prosperity, as has been the American tradition for the past two centuries; rather, the legacy we are imposing on our children is one of fiscal servitude. The debt, Mr. President, is a real threat to our children's future and to their well-being. As I emphasized before, with our national debt standing at $5.3 trillion and going to $5.4 trillion, every child born today is born into this world trapped into a $20,000 debt. This new baby owes $20,000--$20,000. Think about that for a minute. In essence, what we are doing is handing every child who comes into the world an unsolicited and undeserved $20,000 liability. Unfortunately for our children, they are given nothing to show for that liability. Every one of the 28 years represented by these unbalanced budgets, every one of those 28 years these unbalanced budgets in this pile, in all but one of the last 36 years what we have done is finance our own exorbitant spending habits by mortgaging our children's future. In my view, this is taxation without representation in its purest form. What is worse, unlike you or me who may take out a loan to buy a house or a car and begin to pay that loan off, not only do we not pay down any of our children's debt, we continue to refinance and finance again our children's mortgages, adding more and more debt to pay for our own protracted fiscal irresponsibility. Let me illustrate this point, Mr. President. According to the Congressional Budget Office, by the time a child born today is 5 years old, the national debt would have risen to $6.8 trillion and his or her share of that debt will have increased from $20,000 to $24,000. By age 10, that debt will stand at $8.5 trillion, with that child shouldering approximately $29,000 of that burden. Just think about it. That is nearly a 50-percent increase of his or her debt burden in just 10 years. At that rate, by the time a child graduated from college, he or she would owe in the neighborhood of $50,000 as their share of the Nation's debt. Now that, in my view, is no way to send a young man or young woman into the world to make a living. As sincere as my good friend from Minnesota is, the fact is even if we accepted this amendment he would not vote for the balanced budget amendment, which is the only hope of helping these young children in the future, the only hope of stopping us from spending their future away and saddling them with an irresponsible debt burden. Now our former colleague, Senator Simon, who led the fight for a balanced budget amendment on the Democrat side for many years, shared with us the words of another of our former colleagues, Senator Cohen, now Secretary of Defense, when he testified before the Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago. Senator Cohen was at one time opposed to a balanced budget amendment. And I remember those days because I have been responsible for bringing every balanced budget amendment to the floor of the U.S. Senate from the first one right on up until today. After serving in Congress for 18 years, Senator Cohen had this to say, and he was against it initially, but after 18 years, this is what he said: Today the ethic of self-sacrifice has been perversely inverted. Parents and grandparents borrow from their heirs so they might enjoy the comforts and pleasantries of the moment. The practice of handing our children trillions of dollars of debt with little more than a good luck wish can only be considered an unconscionable and criminal act. Secretary Cohen is exactly right. As I have repeatedly said, the mortgaging of our children's future is nothing short of fiscal child abuse and it must end. As a result of our failure to exhibit fiscal restraints in setting budget priorities our children are faced with not only the looming burden of our enormous debt but also with massive annual interest payments required just to maintain the standard. This year we will pay $360 billion in gross interest to service our existing debt. That means we will spend nearly $1 billion every day of this year just on interest on the debt. Now to put this in perspective, if we take just the net interest, meaning we ignore interest paid by the Government to the various trust funds and subtract interest income received by the Government, our annual interest payment would amount to $935 for every man, woman, and child in America. Just look at this. Interest on the national debt, we could pay $340 to every man, woman, and child in Utah every day. Think about it. That is in my own State, and the interest on the debt is the fastest growing item in the Federal budget. According to the CBO, interest on the debt will continue to rise substantially over the next 5 years, to $412 billion by the year 2002. My gosh, that is more than the total Federal budget was 20 years ago. That represents half of all projected individual income tax receipts for that year and nearly two times all corporate income taxes. By 2007, the interest on the debt is projected to reach a whopping $493 billion. That is just the interest we owe. That is not the debt. That $493 billion is just $50 billion shy of our entire discretionary budget for the current fiscal year. Mr. President, it is outrageous to me that we would consider subjecting our children to a future where 50 percent of their hard- earned tax dollars would go to service the debt incurred by us, their parents. Just think what we could do for our children and our children's children if this money were available to be put to more productive use. We have talked a lot about the WIC Program, Women, Infants, and Children Program. I know a lot about that. As a newly elected conservative, one of my counties said they did not want WIC funds because they did not want Federal Government strings. I thought WIC funds were pretty important because they helped lactating mothers to be able to bring the best nutritional needs to their children, and even though this was a county that really supported me I stood up and said I think the WIC Program is a good program. Today, that county and the mothers that are poor benefit from that WIC Program. It is a highly effective program and works to improve the health of the mothers and the newborn children, and also serves to reduce our Nation's overall health care costs. I have long supported the WIC Program, as has just about every Senator. We are constantly struggling to come up with the money to fully fund participation in the WIC Program. With the $360 billion we spend on interest on the debt this year not only could we fully fund participation in the WIC Program, we could afford to pay recipients nearly 100 times what they received last year. I could go through every program affecting children in our country today and we can talk about not allowing them to be disproportionately reduced. The best way to not allow children's programs to go down the drain is to pass the balanced budget amendment and put some fiscal responsibility into the Constitution, so we have to live within our means and we do not barter away our children's future, we do not mortgage it away, so we have the money to be able to help children. These gimmicks that some on the other side want to put into the Constitution are dangerous. In the end, they will wind up hurting children and not balancing the budget. The best thing we can do for our country is to get that budget balanced and keep it balanced and start paring down the national debt, as well. If we do not start doing that, we are going to pay the price and it will be a heavy, heavy price. Mr. President, I am very concerned about this because if we are going to have a balanced budget amendment everybody in the world knows and everybody in Congress knows this is it. This is the last chance. This has been developed over 20 years. It is a balanced budget amendment that has been developed by Democrats and Republicans. I do not believe any single person can say they wrote it. It is an attempt by all of us to get together and do what is right. It is supported by an overwhelming majority in this body. Sixty-eight people have guaranteed to their constituents they will vote for it. We need 67. We should have one more than 67 if everybody lives up to their word. Frankly, if we pass this balanced budget amendment, it has a very excellent chance of going through the House. Head Start is another program we have heard a lot about. I strongly support the Head Start Program. As chairman and ranking member of the Labor Committee, I was deeply involved in fighting to provide increased authorizations for Head Start, and I am proud of the fact that since I first came to the Senate, the number of children served by federally funded Head Start programs has more than doubled. And yet, given the budget constraints we face, we are still working toward the goal of fully funding the Head Start Program--a result I believe every one of my colleagues favors. If we could recoup just a small portion of the money we will pay in interest on the debt this year, we could fully fund Head Start in a heartbeat. Not only could we fully fund the entire Head Start Program, including the new Head Start Program for infants and toddlers that was established in 1994, with this year's interest expenditures we could increase Head Start funding for every one of those children by more than 10 times what we currently spend. There are plenty of other important programs we could improve if we were to free up the resources currently dedicated to servicing the debt. In fact, with the money we will spend in gross interest on the debt just this year, we could cover the costs of all food and nutrition assistance programs, including food stamps, for the last 14 years-- $346.9 billion. This same interest payment would cover the costs of all payments for WIC and other supplemental feeding programs, child nutrition and milk programs, student assistance, and low income home energy assistance for the last 20 years--$348.2 billion. Even in the current fiscal year, as this chart shows, with the money we will spend on gross interest payments, we could afford to double projected spending for elementary, secondary, and vocational education, higher education, research and general education aids, training and employment, housing assistance, food and nutrition assistance, social services, unemployment compensation, all health care services, and pollution control and abatement--and still increase Medicare spending by 50 percent. Now obviously we cannot simply pay off $5.3 trillion of debt and recoup our $360 billion in annual gross interest payments overnight. But, according to CBO, moving toward a balanced budget in 2002 would reduce projected net interest costs by some $46 billion and improve economic performance enough to produce a total fiscal dividend of $77 billion over the next 5 years. This represents real savings of nearly twice the amount we spent on all food and nutrition assistance programs last year, and is nearly 10 times all earned income tax credit payments for the past 10 years combined. This is real savings we can bring about to benefit our children now just by balancing the budget. But, if we continue to deficit spend, as we have in all but 8 of the last 66 years, we will only continue to compound our existing debt, increasing the interest payments necessary to service that debt and further exacerbating the tax burdens our children will face in future years. According to OMB and CBO, such tax burdens may equate to a lifetime net tax rate of about 82 percent for future generations in order to finance the cost of government at all levels. The 82 percent figure for our children stands in stark contrast to the 29 percent net tax rate for the generation of Americans born in the 1920's and the 34.4 percent net tax rate for the generation born in the 1960's. But the mammoth costs of financing both the Government and our enormous national debt are not the only burdens we are creating for our children by not balancing the budget. We should also recognize the significant economic benefits that our children stand to inherit from recurring balanced budgets, but which we are withholding from future generations by failing to exercise fiscal restraint today. As CBO reaffirms in its January report, balancing the budget in 2002 and subsequent years will lead to increased real economic growth, reduced interest rates, higher corporate profits, and increased revenues to the Federal Government. As a result, the Joint Economic Committee has estimated that a typical middle class family could easily save $1,500 each year; $1,500 every single year, Mr. President. That is like a built-in $500-per-child tax credit for a family of five--at no cost to the Government--just for passing the balanced budget amendment. I know a lot of families in Utah that could use an extra $1,500 each year to pay for food or clothing for their children, to pay for college tuition, to pay down credit card debts, or even to take a vacation and spend time with their kids. Even a college student could save an estimated $120 each year on a $10,000 student loan if we were to pass the balanced budget amendment. And it is not the Government that must pay for that savings. It is simply the real benefit generated by the economy's reaction to long- term balanced budgets. Mr. President, it is time for us to face reality. The single largest threat to our children's well-being is not that the Republicans and Democrats will be forced to live within their means when funding any given program. The real threat is that we will continue down the path of the last 66 years and mortgage our children's future earnings to pay for what we consider to be spending priorities today. If we do, our children will be left with no choice but to cut the very programs my colleague is talking about in ways that are unthinkable today, or drastically increase taxes on every American family to pay for the continued existence of those important programs. The balanced budget amendment is the only real assurance we have that our children will not be forced to make those choices. Now Mr. President, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the solution to this problem. In fact, Grant Anderson, a 13-year-old young man in my home State of Utah, took the time to write a letter to me outlining how it can be done. Let me share with my colleagues what he had to say: Dear Orrin Hatch, I think we have a huge problem with the national budget. I have the easiest way to fix it. Do you want to hear it? Okay. Stop buying things if you don't have the money. That about says it all, Mr. President. It's just that simple. Yet, without a balanced budget amendment, there appears to be no real end in sight to Congress' abdication of its responsibility to people like Grant Anderson and to future generations. The fact is that after 4 years of declining deficits we have not reduced our staggering $5.3 trillion debt one penny. We have only slowed the growth in the national debt. More importantly, as my Republican colleagues and I predicted would happen during the debate on the President's 1993 budget package, CBO now predicts that annual deficits will resume their upward climb beginning this year--from an annual deficit of $124 billion in 1997, to $188 billion in 2002, and reaching a near-record $278 billion in 2007. Even OMB's estimates from the President's newly proposed budget, which predict lower deficit totals than CBO, project that gross Federal debt will top $6.6 trillion, exceeding 66 percent of our gross domestic product, by 2002. Now I know that there are those who will say that we can solve this problem without the constraints of a balanced budget amendment--that Congress and the President are committed to balancing the budget and to putting an end to the era of deficit spending. While I can only pray that they are right, our history of deficit reduction efforts in Congress should give the American people reason to be skeptical. Since 1978 we have adopted no fewer than five statutory regimes which promised to bring about balanced budgets. Every single one of them has failed. As this chart shows, time after time statutory fixes have been met with increased deficits. In fact, nearly 85 percent of our current national debt has accumulated while Congress has operated within statutory budget frameworks designed to ensure balanced budgets. Now, we are told, things are different. But will they really be all that different without the discipline of a constitutional amendment? A quick look at the President's budget shows that under his plan, we will continue to have deficits that are higher than last year's budget deficit until the year 2000. Only in the last 2 years of this budget do we see the dramatic cuts necessary to bring us into balance. That's right, Mr. President, a full 75 percent of the deficit reduction planned in President Clinton's recent budget submission comes in the 2 years after President Clinton leaves office. This is reminiscent to me of the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law, wherein we committed ourselves to balancing the budget by 1991, only to see the law slowly amended, circumvented, and the requirement for a balanced budget finally eliminated just 1 year prior to the year in which we were to achieve balance under the original law. While I commend the President for his avowed commitment to balancing the budget and appreciate the dedication expressed by leaders of both political parties to reaching a balanced budget, I seriously doubt whether, without the weight of a constitutional requirement to balance the budget, we will achieve balance by 2002. Even if we did--and I intend to work to that end--there is nothing to prevent future Congresses from yielding to the political pressures that would lead to renewed deficit spending. We need a constitutional amendment if we are truly committed to solving this problem. Mr. President, passing the balanced budget amendment, free of exemptions and loopholes that can be exploited by those who might not be fully dedicated to balancing the budget, is the most important thing we can do in this Congress to protect our children and the future generations that will follow. I urge my colleagues to join me in this effort by supporting the balanced budget amendment. If that happens, we will protect children like never before. To me that is worth it all. And in the end it will accomplish what the distinguished Senator from Minnesota would like to do. But if we put amendments like this in everybody and their dog will be in here with some sort of a program they want to protect because they think it is the most important program in the world. No. Let us put everything in the budget on budget. Let us have everything subject to the balanced budget amendment and let us have them compete for the available funds as it should be. Then let us make the right priority choices. And I guarantee my friend from Minnesota that Orrin Hatch will be there with him trying to help the children of this country so that they don't suffer a disproportionate reduction in their programs. And I do not think they will as long as both he and I are here, and others as well. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I will not take long. I know my colleague is sincere. I know he is a very good person and that he feels very deeply about children. And I have a great regard for him. He knows that. Children have the love in this town. One of the most effective lobbyists in this town is Marian Wright Edelman. I know. She and I worked hard to get the child care bill through. That has helped millions of children all over this country. I do not take a second seat to anybody with regard to taking care of children. In fact, Elaine and I have six. We are expecting our 16th and 17th grandchild within 2 weeks. I want them to have a future. I want them to have the care. I want there to be some money to help them. I want our country to be solvent. I do not want their futures bartered away and mortgaged away. The reason child care programs are being cut every year is because we are spending it all on interest on the national debt. The only thing that will give children protection in the future is if we pass this balanced budget amendment. We have here 28 years of unbalanced budgets. I do not know about others, but this pile is very significant to me. Every year we have people who are of the more liberal persuasion saying we should spend more, we should just get the will to balance the budget but we should spend more. They are inconsistent. Let me just tell you something. I think out of the mouths of children comes the greatest truths sometimes. This is a letter I received from Grant Anderson, a young boy. Here is what he said, August 5, 1996: Dear Orrin Hatch. I think we have a huge problem with the national budget. I have the easiest way to fix it. Do you want to hear it? OK-- With an exclamation mark. And then he writes in big print the letters. He said: Stop buying things if you don't have money-- And a bigger exclamation mark. And then he said: Thanks for your time. Grant S. Anderson. P.S. My mom and dad voted for you. A particularly good letter, I thought. But the fact of the matter is Grant is right on the money. My friend Grant Anderson really calls it the way it should be. If we are going to stop spending money we do not have, we have got to get rid of all these years of unbalanced budgets. And since we have proven that we are not going to get rid of them without a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, then, by gosh, I suggest we pass the balanced budget amendment so by the year 2002 we have the true budget that will be balanced so kids like Grant Anderson and all the kids my colleague is fighting for and I am fighting for will have a future. Now, to me out of the mouths of young people sometimes comes the greatest truth. Dear Orrin Hatch. I think we have a huge problem with the national budget. I have the easiest way to fix it. Do you want to hear it? OK. Stop buying things if you don't have money. Thanks for your time. Grant S. Anderson. I am grateful to Grant. I am grateful that he took the time to write to me, and there are thousands of others who are writing to us who want us to try to put some fiscal sanity into the system. We have tried five different balance-the-budget methodologies and not one of them has worked. The distinguished Senator said his amendment is not a gimmick, but his amendment reads: It is the policy of the United States that in achieving a balanced budget amendment-- ``It is the policy of the United States.'' He is writing policy into the Constitution-- Federal outlays must not be reduced in a manner that disproportionately affects outlays for education, nutrition and health programs for poor children. I agree with him; it is not a gimmick. It is a risky gimmick. If you start putting language into the Constitution that the distinguished Senator thinks can be easily interpreted, he does not know much about the Supreme Court if he takes that attitude. I have to tell you, we are making a great mistake. So I hope our colleagues will realize it is important to keep this amendment intact. It is the only amendment that has a chance of passing. It is a bipartisan amendment, and I hope we will support it here today. I move to table the Senator's amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the Senator indicated he would like 100 people to vote for his amendment. I will make a suggestion to the Senator, and that is, amend your amendment to put it in a sense-of-the- Senate resolution form, and I will work to get you 100 votes. But we are talking about amending the Constitution with language that really clutters up the Constitution with language that should not be in the balanced budget amendment. If the Senator will do that, I will work to get him 100 votes in the Senate, because nobody wants to treat children or children's programs disproportionately, but it is not constitutional language, and it should not be in the Constitution. I have to be opposed to it, and I hope most of our fellow Senators will be opposed to it. Nobody is opposed to children. I think that would be a reasonable way of resolving this. Put it in a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, so it is not incorporated in the Constitution, as a sense-of-the-Congress resolution in the Congress. It just is not the way we should amend the Constitution of the United States. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I cannot let that happen, but if the Senator will change and do that, I would be happy to go to a vote, and I would work my side of the floor to get 100 people to vote to say we do not want children's programs to be treated disproportionately. I hope the Senator will consider this kind offer. It is a sincere offer. I share his viewpoint with regard to children. I think virtually everybody in here does. The fact of the matter is, though, that all items have to be on the budget if we are going to have any kind of a balanced budget amendment work. I know the Senator is not going to vote for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution no matter what we put into it. Even if we accepted his amendment as part of the balanced budget amendment, he would not vote for it. That way, you are sending a message. That way, you would have your colleagues voting with you. Otherwise, I think people who love and revere the Constitution have to say this is not the way you amend the Constitution; we should not put this language into a constitutional amendment because it is not constitutional. Frankly, I suggest to my distinguished colleague, I would like to help him do that if he wants to do that. If he doesn't, then I have to oppose this amendment, and I hope most Senators will oppose the amendment, because this type of language should not go into the Constitution, because although it is meaningful language, it is not constitutional language, and it will not guarantee the children's programs are going to be treated any differently than anything else under a balanced budget amendment. I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield just for a second?

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I will only take a few minutes. I want to thank the distinguished Senator from Illinois for the kind way he has conducted himself on this amendment. He has a wonderful personality. He did a very good job in our committee, and I think he has done a very good job here on the floor. In all honesty, his amendment would drive huge loopholes into the balanced budget amendment and make it, basically useless, because almost anybody could claim almost any type of event as an economic emergency. That would trigger his amendment and do away with the balanced budget amendment. There is one thing I would like to clarify. My good friend from Vermont talked about Fred Bergsten. Fred Bergsten suggested we shoot for a small annual surplus to be used during the course of each fiscal year. Mr. Bergsten is a Keynesian who believes fiscal policy will work better if the cycles are above the zero balance line rather than below. The fact the past surpluses accumulated in past years cannot be used without a three-fifths vote puts a lock on our savings, so such savings will not be used willy-nilly. But the best use of surpluses will be to pay down our debt. If Congress decides to use accumulated surpluses, it will be easier to get a three-fifths vote to use savings than to borrow, and that is the point I am making. Let me just conclude with the thought that the Durbin amendment is an unnecessary loophole that would, basically, make the balanced budget amendment, once a part of the Constitution, very ineffective. Congress can respond appropriately to real needs, but we need the increased protections of Senate Joint Resolution 1 to protect future generations. I worry about our children and our grandchildren and their children. I worry about whether people are going to have good jobs in the future. I worry about whether it is going to take a bushel barrel of dollars to buy a loaf of bread. I worry about whether we are going to monetize this debt, as the distinguished liberal Democrat Senator from Illinois, Senator Durbin's predecessor, Paul Simon, has always said will happen. If we monetize this debt, this country, as we know it, will be gone, because people will no longer believe in the credit of the United States. If we inflate our economy to pay off our huge national deficits and debt, we are ultimately going to wind up where we will have inflation that would eat every working person's lunch every day. If you really love the poor, if you really love senior citizens, if you really love our children and grandchildren, if you really love the future of this country, then we can't have loopholes like this blown into the balanced budget. We have to stand up and vote for a strong balanced budget amendment. It is difficult, I have to admit. It makes life a little more difficult for us as Members of Congress, but don't you think it is time to end these unbalanced budgets? Here are 28 of them, the last 28 years, and without this amendment, it will go on forever and our children's future will be gone. I yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. HATCH. How much time is remaining?

Mr. HATCH. Yes, I yield.

Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HATCH. I will only be a minute. I will say this, I agree with the Senator. The fact we move to table an amendment doesn't necessarily mean the substance of that amendment or the substance of that vote should be ignored. It is just a procedural way of handling the matter that I think we are going to have to do in an orderly way. But I think the vote will still mean who voted for it and who voted against. I always felt that way. I don't have any problem with that. I also would just like to say that I don't think there are any blood oaths around here either. I hope some Democrats who have cosponsored and my fellow Republicans will vote to sustain the motions to table, but I don't know of any blood oaths, nor do I know of any all-profound commitments that people have made. I just believe that people know this game is about to come to an end and that this is a chance to pass a balanced budget amendment to put our fiscal affairs in order, and that this is the last chance. This involves both Republicans and Democrats who have worked hard to come up with this consensus amendment in the best interest of our country. I understand there are different sincerely held beliefs on this matter. But in any event, I do not agree with my colleague.

Mr. HATCH. I yield 2 more minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. HATCH. I thank the Senator. Privilege Of The Floor

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to express my regard for the distinguished Senator from Minnesota. He is very sincere, and he always means well, and, frankly, I care a great deal for him. Having said that, I do want to point out that this is a constitutional amendment we are talking about here, and I need to take just a few minutes to respond to some of the comments that my friend and colleague, Senator Wellstone, has made. Let me begin by saying that I do not know of any other Member of this body more genuinely concerned about the children in this country and particularly those in poverty, unless it is myself. He works hard for these unfortunate people, these unfortunate kids, as do a lot of us, and I give him credit for that. When Senator Wellstone speaks on these issues, he speaks from his heart, and we all know that. Regardless of the differences on this amendment, you still have to give him credit for that. Having said that, Mr. President, the efforts to try to help children by exempting programs that affect them from the balanced budget amendment's purview will have precisely the opposite effect. As a matter of fact, we are throwing their future away unless we pass this amendment. We are saddling them with historic debt that literally is going to cause them to spend the rest of their lives working to get out from under the debt that we in our generation are leaving, or should I say the past generations because it is more than just our generation. The Senator has circulated a new section 8 that would become part of this amendment if it was passed. Let us have no illusions. Senator Wellstone, the distinguished Senator from Minnesota, is not going to vote for this constitutional amendment no matter what happens, even if we accepted this section. But we could not, because this section says: It is the policy of the United States that, in achieving a balanced budget, Federal outlays must not be reduced in a manner that disproportionately affects outlays for education, nutrition, and health programs for poor children. He has circulated a whole number of amendments exempting the Women, Infants, and Children Program, a program I support, Head Start, a program I support, and education positions which I support. His current amendment exempts, as it says here, outlays for education, nutrition and health programs for poor children from disproportionate cuts. If we care about children in this country--and I know we do; I don't think there is a person in the Senate who would not say that he or she cares--the most important thing we could do is pass this balanced budget amendment. Without it, it is our children and our grandchildren who will inherit the legacy of these astronomical debts, and they are going up by leaps and bounds. It is our children and grandchildren who will be called upon to pay the price for our years of profligacy, and they will pay that price with higher taxes, higher interest rates, fewer jobs, and economic instability. Thus, the amendment that we must support in order to save the children is not one which would gut the balanced budget amendment. To ensure the well-being of future generations, we need to pass the balanced budget amendment. It is the only hope for our children. One of the things that is difficult for me to understand is why some would argue or assume that exempting certain programs from the balanced budget regime would somehow save or help those programs. Just the opposite is the case. If there is a program worth preserving, and I suggest those programs are, we ought to make sure these programs are funded responsibly and not with rubber checks. What is the point? Exempt a program from the budget so it would be allowed to go bankrupt on its own? Is that what the point is? That is simply the kind of reasoning that has led us to a $5.3 trillion national debt, going to $5.4 trillion in the next couple of months. Mr. President, several self-proclaimed liberals are making these points as well as myself, notably Representative Joseph Kennedy, among others, the Representative from Massachusetts. They have become staunch supporters of the balanced budget amendment. Joe Kennedy is one of them because, as a self-professed liberal, he believes and other liberals believe, who are supportive of the amendment, that balancing the budget is the only way to protect and preserve the worthy programs for the needy. We are not doing anyone any good by bankrupting the Government and spending an increasing amount on interest on debt. Representative Kennedy last week suggested that interest was the primary villain, crowding out good social spending programs. Imagine what we could do with the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend on interest every year? No, the way to ensure the preservation and stability of critical programs and help the most needy in our society is to foster fiscal integrity. This is not the first time we have seen an amendment that sought to carve out a loophole in the balanced budget amendment, nor will it be the last. But I would like to ask my colleagues to consider what the balanced budget amendment would look like if we really did exempt all of these different parts of the budget because we like some parts better than others. Anything affecting children, gone; seniors, gone; investments, disasters, all manner of social spending, all gone from the amendment if these folks have their way. So what is left? What would those who propose this barrage of exemptions and loopholes leave under the balanced budget amendment? Absolutely nothing. And everybody on this floor has some favorite program, that is what has led us to this morass and this mess. We all would like to save something. We all would like to do something. I have to say, it is pretty hard to fight against children's programs. I don't know anybody who wants to do that, and if they have to compete, they will compete very well and respectably for their share of the Federal budget. They always have and they will. I have to admit, I wish there was more money for these programs. I wish I could do more for those programs. But the best thing I think I can do for them is pass a balanced budget amendment that puts the fiscal responsibility into this system. Look, what do they leave under the balanced budget amendment? Nothing? That is what it all comes down to. These kind of amendments tug at the heartstrings of all Americans, and they try to make those who sponsor the balanced budget amendment look mean. But the truth is, if you really care about children, senior citizens, and disaster victims, you will vote for the balanced budget amendment. You will vote for a Federal Government with the fiscal strength to be there for them. You will vote for a balanced budget amendment because, without that, you will never be able to protect these programs and these people. And you will vote for a balanced budget amendment without loopholes such as the distinguished Senator from Minnesota is sincerely advocating here, because everybody deserves a balanced budget amendment. I hope we reject these amendments and pass Senate Joint Resolution 1 as it is before us. Additionally, I am not clear on the effect of the amendment of the distinguished Senator from Minnesota. This Wellstone amendment states that it is the policy of the United States that, in achieving a balanced budget, there should not be disproportionate cuts to poor children's programs. What is this, a sense-of-the-Constitution resolution? Is that what we put in the Constitution? I don't think so. I know it is not intended as an insult, but it kind of is, in a way, by suggesting we are not going to do right by our children. The distinguished Senator says we are not doing right now by our children because there is just not enough money. I can agree with that. I can agree I wish we had more money, I wish we could solve every social program there is. But no nation on Earth has ever completely solved them, and certainly no nation that is not fiscally responsible. And ours is the most fiscally responsible Nation in the world, or at least it has been up to the last 60 years. In the last 60 years--in just the last 28 years, we have had 28 straight unbalanced budgets that are demonstrated by this. We have two piles here, one behind the other. It would be a lot higher than double my size if we put the other pile on top of this one. These are unbalanced budgets over each of the last 28 years. That is only part of it. We have only balanced the budget 8 times in 66 years. No wonder we cannot do enough for our children. No wonder we do not have the money to take care of these social needs. It is going to get worse and the people who are going to get hurt the most are children. Look at Social Security. When I talk to seniors, there are those who want to take Social Security out of the purview of the balanced budget amendment, and that will be one of the big votes on this amendment. I talk to seniors. They are concerned about children, too, and they are concerned that most all the social spending now is going towards seniors, and very few dollars are going to children. Part of that is because we do not have a fiscally responsible Congress that has to try and divvy up the money so they work in the best interests of all Americans. Now, we have had a Congress that just said, ``Just keep borrowing and just keep spending and you can just keep doing that ad infinitum, forever.'' We all know that is not the case. Our priorities do shift from time to time. Again, I get back to the Wellstone amendment, is this a sense-of-the- Constitution resolution? What does ``disproportionate'' mean? My gosh, do you realize what constitutional authorities would do with a word like that? What does that mean? Does this limit across-the-board budget cutting? Is that what it does? Our priorities shift from time to time, as we do the budgets. Congress has to be free to allocate resources within a balanced budget rule. It has to be free to do that. We cannot write something like this into the Constitution. How do we decide what is disproportionate? To senior citizens, they might think that spending on children is disproportionate, rather than spending on them. To children's advocates, spending on seniors is disproportionate to what we should be spending on children. We have to battle these things out. That is what we are elected to do. But we need to do it within the constraints of a balanced budget amendment so we really get down to the matter of setting priorities. I happen to believe if we set priorities, the distinguished Senator from Minnesota will be right in there pitching for the priorities of children, and so will I. (Ms. COLLINS assumed the chair.)

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I think we will be able to win on this, to the extent we have the votes to win it. Furthermore, on this disproportionate business, how do we decide which programs affect children? Do we do it on the basis of program title, or by surveying recipients to see the actual use of the money? Is that how we do it? Madam President, it is pretty clear that if you put something like this in the Constitution, you create more problems than you solve. It's pretty clear that if you start advocating for any one select part of the budget to be outside the budget, because you want that protected from budgetary restraint, that you are hurting everybody. It's pretty clear if you prefer one group over another, you're going to have a lot of conflict among groups. If you do that, you darn well better do it within a balanced budget constraint, so the people know what is going on, and not just think the money is going to come from somewhere, which is about the attitude we have had around here for the last 60 years, and certainly for the last 28 years, every year we had an unbalanced budget. And in current years, where we said this is a balanced budget for the first time--give me a break, not one of them has been and nobody has thought any would be. I have to tell you, I think it is going to be a budget charade this year as well. The President's budget, according to CBO, is already $66 billion in debt, and the budget will be balanced in the year 2002, that is assuming current interest rates, that is assuming current rosy scenarios, that is assuming we continue to have no minor or major recession. All of those things are ifs. We should reject this and similar amendments and pass the balanced budget amendment that will lead a stronger future for our children and grandchildren away from bankruptcy and debt, which is where we are headed if we don't get smart and do what is right. To exempt anything from the budget is almost an insult to everybody who serves. It is an insult to everybody who serves in the Congress. We are here to try and do what is right. I believe the distinguished Senator from Minnesota, myself and others, who similarly feel the depth of these problems, will be able to fight very, very well for these particular items in the budget, but within a balanced-budget concept. If we do that, I think we will have more money in the end, more real dollars to help children than we are going to have if we don't pass this balanced budget amendment. So I hope that our colleagues will vote this down. Just so people will know right off the bat, I probably am going to move to table every amendment that comes up. I don't want anybody to feel badly about it. We think that is the only orderly way to proceed.

Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to yield for a comment.

Mr. HATCH. That is what we have always done.

Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I hear the distinguished Senator, but what he fails to say is that we are continuing that system without any restraint if we do not pass the balanced budget amendment. I think the Senator from North Dakota, not deliberately, has made several misleading statements, to some of which I would like to respond. He says the balanced budget amendment does not balance the budget if it does not exclude Social Security. Of course he fails to mention that in the long run everyone knows Social Security is going to run huge deficits and that it is not always going to run surpluses. This tends to balance out. If we follow his suggestion, we do nothing but continue the current system. His own President is including Social Security because he has to, because it is part of the overall unified budget. By the time today's children are retiring, Social Security will be running annual deficits of $7 trillion each year. Unless we keep Social Security on the budget and make it work and resolve it, in current dollars, it will be a $7 trillion deficit a year. He also fails to mention that this huge deficit would not count under the Social Security amendment that he supports. The amendment he supports would call this $7 trillion deficit a balanced budget. You talk about hoax; I don't see how anybody can argue that. Yet they do. The fact is, we are in trouble and what are we going to do? Just the status quo? Just keep doing year after year what we are doing; mortgaging our children's future and making it so this, the greatest country in the world, becomes the least great country in the world? That is where we are headed if we do not do something about it. The Senator from North Dakota also described the balanced budget amendment as looting Social Security. What a half-truth. The balanced budget amendment does not touch one penny in Social Security. That whole argument is nothing more than an accounting preference. The Social Security trust funds will be still invested in the greatest securities in the world, and that is American securities, U.S. Treasury bills, if you will. That is the only thing they can be invested in. That is going to happen whether we pass a balanced budget amendment or if we do not. So, this is a phony argument and, frankly, it would be literally--literally--a risky, risky gimmick to take Social Security out of the major budget because, on the one hand, there are surpluses today, but they are all invested in American securities. Starting about the year 2013, we have huge deficits; not surpluses, but deficits. Should we take it out when we have surpluses and not put it in when we have deficits? No. You keep it in all the time and you work with it and you do what is right. That is what the Secretary of the Treasury did. That is what he suggested. That is what he said is the right way to do it. By the way, that is also what the President just did in sending up his budget. So, if we do nothing here, we have business as usual, another, a 29th, year of unbalanced budgets. I would feel a lot better if some of these people who are bringing up these amendments would be voting for the balanced budget amendment. But, no, these are amendments to gut the balanced budget amendment. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HATCH. I yield 1 minute.

Mr. HATCH. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Idaho.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, what we need to do for families is to resist the higher interest costs on the mortgages, student loans, consumer purchases, auto loans, et cetera. If Congress can get its fiscal house in order, more jobs will be created and those jobs will be more secure. If Congress stops borrowing so much, we will have a more stable economy, which, of course, can help us to avoid these economic downturns in the first place. The only way we are going to get there is to quit piling the 29th unbalanced budget and the 30th and the 31st on top of each other. The fact of the matter is the balanced budget amendment is flexible enough to respond to most needs--in fact, all needs. Put it that way. But it is serious enough to stop Congress from continuing the pattern of borrowing year after year which has kept the economy from growing as well as it could have. My colleague from Illinois has introduced an amendment that seeks to waive the provisions of Senate Joint Resolution 1 for any fiscal year in which there is an economic recession or serious economic emergency. As such, the Durbin amendment seeks to avoid the three-fifths vote required by Senate Joint Resolution 1 to waive the balanced budget rule. This three-fifths majority was placed in the balanced budget amendment so that a simple majority of the Congress could not run deficits except in important situations--those recognized by a supermajority of the Members. Efforts such as the Durbin amendment would blow a huge hole in the balanced budget amendment. The terms used in the Durbin amendment is undefined. The determination of an economic recession or serious economic emergency could easily be manipulated by a spendthrift Congress as a way to avoid the discipline of the balanced budget amendment. Thus, the amendment would create a giant loophole that would swallow the balanced budget rule. Remember, also, that if the balanced budget amendment is waived for a recession, it is waived for all spending in that year. In other words, this amendment would permit deficit spending for any number of wasteful projects that are in no way related to the so-called economic emergency. Just remember President Clinton's 1993 attempt to push through a multi-billion dollar boondoggle under the guise of trying to end a recession which had in fact already ended. In short, Mr. President, if you take your finger out of the hole in the dike, the whole town is going to be flooded. One of the arguments made in favor of this amendment is that without it, the balanced budget amendment will somehow inhibit the functioning of the so-called automatic stabilizers. Mr. President, I believe the importance of automatic stabilizers has been overstated and, in any case, the balanced budget amendment will not inhibit their functioning. Moreover, the Durbin amendment does not respond to the concerns raised about the automatic stabilizers. It simply allows Congress to avoid the balanced budget rule by a lower threshold. Just to be clear on what these stabilizers are supposed to do, the notion of automatic stabilizers has to do primarily with the belief that in an economic downturn, there is a decrease in tax revenues and a concomitant increase in unemployment compensation and other welfare payments. The claim that the automatic stabilizers have moderated the business cycle is based on the assumption that the relative increases in Government spending associated with automatic stabilizers causes automatic, effective counter-cyclical fiscal policy. It is argued that such increased spending is the key to moderating both the depth and length of recessions and that the balanced budget amendment will prevent that spending from occurring. I believe the characterization of the effectiveness of the automatic stabilizers has been overstated. When appearing before the Senate Budget Committee just last month, CBO Director June O'Neill was asked a question about the relationship between automatic stabilizers and the apparent moderation in the business cycle over the last half-century. She cited better monetary policy and the Nation's move from away an agricultural based economy, with the inherent ups and downs that go along with agriculture, as factors at least as important as automatic stabilizers in minimizing recessions. Additionally, the move to a service economy and better inventory management practices have reduced the fluctuations associated with inventory overstocks and the factory economy. Further, a financial markets expert pointed out to the Judiciary Committee that the primary reasons why the business cycle has moderated in recent years are, first, monetary policy, which is controlled by the Federal Reserve Board; and second, the increasing efficiency of private markets, because of better information and other factors. These have nothing to do with automatic stabilizers or fiscal policy. It is relatively well-recognized that the perceived moderation of the business cycle over recent decades is due to many factors. For example, a December 2, 1996 article in the Washington Post affirmed, ``The success in finally halting the U.S. economic roller-coaster has been the result of many elements * * *'' The Post article cited ``new technologies, the deregulation of many industries, and the increased globalization of business and finance,'' as some of the most important changes that helped stabilize our economy. Global trade enables us to export what would otherwise be oversupply thus avoiding a bust cycle. Further, that article quoted Herb Stein, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, who noted that ``[b]ecause the economy is so big and so diversified and so open to the world economy, a shock would have less impact now.'' Thus, an event that may have sent the country into a recession in 1890 would only be a localized disturbance today. Another major factor in helping to tranquilize recessions that the Post recognized is that we are no longer on the gold standard. ``After the United States was no longer obligated to defend the price of gold, and the nation's deficits in international transactions could be financed easily by that world capital market, the Fed had far more ability to set interest rates according to the needs of the domestic economy.'' So while these automatic stabilizers may have had some effect, there are clearly many other major factors that have brought our economy to the level of consistency we enjoy today. Certainly the automatic stabilizers are no justification for balancing the budget only eight times in the last 65 years. Let's face it. Our deficits have not been countercyclical, they have been counterproductive. While business cycles have come and gone over the last four decades, our deficit habit has not. Our deficits are structural and largely permanent, not cyclical. I also want to note that the notion of a country spending itself out of a recession is now rejected by many economists. One commentator has wryly stated that the theory of spending and borrowing out of a recession ``is the game-plan that propelled Argentina and Bolivia to economic superpower status in the 1970's.'' More recently, Japan has tried to do this and the result has been continued recession and larger debt. On the other hand, a number of the world's up-and-coming countries are enjoying booming economies while keeping their national budget in balance or even surplus. Perhaps we should be more concerned that we do not spend ourselves out of prosperity. But even if we assume that automatic stabilizers are important, Mr. President, the balanced budget amendment will not impede their use. The balanced budget amendment in no way prevents us from running a small surplus, which could be used to offset the effects of an economic downturn, thus avoiding a deficit. In fact, a number of experts the Judiciary Committee has heard over the years have suggested we do so. Fred Bergsten, a noted economist and former Treasury Department official, suggests we create a habit of regularly shooting for a small surplus, rather than absolute balance, which will allow us to use fiscal policy within the balanced budget rule better than we can now without it, with chronic, structural deficits. Even if we drop below an intended annual rainy day surplus, the balanced budget amendment has anticipated this sort of need. A three- fifths vote in Congress will allow the balanced budget rule to be suspended for a year. That way, we have the flexibility to run reasonable deficits if we need to. The three-fifths requirement makes sure that we do not waive the amendment unless it is a true need and not just an attempt to avoid the tough choices. Some have suggested that the necessary three-fifths will be hard to come by. The history of the votes in Congress demonstrate that in actual circumstances of economic need, the Congress has had little difficulty achieving the vote that would be required under the balanced budget amendment, despite the fact that no such requirement was in place. The Congress has voted a number of times to extend the emergency unemployment compensation program. During the past 15 years, according to the Congressional Research Service, there is only one instance where the extension of this important program failed to garner a supermajority of votes in either Chamber. Indeed, in many cases even higher supermajority requirements would have been fulfilled. In times of real need, Congress will get a three-fifths vote. Some have also argued that the Durbin amendment is needed because Congress is too slow to respond to recessions. Well, they are half right. Congress is too slow to respond to recessions. Almost everyone agrees that when Congress tries to spend the country out of an economic downturn, their attempt either has little effect or they make things worse by spending as the economy is already recovering and then sowing the seeds of a future recession. But the Durbin amendment does nothing to address this concern. It does not speed up congressional action--I'm not sure anything can. All it does is change the vote required from three-fifths to a majority. And since history clearly shows that we get the three-fifths when we need it, all this amendment would do is make it easier to waive the balanced budget rule when we don't really need it. Finally, Mr. President, when he introduced his amendment the Senator from Illinois told a story about a friend who needed temporary help from the Government in his transition from one job to another. There is no doubt that this is a meaningful and laudable use of our precious resources. But it seems to me that we do all the working people of America a lot more good if we balance the budget, and thus reduce the number of recessions that they must endure, than if we create a loophole in the balanced budget amendment to allow future Congresses to easily increase the already crushing burden of debt. We ought to be less concerned about when we can spend more, and more concerned about when we must spend less. Senator Durbin's amendment seeks to waive the provisions of Senate Joint Resolution 1 for any fiscal year in which there is an economic recession or serious economic emergency in the United States as declared by joint resolution. As such, the Durbin amendment seeks to avoid the three-fifths vote majority prescribed by Senate Joint Resolution 1 in avoiding the requirement that receipts match outlays for any given fiscal year. This three-fifths majority was placed in the balanced budget amendment so that a simple majority of the Congress could not run deficits except in important situations--those recognized by a supermajority of the members. Efforts such as the Durbin amendment will render Senate Joint Resolution 1 useless. The Durbin amendment is wholly unnecessary. A brief analysis of historical fact will demonstrate that in circumstances of national disaster or economic downturn, the Congress has had little difficulty passing remedial legislation with supermajority support. The history of votes in this body demonstrates that in actual circumstances of economic assistance for unemployment or disaster relief, the Congress has had little difficulty achieving the supermajority vote that would be required under the balanced budget amendment. The Congressional Research Service helped me do some research on voting patterns in this area. I want to present for you the results of my research because I think it is illustrative. Let me summarize the results briefly: On the question of responding to economic recessions, the Congress has voted a number of times to extend the emergency unemployment compensation program. During the past 15 years, I count only one instance where the extension of this important program failed to garner a supermajority of votes in either Chamber, based on Congressional Research Service data. Similarly, in the area of disaster relief, over the past 7 years, I found that in virtually every circumstance, emergency spending bills placed before the House and Senate passed with supermajorities, on the order required by the balanced budget amendment, even though no such requirement was in place. Let me go into more detail on the unemployment compensation votes. H.R. 3167, which became Public Law 103-152, extended the emergency unemployment compensation program [EUCP] in November 1993. This conference report passed the House with a vote of 320 to 105 and passed the Senate, 79 to 20. The underlying bill achieved similar majorities, passing the House 320 to 105, and the Senate 79 to 20. In March 1993, another emergency unemployment compensation bill passed the Congress and became Public Law 103-6. The supermajority on H.R. 920 in the Senate was 66 to 33, and the vote in the House was 254 to 161. In 1992, the House passed the conference report on H.R. 5260, to extend the EUCP, by a vote of 396 to 23. The Senate acted similarly, passing the bill, which became Public Law 102-318, by a vote of 93 to 3. Also in 1992, the Senate passed H.R. 4095 to extend the EUCP by a vote of 94 to 2. The House passed the same bill, which became Public Law 102-244, by a vote of 404 to 8. In 1991, the House passed S. 1722, to provide emergency unemployment compensation, by a vote of 294 to 127. The Senate passed the same bill, which was vetoed by the President, by a vote of 69 to 30. Similarly, the House passed the conference report on this bill by a vote of 300 to 118 and the Senate passed the measure 65 to 35. Earlier in 1991, the House passed H.R. 3201, to provide emergency unemployment compensation, by a vote of 375 to 45. This measure became Public Law 102-107. The Senater passed it by voice vote. Finally, H.R. 1281 was passed in March 1991, providing funding for the Unemployment Compensation Administration [UCA]. This bill passed the House with a vote of 365 to 43. It passed the Senate by a vote of 92 to 8. The conference report on this bill, Public Law 102-27, passed with tallies of 340 to 48 and 93 to 3, respectively. In 1990, the House passed H.R. 4404, to provide funding for the UCA, by a vote of 362 to 59. The conference report passed 308 to 108. This bill became Public Law 101-302, after passing the Senate by voice vote. All the way back in 1983, the Senate passed H.R. 1718, to provide funds for the Unemployment Trust Fund. The bill, Public Law 98-8, passed the Senate 82 to 15. Finally, the Senate voted in February 1982 to pass House Joint Resolution 391, to provide funding for the Employment and Training Administration, by a vote of 95 to 0. What do these vote tallies indicate? They demonstrate that the Durbin amendment is completely unnecessary. During the past 15 years, my research reveals only one instance where a vote to provide unemployment compensation during a period of economic recession did not pass by a supermajority. One time in 15 years. That's remarkable. Similarly, in the area of disaster relief, Congress has overwhelmingly acted by supermajority votes in responding to crises. In fiscal year 1995, the House and Senate voted on H.R. 1944, which provided $7.2 billion disaster aid, mostly to help with recovery efforts in Los Angeles from the 1994 earthquake. The bill passed the Senate with a vote of 90 to 7--a clear supermajority. In the House, the bill passed with 276 votes--also a supermajority. The 1994 fiscal year Disaster Supplemental Appropriations bill, H.R. 3759, received similar treatment. That bill, to provide nearly $10 billion in new appropriation for the emergency expenses of the Los Angeles earthquake, humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping activities, as well as for Midwest flood assistance and highway reconstruction from the San Francisco earthquake, passed the House by a vote of 337 to 74--not really close, was it, to the 261 required for the three-fifths vote. The same measure passed the Senate by a vote of 85 to 10. The 1993 fiscal year disaster supplemental appropriations bill, H.R. 2667, providing nearly $3 billion for emergency relief from the widespread flooding in the Midwest and other natural disasters, passed the House by a vote of 400 to 27. The Senate adopted it by voice vote. In 1992, the disaster relief supplemental appropriations bill, H.R. 5132, passed the Senate by a supermajority vote of 61 to 36. The bill provided $2 billion in new budget authority for fiscal year 1992, including funds for disaster assistance and loans to respond to the Los Angeles riots and the Chicago tunnel collapse and subsequent flooding. In the House, the same bill passed by a vote of 244 to 162. Also in 1992, the defense and disaster supplemental appropriations bill, H.R. 5620, providing $10 billion in grants and loans to help victims of Hurricane Andrew, Typhoon Omar and Hurricane Iniki, passed the Senate by a vote of 84 to 10, it passed the House by a vote of 297 to 124. Finally, the 1992 supplemental appropriations bill passed the Senate with a vote of 75 to 17. This bill provided $8 billion for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm as well as other moneys for communities recovering from other natural disasters. The same bill passed the House by a vote of 252 to 162. The conference report passed the House by a vote of 303 to 114. Last, the 1990 continuing appropriations bill, House Joint Resolution 423, provided disaster assistance generally. This bill passed the House by a vote of 321 to 99, and passed the Senate by a vote of 97 to 1. During the past 7 years, we have voted many times on emergency disaster funding programs. I count only two situations where a supermajority was not reached--this despite the fact that no supermajority was needed. The facts are hard to refute. The Durbin amendment clearly has little or no factual basis when compared to the voting record of the Congress. When the situation warrants, either because of economic recession or natural disaster, this body has had little difficulty achieving a supermajority of votes to pass needed spending programs. The balanced budget amendment has the flexibility necessary to respond to true emergencies. Creating loopholes like the Durbin amendment only serve to make deficit-spending as a matter of course easier. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Orphan Drug Act of 1997, legislation to extend permanently the orphan drug tax credit. I am pleased that my good friend and colleague from Montana, Senator Baucus, is joining me. Similar legislation was introduced in the House last year by Representatives Nancy Johnson and Robert Matsui. I am confident that they will once again introduce legislation this year to make the credit permanent. Mr. President, this credit encourages private firms to develop treatments for rare diseases. As many of my colleagues know, we extended this medical research tax credit last year, but, it will expire on May 31 of this year. Since the 1983 enactment of the orphan drug tax credit we have seen very encouraging progress in developing new drugs to alleviate suffering from a number of so-called orphan diseases, those diseases that afflict a relatively small number of people. Because the process of research, development, and approval for new pharmaceuticals is so costly--running into hundreds of millions of dollars--the small market for a drug discourages drug companies from undertaking it. Mr. President, the incentive provided by this credit gives hope to individuals who suffer from such rare but devastating conditions as Tourette's syndrome. Huntington's disease, and neuro- fibromatosis, to name a few. Many drugs designated as orphan drugs have a much small potential market than even the 200,000 patients referred to in the definition in this credit--sometimes they are for conditions that affect as few as 1,000 persons in the United States. This means that without some incentive there is simply no possibility for a firm to profit from its decisions to develop drugs that treat these diseases. Fortunately, the orphan perception has been changing over the years that this research credit has been in effect. In fact, Mr. President, pharmaceutical companies have made great strides in discovering treatments for these orphan diseases. While only seven orphan drugs were approved by the FDA in the decade before the credit's initial passage, over 100 have been approved since and approximately 600 are now in development. Last year, I mentioned the first-ever treatment for Gaucher disease, a debilitating and sometimes fatal genetic disorder. This disease afflicts fewer than 5,000 people worldwide, yet the company who discovered the treatment expended its time and money to search for a treatment precisely because of the orphan drug credit's incentives. There are other examples as well. Mr. President, this credit's effectiveness has been tested for the past 14 years, and it has passed with flying colors. Few provisions of the tax code can claim to have clearly reduced human suffering and to have expanded our store of medical knowledge. This credit has done both. By helping small, entrepreneurial firms to take advantage of the orphan drug credit, we can make it even more effective. Before last year, the tax credit only served as an incentive for companies that earn a current-year-profit. If the credit could not be used immediately, it was lost forever. For large, profitable drug companies, this was rarely a problem. However, for many small, start-up pharmaceutical companies, this current-year restriction made the credit of little or no use. These firms typically lose money in the early years since they put all available funding into research. They only expect to see profits many years into the future. In order to improve the credit's usefulness, we modified the credit in legislation last year to allow firms to carry the credit back 3 years and carry it forward 15 years. This will give small, growing companies an incentive to find ways to treat these rare diseases that cause so many to suffer. I have been impressed by the strides being made in the biomedical field, including growing firms in my home State of Utah. In the course of research, scientists often stumble upon treatments that could, if developed, improve the lives of victims of rare diseases. However, because of the high cost of drug experiments and the enormous expense involved in gaining FDA approval, many researchers reluctantly set these promising drug innovations aside. Mr. President, this should not happen, not when so many are suffering from these rare diseases, and we have an effective credit available that has proven its benefits. The following national groups officially endorse the Orphan Drug Act of 1997: National Organization for Rare Disorders [NORD], National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Tourette Syndrome Association, United Parkinson Foundation, American Autoimmune Related Disease Association, Leukemia Society of American, Cystinosis Foundation, New England Biomedical Research Coalition, Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Epilepsy Foundation. I urge my Senate colleagues to join us in sponsoring this bipartisan legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.