Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from Texas regarding use of the coastal zone management fund in H.R. 2076. The Committee report on page 67 describes using $4,300,000 from this fund to administer the National Estuarine Research Reserve Programs, similar to a House proposal. Because of the need to leave at least $4,000,000 to administer the Coastal Zone Management Act [CZMA], I understood that the committee intended to designate $3,300,000 for national research reserve administration, and $4,000,000 for CZMA administration.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The committee's report language is advisory only to the administration and does not have the force of law. Nonetheless, I will seek a clarification in the conference report that reflects the Senator's concerns.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senator for raising this issue and for noting the participation of the University of South Carolina in the program.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senators. I recognize the seriousness of this situation. And I will encourage the Attorney General to award this grant. funding earmarks for dare america

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I did not think I would be thanking the Senator from Texas, but I do. We have really cleaned this bill up materially, substantially, and meaningfully. I do thank the distinguished chairman of our subcommittee for his cooperation and assistance in working out a bill that, no doubt, would still be vetoed as inadequate, but certainly by way of balance and maintaining fundamental programs, such as the cops on the beat and Legal Services Corporation, the minority business enterprise, and so forth--you can go down the list--and for saving from very, very severe cuts the Small Business Administration, Federal Trade Commission, SEC, and many, many others. You can tell by the participation, Mr. President, and the numerous amendments that we have adopted, en bloc, after consideration here for three full days, that it could never have been done without the wonderful work of David Taylor, Scott Corwin, Lula Edwards, Steve McMillin, Scott Gudes, and Keith Kennedy and Jim English of our full Appropriations Committee. They guide us regularly in all of our deliberations here. So I want to make sure that Mark Van de Water and the rest are acknowledged, because they have been doing it until 2 o'clock this morning and around the clock here this evening. We are very grateful to the Members for their cooperation and then, of course, most particularly, my good friend, the Senator from Hawaii, who kept us going, the Senator from Kentucky, our leader, along with the distinguished minority leader, the Senator from South Dakota, and most of all, the Senator from Oregon, the principal chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. With his guidance within the committee and in the last few days, we have a bill that I intend to vote for. I thank the Senator from Texas.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I agree with both the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Michigan. They have worked hard on this amendment to address a problem of true national concern and scope.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair and the staff who caught this for us. I am glad it is corrected. Amendment No. 2816

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on last evening there was a managers' amendment. A mistake in the actual drafting was made. This has been cleared on both sides. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the committee amendment on page 79, lines 1 through 6, be withdrawn.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Just one word about the McCain-Dorgan amendment. Once again, this, of course, is the Congress injecting itself into the functions and responsibilities of the Federal Communications Commission. There is no question at this very moment the FCC can auction the so-called spectrum that is now in dispute. I emphasize ``dispute'' because it is a legal case that has been in the courts, now, for over a year. It is on appeal. There has been a vote, so to speak, informally, at least, by way of reports. Lawyers call from both sides of this case. I understand, now, the vote is 2 to 2 at the FCC: Two members of the FCC disposed toward an auction, two disposed toward what they characterize as the recommendation of the staff--the staff that studied this case and handled the testimony and otherwise. There is one indecisive member. So we come with an amendment, without any hearings, without really knowing what we are talking about and doing, and we say we know how to grant licenses and everything of that kind, so hereby is the way to do it. The fact is, this Senator is very anxious, like all Senators, to find money. In fact, at this stage of the Congress, it is like tying two cats by the tails and throwing them over the clothesline and letting them claw each other. No Senator can put up an amendment that he does not take away money from some other Senator or some other function. So I cosponsored, with the distinguished Senator from Alaska, the auction process that has already reaped some $9 billion. I went along, of course, with another $8.3 billion offset in the telecom bill by way of auction. So I am very much for auctions, and I am very much for the money being reaped by the Government itself. That is what we are here for, to look out for all the people. Having said that, I see the parties on the floor here, and they have been discussing it. So I reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Regular order, Mr. President. vote on amendment no. 2815

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from New Mexico and former ranking member and the former chairman of our subcommittee. In short, Senator Domenici talks with expert knowledge, intimate knowledge, of this particular appropriations measure. First, Mr. President, Legal Services is a many splendored thing. I do not say that lightly. Yes, it was an idea that came to fruition, you might say, under President Nixon. But it was long since due, if you please. We had many in the vineyards who had been working over the many years. In the 1920's, Charles Evans Hughes; our former President, Chief Justice William Howard Taft; and Elihu Root supported the formation of a standing committee on legal aid work in the American Bar Association. And Taft wrote, in 1925: Something must be devised by which everyone, however lowly and however poor, however unable by his means to employ a lawyer and to pay court costs, shall be furnished the opportunity to set this fixed machinery of justice going. Then it was some 40 years later, almost 50 years later, that our distinguished former President, Richard Nixon, came in 1970 with the American Bar Association. When I say a ``many splendored thing,'' everybody thinks voluntarism begins in Washington, families begin in Washington, and everything that is done begins in Washington. The fact of the matter is that society has been very concerned about the poor having their day in court. We, as old-time trial lawyers, know that, yes, with respect to damage suit cases and injury cases whereby you can get a verdict, there is a long since-established system that has worked extremely well--and now the Brits, by the way, are coming to it--whereby we take it on a contingent basis because we know the poor injured do not have the money to investigate, do not have the money to pay hourly payments that they get in Washington. There are 60,000 lawyers under billable hours running around this town who have never been in a courtroom. On the contrary, the poor can come to a trial attorney. He will take care of the court expenses, the medical expenses of the doctors testifying, the experts drawing plats and what have you. And if he loses his case, the poor do not owe the lawyer anything. That is a contingent fee basis of trial work. But when it comes to these smaller cases where there is not any contingency to be paid--namely, a domestic case, an unemployment case, a landlord-tenant case--for the poor, in these types of cases, there is no time in it or benefit with it with respect to the practicing bar. And they have been more or less shut out over the many, many years until President Nixon and the Legal Services Corporation under the American Bar Association got started. Now, what has developed? Mr. President, I think there are over 130,000 lawyers. Imagine that. Do away with this and give it to the Governors with block grants and try to find the lawyers who are going to come in on this particular thing. They will start putting tanks on the lawn again and buying airplanes and everything else of that kind. As the distinguished chairman of my subcommittee knows, you get that fish--what do we call it, the ``funk'' or the ``monk'' fish, whatever it was. I refer, Mr. President, to when we had the stimulus bill and they had asked the poor mayors what they would like to do to stimulate the economy. They came up with cemeteries. They came up with golf courses. They came up with parking garages down there for the youngsters to park at Easter-time on Fort Lauderdale beach. We had to put in all kinds of restrictions there on the local effort and what local people can spend for legal services, or not spend. What you are doing is really destroying, if you please, one of the finely honed societal developments, led, if you please, by the American Bar, and former Associate Justice Lewis Powell when he was the president of the American Bar Association, and President Richard Nixon. I remember it well. I had been involved in this since the early days. We have had stormy times. After it got started, everybody was jumping up and down on the Capitol steps, saying ``Hey, hey, go away; how many did you kill today?'' and all of that. Yes, we were paying them--Legal Services were paying them. I had to treat that with amendments and say, no, let us get back. We are not paying for demonstrating groups to come. As the distinguished Senator from New Mexico has referred to, and as concerned as the Senator from Texas and the Senator from South Carolina are, the next thing you know a couple years ago, there went Legal Services suing the State of New Jersey. That is not the intent. There are plenty of moneys for class actions for these other groups. You have to keep it couched and carefully controlled in order to maintain the credibility and the effectiveness of the program. So I welcome the restrictions that have been put on by Senator Gramm and others here with respect to class actions and illegals and otherwise. Let us make sure that we maintain the integrity of the program. There were 250,000 cases last year, and, yes, with a $400 million appropriation. The communities come, the local governments and State governments, and the various bar associations, and they pitch in over $255 million--over half again what we appropriate at the Federal level. If you put in a Federal program--if you put in block grants--I can tell you right now they are not going to come with any moneys. You really are messing up a many, many splendored thing. So the Senator from New Mexico is following right now in the footsteps of the Senator from New Hampshire, Senator Rudman. I will tell you right now, do not get in Senator Rudman's way if you were going to challenge the Legal Services. He would knock over chairs and tables and come at you. I used to get out of the way. I am glad to get out of the way now under the leadership of Senator Domenici for the most worthwhile program that has been developed in a bipartisan fashion and should be maintained as such. What about these offsets? First you have to understand that the moneys taken from the Department of Justice have to be understood. I think I have the exact figure here. After all of the offsets are taken in the Domenici-Hollings amendment, what happens is we still have increased the Department of Justice a tremendous amount in percentage-- some 18-percent increase over this year. In other words, let us not argue. Let us take and try on the offsets from the Department of Justice, because I am a champion of that particular Department, having been the chairman, and ranking member now, and on this subcommittee for over 25 years. The FBI will have an 18.3-percent increase. The FBI, with its attorneys and otherwise, will be left with a $418 million increase in this budget for 1996 over 1995. So, in no way are we cutting back. It is a tremendous increase. The truth of the matter is, I was actually amazed--and I have sworn I am not going to ever use any charts around here. I am tired of it. If we want to balance the budget, we ought to put a tax on charts used by us politicians on the floor of the Senate and I think we could balance the budget. Every time I look around, somebody is running out with one of these mischievous charts. It is jogging my memory here. By 1983, after almost 200 years of history, we got to a $3 billion budget in the Department of Justice. Mind you me, having been the chief law enforcement officer, having been a Governor of a State, we have argued, and still argue, that the police powers--those that belong rightfully at the local level--that the primary function of the State government is its police powers to enforce the law. So we have been very askance about the Federal Government coming in on all of these particular initiatives because we in Washington like to get reelected. We identify with the hot-button crime issue and we throw money at it. We have had more crime bills come spewing down the road. We have $1 billion backed up there in the Bureau of Prisons. We are building them like [[Page S 14589]] gangbusters all over the land, all because crime is a hot-button item. It took 200 years to get to $3 billion. This budget here for 1996 will carry us to $16.95 billion--17 billion bucks. Actually, the increase--taking the offsets in our Legal Services amendment--the increase will exceed $3 billion, even accounting for these offsets in the Department of Justice. In other words, in 1 year we are increasing the Justice budget by the amount that the total budget was just a few short years ago. We think it is needed. As I say, I was on the committee. I did not just do it willy-nilly, but we wanted to respond to immigration, border patrol, the prison system, the Marshals Service, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and on down the list. We have been working and working and working. Here we come with an offset respecting the particular crime lab. Now, with respect to that crime lab, I know full well that the Department of Justice is working with the Department of Defense to get that new laboratory. It is a technical support center. That is over $300 million in new initiatives. Earlier this year, Judge Freeh came up with that particular need after the tragic incident down there in Oklahoma. Just sort of like a pinata, broke it, and all the gifts went in all directions. We just started anywhere that anybody came up from the Justice Department. We voted aye, we said you got that, do not worry about it, and everything else. Looking at that laboratory which we support out there at Quantico, we know full well that the Justice Department is conferring now with the Department of Defense, and they do not even have the site and the land and everything else. What we are trying to do is support the requirement as needed, and to back up the money and the particular offset. It is not a question of us not supporting the technical support center, but once we get the site we have to draw the plans and everything else of that kind. What we need to do is go in a deliberate fashion there. With respect to the topography lab, it is a new one. There is an effort in this Government along that line. You have to speak advisedly because most of this is classified, but I can tell you here and now if you have served on the Intelligence Committee--I served with the Hoover Commission back in the 1950's investigating these type of activities-- that they are awfully, awfully expensive. The effort, I think, that we have now in the Government is more than adequate without starting a new one. I defer to the chairman of our Intelligence Committee, the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, and our ranking member, Senator Robert Kerrey of Nebraska. I am confident that the offsets there are not going to injure in any fashion the efforts of law enforcement or the Department of Justice. With respect to the working capital fund, what we need to do is get a little bit of discipline there. We have been liberal. In fact, we like it when we handle these appropriations. If we had a working capital fund in everybody's subcommittee, the chairman and the ranking member could allocate around, somewhat like Plato's famous saying that a politician ``makes his own little laws and sits attentive to his own applause.'' All we need to do is not tell people about this working capital fund and we can sit around and divide money up all year long. The offset here is not going to hurt the Department of Justice, in any fashion. With respect to the conference success, I want to quote to you the inspector general's observations contained in the annual report: ``We are concerned that a successful decennial census could be jeopardized if the Bureau attempts to accomplish too much too soon.'' Now, we never had any hearings on the census on our side of the Capitol. The distinguished chairman, Mr. Rogers of Kentucky, over on the House side did have deliberate hearings that went into the census budget in detail, and the amounts offset in the Domenici-Hollings amendment provide $67 billion that we came in on this particular appropriations over the House, which is $60 million above the current year. In reality, Mr. President, what we are doing is almost like conferees--we can see ahead down the road when we confer with our House friends on a conference of committees to finalize the figure that we are going to reconcile this backwards. What happens is that Senator Domenici has very wisely come and said we should do a little of the reconciling at this particular point to save an awfully important entity. We do not want to change this to any kind of block grant. We do not want to be cutting it back. These lawyers--they are inspired. I commend the law schools of the country over for inspiring these young attorneys coming out to do good, to offer public service--with many of them wanting the experience and saying, ``I will give a little bit of time now to the public. I will learn and be able to better represent, and I will be doing some good for the communities in which I live.'' So they come in there. I think the average fee of any legal service lawyer--they are earning around $30,000 to $33,000 a year. No, that does not take these Ivy League boys who come and go into downtown Washington and downtown New York who start out at $80,000 a year and everything else. That is not the case. We are not enriching any lawyer. We are enriching society. This amendment is well conceived. The offsets, I can say, will never cause injury. On the contrary, what is still left is over and above the House side. Even though our budget, our 602(b) allocation was $1 billion below the House, we still come in $750 million above the House with these particular offsets. We are in good, strong shape. I think the Senator from Texas would want to join us in this amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Amen.

Mr. HOLLINGS. What is wrong with taking this up? We can take this up and kill the half hour.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I think the record should show not only the leadership of Senator Domenici but the leadership on behalf of the Senate here, because in essence what we have is Senator Gramm's position is not in accordance with the authorization. There is no authorization. There have been no hearings in the Judiciary Committee to change over and abolish the Legal Services Corporation. The fact is this Senator was waiting for a markup of this particular committee. My distinguished colleague, Senator Gramm, told me 2 or 3 days before we were due he had one and would submit it to me, and we waited those 2 or 3 days, and finally on the afternoon before we submitted the next morning I finally called the chairman of the full committee, Senator Hatfield, who said he was just getting together with Senator Gramm. In essence, when we faced this particular markup, the subcommittee had not met over it, and when we got to the full committee, the full committee said we would take it up on the floor. This is not a committee markup being amended. The truth of the matter is the amendment of Senator Domenici really brings about the committee into its normal course of the treatment in accordance with the authorization. The fact is if this thing persists under the position of Senator Gramm I will have to raise a point of order that it is an appropriation for an unauthorized amount, because there is no authorization for the block grant program that he conceived in his own mind. The U.S. Senate in orderly procedure, in the Judiciary Committee and otherwise, has not had a chance to have hearings. This is such an outstanding program that has brought civic leadership and participation--not just the $400 million that we are appropriating but some $255 million that comes from the cities, the counties, the States, the American bar and different private groups. This has really engendered quite a contribution and an effort of some 130,000 legal services lawyers paid at an average of around $30,000 a year. You are not going to get that in block grants. We worked with the block grants before, and to our embarrassment this is a subcommittee that finally had to abolish it because it was whitewater rafting and monkfish and tanks on the lawn, and airplanes so the Governor could fly to New York and everything else but law enforcement. I am absolutely opposed to any block grants back to the States. Keep the so-called cops on the beat on the one hand and the legal services attorneys representing the hungry poor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I would just like to take a minute to recognize Ms. Emelie East of our Appropriations Committee staff. Ms. East serves on the minority staff where she is responsible for assisting with four of our subcommittees, including the Commerce, Justice, and State Subcommittee. Emelie joined the committee this spring when we stole her from Congressman Norm Dicks. Emelie is a native of Seattle, WA, and a graduate of Trinity College in Connecticut. She has done an outstanding job in staffing this bill. Ms. East is a true professional. I can tell you that she is top rate. She is a credit to this committee and this institution. On behalf of myself and the subcommittee, I wish to recognize her for a job well done.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, while we are trying to arrange a vote here on this important amendment, I would just revisit what our distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee was talking about: the budget and spending. Mr. President, the present budget for the fiscal year is $1.518 trillion, in other words, one trillion five hundred eighteen billion dollars. The budget under consideration, of which this State, Justice, Commerce appropriation is a part thereof, is $1.602 trillion. So, one trillion six hundred two billion dollars means spending is going up $84 billion. Which reminds me of my distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, the Senator from Texas, always talking about those in the wagon who are going to have to get outside the wagon and start pulling it. The funny thing, like Pogo, ``We have met the enemy,'' we have met those in the wagon, ``and it is us.'' We have been spending literally hundreds of billions more than we are taking in each year. While the budget itself increases some $84 billion, interest costs increase $348 billion, or $1 billion a day, as has just been referred to by the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee. [[Page S 14610]] That is what is bothering this Senator--the reality of it all. We push and pull and tug and talk about those in the wagon, out of the wagon, and hard choices and biting bullets. But the comeuppance is that we continue to spend way more, and we act like we can actually eliminate the deficit by cutting spending. That is absolutely false. It is going to take taxes. They do not want to say the word ``taxes'' around this town except to cut them, because a little poll you take, whether it is a Republican poll or a Democratic poll, says that is political poison. A hot-button item is what they call it. So what you do is you get out and you are for the family and you are against taxes. You are against crime and for prisons and on and on, this nonsensical charade we are engaged in. The truth is, having been in the vineyards here, trying our dead- level best with others. We tried a freeze. Then we tried a freeze and spending cuts. Then we tried a freeze, spending cuts and loophole closings. Then we tried a freeze, spending cuts, loophole closings and a value-added tax. And then just most recently, we opposed new programs that we cannot afford--AmeriCorps. I stated yesterday the AmeriCorps Program took away 346,000 student loans in order to fund 20,000 to 25,000 student loans. Actually, it is the Federal Government cost of some $20,000 per student on AmeriCorps, plus $6,000 from private and local government resources, so it is $26,000. I remember when I got out of law school, if I could have gotten paid $26,000 I would have jumped for joy. I would have jumped for joy. I can tell you now--voluntarism? At $26,000 a head, you call it volunteer? Let us cut out the charade and get down to brass tacks and realize it is going to be way, way more than any kind of spending cuts. The idea of a broad-based consumption tax I proposed over 10 years ago, almost 15 years ago. Now they are copying the idea to replace--I have been through about seven tax reforms in my 28, almost 29 years. The need is not to replace; the need is to replenish. What we need is more money, not different money. So the flat tax is now a wave--a hot- button item, again in the poll, where we are just going to do it one way and replace the income and replace the corporate and replace everything, every other kind of tax. The truth of the matter is, rather than cutting taxes, we need to increase the taxes. And the bill to increase the taxes is presently, and has been, in the Finance Committee for the past 4 or 5 years. I have introduced it right regularly. They quit having hearings on it. I will never forget the one hearing we had 5 years ago with Senator Bentsen as chairman. As I was leaving the Finance Committee room, a couple of the Finance Committee members said, ``If we had a secret ballot we would pass that thing out unanimously. We need it now.'' That was before the 1992 election for President Bush's reelection. Of course, we were up to then $400 billion deficits, and the Democrats did not win the 1992 election so much as the Republicans lost that election. I campaigned in it. I know it intimately. Once again, we are going through the tortures of big talk about how we are really going to balance this budget by the year--they put it out where nobody can get their hands on it--2002; 7 years hence. We used to do it in a year. Then we went to 3 years. Then we went to 5 years. This crowd over here has it for 7 years. And the President has it for 10 years. You meet another Congress and they will have it in 15 years and up, up and away. But they do not want to write that. They write in a very reverent, respectful, studious term--the media does--that the present budget on which we are now torturing would balance in the year 2002. That is absolutely false. It has no chance of doing it. Simple arithmetic--it is not going to take care of the interest payments. The interest payments are $1 billion a day. There is no plan here. The cuts? You take the consummate cuts right across the board, there is not $1 billion a day to get on top of the increases. Like the famous character in ``Alice in Wonderland'', in order to stay where we are, we have to run as fast as we can. In order to get ahead, we have to run even faster. That is the reality. Nobody wants to talk about it because the poison in politics is taxes. I will never forget, back in 1949, 1950, when Jimmy Byrnes--former Senator Byrnes, Secretary of State, Supreme Court Justice, Governor--he had just come in as Governor. I had a little committee. I said, ``This is South Carolina, our little lowest per- capita income State next to Mississippi. We have ground to a halt. We need money. We are going to have to put in a sales tax.'' We could not even get the senators to meet with us. We just had House members. I chaired that House group. We sold the idea to Governor Byrnes, and he put it over. Mind you me, we never could have done it without the Governor's leadership. But we put in a sales tax at that particular time for public education, so that then, when we went out and solicited industrial development in South Carolina, we could talk not only of good schools, but fiscally-responsible government. We did not balance that budget in South Carolina until I finally came in, in 1958. I again raised taxes over the objections. What we did was we got the first triple A credit rating from Texas all the way up to Maryland. So, as a young Governor, I had, as a calling card, a triple A credit rating, which South Carolina has now lost, again with this item of growth--growth. And we are going to have a property tax cut and we are not going to pay the bills and we are going to put the nuclear facility up for sale and start storing nuclear waste all over again at Savannah River; going backwards. That virus is at the local level, at the Federal level and throughout the land. We have to kill it if we are ever going to get competitive internationally. If we can pay our bills, develop a competitive trade policy, cut out this nonsense about free trade and join the real world and get a competitive trade policy--Cordell Hull said reciprocal trade policy-- then we will begin to survive and rebuild this economy and clean up our cities and get rid of the drug and crime problems and come forward like a great America that I came into in my early years. With this plan, these programs now have been taken over by the pollsters and we are going right straight down the tubes. We are talking nonsense. The media is going along with it. They think it is great progress. It is not great progress--a half a hair cut--because we had that great progress last year and we had that great progress the year before. We had the great progress the year before that. Like Tennessee Ernie Ford, ``another day older and deeper in debt.'' The debt continues to go and grow and go and grow. It took us 200 years of our history before Ronald Reagan came to town. When he came to town after that 200 years and 38 Presidents, Republican and Democrat, we were less than $1 trillion. And $903 billion was the deficit and debt. We had with President Ford an economic summit, and everything else of that kind after the OPEC cartel crisis, and what have you. When President Reagan came to town, he said, ``First I am going to balance the budget in a year,'' and then said, ``Oops--this is way worse than I thought. It is going to take 3 years. We are going to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.'' We had the Grace Commission. I served on the Grace Commission. I got me a picture here earlier this year, but Peter Grace and I started implementing his savings. We had to report annually. By 1989 we had implemented some 85 percent of the Grace program. But then we stopped, and we quit reporting. But the truth is the Budget Committees have come along. Republicans and Democrats have voted for taxes in the Budget Committee. We got eight votes for a value-added tax because back 5 years ago, we could see the coming default and the debt growing up, up, and away. So now after Reaganomics, voodoo, riverboat gamble, now we have voodoo all over again. We are talking about it again by the very author of voodoo, the chairman of the Finance Committee. That started off as-- what is that football player's name? Kemp. Yes. That is right. Kemp- Roth. I remember when the distinguished majority leader said we are not going that direction. He said, ``You cannot go that way. We have got to start paying the bills.'' But the Presidential political pressures that come from Gingrich to go to Gramm to come to Dole have got us all [[Page S 14611]] talking nonsense here on the floor of the U.S. Congress. We are talking again in the Finance Committee of devastating health care. Last year, they were saying, ``Oh. What is the matter? We have the best health care on the planet.'' Last year, we had a survey by the very group they quote this year that said Medicare was going broke by the year 2001. This year they are saying it is going broke by the year 2002. Now they say what they are trying to do is save it. Well, they come in with a contract that increases the deficit and Medicare some $25 billion because, yes, without that contract crowd, we voted to increase taxes on Social Security, liquor, cigarettes, gasoline, and everything else and cut spending $500 billion which has the stock market and the economy, they say, going up and away. But the truth is that of that $25 billion that we got from the increase in Social Security taxes, we allocated it to Medicare and they said, ``Abolish that.'' No. We do not believe in that. They are playing the game, the pollster proposition of Social Security and saying that we are trying to frighten the American people. The debt now has gone not just to $1 trillion as it did in 1981, but to $2 trillion, to $3 trillion, to $4 trillion. It is right now at $4.9 trillion, and it is going up $5 trillion and on and away, because of what? We are in the wagon. The kids, the children, the grandchildren are the ones pulling the wagon. We are acting like the taxpayers are the ones pulling the wagon. Well, they can hardly move the wagon. The wagon is drifting back. It is not being pulled. It is gradually going backward into debt, and we are on board. For the last 15 years, the Senator from New Mexico and I have been working in the Budget Committee, and it has gotten worse and worse. The rhetoric has gotten better. We really have them fooled--everybody out in the land, particularly in this editorial column crowd saying we are making progress, that we are going to balance the budget. We are not even near it. We are doing some cutting. We are devastating programs. But we are not balancing any budget because we will not do all of the above, and all of the above includes taxes. And we need that tax increase allocated to the deficit, and the debt. Let us get on top of this fiscal cancer, excise it once and for all, and then start spending the amount of money that we need on Government itself rather than on past profligacy and waste. If you had a $74.8 billion interest cost in 1980 and in 1996 in the President's budget, it is $346 billion, that means the interest cost alone has gone up to $273 billion. That is exactly the level of domestic discretionary spending. You take Congress, the courts, the Presidency, you take the Department of Commerce, Agriculture, Interior, Treasury--go right on across the Government itself, take the departments and domestic discretionary spending, it is right at $273 billion. We could double that budget, if we were not wasting it on the interest cost on the national debt. That interest is what I call ``taxes.'' This crowd that says they are not against taxes is really for taxes. There are two things in life: Death, and taxes. You cannot avoid them. There is a third thing. It is the interest cost on the national debt. It cannot be avoided. So what we are doing talking about no, we are not going to increase taxes, is, yes, we are going to cut taxes. The truth of the matter is we are going to cut taxes in order to increase the taxes more so the debt can go up so the interest costs or the taxes on that debt go up. You pay it, not avoid it, and you do not get anything more. But we are in the wagon. All of us are in the wagon, and the children and the grandchildren, are hopefully going to pull it. I hope the country just does not come down in fiscal chaos. But whatever it is, we are in the wagon, and we are raising taxes every day $1 billion. We have a tax increase on automatic pilot in this Government of $1 billion a day. We are talking about cutting taxes. That is how ludicrous, ridiculous, and outrageous this whole rhetoric has gotten in the treatment by the media itself. They do not want to report the truth. They do not want to report the facts. They go along with the political charade. I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee is talking and the Senator from South Carolina is talking, but the facts speak more loudly than each of us. For example, the gentleman talking then was the President when he came to town. In 1980, we were paying interest costs of $74.8 billion on a national debt of over 200-some years of history, with all the wars from the Revolutionary War up to and including World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Now, it is estimated to go to $348 billion just in interest costs. That was the crowd that came and talked and said they were going to save us from waste, fraud, and abuse. In fact, I got an award from the Grace Commission, working with them. By 1989, we had to report it, and 85 percent of the Grace Commission recommendations had been implemented. However, wanting to do away with waste, as we talked--look what actually occurred. It has gone to the greatest waste in the history of the Government--from $74.8 billion to $348 billion. Over $200 billion just in increased in costs for nothing. If we had the two-hundred- seventy-some billion dollars here now for these things, you would not have extended debate on labor, health and human resources. We would have the money for those programs. You would not have an amendment on Legal Services. We would have provided for it and for cops on the beat and for the State Department, and the strengthening of our technology, and all. My point is that we keep on talking, and we get estimates from the CBO and all of these econometric models and all the economists that we keep following and, as old Tennessee Ernie said, we are another day older and deeper in debt. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank my distinguished colleague.