Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I would like to commend the Senator from Alaska [Mr. Murkowski] for the statement yesterday on the need to develop a timely solution for the management of spent nuclear fuel from the Nation's 109 commercial nuclear power plants. As the new chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Murkowski has already assumed a leading role in examining America's policy on high- level radioactive waste management and I appreciate the chairman's ongoing commitment to change that policy to ensure that we continue to make progress in a program so vital to the national interest. Mr. President, the United States has struggled to fashion a workable policy on high-level radioactive waste disposal since the Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan signed amendments to that act to direct the Department of Energy to study Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a likely repository site. A cadre of world-class scientists have been conducting first-of-a-kind experiments at Yucca Mountain to determine if the site is suitable for the ultimate disposition of spent nuclear fuel from civilian nuclear reactors a well as defense high-level radioactive waste. Electric consumers have committed $11 billion since 1983 to finance these studies, a total that includes $563 million collected from consumers of nuclear electricity generated in South Carolina. Unfortunately, the year 2010 is the earliest possible date that a repository might be ready to accept spent fuel. In the meantime, nuclear power plants across the country are running out of capacity to store spent fuel. By 1998, 26 plants will have exhausted existing capacity to store spent fuel, including the Oconee and Robinson plants in South Carolina. In addition to designating Yucca Mountain, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act made the Federal Government responsible for taking title to spent nuclear fuel beginning in 1998. In order to meet its obligations, therefore, the Federal Government must now develop a temporary storage facility for spent fuel from the Nation's nuclear power plants. In just 3 years DOE is scheduled to assume responsibility for the spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. It must begin planning now to build and operate a facility to fulfill that obligation. Legislation introduced in both the Senate and House would develop an integrated approach to spent fuel management, including the construction and operation of a single Federal facility to store spent fuel until a permanent solution is available. Legislation in both Chambers identifies the sensible location for such a storage facility-- the Nevada test site. This Federal facility is the most logical location for such an interim site. It borders Yucca Mountain, a remote, unpopulated, and arid location in the Nevada Desert. Moreover, the site is on land that has been dedicated to underground nuclear testing for more than 40 years, and thus appropriately dedicated to a project like this one. Building a central storage facility at the Nevada test site does not prejudge the question of whether Yucca Mountain is suitable, but there are tremendous advantages to locating it there. Among the most appealing is ease of transportation of the spent fuel from storage facility to repository. Building a central storage facility that is operating by 1998 and a repository by 2010 will save electric consumers $5 billion over the life cycle of the waste management program. These cost savings will be further enhanced, primarily through ease of transportation, if the storage facility is located near the repository site. Mr. President, the time has come to address the problems that have plagued the Department of Energy's nuclear waste management program. We can take the first step this year by authorizing and using funds already contributed by electricity consumers to develop a central storage facility in Nevada.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to applaud my colleague and friend, Senator Conrad, for his work in constructing this amendment. As I learned in 1980 and again in 1985, it is not an easy task. But the Senator from North Dakota should be commended for his courage and resolve to focus his budget alternative on three bedrock principles that are essential if we really want to do the job. First, the Conrad alternative would comply with section 13301 of the Congressional Budget Act and would balance the budget without counting the surpluses in the Social Security trust fund. We've heard a lot of talk in the last few days about how the Republican budget resolution would balance the budget in 7 years, but the hard facts tell otherwise. Again, I would invite my colleagues to turn to page 7 of the Republican resolution where the deficit for fiscal year 2002 is listed as $113.5 billion. In contrast, the Conrad amendment is designed not only to talk the talk, but to walk the walk. Under this proposal by the year 2004, the Federal budget, excluding Social Security, would be in balance. Second, the Conrad approach recognizes that the Federal budget cannot be balanced through spending cuts alone. If we want a balanced budget, we have to have a balanced approach. No one relishes the idea of raising taxes, but the simple fact is that we could eliminate all spending on non-defense discretionary programs and the budget would still be out of whack. Instead of facing this budget reality, the Republican resolution plays Santa Claus, promising $170 billion in tax cuts that will be written in stone out of a economic dividend that may never materialize. Finally, the Conrad amendment protects programs that are crucial to our Nation's well-being. The Republican strategy is an alarming permutation of a justification that we heard during Vietnam--that we had to burn the village in order to save it. Mr. President, that line was wrong then and it is wrong now. Programs such as education and biomedical research are crucial investments in our Nation's future; drastic cuts in such programs are penny wise and pound foolish. While the Conrad approach offers a far more honest and realistic approach to balancing the budget, it is not a perfect plan. Specifically, I am concerned that the $170 billion economic dividend, which Senator Conrad puts towards deficit reduction, may never materialize and that the elimination of tax loopholes may fall short of its $228 billion target. A far more certain and equitable alternative, I believe, would rely on a comprehensive 5 percent value added tax that would be earmarked specifically for deficit and debt reduction. Such an approach would reap additional benefits in encouraging national savings over consumption and in improving our international trade position through a border neutral tax. While we may differ on some of the specifics, let me again applaud the efforts of Senator Conrad for his willingness to stop the gamesmanship of the past few days and to propose the first real balanced budget that we have seen.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, for 50 hours, we have debated the real impacts of the Republican budget proposal. I have talked at length about the Republican budget, and I won't restate my objections here. I do, however, want to point out the folly of one part of this plan. All too often around here, someone hears an idea and runs with it. Buried in this budget is an assumption that the air traffic control services now provided by the Federal Aviation Administration will be privatized. The savings, through the year 2000, are projected to be $14.7 billion. The assumption raises many serious concerns, not the least of which are the potential impacts on safety, the traveling public, the airline industry, and travel and tourism. Travel and tourism is the largest service export of the United States, producing a $22 billion export surplus. The industry employs six million Americans, and generates a $99.2 billion payroll. Travel and tourism is dependent on a U.S. aviation industry that over the last 5 years has lost $13 billion. We have seen carriers like Eastern Airlines and Pan American Airways, which paved the way for international aviation in the world, shut their doors. In reviewing the Domenici budget, and in particular the assumption to privatize air traffic control, it is important to bear in mind the tourism industry's importance to our economy and the airlines' current financial morass. No matter what, we know that air traffic control services and the other FAA safety programs must continue. Someone will have to pay for those services. Right now, the users pay money into an airport and airway trust fund. It is a dedicated fund. The users pay approximately $6 billion per year into the trust fund. Under the Domenici assumption, Federal spending for the FAA would be cut by a total of $14.7 billion, or $3.7 [[Page S7457]] billion per year. We can cut the Federal Government's outlays for the FAA, but the need for the services does not end. This is not one of those unneeded services or programs that ceases as soon as Federal funding stops. Air traffic control services will need to be provided and paid for no matter what happens under the Budget resolution. Yet, Senate Concurrent Resolution 13 asks the users to continue to pay $6 billion to the Federal Government, but then calls for air traffic control services to be privatized. As a result, the Federal Government will not use the trust fund for those services, and the users must pay again for them. Essentially, the users will get double billed. We could solve the deficit very quickly if we charged every industry twice for the service provided by the Government, or simply continued to charge them for services that the Federal Government would no longer provide. Over the last year, there has been a prolonged battle over the future of the FAA. The administration came up with a proposal to split up the FAA into a successor FAA and a Government corporation for air traffic control, which I and many others oppose. The plan was never proposed as a way to save money, but rather as a way to modernize the system and to maintain the current safety standards of the system. The Secretary of Transportation did not state that he expected huge savings from the breakup; instead he expected a more effective organization. The commercial aviation industry, initially thought to favor the air traffic control corporation, ultimately concluded that it could not endorse the Secretary's program. The general aviation sector also said no. So has Congress. Now we get an assumption to privatize a key element of the FAA in this budget plan. What are we talking about? There are many privatization options that I can think of, but all of them would wreak havoc with the world's safest air transportation system. For example, do we really want to create a Postal Service for the air traffic control system? I get mad when letters are misplaced, but to think of misplacing aircraft is something else. Should we consider contracting out these services to a private group? Do you really want your air traffic control system being run by the lowest bidder? In the alternative, we could auction off the system to the highest bidder, gaining lots of revenue for the Federal Government. Stop and think about those two possibilities. Consider the winner of the auction--the winning bidder would need to recoup its investment, operate and modernize the system, and earn a return on the investment. Doing a little shorthand math, let's say the air traffic control system is worth $15 billion, and using the Domenici assumption of $14.7 billion, it would cost another $15 billion to modernize and operate the system. The company also would want at least a 10 percent return on the investment. Congress would have created a winning formula for helping the aviation industry--a $30-$35 billion increase in costs. Remember, the industry lost $13 billion over the last 5 years. An industry further weakened could result in safety problems. In addition, the winner of the auction would then be running a monopoly. Do we really want to have a complete laissez-faire attitude toward safety? Let's stop and think about this for a minute: a monopoly would need to be regulated--fees for air traffic control services would need oversight and safety functions would need monitoring. Are we really willing to tell the traveling public that the Government is no longer responsible for aviation safety? This proposal to privatize does not create efficiencies or facilitate competition for air traffic control services. It merely turns over to a private entity the function of providing those services. That corporation would have no incentives to make the system efficient--it would be a monopoly. We could avoid the monopoly situation by creating competing air traffic control systems, so that New York could have its own system, Chicago another, and so on. Of course, small communities might have trouble paying for high quality air traffic control services. So they would either have to sacrifice safety by providing inferior services or close down their airports for lack of services. The free market can be counted on to eliminate inefficiencies, but our constituents can't be blamed for not applauding such results. Let's begin by understanding that the air traffic control system is the heart of the safety network that the Government provides to people who fly. Admittedly, the system is not perfect, but most agree that it is by far the best in the world. Comparisons to other countries that have privatized air traffic control services are irrelevant and ridiculous. These countries--New Zealand, Switzerland, and Germany-- combined probably have less air traffic than Atlanta. Our system is much more complex, much more integrated. Privatization of the air traffic control system is opposed by the vast majority of aviation industry experts. The General Aviation manufacturers Association [GAMA] recently wrote to me and reminded me that the Office of Technology Assessment in 1988 stated that ``the ATC function is inextricably linked with aviation safety and is a central component of an integrated FAA safety system.'' The GAMA letter went on to say that the Aviation Safety Commission, appointed by President Reagan, ``stressed that the Federal government must continue to play the central role in ensuring safe operation of the U.S. aviation system.'' The GAMA letter included the following quotation from that Commission's report: ``Since the Commission is not inclined to gamble in sorting out conflicting assertions about whether safety regulatory functions can be separated organizationally from air traffic control and facilities operations activities, the Commission cannot endorse the proposition that the air traffic control function should be privatized.'' The Senate Budget Committee's assumptions take that gamble. We do not want to put the safety of the national air transportation system at risk. Ask the controllers who toil throughout the country if they want to privatize. Those folks work hard to make sure that all of us get home safely. They oppose privatization and seek meaningful reform. I look forward to working with my colleagues on meaningful reform-- not privatization or corporatization of air traffic control services. The process should proceed with caution before we assume in this or any budget that we should destroy the safest air traffic control system in the world. food and nutrition programs for children

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I see a compromise. I see a way for the bipartisanship to return on education. It is a painful compromise on both sides, but we must pursue the art of the possible. Mr. President, I tried 2 days ago, with my colleague from Iowa, Senator Harkin, to make substantial progress toward restoring the cuts to education in this budget resolution with an amendment to restore $40 billion. That amendment was narrowly defeated. Yesterday, my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Exon attempted to restore $30 billion to education, as part of a package. That amendment narrowly failed. Today, the Republican Senators from Maine and Ohio, Senator Snowe and Senator DeWine have offered a $6.3 billion restoration to student loan cuts. We are making progress. Republicans have admitted that there is a real problem in this budget in that it severely cuts education. But Mr. President, $6.3 billion for student loans still leaves students paying billions more, essentially to provide tax cuts elsewhere. More importantly, we should not merely restore part of the college student aid cuts while accepting the 33 percent cuts in this budget resolution to the programs that serve children. This budget resolution cuts the 6 million children served under title I for the disadvantaged to 4 million. It cuts services for over 5 million disabled children served under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act by $5 billion. If it is wrong, economically, to cut student aid to provide tax cuts, as my Republican colleagues seem to concede, then it is certainly wrong to pass these huge cuts to education for younger children. The means of bipartisan compromise is the Dodd amendment. It is a compromise that both sides can strain to reach. It restores a total of $28 billion. It does not fully restore the cuts to children's programs. It still reduces the number of children served, while we know that the number of children will rise. And, it fully--not partially--relieves college students of their part of cuts in student loans. Mr. President, this amendment can help us rebuild the bipartisan consensus that education is a priority. We should not cut disadvantaged and disabled children, and it is economically foolish to do so. I know colleagues on both sides of the aisle believe this, and I urge all Senators to support this amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Oregon, Senator Hatfield, for his leadership in providing biomedical research funding, and I strongly support his amendment to restore $1 billion per year that otherwise would be cut under this Senate budget resolution. Most basic biomedical research in this Nation is supported by the National Institutes of Health. Nearly every week we hear of advances against disease supported by NIH grants. As such, NIH not only reduces suffering in our country, it lays the groundwork for economic growth and leads the world in the fight against disease. Despite our profound responsibility to maintain NIH funding, we currently provide funds adequate to support only one in four research proposals. The Senate budget resolution could cut that current support level to 1 in 10. At that level, young researchers will be strongly encouraged to seek other careers. The steady stream of Nobel Prize winners at NIH--89 so far--will dry up. In short, we will be cutting into the muscle and bone of an institution that demonstrates the best of American Government and the best of human endeavor. Furthermore, the Senate budget resolution funding levels would effectively forestall life-saving, cost-effective research. NIH is currently in the middle of many long-term projects that revolutionary implications for medicine. NIH is supporting a $3 billion, 15-year effort to map the human genome. This project underlies the revolution in genetic medicine that has implications for cancer, developmental disabilities, Alzheimer's disease, juvenile diabetes, and numerous other diseases. NIH began a 12-year, $68 million prostrate cancer prevention trial in 1991. It began a $50 million, 11-year childhood asthma management program in the same year. In 1990, it began a 12-year test of tamozifen treatments for breast cancer among a randomized group of 16,000 women. It continues to support the Framingham longitudinal investigation of factors influencing the development of cardiovascular disease, which began in 1948. Next year NIH plans to support six centers specializing in hypertension research over 5 years. These are just a few examples of the critical research underway at NIH that should not be eliminated or delayed in the name of short-term budgetary gains. The truth is, we save money through biomedical research. Recent NIH advances in the therapy of sickle cell disease save an estimated $350 million annually. Recent advances against alcoholism save $125 million annually. Research underway to delay the onset of blindness in diabetics and to delay the onset of Alzheimer's could save billions. Simply delaying the onset of cardiovascular disease by 5 years is estimated to potentially save $70 billion yearly. And clearly, without progress against AIDS, will continue to spend billions in our hospitals and in lost human productivity. So, Mr. President, we cannot responsibly turn away from these research needs. We must provide for them in the budget, and Senator Hatfield has provided the vehicle to do so. Again, I thank him for his leadership and urge all of my colleagues to support the Hatfield amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank my colleague. Mr. President, this is the same amendment that I presented in the Budget Committee which was defeated by a 12 to 10 vote. At the markup in the Budget Committee markup, Democrats were characterized as wanting to take the surplus, and spend it, whether for Medicare, education or whatever; Republicans were criticized for taking the surplus to give tax cuts. The truth of the matter is that there will be no $170 billion surplus. But if part of it does materialize, it ought to go to reducing the deficit. That was the amendment I offered in committee, and that is the amendment that should today be adopted by the Senate if we are really sincere. But rather than have any light shed on the subject, we have been bombarded by irresponsible reporting on the budget in the last several weeks. Specifically, I refer to Time magazine's cover which said, ``This time it's serious. Budget resolution . . . for the first time in decades, Congress is committed to balancing the budget.'' Absolutely false. Turn to page 7 in the budget resolution itself. What word appears? ``Deficit'' by the year 2002. It does not appear ``balanced.'' On page 7, line 21, for fiscal year 2002 a deficit of $113.500 billion, or, more accurately, on page 9, you can see how much the debt actually increases by the year 2002 over just 1 year--2001. It is $177.7 billion. That is the real deficit. We are all rhetoric and no reality. Republicans are already giving themselves credit and claiming to have done a wonderful thing which to some on the other side justifies a tax cut. But Mr. President, the American people know what is going to happen. Under this proposal, the tax cuts in stone and the spending cuts are going to slip by the board. Specifically, on this idea of committing to balancing the budget for the first time in decades, I submitted when I was chairman of the Budget Committee--and again in 1985. Everyone remembers Gramm-Rudman- Hollings. That was a balanced budget--not in 7 but in 5 years. In 1991, we were treated to the budget summit. I remember at that time that members were slapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves on really getting the budget under control. I ask unanimous consent that the 1991 budget resolution deficit surplus figures appearing on page 21 of the budget report be printed in the Record at this particular time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. So, Mr. President, yes, they had a deficit for 1991 and 1992. But at that time, their estimates projected a surplus in 1995 of $156.2 billion. The reality was much different. Instead of $156.2 billion surplus, we have a $317 billion deficit--a swing of some $474 billion off in the 3 or 4 years. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. We have been through this gamesmanship. Let us cut out the nonsense and get serious here and report accurately that we are not balancing the budget. You cannot do it without a balanced approach of spending cuts and tax increases. If there is any surplus, heavens above, let us allocate it to the deficit, because by 2002, we will have a $6.6 trillion debt with interest costs growing at the rate of almost $500 billion a year. That is, one-third of the budget is automatically going to interest costs, just the carrying charges, not to reduce the debt but just to open up the doors early every morning up here in Washington in the Government. So we cannot engage in this nonsense and gamesmanship. We have to get real.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will be delighted to yield, on your time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I am through with my time. But I would be delighted to get into a debate with my distinguished chairman. In closing, let me just reiterate that I really am tired of this fraud. The greatest fraud I know exacted on the American people is the idea we have choices. We are broke. And the single biggest government program that we have is the interest costs on the debt that we have to spend year after year. To honestly stop this hemorrhaging we have to freeze, we have to cut, we have to close loopholes and increase taxes. When we finally admit that, we will get on top of the problem.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished leader on our side. Mr. President, the amendment of the Senator from Texas is premised on the idea that both House and Senate budget resolutions balance the budget: Absolutely false. Let me refer specifically to the House budget, page 4: The deficit for the year 2002 is estimated at $120.7 billion. They make no pretense, they print it in black and white. Moreover, if we look at the figures on page 4, lines 20 and 21, we will find that the debt increases from 2001 to 2002 by $192 billion; that is the real deficit under the House resolution. The real deficit under the Senate budget for the year 2002 is listed on page 7, line 21 as $113.5 billion. If we turn to page 9, we can see that the debt increases $177 billion--the real deficit. So the very notion that we have done a good job, that we have balanced the budget, or that we deserve a reward, is all based on a false premise. Mr. President, the biggest falsity, one perpetrated on both sides of the aisle, is the belief that we can balance the budget through spending cuts alone and without increasing revenues. I laid out the harsh budget realities in January of this year. I continue to report it, but in the limited time I have, I cannot go through the entire document. Thus, I would ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, government is big. But what is big is the interest costs on the national debt. I was here when we balanced the budget under President Lyndon Johnson. The gross interest cost at that time was $4 billion. Think of it, 36 Presidents, Republican and Democrats, all the wars from the Revolution, World War I, II, Korea, and a good part of Vietnam--the interest costs on the debt were only $4 billion. The interest costs on this year's deficit and debt are estimated at $340 billion. The cost of Government as you and I know it, domestic discretionary, is $275 billion. That is the courts, the Congress, the President, the departments, FBI, DEA and all other non-defense appropriated accounts. Thus, even if you eliminate all of those departments, you still have a deficit. What you are doing in the Gramm amendment is a charade, requiring people to pay higher interest costs and saying you are giving it to them in a tax cut. We are misleading the people on the idea that the work is done. I agree that the people are better able to spend their money than we are. But they expect us to come to Washington and to be honest about budget matters. It is time to get out of the wagon and help us pull-- the trouble is that we here are in the wagon. It is the children who are doing the pulling.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, Senator Exon, be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, One of the most distinguished forefathers, James Madison, said that ``a popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.'' He said that in a letter to John Adams, and Adams wrote back that ``The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expense of it.'' Coming up to Horace Mann's day, he referred to the Northwest ordinance where we laid the groundwork to develop Iowa--and it is a distinct pleasure to be associated with Senator Harkin. Those States in the Midwest were set up in 6 mile by 6 mile blocks, and the middle block--number 16--was reserved for public education. Horace Mann said: This law laid the foundation of the present system of free schools. The idea of an educational system that was at once both universal, free, and available to all the people, rich and poor alike, was revolutionary. This is the great thing about America. No other nation ever had such an institution. Three centuries later, it is a stranger to the bulk of the people of the world. The free public school system, which Puritans conceived, has been in large measure the secret of America's success. In these classrooms children of all races, nationalities and tongues learn the common language and became imbued with one central idea--the American conception that all men are created equal, that opportunities are open to all, that every minority, whether respected or despised, has the same guaranteed rights as the majority. Parents who landed here often brought with them the antagonisms, the rivalries and suspicions of other continents. But their children became one and united in the pursuit of a democratic ideal. Mr. President, this idea was brought up-to-date, this observation of Horace [[Page S7085]] Mann, just Sunday before last, on May 14, at the graduation exercises at the College of Charleston in my hometown which, incidentally, was founded in 1767. It is the fourth-oldest liberal arts college in the United States and the oldest municipal college in the United States, now having become a State university. Our distinguished colleague from Kansas, the Senator from Kansas, Senator Nancy Kassebaum, was the graduation speaker. As Dr. Alexander, our greatest of great presidents there, spoke and introduced the program, he said this, and I think it should gain the attention of everyone: A few more than 900 soon-to-be graduates are seated behind me. If I ask each of them to stand who had attended college on a grant from the Federal Government, 405 of them would stand. If I then asked those to stand who had received a Government loan, an additional 198 would stand. If I then asked all those to stand who had received a scholarship which included at least some Government involvement, an additional 120 would stand. Eighty percent of today's graduates would then be standing. Of course, all the rest, as well as those who are standing, had a part of the expenses at the college paid for by the State of South Carolina. So while our graduates are thanking their families and friends, they might do well to also thank the Government. At the College of Charleston, we do not think of the Government as our enemy. It is not possible to love the College of Charleston and hate the Government. In the American democracy, the Government, in the phrase of Lincoln, is ``of the people, by the people and for the people.'' Speaking for myself, I do not think it is possible to love America and hate the Government. So my plea this afternoon is if we can set aside partisanship momentarily and get some bipartisanship back on track for the general good, let us look at this amendment and realize that we have to move forward. This particular amendment has what aim? Is it our aim to streamline the Government and cut out the fat? Or is it our aim to hack away indiscriminately, to tear down Government, to cut out not just the fat but also the muscle? Quite frankly, I look at the unprecedented education cuts in the budget resolution and this is what I see--not an efficiency inspired streamlining, but ideologically-driven amputation. I am reminded of the Florida doctors down there who recently went into the operating room to amputate a foot, when the patient awoke, he discovered that the doctors had amputated his healthy foot. That is exactly what is occurring here in this particular budget resolution. We are not talking here, Mr. President, about highway demonstration projects and more subsidies and the usual litany of Government waste. To the contrary. We are talking about Government at its best. Government at its most cost efficient. We are talking about proven programs--Head Start, Title I, assistance for educating disabled people, and college loans for low-income people. These are programs that demonstrably work, and work for our neediest citizens. By the most conservative estimate, Mr. President, every $1 spent on Head Start translates into $2 in later cost savings and educational benefits. One investigation, the famous Perry Preschool Study, determined that there are $3 in benefits for every $1 spent on Head Start. We see an even greater return from Title I programs. For every poor child, thanks to Title I intervention, who does not have to repeat a grade, Mr. President, we save $7,000. For every child who, thanks to Title I, does not drop out of school, we save potentially tens of thousands of dollars in welfare costs. Mr. President, the cuts proposed in the budget resolution give rise to a broader question: How in the world did we allow education to become a partisan issue? How in the world did we reach a point where virtually every Republican is reported ready to vote for radical cuts in the education budget, and virtually every Democrat is ready to vote against the cuts. I will never forget the bipartisan move over the years with the distinguished Senator from Vermont, Bob Stafford. We had been Governors together and worked on education and the education amendments. Thanks to the success of Senator Stafford, we had equally wonderful bipartisan support and leadership. We used to have two rules for nonpartisanship around this place: One rule was politics stop at the water's edge; the other rule was that politics stops at the schoolhouse door. I deeply regret in the rush to dismantle Government we are willy-nilly throwing away our consensus on education. Mr. President, I come to the floor to plead for a restoration of that consensus, to plead with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join in support of the amendment. Republicans have spoken very passionately about the need for people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, to stand on their own feet, to get out of the wagon, and help pull the wagon. The distinguished Speaker of the other body has made a compelling case for what he calls ``conservative opportunity society,'' a society which, he says, should guarantee equal opportunity but not equality of results. Fine. How can we credibly talk about equality of opportunity at a time that we are making radical cuts in education? How can we tell poor and disadvantaged persons that we believe in equal opportunity at the same time we are cutting the dickens out of Head Start, Title I, and other programs whose entire purpose is to make opportunity less unequal? Indeed, Mr. President, if the cuts proposed in the budget resolution are allowed to stand without modification we will deal a devastating one-two punch to poor Americans. First, we will shred the social safety net by enacting cuts in child nutrition, health care, job training and so on. Sixty percent of the $961 billion in budget cuts planned over the next 7 years will come from programs for poor and elderly. By hacking away at education, we cripple the ability of poor children to get a decent start toward literacy and other skills that they will need to stay off welfare and survive in the new economy. I see a common thread, Mr. President, running through this budget resolution. The more needy a person is the more deeply they get cut. This is true not just of children but of States as well. Cutbacks in the budget resolution will hit hardest in the States that are most dependent on Federal aid. These States tend to be small, they tend to be poor, and, yes, they tend to be Southern. Consider the following States and how much they depend on Federal assistance in their education budgets: Mississippi, 17 percent; New Mexico, 12.4 percent; Alaska, 11.5 percent; Alabama, 11.4 percent; South Dakota, 11.1 percent; North Dakota 11.1 percent; Louisiana, 10.8; Arkansas, 10.8; Kentucky, 10.1 percent; my own State of South Carolina, 9 percent. The main program cut back by the resolution is Title I for the disadvantaged. We now serve, Mr. President, about 6 million children under the program, and projecting the same across-the-board cut to education, the Department of Education says that we will be serving only 4 million children when that particular cut has become law. Taken together, the cuts in the budget resolution make a mockery of any notion of an opportunity society. This budget resolution tells poor people to pull them themselves up by the bootstraps, and then it takes away the boots. It strikes me strongly that those who would make deep cuts in the social safety net have a special obligation, a special moral obligation, to at a minimum maintain the Federal Government's current level of investment in education. The bottom line, of course, is education equals opportunity. The income and opportunity gap is already striking. Between 1973 and 1989, the annual earnings of black male high school dropouts in their twenties declined by fully 50 percent. Consider this, Mr. President: Kids whose parents are on the top quartile of income have no trouble going to college. A whopping 76 percent of them earn Bachelor's degrees. But for kids whose parents are on the bottom quartile, a shockingly different story. Only 4 percent of these lower-income kids receive a Bachelor's degree. Mr. President, we are limited on time here this afternoon and many of our distinguished colleagues are interested in addressing this particular problem. Let me just say these are exactly the kids who are most at risk in underachieving, flunking a grade or dropping out. Take away Head Start and Title I and we are yanking the rug out from under the kids. We have to get real. We cannot claim to favor an ``opportunity society'' at the same time we enact savage cuts in education. The opportunities of society should not be for those who are born on third base; rather, we also need an opportunity society for poor children who are born stuck in the batter's box with a two-strike count. Yet by cutting deeply into Head Start, Title I, and the other education programs for the disadvantaged, we are heading in exactly the wrong direction. It is too late, now, Mr. President, to reconsider the priorities set forth in the budget resolution. To that end, therefore, I urge a strong bipartisan vote in favor of this amendment. If we are serious about opportunity for everyone, then we should be boosting our investment in education, not busting it.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished chairman. Mr. President, in the brief moment that I have, I would like to voice a note of sobriety with respect to this debate, and to agree for starters about the bigness of Government. I have played this budget game for 35 years. As Governor 35 years ago, I balanced the budget in the State of South Carolina, and earned a triple-A credit rating. Some 27 years ago, in 1968, I worked with George Mahon, then chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and we balanced the budget. Mr. President, when we hear the hue and cry to get rid of big Government, we ought to focus on what it is about government that is really big. In 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson balanced the budget, he faced gross interest costs on the national debt of $14.6 billion. That is after almost 200 years of history. Through 36 Presidents, Republican and Democrat, the Revolutionary War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, Mexican, all the wars, World Wars I and II, and Korea, a good part of the war in Vietnam, the mandatory spending of interest costs was only $14.6 billion. If my colleagues listen to nothing else, let them listen to this fact. According to the Congressional Budget Office in February of this year, the mandatory spending of gross interest costs is estimated at $340 billion. Oh, boy, has the size of Government increased. How did it grow? Let me go right to the heart of the matter and quote none other than the chairman of President Reagan's Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman. I quote: The root problem goes back to the July 1981 frenzy of excessive and imprudent tax cutting that shattered the Nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans have willfully denied the giant mistake of fiscal governance, and their culpability in it ever since. Instead, they have incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless stream of antitax venom while pretending that economic growth and spending cuts alone could contain the deficit. Mr. President, we are watching history repeat itself as Republicans today make the same mistake of insisting that the deficit can be conquered through spending cuts alone. Lord knows, I have tried. I have worked in a bipartisan way for a balanced budget. As chairman of the Budget Committee 15 years ago, I worked closely with Henry Bellmon, then the ranking Republican. In 1980, contrary to what some of the weekly magazines would have you believe, Senator Bellmon and I presented a balanced budget. In 1985, Senator Gramm, Senator Rudman, and Senator Hollings presented a balanced budget, planned over 5 years rather than 7 years. We were supposed to have balanced the budget by 1990, but then Congress pushed back the goalposts and eventually repealed the fixed deficit targets. I worked with Republican Senators Boschwitz and Danforth on a value- added tax, 5 years ago. In the Budget Committee, some eight members voted for a value-added tax. Why? Because we needed it. But unfortunately today, the charade continues. The truth of the matter is that cutting taxes as they say by some $350 billion over 10 years, actually increases the interest costs or taxes on the gross debt. It has been said that there are two things in life that you cannot avoid, death and taxes. Actually, there are three things, death, taxes, and interest taxes on the national debt. So when they talk in a blasphemous fashion about cutting taxes, it comes time for the sober truth. They can try to get away with this charade, but the fact is that they are increasing taxes. Now, there are two-ways, Mr. President, to approach this problem. One is a balanced plan of freezing spending, cutting spending, closing tax loopholes, and increasing revenues. But the other way, of course, is the Vietnam approach--destroy the Government in order to save it. It gives you the image, it gives you the headline, it gives you what they are talking about, a balanced budget. But I ask the Members to turn to page 7 of the Senate budget resolution. There it plainly says that in the year 2002 we will have a deficit of $113.5 billion. That is just the real deficit. If we turn to page 9 where the annual increases in the public debt are listed, in fiscal year 2002 the debt increases $177.7 billion. The distinguished occupant of the chair on the other side is a very successful businessman. He knows. Look at page 9. Fiscal year 2002, the debt increases $177.7 billion. So, yes, President Clinton has a budget where the deficits go up as far as the eye can see. The Republican budget now that we have before us, unfortunately, has deficits of $177.7 billion as far as the eye can see. That is the truth. Those are the facts. We hear a lot of talk about reducing the deficit, but if we want to fathom the true depths of their sincerity, we ought to turn to page 74 of the resolution. I am reminded of the story about the days when we had the literacy test. Poor black men would come to the polls to vote and would be given the Chinese newspaper. They would be told, ``Boy, read that.'' The black man would take the paper, look at it one way then turn the paper around and around. When he would finally be asked what it said, the man would reply, ``It says ain't no black gonna vote in South Carolina today.'' Now, I read this one on page 74, five little words: ``For legislation that reduces revenues.'' Do you know what that means? It means we are going to allow for a $350 billion tax cut, just like they are doing over on the House side. You have to know the tricks of the trade. The real problem is that those tax cuts are going to be written in stone. The spending cuts will never occur. Part of them will occur. But the bottom line will be we will be up, up and away with deficits and increased spending for interest costs. We need to cut out this total fraud that you can do it with spending cuts alone. We have to get serious. You could eliminate all of the nondefense discretionary programs--all $275 billion of them--and we would still be in the red because of the $340 billion that we have to spend on interest costs. It is Alice in Wonderland: To stay where you are, you have to run as fast as you can. To get ahead, you have to run even faster. The ox is in the ditch. We have to get to work seriously here and cut out the monkeyshines with Social Security, as they did during debate on the constitutional amendment, and as they do now. The provision that John Heinz and I put in the law, section 13301 of the Budget Enforcement Act, says: `` Thou shalt not use Social Security trust funds for the deficit.'' We asked them to obey it in the Budget Committee and, to my shock, 12 Republican Senators voted against that law in the Budget Committee. Now, if I had Hollings Enterprises as a business and I went to file my annual statement to the Securities and Exchange section, and I was using my pension fund to mask the size of my deficit, I would be in jail. They would haul me off to the hoosegow. We need to stop, look, and listen and get away from this gamesmanship. Republicans talk now as if they are the only ones interested in the deficit. Perhaps they have forgotten that President Clinton came to town and cut it $500 billion through a balanced approach of spending cuts and tax increases. He followed that up with an effort to reform Medicare and Medicaid that fell upon deaf ears as Republicans claimed that there was no health care crisis. Now, all of a sudden they are sounding the alarm and citing the need for decisive action to save the HI trust fund from bankruptcy. How ironic that out of the Medicare trust fund. Mr. President, they are playing games with you. They talk as if they are so interested in this year's report from the Medicare trustees showing that the fund would be in the red by 2002, but last year the very same report showed that Medicare would be bankrupt by 2001. And now they say, ``We never knew this. We have to go to work.'' Last year, they said there was not any trouble with health care; Medicare was fine. Can you imagine, $256 billion out of Medicare? We cut $56 billion the year before last. The President offered another $125 billion last year which you called fantasy. And now you come along with $256 billion and say you need a commission to find it? That is what I call passing the buck. That is punting.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am privileged today to join with Senator Thurmond in introducing the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor Act of 1995. This act aims to protect, restore, and promote the South Carolina National Historic Corridor--a 200-mile-long, 14 county swath in the western part of the State, running along the Savannah River Valley from the foothills of the Piedmont to North Augusta, at which point it follows the route of the old Hamburg-to- Charleston railroad all the way to Charleston. This act has several objectives. It would protect the significant land and water resources of the national heritage corridor. It would support, through financial and technical assistance, the State and local governments, as well as the private sector, in developing a management action plan for the corridor. And it would create a management framework to bring together the State and local governments to jointly develop policies and programs to conserve and enhance the cultural, natural, economic, recreational, and scenic resources of the corridor. Mr. President, the historic corridor concept has been used by a variety of public and private groups across the Nation to encourage historic and natural preservation, and to promote tourism and economic revitalization. The approach has been used successfully in the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, in the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, in the Lackawanna River Valley in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. The heritage corridor concept offers a flexible way for government and private organizations to work together to promote economic growth and job creation. Mr. President, with industry concentrated in a limited number of urban areas, it is no secret that small, scenic, towns, and rural areas are looking to tourism as a means of strengthening and diversifying their declining economies. The heritage corridor concept offers an opportunity for many communities to work cooperatively and pool their resources in order to boost tourism. The South Carolina Heritage Corridor originated with a tourism committee in the city of Abbeville, SC, and has grown to include 14 counties and over 40 towns and rural communities. This is a grassroots movement that has captured the imagination and enthusiasm of citizens across the western part of my State. The South Carolina Heritage Corridor is well conceived and holds tremendous promise for my State. I urge my colleagues' support for this important bill. Exhibit 1 South Carolina State Museum, Columbia, SC. Joan Davis, Community Development Division, S.C. Dept. of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, Columbia, SC. Dear Joan: I am intrigued with the concept of developing a Heritage Corridor in fourteen counties along South Carolina's western boundary. Stretching from Charleston to the mountains the proposed corridor would take in all of the elements that have characterized South Carolina for the past three centuries. Beginning in Charleston, one of the most cosmopolitan of American cities before 1860, the corridor follows the route of the old South Carolina Railroad through Colleton, Bamberg, Barnwell and into Aiken County. When completed in 1831 this was the longest railroad in the world. Prior to the civil War this area was dotted with cotton plantations, the predominant economic factor in the state's antebellum years. In Aiken's Horsecreek Valley the state's textile industry was born during the 1830's. Only a few miles away the Savannah River Site was the nation's supplier of plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War years. From North August, the terminus of the old South Carolina Railroad, the proposed corridor follows the Savannah Valley to the foothills in Oconee County. Also a major cotton producing area before 1860, Edgefield County was home to ten governors, a remarkable number for a small county. Beginning in the 1820's the production of alkaline glazed stoneware began in Edgefield and subsequently spread throughout the South. Originally produced as utilitarian storage ware, today Edgefield pottery is a highly prized collectible. The corridor continues along the Savannah Valley through once prosperous cotton fields into Anderson County, a major center of the state's textile industry. Around Anderson one finds both traditional textile companies as well as a recent influx of major multinational corporations. The last section of the corridor takes one to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. A journey through the proposed corridor encompasses all of South Carolina's past and present. From cosmopolitan Charleston in the 1700's with its wealthy merchants and rice planters to the challenges facing low income residents of the Appalachians, the corridor crosses not only the state's entire geography, but also encompasses all of the state's peoples. Historic sites, natural resources, cultural diversity and modern manufacturing successes are all part of the proposed corridor. A visitor who journeys through the corridor certainly departs with an understanding of South Carolina's history and development, as well as an appreciation for the state's diverse geography and natural features. This proposed corridor has several components of national significance. As the cotton culture spread through this area more and more planters became entrenched in defending slavery, contributing to the forces that lead to the Civil War. Leading proslavery advocates John C. Calhoun and James Henry Hammond lived in the corridor. As residences of the area their theories on states rights and slavery evolved from personal experiences. After the war the development of the textile industry in the corridor changed the focus of South Carolina's economy from an agricultural to an industrial base, a phenomena which subsequently spread across the South. Finally, the location of the Savannah River Site in the center of the corridor reflects not only the Cold War strategy of the United States, but also the challenge of the cleanup facing all the nuclear production facilities across the country. Sincerely, Rodger E. Stroup, Ph.D., Director of Collections and Interpretation.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Coastal Barrier Resources System Fairness Act of 1995. The bill is aimed at correcting a mistake in the Coastal Barrier Resource System. Without this correction, a portion of Colleton County, SC, will remain in the Coastal Barrier Resources System even though the county never had an opportunity to voice their objection to their inclusion. In 1980 Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to study and propose a Coastal Barrier Resources System. The aim was to create a system made up of relatively undeveloped low-lying coastal lands which, because of their susceptibility to flooding, would not be eligible for Federal flood insurance. Practically speaking, to be included in the CBRS means you can't sell or develop your property. Soon after the passage of the 1980 act, the Department of the Interior created a study group charged with promulgating an inventory of coastal the end of 1988, the study group had completed its work and the Department of the Interior submitted the CBRS proposal to Congress. This proposed inventory was the culmination of 8 years work and included suggestions made during two public comment periods. The first public comments were made following the release of an initial draft inventory in 1985. Additional comments were made following the release of a second draft in the spring of 1987. The Department of the Interior received numerous comments on these draft inventories and incorporated many in their final report to Congress. This final report was the basis for the Coastal Barrier Resources System adopted in 1990. I recite this history because without an understanding of it, Mr. President, one can't understand the intent of my legislation. While the Department of the Interior was drafting this proposed system, a strip of coastal South Carolina was being annexed by Colleton County from Charleston County. Unfortunately, this annexation occurred in 1987 in the midst of the 1987 CBRA comment period. Unfortunately, the notice of this second draft inventory was not received by Colleton County. The county never received any notice. It appears, the draft inventory was provided to Charleston County, not Colleton County. In fact, the maps currently on file at the Department of the Interior, still, incorrectly show this tract in Charleston County--not Colleton County. Thus, the citizens of Colleton County, never having had an opportunity to comment on these proposed changes, now find this tract included in the CBRS. And for all practical purposes off limits for development. This bill corrects that mistake. It rights that wrong. It does not drastically redraft the Coastal Barrier Resources System nor withdraw any lands included in the 1985 draft. The bill simply returns a small portion of Edisto Island, SC, to its 1985 status. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am introducing a bill today to direct the vessel Royal Affaire, official No. 649292, to be accorded coastwise trading privileges and to be issued a certificate of documentation under section 12103 of title 46, United States Code. The Royal Affaire was constructed in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1980. The vessel, a sailboat, is 76.3 feet in length, 20.3 feet in breadth, and 8.8 feet in depth and is self-propelled. The vessel was purchased by Homer C. Burrous of Charleston, SC, in 1989 for approximately $900,000, with the intention of chartering the vessel for cruises in and out of St. Thomas and other foreign ports in the Caribbean. Since purchasing the vessel in 1989, the owner has had the vessel refitted in a U.S. shipyard at a cost of over $800,000. Mr. Burrous would like to utilize the vessel to conduct coastal cruises. However, because the vessel was built in New Zealand, it does not meet the requirements for a coastwise license endorsement in the United States. The owner of the Royal Affaire is seeking a waiver of the existing law because he wishes to use the vessel for coastal cruises. His desired intentions for the vessel's use will not adversely affect the coastwise trade in U.S. waters. If he is granted this waiver, it is his intention to comply fully with U.S. documentation and safety requirements. The purpose of the legislation I am introducing is to allow the Royal Affaire to engage in the coastwise trade and fisheries of the United States.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise to congratulate Angalena Rhue on winning the 1995 President's Service Award, the Nation's highest honor for volunteers. President Clinton presented Ms. Rhue this outstanding award on April 27 for her unselfish commitment to helping hundreds of Charleston area kids stay off drugs. Angalena Rhue is special in her pursuit because she knows what drug addictions can do to a person. Just 6 years ago, this same woman was a crack cocaine addict. Now, not only has she conquered her addiction, but she has developed a program, ITEC--Infiltrate the Enemy Camp, to ensure that today's youth don't fall prey to the same mistakes. Angalena is quite a self-starter. What began as a small project in her own community in Summerville has now expanded into three counties to serve low-income children ages 4 through 19. importance of staying in school and staying off drugs. ITEC offers afterschool tutoring to children, assistance in job searches, and requires parents to attend sessions to learn positive reinforcement techniques. Mr. President, I hear a lot of talk about what we, as citizens of the United States, can do to have a positive impact on the next generation, the children of today. I offer Angalena Rhue as a shining example. She has taken what could have been a negative experience, her drug addiction, and turned it into something positive for the children of South Carolina. She will have an immeasurable impact on our society. Through her efforts more children will turn away from drugs and continue their education. It gives me great pleasure to join the President of the United States in recognizing a fellow South Carolinian for being 1 of 18 volunteers awarded this prestigious honor for truly making a difference in this country. Recently, the State in South Carolina's capital city, Columbia, recognized Angalena Rhue for her award. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I too want to at this moment thank those who have been in the trenches over the years and, of course, most of all my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Alabama. It is always good to get in behind the chief justice because you know you are on the side of the law and of equity, and you know you are on the side of the judgment. Certainly it is, as we all revere him ethically, that you are on the side of ethics and equity. I thank publicly Senator Heflin for his leadership, and particularly Winston Lett, a member of his staff. On my staff, Kevin Curtin, Jim Drewry, Moses Boyd, James Leventis, and Lloyd Ator. They have been working around the clock, Kevin and Moses and others have been working in sort of a minority position on this measure. The record would show that my particular Commerce Committee has over the past several Congresses voted by a majority to report this bill. So we have had a sort of uphill fight. I still feel that, of course, we had the merit. I guess they feel they had the merit. But in any event, I think the 15-year holdup was because of that on our side. I also would like to thank Senator Biden's staff, the Senator himself, Sean Moylan, Karen Robb. And then with respect to, of course, the medical malpractice part, we did not have hearings but Health and Human Resources did. The distinguished former chairman, Senator Kennedy, was the leader on that. We had, of course, the vigorous help of Senator Boxer and Senator Wellstone. So it has been thoroughly aired and properly heard. The Senate has voted. But let us see what the House crowd comes up with in the contract. I yield the floor. Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Just the one in February, one statement: Pharmaceutical companies will spend nearly $15 billion on drug research and development in 1995. According to the Senator from Washington, they cannot spend. They just cannot work anymore with this law. And right here in April: Between 1970 and 1992, close to half of the important new drugs sold in major markets around the world were introduced by U.S. pharmaceutical companies. And here at home the drug industry is making nine out of every ten new drug discoveries. Breakthrough medicines that are going to be created for AIDS, heart disease, Alzheimer's, stroke, cancer, or any other disease will come from the American drug companies. But according to the Senator from Washington, they cannot bring out products. Come on. They have tried every trick in the book. What we really have afoot, Mr. President, when they cite the Constitution is just that--an assault against the constitutional right of trial by jury guaranteed by the seventh amendment. People who say they do not trust politicians anymore are waiting for the politicians to behave as though they trust the people. You and I trust them to elect us, but when they get us 12 men and women on a jury sworn to listen to the facts and make their finding, according to their sworn oath, ``They do not know what they are doing; they have gone ape; they are just runaway juries,'' and everything else of that kind. But we up here, the bureaucracy in Washington, we should decide rather than letting the juries decide back home. We have a right, Mr. President, that has worked over the many, many years. You have safe drug products. Thank heavens, we have product liability and we have taken off Dalkon shield and all the rest of these other things--cancer causing products. We have safer automobiles. Why do you think Chrysler the other day said they were going to recall I think some 350,000 or several million cars? I had the summation. Seventy-one million automobiles in the last 10 years, American and foreign manufacture, have been recalled. They do not recall them because of the goodness of their heart. They recall them on account of product liability. What we have in hand here they want to destroy. We have always had in this land ``salus populi suprema lex.'' Safety of the people is the supreme law. Now they come with this measure, the profits of the manufacturers is the supreme law, and whine that they are for the consumers and they cannot put out products. How does this come about? I have been in this for 40 years and I have watched it develop: Pollster politics. They tell you when you come to this national office up here that you have to get a poll and get to four or five hot-button items and then you have to identify with them. You are for jobs, everybody is for jobs; you are against crime; you are against taxes. They just go down the list. Then they tell you, and in fact GOPAC puts on a school over there for the young Congressmen that are elected, they say, ``You have only got a 20-second time bite to give your message, so you need words that count, words that excite, inflame.'' And do you know what they call us up here now? I quote the Speaker. He terms the U.S. Government that pledged to preserve, protect, and defend, he calls it the corrupt liberal welfare State. And when you can come in this anti-Government drive with the Contract With America and you see it in the morning paper and if you read it closely, it is gone: ``Get rid of the Government. The Government is not the solution, the Government is the problem. The Government is the enemy.'' That has been the drumbeat. If you can wrap it together in tort reform, you can get against the lawyers and against the Government both and you can really have a winner. Well, for 15 years we have defended against this assault. President Ford helped us 15 years ago. He appointed a commission. And when President Ford appointed that commission, they had a 4-year study that came out and found that the States for 200 years have been handling this properly, basic tort law. Incidentally, of all the civil findings, only 9 percent are tort. And of all the tort, only 4 percent of the 9 percent, or 0.38, thirty-eight one-hundredths of 1 percent of what we are supposed to be dealing with. It is not a problem at all. They said the States were handling it. And now we know by record in the hearing that the States have reformed, they have acted. The legislators are not asleep, the Governors are not asleep, the attorneys general are not asleep back in the States. They can handle this problem. That is the plea of the contract in reality. Get all of these things, housing grants, block grants to the States, welfare block grants, whatever it is. Give it back to the States. Not on this one. You are in the hands of the Philistines, that manufacturing crowd out there--the Conference Board, the NFIB, the Chamber of Commerce. I have been elected six times and they do not come running. That crowd that we have, they come running. Yes, the Chamber wants to know where you stand, the NFIB, the Conference Board, everything else. They talk about trial lawyers giving you money. They give money but the others, the manufacturing and insurance crowd, they give more money and they have the votes. And the people who really oppose this bill do not have a PAC. Have you ever seen a PAC for the American Bar Association? Have you ever seen a PAC for the Consumer Association, Public Citizen, Association for State Supreme Court Justices, Association of State Legislators, law school deans--they have all appeared in the polls--the State attorneys general? They do not have PAC's. working with them, but we have the contract now. And we have had many of these Senators that finally changed their votes who said, ``You know, I got in trouble. I committed a year ago.'' That is how it happens, if people want to know. When all the powerful organizations come to you in a campaign and you are for reform--``Yeah, I'm for reform. I'm for reform.'' They have been reminded in the last several days in this debate here how they gave their commitment. So I went to them, I said, ``How do you change your vote?'' They said, ``Well, I got in trouble a year ago or 2 years ago when I was running.'' And that explains it. But it does not change the lack of merit in this particular initiative and the danger of it all. So what we have is ``Kill all the lawyers.'' You could see it in the amendments. That is what they have. Our friend Dan Quayle started that before the American Bar Association some 4 years ago and we still have it going. If you can vote against the lawyers and say they are running away and getting all the money and everything else like that, you have mob action on foot and you can get it moving. Well, Mr. President, it is bad law. What happens is they do not give you a Federal cause of action. If they had come in--and I have been insisting for the 15-year period, if you want to make a finding under the interstate commerce clause that they plea, that we are going to make a congressional finding that there is a national problem and give a Federal cause of action, that is one thing. No, that is not what they want. They say they are trying to get simplicity, eliminate complexity, get uniformity. But then they put guidelines down for the 50 States to interpret and then can go into the Federal court and, by the way, exempt the manufacturer. Any of these things that I have talked of, any of these initiatives, any of these amendments, just exempt the crowd that wrote the bill. Now I can tell you here and now if that is not hypocrisy, I do not know what the heck is. And yet they are saying they are proud now and they want to thank everybody, tell them about their balance and everything else like that. This is one of the most dangerous initiatives. It has been held up for 15 years by all of these organizations. It is a nonproblem. They know it. It is a solution looking for a problem, in all reality. And we are headed, yes, with the English rule, we are headed with two levels of society. ``Get rid of the jurors and people with common sense back home. We know it all up here.'' They started over 130 years ago diminishing that guaranteed right of trial by jury. So today, less than 2 percent of civil cases go to a jury trial in England. And you are told that the issues are too complex, you do not have sense enough to understand and what have you. And that is the initiative that starts today on the floor of the U.S. Senate. They know in their hearts it is bad law. They have tried everything from the Girl Scouts, and had to withdraw that; they tried the Little League and had to withdraw that. They put George McGovern on TV and had to pull him off. They tried everything--the McDonald's case, then when that was explained to them, you do not hear them talk about the McDonald's case. Always these little anecdotal things that they bring up. But they got one winner: ``Let's get rid of the lawyers.'' We can get a majority vote on that. We can get a majority vote on that. And so it is. In essence, what you are really doing is getting rid of the jurors. The trial by jury, they are eroding it, nibbling at it bit by bit is the intent and purpose, just like they had in England where you do not even get a review of facts or anything else. You cannot even ask the jurors any questions; you cannot find the background. I could go down the list, but my time is now limited and I am practically out of time. I simply say that it is a sad day in the history of government because it brings to culmination the so-called contract of reform which goes totally in contradiction to the entire theme of the contract back home. The people know--you are going to hear it now in the budget. The people back home need a tax cut because they know how to spend the money better than the Government up here. All of these pleas and everything. The people back home know this, they know that, they know everything except the facts of the case that they are sworn to uphold.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Oh, so reasoned, says my distinguished colleague from Washington. It is so balanced. GOPAC has taken over. Gingrich is the Speaker, and there is a contract. Look at the elements of this contract. Part and parcel either by way of amendments here or in bills on the House side or what they have in mind is not just product liability but they have limiting pain and suffering damages; they have limiting the punitive damages; they tried to fit in medical malpractice; they tried to then limit plaintiff's attorney's fees. They voted against the fees on the defendants. They were not making enough. They ought to make more than $133,000 a year. They tried to limit punitive damages in all civil cases. The English rule is in the bill over on the House side; the alternative dispute resolution with the plaintiff having to pay all the fees; the securities litigation, the FDA and FAA rules where they would bar damages if the product is approved by either of those entities; they exempt the medical devices and the doctors, a provision about frivolous suits, statutes of repose; restricted submission of evidence is in this bill, in the House bills, bifurcation of the trials, both actual and punitive damages. Then they even put in an unconstitutional additur provision here. Like the sheepdog had tasted blood, with product liability they are going to gobble up all the other rights and say it is so reasoned and so balanced. One exemption they have from all this, Mr. President. One exemption-- the manufacturers, the very crowd that through this bill continue to put in the amendments and everything else. They exempt the manufacturer and apply this all to the injured party and have the unmitigated gall to come up here and say they are for consumers. Why, heavens above. Come on. I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record the State-based organizations opposed to this legal reform bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS. There it is. I did not want to really fill up the Record, but every responsible, credible consumer entity in any of the 50 States is opposed to this initiative, and the other side knows it. But they come around and talk balance and they talk consumers and they say you cannot produce products. I ask unanimous consent to insert in the Record these two advertisements by the pharmaceutical companies, February 23, 1995, and April 5, 1995, in the Washington Post.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senator. I have no objection.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have been at the Budget Committee all afternoon, and so I have not been able to monitor all the nuances, but we are now hearing that reasoned objections need not be given to this provision because the distinguished Senators say that they are going to take care of this issue in conference. That could be. I have served on many a conference committee and I have learned that you are never able really to control it. Each Senator is given a vote, along with the House Members. Be that as it may, I will not give the reasons why I am concerned about this provision at this particular time, other than to say that I am also honestly objecting. I am courteously objecting. I do not know how to say it any better than that. When the proponents make a request, a unanimous-consent request, and assume that theirs is the only honest request, courteous request, and sincere request, and how they can be more honest, then that constrains me to stand and say that I am just as courteously objecting and honestly objecting as I know how to object. And I object. Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.