Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Is it the Congressional Budget Office, or what executive agency is that referred to on page 12?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the distinguished Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, may I get recognized?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is quite obvious I would like to talk and without restriction, like any other Senator, like 100 of us here. I do not have to get unanimous consent. I will await my turn after amendments and after all of your rigmarole takes place. I do not think I have to go through my courteous friend, the distinguished Senator from Idaho, to be recognized. I will await my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I do not find our side objecting. I find constantly the other side objecting. That is the whole point.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The Senator knows the Senate is a continuing body, except for now. I have never seen, in my brief 28 years, this nonsense. What he wishes and hopes for and everything else--do not give me about our side of the aisle and everything else--everybody takes their turn. Things take time to work out. We cannot move forward with this amendment, or I could get recognized and talk.

Mr. HOLLINGS. There is no colloquy. I want to be recognized in my own right.

Mr. HOLLINGS. It is easy to do. Everybody else can be recognized. You all have been up here for days and weeks. I never have been recognized on this score, and I would like to be recognized, but I will await my turn.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I do not want to forgo that.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation which would provide Congress and the President with an additional weapon to eliminate wasteful and unnecessary appropriations and thereby reduce the Federal deficit. This bill, a statutory, separate enrollment line-item veto, is identical to a measure previously considered by the 99th and reported favorably by a bipartisan vote out of the Senate Budget Committee on July 25, 1990. During the 103d Congress, a similar amendment offered by myself and Senator Bradley received the support of 52 Senators. Today, 43 States have, in one form or another, a line-item veto allowing the chief executive to limit legislative spending. As a former Governor who inherited a budget deficit in a poor State, I can testify that a line-item veto is invaluable in imposing fiscal restraints. The fiscal problems of our Nation have been painfully documented. Our Government continues on annual deficit binges that have pushed our total deficit past $4.7 trillion. For years now, we have been toying with freezes, asset sales, and sham summits, but the deficit and debt continue to grow. The American taxpayer, as well as the Congress, have grown weary of the smoke and mirrors and are past ready for new measures that will help to put our country back in the black. If every there was a problem that needed to be attacked from every particular angle, it is this deficit. Mr. President, I welcome President Clinton's strong support for the line-item veto initiative and his continuing resolve to attack the burgeoning deficit monster. In order to hold him to that commitment, we should send him into battle well armed. By restoring accountability and responsibility throughout the appropriations process, the line-item veto would force Members of Congress and the President to stop fixing the blame and start fixing the problem. In order to provide greater flexibility in the legislative process, this legislation provides that each item shall be enrolled as a separate bill and sent to the President for his approval. Therefore, each item of an appropriations bill would be subject to veto or approval, just like any other bill, and the override provisions found in article I of the Constitution would apply in the case of a veto. An item is defined as any numbered section and any unnumbered paragraph of an appropriations bill. The enrolling clerk would merely break an appropriations bill down into its component parts and send each separately enrolled provision to the President. Finally, this legislation also contains a 2-year sunset provision allowing for a reasonable testing period and requiring an evaluation of the line-item veto's success. I have no question but that it will be demonstrated to be a modest, but effective, method of restraining fiscal profligacy. I hope that Senators will join me in this effort, and I ask unanimous consent the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Deficit Reduction and Health Care Financing Act of 1995. This bill would create a 5-percent national value-added tax, with all revenues set aside in a trust fund to finance deficit reduction and health care reform. Let me be clear, I offer this bill under duress. But it is the only way I know--in tandem with deeper spending cuts--to deal with the fiscal recklessness that has gotten out of hand in this city. It's time we stopped running government based on the promise of pollisters and started thinking about performing for the people. Today, I propose a 5-percent national value-added tax without exemptions. The VAT is essentially like a national sales tax. Traditionally, there have been three principal objections to a VAT: First, it is regressive; second, it is too complicated; third, it raises too much money and would cause waste. Let me address each of these objections in turn. First, the issue of regressivity. I agree, but all taxes are inherently regressive. With a consumption tax, the more you consume, the more you pay; the less you consume, the less you pay. The VAT does fall disproportionately on lower income brackets. But the VAT is not nearly as regressive as interest costs on the national debt. It is not nearly as regressive as the debt's inflationary impact on the economy, which disproportionately harms the poor. Second, it is said that the VAT is too complicated. Well, it's certainly not too complicated for the Japanese, the Koreans, and every member of the European Economic Community. Moreover, we can draw on the lessons of these other countries as well as the experiences of the States with sales taxes in order to minimize such complications. Third, some say that a VAT would raise too much money. This is a dream. We will need ever dime raised by a 5- percent VAT, plus savings from additional steep spending cuts, in order to eliminate the deficit. Even then, it will take years to pay down the debt and to put government back in the black. A VAT will help us not only to eliminate the deficit but also to pay cash on the barrelhead for health reform. Additionally, moving to border-rebatable taxes will contribute to eliminating our other great deficit--the trade deficit. At present, our overseas competitors rebate to their manufacturers the VAT on all goods exported to the United States; those manufacturers' other in-country taxes are relatively low. In stark contrast, producers in the United States pay property taxes, income taxes, excise taxes, Social Security taxes and much more; then, when their goods are shipped overseas, the importing country slaps a fat VAT tax on top of all those other taxes. This does tremendous harm to the competitiveness of U.S. products abroad. It makes it financially attractive to produce outside the United States, and represents at least a 15-percent disadvantage in international trade. A U.S. VAT would eliminate this disadvantage. With good reason, Lester Thurow of MIT says that ``the rules of international trade make you stupid if you don't have a VAT.'' I have no illusions as to the political trauma involved in enacting a new tax. continue to wait for a propitious moment, our financial crisis worsens every day. It's time to put government back on track with difficult belt-tightening and and honest taxes. I propose a single, ultra-simple reform--a reform that would transform the reputation of Congress in the eyes of the American people. That reform is to put the U.S. Government on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to address a problem with which we are all too familiar--the ever-increasing cost of campaign spending. The need for limits on campaign expenditures is more urgent than ever, with the total cost of congressional campaigns skyrocketing from $446 million in 1990 to well over $590 million in 1994. For nearly a quarter of a century, Congress has tried to tackle runaway campaign spending; again and again, Congress has failed. Let us resolve not to repeat the mistakes of past campaign finance reform efforts, which have bogged down in partisanship as Democrats and Republicans each tried to gore the other's sacred cows. During the 103d Congress there was a sign that we could move beyond this partisan bickering, when the Senate in a bipartisan fashion expressed its support for a limit on campaign expenditures. In May 1993, a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate resolution was agreed to which advocated the adoption of a constitutional amendment empowering Congress and the States to limit campaign expenditures. During the 104th Congress, let us take the next step and adopt such a constitutional amendment--a simple, straightforward, nonpartisan solution. As Prof. Gerald G. Ashdown has written in the New England Law Review, amending the Constitution to allow Congress to regulate campaign expenditures is ``the most theoretically attractive of the approaches- to-reform since, from a broad free speech perspective, the decision in Buckley is misguided and has worsened the campaign finance atmosphere.'' Adds Professor Ashdown: ``If Congress could constitutionally limit the campaign expenditures of individuals, candidates, and committees, along with contributions, most of the troubles * * * would be eliminated.'' Right to the point, in its landmark 1976 ruling in Buckley versus Valeo, the Supreme Court mistakenly equated a candidate's right to spend unlimited sums of money with his right to free speech. In the face of spirited dissents, the Court drew a bizarre distinction between campaign contributions on the grounds that `` * * * the governmental interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption outweighs considerations of free speech.'' I have never been able to fathom why that same test--the governmental interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption-- does not overwhelmingly justify limits on campaign spending. However, it seems to me that the Court committed a far graver error by striking down spending limits as a threat to free speech. The fact is, spending limits in Federal campaigns would act to restore the free speech that has been eroded by the Buckley decision. After all, as a practical reality, what Buckley says is: Yes, if you have personal wealth, then you have access to television, you have freedom of speech. But if you do not have personal wealth, then you are denied access to television. Instead of freedom of speech, you have only the freedom to shut up. So let us be done with this phony charge that spending limits are somehow an attack on freedom of speech. As Justice Byron White points out, clear as a bell, in his dissent, both contribution limits and spending limits are neutral as to the content of speech and are not motivated by fear of the consequences of the political speech in general. Mr. President, every Senator realizes that television advertising is the name of the game in modern American politics. In warfare, if you control the air, you control the battlefield. In politics, if you control the airwaves, you control the tenor and focus of a campaign. Probably 80 percent of campaign communications take place through the medium of television. And most of that TV airtime comes at a dear price. In South Carolina, you are talking between $1000 and $2,000 for 30 seconds of primetime advertising. In New York City, it is anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 for the same 30 seconds. The hard fact of life for a candidate is that if you are not on TV, you are not truly in the race. Wealthy challengers as well as incumbents flushed with money go directly to the TV studio. Those without personal wealth are sidetracked to the time-consuming pursuit of cash. The Buckley decision created a double bind. It upheld restrictions on campaign contributions, but struck down restrictions on how much candidates with deep pockets can spend. The Court ignored the practical reality that if my opponent has only $50,000 to spend in a race and I have $1 million, then I can effectively deprive him of his speech. By failing to respond to my advertising, my cash-poor opponent will appear unwilling to speak up in his own defense. Justice Thurgood Marshall zeroed in on this disparity in his dissent to Buckley. By striking down the limit on what a candidate can spend, Justice Marshall said, ``It would appear to follow that the candidate with a substantial personal fortune at his disposal is off to a significant head start.'' Indeed, Justice Marshall went further: He argued that by upholding the limitations on contributions but striking down limits on overall spending, the Court put on additional premium on a candidate's personal wealth. Justice Marshall was dead right. Our urgent task is to right the injustice of Buckley versus Valeo by empowering Congress to place caps on Federal campaign spending. We are all painfully aware of the uncontrolled escalation of campaign spending. The average cost of a winning Senate race was $1.2 million in 1980, rising to $2.1 million in 1984, and skyrocketing to $3.1 million in 1986, $3.7 million in 1988, and up to $4.1 million this past year. To raise that kind of money, the average Senator must raise over $13,200 a week, every week of his or her 6-year term. Overall spending in congressional races increased from $403 million in 1990 to more than $590 million in 1994--almost a 50- percent increase in 4 short years. This obsession with money distracts us from the people's business. At worst, it corrupts and degrades the entire political process. Fundraisers used to be arranged so they didn't conflict with the Senate schedule; nowadays, the Senate schedule is regularly shifted to accommodate fundraisers. I have run for statewide office 16 times in South Carolina. You establish a certain campaign routine, say, shaking hands at a mill shift in Greer, visiting a bid country store outside of Belton, and so on. Over the years, they look for you and expect you to come around. But in recent years, those mill visits and dropping by the country store have become a casualty of the system. There is very little time for them. We are out chasing dollars. During my 1986 reelection campaign, I found myself raising money to get on TV to raise money to get on TV to raise money to get on TV. It is a vicious cycle. After the election, I held a series of town meetings across the State. Friends asked, ``Why are you doing these down meetings: You just got elected. You've got 6 years.'' To which I answered, ``I'm doing it because it's my first chance to really get out and meet with the people who elected me. I didn't get much of a chance during the similar experience in 1992. I remember Senator Richard Russell saying: ``They give you a 6-year term in this U.S. Senate 2 years to be a statesman, the next 2 years to be a politician, and the last 2 years to be a demagogue.'' Regrettably, we are no longer afforded even 2 years as statesmen. We proceed straight to politics and demagoguery right after the election because of the imperatives of raising money. My proposed constitutional amendment would change all this. It would empower Congress to impose reasonable spending limits on Federal campaigns. For instance, we could impose a limit of, say, $800,000 per Senate candidate in a small State like South Carolina--a far cry from the millions spent by my opponent and me in 1992. And bear in mind that direct expenditures account for only a portion of total spending. For instance, my 1992 opponent's direct expenditures were supplemented by hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures by independent organizations and by the State and local Republican Party. When you total up spending from all sources, my challenger and I spent roughly the same amount in 1992. And incidentally, Mr. President, let's be done with the canard that spending limits would be a boon to incumbents, who supposedly already have name recognition and standing with the public and therefore begin with a built-in advantage over challengers. Nonsense. I hardly need to remind my Senate colleagues of the high rate of mortality in upper Chamber elections. And as to the alleged invulnerability of incumbents in the House, I would simply note that more than 50 percent of the House membership has been replaced since the 1990 elections. I can tell you from experience that any advantages of incumbency are more than counterbalanced by the obvious disadvantages of incumbency, specifically the disadvantage of defending hundreds of controversial votes in Congress. I also agree with University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who has suggested a doctrine of sufficiency with regard to campaign spending. Professor Sabato puts it this way: ``While challengers tend to be underfunded, they can compete effectively if they are capable and have sufficient money to present themselves and their messages.'' Moreover, Mr. President, I submit that once we have overall spending limits, it will matter little whether a candidate gets money from industry groups, or from PAC's, or from individuals. It is still a reasonable--``sufficient,'' to use Professor Sabato's term--amount any way you cut it. Spending will be under control, and we will be able to account for every dollar going out. On the issue of PAC's, Mr. President, let me say that I have never believed that PAC's per se are an evil in the current system. On the contrary, PAC's are a very healthy instrumentality of politics. PAC's have brought people into the political process: nurses, educators, small businesspeople, senior citizens, unionists, you name it. They permit people of modest means and limited individual influence to band together with others of mutual interest so their message is heard and known. For years we have encouraged these people to get involved, to participate. Yet now that they are participating, we turn around and say, ``Oh, no, your influence is corrupting, your money is tainted.'' This is wrong. The evil to be corrected is not the abundance of participation but the superabundance of money. The culprit is runaway campaign spending. To a distressing degree, elections are determined not in the political marketplace but in the financial marketplace. Our elections are supposed to be contests of ideas, but too often they degenerate into megadollar derbies, paper chases through the board rooms of corporations and special interests. Mr. President, I repeat, campaign spending must be brought under control. The constitutional amendment I have proposed would permit Congress to impose fair, responsible, workable limits on Federal campaign expenditures. Such a reform would have four important impacts. First, it would end the mindless pursuits of ever-fatter campaign war chests. Second, it would free candidates from their current obsession with fundraising and allow them to focus more on issues and ideas; once elected to office, we would not have to spend 20 percent of our time raising money to keep our seats. Third, it would curb the influence of special interests. And fourth, it would create a more level playing field for our Federal campaigns--a competitive environment where personal wealth does not give candidates an insurmountable advantage. Finally, Mr. President, a word about the advantages of the amend-the- Constitution approach that I propose. Recent history amply demonstrates the practicality and viability of this constitutional route. Certainly, it is not coincidence that all five of the most recent amendments to the Constitution have dealt with Federal election issues. In elections, the process drives and shapes the end result. Election laws can skew election results, whether you are talking about a poll tax depriving minorities of their right to vote, or the absence of campaign spending limits giving an unfair advantage to wealthy candidates. These are profound issues which go to the heart of our democracy, and it is entirely appropriate that they be addressed through constitutional amendment. And let us not be distracted by the argument that the amend-the- Constitution approach will take too long. Take too long? We have been dithering on this campaign finance issue since the early 1970's, and we haven't advanced the ball a single yard. It has been a quarter of a century, and no legislative solution has done the job. The last five constitutional amendments took an average of 17 months to be adopted. There is no reason why we cannot pass this joint resolution, submit it to the States for a vote, and ratify the amendment in time for it to govern the 1996 election. Indeed, the amend-the-Constitution approach could prove more expeditious than the alternative legislative approach. Bear in mind that the various public financing bills that have been proposed would all be vulnerable to a Presidential veto. In contrast, this joint resolution, once passed by the Congress, goes directly to the States for ratification. Once ratified, it becomes the law of the land, and it is not subject to veto or Supreme Court challenge. And, by the way, I reject the argument that if we were to pass and ratify this amendment, Democrats and Republicans would be unable to hammer out a mutually acceptable formula of campaign expenditure limits. A Democratic Congress and Republican President did exactly that in 1974, and we can certainly do it again. Mr. President, this joint resolution will address the campaign finance mess directly, decisively, and with finality. The Supreme Court has chosen to ignore the overwhelming importance of media advertising in today's campaigns. In the Buckley decision, it prescribed a bogus if-you-have-the-money-you-can-talk version of free speech. In its place, I urge passage of this joint resolution, the freedom of speech in political campaigns amendment. Let us ensure equal freedom of expression for all who seek Federal office.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise to commemorate the service of William J. McCord, the Nation's longest-serving director of a State alcohol and drug abuse prevention and treatment agency. Mr. Jerry McCord is resigning on February 16 after fulfilling a thirty-five year mission to build a system in South Carolina that helps citizens avoid and defeat the curse of addiction. When he became the first full-time employee of the fledgling State Alcoholism Education Program instituted at the start of my Governorship in 1959, none of us knew he would eventually guide an agency that treats more than 30,000 South Carolinians yearly and leads the Nation in its focus on preventing alcohol abuse among teens. Jerry McCord has pursued his vision of an addiction-free population, not just within the community of treatment professionals, but on every front. He has taught at both of South Carolina's medical colleges, helped found a nonprofit foundation for drug abuse prevention, and received the Distinguished Service award from the South Carolina Correctional Association for his work with law enforcement. He has fostered a system of county commissions that lets each commission meet the needs of its community, while continually championing a longterm, system-wide goal of prevention, particularly among the young. In short, Jerry has dedicated his long and vigorous career to building a flexible, longterm system to benefit future generations. In addition to his wide-ranging service in South Carolina, Jerry has always made time to help the Nation find better prevention and treatment policies. His myriad national contributions include testifying before Congress in 1969 to advocate the formation of a Federal agency to fight alcohol abuse, serving three terms as president of the Alcohol and Drug Problems Association of North America; chairing the Alcohol Policies Project Advisory Board for the Center for Science in the Public Interest; serving as president, chairman, and member of the board of directors of the Council of State and Territorial Alcoholism Authorities; serving on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Head Start Partnership to Promote Substance Free Communities; and currently chairing the Expert Panel of the National Center for the Advancement of Prevention. This service has brought Jerry McCord repeated recognition at the national level, including a Lifetime Career Achievement Award from the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, the Outstanding Leadership and Dedication to the Alcohol Field award from the same organization, the First Annual Leadership in Prevention Award from the National Association of Prevention Professionals and Advocates, and the Outstanding Individual Offering National Leadership in the Alcohol and Drug Problems Field Award from the Alcohol and Drug Problems Association of North America. And, of course, Jerry has been my tutor on the best direction for Federal policy. Thus, it is with personal pride, but also speaking for those who know of his influence in South Carolina and across the country, that I commend Mr. William J. McCord for his generous career and wish him the best in what I am sure will be an active retirement.