Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure today to recognize my friend Dr. Jim Edwards, who recently retired as president of the Medical University of South Carolina after a distinguished 17-year tenure. Thanks to his hard work and dedication, MUSC is now consistently ranked as one of the top 100 research universities in the country and has established itself as a leader in teaching and patient care. Since Dr. Edwards took the helm at MUSC, the university has graduated more than 10,000 health care professionals who are serving throughout the state and nation. The university also experienced remarkable physical growth under his leadership with the construction of several valuable facilities including the Children's Hospital, the Hollings Cancer Center, the Gazes Institute for Cardiac Research and the Strom Thurmond Biomedical Research Center. The Charleston area is fortunate to have MUSC in its midst. The area's largest employer, MUSC has an impressive economic impact of $1.3 billion annually. Dr. Edwards' vision and drive that helped place MUSC in the medical forefront are talents he developed during the previous two decades as a public servant. He became a politician for all the right reasons. He was the archetypal man fed up with America's ills, but with the uncommon belief that it was his duty to correct them. A successful oral surgeon, Jim served for two years in the South Carolina Senate before resigning to run for governor in 1974. Although the underdog in the race, he emerged the victor, becoming the first Republican governor of South Carolina since Reconstruction. As governor, he passed the Education Finance Act, which helped modernize our state's education system. He also established a reserve fund, created a motor vehicle management office, streamlined the state budgeting process, developed welfare reform procedures, established the Energy Research Institute and launched state government reorganization efforts. His nonpartisan approach to state government was commendable. ``I sincerely believe that during a campaign you ought to be partisan as you can be,'' he told The State newspaper recently, ``and talk about the differences of the two parties. There's plenty there to talk about. . . . But when elected, all this partisan stuff should stop. You ought to work together with whomever the people elected to work with you in government.'' Democrats far outnumbered Republicans in the South Carolina legislature when Jim was governor, yet representatives from both parties have compliments to bestow upon him to this day. He left the Governor's Mansion with an approval rating of nearly 80 percent. A year after Dr. Edwards returned to his dental practice, President Reagan asked him to serve as the nation's energy secretary. True to his commitment to public service, Jim answered the call, moving to Washington to tackle an important national issue. During his tenure, the DOE decontrolled oil, stepped up the pace for filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, obtained federal aid for three synthetic fuel projects and shepherded a nuclear waste measure through Congress. In 1982, he moved back to South Carolina and assumed the presidency at MUSC. Dr. Jim Edwards' retirement marks an end to the career of one of South Carolina's finest. His impact will be felt for many years to come. My wife, Peatsy, joins me in wishing Jim and his wonderful wife, Ann, a happy retirement.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished chairman talked of a short-term political advantage. I have debated this issue for 33 years in the Senate. When I started, I was not successful. We had 90 percent of the production of textiles. We are down to one-third or less of the critical mass. If we preempt the 10-year phaseout of the Multifiber Arrangement, I can tell you right now, the industry is gone. The jobs are gone. He talks about the tyranny of the minority. He has not seen me. If I could be a tyrant, I would be. The White House and an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats are all in favor of soft money. The morning headline: ``Will Capitol Crusade Bear Fruit?'' ``Ailing Underwear Maker Gives Freely as Senate Mulls Tariff Cut.'' It is not the jobs. The jobs have left Kentucky. Senator Bunning has to protect the jobs so that no more of them leave. 7,000 have already left Louisiana. The gentleman, Mr. William Farley, has moved his headquarters to the Cayman Islands; so we can call this the Fruit of the Loom job flight bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 434, the African Growth and Opportunity Act and Caribbean Basin Trade Enhancement Act and urge my colleagues to reject the cloture motion to end debate on this ill-advised legislation. Today's proposal offers a unilateral opening of the U.S. market in exchange for no market access commitments from the countries affected. Unlike NAFTA, no negotiations are required for these benefits contained within the legislation to take effect. It is no wonder that the governments of the impacted countries argue in favor of this legislation. This legislation contains limited protections for Caribbean and African workers and offer no protections for the environments in either region. It is essentially an invitation for companies to leave the United States and exploit African and Caribbean workers and the environment. Moreover, today's proposal disrupts a carefully balanced transition in textile and apparel manufacturing industries from a quota system to a less regulated market. Five years ago, in adopting NAFTA and the WTO we established a textile and apparel policy that was designed to be implemented over a 10-year period. We are now halfway through that implementation. Manufacturers, workers, and families made investments and planned their future based on that scheme. It is grossly unfair to all involved to alter that plan in the middle of its implementation. Specifically, the Africa portion of the legislation alters the generalized system of preferences program by permitting increased access to imports from Africa into areas that have traditionally been limited because they are import sensitive. Let me restate that. This package essentially lifts the protections for the most import sensitive products. In short, that means that U.S. workers will lose jobs as a result of this legislation. The protections that this legislation will erase have long been recognized in U.S. trade policy. Proponents of this bill will argue that the ITC has conducted a study that suggests that U.S. job loss will be less than 1,000 jobs. I do not believe the study and will offer an amendment to this legislation that would suspend benefits when textile and apparel job loss exceed 1,000 workers. Moreover, this legislation contains few assurances that the products coming from Africa be made in Africa. In fact, for most products, a minimum of 20 percent of the work can be done in Africa and the benefits of the legislation will still apply to the product. Traditionally, I have expressed concern on a variety of trade initiatives and most particularly with regard to those impacting the textile and apparel complex. South Carolina has 93,000 workers in our textile and apparel industries including 73,000 in the textile industries and 20,500 in the apparel industries. The proposal before the Senate today would essentially condemn the 20,500 employees in the apparel industry (and the 666,000 apparel workers nationally) to unemployment by permitting the duty-free entry, quota free entry of apparel products from Africa and the Caribbean that are made from American fabric--the so-called 807-a, 809 exception. Many will claim that such a provision aids the U.S. textile industry and for a brief time it may. Unfortunately, it decimates the U.S. apparel sector. If the apparel sector is undermined, eventually the textile industry will erode as well, because manufacturers will always move to be near their customers. Moreover, it is unlikely that the strict provisions that exist in the legislation will remain, once the conference committee completes a reconciliation of this bill with the much more expansive proposal from the House of Representatives. In addition, the principles underlying this legislation assumes that the current tariff situation remains unchanged as result of the new WTO Seattle Round negotiations. Such an outcome is unlikely. This legislation merely continues the ongoing assault by the current administration on America's strong manufacturing base. It will further weaken an already besieged U.S. textile and apparel industry and cost the jobs of countless American workers. This administration has become enchanted by the false promise of ``free trade,'' to the detriment of numerous U.S. industries. While expanding global commerce and benefiting less developed nations are admirable goals, we cannot afford to pursue them if it means dangerously weakening our industrial complex and putting American laborers out of work. I have often spoken on behalf of the beleaguered textile and apparel industry, one that is critical to maintaining a strong U.S. manufacturing base. Currently the United States imports $21 million worth of apparel and fabric for every $6 million that it exports. This margin will likely increase substantially with the implementation of S. 1387. American textile companies cannot compete with the increasing amount of cheap imports that are flooding our markets. Just in the past 17 months, 50 plants have been forced to close their doors, displacing 30,000 workers. And as disturbing as they are, these are just the most recent figures. I use them to underscore the seriousness of a much larger, longer-term problem. In large part it is our previous free trade agreements that are to blame for the losses in textile jobs. During the 36 months prior to implementation of the NAFTA agreement, just 2,000 jobs were lost in the American textile sector. The ensuing 56 months saw job losses rise to 305,000. To put these numbers in perspective, that is over 300,000 families who have lost their major source of income in just the past year and a half. The deterioration of the textile and apparel job market is not only harmful to South Carolina, but is devastating for many parts of the United States. In my State, the past 10 years has seen the number of jobs in the apparel sectors drop from 45,000 to 20,500, a decrease of more than 50 percent. Similarly, Pennsylvania's textile and apparel jobs have dipped from 80,000 jobs to 34,800 since 1989. Some might argue that in place of these jobs, many comparable new jobs have been created through the growth of the retail industry. This fact appears to be true on the surface, but closer examination shows it to be deceiving. Textile jobs pay 63 percent more than retail jobs. While the average mill worker receives wages of $440.59 a week, retail positions pay only $270.90. Furthermore, as an indication of the value of textile sector jobs, one can look at the increase in wages earned by mill workers over the past ten years. The $440.59 figure is up from $308.15 in 1989. In effect, well-paying jobs are being replaced with significantly lower paying jobs. This is a serious problem, particularly when many of these workers provide the only source of income for their families. Considering the difficulties of the domestic textile market, the last thing America needs is to increase the amount of cheap imports coming into our country. Yet this is exactly what S. 1387 does. It provides the perfect loophole for Asian countries to circumvent U.S. import restrictions. With the implementation of the Africa trade bill and the Caribbean Basin initiative, Asian companies will be able to easily conduct illegal textile transshipments from both African and Caribbean nations. Once they build manufacturing plants on the Caribbean islands, their products will be automatically accepted into the U.S. with low duties and no quotas. The restrictions contained in the Africa trade legislation will be subverted in a similar manner. Illegal transshipments already hurt American textile companies, and making them easier will just exacerbate the problem. This decimation of one of America's most important manufacturing sectors is unacceptable. I agree, as most of us do, that increased economic development in Africa and the Caribbean Basin is an important international objective, and is ultimately in America's best interest. Further, it is important that we assist these regions in implementing effective policies for this development. However, to do so at the expense of the textile and apparel industries and the American workers in those industries is irresponsible and foolhardy. The opportunity we are offering to the countries covered by this legislation is enormous. We are allowing them open access to our markets, giving them the opportunity to export their products to the United States at will. Meanwhile, more American workers will lose their jobs because foreign laborers are willing to work for much lower wages. Effectively, we are opening our doors to cheap imports and unemployment, all in the name of helping these poor nations to establish a firmer economic footing. In return for this favor we ask for nothing. We are agreeing to give away our employment and our money, and yet we want nothing in exchange. This is bad economics and poor policy-making. It seems clear to me that we should ask for something in return. We should ask that, at the very least, these nations treat their citizens decently and with respect. The human rights records of the countries included in this trade bill range from marginal to abominable. It should not be too much to expect for their governments to take steps to improve the living conditions of their people. Women suffer unequal and often violent treatment in many of the African countries and Caribbean nations. It is common in these societies to accept physical violence as a means of resolving domestic disputes. The result of this toleration is that women are routinely battered, raped, and assaulted. For example, human rights workers estimate that 20 percent of the female population in Nigeria has been subjected to physical abuse in the home. Furthermore, many African tribes force their female members to undergo rituals of severe violence, which are often life-threatening. In some countries, such as Sierra Leone, such brutal acts have been practiced on almost 100 percent of females. Obviously, these women are considered inferior citizens. That inequality is clear in the labor laws of many of these countries. If they are allowed to work at all, women make far lower wages than their male counterparts. In Kenya, women's average monthly wages were a striking 37 percent below those of men in 1998. Many of the children of these nations suffer similarly dismal fates. Street children, often orphaned by the loss of their parents to the AIDS virus, are sold into prostitution or, in some cases, into slavery. In El Salvador, as many as 270,000 children fit into this category. More ``fortunate'' minors are put to work as street vendors or domestic servants to help support their families financially. Most of these countries maintain the pretense of compulsory education and child labor laws, but few conscientiously enforce them. The plight of unskilled laborers in Africa and the Caribbean is also problematic. Only a handful of the countries covered by S. 1387 have established minimum wages that are sufficient to allow workers to support their families. To state one example, unskilled and agricultural laborers in Burundi are forced to survive on an astonishingly low 35 cents per day! Not surprisingly, this amount has been deemed inadequate for a worker and his family to maintain a decent standard of living. Clearly, the citizens of African and Caribbean countries are being subjected to numerous and often brutal human rights abuses. It is absurd that we are proposing to help these nations economically while turning a blind eye to the violence and inequality that goes on within their borders. If Congress and the administration insist on expanding ``free trade'' and granting open access to our markets to developing states, let us at least make such action contingent upon the equitable and decent treatment of their people. We have a powerful tool at our disposal, and we would be foolish not to use it. This legislation defies common sense. By passing it, we would further erode our manufacturing base and sacrifice important jobs, while receiving nothing in return. To you who represent farmers, I ask that you join me today in opposing this legislation, just as I and the textile workers have stood with you during the current crisis. To those who represent steel, I remind you that we supported you during your crisis as well. Please stand with me in voting against this proposal. Mr. President, to sum up: The bill decimates the apparel sector. It permits duty-free, quota- free imports from the CBI/Africa when made from United States fabric. It targets import-sensitive sectors by altering the rules for the imports of products from Africa. It provides limited protections for African workers and limited protections for Caribbean workers. Unilateral action requiring that countries benefiting take no real action to obtain the benefits. It provides no protection for the environment. Unlike the NAFTA side agreement, there are no side agreements to protect labor. It undermines the textile and apparel policy adopted as part of GATT. This Congress has no continuity of mind and attention. We passed a 10-year phaseout in the GATT agreement on textile quotas. Now, 5 years into the agreement, we want to cut it out. Investments made on the national policy of a 10-year phaseout are cut short. How do we pay for the machinery? Since we have a limited time, I will bring the issue into focus. This could be called the Fruit of the Loom job flight bill or the campaign finance bill because this proves the efficacy of soft money. I have an article from today, Friday, October 29, from the Washington Post, entitled ``Will Capitol Crusade Bear Fruit? Ailing Underwear Maker Gives Freely as Senate Mulls Tariff Cut.'' Fruit of the Loom Inc. is feeling deep pain these days. The company whose name has long been synonymous with underwear has lost money in the last three quarters. Its stock has dropped from $40 in 1997 to below $3 yesterday. So a bill that would eliminate tariffs that it and other companies pay to bring in certain garments from their factories in the Caribbean looks awfully attractive. That is what we will be voting on. On Capitol Hill, the company that industry people simply call Fruit has emerged as a prime promoter of the Senate bill, which is part of the United States' Caribbean Basin Initiative. The company also has become a big contributor to Republican causes. Contribution records show that Fruit gave $350,000 in ``soft money'' to GOP groups, $265,000 of it to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in the 1997-98 election cycle. That placed the company in the same league as the National Rifle Association and much bigger companies, such as drugmaker Novartis Corp. and Atlantic Richfield Co. Fruit also gave almost $90,000 in ``soft money to the Democratic cause, all of it to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Contributions have continued in 1999. Records show an additional $73,000, all of it to Republicans. At the same time, Fruit's chairman, William Farley, has been an active donor to key Republicans, giving $2,000 in May to the group Trent Lott for Mississippi, which supports the Senate majority leader, and $2,000 to the Keep Our Majority Political Action Committee, which supports GOP candidates. Mr. President, we are not dealing with jobs and dealing with trade. We are dealing with campaign finance. I continue: ``It's a company in bad shape giving money fairly lavishly to the [political] process, with incredible things to gain,'' said Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. Fruit doesn't deny the bill would help it--a spokesman said it expects to gain $25 million to $50 million a year if the Senate bill is enacted--but argues it will also help American industry and jobs. ``We don't look on this bill as corporate welfare,'' said Ronald J. Sorini, Fruit senior vice president for government affairs. Sorini said that his company and the industry are ``getting hammered'' by imports from Asia and that the Senate version of the bill, which limits import benefits to clothes made abroad from U.S.-produced textiles, would help the company compete by helping team its U.S. textile workers with its low-cost garment stitchers overseas. The House bill does not require use of American cloth. Mr. President, as an aside, the ATMI disapproves this particular bill because it marries the House bill with the Senate bill and does not require the Senate language. Reading on: He denied the contributions are targeted at the Caribbean bill, saying Fruit has more issues than that to worry about in Congress. ``We support those who generally support our industry,'' he said. The Clinton administration also backs the Senate bill, as does the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, which represents companies that make cloth. The Senate bill, along with one to offer similar tariff benefits to Africa, was caught up in maneuvering last night, with a vote to limit debate set for today. The measure is opposed by a coalition of labor groups and companies that still make garments in the United States. They contend it will further erode U.S. garment jobs and unfairly reward companies like Fruit that have sent garment jobs overseas. Fruit's U.S. employment has fallen from 33,000 to 17,000 people, the company says. About 3,500 Fruit employees are based in Kentucky, and the bill has caused a split between the state's two senators, Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning, both Republicans. McConnell favors it. ``It's not unusual for a senator to support the interests of a major employer in his or her state,'' said Kyle Simmons, his chief of staff. McConnell heads the Republican committee that has been the beneficiary of Fruit's soft-money contributions. Simmons said the money has no connection to McConnell's position, adding that he has always been a ``free-trader.'' Bunning has spoken out against the bill, on the grounds that too many jobs are going abroad. All in all, the bill would cost the Treasury about $1 billion in lost tariff revenue over five years. Mr. President, if there is any pride in being a Senator, they would withdraw this bill. I yield the floor and I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I hope--from the exchange we have just witnessed--that the two wise men will take their trip to Seattle without government gifts. But as they say, the fight will continue. I am not at all sanguine about the recent vote. Be that as it may, it was a majority vote. The Senator from Delaware says he knows--rather he estimated, estimated. The bipartisan majority has just stated what they would like to do, and that is to discuss this further because we are reading in the morning paper exactly what is going on. You know and I know what is going on in this country. The money boys have taken over. For the distinguished Presiding Officer, mark it down. The money boys said this Christian right fundamentalist crowd, Gary Bauer, be gone. Mr. Buchanan, with your abortion, be gone. The rest of you with your fundamentalist stuff, be gone. We have taken over the party, and we are putting $60 million in with George Bush, and the selection process is over. They don't even have to attend the debates. That is what is expected in politics. Otherwise, they have a good friend in the White House--the soft money President, and he is on the money side. I had to fight him with NAFTA. And I am fighting him now, and I will continue to fight and to speak for jobs. Don't give me anything about jobs. How can they talk? It ought to be ashes in their mouths. Since they passed NAFTA promising 200,000 jobs, the textile industry alone has lost 420,000. We know about their promises. We put it in the Record. ATMI, and everybody else who said they wouldn't move, they all moved. They have to move. We are the ones who have caused the problem. We put in clean air, clean water, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, plant closing notices, parental leave, and safe machinery. Before you open up your manufacturing you have to comply with the high standard of American living, bipartisan agreement on both sides. Instead, now you can go down to Mexico for 58 cents. Maybe it is up to one dollar in some places. And you don't have to have any of those requirements. If the competition leaves, other companies have to leave to stay in business. They say: Let's spread it to the African nations; we have the ambassadors in town. I have been in Africa. Don't tell me about sympathy for Africa. I lost friends in North Africa during the War who were helping to bring freedom there. We finally helped Mandela get out of prison. We have been the friends of Africa. We traveled there and we helped. If we have so much to give, why don't the other industries give to Africa? The textile industry has given at the store, so to speak. Now we have lost two-thirds of our industry. We have a competitive one- third left, but it is going away. That is why I stand here. It is a dark day. I am reminded of Jesse Jackson, who said keep hope alive. We still have hope as long as we can get the attention of a majority of Republicans and Democrats. Several Republican friends came over and said: I agree with you; I'm going to vote with you. Look at the record. I don't know how many Republicans, but it was a bipartisan vote. They are embarrassed with the Farley escapade. It is a one-way street. Come on, trade is trade. Don't give me this whine and fail stuff. We need not just a new agricultural assistance over there with the special Trade Representative. We need Nancy Reagan to replace Barshefsky--``Just say no.'' That is what we need. We know how to bargain. This is not foreign trade; this is foreign aid. It was good for 50 years to revive the different economies of the world, but it isn't any longer. We are in trouble. This boom they are talking about in the stock market is the information society; it doesn't create the jobs. Farley has already transferred nearly as many jobs offshore as Bill Gates has created with Microsoft. The Time magazine article says Microsoft has created 22,000 jobs. We already shipped off, job-wise, Microsoft. We have gotten rid of it, and we want to give them a $50 million prize for doing it, according to the Washington Post this morning. Talk about a dark day. Maybe someday we will simmer down in this body and forget about the Presidential election and act like Senators--work on the minimum wage, health care, the Patients' Bill of Rights, bankruptcy bill, and other bills we have been trying to bring up. My caucus is meeting now. I know I belong in there to try to protect my rights, but I will object to anything other than the regular order of business. Regular order is my vote. We can keep on moving. Let them vote against the minimum wage. They couldn't care less about the workers; they just want the vote. It is all politics. It is all applesauce, as Will Rogers said. We cannot break the syndrome around here. The media is just pell-mell and fancy-free with the politicians. We got a break this morning. I bless whoever wrote that story and the one in Time magazine because I have been alone in this situation. I am tired of this berating, when we are trying to do the work of the voters and the middle class people of America--the economic strength of this democracy--and the money guys are trying get rid of the middle class. Money is taking over the Republican Party, and now money is taking over the Democratic Party. That is what it is. It is just money. That is all. When we started the leadership council--that crowd, our own friends-- I remember it well, it was after the 1984 race. We got together all of the southern Senators, save one. We found out that the trouble was we had too many caucuses. We had the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the women's caucus, this rights caucus and that rights caucus. So their solution was to form a caucus. They had the arrogance to call them the leadership council. They talked at the caucus yesterday, everybody bowing and scraping. They said: Hollings, you got out of the Presidential race, but you head it up. I said I can't in good faith ask the Democratic Party to be there for me and then, when I get beat, say the trouble is with the party, not me. I supported Paul Kirk, and we worked and stayed in the party. I have never been to a meeting in the leadership thing. I watched the money take over. A lot of what Buchanan said about the parties is right, there is not a dime's worth of difference. You can't get anything here for working America. It is money, money, money. They ought to be ashamed to say I am continuing to fight for this. It would shame me with those contributions. I was looking for the distinguished leader, and I was going to tell him confidentially as a friend: Let the bill die; you don't want to bring it up. I have done you a favor. We were headed with a symbol to the world. I am worried about the country. Don't give me symbols about Seattle and ambassadors in the gallery. We should stay here to do our work. They can make any agreement, but it had better not be unanimous because I object. I expect the regular order. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have had earlier comments about our good friend, John Chafee, but a line I was trying to say was, more than a balanced budget, what we need in this body is balanced Senators. I don't know anybody better than John. He was the best. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the wonderful column by Mary McGrory entitled, ``The Gentleman From Rhode Island.''

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, if there is one difficulty we have in this trade debate, it is credibility. If you believe the distinguished leaders, the President, the majority, minority leader, the distinguished chairman of our Finance Committee, you are bound to vote for this particular agreement with respect to the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the sub-Sahara. Then if you believe this Senator, who is in a dreadful minority at this point, you couldn't possibly vote for it. Trying to bolster my credibility, because I have spoken throughout the year with respect to the budget, the deficit and whether or not there is a surplus, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record this morning's column entitled ``Hill Negotiators Agree to Delay Part of NIH Research Budget.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. Right in the middle is the headline: The Government has recorded its first back-to-back surpluses since 1956-57. Within the text, reaffirming that: Meanwhile, figures out yesterday showed that the federal government ran a surplus of $122.7 billion in fiscal 1999 (which ended Sept. 30), the first time the government has recorded back-to-back surpluses since the Eisenhower administration in 1956-57. That is totally false. Mark Twain said it best: The truth is such a precious thing, it should be used very sparingly. That has been the credo around the Government in Washington, particularly with respect to our fiscal condition. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record table 6 on page 20 of the U.S. Treasury Report, issued yesterday.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is my pleasure today to recognize an outstanding South Carolina athlete, Camie Ogren. In August, Camie brought home gold medals in the tricks event, the jump event and the team overall competition in the 1999 World Disabled Water Ski Championships in Windsor, England. This was her fifth trip to the international competition representing the U.S. Disabled Water Ski Team. In 1998, Camie broke the women's world record for slalom at the National Disabled Championships in Birmingham, Ala., where she also won four gold medals in the leg amputee division. Skiing has been an important part of Camie's life since her childhood in Windermere, Florida near Orlando, and in the finest athletic spirit, she continued to pursue the sport after bone cancer claimed her right leg more than 10 years ago when she was 15. Two weeks after her leg was amputated, Camie was back in the water and a few months later she competed in her first world championship in Australia where she earned second and third place honors. She moved to Charleston, S.C. a year and a half ago to work with the Medical University of South Carolina's Anchors Away program. Operated through the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Anchors Away allows people with disabilities and their families access to boats and other recreational activities, mostly on the water. With her expertise, Camie helped Anchors Away form a disabled water ski team that competes in national competitions and has also conducted out-of- town ski clinics in South and North Carolina. Camie is a remarkable person and athlete whose warmth and dedication to the sport of water-skiing has endeared her to the Charleston community. She serves as a powerful example to persons with disabilities of what they can achieve in the realm of competition. South Carolina is lucky to have Camie Ogren and her limitless energy in advancing her sport and its athletes.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I emphasize: The top fifth have seen an after-tax increase of 43 percent during the same period, while the bottom fifth of all Americans--including many working mothers--have seen their after-tax incomes fall 9 percent. Fall 9 percent? Disappear. That is the issue in the bill before us. That is why the Senator from South Carolina takes the floor, because they are going to disappear. You have seen exactly what causes that disappearance. It is so-called free trade, free trade--the CBI. We are all for liberal free trade. We can sit around, as politicians, and we can wonderfully agree, in a bipartisan fashion, on this high standard of living. Before you can open up X manufacturing, you have to have clean air, clean water, minimum wage, Medicare, Medicaid, safe working place, safe machinery, plant closing notice, parental leave--all of these ramifications of the high standard of living that Republicans support, that Democrats support. But then when you open it up, without protection of your economic strength--your industrial backbone--you begin to hollow it out, and see free trade, free trade, you can go, for 58 cents an hour, down to--someone used the figure 82 cents an hour--to Mexico with none of those requirements. I went down to Mexico. I crossed into Tijuana. And the mayor saw me. He said: Senator, I want you to meet with 12 people. I said: Well, yes. I am down here, and you have been nice enough to come out. I will be glad to. I was looking at all the different industries, of course, and talking to the industrialists themselves, not politicians. But the mayor was very courteous, so I met with them in a little grouping. And in a short word, what happened was--this is about 4 years ago--they had a heavy rain at the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. And it flooded and washed down these little hovels. There are 100,000 people out in this valley of hard dirt. For a place to live, they take five garage doors and put them together. There are no streets. There are no power lines. There is a little electric wire, but that isn't sufficient other than to hold a light. It cannot run the TV. They have a battery to operate the TV. It is a terrible, miserable existence. But they are proud people, and they work, and they try to get their children to school. So when the rain fell, they all got bogged down--they missed a day of work. So they went to the plant the next day, trying to hold on to their garage door housing, and they found out, under the work rules in Mexico, they were going to be docked another 3 days. So they lost 4 days' pay. That sort of got them a little discouraged with this plant that had moved down from California making these plastic coat hangers. A month passed in February. These workers did not have any protection whatsoever on the inside with the manufacturing--as we talk about with safe machinery and a safe working place--and something broke and flew into a worker's eye, which he lost. Then the workers became more concerned. But on May 1, they had a favorite supervisor. She was expecting. She went to the front office and said: I'm sorry, I'm not doing well. I'm sick. I'm going to have to go home. They said: No, you're not. You stay in here and work or else you are not going to have a job. So she stayed, worked, and miscarried. Then the employees said: We are going up to California, and we are going to get a union. You know what they did? They went up there and got a lawyer in Los Angeles and found out that they had a union. These maquiladora owners are clever enough. When they move down, they fill out the papers, saying that they have a union. And the papers are there but the workers never see a shop steward. They never saw a union man, or anybody else around the plant; never met them. No one was ever there. But they swap monies amongst themselves to try to make it look official. Mexican law says if you have a union and try to organize one, you lose your job. And the 12 I was talking to with the mayor were fired. They could not make a living anymore, could not get a job. You wonder why illegal immigration is so high--I would have bugged out of that country, too. I would have sneaked into the United States or some other country, I can tell you now, to feed my family. That is the kind of work conditions that we try to prevent here in the U.S., which still persist in Mexico. These are the kind of side agreements that we had to try to prevent within NAFTA. So we did that, and we don't have that at all with respect to the different companies down there, let's say, in El Salvador. I won't get into every one of them. A Korean-owned maquila with 900-plus workers, Caribbean Apparel, S.A., American Free Trade Zone, Santa Ana, El Salvador: death threats, workers illegally fired and intimidated, pregnancy tests, forced overtime, locked bathrooms, starvation wages, workers paid 15 cents for every $16.96 pair of Kathie Lee pants they sold, cursing and screaming at the workers to go faster, denial of access to health care, workers fired and blacklisted if they tried to defend their rights. Caribbean Apparel is inaccessible to public inspection. The American Free Trade Zone is surrounded by walls topped with razor wire. Armed guards are posted at the entrance. Forced overtime, 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, mandatory pregnancy tests, and on and on. I have to get this in the Record this evening because I have been very considerate of my colleagues. Many wanted to talk about our late colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island, obviously. I will always yield for that and for other particular points they want to make. You have another Kathie Lee (Wal-Mart) sweatshop in Guatemala, San Lucas, Santiago, Guatemala: forced overtime, 11- to 14\1/2\-hour shifts, 6 days a week, 7:30 to 6:30 p.m., sometimes they work until 10:00 p.m. The workers are at the factory between 66 and 80 hours a week. Refusal to work overtime is punished with an 8-day suspension without pay. The second or third time this offense occurs, the worker is fired. Below subsistence wages, for 44 regular hours the pay is $28.57 or 65 cents an hour. This does not meet subsistence needs. Armed security guards control access to the toilets and check the amount of time the women spend in the bathroom, hurrying them up if they think they are spending too much time. Public access to the plant is prohibited by heavily armed guards. You can go right on down this list. I will tell you right now, if you try to organize a union, they will shoot you. Point: You are going to hear how this is going to be so good--as the Senator from Delaware said, a win-win situation. You are going to hear another Senator now say this is the way we want to go. Can't we stop, look, and listen and get these dreadful labor situations cleaned up before we go? Is that what we want to put the stamp of approval on, this kind of heinous conduct down there in the Caribbean? This isn't with everybody sitting on the beaches with the suntan oil waiting for the President to call us back in session this fall, maybe, if we don't pass this bill. All kind of threats made, how important the bill is. In September, Jiovanni Fuentes, a union organizer assisting the workers at Caribbean Apparel, received a death threat from the company. He was told he and his friends should leave the work or they would be killed. He was told he was dealing with the Mafia, and in El Salvador it costs less than $15 to have someone killed. Whoopee, let's pass the CBI bill. We want to make sure we get that kind of production. The cheap shirt they put on the floor and said, look at what we are doing, the retailers are for this bill. Sure they are because they will kill you if you don't produce for next to nothing down there in the CBI. It is a broader problem. Let us go right to what I have heard all year long about software, software. Software is the engine that is really running this wonderful economy here in the United States of America. Of course, we have had the pleasure of meeting Microsoft's Bill Gates. I happen to be one of his admirers. I particularly admire the recent initiative with his foundation, that they gave $1 billion to our friend, Bill Gray, United Negro College Fund, to make sure every black in America could receive a college education. Gates is making maybe $2 billion. He can afford it. But that is the finest thing this Senator has heard all year of 1999. Somehow, somewhere it is an economic situation that we face in the State of South Carolina, Georgia, the southern part of our country, where we have had, for a long time, a lack of any kind of educational facilities for the minorities. When I first came to public office, I went out and saw that little American Freedom School for the blacks. It was one big building. They had four classrooms in one room, a pot belly stove in the middle, and one teacher. Somehow, somewhere they have been getting jobs. Do you know what? They have textile jobs: 37 percent minority employed; over 50 percent are women. They wouldn't allow minorities to work in a textile plant when I first came to public office. I can tell you that they do now. That is why the head of the Black Caucus, the distinguished Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, why he is opposed to this bill. Don't give me no sandwich board of Amoco, Exxon, Citicorp, and all the money boys, for Lord's sake. Ask somebody, as they used to say with the Packard automobile, ask the man who owns one. Ask the Congressman who has worked in the vineyards, trained in the public, headed up our human affairs councils, now head of the Black Caucus in the House of Representatives of the United States of America. He is absolutely opposed to this because he is just getting jobs for his constituents. And he knows now we are going to export jobs. That is the biggest export we have. Export, export, export. Well, back to Bill Gates. I am referring, of course, to ``In Praise of Hard Industries,'' by Eamonn Fingleton: Mr. Gates himself exemplifies in high degree the sort of mind that succeeds in the software industry. He reportedly can recall the telephone extension numbers and car license plate numbers of countless Microsoft employees. According to the authors James Wallace and Jim Erickson, even as a child he displayed amazing memory skills. In particular, he won a local parish contest by memorizing and reciting the entire Sermon on the Mount. The passage is the equivalent of nearly four standard newspaper columns of type. Among the hundreds who participated in the contest over the years, Gates, who was then only 11, was the only challenger who ever succeeded in reciting the entire passage without stumbling or missing a line. Now, you have to respect that. That is a fellow who deserves a billion a year or whatever it is he is making. I can't keep up with it. I do know he has done extremely well. I visited in Redmond, WA. He has the most magnificent, I don't mean ornate, I mean commonsensical approach to his employees. I understood from Time magazine, at the close of the year, they had 22,000 employees with stock options, 22,000 millionaires. So they are all well paid, and we respect that and we don't oppose that. We don't expect this bill is going to affect that one way or the other, but it is going to affect the $8.37-an-hour textile and apparel worker in the State of South Carolina, I can tell you that; or the average is even better, about $10 an hour now. They have health care. We are all talking about those who don't have health care. A young lady can work and she can get health care so when her child is sick, they can get to a doctor. When she can save a little every month and get a health insurance policy and send the kids to college, that is a good job. I have lost 31,200 of them; I can tell you now. The Senator from Delaware says, well, we ought to realize the trend is global competition, better jobs. Let's think on those 31,200 because I know we have had a net loss of manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. Yes, we have BMW and Hoffman-LaRoche and all these industries that are the envy of everybody. I have GE, General Electric. My trouble is, I used to have five General Electrics. I only have one left. They have all left to go to Brazil or Malaysia or elsewhere. I can tell you now that it isn't easy to hold on to these industries. What has happened to my industry--and the reason I want to emphasize this about software is to disabuse the political minds in the National Congress that it is not the engine on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are headed the same way of textiles. Mr. President, 1998 ratios of imports to consumption. Aircraft engines, we import 70 percent. You see, the Airbus--market forces, market forces, market forces. Well, the European, very sensibly--not saying it is unfair and just whining about fairness. Come on. That comes from silly pollsters who never ran for office. The Europeans realize that, wait a minute, out of the defense industry came the magnificent research in aerospace. Out of our space program came the magnificent research in aerospace. So we gave that to the Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, and all the rest of them. We gave them Export-Import Bank financing. It was a predominant industry at one time. The engines are being made by GE, Pratt and Whitney, and the rest. But now we find out that we are importing the majority of the engines. I have seen where USAir, which I travel back to South Carolina on, bought Airbus. There is no such thing as ``buy American.'' I remember when they used to demonstrate when they didn't ``buy American.'' We can go down the list: Tape recorders and video tape players, 100 percent; radio transmission and reception apparatus, 58 percent; television apparatus, 68.5 percent. You can go down to electrical capacitors and resistors, 69.5 percent, and that is where I lost my GE plant. That means we have about 30 percent being produced here. It gets unproductive to produce here, uneconomical. Watches, 100 percent. Look at the watch on your hand; it came from elsewhere, I can tell you that. Footwear, 84.2 percent. Look at the shoes. If they stop working overseas, we have to go barefoot. This is the list. Now, what about this wonderful engine with this magnificent economy that they brag about? I have stopped them bragging with some of the columns in the financial news, and otherwise. In his search for world-beating software talent, [Mr. Gates] has included six Japanese universities among the top twenty-five universities worldwide where he likes to concentrate Microsoft's recruiting efforts. Gates should know about Japanese software talent given that one of his closest friends and confidants in his early days was the Japanese software engineer Kazuhiko Nishi. Before they had a falling- out in the mid-1980s, Gates described Nishi as ``my best guy ever.'' This says: Thus, for a software entrepreneur in a low-wage country, the capital cost per job can be as little as $10,000, a reduction of more than 90 percent from the mainframe era. This figure is well within the reach of software subcontracting companies in low-wage countries--and far less than is needed to get started in even the least sophisticated areas of manufacture. So we know none better than Mr. Gates himself. They have the mentality. We don't have all the Gateses in the world, because Kazuhiko Nishi will probably near equal him, according to Gates himself. What does it cost? It costs $100,000 to create a textile job when you have high-tech machinery now in these plants. They have been spending $2 billion a year. I use that quote on page 18 of this particular volume, which is authoritative. Spinning is a good example, as recounted in the Wall Street Journal. ``The capital required in the state-of-the-art spinning mill these days can amount to as much as $300,000 per job.'' In contrast, this requires only 10,000 in so-called software. The minds ought to flex in the Senate body because what has happened is they are blindly looking at the stock market. Maybe some of them are making a bunch of money. They don't want to see further; all they know is they are making a fortune. But they are not looking at the jobs. I have tried my best to get the figures with respect to the balance of trade in software. I am convinced we have a deficit in the balance of trade. But according to the Department of Commerce figures, the U.S. receipt in software is $3.2 billion and the payments are $.05 billion, for a net balance of $2.7 billion in software trade. But I looked further and I found out licensing is considered exports. So as they license them in India, for example, and other places to do this computerization--like my light bill in South Carolina is made up in India out of a firm from Columbia, SC. They send it in overnight. When they close down, all that work is done for them, so when they come to work in the office in the morning, it is all a done deal and they pay, let's say, $10,000 a job over there; whereas, it costs at least $100,000 in the American software industry. We should dwell on this particular volume, Mr. President, and take a hard look at computer software because it goes right down and shows not only the Japanese are coming in, but the Chinese also. I had in here some sections that are easily referred to about the Japanese because they have really got the balance of trade. I read that earlier today. Let me say this. Chinese programmers can develop software for, say, a clinic in the United States without knowing anything other than the end-user's basic requirements. Perhaps the most surprising-- and for American software workers, the most ominous--aspect of IBM's Chinese affiliate is that it is pioneering a new work shift system linking several low-wage countries. When the Chinese programmers finish each evening, they pass their work on to Latvia and Belarus, where other IBM engineers continue working on the modules during the Chinese night. No wonder Bloomberg News commented: ``The tilt in software design towards more basic, interchangeable products is good news for countries like China with armies of talented programmers.'' Given that IBM has laid off thousands of programmers in the United States and other Western countries in the last five years, the message could hardly be clearer: the software industry's spread into the Third World has already begun--and a challenge to the West's software job base is imminent. So China is coming in. The truth of the matter is, we are going to be losing this particular industry. And we ought to have a full debate when you start losing your hand tools and machine tools. When you start losing your steel industry, when you start losing the textile industry--found to be the second most important to our national security--when you start losing finally your software industry, then this crowd will sober up and begin to debate a trade bill in the proper fashion. This is not in the interest of the worker. It is not in the interest of the economy. It is not in the interest of the security of the United States. It is a terrible, fatal blow, final and fatal blow to the textile industry. I know from hard experience. I have been in the work of creating jobs. I know about education and technical training. I know about the best of the best coming in. And I know about the best of the best leaving. In spite of all the jobs we have attracted to South Carolina, in the last 4 years, there has been a loss of 12,000 jobs. Don't give them the Washington solution of retraining and new skills. We had the Oneida plant. It made just T-shirts. It closed at the beginning of last year. We got it some 35 years ago making these T-shirts. They had 487 employees. The age average was 47 years. They are closed now. But where did the jobs go? They have gone to Mexico. They did not create the jobs for the Oneida workers. They lost the jobs for the Oneida workers. Now Washington is overly smart here, telling the workers that this is the trend--global competition, engine of the economy, and all that kind of nonsense. Retrain--let's try that on for size. Let's assume tomorrow morning we have to retrain and have new skills for computer operators. I know the distinguished Chair is an outstanding business leader. He knows business. He knows that business is not going to hire the 47-year-old computer operator. They are going to hire the 21-year old computer operator. Business in competition can't afford to take on the retirement costs of a 47-year-old or the health care costs of a 47-year-old. They are going to take on that 21- year old. So Andrews, SC, is a ghost town. We have some other industries I helped bring there. But I can tell you, those 487 are not coming back, as the distinguished Chair of the Finance Committee says, by just retraining and new skills. This is happening with the automobile industry, with the automobile parts industry, with the aircraft industry, Boeing, and now, according to the recent statistics, with the software industry. This Congress and this Government has a real problem up here. It is not a problem of getting these folks, me included, reelected. It is a real problem that only we can handle, that only we can take care of. Everyone else has their government on their side. When is our Government going to get on our side? Yes. The Secretary of Labor is not calling over here. It is unfortunate. Do you know who is calling over here? The Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has a European Desk. She has a Japanese Desk. She has a Chinese Desk. She has a Cuban Desk. When are they going to get an American Desk? She is not going to have one. That isn't her responsibility. But she is talking free trade, free trade, so that the striped-pants diplomats can run around and give away even more. You know how wonderful, fat, rich, and happy we were after World War II. We are going broke. I can prove it. You watch it. You will see it here. It will happen--not totally broke, obviously. The economy is simmering down. Don't worry about it. We are losing that hard industry, hard-core industry in the middle class. That is the strength of the democracy, according to G.K. Chesterton. That is why we have succeeded as a fledgling democracy--the strong middle class. And instead, we are getting rid of it. As Zuckerman says, we are going into two groups of people--the haves and the have-nots. One important industry to our national security is about to bite the dust with this piece of legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I do not want to mislead or misquote. They say they are for the CBI part of the bill. I quote from the letter in the third paragraph: ATMI cannot, however, support Senate passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act in any form as a stand-alone bill or as part of a trade package because of the dangers posed by a conference with the House. While S. 1387 includes critical U.S. yarn and fiber requirements, the House-passed Africa bill will promote massive illegal transshipments of Asian and apparel products through the 48 nations of sub-Sahara Africa to gain duty-free, quota-free access to the U.S. market. The result will be that billions of dollars of illegal Asian particularly Chinese transshipments will enter the U.S. at zero duty resulting in job losses for thousands of workers, many of whom are African American, in the U.S. textile apparel and fiber industries. The House Africa bill is so fatally flawed that any compromise, other than the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee, would be extremely harmful to our industry. Therefore, without firm assurance that the Senate Finance Committee's African bill will be maintained in conference without change, we remain opposed to any package containing the African bill even if they were to also include the Finance Committee's yarn forward 807A/809 CBI bill. That would have saved me days in this debate because we are using the same authority. I wish we could have the sandwich board back up. They were saying the ATMI, representing all of the textile industry, will support my position. Let's say they oppose half of my position; namely, the CBI. I at least have support from my own ATMI for the position I have taken. I am beginning to feel a little strength this afternoon where we are picking up a little speed. Maybe I can get the Senator from Florida to support me. I am going to try my best because I want everyone to understand just exactly what was being talked about by the distinguished Senator from North Dakota with respect to the overall trade. We are finding out with respect to agriculture, where I think it would almost be an embarrassment to ask for another subsidy for agriculture--I support agriculture. Everybody knows it. But we have to be up front and lay it on the line. We have magnificent agriculture, not on account of market forces but on account of Government forces. They are saying market forces, free market. They always give me that when I bring up my textile bill, and they have, what? The land itself. We had our friend--Sen. Dale Bumpers--the Senator from Arkansas, talk about the leases ranchers can get for grazing lands to get their wool. I understand the distinguished ABC announcer who lives in New Mexico has a mohair subsidy. I know the telephone is subsidized with the co- ops. Electricity is subsidized. These producers have been getting price supports. They get export promotion, trade promotion, and everything else like that. If it rains they get help. If it dries up, they get a drought, they get help. With durum wheat and these so-called free trade market forces, we have had an amendment introduced on this particular bill for trade adjustment assistance. So you can see the article by Mort Zuckerman of October 18 in U.S. News & World Report states: We are becoming two nations. The prosperous are rapidly getting more prosperous and the poor are slowly getting poorer. George W. Bush did well to rebuke his party when House Republicans maneuvered to balance the budget by proposing to delay the earned income tax credit for the working poor--paying it in monthly installments rather than an annual lump sum. ``I don't think they ought to balance the budget on the backs of the poor,'' Bush said. Instead, it is time for aspiring leaders to ponder how the two nations might more closely become one. The American economy is growing dramatically. But this prosperity is being distributed very unevenly. The America that is doing well is doing very well indeed. But most benefits have gone to those who work in industries where the main product is information. The losers have been the producers of tangible goods and personal services--even teachers and health care providers. The high-tech information economy has been growing at approximately 10 times the rate of the older industrial economy. It has enjoyed substantial job growth, the highest productivity gains (about 30 percent a year), and bigger profits. It can therefore afford bigger wage gains (about four times that of the older economy). And this wage gap is likely to widen for years to come. The rich get richer. The concentration of wealth is even more dramatic. New York University economist Edward Wolff points out that the top 20 percent of Americans account for more than 100 percent of the total growth in wealth from 1983 to 1997 while the bottom 80 percent lost 7 percent. Another study found that the top 1 percent saw their after-tax income jump 115 percent in the past 22 years. The top fifth have seen an after-tax increase of 43 percent during the same period while the bottom fifth of all Americans--including many working mothers--have seen their after-tax incomes fall 9 percent. The result is that 4 out of 5 households--some 217 million people--will take home a thinner slice of the economic pie than they did 22 years ago. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that article be printed in its entirety in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I obtain the floor in order to thank my distinguished colleague from Illinois, Senator Fitzgerald. He is a banker, a financier. He is far more experienced in financial affairs than I, and he is on the other side of the aisle. His arrival now makes it bipartisan and I am very grateful to him. We had a bipartisan move with Senator Heinz and myself in passing section 13.301 of the Budget Act, which says you could not use Social Security--either the Congress or the President--in reporting a budget. That was approved by 98 Senators in a bipartisan fashion. Yet the budgeters continue to ignore it. So I have been looking, since we lost Senator Heinz on that side of the aisle, for some assistance. We had otherwise the leadership of Senator Armstrong and Senator Boschwitz. We were in the extreme in 1989, for supporting a value-added tax, a 5-percent value-added tax, allocated to reducing the deficit and the national debt so we would not spend Social Security. In fact, we had eight votes in the Senate Budget Committee. We recommended again another VAT. We tried to pass other laws. But with respect to the distinguished Senator's statement that the Democrats have voted against Social Security several times, let me clarify that observation of his to the extent that we, right now, are in that same situation. Here now, the tree is filled up. You have veritably fast track; namely, you have a bill out from the committee with a substitute or leader's amendment or maybe they want to call it the amendment of the committee itself. But whatever they call it, it is the committee bill and you cannot amend it. When the tree is filled up that way on cloture, it will be difficult to get cloture because no one is allowed to offer amendments. We need someone to understand this and allow us to begin deliberating. Now, that is what we have. If this persists through tomorrow, I am hopeful, but I don't know because I am a minority of a minority of a minority here, that we can move forward. But it could very well occur that we may not get cloture tomorrow morning at 9:30, if that is when they call the vote. They said they didn't think there are any votes tonight, other than a continuing resolution, which we can voice vote. We may, but I doubt if we could get that vote. So the reason you don't vote cloture is because you want to try to get some amendments considered to discuss these issues. That was the situation each time they brought up that Social Security. I know better than any because I put in my amendment at the very beginning of the year, drawn, if you please, by the Social Security Administrator himself. We introduced it. It was referred under the rules, of course, of the Budget Committee. I have been on that Budget Committee since they started it as a Budget Committee in 1974, some 25 years. So I have been there. I have been chairman of the Budget Committee. I thought I could get a hearing. They don't want to talk about a true lockbox or taking it off budget. They will vote for a sense of the Senate. Then they will vote for the law and then totally ignore the law. And if you can put in my amendment in, as we have it propounded now in the Budget Committee, I can tell you here and now we really will have lockbox, and you won't be able to touch it. We won't have to debate whether or not we are. Everyone could see and understand it. That situation happened several times, and the majority was going to call it the lockbox. One proposal was made by the majority leader that allowed three amendments. We would bring it up, have three amendments considered with time agreements, and then vote. When they found out about my one amendment that was for a true lockbox that is in the Budget Committee, which they won't even give you a hearing on, they would not agree. We had to go ahead and vote against cloture. The distinguished Senator from Illinois calls that a vote against Social Security. Not at all. That is a vote, really, for Social Security. Tomorrow, when a substantial number vote, let's say, assuming against cloture, someone could say they voted against the trade bill. Not at all. They are for the trade bill. The distinguished minority leader has made that clear. The Senator from South Dakota is for this bill, but he is trying to protect the rights of Senators on both sides of the aisle to offer amendments. The Senator from Illinois was mistaken to characterize that as a vote against Social Security several times, saying, ``Why did you vote against it if you are sincere?'' We are sincere all right, to try to preserve Social Security. I was one of them and I will go immediately now to the observation made by my distinguished ranking member on the Finance Committee about 90 votes to proceed. I was one of those 90. That doesn't mean you can pass the bill without even considering any amendments. When I voted to proceed, I voted to do just that--proceed to debate the amendments, vote upon them, and get to a final enactment thereof. I have several things that we want to bring up. I see other Members present. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague, the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan. He knows this particular subject intimately. He is an expert in the field. He is right on target on the broad observation that it is very unfortunate we cannot debate trade-- just generally speaking. I am going to make a few comments in just a little while with respect to the overall idea that the software industry, computerization and otherwise, is the engine, this is the engine that has gotten America this wonderful boom of its economy. It has for the stock market, but not necessarily for the strength of the economy. We will have to get into that. There are a few loose ends. Just recently, for example, the distinguished Senator from New York, as I understood it, questioned the matter of jobs and the statistics used. So I have the statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, dated October 15, at 12:05. We have lost 17,700 textile jobs and 13,500 apparel jobs, for a total of textile and apparel jobs lost in South Carolina of 31,200, and a national loss of 424,000. That is the authority for the statistics, the facts I have been using. Further, I have heard the debate. I want to be sure that it does not slip my memory. The distinguished Senator from Delaware came up a moment ago, the chairman of our committee, and said: ``Really, the reason for the loss of jobs is high tariffs. That is why they go to get the protection of high tariffs.'' I will try to get to see him later. Maybe he is joining me in my position because we certainly then do not want reduce the tariffs. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the text of the tariffs in the Caribbean and the text of the tariffs in Africa.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I worked on the bill with Senator Muskie; we wrote the law. I have been on the Budget Committee ever since it was created. I think Senator Domenici and I are the only two Members who have been on the committee since its inception.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Not at all. That is what we ought to emphasize. It isn't a matter of time and holding the process up or any of those kind of things. It is that these important subjects will not be touched upon politically because all that is being done is geared toward the next election, the polls, and everything else of that kind. The majority doesn't want to make unpopular votes. So you are protected with this arrogant kind of thing of filling up the tree, instituting fast track, and blocking amendments except those checked through the Majority Leader's office. And I hope this is publicized. I hope they have a conscience and will quit this nonsense so we can save time, discuss the subjects, vote up or down, and move on like an orderly body.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes. I was the chairman under President Carter.

Mr. HOLLINGS. That is exactly right. What happens is, on Wednesday morning, we didn't have the side agreements about NAFTA. We were being told this was good because of NAFTA and that NAFTA worked--at least NAFTA had side agreements on environment, labor, reciprocity, and otherwise. Even though I was gone, my staff worked on the legislation. When I took the floor on Wednesday morning, I was not recognized to have the floor. I said I just wanted to discuss these amendments but the Senate was conducting a quorum call. The leadership waited for an hour and a half for the leader to come and did not allow any discussion. I had gotten up twice and they would not even give me consent to talk about the amendments, which is really what I had to mind. Then the leader comes in and he so-called filled up the tree, but really he put it on the fast track. Namely, I could not, or you could not, or anybody on this side of the aisle could not offer an amendment. Now, on the other side of the aisle, the Senator from Illinois can get his amendment in at the committee hearing. He can get his amendment in when the leader puts down the managers' amendment. He can get that taken care of there. Or you can do as Senator Ashcroft of Missouri did. He got the leader to call down the last amendment, come to the floor and put up his agricultural amendment and, in the same breath, say the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota is irrelevant. That is how gauche, arrogant, and unsenatorial this thing is. I never heard of such a thing. They just lock you out and say, as has been pointed out, we filled up the tree, and only Members on that side of the aisle can enjoy the fruits of the tree. Here we are. So don't have the majority leader come back and have the audacity to say these are important matters; you all want to filibuster. He is the one. I told him, up or down, I would take five minutes to a side on amendments and we will have a roll call. He doesn't want to have this subject up. We ought to have Members on that side have at least the courage to get up and say, wait a minute, these are important subjects. I would think somebody on the other side of the aisle would like to talk about the minimum wage. They say 83 percent of the people of America favor it. We know what the situation is. Yet they won't even broach the subject. They don't want the subject to come up. All we are hearing when the leader comes is this is a tough job and these are the things we have to do, and I would be glad to take two or three amendments. I said, wait a minute. I would be glad to offer two amendments right now, with five minutes to a side, and have a vote, or have 20 minutes to a half hour of discussion and then vote, and we will be through with it. Instead of doing that, it is a closeout of discussing important subjects for the American people. From Friday of last week until tonight, Thursday night, the majority was absolutely opposed to you getting the floor whatsoever to discuss it. All of these subjects-- Social Security, education measures, the Patients' Bill of Rights, health matters--the majority said was irrevelant. We are going to try and complete our spending bills and try our dead level best to do it without using Social Security. This comes at the very same time that even their own Congressional Budget Office says Congress has already spent $18 billion of Social Security monies.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, sir. I have tried my best. I would like to bring it up. I am a realist. Let's bring up Shays-Meehan, which passed by a strong bipartisan vote over on the House side. You would think it could be voted upon, but it has not even been further discussed. We could have 30 seconds to a side and vote. They won't let you vote.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I remember it very vividly. The truth is that I finally said: Let's cut out the charade. Let's go to Social Security itself. So, I asked the Administrator of Social Security: You folks write the bill so that rather than using Social Security monies for IOUs and the debt, we put it up in a lockbox. I want to make sure it is a truly, honest-to-goodness lockbox. So he wrote the measure, and I introduced it back in January. It went to the Budget Committee, on which I serve. I asked for a hearing but couldn't get one. They do not want to hear about a true lockbox.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the distinguished leader yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the stand the distinguished leader takes is one of a fundamental nature. It is one of principle and not politics, and I am in the best position to comment upon it, for the simple reason, the distinguished Senator from South Dakota favors the Finance Committee bill. He would favor throttling me and getting rid of me and having a quick vote. But he understands, better than any, there is more to the Senate than a gymnasium for political gymnastics whereby, on parliamentary positions, you can just cut everybody off. I cannot see Senator Mansfield for a second going along with this nonsense. I could not see for a second Senator Dirksen even suggesting it. There has always been an unwritten rule of comity and understanding and friendship and the strength of feeling. Sometimes, when Senators have that feeling, it is respected by the other 99 Senators. Here, the Senator from South Dakota, our minority leader, has been very eloquent on the position taken as a matter of principle. His politics are otherwise. He could go along with Senator Lott and say: The dickens with it, fill up the tree, tomorrow we'll vote, we'll have cloture, and this bill will be over with, and everything else of that kind. But the opposite is the case. He has taken a stand for the Senate majority and minority. It is a Senate stand. I commend him for taking it.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I think now is the time that a record should be made that this isn't a question of consuming time in the sense the majority leader wants to move in an expeditious fashion to the legislation. He doesn't want to hear it, and he doesn't want anybody else to discuss these items. Let's look at the facts. This bill was called on Friday and we had a motion to proceed since everybody was leaving town. I wanted to discuss it and wanted to have someone to talk to. I objected to the motion to proceed. I guess it was a week ago Thursday night when they discussed and voted on other matters on Friday. It was set again for Monday's discussion, but then we lost our wonderful colleague, Senator Chafee. In respect to him, we didn't debate anything. Instead we all expressed our sympathy and deep sense of individual loss of such a wonderful colleague, who was so considerate and so moderate in the sense of listening to both sides, and willing to discuss issues. On Tuesday, we made opening statements again--Senator Moynihan and Senator Roth and myself. I had to leave, but it was thoroughly discussed all day Tuesday. On Wednesday, I was prepared, having returned early in the morning. I had to testify before a council meeting back in my own hometown on Tuesday evening. But I was back here early.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. It is the comity and not the time. Please talk until tomorrow, when we vote.

Mr. HOLLINGS. If the Senator will yield, we have been going back and forth. So please be short, if you can. We want to have that comity continue.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, having gotten the record made, the point is that it is not as easy as my distinguished colleagues from New York and Delaware, the leaders on this particular measure, have painted it. When you see that you are running deficits now of $127 billion, when you see that the trade deficit is widening, when you see that, according to an article, we were consuming faster than we were producing, then you can see trouble on the horizon. I refer to this morning's Financial Times, page 4: ``Widening Trade Gap Raises Fear For Dollar.'' I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.