Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. What I want to refer to is the line that says ``Total federal securities.'' That is the borrowing. You issued the securities to cover your backside. You have to do that by Friday, tomorrow, at midnight. I take it we will close down the Government unless we pass another continuing resolution. The U.S. Treasury report shows that at the beginning of this year we had a national debt of $5,478,704,000,000. Now, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print this table in the Record entitled ``Hollings Budget Realities.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will show we agree that at the beginning of the year we have exactly that figure, 5 trillion 478 billion 7-some-odd-million dollars. Now, referring to U.S. Treasury Report table, you will find, under the column Close of This Month, the figure $5,606,486,000,000. So the table itself, according to the figures issued yesterday, showed the Federal Government ran a surplus. Absolutely false. This reporter ought to do his work. This crowd never has asked for or kept up with or checked the facts. Eric Planin--all he has to do is not spread rumors or get into the political message. Both Democrats and Republicans are all running this year and next and saying surplus, surplus. Look what we have done. It is false. The actual figures show that from the beginning of the fiscal year until now we had to borrow $127,800,000,000. That is increasing the national debt. That is the deficit, $127 billion. I checked this with the Congressional Budget Office. They haven't done their interpolation of the various records. I had been reporting, as you will find on the table inserted, a $103 billion deficit for this fiscal year, as of the CBO June 30 figure. I said: Wait a minute, it is way more than what we thought, if it is 127 rather than 103. They said there were some unaccounted balances carried forward, some $16 billion. So it might be, instead of 103, 112. Conscientiously, we are trying to give the truth to the American people. We have those figures in this particular table. We can enlarge it for the viewing Senators here. That is exactly what I have said. We have a $5,487,700,000,000 debt. Now it has gone up. Instead of $5,582,000,000,000, it has gone to $5,606,000,000,000. So you can see, when we got to the end of the fiscal year, not the projections, not the guesses, or whatever else--we had a deficit of $127.8 billion. That is going up, up and away, because if you look at the previous year, we did better. Well, we didn't do better in 1997, the previous year, but I should say the deficits have been coming down. And they had projected, for example, next year, a $82 billion deficit coming down from the 127.8 billion. I should say 103 billion, as is shown on this particular chart. Now, if instead of $103 billion deficit, it is going to $127.8 billion, you can see at a glance it is going to be another $100 billion deficit next year. Looking at the facts, you can find the editorial in the Washington Post to show we have already spent 30 billion of the Social Security monies. We are all running around in a circle saying, ``I don't want to touch it. No, I will not touch it.'' They have already touched it to the tune of 30 billion bucks, this Congress, the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats, all of us. We have to get the truth out. Even then, to create a surplus, they are using these particular figures--we are discussing in another conference ongoing right at the minute--the airport trust fund. We have all kinds of dangers with respect to the airports. It is getting unsafe to fly. We need better radar. We need more runways. We need more airports. We need better controls, better control towers, everything else of that kind. We are being taxed for it. We all fly, and we pay the taxes as airline travelers. But $11 billion has been spent on any and everything other than airports. It shows that it is going up, under the budget, to $23 billion in 2004. We have the money, but we don't spend it on the airports or the highways. Reporters across this country have been writing these editorials to the effect that it doesn't make any difference whether we borrowed from it or not; these are just IOUs. I don't want to be around here in the year 2012 when we don't bring in enough to cover our costs and we are going to have to raise taxes in order to make payments. That crowd in New York working the market, they could care less. They think in quarterly amounts, in the quarter of each year. If you don't do it by the third quarter, out you go. That is the CEO/Wall Street mentality. Ours should be the long-range. You have in the desk drawer right now $1.859 trillion in IOUs not only in Medicare but in military retirement, civilian retirement, and you don't want to talk Social Security. I don't want to touch the military retirement fund or borrow from the unemployment compensation fund, the highways, and the airports. So we just bring that up for a moment of truth in the Senate. I want to show you this because there is another headline story in the paper about a one percent cut across the board, or 1.5 percent. They are looking for a way to cut $5 billion. Now we have the House, the Senate, the leadership, the White House, and we are trying to get out of here in the next 10 days--if we can only agree on how we are going to find $5 billion--either cut $5 billion in spending, or raise $5 billion in taxes, or do whatever we have to do to find a cut across the board. That is $5 billion. Here is what happens. Right now the estimated interest cost is $356 billion. I don't have an updated figure on that. I know since we have had two interest rate increases by Mr. Greenspan this year, it is going to be more than that $356 billion. But going back to when we last balanced the budget, we had a surplus under President Johnson. They don't have to go back to Eisenhower when they kept a different set of books. Under President Johnson, when we were here and we had a surplus, the interest cost on the national debt was only $16 billion. Here, the interest cost on the national debt is $356 billion. If we just held the line and paid for what we got, we would have had, and would have this morning, not $5 billion, we would have $340 billion to increase the airports, to increase Medicare, to save Social Security, to increase defense. We could have a tax cut and we could pay down the debt if we had the $340 billion. The headline ought to read: Last year we increased taxes. Why? We increased the interest costs because we increased the debt. When you increase the debt some $127 billion, you increase your interest costs, which are running right now at a billion dollars a day. You have to pay it. Worse than the regular taxes, such as sales taxes, for which you can get a school, or gasoline tax, for which you can get a highway--we get absolutely nothing for it. Last year, this Government increased taxes, and they are determined to increase taxes today, this year, in the next two weeks--all the time talking about surpluses and about cutting spending, and all the time talking about cutting taxes. Now, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, there it says: A slide on the U.S. dollar has haunted global currency markets for several months now. It says: The dollar was granted a reprieve last week following better-than-expected August trade figures. But many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the dollar succumbs to mounting trade imbalances. It is going up over $300 billion. As the U.S. current account deficit has increased, concerns have testified that international appetite for dollar assets will soon be exhausted, leaving the U.S. unable to fund its trade shortfall with the rest of the globe and precipitating a sharp drop in the currency. That could imperil the U.S. economy's run of rapid inflationary growth. It goes on to say how we have had foreign direct investment with, of course, the BP takeover of Amoco, Daimler-Mercedes takeover of Chrysler, and Vodafone's takeover of AirTouch. It says: The big question for the dollar is whether this surge in foreign, direct investment can be maintained. But the bare facts are alarming. The current account deficit, expanding at over 50 percent a year over the past two years, is now at its highest level since at least the end of the Civil War as a proportion of GDP. And the family silver can only be sold once. Few believe that the U.S. economy can rely indefinitely on the sale of assets to cover the current account shortfall. Some analysts believe that the dollar's 16 percent fall against the yen since this year's peak in May merely marks the start of a period of general weakness in the U.S. currency. What are we doing about this? We are taking away the productivity. It is not an increase in jobs. It isn't any increase at all. They are running and spending it fast in the fabric plants. But forget about the people working by the sweat of their brow in the apparel industry--such as the mother trying to keep food on the table and get her children through college. We will pass all kinds of protections for high tech companies. We even repealed the State tort laws for something that can't happen until the first of next year. They want to do away with the immigration laws for high tech companies--the estate taxes, the capital gains tax, and everything else of that kind. They have all kinds of benefits. I even saw an article about creating a subsidy for boat manufacturers, so we can get more pleasure yachts. We have to increase the productivity. We are losing the industrial backbone of the United States of America. What we are hearing is that this Senator and others do not understand that the high-tech community is the engine of this wonderful globalization, the engine of this economic giant, the United States of America. Not so at all. There is a book called ``In Praise of Hard Industries'' by Eamonn Fingleton. We don't put the book, of course, in the Record. But surely the United States has scored some real successes in high-tech manufacturing in the 1990s? Yes--but far fewer than even most experts realize. Perhaps the strongest remaining American high-tech manufacturer is Boeing. But even Boeing is doing less well than it used to. Quite apart from facing increasing competition from the European Airbus consortium, Boeing has been under considerable pressure from foreign governments to transfer jobs abroad, and it has duly done so. As William Greider has pointed out in his book One World, Ready or Not, 30 percent of the components used in Boeing's 777 jet are made abroad. By comparison in the 1960s, Boeing imported only 2 percent of its components. Thus, Boeing, like other erstwhile world-beating American manufacturers, is rapidly becoming a ``virtual corporation'' ever more dependent on suppliers in Japan and elsewhere abroad for its most advanced manufacturing needs. I divert for a minute to say that was the trouble we had in the gulf war. We had to get panel displays from Japan in order to get the weapons in order to fight that war. We weren't making them anymore. Every time I put a ``buy America'' provision into the defense bill--I serve on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee--I get no, you are a fruitcake. That is what Mike Kelly calls those who are trying to protect trade. Now I hear this morning that I am going to start a depression and everything else of that kind. You can't talk sense on this particular subject. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let me quote again. Meanwhile, despite all the talk of a renaissance in the American semiconductor industry, there is acturally only one truly strong American semiconductor manufacturer left: Intel. Moreover. Intel's success says little if anything about its manufacturing prowess. In fact, the company's twenty-four- fold growth in the fifteen years to 1997 has been driven not by any fundamental efficiency edge in production engineering but rather by the company's near-monopolistic franchise in producing microprocessors for the dominant ``Wintel'' standard in personal computers. In any case, Intel is just one company--and judged by the all-important criterion of jobs, not a particularly large one. At last count it employed sixty-seven thousand people worldwide--little more than one-sixth of IBM's peak workforce in the mid-1980s before its domination of the computer industry collapsed under pressure from the rising Wintel standard. Moreover, Intel is not as advanced as it appears. In fact, its Wintel chips are based on an aging technology known as CISC (complex instruction set computing). In the last decade, CISC has been superseded by a technology called RISC (reduced instruction set computing). RISC chips, which are noted for their use in such high-performance computers as Sun Microsystems' network servers, are made mainly in Japan. Intel apart, there are few other semiconductor manufacturers left in the United States. This may seem surprising in view of the fact that, according to such prophets of America's purported industrial renaissance as Jerry Jasinowski, the United States has now recovered strong leadership in semiconductors. He has reported that American semiconductor makers boosted their global market share from 40 percent in 1988 to 44 percent in 1993, and this supposedly has put the United States back in the ``top spot'' in the industry. After the big decline in America's share in the first half of the 1980s, all this seems like convincing evidence of a comeback. But the truth is that his 44 percent figure is bogus. It is based on highly misleading statistical procedures that categorize most chips outsourced by American companies from factories in East Asia and elsewhere as ``American''! The only justification for this bizarre statistical treatment is that most such chips are made to American designs and bear American brand names. But that hardly means they are made in America. Even Dataquest, an information-industry consulting firm that is the ultimate source of data on world semiconductor production, compiles its statistics on this basis. Given the prevalence of such misleading statistics, how do we gauge the true state of American competitiveness? Again, there is no substitute for international trade figures. These indicate that the United States ran a deficit of more than $3 billion with Japan alone in semiconductors in 1997. Given Japan's higher wage levels, therefore, it is clear that the idea that the United States has recovered world leadership in semiconductors is just another myth. Mr. President, I want to yield in a minute so other colleagues can address the Senate. But I will come back because what you have is a situation where that sandwich board they put up with all of these industries, they are all for the American worker. No; they are all for money, profit. That is all that those companies are for. Let me quote page 32. Since American labor is not represented in American boardrooms, the real losers from technological globalism have no say in the matter. Moreover, workers' interests count for so little these days that American corporate executives openly proclaim their commitment to utopian globalism without the slightest fear of embarrassment. The pattern was memorably exemplified a few years ago by a Colgate-Palmolive executive who told the New York Times: ``The United States does not have an automatic call on our resources. There is no mindset that puts this country first.'' A similarly outspoken disregard for the interests of American labor was apparent in a remark by NCR's president, Gilbert Williamson, some years ago when he said: ``I was asked the other day about the United States' competitiveness, and I replied that I don't think about it at all. We at NCR think of ourselves as a globally competitive company that happens to be incorporated in the United States.'' That is the situation with Farley and Fruit of the Loom, exactly what was brought in issue fortuitously by Time magazine when they put in the article ``The Fruit of Its Labor--The Politics of Underwear.'' Fruit of the Loom eliminated 17,000 jobs in Kentucky, 7,000 in Louisiana, moved to the Cayman Islands and I should put them on one of those sandwich boards. Whoopee, they are for this bill so that they can make more money. Who is looking at the welfare of the American worker? Who is looking at the industrial strength of the United States? Who is looking at the economic progress and security of the United States of America? One could not be for this particular bill if one knew how it has been drawn up. It does not even compare with NAFTA. We cannot put an amendment up because the tree is filled. They put in what you might call fast track, no amendments, and then they give their friends the fruit of the tree. Senator Wellstone, the Democrat, comes in with an agricultural amendment that is not to be allowed. But take the Senator from Missouri. When he comes with a particular amendment on agriculture, the leader comes down and finds that is relevant. We stop the whole process and pluck the amendment from the tree and put in your friend's amendment and they call that ``procedure'' in the world's most deliberative body. It is the most undemocratic procedure, unparliamentary kind of procedure that could possibly be contemplated. They ought to be embarrassed handling a measure this way. However, there is no embarrassment with this group. They know they can pass this bill easily because they can breeze through the committee and everybody on the floor saying mollify, unite. It used to be the ILGWU working the floor. I have been in it too long; I understand the competition. As a southern Governor, I don't blame the foreigners for saying we give this benefit and give that benefit. That is exactly what we did in South Carolina. The Senator from Delaware says they can get new jobs by learning new skills. We do that in South Carolina. We have brought in Hoffman-LaRouche and BMW. They told me the only reason they have come is because of the technical training system I instituted 30 years ago. I know about skills, training, getting new jobs and new industry. But we have had a net loss, in the last 4 years since NAFTA, of 12,000 jobs in South Carolina. In the campaign last year in the Governor's race, they were talking about new jobs. I said: Add and subtract. You are not announcing those that are leaving and going down to Mexico. We had United Technologies, the textile plants and others take off down to Mexico. We saw it starting then and it is mushrooming now. We are being derided on the floor talking about Smoot-Hawley and putting up the bankers' sandwich board and saying: This is for the good of America. We are going to have to discuss this a little bit longer. I yield the floor.

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. 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, let me commend our distinguished colleague from New Mexico. I had the privilege of visiting Corregidor about 30 years ago with Senator Montoya. We talked about the New Mexico National Guard. Most were lost who went through that dreadful experience. For those that survived--I lost a good friend, Jack Leonard, and other graduates who served in the New Mexico National Guard--this is a moment of history that should be noted in a more clear and reverent fashion. I ask, please, to be added as a cosponsor to the Senator's bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me commend our distinguished colleague from New Mexico. I had the privilege of visiting Corregidor about 30 years ago with Senator Montoya. We talked about the New Mexico National Guard. Most were lost who went through that dreadful experience. For those that survived--I lost a good friend, Jack Leonard, and other graduates who served in the New Mexico National Guard--this is a moment of history that should be noted in a more clear and reverent fashion. I ask, please, to be added as a cosponsor to the Senator's bill.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, you can go down this list: textile machinery and parts, 67 percent; certain industrial thermal processing equipment, 48, 49, 50 percent; machine tools, 55.3 percent; semiconductor manufacturing, 51 percent; aircraft engines, gas turbines, 70 percent; microphones, loud speakers, audio amplifiers, 77.9 percent; tape recorders, tape players, video cassette recorders, turntables, compact disk players, 100 percent; radio transmission and reception apparatus and combinations, 57.9 percent; television apparatus, including cameras, camcorders, cable apparatus, 68.5 percent; electric sound and visual signaling apparatus, 49.9 percent; electrical capacitors and resisters, 69.5 percent; diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, 45.2 percent; electrical and electronic articles, apparatus and parts not elsewhere provided, 49.1 percent; automatic data processing machines, 51.6 percent; optical goods, including opthalmic goods, 51.5 percent; photographic cameras and equipment, 63.8 percent; watches, 100 percent--I don't know about Timex; I guess they just repair them--100 percent for watches--they have gone to Korea-- clocks and timing devices, 62.2 percent; drawing and mathematical calculating and measuring instruments, 71.4 percent; luggage and handbags, flat goods, 79.7 percent; musical instruments and accessories, 57.2 percent; umbrellas, whips, riding crops, canes, 81.1 percent; silverware, certain other articles of precious metals, 59.9 percent; precious jewelry, related articles, 55.8 percent; men's and boys' suits and sport coats, 47.5 percent; men's and boys' coats and jackets, 62.5 percent; men's and boys' trousers, 50.4 percent; women's and girls' trousers, 62,9 percent; shirts and blouses, 76.4 percent; sweaters, another 76 percent; women's and girls' suits, skirts, coats, 59 percent; robes, nightwear, underwear, 68.8 percent; body supporting garments, 42.8 percent; neckwear, handkerchiefs, scarves, 46.7 percent; gloves, including gloves for sports, 76.1 percent; headwear, 54.1 percent; leather apparel and accessories, 67.2 percent; fur apparel and other fur articles, 81.7 percent; footwear and footwear parts, 84.2 percent, on down the list. I was listening to my distinguished friend from Ohio, Senator Voinovich. He was talking about exports and how he got Ohio, as Governor, prepared for exports. As a Governor, I have done the same thing. For both Ohio and South Carolina, there isn't going to be anything left to export. This was last year's statistics. I can tell you the trend is overwhelming in the wrong direction. Look at the deficit in the balance of trade. It is going to approximate this year $300 billion. We are not talking about exports as a wonderful thing. Let's look, as they used to say when my children were growing up, Big John and Sparky, all the way through life, make this your goal; keep your eye on the doughnut and not the hole. We have the eye on the hole. Export, export, that is the singsong. Citibank, Citicorp, and all those other financial institutions listed up there, that banker board and what have you; export, export. What we have to watch is the imports. That is the doughnut. That is the problem we have. When you are spending over $100 billion more than you are taking in, you're going to create a huge economic problem. We should know: the fiscal year just ended, September 30, less than 30 days ago, and we have spent $103 billion more than we took in, we are still running over $100 billion deficits, deficits, deficits. All right. We finally got on to that at least to save Social Security. Now they are talking exports, when they ought to be talking imports because with this particular trend, we don't have anything to export. Exporting movies, exporting software, exporting insurance policies, exporting bank accounts--come on--where is the work there? All you have is this computerization and everything else. You will have your country terribly enfeebled. It is all a bum's rush to let us help the sub- Sahara foreign aid, let us help the Caribbean Basin nations. But they won't have reciprocity down there. They will all move in on those poor little islands, like we called up that little Felicia in Antigua after the poor airmen got killed in the barracks. Don't you remember, at Lebanon? The marines, I should say, got killed in the barracks at Lebanon. After we lost some 278 marines, they ran down and got suits off the Gulf coast and said: We are invading Granada because Antigua asked us to. We know what is going to happen. Look at the sheet: Kathie Lee sweatshop in El Salvador. If you try to get a union there, they will kill you. They will kill you. I can tell you right now. Workers fired and blacklisted if they tried to defend their rights. Workers paid 15 cents for every $16.96 pair of Kathie Lee pants they sold; starvation wages, locked bathrooms, forced overtime; pregnancy tests; workers illegally fired and intimidated; death threats. To have the audacity to stand on the floor of the Senate and call this a win-win bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished leader came to the floor to withdraw his amendment and substitute the amendment of the Senator from Missouri. He remarked, in the first instance, that we have to hasten it along. We would like to have had the bill up. We would like to have had fast track. Then he insists on fast track on this particular bill. He filled the tree right back up again; namely, we cannot offer amendments. So in one breath he says he would like to have fast track and he is instituting fast track on this particular trade measure. He is an outstandingly talented individual, a fine looking gentleman, and so he stands there with that smile, so reasonable and says: I would like to be sure to check these amendments; we have to make sure they are relevant; I will go along with the Ashcroft agricultural amendment, but I haven't gone along with the Wellstone agricultural amendment. We heard earlier this morning, of course, that the Wellstone agricultural amendment is not relevant. You can look at this bill. You can go right on down the list. You can find out that it is trade benefits for the Caribbean Basin Initiative. They have cover over of tax on distilled spirits, Generalized System of Preferences, trade adjustment assistance affecting the welfare of America's workforce. Nothing in here on agriculture for the CBI and the sub-Sahara. Senator Wellstone, who has been trying since January to get up an agricultural amendment, has been put down. He tried all day yesterday and was put down this morning. But if you want to take one of my friend's agricultural amendments-- namely, the distinguished Senator from Missouri, who is running for reelection--well, wait a minute now, let's withdraw that last amendment I had and let's put up the irrelevant agricultural amendment of the Senator from Missouri. Irrelevant absolutely. Anybody knows a measure of this kind would go before government ops about an agriculture negotiator in the trade office. And then the argument: We have the President and the leaders and otherwise and so many cosponsors. Well, I have the minimum wage amendment the President has been trying to get up all year long. I have the minimum wage amendment the minority leader would like to have a vote upon. I have a minimum wage amendment that doesn't have 31 but has 27 cosponsors. It sort of fits the pattern, is my point, of the reasoned argument of the distinguished majority leader. But no, not that Wellstone agricultural amendment. That is irrelevant, and we don't want to waste the time because we would be here 2 weeks. We would be here 2 months. We are not going to stand for that, but let us have the agricultural amendment of the Senator from Missouri. Well, that is why I was smiling at my distinguished leader. I was smiling at his duplicity. There it is. You can see it for yourself. I hate to use the word ``arrogant,'' but there is an element of that in this particular procedure. What it insists upon is: I want my way. I am going to control it. You can't put up your amendment. And then they act dismayed when we don't vote cloture. Well, we just won't vote on the agricultural amendment now. We can keep on debating, if that is the procedure they want to continue and insist upon. There isn't any question in my mind about agriculture. I will never forget, some years back we had $21--it got up to $23 billion--the best plus balance we have ever had of any commodity is America's agriculture. We have soybeans. I put in a grain elevator when I was Governor so I know about farmers. I know about soybeans. I know about cotton. I know about exports, and everyone is for America's agriculture, except we oppose that Freedom to Farm thing that wrecked American agriculture--free market forces, free market forces. So they grabbed it up, and all the farmers took the money and ran 3 years ago. Now, the price has gone down and they are broke and they need assistance. That is why the Senator from Minnesota has been on the floor, to try to get some help for America's agriculture, not that bureaucracy over in the office of the Trade Representative for the purpose of adding another payroll over there. That is the typical Washington political solution: Give another title, add another payroll; just move another little bit on the special trade representative. And everybody knows that when we come to agriculture, we go to the Secretary of Agriculture, and he is there at every table every time we debate because he is steeped in the agricultural needs of the United States of America, and that is why we made good agricultural agreements. I want them to point out a bad agricultural agreement, other than, of course, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has the Senators from North Dakota on durum wheat all over the floor here. They are trying to keep them from dumping on the North Dakota wheat farmers. We all know that. It hasn't worked, and everything else like that, but that is exactly what they want--like they are dumping my textiles, killing 420,000 textile jobs since NAFTA. And there it goes. Then they come around, and let me say that I am glad they removed that sandwich bowl. I will yield in a second. I know there are important statements to be made, and I need help in trying to stop this freight train, stop this steamroller. I have been up here 33 years, and I am still the junior Senator, and I have been trying to get a point of importance with respect to the budget, and nobody listens to me on that. I keep calling it a deficit. The Congressional Budget Office keeps reporting it as a deficit. The law--section 13.301 of the Budget Act--says that the President and the Congress cannot report a budget with the Social Security moneys in it that would cause it to be a surplus. They violate that, and nobody pays attention to us. Of course, they come up and say the interest payments, which exceed the defense budget and the Social Security budget, and all other budgets--a billion dollars a day. When President Johnson balanced the budget, it was only $16 billion for the entire year. In 200 years of history, the cost of all the wars, from the Revolution right up to World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, we still had less than a trillion-dollar debt, and the interest cost was only $16 billion. Now, without the cost of a war since that time--the gulf war incidently was taken care of by the Saudis and others--what has it soared to? To almost $5 trillion or $6 trillion, or something--a trillion-dollar debt and an interest cost the CBO reports as $356 billion. But with interest rates and Mr. Greenspan, it is bound to go up. We are seeing all the signs about consumer confidence. We know it is going to be over a billion a day. So we have fiscal cancer. So we go down this morning at 8 o'clock and borrow a billion and add it to the debt. Tomorrow morning, Friday morning, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, every day for this fiscal year 1999, I will make a bet with anybody, and let them pick out the odds, that they will see a billion dollars a day. Why? Because we are not willing to pay for the Government we are getting. We were willing to, again, add another $100 billion to the deficit just as the year ended, not even a month ago, September 30 of this year--$103 billion more. They won't call that bill the Balanced Budget Act or the Social Security lockbox. I will put it in a lockbox. I got together with the Administrator of Social Security and I said: Write me a bill that will be a true lockbox. I have it. It is hidden in the Budget Committee. They know how to hide it. They don't even want to talk about it. I can't get a hearing on it. I have asked for a hearing. They totally ignore you. But this one says you take that money and immediately redeem it to the credit of Social Security. And don't put in an IOU the first of the month every month. Put the money back into the Social Security trust fund, just as corporate America is required. Now I am back to my friend, Denny McLain. We passed the 1994 Pension Reform Act and we said: Look, these fast takeover artists come in and pay off the company debt with the pension fund and then take the rest of the money and run. People who have been working 30, 40, even 50 years, are left high and dry with no pensions. So we put in the Pension Reform Act of 1994 making it a felony to pay off the company debt with the pension moneys. Unfortunately, one of the all-time great pitchers--which is significant during this World Series fever--Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers, became head of a corporation and paid off the debt with the company fund. He was sentenced to a prison term for a felony. If you can find little Denny in whatever cell he is in, tell him next time to run for the Senate. You get the good government award when you take the pension money of the people's Social Security fund and pay off your debt, so that you can talk about surplus, surplus, surplus, surplus when you are spending $100 billion more than you are taking in and you have got deficits, deficits, deficits as far as the eye can see. That is why I told the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee I would jump off the Capitol dome when he put up that plan called the Balanced Budget Act. They use that jargon and those titles, and the silly press picks up the language and headlines it. So what do we do? We find out, Heavens above, that we are like Tennessee Ernie Ford, ``another day older and deeper in debt.'' And now, instead of 356, if we only paid out $16 billion on a pay-as-you-go basis, since President Lyndon Johnson's day, we would have $340 billion to spend. For what? For agriculture. For what? For the research at the National Institutes of Health. For what? For Kosovo expenses. For what? For all the housing the Secretary of Housing has promulgated, and everything else like that. We could go down and provide for all the programs you could possibly think of. You can double WIC, Head Start, any education programs, just double the education budget. And we can still have what? A tax cut. And still have what? Pay down the debt. With $340 billion--we are spending $340 billion. We are forced to spend it. It is a tax--a tax. What you are doing is raising taxes. You don't want to say it, but you have to pay it, you have to borrow it every day, a billion dollars a day. It is a tax on the American people. With a sales tax, I can get a school; with a gas tax, I can get a highway; with this tax, I get nothing. I served on the Grace Commission on waste, fraud, and abuse. This is the biggest waste ever created in the history of any government. They don't want to talk about that. They want to talk about the sub-Sahara. We are building libraries down in Little Rock now. We are headed for the last roundup. So if we can show that we did something in Africa, and we did something in the CBI, oh isn't it wonderful? The President wants the minimum wage. Leaders want the minimum wage. I have 27 cosponsors who want the minimum wage. It is relevant. Trade adjustment assistance is relevant to the workforce of America and minimum wage is just as relevant to the workforce of America. If the majority leader would come out here and say, all right, I will let you have the agricultural amendment, or rather we should say we will have this agricultural amendment, and the distinguished Senator from Missouri, if he just calls up our minimum wage, and we will agree to 5 minutes to a side, and 10 minutes, and vote. They don't want to vote. They want the political cover of parliamentary maneuver, acting as if it is serious here, and we could work this out, and this is a big responsibility on my leader, but we have to listen to both sides, and we have to be able to move legislation. We are not going to move any minimum wage. We are not going to move any campaign finance reform. Even though they are relevant? Time magazine came out day before yesterday and said it is relevant. They wrote a whole article. I refer again to pages 50 and 51. Everybody can read it. Campaign finance reform is relevant. There isn't any question on this particular bill. The magazines are writing it, but the Senators can't see it. The Parliamentarians can't understand it. They couldn't call that relevant because why? Because the majority leader says you don't call that relevant. You don't call that agricultural amendment of the Senator from Minnesota relevant, but call mine: Look I have come all the way back to the floor and withdrawn my part of the tree, and put up immediately my friend's amendment on agriculture, and yes, it's relevant. We are going to be represented in agriculture. I can tell you now, but they are going to have some bureaucracy. And that could be a good speaking point when I run for reelection myself. I hate to have to explain why I have to oppose this to my farmer friends because that is going to cause the farm problem in America, as if we didn't have a special Trade Representative with the title of ambassador. I thank the distinguished chairman of our Finance Committee for finally removing that sandwich bowl. I didn't get over there and see it in the debate. But I see they have, these folks who are interested in textile jobs: the Bank of America, Bechtel, City Group, Daimler- Chrysler, Enro, Exxon, Fleur, and Gap that we have on the list of the Time magazine which is going overseas. They have gone over. Sara Lee and Fruit of the Loom. Actually Fruit of the Loom is already organized in the Cayman Islands as a foreign corporation. McDonalds just sells hamburgers. They wouldn't care if you came naked to buy a hamburger. Modern Africa Fund Managers, Philip Morris, Amoco, Bally's Lakeshore Resort--come on--Mobile, Occidental, Texaco. Where is anybody? The African Growth and Opportunity Act is not clear. I could keep on talking down and down the list. I don't know who is going to protect the jobs and the manufacturing capacity of the United States of America. I don't believe in obstructionism. I believe in moving forward. I don't believe there is, other than budget, a more important issue than the matter of manufacturing capacity here in the United States of America, on which I have gone down before and will go again. But there is no doubt we will have the opportunity to point out how we are losing out. We don't have anything to export. We have hollowed out the industrial might of the United States. The reason they don't listen, I take it now, is they have a candidate for the President who is mixing that in with Hitler and World War II and everything else and all kinds of nonsense. So we lose credibility. Anybody can talk free trade, free trade, dignified, credible, respected, and anybody who talks about protection of the industrial strength of America is some kind of kook. I think they said, ``Unite, we nutcakes.'' Michael Kelly in his column this morning: ``Unite, we nutcakes.'' So here comes another nutcake who is trying to protect American jobs, and is looked upon now by the leadership as getting in the way. Why don't I be more reasonable, and everything else of that kind? Why don't they be more reasonable? Why don't they allow me to put up Shays-Meehan, which passed overwhelmingly, and for which we have a tremendous need? Why don't they let me put up the minimum wage, which is relevant to the trade adjustment assistance and welfare of the workers? They need it in America. Why don't we agree to a time? We are not delaying--5 minutes to a side. We can vote this evening on both of those bills, and they can go to all of their appropriations bills that they want so we can get away from this so-called fill up the tree and fast track on this trade bill. They have fast track. They know it. Don't come out and complain and say: We would like to have gotten fast track. Parliamentarily, they have instituted fast tack. That is the position they put the Senator from South Carolina in, and those in international trade. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in the letter he said he supported the special Senate subcommittee of the textile industry under the chairmanship of Senator Pastore. He said he agreed with the conclusions of the Pastore committee that sweeping changes in our Federal trade policy were not necessary: Nevertheless, we must recognize that the textile and apparel industries are international in scope and peculiarly susceptible to competitive pressure from imports. The problems of the industry will not disappear by neglect, nor can we wait for a large-scale unemployment and shutdown to inspire us to action. So a comprehensive industrywide remedy is necessary. They had a national security provision in the law at that particular time. Before then-Senator Kennedy and later-President Kennedy could actually implement any kind of comprehensive industrywide remedy, he had to have a finding that the industry was important to our national security. We brought the witnesses. It was a Cabinet committee that was formed for the witnesses to attest to. It was Secretary Dean Rusk of the Department of State, Secretary McNamara with the Department of Defense, Secretary of Commerce Hodges, Secretary of Labor Goldberg, Secretary of the Treasury Dillon, and Secretary of Agriculture Freeman, with whom I served as Governor. They had the hearings, and they concluded at the close of those hearings that next to steel, textiles was the second most important to our national security. In a line, you needed steel in order to make the weapons of war and the tools of agriculture. Therein lies the steel problem, because that is the World Bank singsong. They run the world around telling these emerging Third World countries that they cannot become a nation state until at first they obtain a strong manufacturing sector, particularly in steel. That is why, incidentally, you have the dumping. We have an overproduction in the world of steel. They are dumping here in the United States at less than cost. We have had the hearings, and they voted on the House side. We tried to get a vote on this side and get the bill passed for action by the White House itself. But back to the second most important industry that I would like the Senator from Louisiana to remember, because I remember when he had a substantial investment by Fruit of the Loom down there in Louisiana before it left, and now it looks as if it has all gone to the Cayman Islands. But you couldn't send them to war in a Japanese uniform. This is back in 1960. Today, you might say a Chinese uniform, because the Chinese have gone just 8 years ago from a $5 billion deficit in the balance of trade to a $55 billion deficit in the balance of trade, mostly in textiles and clothing. So we have to go to conflict with our friends in the People's Republic. We have to call up Beijing and say: Wait a minute. Before we have this standoff, please send us some uniforms because we have to be prepared in order to go to battle. We can't go in Chinese uniforms. We have to be able to distinguish the troops. As a result of that finding, then-President Kennedy, on April 24, 1961, promulgated his seven-point program. He did all of the things that dealt with that and followed on into the Kennedy Round, as the distinguished Senator from New York has pointed out, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, one-price cotton, and reciprocity, which stabilized the industry for several years ongoing until really the 1970s, and then, of course, the 1980s and early 1990s with all the vetoes by President Reagan and President Bush. There has just been a deluge. With President Clinton, the deluge turned into a waterfall more or less with NAFTA. For those who say that these things, as the distinguished Senator from Ohio said, are going to create millions of jobs in the United States and the world around, let us be accurate. It will create millions of jobs in the world around. It is going to create millions of ``jobless.'' We have lost over 1 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA here in the United States. There are 420,000 textile jobs lost all over the country, 31,700 in the State of South Carolina alone. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. What we have on foot is another NAFTA without the advantages. At least in NAFTA, we had the side agreements on labor rights. At least in NAFTA, we had the side agreements on the environment. At least in NAFTA, we had reciprocity. Now this one-way street down to the Caribbean and over to the Sahara is totally out of the whole cloth. It will start a deluge. We know about the Chinese and their influence in the sub-Sahara. I will never forget, 5 years ago we had a resolution brought up about human rights. They had voted in the assembly to have hearings on human rights in the People's Republic of China. The Chinese representatives went down into Africa where they have some influence. I was there 25 years ago. They were building the railroad from inner Zaire, the old- time Belgian Congo, out to the coast. They had their work crews all over, their minions all over. They have influence, and it was proved at that time because they changed the vote. They never had that hearing that the United Nations wanted to have on human rights in the People's Republic. We know, looking at Matsui, the shirts coming through at this moment from Matsui. There is not a shirt factory there. They have been inundating the American market. We go to Customs. They say: Senator, they have been inundating the market, but we restrict it. Customs agents ask if we want to stop drugs or stop textiles. Of course, the obvious answer is, heavens, stop the drugs. They say: Until you get the other agents, that is about all we can try to keep up with. The Customs Department has estimated $5 billion already in transshipments, illegal entry of textile goods in the United States, as we speak. We know the sub-Sahara is not going to benefit by it at all with respect to the jobs. It is going to be similar to our minority business enterprise section in the Department of Commerce. They immediately got minority, a black front; then they got the white money and the folks behind it. And with the front, they make a lot of money and get the set-aside contracts through hard experience in Mexico. I refer particularly to the fabric manufacturers down there. The Senator from Louisiana says we ought to be getting rid of the industry. We ought to remember we are going to get something we didn't have before; namely, with all the cotton goods and everything else we are sending, our fabric and the apparel, shirts for example, will come back with American-made fabric. That is what can come back free of duty, free of restriction. But so can the Chinese-made fabrics. So can the Taiwanese. So can the Korean. All one needs to do is cross the border at Tijuana in lower California into Mexico and one will think they are in Seoul, Korea. They are not at all bashful about investing there. The Fabric Resource List of Mexico, appearing in Davison's blue book, I refer to pages 345 to 358 under Fabric Resource List. Mr. President, we can see the opportunity and to whom it is being given. Very interestingly, the commitment when we passed NAFTA, from the individuals at the time that the ATMI came in, they say they are not going to take their plants down there. I refer to an article in the Capital City's Media, back in 1993. The lead article and lead sentence of the article entitled ``Hell No, We Won't Go'': That was the battle cry Monday by the directors of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, who in a last-ditch effort to solidify congressional support for NAFTA, pledged not to move any jobs to Mexico if the act was passed. The ATMI board, made up of firms representing every facet of the textile industry, voted 37-6 in favor of the resolution which said companies would not move jobs, plants or facilities from the United States to Mexico as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Just in the past year Dan River built an integrated apparel manufacturing plant in Mexico. Another U.S. corporation, Tarrant Apparel purchased a denim mill in Pueblo, Mexico; DuPont and Alpek built a plant in Altimira, Mexico, and formed a joint venture with Teijin; Guilford and Cone Mills created a Mexican industrial park known as Textile City; and Burlington Industries is to build a new Mexican plan to produce wool products. It reminds me of John Mitchell, the former Attorney General. He said: Watch what we do, not what we say. Now we know what they do. They go down into Mexico and they invest very heavily. Our friend from Louisiana says the jobs are not important and they moved to higher skilled jobs. I know we have restrictions on the importation of cotton because he says: Look at the cotton. They have quota programs and they have payments they receive for the use of U.S. cotton. That goes back to the One Price Cotton Program we got way back under President Kennedy. The statement made by the Senator from Louisiana is that we are going to get something that we didn't have. The Caribbean and sub-Sahara are going to get something they didn't have. We are going to lose. Yes, we have protection for American cotton producers and they are buying from American cotton producers. But if you go down into Mexico and the plants all go down there, they don't have to worry about coming back in with respect to American-made fabric because they can go ahead and produce it and bring it back in any way. We are going to be losing that business. Last fall, they had section 807 and 809 and everything else the companies themselves approved. That is not productive at all because they are moving down there. That is why they are moving the fabric plants. And there are no restrictions on those under the NAFTA agreement. With respect to the export nature of the job, there is a book written by our friend, Eamonn Fingleton. He wrote the book some 10 years ago entitled ``Blind Side.'' He pointed out at that particular time that the little country of 125 million Japanese was outproducing the 260 million productive Americans. In manufacturing today, Japan still outproduces us. They were talking about the growth of the economy because they know how to build up an economy. Who predicted by the year 2000 the GNP, or gross domestic product, of Japan would exceed that of the richest United States of America? They still could reach it in spite of the turndown of the banking industry and otherwise. They haven't yielded one bit on market share this past year in spite of the turndown in the Japanese economy, the automobile industry. The Japanese automobile industry has taken over again a larger share of the American market. They continue to do so and they continue to invest here, as we know, because we have the Japanese plants in my State of South Carolina. We continue to weaken what President Kennedy and others knew was necessary to build a strong economy, as if resting on a three-legged stool. One leg is our values; that is unquestioned. The second leg is the military strength, which is unquestioned--the remaining superpower. The third leg, economics, having been fractured in the last 10 years. We have gone from 26 percent of our workforce and manufacturing is down to 13 percent. We are losing and hollowing out the industrial center, the middle class of America. I do not have the ratings of the particular jobs they have at Amazon, but I have a good idea of it. I do not believe they are paying as much at Amazon and these other industries as they are in textiles. The average textile wage in the United States is around $8.37 an hour. The needle trades, Senator Breaux pointed out, in Kentucky, Fruit of the Loom eliminated more than 7,000 jobs in the past 6 years. Here, ``Would-be workers attend a job fair held by the new arrival, Amazon.'' You do not stand in line to get a job at Microsoft. They have 22,000. You stand at the bank or you stand at the country club. You have to not only have the high intellect, but you have to have the connections. Anybody who is lucky enough to get a job at Microsoft, they ought to go say their prayers at night and thank heavens because it is wonderful. Every one of those 22,000 are millionaires. That is not the jobs we are talking about, those superduper jobs. We are talking about the 250,000 working at General Motors. We are talking about the 1.6 million still left, maybe 2 million--I can't get the exact figure--of textile jobs left in America. These jobs are important to our national economy. They not only have a national security portion of being able to produce the garments and the uniforms but more particularly to maintain middle America. That is where it is so important. I am going to get the exact pay scale there. I know PSC Corporation, in my own capital city of Columbia, SC, has already shipped out some 500 jobs to India. I forget the exact name of the town. But they can start up the computers in India and get the information back there, and they tell me my light bill is being processed over in India for me right now. That is the trend, the global competition. That is the global development. That is the reality. How do we confront it? Do we maintain a strong manufacturing sector and strengthen that economic leg to our national security? Go right back to Alexander Hamilton in the earliest days. In the earliest days, you had that doctrine of market forces, comparative advantage, and David Ricardo. That is what they said, Adam Smith--you go ahead, the little fledgling colony that now had won its independence, you produce best what you can and ship it back to the mother country and the mother country in turn will produce and ship back what we can produce best--the doctrine of comparative advantage. Alexander Hamilton said, ``No way.'' He wrote the book, ``Reports On Manufactures.'' In that particular book he told the Brits to bug off. He said: We are not going to remain your colony. As a result, the second bill that ever passed this national Congress, in which we stand this afternoon--the first being the U.S. seal--the second bill on July 4, 1789, was a tariff bill, protectionism of a 50- percent tariff on 60 different articles, including our iron and textiles and other things we were beginning to build up--our manufacturing capacity. Now we hear, to my amazement, the cry on the floor of the Senate: Get rid of it. We are going to become a service economy. We are going to have nothing but software. We are going to have millionaires and country clubs and bread lines and that is going to be America. They had that right after World War II. They told the Brits: Don't worry. Instead of a nation of brawn, we are going to be a nation of brains. Instead of producing products, we will provide services. Instead of creating wealth, we are going to handle it, become a financial center. The mother country has gone to hell in an economic handbasket. London is nothing more than an amusement park. They do have the two levels of society and they put it on every night on educational TV, public television: ``Upstairs Downstairs.'' Everybody grins and smiles and says: Oh, those were wonderful days. We can all be maids and servants in the kitchen or we can be plantation owners. That is where we are headed. That is where we are headed with this cry of ``free trade, free trade,'' that is enunciated by everybody who does not have an interest in the future of the United States. That ``everybody'' includes the banks. They first financed these companies, these multinationals, under the Marshall Plan that we sent overseas. Then the think tanks and consultants, then the lawyers, then the retailers. ``You can get a cheaper product,'' and everything else of that kind. Then the consumer groups and what have you. So they all come in and say ``free trade, free trade,'' until you get to intellectual property and ``Oh, no, wait a minute. We have to have trademarks; we have to have copyright; we have to have protectionism.'' They are for protectionism. Jack Valenti in the movies, he will run over here and knock down the desks and everything else. Wait a minute, Hollywood is the biggest protectionist center in the world; protectionism, as they spew out their violence. They killed our TV violence bill momentarily. We keep coming back and we will bring it back again. But I can tell you here and now they want protectionism for the banks, for the insurance companies, for the rich, for the software people but nothing for the sweat of the brow. That is what gets me, when the Senator from Louisiana says now what we need to do is go get a high-skilled, better paying job. That is the future of America. There is a different future. I hate to disabuse his mind on that particular score. There is a book written about this. As Fingleton points out now in his more recent book, ``In Praise of Hard Industries,'' he takes down, chapter and verse: With respect to exports, there is no contribution whatsoever. It is almost negligible. The idea of the software and the high-tech industry --in fact, it was going broke itself in semiconductors until, what did we do? We gave them aid. We put in Sematech and we put in voluntary restraint agreements--give President Reagan credit for that--to save that particular industry, or you would not be seeing any Intel on that stock market, going up yesterday. The Government gave it a chance to survive. That is all the textile industry is asking this afternoon is for a chance to survive. Two-thirds of the clothing I am looking at is imported. Do we want to send the rest of it down there? We have shown all the fabric plants they can manufacture if they go down there, and they will go. Do they want to do that for the sub-Sahara, not having any side agreements or understanding about labor rules, not having an understanding about the environment, not having any reciprocity? Let me get to the restrictions. This industry is terribly restricted. They should understand it right now. That is, I hold in my hand ``Foreign Regulations Affecting U.S. Textile and Apparel Exports.'' That was, a few years ago, in one book. Now they put it out in different, separate items with respect just to the United States, and they do not put it in a book because they think we were the only ones who had any restrictions whatsoever. But can't we do away with the restrictions, not only on the textile industry but the restrictions that they have with respect to the Caribbean Basin Initiative? I have the various products. Mr. President, knit fabrics, Rwanda. Of course, 100 percent on knit fabrics, 100 percent on apparel. Mali, we have restrictions there. You can turn to the restrictions with the other countries: Gabon, 30 percent on apparel compared to our 10 percent in the United States; Ethiopia, 80 percent compared to our 10 percent. We have already given them the advantage by far. My hangup is, we have given the advantage to the Koreans, the People's Republic of China, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, the Malaysians. They have the investments in these countries, and they will have a few jobs to give out, but they will literally take the remaining one-third of the American market and put out of business a wonderful basic industry important to our national security. I say ``a wonderful'' because I watched in the early days when they got the dust and lint in their faces and hair. That is why they called them lint heads. That is not the case anymore. There is no one in the card room. It is mechanically, electronically controlled. In the weave room, where they had 125 people, there are fewer than 15 now. They have modern machinery. The main point is it has afforded jobs for minorities and for women. You hardly found women in the fabric or textile plants; you found them in sewing. Now they represent over 50 percent of employees. It is a good paying job. If the husband has a job and if a woman can make $8.30 an hour, that can help put the boys through Clemson University. That is what they are doing in my backyard in South Carolina. They have invested, on average, $2 billion a year for some 15 years. But now they look at this measure--which is really foreign aid, a giveaway to make a record to build a library for the President and for the idle rich over on the other side of the aisle who believe in money and market and not the country itself. They will give anything away. All they want now, like their software crowd after we started the Internet, after we gave them the education at Stanford, after all the other protections, now they want to do away with the estate tax, do away with the capital gains tax, do away with the immigration laws; let them all come in so we can get them even cheaper labor; let's do away with State tort laws, Y2K; let's just do away with the Government. That is the crowd over on the other side of the aisle. I take the floor because that is where we are headed. This industry is watching closely because they do not want to be in a position of not getting their money back. We have these wonderful textile shows--the machinery boys come from all over the world--in Greenville, SC, at the center. They want to stay ahead of the curve, and they want to be productive, and they are productive, and they do compete. I categorically claim the U.S. textile industry is the most productive in the entire world, bar none. But they cannot afford to remain productive with this initiative because they will not get their money back. They know the transshipments. They know how the Chinese built these parks in Vietnam. That is why you find the Burlingtons and the Cone Mills and the Guilfords all going down there because they want to stay in business and they have to make money. So they have to break their pledge not to move plants, not to move jobs, and they all are headed down there. I do not know who is going to be able to hold on in the United States if this measure passes. The ATMI--that crowd is defunct, I can tell you that. I can say that advisedly because I have gotten every award they give. Otherwise, the AAMA, the American Apparel Manufacturers Association--and a man by the name of Larry Martin, a wonderful individual, with whom I have worked for the enactment of textile bills over the last 30 years --ought to be renamed the Central American Apparel Manufacturers. They do not have U.S. apparel manufacturers. It is just like our friend from the Cayman Islands. It is gone. Fruit of the Loom, Sara Lee, Limited--``The fruit of its labor, the politics of underwear.'' That is the particular article that came out. They are ready to go. They are now in the Cayman Islands. And I will ask Janet Reno to look into this: I say to the Senator from North Dakota--they are talking about Chinese contributions. I am wondering about these Cayman Islands contributions. I don't think George W. knows, but he already has $400,000 from Bill Farley and Fruit of the Loom, according to this article. They are down in the Caymans. Don't give me this cheese board they have up here, how wonderful this is and everybody but Hollings is for the measure. Why do you think they could not get the black caucus over there or why couldn't they get Jesse Jackson, Jr., for this bill? Why not go for the Jackson bill? That is what he was for, not for this particular measure. Why did the black ministers in Boston march on the industries? Because they are not taken over with the bum's rush of that corporate business banking crowd that wants to make an even bigger profit. Former Secretary of Labor, little Bobby Reich, put out a book. I wish you all would read that book. On page 179, you will find out the Fortune 500 has not created a new job in the United States of America in the last 10 years. That book is about 6 or 7 years old, but is still on point, and will be for sometime to come. They are not creating the jobs. They are firing everybody. The companies I am referring to are all listed on the charts. They are getting rid of the jobs and getting rid of the industry. That is what we have in the balance this afternoon. I emphasize that it is one way, and it is not NAFTA and the nice plea that it has worked so well down in Mexico so let's extend it to sub- Sahara, let's extend it to Central America. We are not, if I have anything to do with it, going to pass this Kathie Lee sweatshop measure. It has not worked in El Salvador. The Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, wanted to put a child labor amendment on this measure. Of course, now that they have filled up the tree and have given fast track to this measure, we cannot offer an amendment for labor rights, for the environment, for reciprocity. We are going the way of Mexico. Let me momentarily hold up with one observation about NAFTA because the claim was made at that time in the debate that they would create 200,000 jobs. It has not created new jobs. We have lost 420,000 textile jobs. They said we are going to have better wage rates. Actually, the take-home wage of the country we were trying to help, Mexico, is less in 1999 than in 1994 and 1995 when we passed NAFTA. Then they said it was going to help the immigration problem because they are going to have so many jobs. The immigration problem has worsened. I know better than any. I handle the immigration appropriation. We have a school for the Border Patrol agents. We have literally graduated thousands of Border Patrol Spanish-speaking agents for the Border Patrol down in my hometown. And the immigration problem is, again, even worse. Ask the Senators from California, Mrs. Feinstein and Mrs. Boxer. And then drugs. Oh, yeah, we were going to solve the drug problem. That has gotten worse. So NAFTA is not a good example of a positive experience with a trade agreement. It is like they keep talking about deregulation of the airlines. I could go on for 2 or 3 hours about that one. We are in an FAA authorization bill now. We used to come specifically with the town, the mayor, the tax base, build the airport, get the facilities, go out and get Captain Rickenbacker and Eastern Airlines, and come to the CAB and get the rights; and it was a working deal. You got good service. The community controlled the so-called slots, and everything else of that kind. It worked. But they got this urge to deregulate, deregulate, and we have now come full swing, full circle. The regulated are buying up the deregulated. You don't get the service. You have all kinds of costs. I bought a ticket a few weeks ago for my wife. The day before we did not think the plane was going to fly on account of Hurricane Floyd. We found out it was, so we bought the ticket. It was $748, round trip, from Washington, DC, to Charleston, SC, and back--$748 dollars. I will show you the ticket. So don't talk about the improvements, and everything else like that, with either deregulation or this singsong the money crowd puts on with respect to NAFTA and how well it has worked and how everybody is for it. Everybody is not for this. Those who are looking and have studied and worked in the trade field realize we are going the way of England and that we just can't afford it any longer. I almost say we, more or less, have given away the store, as they say, in the community chest. As they said to me back in those Governor days: Governor, what do you expect them to make? The airplanes and the computers? Let them make the shoes. Let them make the clothing. And we will make the airplanes and the computers. My problem is they are making the shoes, they are making the clothing, they are making the airplanes, they are making the computers. That Boeing crowd from Washington is beginning to sober up because their bus is being dumped. Ask these airlines whether they are buying Boeing or Lockheed. No, no, no. They are being dumped on account of the price and financing, and everything else of that kind. And the competition is government; and the policy is set by that government. Senators say look before you open up Conrad Manufacturing. You have to have a minimum wage, clean air, clean water, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, safe working place, safe machinery, plant closing notice, parental leave--I could keep going on and on. They can go down to Mexico now for 58 cents an hour, and there is none of that. So what is happening in the job policy where you can save as much as 20 percent on your manufacturing cost, which is 30 percent of volume? If you move your manufacturing to a low-wage country, and just keep your executive office and your sales force, and you have $500 million in sales, saving 20 percent moving to that low-wage country, before taxes you can make $100 million. Or you know what, you can continue to work your own people and go bankrupt. That is the job policy of the national Congress. That is the job policy we are discussing this afternoon on the floor of the Senate. That is what we are talking about: How can we say this is for the people, how we say this is going to create jobs, knowing full well it is going to result in a loss of jobs. That is why the labor people, and that is why so many African Americans, that is why all are beginning to get stirred. That is what makes Pat Buchanan make sense until lately when he began to talk that nonsense about Hitler. That is the worse thing that ever happened to this particular debate because he was talking sense at the time before he wrote his silly book about Hitler and all these other things. But he is talking about the passing army. That is labor in America. They realize they are hearing all this pretty talk from Washington and how we are going to do this and how we got to go do that--global economy, global competition, and everything else of that kind--and they keep losing out. They are wondering what is happening when the Republicans and Democrats say the same thing. And so Buchanan comes out, and was the best voice we had in a national sense. I have been talking trade while that boy was in Gonzaga. Is that the name of the high school around here, Gonzaga High School? Gonzaga High School--I was working on this when he was at Gonzaga High School beating up everybody. I know him and like him. I get along with him very well. But he has poisoned the well on this particular score because he loses credibility on the most important issue next to the budget. The second most important is the economy and trying to maintain middle America. And they tell me--the Senator from Louisiana--all they have to do is get in line and go to Amazon. The fact is that those jobs are not paying as much. These retail jobs just do not provide the same pay. In fact, they make them independent contractors to avoid paying their health costs and everything else. In fact, take the example--and I will sit down and yield to my colleagues because I have plenty more to cover--with respect to Oneida knitting mills down in Andrews, SC, they had to close the first of the year. We bought them less than 35 years ago, a fine little plant. They had 487 employees, with the average age of 47 years old. Tell them to get retrained and get skilled tomorrow morning-- Washington's approach and the approach of the Senator from Louisiana-- get that skill as a computer operator and go apply to Amazon as a 47- year-old. Do you think Amazon is going to employ the 47-year-old or the 21-year-old computer operator? They are sidelined, deadlined. They are out. This is the issue they ought to be debating in this Presidential race. But since the pollsters are all on education, education, education, and the Governors, education, education, the size of the class, more this, more that, reeducate, reteach, everything else like that, they are not talking about the real problem that we at the Washington level are talking about. On education, the federal government only spends 7 cents on the dollar; the other 93 cents comes from the local level. So we are not going to do much on that. But here, when we can do something, we are doing the wrong thing and going in the wrong direction. They put up these cheese boards around how the Citicorp and that rich crowd is all for it. All they are doing is trying to make money. They are not trying to create jobs. Read Bobby Reich's book. He's right, the Fortune 500 are not creating jobs at all. We supposedly are trying to, but at the same time we are canceling out these efforts with this job policy. We have to phase out right now the Multifiber Arrangement. We are going into the fifth year of it. The real hard part is going to be hitting. I can tell you right now, after this election in November 2000, the next President who is going to come on is going to have some real problems. And, Senator, you and I, hopefully, if the Lord is willing, will be here. And we ought to be doing something about it now. We certainly ought not to be taking this bum's rush that comes out of the Finance Committee. Because that is what they do to me every time. That is what they did on NAFTA. That is what they did on GATT. They wait until the last 10 days of a particular session. Then they come out and they grease it and they give it fast track. They file it. They put in two amendments. They fill up the tree. They file cloture. And say: Ha, ha, ha, we are going off to the party. Struggle as you will. But we have it fast tracked. And this is going to pass whether you like it or not. We have to get out here and get at least some amendments with respect to the labor and environmental rights, with respect to the reciprocity. I hope we will look closely at what has happened here. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the 1998 Ratios of Imports to Consumption from the International Trade Commission, this two-sheet listing.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I came momentarily to the floor to hear my distinguished colleague from Louisiana try to justify that Bill Farley article in Time magazine, which I referred to earlier. His justification, of course, was not the matter of campaign finance reform, which is the major thrust of the article; interestingly, the thrust that, look, we ought to be getting rid of these jobs, says that these textile workers now can go to the high-skilled, better-paying jobs, and that is the future of America. Let me go right to the other comment made by my distinguished colleague from New York, who joined with it, about trade adjustment assistance, and what a wonderful program it is. Thirty-seven years ago, as he said, as Dean Acheson would say, he was at the table. He is right. He had a distinguished career of service there as the Assistant Secretary of Labor negotiating the trade adjustment assistance agreement. Everybody will agree with that. But 38 years ago, I was at the table, and I was at the table for the seven-point textile program of President Kennedy. It was a very interesting exercise because what we had found out was that they were really about to do away with the industry, we thought, when it included some 10-percent import penetration. I had come up to testify before the old International Trade Commission, and testifying before that International Trade Commission, we thought we had made a good impression. At that particular time, 38 years ago, we were confronted with Tom Dewey, who was then representing the Japanese. He chased me all around the hearing room, and my friend, Charlie Daniel, at that time an outstanding contractor/builder/civic leader, says: Now, Governor, let's go by and see the chief. That was President Eisenhower. We called on Wilton B. Parsons, and Jerry Parsons ushered us in and President Eisenhower said: Don't worry, you will win that case. In June, the International Trade Commission ruled against us. At that particular time, we realized we were totally lost unless we could get involved in the campaign, which wasn't too difficult because then- Senator John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts understood very clearly the importance of the textile jobs. I am going right back to the Senator from Louisiana saying the future of the country is to get rid of these jobs. I am laying the groundwork of the historical record about the importance and the significance of these jobs. The case was in talking to then-Senator Kennedy. We met with him. And my friend, Mr. Feldman, was his legislative assistant. We obtained a letter on August 30, 1960. You can imagine, this was in the heat of the 1960 campaign between Kennedy and Nixon. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada. What happens if we can get up campaign finance and get an up-or-down vote on Shays-Meehan? I have my doubts about its constitutionality. I have voted several times for McCain-Feingold. I voted against the most revised or limited McCain-Feingold for the simple reason it was similar to half a haircut; it was worse than none at all. It said the parties couldn't take soft money but everyone else could take soft money. Immediately, my adversary, Tom Donohue at the Chamber of Commerce, said we had not participated financially sufficiently in campaigns. So I am getting up a kitty of $5 million. The Chamber of Commerce will get up a kitty of $5 million and pick some 8 or 10 senatorial races and give them at least $100,000. Mind you me, the Chamber of Commerce no longer represents Main Street America, no longer represents the middle-size or small business; rather the international, the transnational, the gone overseas crowd, such as the Farley group that has already transferred 17,000 jobs offshore. It is headquarters to the Cayman Islands. I don't know whether those are foreign contributions. I had better look into that. It strikes me they are talking about the Chinese. I am wondering whether the Chinese have any worse position that the Cayman Islanders to make contributions. I think we ought to call Janet Reno and say here is an example of foreign contributions by the Cayman Island Farley to the campaigns--$500,000 for George. Poor George W. will never get through the year. They will find these things I am talking about. Poor fellow, he hasn't gotten into the Washington go-round. This crowd will chew anyone up. See how the logic applies. We are all talking about the Attorney General not doing enough on some antiquated contribution; that happened way back. I am talking about what is being made now in this week's Time magazine, the Cayman Island contributions to poor George W. in Texas, and he probably doesn't even know it--when one runs a mammoth national campaign. We will have to look into that. We have a special interest bill. We need a vote on Shays-Meehan to find out whether it is constitutional or to make sure, along with it, to constitutionalize Shays-Meehan by coming right along and taking the Hollings-Specter amendment to constitutionalize it. As I was about to say before examined by my distinguished friend from Nevada, we have found that of the last eight amendments to the Constitution, seven have passed in 17 months' time. There is no debate, and they all relate to elections. There is no greater cancer on the body politic than the campaign finance practices in this land. Everybody talks about the amount of money. I would say a word about the amount of time. As a full-time Senator, I am supposed to be giving full time to the problems of the people of South Carolina. But I found myself last year giving full time to my particular problem of staying in office, by going all over the country, trying to collect funds from anybody and everybody who thought I could be a pretty good Senator. This was the seventh time I have been elected to the Senate. I am still the junior Senator. I am working hard on my way up. Be that as it may, when I first got elected back 33 years ago, it was a little budget, somewhere, I think, around $400,000 or $500,000. I had to collect $5.5 million last year. In a small State where they are all Republicans, such as Delaware and South Carolina, we have that Dupont crowd. We have them. They are the best of the best. But all my State has gone Republican as did the South: two Republican Senators in Texas, two in Alabama, two in Mississippi, and two in Tennessee. October of last year I was the last remaining statewide Democrat in office except for my friend the comptroller, Earl Morris. He and I were the last two: city councils, mayor, the Governor, the legislature--all Republican. With this recording of every contribution in and every contribution out, there were a lot of Republican friends who wanted to participate. But we put that burden on them. They would have to, literally, explain why they gave that fellow Hollings $100 or $1,000, whatever the contribution was. Rather than become involved--if we want to know what cuts off people have from involvement in the process in America today, it is just this particular requirement. I voted for that requirement. I think it ought to be made public. But it can get bad, and it does, and has gotten bad in my State. We can correct this. We can constitutionalize whatever is the intent of Congress. You do not have to get that distorted opinion of Buckley v. Valeo for the simple reason that they said money amounted to speech. Those with money had all the speech they wanted, but those who did not have money could get lockjaw. They could just shut up and sit down. ``You are not in the swim, Liddy Dole; you are not in the race at all. You can forget about it.'' The party has already arranged and crowned George W. in Texas, and he has $50 million to $60 million. He doesn't need the public money, and everybody thinks that is great. I think that is not great at all. I think when it has gotten to be that bad, when you have enough money, like Perot, to start a party, and you have enough money to control the party as is being done now on the Republican side, we have to clean this thing up and get back to not being able to buy the office. So I would have campaign finance reform as a very strong amendment and make sure there is no question. Time magazine thinks it is relevant, but the Senator from Mississippi does not think it is relevant. If he can come out and if he will make the proposal that he does think it is relevant, we can agree on a time agreement on Shays-Meehan, 5 minutes to a side, and vote. Do not come weeping and wailing that, Oh, we have so many things to get done, we have the appropriations' bills, we have this bill, we have that bill, and everything like that. This is not a time-consumption strategy on the part of the Senator from South Carolina. This is to bring to the fore that which has been prevented from even being debated in this body. The most deliberative body in the history of the world can no longer, under the process, deliberate. You have to walk up to the table and find out how to vote. I was here with Senator Mansfield. Senator Mansfield would think that demeaning, to put there how a Senator is supposed to vote. Senator Dirksen would absolutely oppose nonsense of that kind. But that is how we all are going. You have to do it this way and get on message. You cannot debate what the public wants debated. You can only debate what the polls show to be debated. Everybody is running all over the world talking about education because it shows up in the polls. But we only control 7 cents of every education dollar; the 93 cents, that is the State and local responsibility. Bless them, I am a leader on that subject. You name another Senator in this body who has put up a 3 percent sales tax and passed it for public education. You name another one who has come in with a system of technical training that would even equal--much less be better than--ours. I have worked in the vineyards over the years for education so I do not demean the need for improving the quality of education, namely, doubling the pay of teachers. So you get what you pay for. If we start attracting the best and the brightest, they do not need retraining; they need money. They need to be paid. The average pay, I think, in South Carolina, is around $27,000 or $28,000. Maybe it has gone up to $31,000. Don't hold me to the exact figure. But I know that is relevant. That doesn't pay for the children to go to college. I go to the graduations and they come across the stage. ``Senator, I would like to have taught, but I am not able to get into teaching because I cannot save enough money to get my children through school and college. So what do I do? I get into international studies, business course and otherwise.'' Mr. President, we have the Kathie Lee sweatshop bill here before us, where 17,000, according to Time Magazine, have gone from Kentucky in the last few years. I have the exact figures. I had a talk the weekend before last to the northern textile industry. The Senator from Delaware had all of his textile people there, Drew Potter and otherwise. I was glad to talk to the northern textile industry people. I want to make a record of this particular situation because this is how bad it can get, how politics can really take over. I have been the principal sponsor of five textile bills that have passed this Senate, four of them have passed the Senate and the House of Representatives and gone to the President of the United States. One was vetoed by President Carter, two by President Reagan, and one by President Bush. I remember when President Bush implied, in his commitment to the talk in Greenville, that he was for textiles. When asked how come he vetoed it, he said, ``C'est la vie.'' He not only wants to import the textiles, he wants to import the language. That is how far off we have gotten. I could not get invited. I tried last year. Here is a fellow who has grown up and held just about every office at the local level: Lieutenant Governor and Governor and Senator elected seven times. But I tried. They have a little lunch or evening meal, I think it is, at the Piedmont Club, these new young executives. I said: You know, I ought to make an appearance there because they have a new group and everything else. I could not get invited. They never could find a time. I had some old-time leaders say: We will arrange it for you. I could get invited, thanks to Karl Spilhaus and the leadership of the northern textile industry. At least I can get invited now to the northern textile industry, but I could not get invited to my own backyard. Here, as the cosponsor and voter for the right to work bill, I am out here trying to protect organized labor because--where are they? I heard that Ms. Evelyn Dubrow is finally back in town. She is the best of the best. She just won the Presidential Medal last month. I congratulate her. She has been outstanding over the years. Maybe if I explain this bill long enough, we might be able to pick up some votes. I see others waiting. I said I would take at least 15 minutes. My good friend from Minnesota, who really held the fort down yesterday, has been trying to get recognized to say a few words. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I suggest the Senator come back because I am just beginning to cover the subjects. We have a luncheon in the next 15 minutes, and I will complete my thoughts.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New York. I have been trying to get the floor. I tried earlier today to be recognized to speak on this bill. It was the objection I had made, of course, to the motion to proceed, due to the strong feelings I had with respect to trade. Incidentally, on yesterday, I could not be present. Amongst others, the distinguished Senator from Minnesota more or less carried the day. I am obligated to him. Senator Wellstone did an outstanding job. He asked that, if I could ever get the floor --and I tried twice this morning and could not get the floor--to please ask unanimous consent that he be recognized when I had completed my remarks. I have talked to fellow Senators and there is objection to that. I wanted to let him know that I remembered the promise made. I am not making the request because I know it will be objected to. That brings us right to the unsenatorial, more or less, procedures into which we have bogged down by. In a line, the distinguished majority leader says what we ought to have had was fast track and, within a breath, he gives us fast track. We have fast track on this bill. You cannot put up an amendment. He ``filled up the tree,'' and he says, ``oh, but I am so considerate that I will be glad to help you out if I can give you permission to give you relevant amendments.'' Of course, he decides what is relevant. What about relevance with respect to the Finance Committee? What they are calling a trade bill is actually a foreign aid bill, because you have the Secretary of State calling around on the bill, not the Secretary of Labor for jobs--I don't think she had the gall to do it. But the Secretary of State, with pride, is calling the various Senators because this is a foreign aid bill. It is a one-way street. It is unilateral. It does not have the labor side agreements. It does not have the environmental side agreements that were included in NAFTA. It does not include the reciprocity that we got from the Mexicans when we passed NAFTA. I have prepared amendments that would be relevant, but you can't tell around here. I don't think that I should have to stand as a Senator and beg another Senator permission to put up an amendment. That is the most arrogance I have ever seen since I have been here, some 33 years. It has gotten really raw in this particular body, when you try to debate the most important subject that you can possibly imagine, which is hollowing out not only our industrial strength, but the middle class of our society and the strength of our democracy, and you have to beg to put up an amendment in order to satisfy what the majority leader says what is relevant. Could it be the minimum wage amendment that the Senator from Massachusetts has been trying to get up since the beginning of the year? Well, it is not for Africa, not for the Caribbean Basin Initiative, but more for the workers of America. I say why not? Don't we have trade adjustment assistance in the bill? If that is relevant so is minimum wage. Doesn't minimum wage have relevance to the welfare, the pay, the being of American workers? The question in my mind is what rules are we under? I presided for 6 years under Heinz's precedent. I presided for 4 years under Jefferson's rule. When I got to the Senate, we threw away the rule book because it is whatever the majority leader says. That is the rule. That is what happens up here--we all understand that--in order to facilitate legislation. But when it gets to this point of arrogance it is totally counterproductive. Here you have been trying to get up the bill all year long, and then you put it up in the last few days and say we are all trying to get out of town, let's not have any debate, let's take it or leave it as the Finance Committee has it, and thereupon, let's have cloture, let's have fast track. Well, with respect to the minimum wage amendment, I would gladly put it up. I understood today--and the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts can speak for himself--but I talked to him the day before yesterday and advised him that if he didn't, I would, because I think it is just as important as trade adjustment assistance. I see that the distinguished Senator from Texas is on the floor. I understood he said this would create 400,000 jobs. That's very peculiar because I understood the distinguished Senator from New York indicating that we are going to have to put 200,000 on trade adjustment assistance--in other words, we are going to put them out of a job, we are going to give them welfare. What a wonderful thing it is; we started it some 37 years ago. Has this body got any idea what is going on? Are we really creating jobs, or are we decimating the jobs? One brags that we put them on; the other brags that we put them out. And there we are, with respect to relevant amendments. Mr. President, there is another relevant amendment. This is the Time magazine for this week. It is an article called, ``The Fruit of Its Labor.'' I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record in its entirety.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I don't know whether the distinguished majority leader would agree that this is a special interest bill, but the public domain thinks it is a special interest bill. The leading news magazine in the world thinks it is a special interest bill. Therefore, campaign finance reform would be relevant. Why do I say that? ``The Fruit of Its Labor.'' It is on page 50. ``How a company that exports jobs pushes for a Capitol Hill handout.'' ``The politics of underwear.'' I quote: If you are an underwear mogul, you surely cannot lack confidence. So it is with Bill Farley. The handsome physical- fitness buff has under his belt brands like BVD, Munsingwear and his flagship, Fruit of the Loom. He rubs shoulders with the rich and powerful, and recently co-chaired a lunch that raised more than $500,000 for George W. Bush. Muscles rippling, Farley, 57, has also shown up wearing a tank top in Fruit of the Loom advertising. He once even put himself forward as a candidate for President of the United States. Maybe that is where Trump got the idea. I always wondered where that rascal could think he could be President. But, in any event, reading on: These days, however, Farley's political focus is squarely on Congress, where Fruit's adventures in lobbying offer a choice example of how the game is played. Fruit of the Loom is a tattered company, suffering from bad performance and poor management and lobbying heavily for a bill that would ripen its bottom line. How likely is it that the company's case will be heard on the Hill? Well, last year alone Fruit handed out more than $435,000 in soft-money donations, a figure that puts contributions by the firm (1998 sales: $2.2 billion) ahead of those of such giants as Coca-Cola, Exxon and Bank of America. Most of Fruit's plums go to Republicans, including $265,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, run by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the principal opponent of campaign finance reform. This week, with Congress having for now killed campaign finance reform, McConnell and other Republicans will get on with other business, such as an amendment to an African trade bill that would allow apparel produced in the Caribbean Basin to enter the U.S. duty free, provided it is assembled from U.S. fabric. Fruit's lobbyists--along with those from competitors like the Sara Lee Crop., which makes Hanes underwear, and retailers like the Limited and the Gap--are pushing hard for passage. Fruit officials claim the measure, which Bill Clinton supports, will create jobs, and deny that the company's donations can buy influence. Says Ron Sorini, a Fruit lobbyist: ``There's absolutely no correlation between our soft-money donations and those who decide to vote in favor of this bill.'' Whether there is or not, Farley's much coveted tariff break comes at a cost. Eliminating duties on apparel from the Caribbean will run U.S. taxpayers at least $1 billion in lost revenue over five years--a figure that, by congressional rules, must be made up with cuts in our programs. Fruit confirms that the bill is expected to deliver a quick $25 million to $50 million to the bottom line, adding to savings achieved after moving some 17,000 of its U.S.-based jobs, mostly to the low-wage Caribbean Basin, and reincorporating in the tax haven Cayman Islands. The jobs cuts were spread across the South, especially Kentucky, where earlier in this decade Fruit was one of the largest employers. ``They are trying to win in Washington what they've been unable to achieve in the marketplace,'' says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group. ``They're now trying to secure advantages from Congress at a time when they're in dire financial straits.'' Dire is right. After a major inventory snafu, Fruit's financial elastic stretched again last month, when it had to make a $45 million interest payment on accumulated debt of $1.3 billion. Its stock, traded at $48 a few years ago, now sells for less than $4. The board, its confidence in Farley shaken, managed to shunt him into the role of nonexecutive chairman in August, and the company is searching for a new CEO. Farley retains a role in large measure because he still controls 28.5% of Fruit's voting shares. He has also arranged for the company to guarantee loans to himself worth $65 million. Fruit of the Loom's favorite trade bill has led to a rare split between Kentucky's two conservative Republican Senators. While McConnell is expected to support the tariff cut, his colleague Jim Bunning has no intention of backing the measure. Asks Bunning: ``How many more jobs do we have to lose until we wake up and smell the Caribbean coffee?'' Yet for Bill Farley, the aroma is nothing if not enticing. By one count, he's tried to get versions of the bill through Congress six times in recent years. Perhaps seven's the charm. Mr. President, I ask the same question as the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Bunning. How many more jobs do we have to lose until we wake up and smell the Caribbean coffee? Is there any question in anybody's mind? As we used to say in the law, any reasonable and prudent man--and now woman--can see that this is not a special interest bill. And with campaign finance reform, which is mentioned in this article and which is mentioned in this particular bill, it would be relevant--not under the majority leader's rule of relevancy. Ask the majority leader when he comes to the floor. I can offer the campaign finance reform, or I can offer the minimum wage. Then we will all agree to move right along and vote on the amendment. I will agree to a time agreement. We are not holding anybody up. We can vote both of those amendments this afternoon. We don't have to worry about cloture on Friday. We are ready to roll. We, like the majority leader, want to get out of town. We have a lot of work to do. Don't put on this act about how reasonable and thoughtful and so pressured we are in trying to reconcile all of the particular problems there are in the closing days. Don't give me any of that. Let's get to the reality. We have a special interest bill; we have a bill affecting workers. I want to put up another bill affecting the workers that have been up all year long and all last year--minimum wage. The majority leader won't come out and say it is relevant. When he comes out and says it is relevant, I will put up the amendment; we can vote in 10 minutes' time. When he says a special interest bill, Shays-Meehan is relevant; we can vote in 10 minutes. The House has voted on it overwhelmingly. We couldn't get a vote on account of the so-called rules of the majority leader with respect to when we can call something and when we can't call anything around here. They won't give us a freestanding Shays-Meehan without the cloture and everything else. I have been interested in campaign finance reform since I voted for the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974. We had that bill up, and we had a good bipartisan cross-section vote for the measure saying one cannot buy the office. We have come full circle. What we are saying in Washington today is, the trouble is, there isn't enough money to buy the office. Do you know what? We have amendments. Mr. President, $1,000 isn't enough; we ought to be able to buy it quicker with $3,000 and $5,000, $10,000. We have moved in the opposite direction from the original intent of cleaning up politics in this land of ours by stating categorically one could not buy the office. I can still see the Senator from Louisiana, Russell Long. He said, every man a king--everybody, regardless of economic circumstance or background, could aspire for the Presidency of this land of ours. Listen to Elizabeth Dole. One can be a former Secretary of Commerce, one can be a Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Labor, one can have been head of the American Red Cross, every kind of track record, but unless the candidate has the money, the candidate doesn't stand a chance--money is what talks. We are saying it is a real problem. On the one hand, we have too many limits, we ought to have more money in this; or, on the other hand, let taxpayers, let the public, pay for our politics; let's have public campaign finance. We have had about three votes on it. I remember when I first introduced it, it was a joint resolution. There was one line, and it is in now, but I can't get it up. I have been waiting for a good joint resolution to come over, Senator. If it comes over, I will offer it. They told me I couldn't offer it to campaign finance reform because mine was a joint resolution and it was a simple bill, with three readings to be signed. A joint resolution, of course, and amending the Constitution, is not to be signed by the President. That being the case, I put in this particular one-line amendment that the Congress of the United States is hereby empowered to regulate or control spending in Federal elections. I had a dozen good Republican colleagues--my senior colleague and others--joined as cosponsors way back; this has to be almost 20 years ago. We can't get that, except for the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter. So the Hollings-Specter amendment was so salutary that the States said, wait a minute, add that the States are hereby empowered to control or regulate spending in Federal elections. So we added that. We have gotten a majority vote, but we never have gotten the two-thirds necessary. It would pass. I am not worried about it at any next election. It would easily come about. We relied upon looking at the last five of the six amendments. They passed in an average of 17 months. Does the distinguished Senator have a question? I am just feeling good about this particular measure.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to transfer my hour under cloture. I ask unanimous consent that the hour transfer to the Democratic manager so it can be yielded to another Senator today.