Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this is the same act, same scene, under different auspices, different rules and regulations, with the manifest intent, in this particular Senator's opinion, that what is on course here is a Milton Friedman-like plan of the distinguished Senator from Texas to privatize Social Security, to establish private savings accounts. The Republicans do this in violation of all the rules and regulations that you can think of that have been put in over the past several years to bring about fiscal discipline. Let's get right to the point: We, up until now, have been on course with some fiscal discipline. Credit President Clinton and the 1993 Congress that enacted the Balanced Budget Act, which cut spending, increased taxes, increased taxes on Social Security--the very measure that they said was going to end the world and throw us into a depression whereby even the distinguished chairman on the House Budget Committee said he would change parties. I don't know whether he is running today for President as a Democrat or Republican, but to my knowledge Mr. Kasich is still a Republican. He said he would change parties if it worked. It is working. The market is over 10,000, we have housing starts and inflation is down, unemployment is down, and everything else of that kind. When they reported this budget, trying to continue the fiscal discipline, here is the language: In addition to the fiscal policies contained in the budget resolution, I also am troubled by the process the Republican majority wants to use in this year's budget. The reconciliation process have been used sparingly in the past to improve the fiscal health of the budget. It was created to give the Senate a process for making difficult fiscal decisions--decisions that often require cutting popular programs and increasing taxes to balance the budget. That is not the case this year. The Republicans want to use the reconciliation process to dramatically reduce revenues over the next ten years and impair the progress we have made so far in reducing the deficit and beginning to pay down the debt. The budget resolution also would modify the pay-go point of order. Pay-go was required to insure the Senate would provide off-sets to reduce taxes or increase spending. The modified budget resolution now will make it possible to cut taxes without a fiscal off-set. By making it easier to use future surpluses to cut taxes instead of paying down the debt, this will eliminate the fiscal discipline that has reduced the deficit and contribute to the fiscal cancer eating away at America. I say cancer, and I say that advisedly, because when President Johnson last balanced the budget, the interest cost on the national debt was only $16 billion. Today it is just about $1 billion a day. The last estimate of the Congressional Budget Office was $357 billion each year. When President Johnson last balanced the budget, after 200 years of history--the cost of all the wars from the Revolution on up, World War I, World War II, the cost of Vietnam, Korea--the interest cost on the national debt was only $16 billion. Now, since that time, without the cost of a war--we made money on Desert Storm--so, without the cost of a war it is now $1 billion a day, eating away. With that wasted money, the interest cost on the debt, I could give the distinguished Presiding Officer his $80 billion tax cut, I could give our Democratic friends our $80 billion in increased spending, I could give $80 billion to save Social Security, I could give $80 billion to pay down the debt--that is only $320 billion. But we are going to spend at least $357 billion this year on nothing, and if interest costs start going back up we will be to $500 billion. But, to the original point, read this conference report. Here are the shenanigans that go along and are given dignity by my distinguished colleague from Texas saying it is the finest budget he's seen. I was sorry to see him do that because I joined him in passing Gramm-Rudman-Hollings for fiscal discipline, and this is the most undisciplined shenanigan that you will ever find. On page 18, section 202 of the conference report: Whenever the Committee on Ways and Means of the House or the Committee on Finance of the Senate reports a bill, or an amendment thereto is offered, or a conference report thereon is submitted that enhances retirement security through structural programmatic reform, the appropriate chairman of the Committee on the Budget may-- (1) increase the appropriate allocations and aggregates of new budget authority and outlays by the amount of new budget authority provided by such measure (and outlays flowing therefrom) for that purpose; (2) in the Senate, adjust the levels used for determining compliance with the pay-as-you-go requirements of section 207; and (3) reduce the revenue aggregates by the amount of the revenue loss resulting from that measure for that purpose. I want the Parliamentarian to listen to that one. I can tell you how he will rule. He will say it means whatever Mr. Domenici says it means. What does that gobbledygook mean? Listen to this. I will read it again: Whenever the Committee on Ways and Means of the House or the Committee on Finance of the Senate reports a bill or an amendment thereto is offered, or a conference report thereon is submitted that enhances retirement security through structural programmatic reform, the appropriate chairman of the Committee on the Budget may [blah blah blah blah]. He can do away with the pay-go rule, he can cut the revenues, he can do whatever he pleases. And that is what my distinguished colleague from Texas calls the finest budget he has seen, because he doesn't want this crowd to read and understand what is going on. Bring out the Roth IRA for the rich. Under this budget, pass a law, don't care about the rules, don't care about pay-go, don't care about any available monies. I say that IRA is for the rich because one American--to bring it into focus, Bill Gates, $51 billion--is worth more than 100 million Americans. One man in this society that we are developing is now worth more than 100 million Americans. So there are a lot of people who do not have anything to say about this. But you sort of enhance your security and retirement--for the idle rich. Whoopee and the dickens with the pay-go rule, Mr. Parliamentarian. You don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about the loss of revenue or anything like that, the reconciliation process. It is reserved. Now the Republicans can come on in and privatize Social Security, all under the auspices of saving Social Security. It is still off on this public debt, as if there is some difference from the national debt. Let me explain one more time. When you pay down your public debt, you increase your Social Security debt. That is where the money comes from. The whole gimmick here is to pay down Wall Street's credit card with the Social Security credit card. It is like having a Visa and a Master and you want to pay down the MasterCard with your Visa card, so you pay down the MasterCard with the Visa card. But it is still your card; it is your debt. All you've done is shift debt from spending column to another. That is why the debt this particular fiscal year, 1999, goes up $100 billion. That is the Congressional Budget Office figure. Let's sober up here. Everybody is running around saying, ``Surplus, surplus.'' How are we going to do it? They all have different ideas: ``Surplus, surplus.'' The truth of the matter is there is no surplus. There is a deficit. We are spending $100 billion more than we are taking in. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. They gave the key for the lockbox to everybody save the Social Security recipients.

Mr. HOLLINGS. It is an old insurance game. I remember that when I was Governor, we were trying to clean up the insurance industry in my State. A new company was looking for a slogan, and we finally came up with the winning slogan: ``Capital Life will surely pay, if the small print on the back don't take it away.'' Now we have it all the way up here 35 years later in the budgetary process of the U.S. Government.

Mr. HOLLINGS. That is what he said.

Mr. HOLLINGS. As one big charade, rather than save Social Security, they plan to privatize it. There is no question in this Senator's mind.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Oh, they had one.

Mr. HOLLINGS. If the distinguished Senator will yield, he has been far too generous. Our floor leader, Senator Conrad of North Dakota, has really been leading the fight for us in the Budget Committee. That is why we are able to get some semblance of some discipline there. I hope, with the conference--maybe I could ask the Senator a question. Did they have a conference? Did the distinguished Senator from North Dakota go to a conference on the budget?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we just heard the word ``surplus.'' We have seen a lot of charts. But the truth of the matter is that we are spending $100 billion more than we are taking in this year. And the Congressional Budget Office projects that we will spend $89.9 billion or $90 billion more next year just under current policy, in the face of that current policy, taking care of inflation. We hear all kinds of ``visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads'' on this floor. We have turned the Senate Chamber into a recording studio for campaign 2000. And everybody is saying, ``Well, $2 billion more for the veterans and $8 billion more for the farmers, and $15 billion more for the military pay, and so much more for education. And, by the way, we ought to have a tax cut. But remember, we have spending caps, and we have to stay within the caps.'' They know, of course, that we exceeded the caps last year by $12 billion and this year by $21 billion. So already we have exceeded the caps by $33 billion, plus the $18 billion that we voted for the military pay. We ought to be looking for $50 billion to make up for this, but we are adding on all of these fanciful figures. So what we really ought to do is bring a note of reality, a note of what the situation actually is, to the debate and get a budget that we can vote on. Here is the lead editorial of USA Today. And I quote it: If your member of Congress comes home this weekend bragging about having adopted a responsible federal budget for the coming year, don't you believe it. The $1.7 trillion spending and tax outlines being muscled through the House and Senate this week are little more than the budgetary equivalent of The Emperor's New Clothes [or the emperor had no clothes]: Behind the self-congratulatory hype there's a lot of nothing--and the real possibility of another political train wreck later in the year. Mr. President, this amendment is offered in order to avoid that train wreck. And how do we do it? We do it as Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve, said: ``Do nothing.'' I thought it was very interesting: in the Banking and Housing Committee we had the ranking member, Senator Sarbanes of Maryland, in a discourse with Mr. Greenspan. Quoting Senator Sarbanes near the end of the questioning: ``So it seems to me for this whole host of reasons I agree with what I understand to be your position; that is, of all the alternatives the one you rate first and foremost by a significant margin would be to use the surplus to pay down the debt.'' Greenspan: ``That is correct, Senator.'' Sarbanes: ``Yes, I--how do you save that surplus? You know, how do you keep it from getting spent, I guess is the question?'' Greenspan: ``What happens is that you do nothing.'' Namely, you freeze this budget with respect to the current policy. You take this year's budget for next year, you program it out, and you get to a real surplus in the year 2006. Thereupon, Mr. President, that is the real surplus; and thereupon, we will direct that surplus--if it materializes--to paying down the debt, and we will give everybody a real tax cut, because the interest rates will go down. And they will save all the mortgage homeowners--the automobile payments, the refrigerator payments, the washing machine payments. Everybody in credit-card America will get a real tax cut. The point is that we have been playing the game of paying down the debt that is not understood really by the American people in that we have been using Social Security to pay down the debt for the last 15 years. What we do is, we just take the Social Security credit card and look over here to what they call public debt or the Wall Street credit card and pay off that debt to the payers with the credit from Social Security; and you just up the debt on Social Security. You still owe the same. It is like taking a Visa card and paying down your MasterCard; and, of course, your Visa card goes up. That gamesmanship, Mr. President, has been going on, to the point that we have fiscal cancer.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. What has happened really is we have caused the debt in Social Security. This minute, Social Security is in the red $730 billion. Next year it will be in the red $867 billion. And by the year 2009, we will owe $2.6 trillion to Social Security. Now, if we hold the line--staying the course; the economy is good; inflation is down; unemployment is down--if we stay the course, it is a responsible budget and we can maintain the good economy here in America. I thank the distinguished Chair. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Could I get a few more minutes? Would you give me 2 more minutes?

Mr. HOLLINGS. I call up amendment No. 174 offered by myself and the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, Senator Kerrey.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, for some time, many aspects of the U.S.-China relationship have concerned me. Since China's entrance into the WTO will be the most significant U.S.-China negotiation in the next several years, the contentious U.S.-China issues should be moving toward resolution before the conclusion of any agreement. Unfortunately, that is not currently the case. Most relevant to the WTO process is the exploding US-China trade deficit. In 1998, it reached a record $56.9 billion dollars. In fact, U.S. export to both Singapore ($15.6 billion) and Holland ($19 billion) were greater than exports to China ($14.2 billion). At the beginning of the decade, the deficit was a problematic but manageable $12.5 billion. Conversely, our large trading partners (the Europeans and Japan) have managed to maintain a relative trade balance with there Chinese counterparts. In fact, all of China's trade surplus is accounted for by the enormous imbalance with the United States. Moreover, the continuing problems with Chinese human rights violations, espionage and possible technology transfers suggest that this is not the appropriate time for China to enter the WTO. Recently, the State Department released its annual human rights report concluding that the situation in China has degraded significantly over the past year. Additionally, we remain troubled by the allegations regarding the possible illegal transfer of technology to China, as well as lingering questions over Chinese espionage and involvement in U.S. elections. Any trade agreement with China would be premature before these issues are resolved. Although none of these concerns are new, the Administration's efforts to resolve these issues have been unfortunately unsuccessful. Regretably, in fact, the pace of the China WTO negotiations appears to have increased. As a result, we believe that this legislation is both appropriate and timely. Congress must review any agreement, and all of the surrounding negotiations to ensure that it reflects traditional American values while protecting American interest.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield back my time, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this continues current policy and uses the surplus moneys to pay down the debt. This amendment by Senator Bob Kerrey and myself uses what surplus there is over the budget period to pay down the debt. Members might say, Was this not the amendment of Senator Voinovich which we voted on? Senator Voinovich uses Chairman Domenici's mark; I use the mark of the Congressional Budget Office. We call this the Greenspan amendment because Senator Sarbanes was questioning the record of the Federal Reserve. He said, How do you save that surplus? How do you keep it from getting spent? Mr. Greenspan said, ``What happens is, you do nothing.'' In other words, you take this year's budget, we are doing fine. We have growth, low unemployment, low inflation rate, and truly pay down the debt. All of these others talk about it, but there is so much spending and tax cuts, you will never get any debt paid down. This, when it is paid down, will lower the interest costs which will get everybody a real tax cut.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I remember the day when we had truth in budgeting. I will never forget when we promulgated in 1985, almost 15 years ago, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. At that time, we realized that Reaganomics was going up and away with respect to the growth of the debt and the accelerated interest costs upon that debt, not just necessarily the growth of the economy. We got together on a bipartisan basis and, under the auspices of truth in budgeting, we came to the floor, and even though we had opposition on both sides early on--President Reagan opposed it, certainly over here the majority leader, the whip, and the chairman of the Budget Committee opposed it--on this side of the aisle, on 14 up- or-down votes, we got a majority of the Democrats on the basis of truth in budgeting. Fifteen years later, we have gone to fraud in budgeting. It is all a political exercise that will bring us later in the year to what one might call a Mexican standoff. Then both sides will probably get together, hopefully, and, since the media will be covering them and they are moving into an election, do some saving of Social Security or at least some paying down of the debt. But I have a bill today, Mr. President, that actually requires us to save Social Security. Let me mention that, once the government receives the moneys from the payroll tax under section 201 of the Social Security Act, it immediately buys special securities, 30-year T-bills. With those 30- year T-bills, of course, Social Security has the bond, or the IOU, the Government has the money, and obviously they have been spending that money for either increased spending or for tax cuts, but not for any paying down of the debt. The debt continues to go up. Under section 201 in that particular instance, it is like having two credit cards. You have a Visa card and a MasterCard, and you want to pay off your MasterCard with your Visa card. So you pay down the public debt. Herein, let's say the Visa card is Social Security and the MasterCard is the public debt or Wall Street credit card. That is the crowd that does not want the sharp elbows of Government coming in and crowding out finance, running up interest costs and disturbing corporate finance. When you take the Social Security credit card to pay down public debt, it is simply a transaction of increasing your Social Security debt. At the present time, the deficit in Social Security is some $730 billion in the red. Mr. President, we did not intend that in 1983. In 1983, what we did was say: We are going to put in an inordinately high payroll tax in order to build up a surplus to take care of the baby boomers in the next generation. That is exactly what we are not doing. We are crowding around on the floor saying, ``Beware, beware, beware, the baby boomers, baby boomers.'' It is not the baby boomers, it is the adults on the floor of the Senate looting the fund if we keep the money in, as was intended in section 201 of the Social Security Act. As Mr. Greenspan said, take Social Security outside the unified budget, do not have any unified budget and growth deficit, just have the national debt and the national deficit, one accounting, not two sets of books. That is what we called for. We wrote it into law under President Bush in November 1990. It is constantly disobeyed and is being disobeyed with the two budget proposals of the President and the Republicans now. President Clinton's budget came to us. And I call it a fraud because everyone else has called it a fraud. What it did was say we are going to hedge a way against this so-called tax cut move on the Republican side politically, so we are going to save Social Security, we are going to take care of Medicare, and pay down the debt. They mean public debt. They know they can easily do that with the Social Security money. Incidentally, we had a motion on President Clinton's budget in the Budget Committee, so I speak advisedly. The record will show it did not get a single vote, Democratic or Republican, for that President's budget. Along comes the Republican budget, and you can see exactly what is going on. They are meeting with the candidate for President, Mr. Kasich, who knows better. He is the one, incidentally--I do not know if he is running as a Democrat or a Republican--he said if the 1993 tax increase and spending cut and paring down the size of Government, corporate downsizing, Government downsizing some 300,000--he said if this thing works, ``I will change parties.'' I have not seen the distinguished Congressman recently, but I am waiting to, because I am going to ask him how he is running, as a Republican or Democrat. He promised to change parties and become a Democrat if it worked. It is working. The Republican budget comes in now and they say, ``We have to do better. We have the House and Senate. We want to take over the White House, so we want to give them a tax cut.'' How do they do it? With a fraudulent budget. They go up and above, and my distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee on the Senate side, the Senator from New Mexico, knows better. I have worked with him. We are the two original members since 1974 of the budget process and the Budget Committee. He comes in and he adds on almost $800 billion to the debt. In addition to adding to the debt, he comes around and says now, ``We are going to direct in reconciliation that the chairman of the Finance Committee, the Finance Committee itself, come out with a tax cut.'' This is an absolute adulteration and fraud of the budget process. We intended--and it is right in the reconciliation provisions--that if you get to the end of the road--and you are always slightly over--you can increase some revenues here, there, or yonder, or you can cut some spending here, there, or yonder. You reconcile spending and revenue so you do what you say and say what you do to balance items in the budget. Instead, now the Republicans are going to use reconciliation to cut the revenues. Here we are spending $100 billion more this fiscal year 1999 than we are taking in. Under current policy, it would be $90 billion more, but you can see already with this particular monkey shine in the face of reality, there is no chance of a tax cut and having a real budget. We have already come in with caps. Last year we exceeded the caps by $12 billion. We exceed the caps $21 billion this year. Then we come and pass an $18 billion increase for military pay. That is $50 billion we ought to be looking for in either increased revenues or spending cuts. Rather, the wonderful Budget Committee, on a partisan basis--the Republican budget is a fraud--comes forward and says, Here it is--and we are amending the reconciliation in this particular process--and sends it to the floor directing the Finance Committee--and the chairman of the Finance Committee, incidentally, the distinguished Senator from Delaware, said: If we do not have a tax cut, it would be highway robbery. We've got money sloshing around up here. Unfortunately, they also repeal the pay-go rule. This means they will not need an off-set to pay for their tax cut. When we debate the budget this week, the Republicans are going to ram it through the Senate--10 hours, 10 hours, and 10 hours. They can get it through in three days and back up all the roll calls. And they already have it greased on the Republican side to send it through. Instead of a Budget Committee exercising its responsibility to promote fiscal responsibility, this budget here is a fraud and promotes irresponsibility. To those who say, Mr. President, what are you going to do if you pass the Hollings bill that sets aside the money in Social Security? It does not just sit there; it earns the highest amount allowed by law, just as it did for 33 years--from 1935 until 1968. The Social Security trust fund was sound. That is a requirement for all corporate endeavors, in that we make it a felony if you try to pay down the company debt with the pension fund. The distinguished Presiding Officer, he heard me speak of Denny McLain the other afternoon. So I keep harping on it. Here we say in corporate America, if you engage in that kind of nefarious activity, it is a felony, and off you go to jail. But here you get the ``Good Government Award.'' It is totally fraudulent what is going on. Neither side is giving. Both sides are out of reality and they are going merrily down the road as they are with the census, with no reconciliation. But be that as it may, there isn't any question that we can pay down the debt under current policy if we just stay the course. That was my motion in the Budget Committee. You say, ``All that big talk, Hollings. What then would you do?'' Look at the particular budget we have. Look at the economy we have. If you were the mayor of a city, if you were the Governor of a State, you would immediately say, ``Well, let's stay the course. We don't want to let go of the firemen or the policemen. We don't want to start any new endeavors right now. Let's keep this economy growing.'' All we have to do, as Mr. Greenspan finally testified, is do nothing, just hold the line, generally speaking, taking this year's budget for next year. By 2006, by that time, above Social Security surpluses, we would have regular surpluses, true surpluses. And that money could be used to pay down the debt. I am not for the gamesmanship about public debt and the interest costs going down. That is a story out of the whole cloth. That is not going to happen. Right now, we owe $730 billion to Social Security. By the year 2013, we will owe Social Security $3 trillion--$3 trillion. We are supposed to have, under the Greenspan Commission report and law as it now stands, $3 trillion in the bank. I know my distinguished friend from North Dakota is waiting to come here, but I want to make sure we understand the fiscal cancer this country has. When Lyndon Johnson last balanced the budget, we only had to pay $16 billion in interest costs on the national debt--today, we pay $357 billion each year--almost $1 billion each day. And the interest costs go up, just like the price of energy and gas is going up now, as indicated in the morning paper. If those little interest costs go up, it will be over a billion dollars a day. With the money we would save in interest costs on the national debt, I could give my Republican friends an $80 billion tax cut. I could give my Democratic friends $80 billion in increased spending. I could give Social Security $80 billion. I could give paying down the debt $80 billion. That is only $320 billion. We are going to spend that each year--next year and more. This country has fiscal cancer. That is the state of the Union. And in the best of times that we are all enjoying now, if we cannot get some kind of discipline in reality out of the process here in the Congress, I do not know how we are ever going to save it. I thank the distinguished Chair and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will send that momentarily to the desk, section 201 of the Social Security Act. Under section 201 of Social Security, we required at this moment--and have been doing so for years--under law to invest only and immediately in T-bills, Treasury bills, these special securities of the Federal Government. Once we do that, of course, we get a bond or IOU; the Government gets the money, and immediately all of those moneys are transferred to the Government account and it is spent, allocated, or used to pay down the so-called public debt. The one way to stop that is a bill, which I will send to the desk and for which I request proper referral. Mr. President, this bill simply says, amongst other things--and I will read section 5--that: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, throughout each month that begins after October 1, 1999, the Secretary of Treasury shall maintain, in a secure repository or repositories, cash in a total amount equal to the total redemption value of all obligations issued to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund pursuant to section 201(d) of the Social Security Act that are outstanding on the first day of each month. Advisedly, Mr. President, this was worked out by none other than my Social Security friends. At one time, I had the distinction of being the chairman of the Budget Committee. We had an outstanding staffer then named Ken Apfel. He is now the Social Security Administrator. I called over there and I said: Let's stop this roundabout dance about surpluses and spending all the money and everything else; I want you to write a provision whereby we can do exactly what we said when Congress passed the Social Security Act. Remember old John Mitchell, under the Nixon administration? He said, ``Watch what we do, not what we say.'' I am afraid on budget matters we have arrived exactly at that point. But, in any event, to do what we say, we have prepared this bill and now it has been introduced and, if passed by the Congress, yes, we will save Social Security. Immediately, one of the distinguished Senators said, ``Wait a minute. Is the money going to just sit there?'' No. Mr. President, that money will be invested in T-bills, just as it has been all these years. Or, if there is an additional plan, like the Kerrey-Moynihan plan, like our Thrift Savings Plan--a certain percentage invested in the market in order to make more money but take on more risk--we can debate that. What this particular bill really does is save Social Security. Social Security funds will not be spent, save and excepting on Social Security purposes. This is exactly what was intended by Mr. Greenspan when he headed the Greenspan Commission in 1983. In 1983, section 21 of the Greenspan Commission report said to take Social Security outside of the unified budget, outside of the unified deficit, and set it aside in trust. I struggled from 1983 until 1990 to translate Chairman Greenspan's recommendations into law. I thought we had done it in 1990, when we passed the Budget Act by a vote of 98 Senators here on the floor of the Senate and almost an equal majority, overwhelming as it was, over on the House side. President Bush, on November 5, 1990, signed the bill into law, including section 13301 of the Budget Act, which stated Congress could not spend Social Security moneys on anything other than the Social Security program; you had it outside of the unified budget and the deficit. Unfortunately, Mr. President, that has been ignored. That is why I have to reword it this way. But the contemplation at the particular time, the law itself, the policy of the U.S. Government with respect to corporate America--we passed the Pension Reform Act of 1994 saying: Thou shalt not, in corporate America, spend your pension fund to pay off the company debt. The most interesting and ironic thing is, when Denny McLain, the former great pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, became the head of a corporation and paid off its debt with the pension fund, he was sent to jail for 8 years. If you can find what jail poor Denny is in, say to him, ``Denny, next time, run for the U.S. Senate. Instead of a jail term, they will give you the good government award.'' That is exactly what we are doing. We violate our own policy. We pay off the debt with the Social Security Trust Fund and have been doing it for 15 years. That gets me immediately to the point of so-called paying off the public debt. You know, they have these euphemisms and different expressions that come around budget time and make you think you have a real policy on board. That has been the policy. Admittedly, if you had a stagnant economy, if you had a dormant stock market, you could welcome paying off the public debt to get the economy and the stock market moving and everything else. But to do it, not over just a year or 2, but to do it for the last 15 years to the tune of in excess of $100 billion, what it has really done is given us fiscal cancer. We have gone up, up, and away with the national debt, and the interest costs are killing us. Let me dwell a minute on the interest costs on the national debt. The interest cost, when President Lyndon Johnson last balanced the budget, was $16 billion. Today the interest cost is projected to be $357 billion, almost a billion dollars a day. What it says to me is, this year I have to spend--and next year I have to spend--$357 billion for nothing. If I had been fiscally prudent, I could have had $80 billion for tax cuts plus $80 billion for spending increases plus $80 billion to pay down the debt plus $80 billion to save Social Security. That is $320 billion. I would have had $37 billion for you to have a party out here on the west front when I jump off the Capitol dome. Since 1995, I have been telling Chairman Domenici, trying to bring sense to this entire budget debate by talking in the extreme, that by the year 2002, if he had a balanced budget, truly balanced--if we were paying out less than what we were bringing in or just at that amount--I would jump off the Capitol dome. And I reiterate the pledge. Let's make the bets--``Get old Hollings to jump off the dome.'' Because under current policies, no one can possibly balance the budget while exceeding revenue by over $100 billion. Nobody is cutting $100 billion. They are spending $18 billion more unaccounted for, breaking the caps. Nobody is spending less than $90 billion. So we know with all of this spending for tax cuts, Medicare, education, housing, and everything else of that kind, that we are in deep trouble. We have fiscal cancer. What we really should do, probably, as Mr. Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve, finally came around to saying, is do nothing: take this year's budget for next year. I did that as the Governor of South Carolina. I capped the debt. By the way, that would bring truth in budgeting to this crowd, if they are right. Let's plead guilty: They are right, I am wrong, there is a surplus and we are going to pay down the debt. If that occurs, we can cap the debt as of October 1 of this year, the beginning of the next fiscal year. Whatever it is, since there is a surplus and since we are going to pay down the debt, let's cap it so it does not exceed that particular amount. You cannot get the White House--I faced them down in one of these briefings--to go along with it. I will make the motion and we will see how many people vote for that. I am trying to bring truth to our federal budget. I am trying to avoid the fiscal cancer. The Republicans talk about an $80 billion across-the-board tax cut. I want a $357 billion tax cut this year, next year, and right along the line. I want, in that 10-year period, $3.5 trillion in tax cuts, not just this $800 billion tax cut. I want to get rid of this waste in Government. I served on the Grace Commission to Eliminate Waste. I know what waste is. I speak advisedly. Before long, if those interest rates go up, instead of $357 billion, we will be up around $500 billion in interest costs. It is the largest item in the domestic budget for spending at this minute. What we ought to do is get a hold of ourselves, start talking sense to each other, work out a plan to take care of the needs of Government, but quit using the Social Security surplus and trust fund as a political slush fund for any and every idea on the media message. And the media are going along with this nonsense and act like we actually are doing it. My particular bill will bring sobriety to the entire process and debate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on tomorrow afternoon, we begin to mark up the budget. That is, when I say we, I mean that the Budget Committee on the Senate side meets to mark up the budget for the year 2000 commencing October 1 this year, and immediately we will hear the cry, ``Surplus.'' I am constrained to say--as in the earliest days of the Republic when Patrick Henry said, ``Peace, Peace, everywhere men cry peace,'' and there was no peace--``surplus, surplus, everywhere men cry surplus,'' but there is no surplus. The fact is that we are spending $100 billion more than we are taking in already this fiscal year, and under current policy the deficit for next year will be right at $90 billion. Also, Mr. President, another thing to note is the fact that you are going to hear the cry, ``Saving Social Security.'' I can tell you categorically that neither the Republican plan, policy or approach nor the Democratic White House plan, policy or approach will save Social Security. Both spend 100 percent of the Social Security moneys coming in the fiscal year 2000, as is the case already this year. And otherwise, all the wonderful talk about paying down the debt is nothing more than fancy rhetoric for a flawed policy that has got us into a situation of fiscal cancer. Now let me go right to the meaning of ``Surplus.'' Yes, we are making progress on the budget and the deficit. At a news conference earlier today I was asked about this and when did we ever expect to get some results. Well, I see that we are beginning to understand that there is no surplus. Most of the nation's astute commentators on the budget see this, too. Allan Sloan of Newsweek said, of course, that the President's plan was double accounting. Paul Samuelson talks about when they said ``surplus,'' it was ``surplus in the sky.'' The Concord Coalition, made up of our former colleagues, Senators Rudman and Nunn, with whom I have had an on-going engagement, finally says there is no surplus. And only two weeks ago Barron's, the conservative financial newspaper--which I hold it here--said: ``Hey, Guys, There is no Budget Surplus.'' But be that as it may, the White House and many members of Congress are going to start dealing around the so-called surplus, nonexistent that it is, for education, Medicare, tax cuts, anything and everything--everything but saving Social Security. It has been a constant charade on messages of the party caucuses on both sides since January, even during the impeachment days; we have got to get our message out. Unfortunately, most of the media falls right in line with the message. They don't look into the actual fact or the reality. On the matter of the so-called surplus and the $100 billion that we are spending now: mind you me, Mr. President, we set spending caps year before last, and last year we broke the caps by $12 billion, and we have already broken the cap in this year's budget by $21 billion, which would mean in marking up 2000's budget we would immediately have to cut spending $33 billion to conform to the fiscal year 2000 budget cap. Instead of doing that, we have already met in unison, almost like a chorus singing ``Whoopee for the military,'' and we have spent $18 billion on the military, money which is unaccounted for. Instead of cutting back, the Senate has already exceeded the agreed-to caps by $18 billion. Unless, of course, they intend to cut $18 billion in domestic programs or cut $18 billion in operation, maintenance and readiness within the defense budget. We are going in the wrong direction. No one should think that Social Security has a surplus. This fiscal year, we have a surplus of the amount required to be paid out, but since we have been spending it each year there is a $730 billion deficit due and owing. Social Security is in the red. So there are no surpluses. Even trying to get around that to try to get something to politic on for this year and next year, the Campaign 2000, they say, ``Well, wait a minute; we will start our tax cuts in the year 2002 when there is one document to the effect there might be a slight surplus in Social Security, over and above the Social Security amount or otherwise we can spend it on Medicare beginning in 2000''-- anything for the Campaign 2000. They talk in the Chamber about the Chinese. Come, come, come. It is not the Chinese. It is not the baby boomers in the next generation. It is the adults in Congress who are looting the Social Security trust fund. Each one of these particular plans spends 100 percent of the Social Security so-called surplus. How do I say that? Well, it is easy. You go back into the original law--and I have a copy of the law itself--section 201. I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair and my distinguished colleague for setting aside this particular time. (The remarks of Mr. Hollings pertaining to the introduction of S. 605 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will send that momentarily to the desk, section 201 of the Social Security Act. Under section 201 of Social Security, we required at this moment--and have been doing so for years--under law to invest only and immediately in T-bills, Treasury bills, these special securities of the Federal Government. Once we do that, of course, we get a bond or IOU; the Government gets the money, and immediately all of those moneys are transferred to the Government account and it is spent, allocated, or used to pay down the so-called public debt. The one way to stop that is a bill, which I will send to the desk and for which I request proper referral. Mr. President, this bill simply says, amongst other things--and I will read section 5--that: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, throughout each month that begins after October 1, 1999, the Secretary of Treasury shall maintain, in a secure repository or repositories, cash in a total amount equal to the total redemption value of all obligations issued to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund pursuant to section 201(d) of the Social Security Act that are outstanding on the first day of each month. Advisedly, Mr. President, this was worked out by none other than my Social Security friends. At one time, I had the distinction of being the chairman of the Budget Committee. We had an outstanding staffer then named Ken Apfel. He is now the Social Security Administrator. I called over there and I said: Let's stop this roundabout dance about surpluses and spending all the money and everything else; I want you to write a provision whereby we can do exactly what we said when Congress passed the Social Security Act. Remember old John Mitchell, under the Nixon administration? He said, ``Watch what we do, not what we say.'' I am afraid on budget matters we have arrived exactly at that point. But, in any event, to do what we say, we have prepared this bill and now it has been introduced and, if passed by the Congress, yes, we will save Social Security. Immediately, one of the distinguished Senators said, ``Wait a minute. Is the money going to just sit there?'' No. Mr. President, that money will be invested in T-bills, just as it has been all these years. Or, if there is an additional plan, like the Kerrey-Moynihan plan, like our Thrift Savings Plan--a certain percentage invested in the market in order to make more money but take on more risk--we can debate that. What this particular bill really does is save Social Security. Social Security funds will not be spent, save and excepting on Social Security purposes. This is exactly what was intended by Mr. Greenspan when he headed the Greenspan Commission in 1983. In 1983, section 21 of the Greenspan Commission report said to take Social Security outside of the unified budget, outside of the unified deficit, and set it aside in trust. I struggled from 1983 until 1990 to translate Chairman Greenspan's recommendations into law. I thought we had done it in 1990, when we passed the Budget Act by a vote of 98 Senators here on the floor of the Senate and almost an equal majority, overwhelming as it was, over on the House side. President Bush, on November 5, 1990, signed the bill into law, including section 13301 of the Budget Act, which stated Congress could not spend Social Security moneys on anything other than the Social Security program; you had it outside of the unified budget and the deficit. Unfortunately, Mr. President, that has been ignored. That is why I have to reword it this way. But the contemplation at the particular time, the law itself, the policy of the U.S. Government with respect to corporate America--we passed the Pension Reform Act of 1994 saying: Thou shalt not, in corporate America, spend your pension fund to pay off the company debt. The most interesting and ironic thing is, when Denny McLain, the former great pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, became the head of a corporation and paid off its debt with the pension fund, he was sent to jail for 8 years. If you can find what jail poor Denny is in, say to him, ``Denny, next time, run for the U.S. Senate. Instead of a jail term, they will give you the good government award.'' That is exactly what we are doing. We violate our own policy. We pay off the debt with the Social Security Trust Fund and have been doing it for 15 years. That gets me immediately to the point of so-called paying off the public debt. You know, they have these euphemisms and different expressions that come around budget time and make you think you have a real policy on board. That has been the policy. Admittedly, if you had a stagnant economy, if you had a dormant stock market, you could welcome paying off the public debt to get the economy and the stock market moving and everything else. But to do it, not over just a year or 2, but to do it for the last 15 years to the tune of in excess of $100 billion, what it has really done is given us fiscal cancer. We have gone up, up, and away with the national debt, and the interest costs are killing us. Let me dwell a minute on the interest costs on the national debt. The interest cost, when President Lyndon Johnson last balanced the budget, was $16 billion. Today the interest cost is projected to be $357 billion, almost a billion dollars a day. What it says to me is, this year I have to spend--and next year I have to spend--$357 billion for nothing. If I had been fiscally prudent, I could have had $80 billion for tax cuts plus $80 billion for spending increases plus $80 billion to pay down the debt plus $80 billion to save Social Security. That is $320 billion. I would have had $37 billion for you to have a party out here on the west front when I jump off the Capitol dome. Since 1995, I have been telling Chairman Domenici, trying to bring sense to this entire budget debate by talking in the extreme, that by the year 2002, if he had a balanced budget, truly balanced--if we were paying out less than what we were bringing in or just at that amount--I would jump off the Capitol dome. And I reiterate the pledge. Let's make the bets--``Get old Hollings to jump off the dome.'' Because under current policies, no one can possibly balance the budget while exceeding revenue by over $100 billion. Nobody is cutting $100 billion. They are spending $18 billion more unaccounted for, breaking the caps. Nobody is spending less than $90 billion. So we know with all of this spending for tax cuts, Medicare, education, housing, and everything else of that kind, that we are in deep trouble. We have fiscal cancer. What we really should do, probably, as Mr. Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve, finally came around to saying, is do nothing: take this year's budget for next year. I did that as the Governor of South Carolina. I capped the debt. By the way, that would bring truth in budgeting to this crowd, if they are right. Let's plead guilty: They are right, I am wrong, there is a surplus and we are going to pay down the debt. If that occurs, we can cap the debt as of October 1 of this year, the beginning of the next fiscal year. Whatever it is, since there is a surplus and since we are going to pay down the debt, let's cap it so it does not exceed that particular amount. You cannot get the White House--I faced them down in one of these briefings--to go along with it. I will make the motion and we will see how many people vote for that. I am trying to bring truth to our federal budget. I am trying to avoid the fiscal cancer. The Republicans talk about an $80 billion across-the-board tax cut. I want a $357 billion tax cut this year, next year, and right along the line. I want, in that 10-year period, $3.5 trillion in tax cuts, not just this $800 billion tax cut. I want to get rid of this waste in Government. I served on the Grace Commission to Eliminate Waste. I know what waste is. I speak advisedly. Before long, if those interest rates go up, instead of $357 billion, we will be up around $500 billion in interest costs. It is the largest item in the domestic budget for spending at this minute. What we ought to do is get a hold of ourselves, start talking sense to each other, work out a plan to take care of the needs of Government, but quit using the Social Security surplus and trust fund as a political slush fund for any and every idea on the media message. And the media are going along with this nonsense and act like we actually are doing it. My particular bill will bring sobriety to the entire process and debate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on tomorrow afternoon, we begin to mark up the budget. That is, when I say we, I mean that the Budget Committee on the Senate side meets to mark up the budget for the year 2000 commencing October 1 this year, and immediately we will hear the cry, ``Surplus.'' I am constrained to say--as in the earliest days of the Republic when Patrick Henry said, ``Peace, Peace, everywhere men cry peace,'' and there was no peace--``surplus, surplus, everywhere men cry surplus,'' but there is no surplus. The fact is that we are spending $100 billion more than we are taking in already this fiscal year, and under current policy the deficit for next year will be right at $90 billion. Also, Mr. President, another thing to note is the fact that you are going to hear the cry, ``Saving Social Security.'' I can tell you categorically that neither the Republican plan, policy or approach nor the Democratic White House plan, policy or approach will save Social Security. Both spend 100 percent of the Social Security moneys coming in the fiscal year 2000, as is the case already this year. And otherwise, all the wonderful talk about paying down the debt is nothing more than fancy rhetoric for a flawed policy that has got us into a situation of fiscal cancer. Now let me go right to the meaning of ``Surplus.'' Yes, we are making progress on the budget and the deficit. At a news conference earlier today I was asked about this and when did we ever expect to get some results. Well, I see that we are beginning to understand that there is no surplus. Most of the nation's astute commentators on the budget see this, too. Allan Sloan of Newsweek said, of course, that the President's plan was double accounting. Paul Samuelson talks about when they said ``surplus,'' it was ``surplus in the sky.'' The Concord Coalition, made up of our former colleagues, Senators Rudman and Nunn, with whom I have had an on-going engagement, finally says there is no surplus. And only two weeks ago Barron's, the conservative financial newspaper--which I hold it here--said: ``Hey, Guys, There is no Budget Surplus.'' But be that as it may, the White House and many members of Congress are going to start dealing around the so-called surplus, nonexistent that it is, for education, Medicare, tax cuts, anything and everything--everything but saving Social Security. It has been a constant charade on messages of the party caucuses on both sides since January, even during the impeachment days; we have got to get our message out. Unfortunately, most of the media falls right in line with the message. They don't look into the actual fact or the reality. On the matter of the so-called surplus and the $100 billion that we are spending now: mind you me, Mr. President, we set spending caps year before last, and last year we broke the caps by $12 billion, and we have already broken the cap in this year's budget by $21 billion, which would mean in marking up 2000's budget we would immediately have to cut spending $33 billion to conform to the fiscal year 2000 budget cap. Instead of doing that, we have already met in unison, almost like a chorus singing ``Whoopee for the military,'' and we have spent $18 billion on the military, money which is unaccounted for. Instead of cutting back, the Senate has already exceeded the agreed-to caps by $18 billion. Unless, of course, they intend to cut $18 billion in domestic programs or cut $18 billion in operation, maintenance and readiness within the defense budget. We are going in the wrong direction. No one should think that Social Security has a surplus. This fiscal year, we have a surplus of the amount required to be paid out, but since we have been spending it each year there is a $730 billion deficit due and owing. Social Security is in the red. So there are no surpluses. Even trying to get around that to try to get something to politic on for this year and next year, the Campaign 2000, they say, ``Well, wait a minute; we will start our tax cuts in the year 2002 when there is one document to the effect there might be a slight surplus in Social Security, over and above the Social Security amount or otherwise we can spend it on Medicare beginning in 2000''-- anything for the Campaign 2000. They talk in the Chamber about the Chinese. Come, come, come. It is not the Chinese. It is not the baby boomers in the next generation. It is the adults in Congress who are looting the Social Security trust fund. Each one of these particular plans spends 100 percent of the Social Security so-called surplus. How do I say that? Well, it is easy. You go back into the original law--and I have a copy of the law itself--section 201. I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, yesterday this body paid tribute to one of the greatest men to serve in Congress in the twentieth century, Morris ``Mo'' Udall from Arizona. Yesterday, I was proud to sign the resolution honoring him, and I would like to pay tribute to him now. Mo Udall was a giant. For thirty years, he straddled politics in Arizona and America. He was a statesman as well as a legislator, and an intellectual as well as a politician. Although Mo believed passionately in many causes and was a Democrat through and through, his wit and warmth helped him forge many productive, bipartisan relationships with his colleagues across the aisle. Mo's intelligence, commitment, and personal touch helped him create a legislative legacy that still shines bright today, almost forty years since he entered the House of Representatives. As everyone who follows public affairs knows, Mo Udall hailed from a family with a rich tradition in politics and public service. His ancestors were pioneers who helped transform the Arizona Territory into a great state. Mo entered Congress after winning a special election in 1961 to replace his brother, Stewart, whom President Kennedy had tapped to head the Department of the Interior. Today, the Udall name continues to resonate in Congress. Mo's son, Mark, and his nephew, Tom, both were elected to the House in 1998. I know they will carry on the great tradition of public service and Congressional achievement set by their fathers. Mo was such a modest and easy-going man that one sometimes overlooks the enormity of his legislative record. After rising to the chairmanship of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, a position he held until his retirement in 1991, Mo wrote much of the nation's most important environmental legislation. He pushed through important regulations concerning land, water, mineral, and timber use. Mo also helped reform America's postal system and our campaign finance laws, and he was instrumental in reforming the seniority system in Congress. In addition to being a great legislator, Mo Udall was a great man. He bridged divisions and always sought to bring people together to work for the good of the country. Like many of my colleagues, I believe Mo's wit and self-deprecating manner were largely responsible for his successes. Perhaps the best way to illustrate his humor is to relate a joke he loved to tell about one of his campaign visits to New Hampshire during his 1996 Presidential race. At one stop, Mo approached a group of men to tell them he was running for President, only to be told, ``Yes, we were just laughing about that.'' Mr. President, if ever a public servant deserved to be taken seriously, it was Mo Udall. It is a sign of his stature as a man that despite his many accomplishments, he never took himself too seriously. Today I am honored to pay my respects to my friend Mo Udall, whose legacy of public service and bipartisan achievement will be remembered for many lifetimes.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Administration's 1999 Reauthorization bill at the request of Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater. I introduce it so that it can be part of the debates on the future of our aviation system. There are many provisions that I do not support and the Secretary understands this. However, the FAA needs adequate funding. The money is in the Airport and Airways Trust Fund--we just need to unlock it. The items which concern me include the PFC and doing away with the High Density Rule and fees. Furthermore, I take issue with the Performance Based Organization though I recognize that many segments of the industry support it. We will not privatize the ATC System, but we must make sure FAA has the tools and money to do its job. I intend to work with the Secretary and Senators McCain, Rockefeller, and Gorton to accomplish this common goal.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, today it is my great privilege and honor to salute one of South Carolina's foremost jurists and public servants, South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney. On February 23, Chief Justice Finney announced he would retire from the Court after 14 years. This is a bittersweet day for my state. All of us who admire Judge Finney and appreciate his legacy are sorry to see him leave the bench; but we also are happy for Judge Finney if he has decided it is time to take a richly deserved rest from the rigorous demands of public service--demands he has shouldered over five decades. When Ernest Finney graduated from law school in 1954, blacks were not allowed to join the South Carolina bar or serve on juries. Judge Finney worked as hard as anyone in the country to change that. One of only a handful of black lawyers in South Carolina in the 1950s, he began his legal career as an advocate for equal rights and desegregation. Ernest Finney and his law partner, Matthew Perry, who went on to become the first black federal Judge in South Carolina, tirelessly represented over 6,000 defendants arrested during civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s. Although they lost all the cases at the state level, they won almost all of them on appeal in federal courts. After helping lead the fight to desegregate South Carolina, Ernest Finney turned his attention to another form of public service. In 1973, he became one of the first blacks elected to the South Carolina House in this century. He served until 1976, during which time he founded the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus. From 1976 to 1985, Judge Finney sat on the South Carolina Circuit Court bench. Always the pioneer, he was the first black Circuit Court judge in South Carolina. In 1985, he became the first black member of the state Supreme Court since Reconstruction. He served with great distinction as an Associate Justice and earned respect and accolades from his peers and from attorneys appearing before the Court. In 1994, Judge Finney was elected Chief Justice, the first black South Carolinian to attain that position. Without a doubt, he is one of the finest jurists in South Carolina history. As senior Associate Justice Jean Toal commented on the announcement of Judge Finney's retirement: ``He's a giant of the judicial system in South Carolina. His tenure will be remembered as one of the outstanding tenures of the modern system.'' Mr. President, today it is my immense pleasure to salute the gigantic achievements of Judge Ernest Finney, one of the most estimable public servants in recent South Carolina history. I join his friends and admirers in wishing him well as he begins his retirement, during which I suspect he will continue influencing South Carolina for the better.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. Chief Justice, I shall vote with a clear conscience not to convict; rather, to acquit. And I have no better authority, of course, than my own Congressman, the manager, Lindsey Graham, when asked--and I will never forget it--by the Senators from North Carolina and Wisconsin: ``Under the law and the facts as then submitted at the end of the presentation, could reasonable people find differently with respect to guilt?'' and Congressman Graham said, ``Why, of course,'' that reasonable people could differ. And when the manager says there is reasonable doubt, that ends the case. But let's remember that the impeachment clause is not intended to punish the President, but to protect the Republic. And the mistake in this entire presentation on both sides, in my judgment, has been that they have been trying a criminal case rather than a political case. What is really for the good of the country? I go to the understanding of the impeachment clause with respect to the author himself, George Mason, who said, ``must be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors against the State.'' And Justice Story, in the midcentury, said that you could only impeach a President for conduct that only the President could engage in.'' I will never forget, when they gave us the booklet, in the Nixon impeachment, by the eminent professor of constitutional law, Charles Black, he said that ``an impeachable offense must constitute a deep wrong to the country, an abuse of Presidential power.'' And everybody is talking about the polls and I think they are significant. When 80 percent of the people believe the President lied, and I believe he did--not on the perjury charge, and not on the obstruction of justice, of course, but I believe he lied--and 80 percent of the people believe he lied, but 70 percent of the people said keep him there. Why? Because there wasn't a deep wrong to the country. Let's get to it. Fooling around--that was what Monica Lewinsky called it--seen as sex and not, fooling around is not a crime. In fact, actual intercourse constitutes adultery, a crime which the managers, I would say, are very familiar with. We must remember that the fooling around was between consenting adults, both of them sexually experienced. Incidentally, in private both of them are admitted liars. The President said he lied. Monica said that she grew up lying, was taught to lie. But the managers said, ``Oh, this isn't about sex, this is about crime.'' Really? I have been at the law too long. A sues B for the crime of adultery, sexual misconduct. A and B both swear under oath and through their pleadings and their testimony and not before a halfway grand jury. I always wondered, what if prosecutors went under oath before a grand jury? We would have to build new courthouses. But be that as it may, they swear under oath in testimony before the judge who is trying the case on its merits, and A or B loses--whoever the loser-- are they taken over to criminal court and charged for lying under oath and obstruction of justice? I called a prosecutor in Congressman Graham's district, an 18-year experienced prosecutor, a Republican, George Duckworth. I said, ``George, have you ever taken lying under oath and obstruction of justice for sexual misconduct--have you ever taken that to criminal court?'' He said, ``It's never happened.'' I then went to the chief of all the State prosecutors, John Justice, who happens to be from my State, and he said he had never heard of it. So we are beginning to get to really what is going on, and that is not to say, whoopee, everybody lies about sex and we can go ahead and do that. We are not saying that at all, because the President can be charged with it, as anybody can. It might be a rare case, but we ought to remember, rather than that one witness that they found--and I guess they will find another one--but the Republican district attorneys who testified on the House side, the deputy attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division, William Weld, they said they would never bring the case. This case never should have been brought. Any respectable prosecutor would have been embarrassed actually to so charge. I will never forget when this commenced, David Pryor, the Senator from Arkansas almost 4 years ago, said: Wait a minute, 41 TDY FBI agents coming from one side of Arkansas to the other, 81 support personnel, asking, ``Did you ever sleep with Bill Clinton? Do you know anybody who slept with him? I heard you know. We're going to take you before the grand jury.'' Locking up witnesses who did not testify to what they wanted attested to, paying off others and securing them and hiding the witnesses, and on and on; and thereafter subpoenaing the mother in tears; the Secret Service, the White House steward, the bookstore; some 4 1/2, 5 years and $50 million. And they come up with private sexual misconduct, in privacy. I know it is a public office. It is a public office, but we operate in private in our own offices. To make this thing public after all of that expense and effort, I would be embarrassed as a prosecutor to bring it. But not Kenneth Starr. He wasn't embarrassed. He should never have taken it. A member of the Kirkland & Ellis law firm that had an interest in the case, the Jones case, was participating at the time. Instead of recusing himself, he immediately started pursuing that case with the official hand of Government. Three years ago, seven former independent prosecutors expressed dismay at Starr's ethics. He was representing private clients inimical to the defendant, our President. The New York Times and other newspapers editorialized that he ought to step aside. But instead of removing himself, he continued to talk to political groups, all the time leaking information and, yes, holding up his findings after 4\1/2\ years until after the election and saying he found nothing with respect to Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, or any of the other cases for which he was commissioned--no embarrassment at all. He injected himself so in the House proceedings to where finally his ethics advisor, Sam Dash--who, of course, had been the principal participant in Watergate--had to resign. Then he injected himself over here on the Senate side, and last weekend, during a key moment, of course, he said he was going to bring a criminal indictment. He leaked that information. So now we have the Justice Department investigating the independent prosecutor for his misconduct in the way he treated the main witness with respect to her access to counsel. And you have an 8-to-1 vote in the American Bar Association, which has been inserted; they say let this independent prosecutor thing die. Yes, we have, like Bryant said, broad overreaching of power. Not by Clinton. He got into an elicit affair, and he tried like everybody else to cover it up. They sought to characterize it as lying, lying, lying, lying under oath. We had the chief of the managers; he lied not just from January till August, but 30 years --and others over there. The hypocrisy of that crowd. Yes, we had broad overreaching of powers, mindful, of course, of the reason that we declared our independence 223 years ago--``sending hither swarms of officers to harass our people and seek out their substance.'' We have it now, and we have a chance to try it. We have an impeachment case, but we are trying to impeach the wrong person. That is why the American people are as concerned as they are. That is what you find in the polls that we keep talking about. Let's understand, of course, that President Clinton debased the Office of the Presidency, but let's say once and for all that we are not going to have the political hijacking of the Office of the Presidency. Let's be certain when we vote this week that we don't debase the Constitution.