Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will check and inform the chairman. Privilege of the Floor

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bill Pratt, a fellow assigned to Senator Daschle, be given floor privileges during the consideration of S. 672.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, momentarily, while we see what may or may not be worked out with respect to the particular amendment----

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will be very brief.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as some say, ``Eureka, I have found an honest man.'' Well, here, I have found an honest journalist. I don't know who wrote the editorial in USA Today on yesterday, but it is entitled ``Sham Balancing Act Hides True Scope of the Deficit.'' It is not my intent to come out and immediately take the so-called balanced budget plan and trash it. It moves in the right direction. But I want to be constant and persistent until we finally have not just the USA Today realize it has been a sham balancing act, but I want everyone to realize that it is in the law. Section 13301, signed by President Bush on November 5, 1990, says that thou shalt not in this Government use Social Security trust funds in any report of a so-called unified budget or unified deficit. It is the most fraudulent use of the word unified because, to the lay person, unified suggests it is net. In other words, the Government spends money and it also receives receipts or receives money. And the inference is, with unified budgets and deficits, that is the real net or true balance or true deficit. Totally false. The truth of the matter is that we have been engaged in a sham now for several years respecting the use of trust funds. Right to the point, Mr. President, what we have is a list of these trust funds here that have been consumed and spent, not just borrowed. I have the March figures. As of the end of March--this is the most updated figure-- Social Security will be owed $582 billion; Medicare, HI, $122 billion; SMI, $31 billion, for a total of $153 billion in Medicare. Military retirees the land around, you should know they are spending your money, which has been set aside under the law for your retirement. That particular fund is $129 billion shy because of this deceit. Civilian retirement--all civil servants within the sound of my voice, remember, the civil service retirement trust fund has now been spent to the tune of $395 billion. Unemployment compensation that the small employer in America pays in regularly, as well as the large ones, that is shy some $51 billion, that particular savings amount. The highway trust fund--we borrowed that money, too, but not for highways. If anybody says a bridge is down, like in my backyard where we have been trying to get a river bridge that has been declared unsafe for 20 years now, that money is already spent to the tune of $22 billion. We can build a river bridge in each of the 50 States with the highway money used to obscure the size of the deficit, the debt, and the interest cost on that national debt. Airports and airways, $6 billion; railroad retirement, $18 billion; $63 billion in the Federal finance bank and the other particular trust funds, for a total of how much? $1.419 trillion. Now, we owe $1.419 trillion. I have the updated figure just for Social Security as it relates to this particular editorial. I ask unanimous consent that this editorial be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is another $456 billion that will be spent. So as of the year 2002, we look around at Social Security and everybody is saying, wait a minute, the baby boomers are going to come in 15 years, and the baby boomers will be in a foot race trying to get ahead of us politicians because we are way ahead of them spending this money. We will owe, in the year 2002, in excess of a trillion dollars. That is why this chart has been brought forward. Last year, when we said the annual deficit was $107 billion, the truth of the matter is, it was $261 billion. We borrowed, in order to make it $107 billion, or we spent from the various savings funds here at the Federal level, $154 billion. Why not borrow another $107 billion and call it balanced? That is the gamesmanship that is going on. I went home over the weekend and they found $225 billion over at CBO. I have heard that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were informed of this revenue before the Democratic negotiators were. They went back and forth with respect to OMB and CBO while knowing this extra money was available. You can see the gamesmanship involved. But the hard-core fact is that they have projected, up until now, $360 billion in interest costs on the national debt. That is, while we are debating, we are increasing spending a billion dollars a day for absolutely nothing and adding it to the national debt. So that by the end of the 2002, the debt will exceed $6 trillion, and the interest costs on that will be in excess of $500 billion. So what will occur is, at the end of this particular budget that we are all talking about as balanced, domestic spending, which is cut from current policy, defense, which is cut from current policy, will be exceeded by the interest costs on the national debt. The whole time we are going through this charade, they said ``sham balancing act'' in this particular editorial, they totally ignore section 13301 of the Budget Act and ignore the reality that we will have spent in excess of $2 trillion in trust funds when we get through. Mr. President, what we really have is a disaster on our hands. While we are talking about waiting for the baby boomers 15 years out, Social Security is paid for. The taxes are there. We have a surplus, supposedly, of $581 billion. But that $581 billion is not in the desk drawer; it is a little old IOU. We have a surplus in Medicare right this minute, which they are talking about going broke; in Medicare we have a $153 billion surplus. That is paid for. But they are all talking about deficits. Why? Because we are spending it and using this subterfuge of a unified budget, a unified deficit. Until we sober up from that, Mr. President, we are going down, down, down, adding to the debt each year, adding then to the interest cost each year, and then adding to the automatic spending, the spending on automatic pilot at a billion dollars a day. That is spending for absolutely nothing. If we had been responsible--interest payments were only $75 billion when President Reagan came to town; we have added over $285 billion in interest spending; that $285 billion is what all of the particular negotiating since January has been about--we could have taken defense, research, technology, education, the environment, and all of these particular needs. Point: We are spending the trust fund money up here in Washington. We are telling the people we are not spending it. ``It is unified. Don't worry about it.'' And we are taking their savings fund and running away with it. And whoever is going to be around here on the bridge to the next century, remember. It is not going to be a bridge. We are going right straight over the cliff. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I think the pending business is an amendment by our distinguished colleague from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, to strike an amendment that was included in the markup of the urgent supplemental at the Appropriations Committee level. I had this included. I think others had it, too. But in my particular instance, it was at the request of a constituent, Hoffman-La Roche, an eminent drug manufacturer, in the city of Florence. They are constructing a facility there now. We are very proud to have them. They are very responsible folks. This particular issue was dealt with in full debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate last year by the distinguished Senator from Utah, who dealt with the matter of copyright and patent legislation as the chairman of our Judiciary Committee. What really occurred--it is sort of complicated, but what really occurred is there are two different rulings with respect to the longevity of a particular patent. Under the regular law, a patent is granted for 17 years from the date of the issuance of the patent. In the early 1980's, all patents in existence at that time were granted 2 extra years as recognition that the approval process was resulting in much shorter usable life for the patented drugs. In this case the approval process took 11 years. Along came the GATT agreement. Trying to conform to the global competition and the global rule of 20-year patents, we passed a law which allowed a company to choose to operate under the current U.S. system or to operate a patent for 20 years from the date of the filing of the patent. The courts interpreted these two laws in a way that denied Hoffman-La Roche this choice. I, as well as many Members of the Senate including the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, know this ruling to be in contravention to the intent of the laws in question and this amendment simply sought to right this wrong. The drug in question is Toradol. It is a remarkable drug. Of course, it is the pain killing drug with which you can retain total consciousness, and it was administered to the President with his particular knee operation. The patent is to expire on May 16, 1997. As you can guess, the generic drug folks are interested whenever a patent expires, and my intention was to address the generic drug problem. Many a time the generic drug folks, along with consumer organizations, will come and say, ``Oh, we can get it much cheaper.'' On that particular point, there is no question. The question is to not only make profits, but make enough for other reinvestments to make another miracle drug. So, while I have worked and defended the generic movement in our country, from time to time on close study you can see that the manufacturer himself has a cause and a case and it ought to be defended. That was the intent in this particular amendment. Right to the point, everybody wants to either vote or dispose and move along with the underlying disaster supplemental measure rather than this one particular manufacturer and this one particular drug. Under the circumstances here on the floor, I have not been able to talk in caucus or to my colleagues about it. The fact is, I was told, when I came in this morning, it was being worked out. Specifically, while we had taken care, I understand, of the drug administered orally with the generic drug folks and consumer groups that called with respect to it, the drug taken intravenously had not been cleared with the generic groups. While we have gone to great lengths to solve all the problems with and get this amendment cleared, we have not been able to do so. It was my hope that we could get the best of both worlds and provide a remedy for a company hurt by a misinterpretation of the law and also get generic competition onto the market faster than it would have without this amendment. That, I thought, was being worked out this morning, but I understand, now, the Senator from Minnesota has not agreed to that. I will be prepared, under the circumstance here, to withdraw that amendment and not cause the colleagues to vote. But I do not think, technically or parliamentarily, you can withdraw a section of a bill. So I will be glad to go along with the Senator from Minnesota on a voice vote and vote along with him at this particular time, to see if we cannot get this straightened out. The staff, floor and all, have been anxious. They are trying to move this particular bill. I know Senator Stevens has been very anxious to do it. I appreciated being included in the Appropriations Committee version. I still think it is with absolute merit. But, under the circumstance, now I am prepared to go along with the motion of the Senator from Minnesota to strike and we will come back in at the appropriate time. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on this past Sunday, the Outlook section of the Washington Post published articles regarding Uncle Sam's red ink. The unfortunate part is that these stories highlight is that debt is nothing new for the United States. While it is making us poor, one article claims that is has made us prosperous. I rise today to make the point that our debt is not only making us very poor, it is making us totally inadequate at the governmental level in Washington, DC. All our moneys are being expended for interest costs on the debt rather than active Government. Specifically, I want to talk about the here and now rather than the next millennium. Dick Morris detailed in his book, Mr. President, that he had counseled President Clinton, running for reelection last year, that the budget deficit was a boring subject. He claimed that nobody was really interested in it and that the President should instead focus on school uniforms and child curfews, family values and everything else. Mr. President, people are interested in the crushing burden of our federal debt, and to show specifically what concerns them, I have a chart that I would refer to. It is in enlarged fashion. I ask unanimous consent that we have printed in the Record at this particular point this one budget document ``Hollings' Budget Realities.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, on the matter of the budget realities, I have listed here beside the different Presidents from 1945 right on through President Clinton's first term including estimates for 1997-- the different years of the U.S. budget, the actual budget. Incidentally, these are Congressional Budget Office figures. These are not tricky figures. They are the ones that we all rely upon. Then I have listed the borrowed trust funds. That is all the trust funds that are borrowed--not just Social Security but the military retirees trust funds, the civil service retirees trust funds--there is still a surplus in the Medicare account--Medicare trust fund, the Federal finance bank, the moneys we have been using from the airport and airways improvement fund, the highway trust fund. You can go right on down the different trust funds that are borrowed. And then the unified deficit which is the real culprit here in this particular budget fraud. I refer directly to the fraud that occurs when we cannot get the truth out. That is the purpose of my rising again today, to somehow, somewhere, sometime talk the truth because it is not an accurate figure when you say unified. They say, well, that is the net amount in and out. It is not net amount in and out. It is the amount you borrow and you have to replace. The distinguished Presiding Officer, being a certified public accountant, knows exactly what I am speaking about. If you were trying to use that unified deficit on your return, the borrowed moneys on April 15, they would cart you off to jail. You are not allowed to do that. But we do that in Washington, and then the media, the market, the Government and everyone else continue to cite the unified deficit as a sort of net figure as to what the real deficit is. On the contrary, the real or actual deficit is listed in the next column with the national debt going up and the annual increase in the amount of spending in order to take care of the interest costs. So I will be glad to show this particular chart in an enlarged manner. What we have here, Mr. President, is again the Presidents. You have the years. You have the United States budget, the actual budget, the borrowed trust funds, the unified deficit with trust funds. Then the actual deficit without trust funds. That is without the borrowings, what the actual deficit is. Those are the terms upon which we must speak. If we are going to continue to talk of a unified net kind of deficit, which is not net, the fraud will continue. There is not any question in my mind that taxes are too high. But taxes are too high because of the interest cost on the national debt. All you need do is go to look at our actual interest costs, let us say, before President Reagan came in, just a few short years ago. The interest costs in 1980, going straight across, are $74.8 billion. Well, that is $74.8 or $75 billion. You now in 1997 have listed $360 billion. We have increased spending $285 billion for nothing. You are not getting a road paved. You are not getting a library built. You are not getting research over at the National Cancer Institute. You are not providing for a stronger defense. You are not engaging more in foreign assistance or anything else of that kind. You are getting absolutely nothing for the past profligacy and waste. Bottom line. The crowd that came to town in 1981, against taxes and against waste, has taxes on automatic pilot, waste on automatic pilot of $1 billion a day. Now, let me say that one more time. At $360 billion--this figure, of course, is the January figure from the Congressional Budget Office, and it does not take into account the recent increase in interest rates by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. So that is bound to be at least 365. So we have interest payments, that is, annual increases in spending on interest that total $1 billion a day. And it has to be paid just like taxes. It is not like increases in other spending which we could forego, but it has to be paid. So that is why I categorically say the crowd that said they were going to come to town in the early 1980's and do away with taxes have put taxes on an automatic pilot of $1 billion a day. The crowd that came in town in 1981 and said they were going to be against waste, fraud and abuse--and I was appointed on the Grace Commission, got an award for it and recognition. It was a wonderful instrumentality that went through the Government and tried to cut out all the waste. But we have really increased the waste because we get absolutely nothing for it. Now, we increased spending since 1980 by $285 billion. If we had not done that, we would have $285 billion here for us to sit around in the Senate Chamber and spend or give back to the American people. It would be a wonderful thing. We could get all the highways. We wouldn't have any ISTEA bill. We could take care of all the demonstration projects you could possibly imagine. We could go ahead with star wars immediately. We could have all these things that they want for education, student loans and everything else. But instead, we are spending the money and not getting anything for it. That is the cancer that we have in the fiscal affairs of the U.S. Government that is totally obscured by news articles like those that claim to show how debt has made us prosperous, like all we have to do is borrow again and that debt has always been with us. Well, Mr. President, it has not been with us all the time for the simple reason you can see that when President Reagan came to town--we have it here--the national debt was $994.8 billion. When President Reagan came to town, after 204 years of history, after 38 Presidents, Republican and Democrat, after the cost of all the wars, the Revolutionary, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the cost of all the wars never gave a national debt of $1 trillion. It was less than $1 trillion after 204 years of history. But in 16 years without a war, because the cost of the war in Desert Storm was paid for by the Saudis and others, so in 16 years without the cost of a war, we have gone from less than $1 trillion to almost $5.5 trillion. Up, up, and away with the interest costs, interest spending, interest taxes going up, up and away and added to the debt to the tune of $1 billion a day and we never want to seem to recognize that. Right to the point, Mr. President. If you take all the deficits from President Truman, the actual deficits and average them out right on down to President Reagan, 25 years, if you took all those deficits, the average would be about $20 billion a year. Now, in contrast, take the deficits for the last 16 years without the cost of a war, without the so-called guns and butter, as they say; but rather, with spending cuts of President Reagan for 8 years, spending cuts of President Bush for 4 years, spending cuts of President Clinton, because he brought the deficit down--his 1993 plan included $500 billion in deficit reduction. Even with all the cuts, we have been giving an average deficit each year to the American people of $277 billion more in Government than we are willing to pay for. Let us not just talk abstractly about a deficit. We are actually giving away $277 billion more in Government than we are actually willing to pay for. Let us go to just last year and the campaign, when both Senator Dole and President Clinton used $107 billion, the unified deficit figure, like it was net. That was not the case at all. In order to get to a $107 billion deficit, they had to borrow from all the pension funds. Why not borrow another $107 billion and call it balanced? The actual deficit was $261 billion. You could not get that cited or printed in the press. We gave it to them time and time again. We will give it to them again this morning. I defy you to find it in the morning paper or cited in the evening news on TV. They do not want to say what the actual deficit is. They want to use this obscure figure of unified, trying to act like we ought to be encouraged. That is why they are getting together on a budget deal. They will get together on a deal that will obscure truth in budgeting. This fraud has to stop somehow, somewhere, because it is not a bridge to the next millennium. We are going over a cliff by the year 2000. Our domestic budget is $266 billion. Our defense budget is $267 billion. Those two budgets together are slightly over $500 billion. But you will soon have interest costs exceeding the combined cost of both the domestic and defense budgets. We are not building a bridge, we are digging a hole. The first order of business, they say, when you are in a hole and you are trying to get out, is stop digging. We continue to dig, and we do it in a dignified fashion around here and praise each other. The President and the Congress have gotten together on a budget agreement and all of that kind of stuff. But watch for the gimmicks in it. The biggest gimmick that is never talked about is the fact people consistently obscure the actual size of the deficit. To get it down to $254 billion, we still have to find $110 billion, that is without any cuts, just continuing what we call current policy. I sat at the budget table today to try to get to a budget now of $1.632 trillion. That is current policy. That is domestic of $266 billion, defense of $267 billion, entitlements of $859 billion. That is $1.382 trillion. Just put in the minimal figure $360 billion, that is $1.742 trillion. To bring it down, then, to the $1.632 trillion, I have to find $110 billion. I have to cut entitlements, domestic, defense combined $110 billion. That is my job, conscientiously going to the budget table to sit as a member of the Budget Committee, where I have been since we instituted the budget process in 1974. But, instead of discussing the cuts and how are we going to get on top of this downward spiral of interest costs or interest taxes being increased $1 billion a day, instead of that, we are getting letters now to do away with the inheritance tax. We are getting letters now to do away with the capital gains tax. We are getting letters now from Steve Forbes and that other crowd: Let's just get a flat tax and do away with the IRS, the Internal Revenue System, and everything else of that kind. Mr. President, we ought to understand once and for all that we are engaged in a fraud that continues to be obscured, due to the fourth estate. The fourth estate has taken it on as a religion, almost, of reciting the unified deficit as if it were the actual deficit. The truth of the matter is, the actual deficit is substantially more. It has averaged $277 billion last year, the year before, and the last 16 years. We have been giving out some $277 billion in Government that we are not willing to pay for. We had that Reaganomics. Yes, there is even talk about that--cut taxes and we will get growth, we will grow out of deficits. No mayor in his right mind of a city tries that. No Governor in her right mind has tried that. There was an exception up in New Jersey. Governor Whitman up there said, ``Whoa, tax cuts work.'' But look at the papers last week. She is now doing two things. She is borrowing, raiding the pension funds, just like we are doing in Washington. She has learned from Washington. And she is calling for a bond issue to cover her financial situation. It does not work. There is no free lunch. Long since, we should have understood it. If I have to come every day and point this out, I will because these facts and figures are not disputable. They are not political. They are not Democratic figures or Republican figures. These are Congressional Budget Office figures. That is the actual debt that has gone to exceed $5 trillion. I see from the Presiding Officer that my time is just about up. Let me just say one word. I thank the distinguished Chair and the distinguished Senator from Georgia for indulging me just one second more. What we have is a fraud on the American public. We have to expose this fraud. We have to speak to truth in budgeting. We have to come up with an actual plan that will eliminate this deficit financing by raiding the trust funds in America. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

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

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

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to remark on the outstanding Senate career of my long time science staffer, Pat Windham, whose last day on the Senate Commerce Committee staff will be tomorrow. At the end of this month, Pat will be returning to the San Francisco area where he grew up. With his wife Arati and their cute infant daughter Katie, he will be living within shouting distance of Stanford University, his undergraduate alma mater, and across the bay from the University of California at Berkeley where he received his masters in public policy. Pat first came to the Senate in the late 1970's for a 2-year stint on the Commerce Committee staff as a congressional fellow in connection with his doctoral program at Berkeley. He returned in 1982, when he served for 2 years as a legislative assistant on my personal staff. Since 1984 he has been the Commerce Committee's resident expert on science policy, touching on virtually every science and technology issue you can imagine. Early in his career here Pat was deeply involved in the ocean and coastal issues that are so important to the recreational and commercial needs of South Carolinians. On my personal staff he also mastered the myriad complexities of the Nation's nuclear energy policy, acquiring detailed knowledge of nuclear powerplant technology and waste storage problems. In his service for the Commerce Committee's Science, Techology, and Space Subcommittee, he has had principal responsibility for overseeing technology policy and industrial competitiveness. I strongly believe that the key to our national economic strength is the link between technology and industry. Pat shares this vision, and has made an enormous difference to me in developing programs that are targeted at forging that link. One such program is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which facilitates the transfer of manufacturing technology directly from the laboratory to the operations of the small- and medium-sized firms that carry out the bulk of U.S. manufacturing. Thanks in large part to Pat's tenacity in working to steadily improve the program, there are now locally run and cost-shared manufacturing extension centers in South Carolina and throughout the Nation that provide essential technical assistance to thousands of small manufacturers. Another such program is the Advanced Technology Program [ATP], overseen by the National Institute of Science and Technology within the Department of Commerce. ATP recognizes the intense investor pressure on American companies to cut costs and spend limited research dollars on projects with short-term payoffs. It is a peer-reviewed, industry-led undertaking that provides matching funds for the development of advanced technologies--in areas like electronics, information technology, robotics, advanced materials, and biotechnology--that will be central to the formation of new industries in the 21st century. Pat spearheaded the creation of ATP in the late 1980's, and now that ATP is beginning to bear fruit, he has fought tirelessly against efforts to undercut its effectiveness. During his 17 years of Senate service, Pat has earned wide respect and affection from Members of Congress and staff, administration officials, and the scientific community for his commitment to the development of sound science and technology policy. He has an extraordinary capacity to digest large amounts of highly technical information in a number of scientific fields and communicate it clearly to decisionmakers. Further, in spite of his intense dedication to achieving his legislative goals, Pat has made loyal and enthusiastic friends among allies and adversaries alike. I have no doubt that in his new surroundings Pat will find ways to further his splendid contributions to our Nation's industry and technological progress. He has certainly been everything I have wanted, and more, as a staff professional, and I thank him for his excellent work. I wish Pat, Arati, and little Katie the best of fortune in all their future endeavors.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have just submitted legislation at the desk to create a separate enrollment version of the line-item veto. Mr. President, this is the same bill word for word that passed the U.S. Senate on March 25, 1995, by a bipartisan vote of 69 Senators. It was introduced at the time by Senator Dole. It follows a long history of efforts on behalf of the separate enrollment approach and is different to the enhanced rescission which has been found unconstitutional by the district court. Back in 1985, I worked alongside Senator Mattingly, and we got 58 votes for the separate enrollment version. We passed similar legislation in the Senate in 1995, but lost out in conference when the conferees endorsed the House approved enhanced rescission approach rather than the separate enrollment version. But the courts have now struck down that law. They have ruled that once a bill is signed into law, under the Constitution, the President does not have the authority to repeal laws. Such a repeal is a legislative power which article I of our Constitution reserves for the Congress. Mr. President, the line-item veto has a proven track record in bringing about financial responsibility at the State and local level. As a Governor, the distinguished Presiding Officer knows that you cannot print money like we do up here in Washington. And if you do all of this borrowing and spending and borrowing and spending, before long you lose your credit rating. The line-item veto is used at the present time in some 43 States. The separate enrollment mechanism that this legislation is based upon has been shown to meet constitutional muster by Prof. Laurence Tribe of Harvard in a letter to former Senator Bill Bradley back in January 1993. I spoke with Professor Tribe yesterday morning on the telephone at which time he reaffirmed that legal opinion. Mr. President, this effort is not meant to fix the blame, but to fix the problem. We are not enhancing or diminishing Presidential powers. We are simply changing congressional procedures. We are using the congressional power under article I, section 5 of the Constitution which vests Congress with broad authority to set the rules for its own procedure. And that authority is exercised through changes in the rules which would require separate enrollment. That was found to be the one way that a statutory line-item veto could pass constitutional scrutiny. We are very, very hopeful that this bill can assist us in fixing responsibility on the one hand and reducing deficits on the other hand. We all know that we are not here, as lawyer Sullivan said, as ``potted plants.'' But we are sometimes embarrassed when we see things like appropriations for Lawrence Welk's home. In 1992, the Government Accounting Office, [GAO] did a study and found that over a 5-year period the line-item veto would save some $70 billion. So we are very hopeful that we can get expedited procedure. It has been debated for the past 15 years. It has been used by all the Governors now in some 43 States. And there is no rhyme nor reason for us to play around and wait for the delay in the courts. We are in a very serious circumstance. Our debt has so risen that the interest costs to the Government now are $1 billion a day--$1 billion a day--increased spending for interest costs on the national debt. It is the largest spending item in the budget. And so I thank the distinguished Senator from Florida for yielding, but I wanted to make sure we introduced this legislation this morning before we got on to the unanimous consent with the particular measure at hand.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have just submitted legislation at the desk to create a separate enrollment version of the line-item veto. Mr. President, this is the same bill word for word that passed the U.S. Senate on March 25, 1995, by a bipartisan vote of 69 Senators. It was introduced at the time by Senator Dole. It follows a long history of efforts on behalf of the separate enrollment approach and is different to the enhanced rescission which has been found unconstitutional by the district court. Back in 1985, I worked alongside Senator Mattingly, and we got 58 votes for the separate enrollment version. We passed similar legislation in the Senate in 1995, but lost out in conference when the conferees endorsed the House approved enhanced rescission approach rather than the separate enrollment version. But the courts have now struck down that law. They have ruled that once a bill is signed into law, under the Constitution, the President does not have the authority to repeal laws. Such a repeal is a legislative power which article I of our Constitution reserves for the Congress. Mr. President, the line-item veto has a proven track record in bringing about financial responsibility at the State and local level. As a Governor, the distinguished Presiding Officer knows that you cannot print money like we do up here in Washington. And if you do all of this borrowing and spending and borrowing and spending, before long you lose your credit rating. The line-item veto is used at the present time in some 43 States. The separate enrollment mechanism that this legislation is based upon has been shown to meet constitutional muster by Prof. Laurence Tribe of Harvard in a letter to former Senator Bill Bradley back in January 1993. I spoke with Professor Tribe yesterday morning on the telephone at which time he reaffirmed that legal opinion. Mr. President, this effort is not meant to fix the blame, but to fix the problem. We are not enhancing or diminishing Presidential powers. We are simply changing congressional procedures. We are using the congressional power under article I, section 5 of the Constitution which vests Congress with broad authority to set the rules for its own procedure. And that authority is exercised through changes in the rules which would require separate enrollment. That was found to be the one way that a statutory line-item veto could pass constitutional scrutiny. We are very, very hopeful that this bill can assist us in fixing responsibility on the one hand and reducing deficits on the other hand. We all know that we are not here, as lawyer Sullivan said, as ``potted plants.'' But we are sometimes embarrassed when we see things like appropriations for Lawrence Welk's home. In 1992, the Government Accounting Office, [GAO] did a study and found that over a 5-year period the line-item veto would save some $70 billion. So we are very hopeful that we can get expedited procedure. It has been debated for the past 15 years. It has been used by all the Governors now in some 43 States. And there is no rhyme nor reason for us to play around and wait for the delay in the courts. We are in a very serious circumstance. Our debt has so risen that the interest costs to the Government now are $1 billion a day--$1 billion a day--increased spending for interest costs on the national debt. It is the largest spending item in the budget. And so I thank the distinguished Senator from Florida for yielding, but I wanted to make sure we introduced this legislation this morning before we got on to the unanimous consent with the particular measure at hand.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise this morning to discuss truth in budgeting. Let me emphasize ``truth in budgeting.'' We do not appreciate, Mr. President, the reality. The reality is that we are giving billions and billions more in Government than we are willing to pay for. In fact, Mr. President, from the year 1945 when President Truman was in office until 1980, when President Reagan came in, the deficits were an average of $20 billion. Whereas for the last 16 years, the average has been $277 billion. So for the last 16 years everybody is running around and pointing fingers as to the blame, while we have been giving $277 billion more in Government than we are willing to pay for. Now, a couple of years ago, my distinguished colleagues on the other side of the aisle kept saying, ``If you want to change the Congress you have to change the Congressman. If you want to change the Senate, you have to change the Senator,'' and the American people said ``fine, that is what we will do.'' But instead of getting change, instead of getting a proposed budget where we pay up here for the Government we are giving, we get into this big folderol about leadership and everything else. Under the Constitution, the Congress legislates, the President executes. It is our responsibility to legislate. In fact, the concurrent resolution for a budget is not even signed by the President. Yet, this weekend I had to listen to the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee on the House side, Mr. Kasich, say, ``If the President could only show leadership and step up to the plate.'' They have all the jargon and litany--``if he can only show some responsibility,'' and ``if he only had the courage.'' Well, he has put up a budget. He maintains that his budget is balanced by the year 2002. There is a serious question about that, obviously. But at least he put up a budget. Now, from January to June, we are still hearing the chairmen of the Budget Committees on both sides of the Capitol asking for leadership and courage and everything else, when that is what they asked the American people for and received. We have a Republican Congress; where is the Republican budget? It is just totally out of whole cloth around here; we can't get the truth about where we are. Now, going right to the point about their being derelict as to their responsibility. All of us have been derelict as to the reality of the deficit. All you need do is the simple arithmetic to find out how much the debt increases each year and to determine your deficit, not this unified Mickey Mouse thing which uses borrowed funds. The unified deficit is the one that was used all of last year during the campaign, and it was used the day before yesterday on the Sunday morning talk shows. David Broder used it in his column, and all the responsible writers use it. The number they use is $107 billion. Totally false. Totally false. To get the actual deficit, you just subtract the increase from one year to the next, and you can find that the actual deficit was $261 billion. How do they get to the $107 billion? Well, Mr. President, they borrow $154 billion. You borrow $154 billion from Social Security, from Medicare, from the civil service retirement, from military retirement, and you go right on down the list until you get to $107 billion. Why not borrow that $107 billion and say the budget is balanced? What kind of gamesmanship are we playing? When are we going to get the truth out of the free press in America and quit quoting a silly figure that doesn't reflect the reality. The reality, Mr. President, is when that deficit grows to $261 billion this year, and you add that amount to the debt and the existing interest costs, this conduct, along with Mr. Greenspan's, causes your interest costs to go through the roof. In fact, right now, interest costs are estimated at $360 billion for 1997. That was the CBO figure before the increase in interest rates. So the figure is now around $1 billion a day--$365 billion, or even more. Mr. President, today is April 15. Today, everyone is required to pay their income tax. I just got this table from CBO which says the total amount paid in individual income tax is estimated to be $676 billion. We are already 6\1/2\ months into our fiscal year. Therefore, when I say a billion dollars a day in interest costs, what I am saying is that the people of America worked from October of last year up until today, income tax day, April 15, for what? To pay for the wasteful interest costs in Government, and this charade that continues. Half of our Nation's income taxes go to pay for interest costs on the national debt. Even if we get a little bit of savings from the CPI, a little bit from Medicare, we are still way off. I will be joining with the Blue Dogs; we are working out the figures right now for a budget freeze--no increase in taxes, no cut in taxes, no back-end loading. And even then, without the borrowings, it is going to take you 5 more years, until 2007 rather than 2002, for a true balanced budget. The American people should understand that we are playing a game up here to buy the vote, so we can all get reelected again next year. We have been doing that for the past 16 years with this silly Reaganomics and the litany of growth, growth. One fellow, Stevie Forbes, wrote ``hope, growth, and opportunity.'' You turn on all the programs, and the discussions are all about inheritance taxes and the capital gains tax. ``Just do away with the IRS and the income tax,'' they say. We are talking out of whole cloth. We act like that is reality. We cannot afford tax cuts. Look at the figures. The domestic budget is $266 billion. The defense budget is $267 billion. Look on page 36 of your budget book. Entitlement spending is $859 billion. That comes, Mr. President, to $1.382 trillion. Then you add interest costs of $360 billion, and that is $1.742 trillion. To get down to CBO's projected revenues of $1.632 trillion, we have to cut $110 billion. Now, that's the job that we have at hand--not capital gains, not inheritance taxes, not getting rid of the IRS and income taxes. Yes, taxes are too much. Why are they too much? Because of the interest costs on the national debt. If you go back to 1980, it was $74.8 billion. We have literally added just about $300 billion in interest costs on the national debt that must be paid up first. It is just like taxes. You might call them an increase in taxes each day of $1 billion. We are running around here cutting taxes while we are increasing their taxes $1 billion a day. But if you had that $300 billion, Mr. President, we could balance the budget, we could get improve technology, we could pave the highways, repair the bridges, give more student loans, and we could have double the research at NIH. We could do all these things. Taxes are too high. But why are they high? For the silly charade. There is no better word for this off-Broadway show that goes on out here, without the reality, without the truth in budgeting. These people act as if we have the luxury of cutting taxes because they are too high. You have to cut the interest costs on the debt. You have to start paying for the Government we have. They have been meeting since January to decide how can we get both sides to go along with a fraud; one grand fraud is what this is. You know it, and I know it. We will get my budget realities chart up here later on, and I will be glad to give people copies of it. There is no question in my mind that this fraud has to be exposed because these interest costs, which are really taxes, are eating us alive. By cutting taxes, we are really saying ``let's increase the deficit, the debt, and interest costs.'' If the people don't understand that, every one of these writers should tell you that. It is not complicated at all. All you have to do is go from year to year. And we are still going to borrow from the Social Security, which is illegal. We passed a law of the Budget Act, section 13301, that said thou shalt not use Social Security trust funds in order to lower the deficit or in reporting it. Yet they violate it. They are running around wanting to know who slept in the Lincoln bedroom or who flew on the Air Force One plane. Come on, when are we going to get to work on the real problem? That is why the American people have no confidence in this institution up here. We don't tell the truth. I remember my friend, Bill Proxmire, who got up here every day on a certain treaty. Finally, after about 6 or 7 years, he got some attention. I don't know whether people would give me that much time, but I am going to have to start taking time every morning hour to show the reality of what we are doing. No, you can't balance the budget and pay for the Government this next year, but you can put us on a truth course. If you saw that chart my distinguished colleague Mr. Conrad had, you will find that the deficit went way down in 1985 and 1986. In 1985 and 1986 was during Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, and this was when we really cut the deficit. I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment offered by myself and the senior Senator from South Carolina, Senator Thurmond. We all know the score, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has outlined the state of our nuclear waste policy and we are aware of the need to move this bill forward. Currently, DOE is contractually bound to begin receiving spent commercial nuclear fuel in 1998. Under the 1982 Nuclear Policy Act, DOE was directed to identify, construct, and operate an underground repository to dispose of the Nation's commercial nuclear fuel. Identifying such a site proved difficult, so in 1987 Congress intervened and directed DOE to study or characterize only one site, Yucca Mountain, NV. Since 1987 DOE has been studying the Yucca Mountain site to determine if it is a suitable site for the permanent repository. This characterization was to be completed and, if the site was suitable, a permanent facility was to be constructed by 1998. I don't need to point out how far this process has fallen behind. If it was on schedule then we would not be debating this bill today. It is now 1997, and DOE has not finished its site characterization work. In fact they tell me that, if there is no further delay and the site checks out, then the permanent repository will not be ready until 2010 at the earliest. Obviously that causes a problem since last year a Federal court held that DOE does have an obligation to dispose of the waste by the 1998 deadline. So where does the waste go in 1998? Well, to Senator Murkowski's credit, he is trying to answer that question. That solution is to construct a temporary storage facility at the Yucca Mountain if the site is suitable for the permanent repository. The Senator from Alaska has tried to accommodate a bunch of competing interests, and, hoping to avoid a veto by the White House, he has provided a means by which the President can identify an alternative site if the Yucca Mountain site is deemed unsuitable. It is this provision, allowing the President to designate an alternative temporary storage site, that brings me here today. My friends from Oregon, Senators Wyden and Smith, both of whom are on the Energy Committee, offered a provision at markup to ensure that the DOE's Hanford Site be excluded as a possible alternative temporary storage site. As many of my colleagues know, the DOE's Savannah River Site is located in my State, and I am here today to explain why, like the Hanford Site, it is not a suitable site for a temporary facility. After my colleagues hear SRS's disadvantages, they will agree. SRS is not the place for this spent fuel. The amendment before us simply codifies that position. It simply states that the Savannah River Site and Barnwell County South Carolina, like Hanford, cannot be identified by the President as an alternative temporary storage site. I am not going to spend time arguing why Yucca Mountain is the best site for this facility. The chairman of the Energy Committee has done a fine job of that. What I will do is tell you why SRS is not the site. SRS is a 198,000-acre reservation located in South Carolina and abutting Georgia. It is 12 miles southwest of Augusta, GA, and 10 miles south of Aiken, SC. This is a highly populated area which has been and continues to grow rapidly. I have heard people argue that the Savannah River Site is some rural out-of-the-way place. Well, that is just not the case. The population within a 50-mile radius of SRS numbers about 615,000. This obviously encompasses all of Aiken, SC, and Augusta, GA, whose combined population is more that 400,000 people, plus a number of smaller communities that are too numerous to mention. What is more astounding is that the population living within a 100- mile radius of the site numbers 2.6 million people. This includes a number of larger cities including the capital of South Carolina, Columbia, Charleston, SC, Hilton Head, SC, Savannah GA, and Augusta, GA. In fact, there are private homes located on private lands located within 200 feet of the site. To say this is a far and out-of-the-way place is just not the case. Putting additional nuclear waste in such a highly populated area is crazy. In addition, as I understand the scientists, their most constant fear is that nuclear material is exposed to water and leaches into surface or subsurface waters and that this water carries the contamination off- site. Therefore it is critical that this nuclear material be kept dry and away from the corrosive effects of water. Well, for anyone who has visited the Savannah River site, or, for that matter the lowcountry of South Carolina, they know that in reality it is all wetlands or as some say, a swamp. In fact, the Savannah River site is literally surrounded by water. There are extensive water resources on, under, and adjacent to the site. The Savannah River, which marks the border of the States of South Carolina and Georgia also marks the 20-mile western boundary of the site and six major streams flow through the site and into the river. It is this river, the Savannah, which supplies drinking water for Beaufort and Jasper Counties in South Carolina and the town of Port Wentworth, GA. In addition, it runs directly through the city of Savannah, GA, downstream and supports an active commercial and sport fishing industry. Studies indicate that portions of the site are within the 100-year flood plain, and although this information is not available, I would not be surprised to find that the entire site is within the 500-year flood plain. Under the surface there are several aquifer systems. The largest of which is the Cretaceous or Tuscoloosa Aquifer. It is a huge aquifer stretching all across the Southeast. In general, the groundwater on the site flows into one of the numerous streams or swamps on the site and then flows into the Savannah River which is, as I mentioned earlier, the source of drinking water for numerous cities and towns downstream. The water not making its way to the river is absorbed into the ground and eventually makes it to the groundwater. The level of this groundwater, like its flow, varies but in some places it is literally within inches of the surface. The rate of flow for this groundwater varies with areas where it travels as fast as several hundred meters a year. So it is not hard to imagine a scenario, and we have had cases, where nuclear contaminants have reached the groundwater and quickly moved off site. It is interesting to note, but not surprising, that virtually every county in South Carolina and Georgia has some number of households getting their drinking water directly from these subsurface aquifers. In fact, over 50 percent of the households in two counties that abut the site draw their drinking water from wells. Obviously, with the abundant wetlands, rivers, streams, and, an abundance of precipitation, averaging over 44 inches per year, the Savannah River site is not the place for this spent fuel--if you want to keep it dry. There are numerous other reasons to eliminate the Savannah River site from consideration. Not the least of which is that South Carolina and the Savannah River site are already doing their share to safely store nuclear waste. In fact, foreign research reactor fuel shipped from all over the world passes right by my front door as it is being shipped to Charleston and then up to the Savannah River site. In addition, the site is constantly receiving waste from the nation's nuclear defense facilities and domestic research reactors. We have all the waste we can handle. Trust me, I have visited the site repeatedly over my career, and I am aware of the cleanup job we face down there. We have spent years getting a waste processing facility up and running, and we are just now really beginning to clean up the 33 million gallons of liquid high- level nuclear waste on site. That does not include all the other forms of waste: low-level, transuranic, and hazardous. To add more waste to a site which has its hands full cleaning up the mess caused by 40 years of nuclear weapons production is not the solution. It is clear given the dense population of the area and its geography that it is not the best site for any waste. Our goal should be to ensure that the Savannah River site is cleaned up and that its waste is stabilized and moved off-site. The site is not suitable to receive additional waste. This amendment simply ensures that the Savannah River site is not overrun with waste and that it continues without interruption the cleanup and stabilization of its existing contamination. I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to express my concern with the President's proposal for the budget of the Federal Aviation Administration. We all know how important aviation is to our economy, contributing more than $770 billion in direct and indirect benefits. In South Carolina, travel and tourism is the No. 2 industry, accounting for almost 100,000 jobs. The industry is fueled by the aviation industry. The President has talked a lot about a bridge to the 21st century. Bridges and highway projects are critical parts of our Nation's infrastructure. But so are airports. I have an airport in almost every county of my State. We have a strong airport system, but one that needs money to rebuild and expand. The $1 billion proposal falls far short of what is needed. It is a shortsighted approach to meeting our country's needs. It also undoes a deal that we had last year with the administration. I am certain that the new Secretary wants to make sure that our Nation's infrastructure needs are addressed, and I want to work with him on ways to meet those needs. The President has proposed a $1 billion airport improvement program. The airport community claims that nationwide it needs almost $10 billion per year. In my State alone, money for airports is critically needed for small and large projects. Without adequate funding, these airports cannot expand and cannot begin to attract new businesses. I can cite many examples of this, but one that comes to mind is the Greenville- Spartanburg Airport project. Without an AIP grant, the runway would not have been lengthened. It helped BMW decide to locate in South Carolina. Airport grants mean business opportunities.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I respectfully rise today and ask that we pay tribute to Judge Charles R. Richey. Today the flags in front of the Thurgood Marshall Judiciary Building fly at half-mast in mourning for Judge Richey. Charles Richey was a great man and a superlative judge. We join in the loss with his wife, Mardelle, and his sons, Charles and William. Judge Richey, despite his lofty status in the courts, always considered himself a man of the people and he consistently defied the labels of conservative and liberal. His public career began when he came to Washington as a legislative counsel to Representative Frances Payne Bolton from Ohio. Later he was appointed general counsel for the Maryland Public Service Commission during Spiro Agnew's last years as Governor. He was appointed to the Federal bench by President Nixon in 1971. In 1979, the American Trial Lawyers Association voted Judge Richey Outstanding Federal Trial Judge. He was one of the busiest judges in the Washington U.S. District Court and ran a tight ship in the courtroom. He was a firm believer in swift justice and had the most up- to-date docket on the circuit. Over the course of his career, Richey handed down many landmark decisions, including one he loved to recount--his 1976 ruling that called in the California tuna ships for violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In that same year he also became the first judge to hold that employees who are sexually harassed by their superiors can file under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ever willing to take on the Government on behalf of the little man, in 1981, Richey awarded $6 million in back pay and $10 million in future earnings for 324 women in the sex discrimination suit against the Government Printing Office, then the largest amount ever awarded in a sex discrimination case. Perhaps the case most indicative of his feeling for the citizens though was his dismissal of charges against people camped in protest in Lafayette ``Protest'' Park. He said they were exercising their rights under the First Amendment. Judge Richey's courtesy in the court was legendary. He used gender- neutral terms when discussing certain statutes mentioning only men. Despite his own strict Methodist upbringing, he gave witnesses options on oaths containing no religious references and dispensing with the Gideon Bible. One said of him, ``Judge Richey is tough as shoe leather, but fair minded almost to a fault.'' We shall all miss this man. He leaves behind an unparalled judicial legacy and record of public service.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, according to the Federal Election Commission, the total amount of money raised overall, hard and soft money, in 1996, by the Republicans was $548.7 million and by the Democrats was $332.3 million. So, the Democrats scramble everywhere. To the embarrassment of all of us both Democrat and Republican, but my opponents do not want to recognize that. I got a call from my distinguished colleague, the Senior Senator from Alabama. I understand he took the floor yesterday. Five times he has been a cosponsor of this particular joint resolution for a constitutional amendment. Now he is worried about the freedom of speech. You see now, the Senator from Alabama seems to have lost his freedom of speech. It is a sad, sad, commentary, Mr. President, but that is exactly what is happening. The other side says, look, here we have the advantage of money overwhelmingly, and that is our advantage in politics, and we are not going to give it up, so let us hide behind the First Amendment. It is a very shameful performance, a dog-and-pony show, coming up here and saying we should not amend the Constitution, we should not think of it. The very people saying that and quoting Patrick Henry have voted to amend the Constitution relative to the burning of the flag--the very speakers that have taken the floor. I have seen hypocrisy before, but not like this. Then they come saying ``Well, you know, we are not spending enough money in campaigns. What could happen,'' under this amendment is, ``the Congress could legislate us into incumbency, whereby you would never be opposed.'' They use Patrick Henry to defend their actions. He once cried, ``Peace, peace, there is no peace.'' Here today we cry ``Free speech, free speech, there is no free speech.'' In politics it is paid speech we are talking about. As for me, give me this constitutional amendment to save democracy. Justice Jackson said that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, Mr. President. In that context, I will review several of the most recent constitutional amendments and show their relative significance to the pending amendment. Amendment No. 27 has to do with the compensation of Senators and Representatives. Certainly, this is more important than the 27th amendment. The 26th amendment has to do with the voting age. If they can change the voting age, they can certainly change the money limit. This is more important than the 26th amendment. The 25th amendment had to do with the succession in office. This is far more important a problem. We deal with this each and every day--day in and day out, exacerbating, getting worse and worse, turning elections into auctions. And going right to the 24th amendment, the poll tax. Well, we said in the 24th amendment that you cannot separate voters financially. That is exactly what Buckley has done. Those who have the money can shout to the rooftops. Those without money can get lockjaw--just hush, you cannot compete. The last five or six amendments, Mr. President, we have shown have been adopted in about a 20-month period. You can bet your boots that this could easily be adopted in 1998. What we have here is an amendment that is neutral. We do not say limit spending or not limit. We merely authorize the States and the Federal Government to limit spending. Here we are asking for a right. Here this devolution crowd that keeps coming up here and saying, ``return government to the states, return government to the people, let the people act,'' that is what I am trying to do. Pass my amendment, send it to the States and let the American people make the decision. We do not say ``limit.'' We do not say ``not limit.'' We just say give the people's representative body--namely, the Congress of the United States--the authority to limit. My opponents do not want to give the people a chance to vote on it. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield our remaining time to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I so yield.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, although I commend the efforts of the minority leader and others seeking to statutorily reform our campaign finance laws, I am convinced the only way to solve the chronic problems surrounding campaign financing is reverse the Supreme Court's flawed decision in Buckley versus Valeo by adopting a constitutional amendment granting Congress the right to limit campaign spending. We all know the score--we are hamstrung by that decision and the ever increasing cost of a competitive campaign. With the total cost for congressional elections, just general elections, skyrocketing from $403 million in 1990 to over $626 million in 1996, the need for limits on campaign expenditures is more urgent than ever. For nearly a quarter of a century, Congress has tried to tackle runaway campaign spending with bills aimed at getting around the disjointed Buckley decision. Again and again, Congress has failed. Let us resolve not to repeat the mistakes of past campaign finance reform efforts, which have become bogged down in partisanship as Democrats and Republicans each tried to gore the other's sacred cows. During the 103d Congress there was a sign that we could move beyond this partisan bickering, when the Senate in a bipartisan fashion expressed its support for a constitutional amendment to limit campaign expenditures. In May 1993, a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate resolution was agreed to which advocated the adoption of a constitutional amendment empowering Congress and States to limit campaign expenditures. Now it is time to take the next step. We must strike the decisive blow against the anything-goes fundraising and spending tolerated by both political parties. Looking beyond the current headlines regarding the source of these funds, the massive amount of money spent is astonishing and serves only to cement the commonly held belief that our elections are nothing more than auctions and that our politicians are up for sale. It is time to put a limit on the amount of money sloshing around campaign war chests. It is time to adopt a constitutional amendment to limit campaign spending--a simple, straightforward, nonpartisan solution. As Prof. Gerald G. Ashdown has written in the New England Law Review, amending the Constitution to allow Congress to regulate campaign expenditures is ``the most theoretically attractive of the approaches- to-reform since, from a broad free speech perspective, the decision in Buckley is misguided and has worsened the campaign finance atmosphere.'' Adds Professor Ashdown: ``If Congress could constitutionally limit the campaign expenditures of individuals, candidates, and committees, along with contributions, most of the troubles * * * would be eliminated.'' Right to the point, back in 1974, Congress responded to the public's outrage over the Watergate scandals by passing, on a bipartisan basis, a comprehensive campaign finance law. The centerpiece of this reform was a limitation on campaign expenditures. Congress recognized that spending limits were the only rational alternative to a system that essentially awarded office to the highest bidder or wealthiest candidate. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court overturned these spending limits in its infamous Buckley versus Valeo decision of 1976. The Court mistakenly equated a candidate's right to spend unlimited sums of money with his right to free speech. In the face of spirited dissents, the Court came to the conclusion that limits on campaign contributions but not spending furthered ``* * * the governmental interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption'' and that this interest ``outweighs considerations of free speech.'' I have never been able to fathom why that same test--the governmental interest in preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption-- does not overwhelmingly justify limits on campaign spending. The Court made a huge mistake. The fact is, spending limits in Federal campaigns would act to restore the free speech that has been eroded by the Buckley decision. After all, as a practical reality, what Buckley says is: Yes, if you have a fundraising advantage or personal wealth, then you have access to television, radio and other media and you have freedom of speech. But if you do not have a fundraising advantage or personal wealth, then you are denied access. Instead of freedom of speech, you have only the freedom to say nothing. So let us be done with this phony charge that spending limits are somehow an attack on freedom of speech. As Justice Byron White points out, clear as a bell, in his dissent, both contribution limits and spending limits are neutral as to the content of speech and are not motivated by fear of the consequences of the political speech in general. Mr. President, every Senator realizes that television advertising is the name of the game in modern American politics. In warfare, if you control the air, you control the battlefield. In politics, if you control the airwaves, you control the tenor and focus of a campaign. Probably 80 percent of campaign communications take place through the medium of television. And most of that TV airtime comes at a dear price. In South Carolina, you're talking between $1,000 and $2,000 for 30 seconds of primetime advertising. In New York City, it's anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 for the same 30 seconds. The hard fact of life for a candidate is that if you're not on TV, you're not truly in the race. Wealthy challengers as well as incumbents flushed with money go directly to the TV studio. Those without a fundraising advantage or personal wealth are sidetracked to the time- consuming pursuit of cash. The Buckley decision created a double bind. It upheld restrictions on campaign contributions, but struck down restrictions on how much candidates with deep pockets can spend. The Court ignored the practical reality that if my opponent has only $50,000 to spend in a race and I have $1 million, then I can effectively deprive him of his speech. By failing to respond to my advertising, my cash-poor opponent will appear unwilling to speak up in his own defense. Justice Thurgood Marshall zeroed in on this disparity in his dissent to Buckley. By striking down the limit on what a candidate can spend, Justice Marshall said, ``It would appear to follow that the candidate with a substantial personal fortune at his disposal is off to a significant head start.'' Indeed, Justice Marshall went further: He argued that by upholding the limitations on contributions but striking down limits on overall spending, the Court put an additional premium on a candidate's personal wealth. Justice Marshall was dead right and Ross Perot and Steve Forbes have proved it. Massive spending of their personal fortunes immediately made them contenders. Our urgent task is to right the injustice of Buckley versus Valeo by empowering Congress to place caps on Federal campaign spending. We are all painfully aware of the uncontrolled escalation of campaign spending. The average cost of a winning Senate race was $1.2 million in 1980, rising to $2.9 million in 1984, and skyrocketing to $3.1 million in 1986, $3.7 million in 1988, and up to $4.3 in 1996. To raise that kind of money, the average Senator must raise over $13,800 a week, every week of his or her 6-year term. Overall spending in congressional races increased from $446 million in 1990 to more than $724 million in 1994--almost a 70-percent increase in 4 short years. I predict that when the final FEC reports are compiled for 1996, that figure will go even higher. This obsession with money distracts us from the people's business. It corrupts and degrades the entire political process. Fundraisers used to be arranged so they didn't conflict with the Senate schedule; nowadays, the Senate schedule is regularly shifted to accommodate fundraisers. I have run for statewide office 16 times in South Carolina. You establish a certain campaign routine, say, shaking hands at a mill shift in Greer, visiting a big country store outside of Belton, and so on. Over the years, they look for you and expect you to come around. But in recent years, those mill visits and dropping by the country store have become a casualty of the system. There is very little time for them. We're out chasing dollars. During my 1992 reelection campaign, I found myself raising money to get on TV to raise money to get on TV to raise money to get on TV. It's a vicious cycle. I remember Senator Richard Russell saying: ``They give you a 6-year term in this U.S. Senate: two years to be a statesman, the next 2 years to be a politician, and the last 2 years to be a demagogue.'' Regrettably, we are no longer afforded even 2 years as statesmen. We proceed straight to politics and demagoguery right after the election because of the imperatives of raising money. My proposed constitutional amendment would change all this. It would empower Congress to impose reasonable spending limits on Federal campaigns. For instance, we could impose a limit of, say, $800,000 per Senate candidate in a small State like South Carolina--a far cry from the millions spent by my opponent and me in 1992. And bear in mind that direct expenditures account for only a portion of total spending. For instance, my 1992 opponent's direct expenditures were supplemented by hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenditures by independent organizations and by the State and local Republican Party. When you total up spending from all sources, my challenger and I spent roughly the same amount in 1992. And incidentally, Mr. President, let's be done with the canard that spending limits would be a boon to incumbents, who supposedly already have name recognition and standing with the public and therefore begin with a built-in advantage over challengers. Nonsense. I hardly need to remind my Senate colleagues of the high rate of mortality in upper chamber elections. And as to the alleged invulnerability of incumbents in the House, I would simply note that well over 50 percent of the House membership has been replaced since the 1990 elections and just 3 weeks ago we swore in 15 new Senators. I can tell you from experience that any advantages of incumbency are more than counterbalanced by the obvious disadvantages of incumbency, specifically the disadvantage of defending hundreds of controversial votes in Congress. Moreover, Mr. President, I submit that once we have overall spending limits, it will matter little whether a candidate gets money from industry groups or from PAC's or from individuals. It is still a reasonable amount any way you cut it. Spending will be under control, and we will be able to account for every dollar going out. On the issue of PAC's, Mr. President, let me say that I have never believed that PAC's per se are an evil in the current system. On the contrary, PAC's are a very healthy instrumentality of politics. PAC's have brought people into the political process: nurses, educators, small business people, senior citizens, unionists, you name it. They permit people of modest means and limited individual influence to band together with others of mutual interest so their message is heard and known. For years we have encouraged these people to get involved, to participate. Yet now that they are participating, we turn around and say, ``Oh, no, your influence is corrupting, your money is tainted.'' This is wrong. The evil to be corrected is not the abundance of participation but the superabundance of money. The culprit is runaway campaign spending. To a distressing degree, elections are determined not in the political marketplace but in the financial marketplace. Our elections are supposed to be contests of ideas, but too often they degenerate into megadollar derbies, paper chases through the board rooms of corporations and special interests. Mr. President, I repeat, campaign spending must be brought under control. The constitutional amendment Senator Specter and I have proposed would permit Congress to impose fair, responsible, workable limits on Federal campaign expenditures and allow States to do the same with regard to State and local elections. Such a reform would have four important impacts. First, it would end the mindless pursuits of ever-fatter campaign war chests. Second, it would free candidates from their current obsession with fundraising and allow them to focus more on issues and ideas; once elected to office, we wouldn't have to spend 20 percent of our time raising money to keep our seats. Third, it would curb the influence of special interests. And fourth, it would create a more level playing field for our Federal campaigns--a competitive environment where personal wealth does not give candidates an insurmountable advantage. Finally, Mr. President, a word about the advantages of the amend-the- Constitution approach that I propose. Recent history amply demonstrates the practicality and viability of this constitutional route. Certainly, it is not coincidence that five of the last seven amendments to the Constitution have dealt with Federal election issues. In elections, the process drives and shapes the end result. Election laws can skew election results, whether you're talking about a poll tax depriving minorities of their right to vote, or the absence of campaign spending limits giving an unfair advantage to wealthy candidates. These are profound issues which go to the heart of our democracy, and it is entirely appropriate that they be addressed through a constitutional amendment. And let's not be distracted by the argument that the amend-the- Constitution approach will take too long. Take too long? We have been dithering on this campaign finance issue since the early 1970's, and we haven't advanced the ball a single yard. All-the-while the Supreme Court continues to strike down campaign limit after campaign limit. It has been a quarter of a century, and no legislative solution has done the job. Except for the 27th amendment, the last five constitutional amendments took an average of 17 months to be adopted. There is no reason why we cannot pass this joint resolution, submit it to the States for a vote, and ratify the amendment in time for it to govern the 1998 election. Once passed by the Congress, the joint resolution goes directly to the States for ratification. Once ratified, it becomes the law of the land, and it is a Supreme Court challenge. And, by the way, I reject the argument that if we were to pass and ratify this amendment, Democrats and Republicans would be unable to hammer out a mutually acceptable formula of campaign expenditure limits. A Democratic Congress and Republican President did exactly that in 1974, and we can certainly do it again. Mr. President, this amendment will address the campaign finance mess directly, decisively, and with finality. The Supreme Court has chosen to ignore the overwhelming importance of media advertising in today's campaigns. In the Buckley decision, it prescribed a bogus if-you-have-the-money-you-can-talk version of free speech. In its place, I urge the Congress to move beyond these acrobatic attempts at legislating around the Buckley decision. As we have all seen, no matter how sincere, these plans are doomed to fail. The solution rests in fixing the Buckley decision. It is my hope that as the campaign financing debate unfolds, the majority leader will provide us with an opportunity to vote on this resolution--it is the only solution. I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished colleague from California, Senator Boxer.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me first thank Senator Byrd our resident Senate historian. I do not say that lightly--because the distinguished Senator from West Virginia has been masterful in his analysis and been very, very cautious and careful. He has stood many a time for not amending the Constitution, that we don't do this, willy- nilly, for any and every problem. But, after 20 years, thousands of speeches and hours and effort made, he has given a very masterful analysis of the need for this amendment. The Senate and the Nation are indebted to him. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Dodd, of Connecticut, be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Let me thank the distinguished colleague from California. She has spoken to the reality of what we really are confronting. I do not know how you run a race in the State of California. Mr. Huffington, of your State, spent $30 million of his own money to run for Senate and lost. Last week the Senator from Nevada suggested that all Mr. Huffington needs to do would be come to Nevada. In Nevada he could run a fine campaign for $10 million. He could move, saving $20 million of his money, down to the State of Nevada and win, so to speak, with the $10 million. We know we know as in warfare, he who rules the air controls the battlefield. And he who rules the airwaves in politics controls the election. And it is just that cold, hard reality that the Senator from California has spoken to. I am most grateful for her leadership on this particular score. Going right back, Mr. President, to 1974 and the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act, in the aftermath of Watergate. We acted together--Republicans and Democrats and said with a strong vote that we shall not have the Government up for sale and that we had to limit spending in campaigns. So in the 1974 act we limited the individual amount of a contribution. In short, we limited the free speech. Congress did that after a studied debate. We limited the spending of the independent groups at that particular time. We limited the spending of the political action committees. We limited the spending of the individual candidates' own personal wealth, and we limited the overall spending. So the manifest intent in 1974 was to limit what my opponents now characterize as free speech. In the 1976, Buckley decision, the Court went along with Congress' effort to limit an individual's free speech. When it comes to an individual's contribution, they said fine, it is constitutional to limit the spending or free speech of independent groups or of political action committees. On the other hand, the Court then said, expenditures, they are not limited. Any limit on expenditures would be a violation of the first amendment. Now, that left us with a dilemma, the rich candidate or the candidate with a fundraising advantage, he has got unlimited speech because he does not have limits. This and the unlimited spending by candidates has become a cancer on the body politic. Combined spending of both political parties has gone up, as the Senator from California said, to almost a billion dollars. So, Mr. President, what we have here is a terrible dilemma. We wrestled with it for 10 years after that 1976 decision until the mid- 1980's when I first introduced a joint resolution to amend the Constitution and provide Congress the authority to limit campaign spending. We did not have a Pavlovian kind of reaction of ``Ipso facto, just run. Let's go ahead and amend the Constitution.'' We did it after numerous attempts to correct the problem. First it was Common Cause, they said we ought to publicly finance. Time and time again, Congress rejected public financing. Opponents characterized it as food stamps or welfare for politicians. So that is not going to fly. We tried individual voluntary restrictions. If we voluntarily limited, then you can get free time, free television time, free mailings and other benefits. We were never able to come to grips with reform largely because of the Buckley decision. As Chief Justice Burger said in his dissenting opinion, expenditures and contributions were two sides of the same coin, and to try to limit the one and not the other would not wash. That was Chief Justice Burger's characterization of the decision. So we are not coming here as just politicians, but with the support of the best of jurists who have come over the years and criticized the Buckley decision. J. Skelly Wright in the Yale Law Journal said that there was nothing in the first amendment that commits us to the dogma that money is speech. So after trying for 10 years I introduced a constitutional amendment. At that time, we believed perhaps the Court itself saw the practical and the scandalous effect the decision had had and that they would reverse their own decision. But please, my gracious, Mr. President, they shot that idea with last years Colorado Republican Party versus FEC decision and now ``Katie, bar the door. The sky is the limit.'' Now what do we have? We have the practical effect of absolutely no limits. Business leaders now say, ``Senator, you know, we thought that we sort of had done our part when we gave our $1,000. Now after that Colorado decision the telephone rings off the hook. Now I want $100,000.'' ``What in the world has happened to you all here in Washington?'' They think this is the result of a congressional decision. Back in 1974 the Congress agreed, in a bipartisan fashion--not partisan-- that we could only ask for that $1,000. That is no longer the case. I refer to an article in the Monday Washington Post, `Parties' Congressional Campaign Committees Took in Millions in `Soft Money' in 1995-96.'' This is the practical effect of the Colorado decision. This soft money represents independent contributions that, under the Colorado decision, can be spent on congressional campaigns so long as you cannot prove categorically it was coordinated--even though it went for the benefit an individual candidate. In that case, they just started savaging a potential candidate way ahead of time on the radio. Even though the Court is limiting the individual contributions, the PAC contributions, and right on down the line, now they say, ``Well, after all, just go ahead with the so-called soft money,'' so that practically congressional committees have no limits. As the chart shows the committees received ``donations of as much as $735,000 from a single corporation, $310,000 from a union, and $250,000 from an individual from January 1, 1995, through December 31, 1996.'' The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee raised near $27 million in these unregulated donations in the election year, about three times the total 4 years earlier. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee actively solicited soft money for the first time in the 1995-96 campaign, collecting about $14 million compared with the $566,111 in 1991-1992. So, you see, both parties just went running amok. In response to my distinguished friend from Texas, who last week said on this floor that the Republican Party was the poor party and the Democrats were rich, I suggest a look at this chart. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article and the chart be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield to my cosponsor.