Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I appreciate hearing from my friend, Senator Thompson from Tennessee, who differentiates between the new Members and the not-so-new Members. And I do not know in which category I fall. But I am pleased to be on the same side of this issue because I think some of the new Members are standing up and trying to talk the way people are talking back home. I was really struck the other day when I was listening to C-SPAN in one of the call-in programs, and a woman called in with a very simple question. She said, ``My husband and I are working two jobs, and we make $25,000 a year. How is this going to help us?'' I think what Americans are saying is that it is the way Americans are talking. They are saying it is a legitimate question, simple and to the point. And we can answer her question, and we can give her a good answer. What happens to her? Under the new budget, a single mother with one child working two jobs making $15,000 a year will have more money to feed her family and make ends meet. Instead of an EITC check of $864, which is what she would get this year, next year under the Republican plan she will get a check for $1,425. If she has two children, that will go up to $2,488. So she is not going to pay taxes at all. It is going to be how much she gets as an incentive for doing what she is doing, and that is working two jobs instead of being on welfare. She is going to have the incentive of getting a check back from the Government, and not paying taxes, if she is a working mother with one or two children. What about the married couple? This is the woman who called into C- SPAN the other day. For this year, a married couple with two children and an income of $25,000 will pay $929 in income tax. That is this year. With the new Republican budget, next year that couple will not pay taxes at all. Instead, they will get an EITC check of $171. So we are going to eliminate taxes on 3.5 million families that would pay taxes today, that will pay taxes for 1995--3.5 million families in America that are paying taxes this year under our plan will not pay taxes at all next year. That is what it means in real terms. This is what we are trying to do. In 1974, families spent 33 percent of their income on the necessities of housing, health care, and utilities. In 1995, that is 46 percent of a person's income, a family's income. We have heard people talking on the floor about what the real income is. People are making more. But they do not feel like their quality of life is as good. They do not feel like they are able to buy as much for their families, or go out to eat once a week anymore, or go to a movie once a week like they used to be able to do. Yet, they are earning more. What is wrong? That is what is wrong. Instead of 33 percent of their income going to necessities, it is 46 percent. That does not count clothes or food. So what we are trying to do is put the money back into the pockets of our families, and we are putting money into the pockets of our working poor. Let us talk for a minute about the marriage penalty. Right now in our country, unfortunately, we have a marriage penalty. We should be encouraging young couples to get married. But, instead, we discourage them with a marriage penalty. I heard someone on the floor say, ``Oh, if we can do away with the marriage penalty, it will cost the Treasury $25 billion.'' Well, the Wall Street Journal, I think, puts it in perspective. They said wait a minute. To do away with the marriage penalty will save the taxpayers of America $25 billion. This is money that belongs to the person who worked for it. It does not belong to the Treasury. It belongs to the person who worked for it. Now, everyone in our country is here because we want to pay our fair share. [[Page S 16464]] We want to participate in paying taxes for the things that we cannot do ourselves. Everybody has that attitude. It is when the taxes encroach so much on the quality of life and when the family does not really see what that does for them that we start getting people saying, ``Wait a minute. I am paying 39 percent; I am paying 27 percent; I am paying 15 percent,'' whatever it is, ``and I do not see the results. And I don't feel that my taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely.'' That is when people step up and say, ``Let's put this in perspective.'' And that is what we are trying to do. Under the Republican plan, we increase the standard deduction for married couples that are filing jointly. By the year 2005, the marriage penalty will be eliminated for couples that do not itemize their deductions. That is the right approach. That is encouraging families. Also encouraging families is homemaker IRA's. This is something that I and other women Members on both sides of the aisle have been very active in pursuing, and that is because we are saying we value the American family unit. The family unit is the core of our society. And yet, if you are a homemaker working inside the home, doing your part to strengthen society, you cannot set aside $2,000 a year in an IRA for your retirement security. If you work outside the home, you can. But if you work inside the home, you cannot. We are going to change that with the budget reconciliation package that has passed both Houses of this Congress. We are saying the homemaker makes a contribution to the strength of our country that is every bit as important, if not more so, than the contribution made by people who work outside the home. So we are going to correct an inequity that has been in our system. That helps the one-income working family. Many people sacrifice for the homemaker to stay home with the children. And when they sacrifice, they also are going to have to make a sacrifice for retirement security, and I think that is wrong and so did a majority of both Houses of Congress. Then there is the homemaker who becomes displaced after 25 years of marriage; she becomes divorced or she loses her husband. She, too, is discriminated against in retirement security because she does not have that nest egg to build up for her retirement, which she is entitled to. This is in the bill that has passed both Houses. We also add to other investment savings opportunities. America has one of the lowest savings rates of any industrialized country of the world. Why is that? One reason is we tax it twice. We tax savings when you earn it, and we tax it while it is in a savings account. It is taxed twice. Most industrialized countries do not do that. We are going to provide more savings alternatives in this bill so people can put money into an account and the savings will mount tax free, so that when they need it, when their income levels are such that they need it, they are going to be able to pull it out tax free. Or, if they do not wait until retirement because they have an emergency need such as education for children, or first home or health care emergency, that is going to be provided for as well. So it gives people an incentive to save because they know they can draw it out for an emergency and yet they are going to be able to earn money tax free either for their retirement security or for their emergency needs. This is going to be a savings incentive bill that is also, besides helping the family that is trying to take care of its retirement needs or emergency needs, going to spur economic activity which creates new jobs for people coming into our system. So this is a new approach. That is for sure. And many times when you have something new, people are scared. They do not know what to expect, and so they wonder: what is all of this new action going to produce? We are trying to have some simple and basic themes. We are trying to help to encourage the American family. We are trying to encourage the working families that are having a hard time making ends meet but they are not on welfare. They are working to make ends meet, and we are encouraging them by taking more of them, 3.5 million more of them off the tax rolls completely. We are going to do away with the marriage penalty. We are going to try to spur investment to create new jobs in this country. It is very simple. We are trying to save Medicare for our citizens that are on Medicare now as well as for the future. The Medicare trust fund is going broke. The President's own Cabinet people say it is going broke. Our plan is going to save it--not by cutting it but by slowing the rate of growth from 10 percent per year to 6.4 percent per year. Even 6.4 percent per year growth is more than we have in the private sector health care industry now. That is why we think it is reasonable. We are going to save the system. But we are going to do it over a 7-year period so that we can grow gradually rather than having a meat-ax approach. We are doing the responsible thing for this country. We are also keeping a promise. We are doing what we said we would do. We told the people in the 1994 election: Here is what you can expect if you vote for me. The people did vote for us, and now we are giving them what they expected and what they asked for. Did we make a few mistakes? Probably. Do I agree with everything in the bill? No. Probably no one on this floor does either. But we can afford to come back again and correct mistakes that we might have made. What we cannot afford to do is nothing. That is the only mistake that we cannot afford to make. We cannot afford not to fix the Medicare problem. We cannot afford not to balance this budget. And we cannot refuse to keep the promises that we made--for tax cuts, for encouraging the American family, for encouraging the working families of our country. It is going to help the working people of our country and the elderly as we save the Medicare system. I thank the Chair. I thank him for his leadership, and the Senator from Wyoming and others who are speaking to try to set the record straight. It is scary. There is no question that people not knowing what to expect are afraid. We have to let people know exactly what we are doing and hope that their common sense makes them understand that this is going to be good in the long term for our children and grandchildren so that we do not give them this $5 trillion debt that we are bumping up against in 2 weeks in this country. I thank the Chair. Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, thank you.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the resolution that was passed, the sense of the Senate, last Friday unanimously by this body, speaking in the strongest terms to President Milosevic, who is, even as we speak, on his way to the United States to begin peace talks. I wanted to talk about it this morning because we did not really have a chance to debate it fully last Friday. I wanted to pass it last Friday because I wanted the message to be on the record over the weekend about the continuing reports of atrocities, murders, and robberies taking place right now in the former Yugoslavia in the northwest area around Banja Luka. I want to highlight this, Mr. President, because we are hosting three Presidents Wednesday for peace talks, and there are still atrocities being reported in this area. I ask, how can we sit down at a peace table with three warring factions when the war is still going on? So today I am going to talk about the sense-of-the-Senate resolution that was passed, and I am going to ask President Milosevic when he sets foot in the United States to announce that these atrocities will stop, that neutral people will be able to go in and get an accounting for as many as 2,000 men that have not yet been heard from. A U.N. report released 2 weeks ago charges that Bosnian Serbs are still conducting a brutal campaign of ethnic expulsion. Despite the cease-fire, Bosnian Serbs have been subjecting non-Serbs to untold horror, murder, rape, robbery, forcing people from their homes, and other atrocities. According to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, John Shattuck, since mid-September and intensifying between October 6 and 12, many thousands of civilians in northwest Bosnia were systematically forced from their homes by paramilitary units, sometimes abetted by local police who were either too scared or unwilling to intervene, and in some instances by Bosnian Serb Army officials and soldiers. These unfortunate events implore us to move with extreme caution regarding American involvement in this conflict. The intentions of the parties involved, now more than ever, call for prudent, not precipitous, judgment. Examples of ethnic cleansing persist in northwest Bosnia according to the U.N. reports based on interviews with refugees before and after the October 12 cease-fire. Assistant Secretary John Shattuck has now gained access into that area. As many as 2,000 men have been separated from the main group of refugees. U.N. officials are trying to determine their fate amid fears that they may have been executed or sent to the front lines as forced slave laborers. The United Nations also reports that during the latest wave of expulsions, Moslems from Bosanski Novi near Banja Luka, were rounded up at the bus station. Draft-age men were separated from the rest and were held for 5 days without food or water. The U.N. spokesman in Zagreb reported that many refugees have been given just a few minutes to flee their homes and that girls as young as 17 have reportedly been taken to the woods and raped. Elderly, sick, and very young refugees have been driven to remote areas and forced to walk long distances on unsafe roads and cross rivers without bridges. The United Nations has condemned this barbaric treatment of civilians in the strongest possible terms. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 2,000 Moslems and Croats have been forced from their homes since mid-September in Bosnian-Serb-controlled areas. Only about 10,000 are believed to remain, which before the war was home to a half million Moslems and Croats. And what is most distressing is the evidence we have seen of recent atrocities committed by the Serbs after the cease-fire was signed on October 12. It appears that, as a result of recent Bosnian and Croatian advances, the Serbs have lost ground. In an attempt to consolidate their control, they are engaged in a campaign of systematic and widespread abuse aimed at cleansing the territory they still hold of remaining Croats and Moslems. With peace talks scheduled to begin in the United States tomorrow and with the President having clearly indicated his intention to send as many as 20,000 American troops into the heart of this conflict, these new reports of Serbian atrocities are of grave concern and should give us pause. For the Bosnians, this latest outrage by the Serbs must seem to be a dreadful repeat of what happened last summer during the Serb conquest of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia. In that episode, thousands of men were taken out and executed by firing squad, according to survivors, and, in fact, the reports just this weekend in the Washington Post confirmed new sightings of mass graves where thousands of people are buried. These sightings were made from satellite photos taken by our intelligence sources. So we know the horrible stories of what happened at Srebrenica, as reported by refugees, is, in fact, unfortunately and sadly true. But what is even more unfortunate, Mr. President, is that things like this may continue as we speak, and we must do something about it. We must learn from what happened in Srebrenica and recognize that they could be doing it right now, and we must protest. In fact, Mr. President, the Senate did protest. We passed a resolution that says the following: It is the sense of the Senate that the Senate condemns the systematic human rights abuses against the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. With peace talks scheduled to begin in the United States on November 1, 1995, these new reports of Serbian atrocities are of grave concern to all Americans. The Bosnian Serb leadership should immediately halt these atrocities, fully account for the missing, and allow those who have been separated to return to their families. The International Red Cross, the United Nations agencies, and human rights organizations should be granted full and complete access to all locations throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. This resolution was passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate last Friday. We must act now to make sure that these atrocities are stopped and that neutral sources are able to verify that they have stopped and account for the 2,000 missing men. President Milosevic is going to set foot in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base very shortly today. He should immediately announce--and we call on him to immediately announce--that these forces of terror have been stopped, that these atrocities have been stopped. And to show his good will in these peace talks, he should immediately allow for an accounting of the missing people in Bosnia right now. That would be the very first and best step he could make to show that he is, indeed, sincere about wanting to bring peace to this area. Mr. President, the Senate spoke forcefully. I hope we are being heard. If we can stop even one murder from happening, it will be worth it. I wanted to draw attention to the very strong statement that the Senate made last week. I hope that we can use this opportunity, as President Milosevic comes into our country, to ask him to show his good faith by saying that people will be accounted for and the atrocities will stop. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the Senator from New Mexico. I want to talk for 2 minutes about the atrocities that we believe may be going on right now in Bosnia. I have submitted a sense-of-the-Senate resolution so that the Senate can speak out against these atrocities and ask the Bosnian Serb leadership to stop forthwith anything that might be going on that is a crime in the area of Banja Luka. We saw in the Washington Post this morning and in the New York Times last week what now appears to be mass murders in Srebrenica by the Serbs in July. The problem, Mr. President, is this may be going on right now around Banja Luka. I want the U.S. Senate to speak forcefully, asking the Serb leadership, if they are going to try to sit down at a peace table, that the least they can do is allow our Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck, people from the United Nations, people from the Red Cross into the Banja Luka area to certify that there are not mass murders going on right now to account for the men who have been rounded up in factories, in stadiums and, if they are still alive, to let them go back to their families and, if there are crimes being committed, to stop them forthwith. I think it is time that we as a Senate, on a bipartisan basis, speak loudly and clearly. My sense-of-the-Senate resolution has been filed as an amendment. It is Hutchison, McCain, Lieberman, Stevens, Levin and Thomas, and many cosponsors are coming from both sides of the aisle. Mr. President, we must speak and the Serb leadership must stand up and say these atrocities have stopped. Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the manager of the bill for letting me speak on this very important subject. If we can stop one murder right now, it will be worth it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded and that I be allowed to speak for 2 minutes as in morning business, not to take away from the time on either side. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished majority leader for bringing this to a head. It has not been easy. We have talked about this for years. The people of Israel have fought repeatedly to hold the State of Israel intact. They have designated their capital. The capital is Jerusalem. This historic, important religious city is their capital. I think it is most unusual for the United States to go to another city to establish its Embassy when the country where we are being hosted has established a different city for its capital. The time has come long since for America to recognize the capital city of Israel. It is Jerusalem. It is time for us to move in a responsible way to [[Page S 15534]] have our Embassy also in the capital city of Jerusalem. I commend the majority leader and the Senator from Arizona for their leadership in this area. I appreciate the fact that all factions have come together. Clearly, there must be some leeway for the President to make this move in a timely way. I think that leeway has been granted. This is quite a reasonable resolution. The time has come for us to have our Embassy in the capital of Israel. The capital is Jerusalem. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Idaho, who made a terrific statement, and the Senator from Mississippi, who asked many of us to talk about the big picture. So many times in this Congress we talk about the minutia, the crisis of the day--and it seems like there is a crisis every day. But I think it is time, because the rhetoric is flying and because tempers are getting short, that we step back and look at the big picture. Almost 1 year ago, the people elected a new Congress. They rejected business as usual; they ended the reign of spendthrifts that mortgaged their grandchildrens' future for a handful of votes on the first Tuesday every other year. Now, after a year of preparation, we are ready to put into effect the changes that will protect us from bankruptcy and preserve the strength of our Union. During this week, we will debate our future course as a people and as a government. The question before us is simple: Will we follow the path of those who want us to tax and spend and borrow until we are so deep in debt and denial that we are fiscally and morally bankrupt? Or, will we set this country on the path toward freedom and prosperity for all, with charity for those who cannot help themselves? One of our greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln, said, ``A house divided against itself cannot stand.'' Just as our country could not live ``half slave half free,'' it cannot live in a perpetual class war with the poor incited to battle the rich, the old to fight the young, or the sick to fight the healthy. We cannot make the public better off by pitting them against one another for partisan advantage. We must work together for the benefit of all of us--for our children, for our handicapped, for our elderly--instead of using them as props in publicity stunts designed to turn people against progress without examining the facts. President Clinton has led the charges that Republicans seek to gut Medicare to give a tax break to the rich. How many times have you heard that said in the last few weeks? The Speaker of the House said that the President has reduced himself to scaring old people to try to defeat our balanced budget. In his all-out effort to defend the status quo, the President, who campaigned for change, takes advantage of his most vulnerable citizens and threatens the solvency of their health care trust. Last week, when President Clinton admitted that he and the Democrats in Congress had made a mistake in raising taxes, according to the Washington Post, reporters for the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times skipped the speech and went out for Mexican food. I will not argue with their choice of menus--after all, they were in Texas--but when they read the speech later, they still did not think it was news. Apparently, they are so used to the flip-flops by the President that his repudiation of the largest tax increase in the history of America did not sink in. I am not surprised that the President chose Texas as the place to admit that his tax hikes were a mistake, because in Texas most Democrats believe that Government should take less, not more. That is why so many of them have either been crossing the aisle or supporting Republicans. Why are they doing that? Because we are protecting the elderly by saving Medicare from bankruptcy. We are lowering taxes on the middle class, and we are cutting spending to balance the budget. In short, Mr. President, we are keeping our promises. We are not protecting the status quo. We are reordering priorities and ending fraud, waste, and subsidies. We must act now. If no changes are made to the budget, entitlement spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and Federal retirement plus interest on the debt will take over the entire Federal budget by the year 2012. Now, Mr. President, think of that. In the year 2012, entitlement spending which is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and retirement plus interest on the debt will be the entire Federal budget. There will be no defense spending, no spending to help crime, education, or anything else. Medicare will be insolvent next year according to members of the President's own Cabinet. By the year 2002, it will be bankrupt. Our Medicare reform proposal slows the rate of growth but it does not cut spending in Medicare. It slows the rate of growth, but increased spending will amount to 73 percent over the next 7 years. The total spending will be $1.6 trillion for Medicare alone. No one will [[Page S 15419]] be without health care. Seniors will have more choices. They can keep the old plan or choose a new one that suits them better. We do this by cutting fraud and waste and reining in the exploding costs. Our tax cut reduces the tax burden on people who actually pay taxes. It closes loopholes. More than three-quarters of the cuts in the first year go to the middle class--those making $75,000 or less. Now, who are those people? They are mothers and fathers who will get help raising their children with a $500 per child tax credit; they are homemakers who will have the opportunity for the first time to contribute the maximum amount to an IRA for their retirement security; they are married couples who will have the Tax Code's marriage penalty reduced; and they are savers who are trying to buy a first home, pay for college for their kids, or retirement for themselves. Our tax cut benefits all Americans. It will put more money in people's pockets, and it will increase jobs. Together with a balanced budget, it will lower interest rates and increase the standard of living for millions of Americans. The time for publicity stunts, Mr. President, for walking out, for shouting, for interrupting meetings with demonstrators, and for labeling Republicans ``extremists'' is over. The public spoke clearly last November. They saw through the antics and the publicity stunts and they asked for leadership. Leadership is not increasing taxes on the elderly and everybody who drives a car and then claim you only hit the rich, which the Democrats without one Republican vote did in 1993. It is not leadership to walk away from those tax increases 2 years later and to attack others who seek to lower the tax burden now. It is not leadership to propose a budget to this Congress this year with a $200 million deficit. It is not leadership to propose only 4 months later, a 10-year budget which you say balances but which does not. It is leadership to confront our fiscal problems head on, to show the people that we must preserve Medicare--and we will--to help families, to create jobs, and to balance the budget. The American people asked for leadership, for the Congress to shoulder the responsibility of showing them the way. This budget ends the culture of dependence, the belief that the people cannot provide for themselves. It shows the way toward hope and prosperity for all, with charity for those who cannot help themselves. The American people have created the greatest country on Earth with the intelligence, the creativity, and the energy God gave them. It is our responsibility as their leaders to maintain the opportunity they have created and that this great country offers. That is what we are trying to do, Mr. President. We are making the tough decisions to assure the future. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to invite the attention of the Senate to an article in the October 2 edition of the Washington Times entitled ``Abdicating on the Case for the Endowments.'' The author is Leonard Garment, a Washington lawyer who has followed the issue of Federal funding of the arts and humanities since he worked as White House counsel to President Richard Nixon. ``That soft gurgling you hear,'' writes Mr. Garment, ``is the sound of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities being slowly strangled to death.'' In the article, Mr. Garment lists the abuses of the public trust that, in his words, ``denigrate the values of millions of taxpaying Americans.'' The notorious Andres Serrano project. The panels that judge projects by ideological litmus tests and fund the politically correct. The wheelbarrows full of money dumped into frivolous whimsies. He concludes that the solution is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater--to risk weakening America's cultural treasures because of these abuses. Rather, he advocates a clean break with the past. He would disassemble and rebuild them from the ground up. ``Such reforms,'' he writes ``are not only possible but already on the congressional table--in the form of a bill, jointly introduced by Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Robert Bennett of Utah, that addresses every one of these issues.'' I am gratified that a man of Mr. Garment's stature and experience supports our bill. I recommend this excellent article to my colleagues, and I ask that it be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the Washington Times, Oct. 2, 1995] Abdicating on the Case for the Endowments (By Leonard Garment) That soft gurgling you hear is the sound of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities being slowly strangled to death. The House of Representatives has voted to fund the endowments at drastically reduced levels and take them out entirely in two years. The Senate, while not imposing a similar deadline, has also slashed the endowments' money. Yet most fans of the endowments are walking around with ``What, me worry?'' smiles on their faces. Since they survived, they think their arguments worked and that they can just keep making these arguments again and again until their opponents' fervor cools. Then it will be business as usual. I fear the endowment enthusiast overestimate the stamina of their friends and underestimate the resentment of their adversaries, in Congress and out. The editorial stalwarts at The Washington Post, for example seem to have quietly tiptoed out of the current debate, leaving it to Jonathan Yardley, The Post's senior book reviewer and distinguished social commentator--a man with cast-iron convictions, by the way--to call for an end to the Endowments (Aug. 28, Sept. 10, Sept. 25). During this barrage, the Post gave ``Taking Exception'' time to a wearily hackneyed defense of the humanities endowment by one of its senior officials (Sept. 19). Jane Alexander, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the lead horse of the cultural troika, appears to have taken a sabbatical powder from public advocacy, apparently content to let matters rock along without risking a misstep that might upset the congressional stay of execution. The national endowments are making a miserable mistake in thus defaulting on the attacks against them, letting the once-splendid arts and humanities enterprise fade slowly into history with little more than befuddled whimpers of support. This is a pity, since every legitimate objection made by those who want to pull the plug on the endowments can be answered. What has been missing, as usual, is the creative intelligence and the legislative will necessary to do so. After 30 years of reasonably close observation of the spasms of congressional support and hostility toward the endowments, it seems to me that the current mixture of indifference and resentment, reflecting the powerful conservative political tide, involves five major categories of complaint. First, it is said that the endowments have supported artistic and humanities projects that denigrate the values of millions of taxpaying Americans. Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, Annie Sprinkle and Her Magnificent Speculum, blah, blah, blah. All true. However these unpleasant projects came to be funded, the relevant fact is that they should not have been. But the chance of such mistakes in the future can be reduced to near-zero if the endowments are prohibited from awarding grants, subgrants or fellowships to individuals. These personal subventions have been the main instruments of the corrosive damage inflicted on the endowments. Next, the endowments are called mutual back-scratching societies that use their hundreds of so-called ``peer panels'' to support highly personal and ideological judgements about art and scholarship. True again. But this need not be if we eliminate the large array of narrow and manipulable peer panels and create a small number of cross- disciplinary advisory groups, less vulnerable to parochialism and conflict of interest, to advise the endowment leadership on the distribution of endowment resources. The arts and humanities are too important to be left to artists and humanities--who are intensely concerned, and understandably so, with self-expression, not with safeguarding cultural institutions from political harm. Individual grants and fellowships are a fine idea but quintessentially the business of private foundations and corporate or individual donors. And I refuse to believe that an artist or scholar who has something important to say will pack up his palette or PC if he or she is not paid in advance. Just try making the argument for the necessity of individual grants to the hordes of young writers, painters and musicians who work without complaint at part-time jobs to support their particular muses. Third, critics contend that the endowments are used by federal arts bureaucracies as instruments for their own private agendas. Also true. To the extent that the law permits, we should clear out these long-timers--who think they, not the taxpayers, own the endowments. We should make the rest accountable to a council subject to Senate confirmation as well. The council should be composed of mature persons required by law to be genuinely ``learned in the arts and humanities.'' Even allowing for the occasional political hack who will slide through, such a council would be very difficult for bureaucracies to roll. Front and center for years now, the big complaint is that the endowments try to be all things to all constituencies rather than acting out of their own sense of national cultural mission. For this grievance Congress has a remedy at hand. It can establish by law that the endowments will support only American cultural institutions whose weakening or destruction would mean the loss of irreplaceable treasures. These institutions--there are not that many--would be selected by the national council and would be the nation's indisputable best: The great museums, symphony orchestras, jazz ensembles, art schools, performing arts centers, ballet, operas and theater companies. In short, they would be the emblems of the honor that America gives to its major cultural institutions and of the importance it ascribes to them as instruments of aesthetic education. Congress also can (and should) stipulate that [[Page S 15294]] a substantial part of the federal arts and humanities budgets will be distributed, by formula, to states and local governments for the support of local equivalents of the national treasures, mandating substantial community outreach as a condition of the award of public support. This money would also be subject to a categorical ban on individual grants. Finally, the endowments are said to be overloaded with administrative costs and redundancies in areas, such as film production, already supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting System. A final ``true.'' To solve this problem, the two endowments (and the Institute for Museum Services) should be consolidated into a single endowment under unified leadership, with a presiding chairman and three deputies for the arts, humanities and museum services components. This merger would save millions of dollars, and each of the constituent organizations would benefit immensely from the enhanced cross-disciplinary scrutiny. The humanities section of the new endowment could be constructively pared by at least a third of its present budget with that money redistributed to meet large and urgent arts and museum services needs. (Thumb through the annual NEH catalogue of humanities grants; if you can explain 10 percent of these mystifying projects, you should be the next dean of Harvard College.) Such reforms are not only possible but already on the congressional table--in the form of a bill, jointly introduced by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Robert Bennett of Utah, that addresses every one of these issues. It would be a shame if partisans of the endowments ignored this bill and thus missed the opportunity to anticipate and block the future proposals that will otherwise lead inevitably to the evisceration of the endowments. It may be too late in the budget cycle to consider structural reforms'' right now; but reauthorization or deauthorization time will soon roll around and a deep breath and a careful look at the history and future structure of the endowments will be in order. The national endowments are powerful symbols of an American commitment to the support and dissemination of the arts and humanities at a time when a horrifying junk culture pervades our public spaces. Even aside from this concern, abandoning the endowments would be a shabby act, utterly unworthy of a great nation. Their massive 30-year contribution to American culture dwarfs their mistakes. They furnish unequaled cognitive tools for early education for the children of what will be the largest and most complex multi-cultural nation in the world. Ways and means can be debated; what I believe unarguable is that the endowments should not be destroyed--slowly, swiftly or at all--simply because aggressive cultural predators and self-indulgent members of the federal bureaucracy have occasionally corrupted the work of the agencies over the past three decades. And if these persons and organizations now hope to stave off reform, believing responsible defenders of the endowments will simply go away, those of us who care for the arts and humanities and understand their importance should not let them get away with it.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of House Concurrent Resolution 94 regarding the use of the Capitol rotunda for a Raoul Wallenberg ceremony just received from the House, that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to this measure be placed in the Record at the appropriate place as if read.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will be happy to yield. Let me say, before the Senator from Georgia leaves, that I think that his last point was a very important one. That is, in the future as we look at the ABM Treaty and the missile defense technologies, I think that the strategic interests of the United States will probably be parallel with the interests of Russia because both of us will want to look for other ways to defend our own shores from potential ballistic missile attack. That is something that I think the Russians will be in agreement with the United States on, and I certainly hope that we can pursue our mutual defenses as we keep the ABM Treaty able to change with the times. It is no longer a bipolar world but, in fact, a multipolar world. So we will want to make sure that the ABM Treaty can last by letting it change with the times. Well, I want to certainly yield some time to the Senator from Louisiana. I also do want to mention that Senator Cohen from Maine was going to be with us today to add to this discussion. And a very sad thing happened. He lost his father just over the weekend, so he was not able to come. And our thoughts and prayers are certainly with Senator Cohen at this time. And we look forward to having a debate with him included because he is a thoughtful person who has traveled through these countries as well and I think will add greatly to the debate. I yield now to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, could I inquire from the Senator from Louisiana if he wishes to speak on this subject or did he want to change subjects?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. One other point that I think is important. The Senator from Georgia was very instrumental in negotiating the language that we put in our authorization bill regarding the missile defense capabilities that the United States would have and how that relates to the ABM Treaty that we have with Russia, and it also affects the START Treaty, which is being looked at for ratification by the Duma, the Russian Duma at this time. I think those are very important issues, along with the nuclear warheads that are still in Russia. All of those are issues that I think must be looked at as we determine how our relationship with Russia and the impact that NATO expansion and the way we do it has. As the Senator from Georgia mentioned, there will be no Russian veto of NATO expansion. But as we move along, we can certainly make this decision in the right way that keeps our ability to negotiate with Russia on any changes in the ABM Treaty, on ratification of the START Treaty, those things that are very important to our security as well as their security and the security of Eastern Europe. So it is not just an easy decision that we make with regard to any one country in Eastern Europe, as the Senator from Georgia fully realizes, especially having been so involved in the negotiations on what we will do in the future to protect our borders and our theaters from potential ballistic missile attack.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Along that same line, if the Senator would yield, I think it is also important that we link Russian behavior to any expansions of NATO and how those will come about so that there will be an incentive on the part of Russia to make sure that they are cooperating in the community of nations and that they understand that it is only if we begin to see a buildup or some sort of aggressive behavior that then we would come in in a very swift manner and look at the expansion possibilities.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a moment, I should like to say I really appreciate, of course, his very articulate view of this issue. He has given speeches on this subject. As I said earlier, he and I have traveled with the Armed Services Committee to Russia. We have met with members of the Duma and we have also been to many of the new emerging Eastern European democracies. And I think that it would be very important for us to keep in mind the conflicts that we see in many of those different countries versus what we hear from members of the Duma. And I thought it was especially important that Senator Nunn mentioned the reformers, and I would like him, if he would, to comment on the upcoming elections and the impact that this discussion could have on those upcoming elections.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, Senator Nunn's plane is late, so I am going to start this dialog. Senator Nunn and I and other Democrats and Republicans have been talking about NATO expansion. We are very concerned that the debate needs to take place, that Americans need to understand what is important, what the questions should be, and what should be the criteria for the expansion of NATO. After all, all of us understand that NATO is a mutual defense pact. And if we expand NATO, we must ask for and receive from the entering nation defense assurances, and we must also give those same defense assurances. Therefore, we are talking about American troops and American tax dollars, just as all of our NATO allies will be looking at the obligations they must accept. All of us must realize how very important and crucial this decision is going to be. The expansion of NATO is a strategic decision that must not be made in haste and must not be made before we answer the crucial questions. So Senator Nunn and I are taking this hour, along with others of our colleagues, to talk about it. Let us raise some of the questions that we think need to be answered, and let us look at potential alternatives, as well as the actual expansion of NATO, and the timetable that we might look at if we decide to make that decision. The political map of Europe has changed dramatically since the toppling of the Berlin Wall. Just as these changes were a direct result of half a century of American leadership and NATO resolve, so, too, does the future of peace and stability in Europe depend on a strong and enduring NATO. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of new governments, along with old ethnic and border disputes in Eastern Europe, a new set of challenges confronts the North Atlantic alliance. A NATO study just released last week takes a decidedly positive stance toward the possibility of expanding NATO membership. The NATO study is specific in that it asserts that new NATO members will have the same benefits and obligations of all the other members of the alliance. The study also anticipates no change in NATO nuclear policy or in the forward basing of NATO ground forces. These points are important, as far as they go. However, there are a number of very serious issues raised by the issue of NATO enlargement, and these questions need to be analyzed thoroughly before the United States and our NATO allies commit ourselves to this course of action. First, although the NATO study talks about expansion leading to increased stability and security, it is largely silent on the real why of NATO enlargement. The real why is the deep concern in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries about a future threat from Russia and the West's stake in responding to this potential threat. Second, the study does not address the Russian reaction to NATO expansion. It notes that Russia has raised concerns which NATO is attempting to address, but the fact is that eastward NATO expansion in the near future is almost certain to prompt opponents of democracy and economic reform in Russia to new heights of paranoia and provocative nationalism. It could weaken the prodemocracy and proreform elements of the Russian polity that we should be striving to support. Rather than strengthening stability and security in Eastern Europe, repercussions in Russia from rapid NATO expansion could undermine our most important national security goal. Third, full NATO membership for the nations of Eastern Europe has the potential to draw the United States and our NATO allies into regional border and ethnic disputes in which we have no demonstrable national security interest. Many Americans and many of us in Congress have serious reservations about President Clinton's proposal to commit United States troops to a peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. This is an issue we will debate here at a later date. But disagreements about the wisdom of this commitment within this body across our Nation and within NATO are directly relevant to NATO expansion. Is it in America's interest to enter into treaty obligations that could end up committing American military and political power to current and future regional border and ethnic disputes in Eastern Europe and the Balkans? When President Clinton argues that we must put troops on the ground in Bosnia in order to keep faith with our NATO allies and our leadership within the alliance, it illustrates perfectly the very real risks of rapid NATO expansion. Before the United States and our NATO allies take this step to guarantee mutual defense, we must acknowledge that the potential for civil war and border and ethnic strife in Eastern Europe is high. After years of vacillation and debate about what America should do about Bosnia, we must also acknowledge that there has not been a clear policy. To embark on NATO expansion without resolving this crucial question could be disastrous. Potential flash points in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are easy to identify. Current and potential NATO members are directly involved in every one of them: Serbian opposition to Kosovo's aspirations to independence; Greek opposition to Macedonian independence; longstanding border disputes between Poland and Ukraine; unresolved problems stemming from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. If we move ahead rapidly with NATO expansion and the full mutual defense and security commitments that such membership implies, would that set the stage for direct American military involvement in such disputes as we have been drawn into in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia? That is a very important question that we must answer before we take such a giant step. Mr. President, there are alternatives to rapid NATO expansion, alternatives [[Page S 14844]] which would establish a rational progression to eventual NATO membership and which would provide real encouragement and support to the nations we want to help. The economic and political integration of all the nations of Eastern Europe is the best way to ensure long-range stability and a rational progression to expanded NATO membership. For instance, any country eligible for European Union membership should be considered for NATO membership. So you start with European Union membership requirements and the economic and trade alliances that would provide stability, and then you take the next step to NATO membership. Expanding trade and strengthening free market capitalism in the newly emergent nations of Eastern Europe would establish a strong foundation for peace and stability based on mutual interests. In parallel fashion, resolution of regional and internal disputes should be a precondition for eligibility for NATO membership. The Partnership for Peace and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should be used to help bring about permanent solutions to ethnic and other disputes involving European countries and the Eastern European countries anxious to join NATO. It will also strengthen the democracies in those countries. This would maximize security and stability within Eastern Europe and underscore that expansion is not aimed at Russia. I believe American and NATO leadership and influence should be directed at setting up a means for arbitrating these disputes to bring an end to the existing conflicts and to head off future situations that could be caused by these disputes. No Nation should be considered for NATO membership unless it has committed itself for the present and the future to accept peaceful resolution of local and regional conflicts. One approach would be to create a forum for arbitration, comprised of peers acceptable to all parties to the conflict. To be considered for NATO membership, all countries would agree to binding arbitration of border and ethnic disputes. This might be part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the Partnership for Peace. But let us put that idea on the table. If the American labor negotiation concept is binding arbitration, if the parties agree to the peers that would be the judges, would this not be a way to stop the ethnic and border conflict before they erupt into the tragedy that we have seen in the former Yugoslavia? Rather than pell-mell rushing into NATO membership, the implications of which are fraught with dangers and complications, the United States and its Eastern European allies and our Western European allies should initiate a series of coordinated efforts to strengthen new democracies and build a stronger economy and bind the nations of Europe to a set of rules that would ensure peace and stability for decades to come. The NATO allies should also make their position clear, with respect to the overarching goal of NATO membership, the possibility of future Russian aggression. Ironically, those countries with the most valid concerns in this regard--the Balkan nations and the Ukraine--are, because of their proximity to Russia, the least likely to gain NATO membership in the short run. The people of these countries are unlikely to feel more secure if NATO expands eastward but stops short of their borders, in effect, placing them in a buffer zone between an enlarged NATO and a more paranoid Russia. The NATO allies should ensure that all parties understand that accelerated and, if necessary, immediate enlargement of NATO would depend directly upon Russian behavior. And in this way we would provide a basis for accelerated NATO expansion in response to a real threat, but we would avoid provoking the very threat we are trying to guard against. The key criterion would remain as outlined in the NATO study recently released, Enhancement of Europe's Security and Stability. This twofold strategy for the post-cold-war Europe would provide the affected nations with what they need most, a foundation to build greater prosperity and stability and a NATO security commitment against the possibility of future Russian aggression. This straightforward approach is also important for our citizens and those in other NATO countries who will have to pay the bills and make the sacrifices required by expanding eastward NATO's security commitments. We, in America, cannot assess public opinion in other countries, of course. But when NATO expansion and the debate that will follow focuses on the issues of NATO nuclear policy, NATO troop deployment, NATO infrastructure development, and former NATO commitments, played against the background of repercussions in Russia and priorities for our fewer defense dollars in the United States, we must first understand public opinion in our country, and we and our allies must undertake our primary goal, to maintain the underlying strength of NATO. NATO has the total support of the American people. As we move forward to an expanding cooperation and mutual defense, we must maintain that American support of NATO. All of the issues that I have raised must be considered before we expand, so that once the commitment is made, we can be assured that we have the absolute will and determination to keep our commitment. The American people must fully understand and support the role of the United States for that goal to be achieved. Mr. President, as I said when I started, Senator Nunn and I and many of our colleagues have traveled throughout the new Eastern European democracies. We have gone to Russia, as members of the Armed Services Committee. We have met with members of the Russian Duma. We want to take the steps that are right, and we want to take them at the right time. That is why Senator Nunn and I and others of our colleagues wanted to take this time today to start the debate, to start the thinking process, to make sure that we have thought of every eventuality and that the American people understand what is important, what questions must be asked, and what the criteria are for expanded NATO membership. Mr. President, Senator Nunn has arrived. As I said, his plane was late, but he has now arrived. I want to take this opportunity before I turn the floor over to the senior Senator from Georgia to say that I, like so many of my colleagues, watched him yesterday announce that he would not seek a fifth term to the U.S. Senate. He said he needs time to read, write, and think. Mr. President, all of us understand in this body how very important the time to think and to write is to a good public debate and a solid public policy. I just want to say that I think Senator Nunn has provided that thoughtful public policy leadership in his four terms in the Senate, as chairman and now ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, on which I have been very fortunate to sit. I have worked with Senator Nunn and have come to respect him greatly for the thought that he gives to public policy and for the leadership that he has given for our country. He and I agree in almost every respect about the need for a strong national defense, the need for us to think to the future, and I feel that by taking this time out, he is going to continue to provide even greater leadership for what we must do for the future to make sure that our country remains strong militarily. I will end by just saying that I think the best of all things that can be said about the Senator is that he had the instinct to know when it was time for him to go and the judgment to do it while people still hoped that he would stay. Mr. President, I thank you and I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. The Senator would be happy to yield.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I am joined by Senators Gorton, Kempthorne and Kyl in making this statement in order to clarify the continuing resolution, and to prevent any misunderstanding of its terms.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President today the Senate is considering House Joint Resolution 108, the resolution to continue appropriations for fiscal year 1996. I would like to ask the manager of the bill to confirm my understanding that the continuing resolution keeps in place for its duration the moratorium on the listing of the endangered species and the designation of critical habitat enacted in Public Law 104-6 of April 10, 1995. Is that correct?

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I wish to add my statement in support of Senator Bingaman's amendment of which I am a cosponsor. I do appreciate this 10 percent set-aside for the colonias. Colonias are places that we did not know existed in America. You would not believe it. I have walked in a colonia. They are places that people live that do not have good water, and they do not have sanitary systems or sewage treatment. They are terrible. What we are we doing with this amendment is to say that it is a priority for our country to clear those places up so that every American has the ability to live in sanitary, basically clean conditions. I support the amendment. I appreciate Senator Bond taking this amendment for us to make sure that we serve the people in need. The issue of designating a portion of border States' CDBG money for housing is one of giving proper recognition and emphasis to the development needs of severely distressed, rural and mostly unincorporated settlements located along the United States-Mexico border. Colonias are located within 150 miles of the Mexican border, in the States of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. Texas has the longest border with Mexico of any state. In 1993, Texas reported the existence of 1,193 colonias with an estimated population of 279,963 people. In 1994, New Mexico reported 34 colonias, with a population of 28,000 residents. Senator Bingaman and I believe it important to formally recognize the scale of this challenge. For fiscal year 1995, VA, HUD appropriations report language specified 10 percent of the State's share of CDBG money for housing in colonias. The conference report did not specify, ``colonias,'' but instead, folded that commitment into $400 million for a number of new initiatives. That money came under a sunset provision. It requires new action to continue the formal commitment from us at the Federal level. This does not involve any new or additional funds. It is merely a statement of urgent priority that these funds be available for housing in the colonias upon application. This money only comes from the border States' shares. It does not impinge on any other States or their resources. Mr. President, I urge we reaffirm that commitment to the people of the colonias that they are truly a part of American society and America's priorities. I urge my colleagues to support the Bingaman-Hutchison amendment.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the chairman for letting me have this minute to respond to my colleague, because her point is so very important. And that is, Senator Mikulski and I and the other women Senators have looked at the amount of money that has been spent on women's health in this country. It is appallingly small, Mr. President. The women's health issues have not been addressed to anywhere near the degree that would be required according to the number of people in our country who are stricken by these women's diseases. In fact, we are on the cusp, because of the space station and because of the microgravity conditions, of being able to have breakthroughs both in breast cancer research and osteoporosis. That is why this is so very important for us to continue. I appreciate the emphasis of the Senator from Maryland on women's health care issues, and it is because of her leadership that we all know that women's health care research has not had the funding that we have needed through all these many years, and now is the time that we have the ability to do it. I appreciate her support in a bipartisan way for us to be able to continue the space station, which is going to give us the chance to have those breakthroughs that we hope will be able to cure breast cancer and stop osteoporosis, which is causing so much pain for the elderly people in our country. I thank Senator Mikulski.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Because we have done it on a bipartisan basis.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. If I can have a minute to answer, I would be happy to. But I understand if others are seeking to speak, that----

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I appreciate the question.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would be happy to.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I want to thank the chairman of the committee and the ranking member for leading in the effort once again for the 20th time to support the space station. In fact, Congress has reaffirmed year after year that it is committed to the space station and the new endeavors that are being made every day because we are willing to take this chance to go out and look for new industries and look for new technologies. [[Page S 14235]] I have two points, Mr. President. First, we are not doing the space station alone. This is not any longer just a U.S. mission. It is an international mission. We have international partners. Many countries in Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia are putting money into this program because they know this joint effort is so very important. Are we going to be a bad business partner? That is the question here. Are we going to say, ``Yes, put in $4.5 billion,'' which our international partners have done, ``but we are not really committed. We are going to walk away from this project after we have told you that we are going to do it.'' Mr. President, I do not think the United States is going to be a bad business partner. And, in fact, I think if we did the ethical thing, if we did decide to walk away from it, we would have to reimburse the $4.5 billion to the partners that have put up the money. That would be a terrible waste. It would be the wrong thing to do. That is on the business side. That is on just being a good partner. That is on ethics. Let us talk about the merits, and that is my second point. Let us talk about the merits. You heard people say that the science is not there; this is going to crowd out other science projects. In fact, this is a science project that has cut its budget, that has streamlined, that has not put its head in the sand to say, ``Oh, we are scientific, we cannot cut our budget.'' In fact, we have cut our budget $40 billion. We are cutting by streamlining the project. But the point is, there are things being done in the space station that cannot be done in any other way. And that is because the microgravity conditions that we find in space are so important for cancer research, especially women's cancer research, such as breast cancer and osteoporosis, which hits women the hardest. Those can only be done in the microgravity conditions which cannot be duplicated on Earth. So we are looking at scientific advances that cannot be done in any other way but this one. And we are on the brink of making breakthroughs. We also are on the brink of learning how we are going to be able to live better in space. And, Mr. President, we have to be looking to the future. We have to see what kind of environment there is, what we can get from the environment and the environmental lessons that we learn in space. So the science is good. Mr. President, we have been able to grow in this country. We have been able to absorb the immigrants that come to our country, the new people that grow up in our country because we have been willing to do the basic research that may or may not produce something. We know it is always chance when you go out and you burst forward to do the new things that have not been done before. We have been willing to do that in America. We have been willing to spend that extra money to try to find out what the new technologies are and to grab those new technologies and turn them into new products, new technologies, and the new jobs that go right down to the grassroots of the success of our country and our economy. We have been willing to do that. That has been the hallmark of our country. We have the can-do spirit. We are the leaders of the world in research and technology and development. We are acknowledged as that. Are we going to turn around and say, ``No, let's be stagnant. Let's look back 200 years ago and see what was done then. We don't need to do any more. We have actually done everything that we need to do now.'' If we do that, Mr. President, that is the beginning of the end of this dynamic country that is the greatest superpower in the world. That is not America, Mr. President. That is not the way we have built this country, and it is not the way we are going to keep this country strong, we are going to keep our economy vital, we are going to create the new jobs for the young people coming out of high school and college, the immigrants that come into our country looking for the opportunity that this country has always provided. We are going to continue to have those opportunities and to make those opportunities by investing in research. Our research budget in this country used to be about 4 percent. Now it is below 2 percent. We must not walk away from that in the name of cutting spending. That is eating our seed corn. Our seed corn is what gives us the opportunity to create those new technologies that will absorb the new people in our system and keep us vibrant and robust. I thank the Chair.