Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Let me repeat to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. INHOFE. The distinguished Senator from West Virginia has asked the question a couple of times that I previously answered, and that question is, What are we doing? I think, I say to the Senator, that if we have demonstrated that we have been incapable of doing it, that we are incapable of facing up to that insatiable appetite for spending money that future generations will have to pay back, year after year after year, then that should be evidence enough the discipline, the word you do not seem to like, is necessary.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia for yielding. The Senator asked a question, and the question was: Why not pass a tax increase? I suggest to the Senator from West Virginia that we passed, under the Clinton budget in 1993, what has been characterized as the largest single tax increase in our Nation's history. All too often, we go back and say what a great job the administration did and we have these wonderful reductions in the deficit. I suggest to the Senator from West Virginia that a lot of people out there are learning that that kind of talk is not being very honest. There was an article in Reader's Digest, I believe it was last December, the name of which was ``Budget Baloney.'' In that article, they said, to let you know how they do things in Washington, a guy who has $5,000 who wants a $10,000 car, all he does is say, ``Well, I really wanted a $15,000 car, but I settled on a $10,000 car. So I reduced the deficit by $5,000.'' We played games for so long that I think we have an awareness and an understanding by the public out there that they did not have in years past. I can recall one of your very good friends that you served with, Senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska, way back in 1972 was trying so hard to convince the American people that we could not continue on this road of increased deficits. Our deficit in 1972 was $15 billion. I remember this so well, because they tried to get the people of America to understand how significant the debt was, and they stacked up $1,000 bills until they were the height of the Empire State Building to try to impress upon people how significant the debt was. The debt at that time, in 1972, was $240 billion. The first question you asked was, you know, why do we not do something about it if we want to reduce the deficit? That is a very legitimate question. But I think that we, in the two bodies here in Congress, have demonstrated over the past 40 years that we are incapable of doing it without having some type of discipline there that we are forced to adhere to.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, before we hear the analysis from the distinguished Senator from Idaho, I want to give you my own analysis. Yesterday on the floor, yesterday afternoon, I reminded the President, I reminded our fellow Members, and hopefully many in America who might be watching that those individuals who were fighting the balanced budget amendment have a very interesting profile, some things in common. I pointed out and documented that all of those 41 individuals who were the cosponsors of the right-to-know amendment to the budget balancing amendment had a very liberal background. Each one of the 41 had either a D or an F rating by the National Taxpayers Union. Each one of the individuals had voted for the very large spending program called President Clinton's tax stimulus program. And each one had voted for the 1993 tax increase which has been characterized as the largest single tax increase in the history of public finance in America or anywhere in the world. I announced that I suspected that the 33 Democrats who managed to keep from allowing us to have that one more vote to pass a balanced budget amendment yesterday would fit this same profile. I have analyzed this. I did this personally last night and I will give you the results of that. Of the 33 Democrats--and it only took one to come over to our side and to free the future generations from the shackles they are going to be bound with--all 33 voted on the cloture vote in favor of the tax stimulus program, which was the big spending program. All 33 have a D or an F rating by the National Taxpayers Union. And 31 of the 33--all but 2 of them--voted for the largest single tax increase in the history of public finance in America or any place in the world. The bottom line is this. All this talk about Social Security, all this talk about the right to know is bogus. The fact is those individuals did not want to balance the budget. They are big spenders. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield to the distinguished Senator from Idaho.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator for yielding. This will be very brief, Mr. President.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, during the time that I was privileged to sit in the chair, some comments were made that I think should be responded to. A comment was made that we are doing something constructively about the deficit today. Reference was made that President Clinton's budget was dramatically cutting the deficit. I was reminded of an article that anyone can find, if they wanted to get last December's Reader's Digest. It was called ``Budget Baloney.'' In this article, they talked about how politicians refer to cutting deficits as if somehow they are going to bring the deficit and the debt under control. They used this example. They said if a guy has $5,000 but he wants a $10,000 car, all he does is say, ``Well, I really want a $15,000 car, and I have effectively taken a $10,000 car and, therefore, cut the deficit by $5,000.'' that the President has submitted to us for the fiscal year coming up, it would increase the debt by $200 billion a year for the next 5 years. That is an increase in the debt at the end of that time by $1 trillion. I think the American people are aware of this. I think a few years ago they got tired of the smoke and mirrors that we were doing here in Washington and they became aware of what is really happening. The second thing that was mentioned was the cuts--all of these draconian cuts that would be necessary, if we had been successful in passing the balanced budget amendment. I would suggest to you that there are ways of balancing the budget without having any cuts; that is, just limit the growth. There was a study made using the figures that were supplied by the Federal Government that, if we could put merely a 2-percent growth cap on Government spending, we would be able to bring the deficit down to zero at end of 6 years. This can be done. But Congress in both Houses has had historically an insatiable appetite to spend money that they do not have, and without the discipline that would be imposed upon them by a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, it has been demonstrated that for 40 years they are incapable of that discipline. The third thing that was talked about was the awareness of what is going on around the country. I suggest that there is not one Senator who would go home and misrepresent his or her position to his or her constituents. However, it has been quite evident that there are many people in some of the States who really believed that their Senator was in favor of a balanced budget amendment. Now, I think the good news in today's vote is they all know, and they know which Senators voted yes and which Senators voted no. Last, during the debate, I put together a profile of those individuals who were in support of the so-called ``right-to-know amendment'' to the balanced budget amendment. That was the amendment that says show us exactly where the cuts are going to be for the next 7 years. I found that all 41 of those cosponsors had either a D or an F rating by the National Taxpayers Union. All 41 had voted for the stimulus bill, which was the largest spending bill increase that we have had in contemporary history. And so the bottom line is, is it just a coincidence that those 41 who supported that amendment also were the big tax and spenders here in the U.S. Senate? No, I do not think so. In fact, I am having my staff, right now, look at the 34 who voted against it this time. And I suspect that we are going to find the same thing; that is, those 34, each one of whom was responsible for killing the balanced budget amendment today, I suspect, was a big tax and spender. When we find out, we will give this report tomorrow. I yield the floor. Mr. GLENN addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for weeks on end now we have been debating this issue, and I think we know what the arguments are. The other night I took to the floor and spent 1 hour and 10 minutes diffusing the 11 arguments that have been given against the balanced budget amendment. The bottom line is that those are not real arguments. The bottom line is that those individuals who are going to use arguments against the balanced budget amendment really do not want to cut spending. Mr. President, the American people do. Let us look at what happened on last November 8. Last November 8, using the two indices of the stimulus bill for spending hikes and the National Taxpayers Union rating for tax increases, virtually everyone in the House and the Senate that was defeated on November 8 voted for the stimulus increase--that is the spending increase--and was rated either a ``D'' or an ``F'' by the National Taxpayers Union. The bottom line is the big spenders and the big taxers do not want a balanced budget amendment, but the American people do. And we have the unique opportunity to give them what they asked for on November 8.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I introduce legislation that is designed to help the domestic oil and gas industry not only in my own State of Oklahoma, but also the multitude of energy producing States throughout the United States. We are all very much aware that a healthy and competitive oil and gas industry is critically important to the U.S. economy. The petroleum industry alone is burdened with the highest tax rates in corporate America. Changes fostered by this bill only level the playing field with businesses throughout the United States that are trying to attract capital. Through tax incentives for new and existing marginal wells, small producers in Oklahoma, as well as throughout the United States, will be the primary benefactors of my legislation. Independents find more than half of all new oil and natural gas reserves, and they drill almost 85 percent of all domestic wells--both exploratory and development-- onshore and offshore. The U.S. oil and gas industry is one of the Nation's major economic assets and has long been recognized as a world leader in size, scope, and technology. As such a vital national industry, we cannot afford to continue down the road we have become accustomed to for so long. We need to focus our energies inward and try to help the industry restimulate its growth. As a nation we must face up to the threat posed by mounting U.S. dependency on foreign energy imports from such regions as the Middle East.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until the hour of 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 15, 1995, and that following the prayer, the Journal of the proceedings be deemed approved to date and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the Senate immediately resume consideration of House Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senator Inhofe recognized to speak for up to 45 minutes; and that following the conclusion of the Senator's statement, the Senate stand in recess under a previous order.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, votes are expected to occur throughout Wednesday's session of the Senate, with the first vote occurring possibly as early as 10:30 a.m. In addition, it may be necessary for the Senate to remain in session into the evening in order to make progress on the pending balanced budget amendment.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, last Sunday I had occasion to be attending church at the First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, OK, which is not unusual since I was married in that church 35 years ago. Dr. James Miller, who is the head minister there, preached a sermon on Matthew 28, verses 16 and 17. For somebody who may not remember that last chapter of Matthew, it was after Christ had been crucified and had been resurrected. During that timeframe, there were some women who said that they had seen Christ somewhere around the hills above the Sea of Galilee, so they told the disciples to go up there and they could find the living Christ, who had surely arisen. So 11 disciples went up. Those 11 disciples saw Christ with their own eyes. They heard him with their own ears, and still they doubted him. It occurred to me if such incontrovertible truth could have been doubted by the disciples back then, then maybe we have been worrying too much about the American people. Because certainly if they doubted truth like that, then the American people would see through the phony and transparent arguments against the balanced budget amendment. So I went home and I got the Congressional Record out. I do not think many Members of Congress of either House spend a lot of time reading the Congressional Record. I know I do not. But I did that morning. I looked up to find the 11 strongest arguments that were made in opposition to the balanced budget amendment. I decided I would have one argument for each of the disciples. That seemed to be a reasonable thing. Most of these were arguments that were articulated by the very gifted Senator from West Virginia, [Mr. Byrd]. I would like to run over these arguments, the 11 arguments, that have been used over and over and over again in opposition to the passing of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The first one, which I will read verbatim is: Proponents have refused to lay out a detailed plan to get to a balanced budget. How can you tell if it will be good for the country if you do not know the details? Well, I know we have already voted on that amendment, and we were able to successfully table the amendment. But what we can tell and what we do know is that the status quo is bad for the country. Continuing business as usual, doing nothing, just keeping on doing the same thing we have been doing for the past 40 years, is not going to work, and the public is not demanding a detailed plan. I think that is very significant. We hear so much about, ``Tell us exactly what you are going to do. Tell us where you are going to cut. Tell us, play by play, what is going to happen in the next 7 years.'' They are not asking about that. That is not what this amendment is all about. What we do not realize, many Members, is that this is really, truly a historic time in America. When we think about the other historic decisions that were made throughout the history of this country, they were never followed by detailed plans. We can remember so well when John Fitzgerald Kennedy made a commitment that within a decade we would put a man on the moon. Now, I think there may have been some around that time that said, ``Show us how you will do it. We do not want to make that commitment. We do not know what it will cost. We do not know how to do it. We need the details.'' But at that time, the rockets were not built. The astronauts were not named. There were not any spacecrafts designed. No one could say exactly how to do it. Yet, following the same line of reasoning, we would say that we would have expected President Kennedy to have said: All right, on February 20, 1962, we are going to get an astronaut by the name of John Glenn to orbit the 1965, we will go get a great Oklahoman named Tom Stafford, along with Wally Schirra, and they are going to achieve the first rendezvous in space between Gemini 6 and Gemini 7. Then, 3 years later, Christmas of 1968, we are going to have the first manned lunar orbit by Apollo 8 spacecraft. Three astronauts are going to go up and they are going to read aloud from the Book of Genesis. And then, finally, on July 20, 1969, we will have two astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, that are going to land and walk on the moon. No one believes that that is a reasonable request, that he should have done that. Some Members in this Chamber are old enough, as I am, to remember when Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war in the Axis powers, and that threat that was out there--and there were many people in Congress at that time who did object to it, who did not want to go to war, who did not think it was necessary. They actually did ask for the plan at that time. How could he have given any details? Could he have said that on June 6, 1944, we are going to send 156,000 troops into Normandy onto five beaches? Then, 6 months later, December 26, we will time this to the day after Christmas, we will have the Battle of the Bulge, and General Patton will send his third army in and do their thing. And then, finally, on August 6, 1945, if you declare war with me, we will drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and I think we will use a B-29 to do that, and we will name it the Enola Gay. Now, all Senators know that that is not reasonable. Yet, that is the way we went into war, and there were people expecting more details than we were able to give them at that time. I suggest, Mr. President, that this is war that we are in the middle of now. We have been waiting for this time, this opportunity, for 40 years. It is here. We must seize this opportunity. The second objection that was made by the very distinguished Senator from West Virginia was that proponents want to treat people like children, hiding the hard truth from them. Well, now, I take exception to that, because I have four children. I never hid the hard truth from them. I remember once, when my number two child, whose name is Perry, was a very small child, and he looked a little bit like this guy here. We got him his first bicycle and we live in kind of a hilly neighborhood, and we taught him to balance. He was so excited. Finally, he was ready to go all the way around the block, and he came back to his home in triumph. He was sweating; he was hot. He came up to me and said, ``Dad, I wish the whole world was downhill.'' So I told him the hard truth is the whole world is not downhill. The world is uphill and downhill. And I never hid the truth from them. The hard truth is that continuing business as usual will lead to disaster, procrastinating and avoiding the problem, acting like it does not exist. It is time for our country to grow up into this stage of maturity where it understands the significance on what we are to embark. The hard truth is the world is not all downhill, you have to pedal uphill. The balanced budget amendment is not going to be easy--it will take sacrifice--but we have to do it for our children.The third argument that was made was that proponents say they are tired of Washington telling people what to do, the Washington-knows-best mentality, but the balanced budget amendment is the ultimate Washington mandate. No, Senator, you have it backward. Those who oppose the balanced budget amendment, who have been running things in this town for the last 40 years, they are the ones with the Washington-knows-best mentality. They have continued business as usual for the past 40 years, in spite of the fact that 70 to 80 percent of the people in America want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. You might wonder, why do they want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? Why can they not just say, ``Let's elect people who are going to balance the budget?'' It is because for 40 years we, in this body, have demonstrated very clearly that we are incapable of balancing the budget. I cannot remember one person that I have seen campaigning in the years I have been in politics who said, ``Elect me and I want to go to Washington, I am going to spend more money and raise taxes and we are also going to raise the deficit and increase the national debt.'' They never campaign on that. And yet when they get here, that is what they do. That is what the last election was all about. Those who stood up in the last election and caused the revolution of November 8, as it has now become familiar with most of the people, have done so because they know that the time is here and those standing in the way, like the Senator that is making these statements, are saying that they know better than 70 or 80 percent of the people know. In a way, though, he is right, the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is a mandate, but it is a mandate on Congress that says, ``Do what you are elected to do but whatever you do, you have to balance the budget by'' a certain date, which happens to be the year 2002. What this would do is force Congress to do what it should have been willing to do without being forced to do. We had a Congressman in the State of Oklahoma that used to take exception to me when I talked about passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. He would say, ``Why? That is what we are elected to do, we are supposed to do that.'' The point is, for 40 years, we have demonstrated that we are incapable of doing it and we have not done it. Argument No. 4 was that proponents of the balanced budget amendment are saying swallow the snake oil but do not read the label. In fact, there is no label. The problem, I say to that Senator, is we have been swallowing the snake oil now for 40 years and every year they have been buying votes by spending the taxpayers' money on program after program. But where was the label that ever warned that if you keep spending money like this our future generations are going to have to pay for it? The problem is the politicians never told us how their well-meaning spending programs would affect the future generations and put us on the brink of bankruptcy. The day is here and the public is demanding change. If anybody has to swallow the snake oil, I rather it be us and not our children and grandchildren. The fifth argument that was used is all these Governors who are boasting about cutting taxes in their States should know that the balanced budget amendment will require them to impose huge State tax increases. That is simply not true, and we hear this over and over again and yet, why do the majority of the Governors of the States throughout America want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? If what the Senator says is true, they would not, but they know that they are in a position to cut tax rates, to encourage economic growth and to actually do something about increasing revenue through economic activity. This is exactly what happened in the 1980's. I stood on the floor today and I watched four Senators refute the fact that in the 1980's we increased revenues by cutting taxes. In fact, they stood up and they said, ``Look what happened in the 1980's. Reagan came along and he cut taxes and we had huge deficits as a result of it.'' Let us look at what happened in the 1980's. In the 1980's, yes, we did cut the tax rate. We had the most devastating cuts that we have had in contemporary history. The total revenues after those cuts--keep in mind the marginal rate, the top rate, went from 70 percent down to 28 percent, and what happened as a result of that? We dramatically increased revenues because people were free to participate in the profits that they could make that they knew the Government was going to let them keep. So we lowered the rate and we increased economic activity and we increased revenues. This all happened in the 1980's. In 1980, the total revenues generated for the Federal Government amounted to $517 billion. In 1990, after all of these cuts, the total revenues had grown to $1.31 trillion, almost double. And look at the income tax. That is where all the cuts took place, capital gains tax derived from the income tax of 1980 amounted to $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled, and that is after the greatest tax cuts in the marginal rates. And yet people in this body will not understand that. They do not understand that America was founded on a principle that if you go out and work harder, you are able to keep that which you have earned and pass it on to future generations. It is no wonder when you look at some of the leaders of this country; look at Laura Tyson. Laura Tyson, in case some are not familiar, was chief economic adviser to the President of the United States. Laura Tyson was quoted in 1992 in the Wall Street Journal as saying, and I am going to read this quote because I do not want to get it wrong, and I may read it twice because it is hard for people to understand that this actually was a person in this kind of a position who would make this statement. Listen to what she said: In direct contradiction to 12 years of Republican ideology, there is no relationship between the level of taxes the Nation pays and its economic performance. No relationship between the level of taxation--in other words, you could raise the level of taxation to 100 percent so that a person would not be able to keep anything and that person would end up having to take nothing home and would still be motivated to risk his capital to go out and participate in this great economic system. It is just not true. But we have top leaders in this country that are saying it is true. It is just incredible to believe that this could happen. We had two Senators from North Dakota today that said, ``Look what happened in this country during the 1980's: We cut taxes and the deficits went up.'' Do you know why the deficits went up, Mr. President? They went up because people in this body and the body down the hall kept increasing Federal programs, kept spending more money, and as more and more money came in, as the revenues doubled between 1980 and 1990, they still insisted on raising the number of programs and Government expenditures to the point where the deficits went on up and up and up and up. The balanced budget amendment will require the rate of increase in Federal spending to be slowed, we know that, but it does not mean that any programs actually have to be cut. And all the scare tactics--they are calling veterans and saying your benefits are going to be cut, your COLA's are going to be cut. They are calling Social Security recipients and telling older Americans--what an inhuman thing to do to them--telling them their Social Security is going to be impaired, their Medicare is going to be impaired and that just is not true. Those who are saying it know it is not true. There was a study made a couple years ago and updated the other day, that said if you take the Government programs we have in place today and increase these Government programs by 2 percent a year--in other words, put growth caps on--have every Government program increase by 2 percent a year, we would be able to balance the budget by the year 2001, and that is without cutting one program. We know in reality it would not happen that way because there are some programs that are good programs and maybe they should increase, but the average would have to stay down within that growth cap. And that is realistic. That is something that can happen. And the people of America understand this. The States understand this. Three- quarters of the States right now are just waiting, just waiting to be in a position to ratify this amendment.Objection No. 6 was that the balanced budget amendment is a pig in a giant poke. I am not sure what he is talking about. Maybe you know what it means, Mr. President, but I am not sure I know. But if it means that a pig in the poke is something bad that is made to look like something good, and if that is true, then the chronic deficits as far as the eye can see are the real pig in the poke. I had an experience the other day. I got a call from a young lady who is a brilliant intellectual. She instructs at the University of Arkansas, coincidentally, the home State of our President, and yet she is a conservative intellectual scholar. Her name is Dr. Molly Rapert. Anyway, I got a call and she said, ``You know, Senator, I know something about pigs.'' Well, now, for those of you not familiar with Arkansas, it is the home of the Arkansas Razorbacks, and so they kind of use pigs and hogs and razorbacks interchangeably. And she said, ``I know something about pigs. And if there are pigs in a poke, then those pigs are in Washington and they are the ones that are at the trough eating all that is out there, raising the deficit, increasing spending. Those are the true pigs in the poke.'' And that comes from someone in academics, a very bright young lady. It is kind of interesting because it was not long ago I had a conversation with the young lady and she made a reference that an awful lot of people her age are not having families because they know if they have families, those families are going to be born into an environment where children are going to have to pay, according to the CBO, 82 percent of their income in taxes. And I can understand that. Why give birth to someone who is going to be enslaved working for the Government? The other day at the National Prayer Breakfast, I was entertaining international visitors that came in, and there was one from one of the Baltic States who said, ``How much money can you keep of the money that you earn?'' And I said, ``Well, you keep about 60 percent of it.'' And that was just kind of somebody I grabbed out of the air. He said, ``That's wonderful.'' He said, ``Did you know in my country we can only keep about 20 percent of it?'' Mr. President, if we do not do something to change the course we are on, the young people like Dr. Molly Rapert are going to give birth to children who will have to pay 82 percent of their income in taxes, more than in that Baltic country that was represented here at the National Prayer Breakfast. But I can say to the Molly Raperts and others around, do not worry about it. It is time to have families because we are going to pass this balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and we are going to downsize Government. The time is here to do it. The next statement that was made by one of the Senators on this floor that I pulled out of the Record was, ``The balanced budget amendment will give the politicians license to cut and slash and burn needed programs.'' If you change one word in that sentence and substitute the word courage for the word license, it would read this way and I would agree with it: ``The balanced budget amendment will give the politicians courage to cut and slash and burn programs that we are currently paying for.'' You stop to think about the amount of money that is thrown around in this Government that we could save. Right now we are talking about bailing out Mexico. We have a President of the United States who unilaterally said that we are going to spend as much as $40 billion bailing out Mexico. And then we find out that most of the money is not going to go to Mexicans when they need it; it is going to go to creditors. It happens that the President of Mexico prior to this President, Carlos Salinas, did a very fine job; he did a lot to stabilize the economy, so all of a sudden we had European investors, multinational banks--we had investors from all over the world that heretofore would not invest, would not buy Mexican debt and now they are doing it. And they are getting paid high interest rates for it. All of a sudden something happened to the economy down there. They looked at dear old America, and we have a President--I just heard something today. That figure dropped down to $20 billion. It may be back up to $40 billion of our taxpayers' money could be impaired to bail out Mexico. How many people in America know that it was not long ago, the 21st of October, that the President of the United States unilaterally said to North Korea, we are going to offer up to $4 billion of our American dollars to help you with a light water reactor because you promise you are going to get out of the nuclear business and we want to help you do it--$4 billion. In the meantime, until you get it built, we are going to give you $25 million worth of crude oil between now and the time that it is built. This is taxpayers' handled. Back in the real world, I had a number of businesses. I was in real estate development, insurance, and I was also in aviation, and here a couple years ago I had the honor of becoming the first Member of Congress--I was serving in the other body at that time --to fly an airplane around the world--at his own expense. And so I did, and we went across, to follow the tracks of a very famous aviator from Oklahoma. His name was Wiley Post. Some may remember, Mr. President, he was the one with the patch over one eye and you wonder how could he be such a good pilot with one eye. Anyway, he flew the Winnie Mae around the world, and we were celebrating in Oklahoma, since he was one of our two famous Oklahomans that we are very proud of. I was going to retrace his tracks, and I did. We went across Siberia, at a very unique time in history, that is, when it was still the Soviet Union but the wall was down so we were able to go places that no one from the United States had been in 60 years since Wiley Post was there 60 years ago. One place right here was Sovetski, Sovetski in Northwestern Siberia. Sovetski is so remote that in northwestern Siberia they still harness reindeer as their primary mode of transportation. I landed there. I saw one man who had not seen an American in 60 years since he saw Wiley Post there 60 years ago. And I spent a night there. They live in the communes we hear about. It was a beautiful, big, log structure. They all not only slept in the same big room; they ate in the same kitchen at the same table out of the same bowl. We think, well, how barbaric that is by our standards. These are the happiest people I ever saw. It is so remote in Sovetski that they never got into anti-American propaganda. They did not know we were ever bad guys. And so we rejoiced together, made new friendships, and I spent the night in that same room, ate from the same bowl with them. I never saw a happier bunch of people in my life up in Sovetski in northwestern Siberia. That was in July and the snow was on the ground then. We got back, and it was not more than a month later we had a bill that was going to take care of the housing needs in Russia, in that former Soviet Union. I looked at it, and I saw that a lot of that money was going to a little village called Sovetski in northwestern Siberia to help them with their housing needs. Now, first of all, how presumptuous of us to say that those people in Sovetski would want to change and adopt our way of life. They are perfectly happy doing what they have done for a thousand years there, and they were doing quite well, I thought. And yet we are going to spend thousands and thousands of American taxpayer dollars to help those poor people in Sovetski that were so happy. Wiley Post was the one who was flying the airplane when the other famous Oklahoman, Will Rogers, was killed. It crashed at Point Barrow, AK. I think that Will Rogers is one of the great philosophers of history and I will read a quote from Will Rogers. Keep in mind, this was in 1934. He said: ``Lord, the money we do spend on Government. And it's not one bit better than the Government we got for one-third the money 20 years ago.'' Do you know what the total budget was that year, in 1934? Mr. President, $6.5 billion is what it cost. And that was three times more than it was 20 years before that. So we keep growing and growing and spending and spending and we do not have to do that. There is no group that comes into our office that tells us to spend less money. A study was made the first year I was in the other body, which was 1987. And they analyzed and they talked to everyone when they came in the door of one particular Representative's office, and they did that for the entire year. They found out that 95 percent of the people who walk across the threshold of a congressional office are walking across to talk to the Congressman or the Senator to convince him or her to spend more money on a program. There is nobody out there coming in saying we want you to spend less money; it is to spend more money. So the people who stay here in Congress year after year and decade after decade, they get to thinking those are real people who are coming in. They do not realize the people out in America, real America, do not want that type of thing. It is not the lobbyists and the individuals who come in who want money for a particular cause that are destroying us. It is the Congressmen in the House, and Senators in the Senate, who are voting for these massive increases. The balanced budget amendment will work. In the State of Oklahoma it worked. We put it in in 1941. I went back and read some of the debate on the floor of the State senate in Oklahoma when we were installed, and some of the same arguments we are using here today they were using in 1941 in the State legislature. While liberals in the State legislature fight it every time, every year they try to figure out ways to get around the balanced budget amendment in Oklahoma, they cannot do it. Several of my liberal friends came up to me over in the other body when we were considering this a couple years ago. They said, ``You know, Inhofe, I have to vote against the balanced budget amendment but I sure hope you get it passed.'' I said, ``Why is that?'' They said, ``That gives us an excuse so when people come in and they want me to vote for a program that I know I should not vote for, I can say, ``If it had not been for those guys passing the balanced budget amendment I would do it.''' I know it is difficult to cut down the size of Government. One of my heroes in politics--and I think many Republicans share my notion about this man--was Ronald Reagan. I remember a speech that Ronald Reagan gave way back in 1964. I have often said that speech should be required reading for young people who are coming into the marketplace and into the society. One of the things he said in that speech I remember so well was, ``Immortality--there is nothing closer to immortality on the face of this Earth than a Government program once installed.'' That is true, because Government programs come along, at least theoretically, to take care of problems that exist in the country. If we have an environmental problem they form a Government agency and that Government agency comes in and says we are going to go ahead and take care of this problem. Then, when the problem goes away, the Government agency stays. I had an experience many years ago, back in 1978. I was elected to be mayor of the city of Tulsa, a city of about a half-million people. I decided to conduct an experiment. Those cities that were large cities-- they used the benchmark of 250,000 people--large cities at that time had a tendency to double in size every 5 years. I thought, why is this? What is the very nature of the bureaucracy? Bureaucracies want to grow. I was on a radio talk show tonight and they talked about zero-based budgeting. Sure, great idea. The problem is, your bureaucrats will merely take a zero base, justify the budget they spent last year, and then come up and say why they need to spend more this year. It is a status symbol for bureaucrats to grow. They do not want to get small; they want to grow. Anyway, I was the mayor of the city of Tulsa and I remember I was going to try to cut down the size of government. I knew there was a lot of waste so I found people who were inefficient or were not performing a function and I would fire them. A couple of weeks would go by and I would see the same people in the elevator. I would say ``I thought I fired you,'' and they would say, ``Well, you did, but I have been reinstated.'' Back then I found you cannot fire people for inefficiency in government. I developed a program and started defunding agencies and got them all. It worked beautifully. No. 1 was a public television station. I never will forget, when I was first elected a guy came up to me and said, ``Congratulations, Mayor Inhofe, on your overwhelming victory. We are looking forward to having you as mayor of the city of Tulsa. When would you like to have Inhofe Hour? Every month? Or every week? Or every day?'' I said, ``What is Inhofe Hour?'' He said, ``That is when we take your programs and we put it on television, and the people out there can know what your program is, what you are trying to do as mayor of Tulsa.'' I said, ``You are using taxpayers' money to propagandize the taxpayers.'' They said ``I guess it's that way.'' I said, ``I do not want the Inhofe Hour every month and I do not want the Inhofe Hour every week or every day. As a matter of fact, I am going to defund you.'' And I will never forget, across that screen for several weeks was, ``Call the mayor's office. They are trying to shut the doors of government.'' But you see, we did it anyway and it worked. We went through 5 years of holding government stable in terms of the size and the cost of government and expanding services at the same time. If you can do it in Tulsa, OK, and you can have a balanced budget amendment in the State of Oklahoma, you can certainly do it in our Federal Government. The eighth statement that was made was, ``Senators are sent here to make intelligent and well-informed decisions on the people's behalf. How can they do that without the details?'' They are bringing up that same argument again and again. They do it by looking at the record of the last 40 years. Nobody gave us the details when 40 years ago we started spending money that future generations are going to have to pay back. No one give us any details when we ran up a debt of $4.8 trillion. All they told us was the great things they were doing by opening the Federal Treasury, time and time again. Now we find a crisis which threatens the future, especially that of our children. The balanced budget amendment is not a fly-by-night thing. It is not something that just was thought of recently. It is something that has been with us for a long time. I think someone may have already said this on the floor during this debate. Keep in mind, we are in the 12th day of debating the balanced budget amendment, the same one that passed the other body over there in 2 days. Someone, I think, already mentioned the fact that a great Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, many years ago was not here, as many thought he was, during the construction of the Constitution. I believe he was in France at the time. When he got back over here he made a statement and said that if I could have one thing I would improve in this great document, the Constitution of America, it would be a mechanism that would prohibit Government from borrowing money. That was Thomas Jefferson. It has been around for a long time. The first time I was exposed to the balanced budget amendment was many years ago when there was a very conservative and well-known U.S. Senator from the great State of Nebraska by the name of Senator Carl Curtis. Carl Curtis had an idea. Carl Curtis said, ``What we need to do is get the point across to the people in Congress, in both Houses of Congress, that Americans want to have a balanced budget amendment.'' He said, ``I have devised a way to do it and, State senator out in Oklahoma, I want you to help me.'' He came out in Oklahoma and this is what we did. We put together a program where we would preratify--since it takes three-quarters of the States to ratify the Constitution--we would preratify it by passing a resolution saying we are ratifying it the second it passes the U.S. Congress. We started the first one in Oklahoma. I introduced the resolution. It says: We hereby ratify the balanced budget amendment that will be passed in the U.S. Congress. In fact, this is the first one that was there. There was a guy, Anthony Kerrigan, who was a syndicated columnist at that time. He wrote a column--this is 22 years ago. He called it ``A Voice in the Wilderness.'' Way out in Oklahoma the State senators have found a way to balance the Federal budget. By the way, that was 1972. The total debt in 1972 was $240 billion. I remember when the National Taxpayers Union, or one group like that, they had an ad on television. They were trying to impress upon the people of America how significant $240 billion was. That was our debt at that time. Today it is $4.8 trillion. It was $240 billion. So they took $100 bills and started stacking them up until they were the height of the Waldorf Astoria. That was a high building in those days. That was to impress upon people how significant it was that our debt had reached the level of $240 billion. The deficit that year, by the way, was $15 billion. I hope that if nothing else is accomplished from the debate that is taking place in both bodies on the balanced budget amendment, that the people of America are now so much better informed as to what is really going on when we talk about the deficit and the debt. We are talking about two different things. They are hardly related to each other because the deficit increases the debt. Let me get to the ninth argument. I want to expand on that in just a minute. This was a rather long argument that was made. Argument No. 9: The proponents talk of the balanced budget amendment, talk about the public opinion. Years ago Talleyrand said, ``There is more wisdom in public opinion than is to be found in Napoleon, Voltaire, or all the ministers of state, present or to come.'' But this is true only to the extent that public opinion is informed opinion. In the case of the balanced budget amendment public opinion is not informed. Even Senators do not know the details. I see this as an insult to the people of America because people are informed. But you know, he was right when he said that there is more wisdom in public opinion than there is to be found in all of the great leaders. But this is not about details. This is about responsibility. I would submit that Talleyrand was right. There is more wisdom in public opinion than is to be found in the President, the Vice President, the entire Cabinet, and all of the rest of the ministers of the Clinton administration along with the Democratic Party who are all out lobbying against the passage of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The fact is the public is informed. People know that we cannot get serious and have a discussion about details unless we first make the commitment that we are going to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and that we cannot spend more money than is coming in. I am glad that the Senator brought up Talleyrand because he was a brilliant guy. If you remember, Talleyrand was the French foreign minister during the Napoleonic stage. One of the quotes was, ``It seems to me, sir, to be the beginning of the end.'' You know, I think he was right. I think this is the beginning of the end of big spenders in Congress in America. He said, ``Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.'' I have seen a lot of that around here, too. I have seen a lot of Senators and Representatives making statements about all the bad things that were going to happen and all the trauma that would exist if we passed the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Yet they know better. They know this has to be done. Talleyrand also said, ``Throw mud, throw mud. Some of it may stick.'' We have seen a lot of that in the last 12 days. Throw mud and hope some of it will stick. But lastly, Talleyrand said--I kind of like this one; this is neat. He said, ``The wine is drawn. The wine is drawn. It must be drunk.'' I think what he was saying there is there comes a time when action has to take place. That time has come. The wine is drawn, it must be drunk. There are some partisan Republicans who have come up to me, and I probably should not divulge this. They said, ``If you were half as smart, you would let the Democrats defeat the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Then in 1996, we would wipe out everybody in office who voted against you.'' I guess looking at it from a purely partisan perspective, maybe that is the right way to do it. I do not believe that. I believe the Democrats and Republicans alike are going to respond to the people who are out there. But it is time. We cannot go any longer. We are going to have to do something. There was a very famous person 150 years ago that came over to the United States of America. His name was Alexis de Tocqueville. A lot of people do not know this. But de Tocqueville came over here to study our system. When he got here he was so impressed with the work and take home the products of their own labors, and that that had produced an incredible wealth that had not been dreamed of any time in the history of the world. It was all happening right here in this new world. But he was a very intelligent man. And de Tocqueville wrote a book about the wealth of this country. I am paraphrasing. He said once the people of this country find they can vote themselves money out of the public trust, the system will fail. Are we almost there now? Yes, we are. They say that when that moment comes, it is when you have the majority of people on the receiving end of government and the system will fail because productivity will be gone. The 10th argument that has been used by the well-meaning Senators, those who are very articulate, is one that I hope you will listen to very carefully, Mr. President. They said: The 1990 and the 1993 budget deals worked. The way to deal with the deficit is to continue the successful deficit reduction efforts of the last 5 years. This is a Senator saying this on this floor. Since 1990, we have achieved over $900 billion in deficit reduction. We did not do it with a balanced budget amendment. But we did it with two major budget agreements, detailed blueprints which raised revenues, cut expenditures, and made hard choices. These budgets were on the table. All the details were fully debated. Remember they said the 1990 and the 1993 budget deals worked, the successful deficit reduction efforts of the last 5 years. This is the big problem we have in America. A lot of people believe that stuff. We have a President of the United States who stood up in the State of the Union Message and talked about all of this deficit reduction. Yet, while he is in there, every day the debt goes higher and higher and higher. Please do not think I am disrespectful when I talk about our President. Teddy Roosevelt said: Patriotism means stand by your country. It does not mean stand by the President of the United States or any other elected official, save exactly the degree that he stands by his country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the same degree that he by inefficiency or otherwise fails to stand by his country. So we have a President who stands up and he passes these things. The first one we cannot hang on him. That was 1990. George Bush was President of the United States at that time. Several of us watched as he tried to accommodate the Democrats out at Andrews Air Force Base, when he had the Budget Committees from the House and the Senate out there saying, if you do not do this, we are not going to go along with any of your programs. And, finally, President Bush decided that he would agree to a tax increase, right after he had said in the campaign ``Read my lips.'' Look what happened. That was the cause of his demise. Everybody knows that. He knows it himself. He knows he should not have done that. But it was a judgment call made in good faith, trying to get along, trying to reach a bipartisan agreement on a budget. And he agreed to a tax increase when he did not need to do a tax increase. I do not like all of this talk about what they talk about when they say that we cut the deficit. There is an article by the way, Mr. President. You ought to read it. I bet you have not read it yet. I believe it was in the December 1993 Reader's Digest, and the name of the article was ``Budget Baloney.'' Then in this article he describes, in a better way than I have ever seen it described before, just how we are able to tell it to the people at home that we are doing something and not let them really know what we are doing. He says, let us say a guy who has $5,000 wants a $10,000 car. He says, ``What I really want is a $15,000 car. So I will settle on a $10,000 car. I've just cut the deficit by $5,000.'' That is the losing game that we have been playing around here. The argument that we have had success in these budget deals is laughable. It has been a dismal failure. Yet, this is the strongest argument that they keep coming up with over and over again. The budget deals were the largest tax increases in this Nation's history. The one in 1993 passed by one vote in the Senate and one vote in the House. It was against overwhelming public opposition. It helped lead to the Republican revolution of November 8, 1994. In fact, it was characterized as the largest tax-and-spend increase in the history of America or in public finance in America or any place in the world. Let me repeat that: The largest tax and spend increase in the history of public finance in America or anyplace in the world. Those are not the words of conservative Republican Senator Jim Inhofe; those are the words of the Democrat Senator who was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Yet, this is used as an example of how we ought to behave in the future--to continue to pass these tax increases and spending increases and meanwhile the deficits go up and up and up. Let me give you some specific figures. The 1993 Clinton budget deal, between the years 1994 and 1998, those 5 years, would increase the debt by $1.4 trillion. How many people in America know that--with all this talk about deficit reduction--if we do his budget deal from 1994 and carry it through to his projections through 1998, it would increase the debt by $1.4 trillion. If we go on up to the year 2000, it increases the debt by $2.1 trillion. In 1990, the same thing was true at that time. We had a budget deal that was made to go, over a period of 10 years, from 1990 to the year 2000, to $3.5 trillion. Mr. President, this is the last argument that has been used by Senators who are opposed to a balanced budget and specifically to the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The argument is that the balanced budget amendment is nothing more than a slogan, an empty promise, and that most Senators who support it will not even be here in the year 2002 when it will take effect. Let me respond by saying that if the Senators vote against it, they are not going to be here at the end of their term. I would like to, for a moment, give you a profile of those individuals who are opposed to the balanced budget amendment. If you look over here at the chart, we defeated the Right-To-Know Act. These are the supporters, the cosponsors. There were 41 cosponsors to the Right-To-Know Act. Of those 41 cosponsors, all 41 of them voted for the $16 billion stimulus plan, which was the largest single spending increase under one vote, and they also are rated by the National Taxpayers Union a ``D'' or an ``F.'' A lot of people do not realize that there are many rating organizations in Washington. I never remember anyone going out and running for office saying ``I want to increase your taxes and increase spending.'' But when they get up here, that is exactly what they do. How is a voter to know how they are performing? Look at how they are rated. The National Taxpayers Union takes spending bills and says how we are rated in conjunction with the spending bills. If you look at those who wanted to kill the balanced budget amendment by having the right-to-know amendment on it, those individuals, all of them, voted for this $16 billion stimulus program. Let me just tell you what that stimulus program had in it. That program was a $16.3 billion increase in spending; $500 million for shortfalls in the District of Columbia budget; for Federal agency staff increases; $1 billion for summer jobs; $1.1 billion for programs for housing programs; for AIDS treatment; $1.2 billion for Amtrak subsidies; $2.5 billion for pork-barrel community programs such as swimming pools, parking lots, ice rink, warming huts, alpine ski lifts, and other pork-barrel projects. That was $3 billion for various rich projects located strategically in various districts of those Members of Congress who went along with all of this. Those are the individuals who voted for and who were cosponsors of the Right-To-Know Act. I do not say this in a disparaging way about these people, but you have to know who is opposed to the balanced budget amendment. The other chart we have, I think, addresses what this Senator--it happened to be the Senator from West Virginia that said most Members of Congress were not going to be around in 2002. This is why I say if they do not vote for this, they are not going to be around anyway. It does not matter. If you look very carefully, we not only had the spending bill increase, but the 1993 tax increase was the one that included a $267 billion tax increase and There are eight Senators who are not here today who were here before. All eight of these Senators voted ``yes'' on the spending bill increase. All eight of the Senators voted ``yes'' on the Clinton tax increases--or seven out of eight of them. All eight of them have a ``D'' or an ``F'' rating by the National Taxpayers Union. In the House of Representatives, the same thing is true there. So the conclusions I come to after having said all of this is that this is a war. This is the chance that we have to change all of this. And those of us who have been working for a balanced budget, by virtue of adding a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, are not just considering what is happening to us today but to future generations. Every dollar we spend now we are borrowing from future generations. That is why I have this picture. I will introduce you to these two people. This little girl is 21 months old. Her name is Maggie Inhofe. This little boy is 22 months old. His name is Glade Inhofe. They happen, by coincidence, to be my grandchildren. If we do not pass this, the CBO has said that during their lifetime--and there are 10 million more their age in America right now--they will have to spend 82 percent of their lifetime income on Government. This is our chance to take them out of their bondage and their chains. I really believe now that Talleyrand was right. He said, ``The wine is drawn, it must be drunk.'' The time is here to pass a balanced budget to the Constitution and to turn our future generations free. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I appreciate the Senator yielding. I asked that question because in the State of Oklahoma, I went back and read extensively about our balanced budget amendment which we passed in 1941. The interesting thing is the same arguments that are being used today in this forum were used back then, saying that it would not work, and it has worked since 1941. It would not have worked if it had not been in the constitution. I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. INHOFE. Does the State of Georgia have a balanced budget constitutional amendment?

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for one more question?

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, the Senator said something about how long we have been talking about the balanced budget amendment, and tomorrow I plan to go back and revisit an experience I had with Senator Carl Curtis, a former Senator, conservative Senator who was the father of the balanced budget concept way back in 1972. At that time, when his idea was to get three-fourths of the States to ratify, force Congress to do this instead of talking about it, he brought up at that time that every time it has been brought up it has been killed by someone who wanted to have an exception to it written into the Constitution, knowing full well that it will not work. Does the Senator think that after 22 years, people out there are now going to be in a position to demand that we quit talking about it and do it?

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will yield further, going back to our years as State senators--and probably the same thing was true in Maine as in Oklahoma--people yell and scream about it. They do not like it. There are members in the house and senate in either inflate projections of income and revenues or minimize expenditures to circumvent this thing; yet, in the final analysis, they know that we have a type of sequestration that sets in. If they do not do it, they are going to have to bite the political bullet of all those people who have their programs cut by 1 or 2 percent, whatever it takes. And it works. People in this body quite often talk about the States that have a balanced budget amendment. Look at the cities. I was mayor of the city of Tulsa--a major city--for three terms. In our charter, we had the same thing. There are always people on the city commission who want to circumvent that and somehow want to spend more money than comes in, but they have not been able to do it. For all those individuals who say this is different, the Federal Government should not be like States or should not be like the cities and the other subdivisions, they have yet to come up with any logical justification for that statement. If it works at the State level in almost all of the States and it works in almost every city charter, it would work in the Federal Government.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield further, I think it is a significant point to make that if it is not going to be done their way, it is not going to be done at all. I do not know of one person who goes out and campaigns for office and says: Elect me, because I want to increase your deficit. I honestly do not think they really want to increase the deficits. But there is the temptation to get these programs today, saying, ``Well, there is nothing wrong with it. We are borrowing from ourselves.'' They do not stop to think and realize sometimes what they are doing to the future generations. I would also ask the Senator if she might stop and think about how long we have been looking at this. There was a very outstanding Senator from Nebraska by the name of Carl Curtis, many years ago. In 1970, I was in the State senate in the State of Oklahoma. At that time, just to remind you how far we have come, I can remember that the National Taxpayers Union had an advertisement that they showed on television. They said: Do you really want to know how bad the debt in this country is? Mr. President, they said: If you want to know how bad the debt is, if you took $100 bills and stacked the $100 bills on top of each other, by the time it reached the height of the Empire State Building--that was a tall building in those days--it would be the amount of our debt, which is $400 billion. Now, look where it is today. Back in 1972, this Senator from Nebraska, Carl Curtis, had a brilliant idea. He was the author of the Senate budget balancing amendment at that time. So he called me up one day. I was a State senator. He said, ``Inhofe, if you would just try something new here. Let us break down the resistance in the U.S. Senate and in Congress, because these people up here live in their ivory towers, and they don't have a sense of what is going on at home.'' He said, ``Why don't you present a budget balancing amendment out in the State of Oklahoma?'' I said, ``Well, that is an ingenious idea.'' His thought was that if he could get 38 States to do that, it would indicate there was grassroots support for a balanced budget amendment. Keep in mind this is 1972. So in 1972, I introduced and got passed in the State of Oklahoma a ratifying resolution. And I remember that there was a guy named Anthony Kerrigan, a syndicated columnist, who wrote an article entitled ``A Voice in the Wilderness.'' Way out in Oklahoma, there is a State senator that is going to figure out a way to balance the budget. Here it is now, a couple of decades later, and we still have not done it. But we found in that short period of time that there is such a ground swell for support, when you get closer to the people, that we are willing to do it. And we had commitments from 38 States in 1972 to ratify such a resolution.

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will yield further, she has hit upon something that is very significant; that is, we cannot do it any other way. We served together for 8 years in the House of Representatives, and she was there before that. And I am sure what was going on before. But we tried again and again to do it from a statutory perspective, and it did not work. I am a little embarrassed to say that it was one of the Members of the House from the State of Oklahoma that challenged in the courts the Gramm-Rudman approach to balancing the budget, which was an excellent approach. It was ingenious. However, apparently it did cause the administration to infringe upon legislative powers and there was some constitutional problem with it. But those same people who took that to court and were able to strike it down so that we did not have to comply with the targets are the ones who say we do not want a balanced budget amendment in the Constitution because that is our job to do it. I say yes. I agree in this case with those who object to it. It is our job to do it. But we have clearly demonstrated for 40 years that we are incapable of resisting the insatiable appetite to spend the money that we generate from future generations.