J. Kerrey

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. The answer is absolutely yes. Indeed, I said the House passed this bill 426 to 4 on Wednesday. I came to the floor and asked unanimous consent to take it up on Thursday, did so again on Friday, and did so again on Saturday. I say to those who are wondering what is the impact of this, what is the impact of delay, the Senator is exactly right. The Senator is exactly right. There are 135,000 notices every single day. Every single day, 135,000 notices are sent to the taxpayers of the United States of America. What do those notices say? They say: You owe us more money. Talk to somebody--I urge my colleagues, particularly on the other side of the aisle--talk to taxpayers who get one of these notices. Ask them how much power they have. Ask them how they feel when they receive one these letters. Ask them what kind of access they have to the IRS under the current law. And they will tell you it's a terrifying moment when you receive that letter. You either pay it or you know you are going to spend an awful lot of money and an awful lot of time to dispute the dollar amount that the IRS says that you owe. In addition, every single day, 250,000 Americans call the IRS. A quarter of them can't even get through. And of the ones that get through, 25 percent get the wrong answer. It is one of the reasons, when we did our poll----

Mr. KERREY. Unlike this remarkable poll, and I have to say I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will object if Speaker Gingrich tries to allocate somewhere between $30 and $100 million of taxpayer money for a 14-question poll, among which questions are: Do you think taxes are fair or unfair? Whatever you think about this piece of legislation--do it next year or do it now, on behalf of the taxpayers--I will guarantee if the IRS was spending $100 million which could go to taxpayer service, which could go to lots of other things, to do a 14-question poll mailed out to 80 million taxpayers, made available in every single post office, mailed out to every single provider, and then, guess what, then you mail it back, the taxpayer does, to the General Accounting Office to be compiled--you are not going to have 250,000 phone calls every single day. You are going to have another 100,000 phone calls from taxpayers who are going to say, ``What the heck does this mean?'' They are going to call their service centers. So, while we are all sitting here saying we want the IRS to operate better, we have under consideration a poll that is going to make it more difficult for the IRS to do their job because you are going to have another 100,000 phone calls or so coming into the IRS office by confused taxpayers wondering what this is all about. Between the time that this piece of legislation was passed by the House--and it is right down here at desk. All we have to do is ask unanimous consent to take this up. All the Republicans have to do is not object, allow the bill to be taken up. There have been 270,000 citizens between the time it got to that desk and right now--270,000 citizens got notices in the mail that they owe taxes. And another half a million who have called the IRS, trying to get a question answered.

Mr. KERREY. I will be happy to.

Mr. KERREY. Yes. In fact, not only does the National Federation of Independent Businessmen support this legislation, not only do most of the providers organizations that help taxpayers fill out their forms, but the head of the National Treasury Employees Union supports this legislation and has indicated that he wants to get it passed in a hurry. Former Secretary of Treasury Baker and Brady and current Secretary of Treasury Rubin support this legislation. The previous IRS Commissioner, Peggy Richardson, supports this legislation, as does previous Commissioner Fred Goldberg, who is a member of the Commission. You are absolutely right. The employees themselves are saying give the Commissioner the authority. When Mr. Rossotti came before the Finance Committee, everybody was very impressed that the President would send up an individual who had experience in the private sector. Mr. Rossotti said, ``I am going to manage this agency.'' I said to him, ``You know, Mr. Rossotti, you are going to get over there and you will have a lot of responsibility but you don't have any authority. You can't even bring on the senior management, you can't provide the private-sector incentives you are describing out there. You have six legislative committees, three in the House and three in the Senate, with jurisdiction over you. You get through this next filing season with no problems and life is going to be good for you, but just have a little glitch between now and then and you are going to find out people are going to call you up in a hurry and blame you for all the things that you have no authority to do.'' So I hope my colleagues on the other side will look at this legislation. The chairman has indicated he has objections, he would like to add some additional things. Most of the things he wants to add I support. I would like to get it done. He wants to hold hearings next year and do it. But these changes, for gosh shakes--if you look at the law as passed by the House, right down here at the desk, you scratch your head and say: For gosh sakes, that's common sense. We ought to already allow it. So, on behalf of the taxpayers who get notices and will be calling the IRS every single day between now and the next year, I hope, between now and the next days, we can pass it. We could conference this thing in record time.

Mr. KERREY. Not only is that true but my guess is, if it were to be taken up, if no objection were placed against this unanimous-consent request, my guess is on final passage you would get 100 votes.

Mr. KERREY. I think it is fair to say that. There are some who will say I want the board to have more authority, a few odds and ends done, but I don't think anybody in the Chamber would object to changing the law to give the Commissioner the authority to manage this agency or do all the other things the distinguished Senator from Nevada has identified on behalf of taxpayers, like providing a public statement of the basis of audits--I don't think anybody could object to doing that. And anybody looking at it, I think, would say, ``Gee, that is not going to make things worse. That's going to make things an awful lot better for those taxpayers getting notices and those taxpayers calling the IRS.''

Mr. KERREY. I completely agree with the distinguished Senator from Nevada on that point. Again, as long as we are in session, I intend to continue to come to the floor and ask unanimous consent to take this legislation up. Not because I think it is controversial, but because I think it is not controversial. We are hammering out in back-rooms all over this Capitol all kinds of deals to try to get fast track, to try to get things that are extremely controversial. This one is not. It has extremely broad support, a large margin of victory when it passed: 426 to 4 in the House. It is going to conference very easily. I have been down here three times. I will continue to come down here and ask unanimous consent to proceed immediately to consideration of this legislation.

Mr. KERREY. That is correct.

Mr. KERREY. That is correct. It does create a toll-free number and powerful new incentives to move to electronic filing.

Mr. KERREY. The Senator is right. You are absolutely right. The culture, though, is not going to change at the IRS until we give the IRS Commissioner the management authority the manager needs to be able to run the agency with performance that is based upon something other than these quotas that have been set up. Although it has been a relatively small number of instances where we identified them, it still--relatively small--it is one too many.

Mr. KERREY. I asked the Senate to grant unanimous consent to proceed immediately to H.R. 2676, which is the IRS Restructuring Act of 1997 that was received from the House on Wednesday, that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. KERREY. That is correct. Actually, I believe it is 426 to 4.

Mr. KERREY. That is correct. It creates a public board that would for the first time have oversight of the IRS, have the power to develop a strategic plan, and make budget recommendations to the Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the situation in Iraq regarding the U.N. inspection regime and the refusal of the Iraqi Government to accept American inspectors and thus delay the inspections. The Iraqi purpose is clear: to attack the unity and will of the world community, and especially the members of the Security Council, concerning sanctions to Iraq; to weaken the authority of the United Nations by dictating terms of compliance to U.N. Security Council resolutions; and most important, to conceal and retain and build up the chemical and biological weapons programs of the Iraqi military. Once again we are in a crisis with Iraq; not of our making but of theirs. The question being debated here and in the United Nations is: What should we do? The crisis began a week ago on October 29, 1997 when Saddam Hussein sought to evict from Iraq Americans who are assigned to international inspection teams sent by the United Nations to enforce a cease fire agreement signed by Iraq on April 6, 1991, following the January 17 to February 28 war to liberate Kuwait known as Desert Storm. In the agreement Iraq promised to pay Kuwait for war damages, to destroy all its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capacity, and to allow inspectors into their country to verify compliance. On April 11, 1991, the U.N. Security Council officially declared an end to the war and to continuing the sanctions originally imposed on August 6, 1990. The Security Council created the Special Commission, also known as UNSCOM, to carry out the inspection of Iraqi installations in order to verify the destruction of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capacity. UNSCOM--originally expected to be in operation for several months--has been in business for 6 years. During these past 6 years the UNSCOM inspectors have met with success. They reduced the Iraqi stockpile of weapons of mass destruction more than the war itself. Iraq has considerably less capability than it had when Desert Storm ended. That is the goods news. The bad news is that they retain sufficient capacity to pose a real and serious threat to the people of the United States. The nature of this residual threat can be seen in a letter sent to the United Nations on Wednesday by Richard Butler, an arms control expert who heads the UNSCOM. According to Mr. Butler the Iraqis could easily adapt laboratory or industrial equipment to resume making prohibited materials. In his letter he says: ``For example, it would take only a matter of hours to adapt fermenters to produce seed stocks of biological warfare agents. Furthermore, it appears that cameras may have been intentionally tampered with, lenses covered and lighting turned off in the facilities under monitoring.'' The idea of biological weapons in the hands of Iraq's Saddam Hussein should strike fear in the hearts of every American. This man is dangerous to his own people, his neighbors, and to us. He is also clever. His latest ploy has produced more benefits for him than losses. Again, Mr. Butler is our guide. In his letter he says that, while we attempt to negotiate a right that was guaranteed under the peace agreement they signed, Iraq has been able to hide evidence and disable surveillance equipment. He specifically notes that we cannot monitor machinery that can balance missile guidance systems or equipment that could grow seed stocks of biological agents in a matter of hours. Mr. Butler calls our attention to two actions Iraq has taken during the week when inspectors were absent. First, significant pieces of equipment that had been under the view of video monitoring system have been moved out of range of cameras. Second, monitoring equipment has been tampered with in other areas. Even if inspections start again, Saddam Hussein has succeeded in making our work more difficult. We must reset and re-aim surveillance cameras. We must recheck the machinery or stocks of materials these cameras watch. And we should not be certain whether prohibited arms or components had been produced in crash programs and carried away to be hid. So, while we sit and wonder what we should do, Saddam Hussein sits and counts the ways he has benefited. A U.N. team sent by Secretary General Kofi Amnan has just returned with nothing to show for their efforts. The team leader, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria was quoted as saying the Iraqis were very nice. Well, why not be nice? After succeeding 2 weeks ago in defeating United States efforts to impose more intense sanctions at the Security Council, Iraq has now gotten the U.N. to send a special negotiating team to ask politely if Iraq will do what it promised to do 6 years ago when it was suing for peace. Mr. President, we cannot allow the situation in Iraq to continue to head in its current direction. Too much is at stake. American security and the security of our allies and interests hangs in the balance of our decision. For my part I have reached the conclusion that our policy of containment cannot succeed. We need an objective which will ensure our security. We need a goal which will guarantee the stability we seek for the region. As has always been the case, an outrageous act by Saddam Hussein has provoked a strong reaction in this country. Military responses are broadly discussed. Editorial pages talk of making sure our military response if a head shot at Saddam himself, as though assassination were a legal option for U.S. forces. At some point we may turn to a military response appropriate in scope and direction to achieve immediate and longer terms goals. A measured action, complete with the certainty of further response if necessary, may be what is called for in this situation. But I believe we need to ensure that our military actions, as well as our diplomatic and economic efforts, are part of an overall strategy toward Iraq which will attain a goal consistent with American ideals and interests. Today, the United States and the international community are considering whether the proper response to Saddam's actions is a limited military action targeting suspected facilities or continued talks aimed at a more diplomatic end to this impasse. These are tactical options which will enable the United States and the international community to continue to muddle through its current strategy of containment toward Iraq. While the containment of Saddam has brought limited success in disarming his military, this strategy has been ineffective in changing the behavior of the Iraqi Government and is in danger of becoming more ineffective with the passage of time. Some commentators state that the cohesion of the Persian Gulf coalition has naturally grown more tenuous as other nations rediscover the promise of Iraqi petrodollars. They believe that our former coalition partners will inevitably find Iraq's oil wealth so tempting as to overlook the risks involved in the reemergence of a military powerful Saddam. I believe this need not be the case, if United States can formulate a strategy with clear policy objectives instead of continuing with a strategy of simply reacting to the Iraqi dictator's latest violation. We need to change our goals, our strategy, and our tactics. I believe our policy toward Iraq should be open and direct--The United States seeks to remove the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government. Nothing more, nothing less. Our frustration with Saddam is understandable. Six years ago we thought we had him. He failed utterly, ruined his country and two neighboring countries, caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and by our political lights he should be gone. But by his politics, the politics of a terror rivaled in this century only by Stalin's, Saddam keeps his job and we are rightly frustrated. While Saddam rules, Iraq poses a threat to its neighbors and, by extension, to us. He still has SCUD missiles which could carry his chemical and biological agents to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, and to other nations in the region whose security is a vital American interest. He has ground forces which could invade Kuwait again or embroil any of his other contiguous neighbors in war. Those same forces threaten or oppress Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite minorities every day. If Saddam retains power and escapes from sanctions, the threat he will pose in a decade will be far greater. He will have intermediate range or even long range missiles to carry his deadly payloads, he may have developed a nuclear weapon, and he will again have many billions of dollars in oil income to modernize his Armed Forces. He will be a major threat to his country and in fact to the entire world. We simply cannot let it happen, and I am confident we will not. In considering how to respond to Saddam's latest outrage, President Clinton and the Congress need to take the long view, looking past the incident of the moment to determine the long-range outcome we want. Because we are the United States, and because we have already expended lives and treasure because of Iraq, I think our long-range goal should be ambitious. We know from Iraqi history that Iraq is predisposed to dictatorship. We also know the dictatorships from this unbalanced state will inevitably threaten their neighbors. So getting rid of Saddam is not good enough. We need to get rid of Iraqi dictatorship. Our long-range goal should be a democratic Iraq. Other countries may be tempted to do business deals with the Iraqi dictator and tactfully glance away from his abuse of his people. We Americans should settle for nothing less than democracy. An impossible, naive dream? I think not. The Iraqi people, despite the lobotomy Saddam has tried to give them, are a well-educated, skilled people. They know the horrors of dictatorship better than anyone else on Earth. When Iraqis tell me their heartfelt commitment to a democratic future for their country, I believe them. How do we turn this yearning for democracy into the reality of a free Iraq? Let me lay out a road map. First, we should maintain sanctions on Iraq and return to the inspection system which existed until October 29, when Saddam excluded American inspectors from the teams. If we have to use military force to get Iraqi compliance, fine. We should strive to have our coalition partners join us in this use because the power of the world community to bring an outlaw to heel is at issue here. If Iraq can thumb its nose at the Security Council today, some other rogue state will do the same tomorrow, and the system we and our allies have carefully built over 52 years will collapse. But even if some of our coalition partners don't join us, we should act militarily if Iraq won't back down. Second, we must convince our core European and Asian allies that democracy, not just the compliance of a dictator, is the right long- term goal for Iraq. We must show our allies the far greater benefits and reduced risks that will accrue to them as well as to us from a democratic Iraq. We must sign up our allies for the long term. Third, we must make the people of Iraq our allies, too. We must go beyond merely stating our support for democracy and instead put concrete encouragements on the table, solid indicators of Western commitment to Iraqi democracy. We should announce we will forgive Iraqi debt if a democratic regime takes power there and we should encourage our allies to do the same. We should state clearly the loan and foreign assistance preferences which a democratic Iraq would receive from United States and multinational institutions. We should discuss our preparations to supply immediate food and medical assistance to Iraq at the moment of Saddam's replacement by a regime which states its intention to hold free elections. And we should make sure, by means of Voice of America and commercial media, that every Iraqi knows about these encouragements to be democratic. Even before change comes, these steps will restore hope in Iraqi hearts. Fourth, we should openly and consistently state our goal of a free, democratic Iraq. To accept less and to say less is simply unworthy of our heritage. Let democracy, respect for human rights, and a free economy be our consistent mantra for Iraq, as it ought to be for every country, and some day, not far off, when Saddmam's prisons and graveyards and secret weapons sites are opened and the Iraqi people can tell the story of their suffering, we will be proud that we set a lofty goal. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. I have no objection.

Mr. KERREY

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

Mr. KERREY. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. KERREY. It is only 20 to 6.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. KERREY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I appreciate very much what the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma is saying. We have had many conversations. He is cosponsoring the legislation, so I know he wants to get this reform enacted. I believe that when we know we can get something done that will improve the operation of the IRS, we ought to do it. Again, I respectfully say, I think this sets up the basis for further action, because it gives the IRS Commissioner the kind of authority that the IRS Commissioner needs to manage the agency. It gives the IRS Commissioner authority to say this is what we think the Code is doing to the taxpayers, this is what it is costing the taxpayers to comply with the Code we have. I favor rather aggressive reform of the Code. I certainly wouldn't come to the floor and say I don't think we ought to do it until we reform the Code. There is lots more that can be done with the IRS, no doubt about it. But I don't think we are ever going to have a single piece of legislation that does it all. For gosh sakes, we just confirmed a new Commissioner and sent him over to run an agency of 115,000 people. Look at the law. The law doesn't give him the authority to manage the agency. It doesn't give him the authority to hire and fire senior people. It doesn't give him the authority to provide positive financial incentives so the agency can be run in a better fashion. It doesn't give him legal authority to move expeditiously to electronic filing. It doesn't require the basis of the disclosure of audits. There is a cumbersome Freedom of Information Act process with the IRS. It is especially slow and difficult for citizens who are trying to get information. It doesn't require the establishment of some complexity analysis so that we can make a judgment about whether or not what we are doing is going to make it harder for the taxpayers to comply. It doesn't require the kind of coordinated oversight that is needed with a public board governing the IRS that will enable us to achieve consensus on a strategic plan. All these things are in there. You look at them and say, ``I can't be against it.'' There likely will be 100 votes for all the things I just described. Why not do it now? It doesn't preclude us from coming back next year and taking further action. All these things I listed will improve benefits to American taxpayers, to those 130,000 every single day who are going to receive in the mail a notice that they owe additional taxes, to a quarter of a million who are going to pick up a phone and make a phone call and try to get an answer to some question they have. If you look at the law that is being proposed that was passed by the House by all but four Members, I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to look at the law and see, for gosh sakes, that this doesn't prevent us from taking action next year, this doesn't prevent the Finance Committee or any other committee from holding hearings and considering legislation to improve it. All this does is it matches with authority the responsibility that the Commissioner has and will enable, unquestionably enable, the customers, the taxpayers of the United States of America to get better service than they are currently getting. They are going to pay a price for delaying. The congressional restructuring commission had 12 public hearings, thousands of interviews with private sector individuals. This legislation, by the way, has the endorsement of every provider out there of services to payers, as well as the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. This piece of legislation has been examined from stem to stern by an awful lot of people who are now embracing and endorsing the legislation and saying that on behalf of the American taxpayers, this piece of legislation, this change in the law for the IRS will make the IRS more efficient and make the taxpayers themselves more competent; that not only are they going to get a fair shake, but get a right answer to the question that they ask. I will be down here again tomorrow if we are still around here, and the next day if we are still around here, and however long it takes. We can conference this thing in a day and get it on to the President. I hope Members on the other side will look at this law and begin to ask the question, do we want to change the law this time and come back and address all the other things the distinguished Senators from Delaware and Oklahoma said we ought to be doing? Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. SMITH of Oregon addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the comments of the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, the senior Senator from Delaware. Especially his willingness to hold 3 days of hearings, penetrating what is called the 6103 veil, which allows us to see information that typically is held in secret, in confidence, to protect the taxpayer. These hearings enabled the American people to see abuses that most Americans look at and say: This is objectionable and should not be allowed to continue. I would point out, though, that the board question that the chairman raised here, giving the board more authority--the Washington Post editorial cited one of the reasons they wanted more hearings was they thought the legislation that we had given the board too much authority. So my guess is they would write it, if we gave the board more authority--they would write the committee saying: You better give the board more hearings because you still have it wrong. We had 12 days of hearings in the hearings that Congressman Portman of Ohio and I conducted. Thousands of interviews with IRS employees, former Commissioner Richardson supports it, former Commissioner Goldman supports the recommendation, former Treasury Secretary Baker, former Treasury Secretary Brady and current Treasury Secretary Rubin--all support the legislation. All have examined it. We have had a full markup in the Ways and Means Committee. This may not go as far as some would like, but given the fact that we handle 200 million tax returns, individual and corporate, every single year, it seems to me reasonable that we begin with this board somewhat cautiously. It has significant authority in the development of the strategic plan. It has authority to make advisory recommendations on the budget as well. It can pass judgment on the performance of the Commissioner and make recommendations to the President in regard to the Commissioner's actions. We do, in fact, in the amendments that have been agreed to now by 14 members of the Finance Committee, as the chairman indicated, give the taxpayer advocate the independence needed to be a true effective advocate for the taxpayer. Instead of being an employee of the IRS, the advocate would be able to operate more independently than is currently the case, and many of the changes the chairman has indicated that he would like to do I fully support. What seems to me to be the most compelling question of all is, do you want the new Commissioner of the IRS to have the authority to hire and fire senior people, to be able to provide positive financial incentives, to be required to disclose what the audit requirements are, to have incentives to be able to go to electronic filing, to have the legal authority to be able to comment on tax complexity? All these things are fairly straightforward. I can't imagine anybody saying the IRS Commissioner should not have the authority this legislation gives him to be able to manage the agency. The risks are high, Mr. President, that in this next filing system, given what we have discovered now by penetrating the 6103 veil, there is a good chance we are going to get a decrease in voluntary compliance, with citizens saying it may be a small percentage and, indeed, our commission discovered that it is a relatively small percentage of IRS employees who are abusing the authority and the power that they have. But I can tell you that when the odds are only 4, 5 or 6 percent, that is still pretty good odds if it is your tax return, if it is your life, if it is your future that is at stake. We risk a lot by delaying, and the people who are going to pay a price, again, are those 130,000 people who every single day are going to get a letter in the mail saying, you owe additional taxes, and that quarter of a million people who are going to call up every single day to the IRS trying to get a question answered. I don't disagree at all with the chairman's identifying some additional things that need to be done, but where we have such broad consensus among Republicans and Democrats, with only four dissenting votes in the House, my guess is in the Senate it would pass nearly unanimously as well once people look at the details of this legislation and see what it would give new Commissioner Rossotti the authority to be able to do. Again, I don't know how long we are going to be around here, but this piece of legislation, if it were taken up in the manner I have described, I believe would be passed quickly, would be in conference quickly, get it to the President, get his signature and would set up not just the debate that the distinguished chairman of the committee has identified, but also a debate on tax simplicity and other things that ought to be taken up by this body as well as the House. This sets up the debate. It doesn't decrease the opportunity for a debate. It makes it more likely we will have a healthy debate about tax simplicity, about our code and about further changes that need to be made in the IRS in order to make certain that we can close this breathtaking gap that exists today between what the IRS is able to do and what the private sector is able to do for that 85 to 90 percent of the American people who are voluntarily willing to comply to pay their taxes, if they can just get one answer, which is: How big is the bill? How much do I owe? It is that question that dictates much of the financial planning that American families are doing, and it is a very difficult question to get answered in the current environment. That question would be made much easier to answer if we would just take this piece of legislation up, enact it and get it on to the President for his signature. Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues understand this legislation is something that will, by all accounts, today improve the operational efficiency of the IRS. It does not address many of the issues that were raised by the Senate Finance Committee during its 3 days of hearings and the chairman has indicated he is going to take those up next year. But in the 24 hours since I have offered this unanimous-consent resolution there have been 135,000 notices sent to taxpayers asking them to pay additional taxes and over 250,000 phone calls made by taxpayers to the IRS, trying to get information. These are the two principal points of contact, of irritation, that taxpayers have brought to us over and over and over. The IRS Commissioner under current law simply does not have the authority to manage the agency. He can't hire and fire his top people, can't provide financial incentives, doesn't have the kind of oversight that's needed and doesn't have the requirement to publish his audit data. All that is kept for the moment confidential. This piece of legislation, passed almost unanimously by the House, would certainly get nearly a unanimous vote here in the Senate as well. Everything in this legislation--if you look at it you would say, ``My gosh, I'm surprised it isn't done already.'' As I said, every single day we wait, another 135,000 or so notices are going to go out to taxpayers that they owe additional taxes; a quarter of a million phone calls are going to be coming into the IRS, and they are not going to be managed nearly as well. In our own survey we did to determine what was going on out there we found that 70 percent of the people who call in say they get good service from the phone calls, but that means that 3 out of 10 do not get good service. They are complaining. They are not getting their questions answered, for those who actually get through: A 25 percent error rate in the current environment, the current paper environment; less than 1 percent for electronic filing. The law that we propose, that was passed, as I said, nearly unanimously by the House, provides new incentives and powers to move to electronic filing. I hope my colleagues will understand the urgency of doing this. And what will happen, the price the taxpayers will pay, with a delay. In this morning's papers there were stories about the Speaker saying he was going to try, in one of the conference committees, to get an amendment accepted that would have the IRS doing something that I can't imagine that anybody in this body would support. My guess is, if we discovered the IRS was doing what the Speaker is saying that he would like the IRS to do, most of us would be out here on the floor speaking out against it. He is proposing that the IRS conduct a poll, a 14- question poll. If you look at questions, you know what the answers are going to be. ``Do you think your taxes are fair or unfair?'' Not only a poll, but every single American taxpayer would be mailed under separate cover this poll. Not only would the taxpayer be mailed the poll, but the poll would also go to post offices, it would go to preparers, this poll would go to anybody who has contact with the IRS. The taxpayer then would be asked to fill out the questionnaire and mail it--not back to the IRS, but back to the General Accounting Office where they would be compiled and the results then would be published. The estimate of the costs to do that range from about $30 million up to $80 million. If somebody came to the floor today and said guess what, the IRS is doing a $30 to $80 million poll to find out whether or not the American taxpayers think their taxes are fair enough, if the level of taxes is fair or not, among other questions, I think it would be a 100-to-nothing vote to say the IRS cannot do this. So I hope those who are on the Appropriations Committee, when they are working in these conferences, will make it clear that the Senate doesn't support asking the IRS to do a $30 to $80 million poll which will increase the caseload and work of the IRS itself, which will cause taxpayers to say, ``My gosh what does this mean?'' call the IRS with additional questions, and will cause people to say, ``I don't know whether I want to mail this back. I am afraid this might produce some adverse reaction from the IRS itself.'' This will increase complexity. Those who are proposing this have said that it is real simple, ``We will just take it out of customer service, we will take the money out of customer service and it won't cost us anything at all.'' Again, can you imagine if somebody came to the floor and said, ``Guess what the IRS is doing? They are proposing to spend $30 million up to $80 million out of customer service to do a 14- question poll.'' I can't imagine there wouldn't be 100 Senators down here saying we object to the IRS doing it. This is a case where the Speaker of the House says he may ask the conference committee to direct the IRS to do this very thing. Mr. President, I hope Members, if we hang around here for another 4 or 5 days--given the word that I got that the House is going to vote on fast track, I guess, tomorrow; we could be here for awhile--every single day we wait, another 130,000 notices go out from the IRS to taxpayers that they owe money, another quarter of a million phone calls are going to come into the IRS, asking the IRS questions. The commonsense recommendations in this piece of legislation are so compelling that only four Members of the House of Representatives voted against it. I believe this legislation would pass very quickly here in the Senate. It would set up, in fact, a debate over our tax system and put us in a position to be able to enact many of the things the chairman of the Finance Committee, the distinguished Senator from Delaware, wants to pass. I think it is very difficult to explain to taxpayers back home why we didn't give the Commissioner the legal authority needed to manage his agency in a manner that would enable the voluntary compliance to go up and customer satisfaction to improve as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, 2 years ago Senator Shelby, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, and I were managing the Treasury- Postal appropriations bill on the floor at about this time of the year, I believe. And one of the actions that we had taken in our bill was to zero out the drug czar's office. And the reason that we had done that was that we were quite unhappy with the progress and the performance and, especially, the effort made to interdict and the effort here at home to try to get young people to quit consuming drugs. We were persuaded at the end of the day, Senator Hatch, Senator Biden, and the President himself, saying that they were going to make some substantial changes. Change No. 1 that they made was to bring on Barry McCaffrey, a retired Army general. I do not know how they talked him into it. Somehow they managed to talk him into coming back and being the drug czar. Yesterday, Mr. President, Barry McCaffrey sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense. Among other things he has done over the past couple years, this justifies both the President's confidence in him and Senator Shelby's and my confidence that action would occur. General McCaffrey sent Secretary Cohen, Secretary of Defense, a letter on the 6th of November saying essentially that: The National Narcotics Leadership Act requires that the Office of National Drug Control Policy review the drug budget of each department and certify whether the amount requested is adequate to implement the drug control program of the President. For [fiscal year] 1999, the Department of Defense has requested $809 million for drug control programs, approximately the same level as FY 1998. After careful review, ONDCP has determined pursuant to 21 U.S.C. . . . that this budget cannot be certified. Mr. President, this is a gutsy move. As you know, as everybody around this town very long knows, to send the Department of Defense a letter saying, ``We're not going to certify that your budget is adequate to accomplish the strategy that we have all approved in terms of fighting drugs in America,'' is a rather substantially gutsy move. And I support it 100 percent. Perhaps Secretary Cohen will have a response to it. I have a great deal of respect for Secretary Cohen as well. Perhaps he will be able to come back and give a justification as to why the additional money for the Andean Coca Reduction Initiative, for the Mexican Initiative, for the Caribbean Violent Crime and Regional Interdiction Initiative, and for the National Guard Counterdrug Operations are fully funded at the $809 million level. My guess is, he will not. My guess is that General McCaffrey has done his homework and analyzed it well and understands what the drug policy is supposed to accomplish. And he understands that as drug czar he has authority. In the past, drug czars have not exercised that authority quite as willingly. Barry McCaffrey did. And I hope this Congress supports him. All of us, when we are home, we will have townhall meetings. And if the subject of drugs comes up of, what are we doing? people say to me, ``At least I hear you say it's a war on drugs. Describe the nature of the war we're fighting. Are we winning it? Are we losing it? What kind of resources are we putting into it?'' I say, ``We've got a drug czar. We've got a drug strategy. And we're implementing that drug strategy. We're not going to hold anything back in order to be successful.'' What General McCaffrey has done is he has called upon the Department of Defense to do just that. As I said, I have not seen Secretary Cohen's response to this letter. I am here this evening just to applaud the drug czar for having the courage that previously drug czars have been a little reluctant to show. And if it is shown that these additional resources are needed in order to be able to answer the question at home in townhall meetings in Nebraska that that is what is needed to get the job done, then I hope the Congress will provide the Department of Defense with the resources and insist that the Department of Defense allocate in 1999 the resources in order to be able to get it done. I have not read all of them, the three- or four- or five-part series in the Washington Post on the problem of drugs coming across the border--so-called. There is not much of a border between the United States and Mexico. It is over 2,000 miles. And from what I have seen down there, there is not much to let you know when you are in Mexico or in the United States. And there is a tremendous amount of truck and automobile traffic and an awful lot of resources and money behind the effort to get drugs into the United States. It is corrupting Mexico, making it difficult for them to operate--an extremely violent world. And in this morning's paper, there is a story about Mr. Fuentes' doctors, three of whom were held responsible for his death, apparently, giving him a facelift or something so he would look a little different. They were found in concrete canisters along a road in Mexico. These guys play for keeps. From their standpoint, it is a war. From their standpoint, they are deploying the maximum amount of resources, their considerable amount of wealth and resources. Barry McCaffrey, a first-rate military officer, now our drug czar, when he says to me, ``We need additional resources in order to be successful in these four areas,'' I pay attention to him. And I applaud his willingness to be able to come to the Department of Defense and to this Congress and say, ``This is what we need to do in order to be successful.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that three documents be printed in the Record: One is the letter of November 6 that General McCaffrey sent to Secretary Cohen, and another is the document that indicates the additional resources that are needed, and the third is the ``Legal Authority to De-Certify Agency Budgets.''

Mr. KERREY. I yield the floor. Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.