J. Kerrey

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to comment on a disturbing trend I see arising in the aftermath of the terrorist killing of our military personnel in Saudi Arabia. I am concerned because I believe we may be developing a response that plays right into the terrorists' hands. I frankly question some of the responses coming out of the Congress. Some of these responses neglect answering the fundamental question: Why did the terrorists choose to kill Americans in Dhahran on June 25, 1996? This question is fundamental because if you answer it, you will immediately reach some conclusions about the right and wrong response to the bombing. I say to my colleagues, in order to understand the next steps we should be taking as a nation, you must try to put yourself in the mind of the terrorists to determine what they want. Based on all of the rhetoric and the history of terrorism in this region, there are, in my view, as least three things the terrorists want to have happen as a result of their attacks. First, they want to divide Saudi Arabia from the United States. Second, they want to force the United States out of Saudi Arabia. Third, they want to make it more difficult for the United States to deploy its forces overseas. If these are in fact the goals of the terrorists, and I believe they are, some reactions in Congress and the media are playing right into the terrorists' hands. I have heard implications that cast doubt on the competence of the military chain of command to protect the troops. I have heard doubt cast on the sincerity and willingness of an important ally to cooperate with the United States. I have heard speculation about the stability of the government of that important ally. If I were the terrorist, I'd be pleased at these reactions and be confident that one more spectacular attack might just be good enough to finish the job and drive the Americans out of the region. I say to my colleagues, these are not the appropriate responses when we are at war. And believe me, whoever they may be, the terrorists have declared war on the United States. And I think we can all agree, when we are at war, the appropriate response is not to do what your enemy wants. The appropriate response is to support our military and its commanders. The appropriate response is to praise the airmen at Al Khobar Towers for the dedication and alertness which prevented greater casualties in the attack. The appropriate response is to pile on all of the intelligence and war-fighting resources we can marshal so as to put the perpetrators out of business and to punish their state sponsor, if we find one. The appropriate response is to be sure our troops enjoy the maximum protection consistent with the mission. The appropriate response is to continue with our vital mission in Saudi Arabia. Mr. President, we should be making it clear, right now, the United States is angry. But we are not angry because a barrier was too close to a building. We should be making it very clear we are angry because someone attacked us. That someone should understand they are the focus of our anger, not our military commanders. We should be confirming our commitment the United States will not leave Saudi Arabia. We should make sure our enemy understands they will be punished and their organization will be destroyed. And this will happen to them no matter how far we have to go our how long it takes. We Americans proved during Desert Storm that we will support a 72- hour war. We now need to prove we will support a war that lasts 72 weeks--or however long it takes to defeat this enemy. The nervousness over vulnerabilities, the second-guessing of the chain of command, the search for an exit strategy should be going on in the terrorists' lair--not in the United States. Let's focus the anger where it belongs.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum]. As a consequence of making the judgment that this bill is too important to let die because perhaps 10, 20, or 30 million American families can benefit from the Workforce Development Act, and will benefit. There are not very many pieces of legislation quite like this one where I am 100 percent certain that 2, 3, or 4 years from now someone will come up on the street and say, ``My family has $6,000 more income as a consequence of this piece of legislation. It has benefited me in that fashion.'' I am quite convinced this is one of the most important pieces of legislation that this Congress has taken up. I am very, very grateful to the Senator from Kansas for saying, get all parties back together, Republicans and Democrats. There is not a lot of big money trying to push this thing one way or the other. That sometimes makes things more difficult. But on behalf of 20 or 30 million American families out there who could be tremendously benefited if we change this law in this fashion, I hope the advice of the distinguished Senator from Kansas is taken and that we are able to produce a piece of legislation that will be supported and get this law changed.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, the bill the Senate is now considering, S. 1745, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997, raises many issues essential to our national security. None are more important, however, than the Intelligence Committee's amendments regarding renewal and reform of the Nation's intelligence apparatus, intended to enable that apparatus to respond effectively to the security threats of today and tomorrow. The amendments under consideration were added to the bill when the Select Committee on Intelligence considered it on sequential referral. All of these amendments have been accepted by the Senate Armed Services Committee during the course of negotiations between our two committees regarding the intelligence provisions in S. 1745 and in S. 1718, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997. I would like to make special mention of the Intelligence Committee's proposed amendments to the provisions of S. 1745 relating to the new National Imagery and Mapping Agency, or NIMA. NIMA would be created by consolidating nearly a dozen agencies or offices within the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, including the Defense Mapping Agency, the Central Imagery Office, CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, into a single agency within the Department of Defense. The creation of NIMA will reduce redundancies in the processing and analysis of imagery, ensure more challenging career opportunities for those in the imagery and mapping fields, and create an important synergy between mapping and imagery--allowing maps to leave the paper and attain all the benefits of today's digital technology. The creation of NIMA has been jointly proposed by the Director of Central Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The establishment of a single national imagery agency was also endorsed by the Brown Commission. Nevertheless, the creation of NIMA constitutes a major reorganization of U.S.C. intelligence activities and includes the transfer of several imagery- related offices out of the CIA and into the Department of Defense. Accordingly, the Intelligence Committee focused considerable attention on the specific provisions in S. 1745 that would establish NIMA and define its responsibilities. We concluded that these provisions need to be modified in several key respects. Most important, the committee concluded that the role of the Director of Central Intelligence with respect to the tasking of imagery satellites should be clarified. The DCI must have clear authority to set imagery collection requirements and priorities, and to resolve conflicts among priorities. The DCI has such authority under existing executive orders and presidential decisions, but, in light of the establishment of NIMA as an agency of the Department of Defense, the Committee believes the DCI's authorities should be restated in statute. The committee has amended S. 1745 to include these authorities in both title 10, U.S. Code (together with other provisions establishing NIMA) and in the National Security Act of 1947 in title 50 (which specifies the DCI's authorities as director of the intelligence community). The committee also focused on the provisions of S. 1745 that define the responsibilities of NIMA to support intelligence consumers outside the Department of Defense. These provisions are especially important because with the consolidation of most of the imagery-related activities of the intelligence community into an agency within the Department of Defense there is a risk that the imagery needs of non-DOD customers might not be met. We concluded that the language of the provisions is sufficient to protect the interests of national consumers but that the provisions should be moved from title 10 to title 50, where they are more appropriately placed since they relate to the authorities of the DCI rather than the organization of the Department of Defense. The committee was also concerned that, as reported by the Armed Services Committee, the very first provision relating to NIMA in S. 1745 would have stated that NIMA ``is a combat support agency of the Department of Defense.'' The term ``combat support agency'' was first used in the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 to describe certain DOD agencies that have wartime support functions and that are subject to periodic review by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with respect to their combat readiness. The four defense agencies designated by Congress as combat support agencies in 10 U.S. 193 are the Defense Communications Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the Defense Mapping Agency. When Congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols Act, it specifically declined to list the National Security Agency as a combat support agency because NSA serves customers outside the Department of Defense. Congress, however, subjected NSA to the same JCS review procedures as other combat support agencies but only with respect to its combat support functions. The Intelligence Committee believes that it would have been most appropriate to treat NIMA like NSA, i.e. not list NIMA as a combat support agency but subject it to JCS review with respect to its combat support functions. The Department of Defense and the Armed Services Committee, however, have insisted that NIMA be listed as a combat support agency because the Defense Mapping Agency was listed as a combat support agency. Given that the Defense Mapping Agency will comprise the largest activity within NIMA, the Intelligence Committee has agreed to have NIMA listed as a combat support agency in 10 U.S.C. 193 for purposes of JCS review (but only with respect to its combat support functions). But we continue to believe that it would be a mistake to establish NIMA as a combat support agency in the very first sentence, even if subsequent statutory provisions specifically state that NIMA also has national missions. The implication would be left that NIMA's primary purpose is to provide combat support, and the imagery support to other customers might suffer as a result. Accordingly, the Intelligence Committee reported S. 1745 with an amendment to the provision establishing NIMA that would delete the reference to NIMA's establishment as a combat support agency. The Armed Services Committee has proposed to reinsert the reference to NIMA's status as a combat support agency in the establishment provision but to add in the same sentence that NIMA has significant national missions. We would not object to this formulation because it emphasizes that NIMA has two equally important functions: combat support and support for national missions. Our Committee also had concerns regarding the provisions relating to the appointment and status of the Director of NIMA. The legislative package drafted by the Administration to create NIMA provided that (1) the Director of NIMA could be either a civilian or a military officer; and (2) that the Secretary of Defense must obtain the concurrence of the DCI, or note the non-concurrence of the DCI, when recommending an individual to the President for appointment as Director of NIMA. As reported by the Armed Services Committee, S. 1745 would have required that the Director of NIMA be a military officer and that the Secretary of Defense simply consult the DCI before recommending a nominee to the President. The Armed Services Committee's formulation would have prevented the President from appointing a civilian Director of NIMA (thus implying that NIMA performs exclusively military functions) and would have given the DCI only a minor voice in the appointment of the head of a critical national intelligence agency. The Armed Services Committee formulation was opposed by the DCI and by the Secretary of Defense. Accordingly, the two Committees agreed to amend the bill to revert to the Administration's proposal. Finally, the two Committees agreed to delete from S. 1745 a provision that would have prohibited the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency from conducting any inspection, investigation, or audit of NIMA without the written consent of DOD Inspector General. We believe that, taken together, our amendments will help to clarify the responsibilities of the DCI with respect to the operation of NIMA and will serve to ensure that the imagery needs of consumers outside the Department of Defense are satisfied.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of S. 1219, the Senate Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1996. Let me first praise both the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin for being able to reconcile what I know are substantial differences and produce a piece of legislation that both of them support. I believe the exercise they went through is an exercise all of us need to go through if we are going to be able to change the law that underlies our campaign system. It seems to me it is very, very important for us to do so. First, as to why, I know there are very strong feelings. I caught a piece of the debate thus far between the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Washington and the Senator from Arizona. I know there are very strong feelings about campaign finance reform. Very often, it is true, the facts do not bear up the conclusion people make about the system being corrupted and being bad and so forth. It is very often true the perceptions are far, far worse than the reality. But as we all know, perceptions in politics can become reality in a big hurry. We all, I suspect, are aware that last summer, on the 11th of June, the two most powerful political leaders in the country, the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House, stood in Claremont, NH, in the runup to the Presidential primary, took a question from the audience about campaign finance reform, and agreed, shook hands and agreed that they were going to cooperate in the appointment of a commission that would make recommendations. We all know since that time nothing has happened. Also last summer, I read--and I asked staff, and they dug it out for me--a poll that was presented to me that I had presented asking the American people the following question: Who they thought really controlled the Federal Government in Washington, DC. That was last summer, summer of 1995. Twenty-five percent said they thought the Republicans in Congress, since they are in control of both the House and Senate, the Republicans control the Congress; 6 percent said the Democrats controlled the Congress; interestingly, 6 percent thought the President controlled the Federal Government; and 49 percent, up from 38 percent in 1991, said special interests controlled Washington, DC. Again, I appreciate that much of this is a perception, but it is a very serious perception for us. People have lost trust and confidence, and they are asking for us to level the playing field, give nonincumbents a greater opportunity to clean up our campaign finance system. I actually heard very few people come to the floor and say the system does not need to be changed. The problem is that we always find ourselves coming up short, unable to finally reach agreement, which is why, again, I praise the hard work that the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin have done because they sat down and worked out their differences. I suspect they still have some things about the bill they are not wildly enthusiastic about, but they know it is long past the time that we are going to be excused by the American people for giving them some excuses. Mr. President, Nebraska has a connection between campaign finance reform and the history of campaign finance reform. We are connected because we had a son of the State, William Jennings Bryan, running for President in 1896. He was leading his opponent, William McKinley, until a man by the name of Mark Hanna, the Cleveland industrialist who was the top adviser to Republican nominee William McKinley and who also chaired the Republican National Committee, raised and spent money, at that time, in unprecedented amounts. He spent $100,000 of his own money, which would be well over a million dollars today, on preconvention expenses for McKinley. He organized and funded the distribution of 100 million campaign documents to what was then a nation of 71 million Americans and 14 million voters. He established for the first time a line of clear national authority over the State party committees, which carried out his orders. More important, he augmented the old party fundraising system. The old system was to send your political appointees a note saying, ``Two percent of your salary is the amount. Please remit promptly.'' But Hanna also went to the wealthy industrialists who most feared the free-silver policy of William Jennings Bryan. In August 1896, he met with New York's financial barons and assessed them according to their capital. J.P. Morgan gave $250,000; Standard Oil $250,000; Chicago's giant meatpackers gave $400,000. In the end, Hanna raised almost $3.5 million for McKinley, although he never did say how much he raised, but it was enough for him to crush Bryan in the general election, outspending him nearly 20 to 1 and resulting in McKinley's victory. Until the 1970's, Mr. President, our campaign finance laws were mostly futile efforts to stem the flood of money into politics. Lest I be completely unbalanced and reference only Republicans doing it, it was a progressive Republican who followed McKinley into the White House, Theodore Roosevelt, who proposed the public funding of elections in his 1907 State of the Union Address, but his proposal went forgotten for 60 years. Congress passed the Tillman Act of 1907, also backed by Theodore Roosevelt, which barred corporations and banks from contributing to campaigns. In 1925, it passed the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. But these laws did little to stem the tide of money in politics, which had become, at that time, very much a bipartisan problem. In 1932, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, John Raskob, the former finance chairman of General Motors, gave about $500,000 a year of his own money to fund the Democratic Party and gave nearly $150,000 alone to the campaign of Franklin Roosevelt. The year 1940 saw the rise of a young Texas Congressman named Lyndon Johnson. He revitalized what at the time was a very moribund Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, with money raised from the oil and construction barons who dominated the politics of his State. Mr. President, I laid that down, and much more can be laid in this debate, to indicate that there is generally a sort of history of lawlessness about campaign finance reform that should be noted when this debate is going on. The system of funding campaigns is dramatically different. The system itself is much, much cleaner than it was 100 years ago or even 30 years ago. But, again, the perception still dominates in the land that special interests control our legislative process, and that seems to me to be the most important argument for changing our law. Laws which currently govern our system of campaign finance were passed in the 1970's. There was the Revenue Act of 1971, which introduced public funding of Presidential campaigns, as well as voluntary limits on campaign spending. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 set up our system of disclosing contributors and of providing broadcast time to candidates at the lowest unit rate. The scandal of Watergate later on caused Congress to pass the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974. These amendments created the Federal Election Commission; they established individual and PAC contribution limits; they established public funding of Presidential primaries and political conventions; and they limited the amounts that individuals could spend on their own campaigns, a provision which would later be ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the first amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1976 and again in 1979, Congress passed additional amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. These amendments addressed the constitutional problems of the 1971 and 1974 legislation and expanded the role of the political parties under the law. But since then, efforts by Congress to pass laws that would reform the system failed. Mr. President, I believe when more than 50 percent of the American people believe that special interests control the Federal Government and when the two most powerful politicians in America meet in New Hampshire before the first Presidential primary and promise with a handshake to do something to change the law, that we would expect to see some action. The lack of action reinforces the view that Americans have of their Government. The American people are frustrated by our delay. They are frustrated with the political process that appears to respond to those with economic power and which, all too often, ignores the needs of working men and women. They are frustrated with the rising cost of campaigns, with a political system which closes the door to people of average means who also want to serve their country in the U.S. Congress. They are frustrated with a Congress which, in their minds, has been bought and paid for. I serve in the Senate, Mr. President, and I know my colleagues to be men and women of honor, but I can hardly blame the American people for believing that we are not. They see millions of dollars that go into our campaigns. They read the newspapers and see pictures of lobbyists huddling outside our Chamber with cellular phones, and the citizens wonder whose voice is being heard. They think the men with the cellular phones have first priority. The American people are frustrated with our tendency to talk instead of act. Eliza Doolittle, in the musical ``My Fair Lady,'' sang a verse which captures how the American people feel about campaign finance reform. She sang: Words, words, words. All I hear is words. If you love me, show me. Mr. President, it is time for us to show the American people, not with words but with action. With a single vote today or tomorrow, Senators can act to allow this issue to move front and center on the political stage. With this bipartisan bill, we can show the American people that we mean what we say when we talk about political reform. S. 1219 amends the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and it also amends the Communications Act of 1934. It has four simple titles, and I have chosen to go through these titles and allow those who are listening to make their own determination as to whether or not this will improve the system. Title I of the bill sets up a system of voluntary spending limits for primary, general and runoff elections which are based upon State population. It also sets a voluntary limit on the amount of personal funds which a candidate spends. For example, let us say you have a woman citizen of this country who challenges a male incumbent. The bill would provide benefits to this candidate who would meet a threshold contribution requirement, and it works within the bill's spending and fundraising limits. It would give her up to 30 minutes of free air time on television and allows her to buy television time and send bulk mail at special low rates. When she runs against someone who will not accept the bill's limits, whether it is an incumbent or nonincumbent, it boosts her fundraising spending and maximum individual contribution limits so she can keep up with her opponents. If her opponent pledges to obey the limits, and then backs out, he is not only forced to pay back the benefits he received, but then has to start buying his television time at normal commercial rates instead of the lowest unit rate that all candidates enjoy. The bill requires candidates to raise 60 percent of their funds from residents of their State, but allows candidates in our smaller States to meet that requirement by having 60 percent of their individual contributors be in-State residents. This is a very sensible provision, Mr. President, which prevents the small number of powerful economic interests from dominating the Senate campaign politics of a given State. Title II of the bill bans contributions from political action committees and provides that if the courts rule the ban unconstitutional, that the maximum contribution limit for PAC's will drop from $5,000 to $1,000 per election. It bans national political parties from raising and spending soft money. It requires State and local parties to spend Federal money on activities that would affect Federal races. It prevents political parties from funding so-called 501(c) organizations. It allows State parties to raise funds under the control of the Federal Election Campaign Act for grassroots activities such as get- out-the-vote and generic ballot efforts. It requires corporations and unions that spend more than $10,000 for internal communications efforts to report their activity to the Federal Election Commission within 48 hours. It restricts the bundling of contributions by counting those contributions toward the bundler's individual contribution limit. It requires those who make independent expenditures to report those expenditures within a matter of hours. Title III, Mr. President, codifies Federal Election Commission regulations which keep candidates from spending their campaign funds on themselves. It requires the FEC to allow a candidate to file their reports electronically. It allows the FEC to conduct random audits upon a vote of four of its members. Further, it toughens the disclaimer requirements for television ads, something that almost every single Member has observed is very much in need. It bans Members of Congress from using the franking privilege for mass mailing during the calendar year in which they are up for reelection. Title IV, Mr. President, the bill's final title, provides for expedited review of constitutional issues by the Supreme Court and authorizes the Federal Election Commission to implement the bill's provisions through regulations. It is not a perfect bill, Mr. President. For example, my view is that PAC and bundling provisions do too much to limit the participation of average men and women in America and too little to rein in the big corporations which could stay beyond the reach of the law. But it is unquestionably a start, and a very important start. It should not be the target of a filibuster. It should not be an occasion for Senators to weep more crocodile tears and say, we support the concept of reform, but we just cannot live with this or that particular proposal. The voters have heard that before, Mr. President. They know what it means. It means we want to do nothing. It means we are worried about protecting ourselves, when we ought to be worrying about protecting our democracy. The best test of this bill's success is whether it makes an incumbent Senator nervous. If it does, then it gets the job done. We cannot afford to tell the voters one more time that we do not want to do anything. They are quickly losing their trust in us. They do not trust us to reform our entitlement programs and allow our children to retire in dignity. They do not trust us to improve the way we teach our children. And they do not trust us to send our troops overseas, to keep our Nation strong, and to lead in the world. Mr. President, last week 70 percent of Russian voters went to the polls to choose a President. They went because they thought they could make a difference. Meanwhile, in this country it has been a long time since 70 percent of our citizens, who fought and won the cold war, would vote in the 70-percent range. Mr. President, it is time for us to prove to the American people that we mean what we say when we talk about reforming our political system. Let us earn back their trust so we can go to work and build a better nation. Mr. President, I again want to say, as I said at the start, I know there are significant disagreements about what should be in any change in the 1971 Campaign Finance Act. I respect those differences of opinion and respect different points of view on this. But, for gosh sakes, let us allow the voters and the citizens of the United States of America to hear a full and open debate. Let us rally the 60 votes necessary to allow this proposal to be considered. I hope sincerely that we will have enough votes tomorrow so that once and for all we can put some action behind our words. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, at the end of May, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and a consortium of meatpacking companies announced an innovative pilot project in which the companies will voluntarily verify the employment eligibility of noncitizens who seek employment. I commend the meatpacking industry, specifically IBP and BeefAmerica in Nebraska, as well as companies elsewhere in recognizing that the jobs they offer are a major draw for immigrants, some of whom are not in the country legally, and for taking the initiative to help root out those who are not eligible to work. The meatpacking industry wants to hire legal workers; this industry is also well aware of how difficult a task that can be given the availability of forged documents. The Employment Verification Pilot will test, across an entire industry, a hiring system that has already demonstrated success in smaller pilot projects. In a relatively short period of time we should expect that the word will spread: Nebraska and other States with good job opportunities will keep the welcome mat out for those authorized to work, but will shut the door to those who are not. The participating companies together employ about 56,000 workers at 48 sites in 10 States. Participation by these employers ensures that about 80 percent of the meatpacking industry will be covered. I also commend the INS for their response to an issue of utmost importance to the country--protecting American jobs and continuing efforts to reduce the primary incentive for illegal immigration--the job magnet. I also want to laud the INS for recognizing the usefulness of a voluntary system. By participating with employers in fashioning the program, the INS has forged a partnership that will lead to success. The process is simple. Employers who volunteer to participate can quickly verify with INS, through a computer, whether their newly hired, noncitizen employees are authorized to work. In most cases, verification will be received in minutes. Through quick verification, this project cracks down on illegal employment while protecting the rights of legal immigrant workers. I believe this pilot project has the potential to restore American's faith in the legal immigration system and I look forward to the evaluation of the program after it has gotten off the ground. I also look forward to continue working with INS and employers to ensure that Americans jobs are protected and available for those who are in the United States legally.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today to briefly discuss my opposition to the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution. In voting against the balance budget amendment last week, I stated that I did not believe Congress needed a mechanism in the Constitution to balance the budget and that I believed Congress had the will to reach a balanced budget on its own. If nothing else, I can say that at least my colleagues across the aisle proved me right on that point. However, I voted against this budget proposal because I am in considerable disagreement with the way they propose we achieve budgetary balance. Their budget resolution, passed yesterday on a party-line vote, calls for discretionary spending cuts to programs vital to our Nation's future--like education and research--while offering a tax cut that forces larger and deeper cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. But more important, Mr. President, this budget does nothing--nothing--to fundamentally reform our entitlement programs which continue to consume a bigger portion of the Federal budget each year. I also point out that this resolution raises the deficit for the first time since the Clinton administration took office. Mr. President, I support the goal of a balanced budget and have fought, am fighting and will continue to fight to achieve it. Recently my colleagues and I--Senators Simpson, Brown, Nunn, and Robb--proposed a provision that would have reformed long-term entitlements. Mind you, we did not tinker around the edges, but instead took on some serious budgetary dilemmas without using gimmickry or short-term measures as a solution. For our efforts we received 36 bipartisan votes--unprecedented support for this type of long-term entitlement reform. Our proposed changes to current laws would have caused taxpayers very little concern in the short-term as these changes would be phased in and have no effect on anyone over the age of 50 and would save the Nation billions of dollars in the long term. As well, the Senate recently voted on the centrist budget plan, which addressed a number of budgetary problems including long-term entitlement reform, and provided a balanced budget in seven years. This plan garnered 46 bipartisan votes--22 Democrats and 24 Republicans. I only wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle chose a similar path. A balanced budget by 2002, which this resolution offers, is still of little solace because it ignores the most important fiscal challenge we face: the rapid growth in entitlement spending over the next 30 years. I cannot stress enough the year on which we ought to be focused is not 2002, but 2008, when the baby boomer generation begins to reach eligibility age for retirement. This will place a severe strain on the Federal budget. Our biggest fiscal challenge is demographic, not political, and the budget before us does not address it. Unfortunately, and conveniently, this demographic challenge is kept from our view by a budgeting process that discourages long-term planning. A six-year span is completely inadequate when the most difficult budget decisions we need to make deal with problems we will face 20, 25, and 30 years down the road, when the aging of our population propels entitlement spending out of control. The most important recommendation of the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform was that we begin to look at the impact of budgets over 30 years rather than just 5 or 7. The reason is that our country looks very different, and our current budgets look very different, viewed over that span. We can see the trend even in the short term. Entitlement programs-- which included Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Federal retirement--will consume 66 percent of the budget this year. By 2002, it will be 73 percent. By 2005, the number is 78 percent. Those numbers are straight from CBO, and if we project further, Mr. President, we see that by 2021, mandatory spending and interest on the national debt will consume every dollar we collect in taxes. By 2013, we will be forced to begin dipping into the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund to cover benefit payments, a practice that will go on for not more than 16 years before the trust fund goes into the red. These trends have to do with the simple fact that our population is getting older while our work force gets smaller. My generation did not have as many children as our parents expected, and, as a consequence, the system under which each generation of workers supports the preceding generation of retirees simply will not hold up. Indeed, Mr. President, long-term entitlement reform coupled with a reasonable reduction in spending would alone reduce interest rates and bring balance to the budget. The result is a question of fairness between generations. Today there are roughly five workers paying taxes to support the benefits of each retiree. When my generation retires there will be fewer than three. Unless we take action now, the choice we force upon our children will be excruciating: Continue to fund benefits at current levels by radically raising taxes on the working population or slash benefits dramatically. In 1981, Congress--backed by the Reagan administration--passed a tax- cut for the American people hailed as a boon to the national economy and a panacea for combating an overreaching Government. However, the tax cuts proposed and passed were coupled with unrivalled Government spending, which created the enormous deficits we now confront in this body daily. Nobody believed in 1981 or 1982--save a small few--that what was happening was the creation of large, grave deficits the likes of which this country had never seen, even after the then Majority Leader Howard Baker at the time called this budgetary strategy a ``river boat gamble.'' Mr. President, until Congress can agree on a budget that addresses the unsustainable growth of entitlement programs and avoids gimmickry and short-term fixes, anything else is simply a river boat gamble. I will continue to oppose resolutions such as the one we voted on yesterday because I do not wish to commit our Nation's fiscal integrity and the hopes of future generations to a gamble, no more than I would try to balance my family's checkbook by heading to the slot machines with a pocket full of quarters. This Nation and our children deserve better. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues for their support of the Kerry- Simpson-Nunn-Brown-Robb long-term entitlements amendment. My colleagues and I were a mere 14 votes away from passing legislation to begin the process of changing our entitlement laws. The support for this type of long-term reform is unprecedented, due in no small measure to our persistence on this matter. I am particularly gratified because the reforms we advocated did not simply tinker around the edges of our budgetary dilemmas. Our adjustment to the Consumer Price Index would have saved the country $126 billion over 7 years; the phasing in of the Medicare eligibility age to 70 would eventually, by 2030, in 1 year alone save $41.1 billion in 1996 dollars; and our provision would have given more than 120 million working Americans the chance to start accumulating their own wealth through personal investment plans. Mr. President, the fiscal imbalance of entitlements versus discretionary spending threatens our implicit intergenerational compact to leave a prosperous and growing economy to the next generation of Americans. The great demographic shift that will occur over the next 20 or 30 years--when the baby boom generation reaches retirement age--will largely shape our Nation's future. Accordingly, these changes must be met with new assumptions, different rules, and a fresh perspective. That is what my colleagues and I offered. With growing support from both sides of the aisle and increased public awareness, perhaps soon we will get the votes we need to pass long-term entitlement reform. So, I am encouraged. Accordingly, I would also like to briefly comment on other amendments offered to the budget resolution which I chose to vote against. Several amendments were offered to the Republican budget resolution to restore funding to education, Medicaid, and the environment. While I agreed that the spending cuts to these programs in the budget resolution, particularly education, were severe and counterproductive-- I could not vote for the add back amendments as they were written. In order to balance the budget and according to budget rules, amendments which add money back to programs in the budget resolution must be offset by cuts in other areas of Government spending. Each of the add back amendments I voted against used unspecified cuts to corporate welfare to pay for them. I realize that this might look like a good idea to the average citizen--cuts to corporations to fund education-- but it's not always that simple. ``Corporate welfare'' can be a very loosely defined and overused term. The reality is that most of us support--and more importantly benefit from--something that someone could call corporate welfare. The home mortgage deduction is a prime example. Some people would say it qualifies as corporate welfare for the real estate industry. However, if Congress ended the program today, we would hear the furious cry of the people claiming that we had increased their taxes. The self- employed health insurance deduction is another example. So is the research and development tax credit--and the list goes on. These obviously were not the programs my colleagues had in mind. But I felt I needed a better sense of what they did have in mind before I joined them in support of these amendments. Please do not misunderstand, I believe there are many places where Government can cut back on spending--including unfair tax breaks for corporations. But we cannot use cuts to corporate welfare as a panacea to cure all our budget ills. I believe we must examine each program for its merits before deciding to eliminate it. Had the add-back amendments in the budget resolution been more specific on which items were to be used as offsets, my votes may have been cast quite differently. Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, the most responsible way to solve our budget problems is not to tinker on the edges, cutting slices from corporate welfare or discretionary spending. We must address the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending if we want to bring our budget into long-term balance. The support for our long-term entitlement amendment was an important first step to getting us there.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States represents the greatest democratic achievement in the history of human civilization. It--and the self-evident truths which are its basis--has guided the decisions and heroic sacrifices of Americans for two centuries. Its precepts are a shining beacon of hope for millions of people across the globe who hunger for the freedoms that democracy guarantees. It has served us and the world extremely well. Indeed, Madam President, this great document should not be amended in a rush of passion--or in the name of political expediency. It is evident from the Constitution itself that its authors intended the process of amendment to be slow, difficult and laborious--so difficult that it has been attempted with success only 17 times since the Bill of Rights. This document is not meant to be tampered with in a trivial fashion. This proposed 28th amendment to the Constitution is intended to affect the behavior of America's congressional representatives. In that regard it is unique. Except for the 25th amendment, which addresses the issue of transfer of power, other amendments affect the behavior of all Americans by limiting the power of government, protecting public freedoms, prohibiting the majority from infringing on the rights of the minority, or regulating the behavior of the States. This would be the only amendment aimed at regulating the behavior of Congress--to date only 535 Americans--who, the amendment assumes, is incapable of making difficult decisions without the guidance of the Constitution's hand. That theory is grounded in the assumption that Congress and the public lack the political will be to balance the budget. I reject the argument. Specifically, this amendment would raise the number of votes necessary in Congress for deficit spending from a simple majority to three-fifths and sets a goal of balancing the budget by the year 2002. The amendment empowers Congress to pass legislation detailing how to enforce that goal, but does not itself specify enforcement measures. But nobody knows the answer to the question: what will happen if Congress and the President fail to balance the budget? The only mechanism our country has for enforcing the Constitution is the courts. So the amendment's ambiguity presents the serious possibility of protracted court battles which would given an unelected judiciary unwarranted control over budget policy--a power clearly out of the realm of their expertise. The proponents of this amendment sincerely believe our Constitution needs to be changed in order to force Members of Congress to change their behavior, which, supporters argue, they will not do because they are afraid of offending the citizens who have sent them here. However, on that basis, there is a long list of constitutional changes they should propose, including campaign finance reform. Mr. President, I support the goal of a balanced budget and have fought, am fighting and will continue to flight to achieve it. Recently my colleagues and I--Senators Simpson, Brown, Nunn, and Robb--proposed a provision that would have reformed long-term entitlements. Mind you, we did not dabble on the fringes, but instead took on some serious budgetary dilemmas, and avoided the use of gimmickry as a solution. For our efforts we received 36 bipartisan votes--unprecedented support for this type of long-term entitlement reform. Our proposed changes to current laws would have caused taxpayers very little concern in the short term as these changes would be phased in and have no effect on anyone over the age of 50, and would save the Nation billions of dollars in the long term. As well, the Senate recently voted on the Centrist Budget plan, that addressed a number of budgetary problems including entitlement reform, and provided a balanced budget in 7 years. This plan garnered 46 bipartisan votes--22 Democrats and 24 Republicans--and is a fundamental indication that Congress is waking up to the need to reform our nation's budgetary ways and the need to get our economic house in order. Four votes away from a bipartisan balanced budget in 7 years, Mr President--a budget that would have passed had this not been a Presidential election year. So why do we need to amend the Constitution? The Constitution and its 27 amendments express broadly our values as a nation. The Constitution does not dictate specific policy, fiscal or otherwise. We attempted to use the Constitution for that purpose once, banning alcohol in the 18th amendment, and it proved to be a colossal failure. If nothing else, this experience should have taught us that the mere desirability of a goal cannot become the only standard to which we hold constitutional amendments. Constitutional amendments must meet a higher standard. Fundamentally, we should amend the Constitution to make broad statements of national principle--and, most importantly, Mr. President, we should amend the Constitution as an act of last resort when no other means are adequate to reach our goals. We do so out of reverence for a document that we have believed for two centuries should not be changed except in the most extraordinary circumstances. We have used constitutional amendments to express our preference as a nation for the principle of free speech, the right to vote and the right of each individual to live free. The question before us today is whether the need to tie Congress' hands on fiscal issues belongs in such distinguished company. While I oppose this amendment, I understand, I understand the arguments for it. But if the appeal of a balanced budget amendment is simply the legal or political cover it provides for those tough choices, a statutory change could provide the same cover. If the assumption behind the amendment is that the political will to balance the budget does not exist, then make no mistake, those who lack that political will find a way to circumvent this amendment. And beyond all the legal maneuvers, there is no cover for tough decisions but the courage to make them. A vote for this amendment is not a sign of courage--it is more an indication of timidity. The balanced budget amendment assumes there is a structural flaw in our Constitution that prevents the 535 Members of Congress from balancing the budget. But if a flaw does exist, it is in the 535 Members of Congress themselves not the document that governs us. The fact is that we could balance the budget this year if we wanted to. And we can by statute direct the Congress to balance the budget by 2002, 2003, or any other date we choose. The inherent weakness of the balanced budget amendment is that it tells us what to do over the next 7 years but ignores the following 20, the years which ought to command our attention. A balanced budget by 2002 still ignores the most important fiscal challenge we face: the rapid growth in entitlement spending over the next 30 years. The year on which we ought to be focused is not 2002, but 2008, when the baby boomer generation begins to reach eligibility age for retirement. This will place a severe strain on the Federal budget. Our biggest fiscal challenge is demographic, not constitutional, and the amendment before us does not and cannot address it. Unfortunately, and conveniently, this demographic challenge is kept from our view, not by an incomplete Constitution, but by a budgeting process that discourages long-term planning. The balanced budget amendment tells us what happens over 7 years. A 7-year span is completely inadequate when the most difficult budget decisions we need to make deal with problems we will face 20, 25, and 30 years down the road, when the aging of our population propels entitlement spending out of control. The most important recommendation of the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform was that we begin to look at the impact of budgets over 30 years rather than just 5 or 7. The reason is that our country looks very different, and our current budgets look very different, when viewed over that span. We can see the trend even in the short term. Entitlement programs-- which includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Federal retirement--consume 66 percent of the budget this year. By 2002, it will be 73 percent. By 2005, the number is 78 percent. Those numbers are straight from CBO, and if we project further, Mr. President, we see that by 2012, mandatory spending and interest on the national debt will consume every dollar we collect in taxes. By 2013, we will be forced to begin dipping into the surplus in the Social Security trust fund to cover benefit payments, a practice that will go on for no more than 16 years before the trust fund goes into the red. These trends have nothing to do with the Constitution, political will or pork-barrel politics. They have to do with the simple fact that our elderly population is growing and living longer while our work force gets smaller. My generation did not have as many children as our parents expected, and, as a consequence, the system under which each generation of workers supports the preceding generation of retirees simply will not hold up. Indeed, long-term entitlement reform coupled with a reasonable reduction in discretionary spending--including defense--would reduce interest rates dramatically and achieve the goal of this amendment without tampering with the Constitution. The result is sometimes described as a question of fairness between generations. Today there are roughly five workers paying taxes to support the benefits of each retiree. When my generation retires there will be fewer than three. Unless we take action now, the choice we force upon our children will be excruciating: Continue to fund benefits at current levels by radically raising taxes on the working population or slash benefits dramatically. Finally, I hope we keep our eyes on a larger prize than blind reverence to the idea of a balanced budget. Our goal should, in my view, be economic prosperity. I support deficit reduction as a means to that end. Deficit reduction is important not as an abstract ideal but as an economic imperative. I believe in balancing the budget because it is the most powerful way to increase national savings. And increased national savings will lead to increased national productivity, which in turn will lead to higher standards of living for the American family. There is no short-cut to savings and no substitute that will get results. Increased national savings mean lower long-term interest rates and increased job growth in the private sector. The balanced budget amendment assumes that a balanced budget is always the best economic policy. A balanced budget is usually the best economic strategy, Mr. President, but it is by no means always the best economic strategy. Downward turns in the economy complicate the picture. Downward turns result in lower revenues and higher spending, so there will be times--although very few of them--when a strict requirement for a balanced budget harms the economy by requiring the collection of more taxes to cover more spending in an economic environment which makes revenue collection more difficult in the first place. As I say, I believe those times are few and far between, but the Constitution is too blunt an instrument to distinguish between good times and bad. The American people hired us to do that job, not to cede it to a legal document that cannot assess the evolving needs of our economy. As my friend and colleague the ranking member of the Finance Committee Senator Moynihan has often said, ``We do not need to put algebra into the Constitution.'' Mr. President, I could not agree more. The bottom line for me is whether this amendment moves us toward achieving the correct goals and whether, if it does, we need to amend the Constitution to get there. I believe a balanced budget is an important goal, but only as a component of an overall economic goal with a strategy that recognizes that skyrocketing entitlement spending is the most serious fiscal challenge we face. But I also believe that once we set those goals we can achieve them by statute or, more importantly, by changing our own behavior rather than changing the Constitution. And my respect for this document precludes me from voting to tamper with it when I am not convinced that we must. This proposal for a 28th amendment does not command from me the same reverence in which I hold the 1st amendment, or the 13th or the 19th. And therefore, Mr. President, while I will continue to fight for its admirable goal, I will vote ``no'' on the balanced budget amendment.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Thirty seconds.

Mr. KERREY. I do not expect to persuade a majority, Mr. President. This is an amendment that will have a tremendous impact on the future budget outlays and appropriations of this Congress. As everybody that has examined the facts knows, unless we make changes in these long-term entitlement programs, we are simply never either going to get into balance in 7 years, nor are we going to be able to sustain it out in the future. We are converting our Government into an ATM machine. The longer we wait, the sooner the day is going to arrive when there is no money for defense, no money for anything other than transfer of payments. As I said, I do not expect a majority to vote for a majority of these proposals in here, but I urge my colleagues to give very careful consideration to this amendment. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, how much time do I have to speak on this?

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to the floor today to support the North Platte National Wildlife Refuge boundary revision. The proposed bill would remove about 2,470 acres of land from the refuge and transfer it to the Bureau of Reclamation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that the land, establish as a refuge early in this century, no longer serves the goals of the national refuge system. Although the area is no longer suitable as a wildlife refuge, it does offer citizens of Nebraska a valuable recreation area. Thousands of Nebraska's citizens enjoy both water and land recreation in the area. The transfer of the land to the Bureau of Reclamation will allow the Bureau to lease the land to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission who will manage the property. The Department of the Interior strongly supports this legislation. I commend both Federal and State officials for working closely with the local community to achieve this coordinated agreement. It is a fine example of the Federal Government, the State government, and the local community working together to improve the quality and accessibility public areas.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to the floor today to support the North Platte National Wildlife Refuge boundary revision. The proposed bill would remove about 2,470 acres of land from the refuge and transfer it to the Bureau of Reclamation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that the land, establish as a refuge early in this century, no longer serves the goals of the national refuge system. Although the area is no longer suitable as a wildlife refuge, it does offer citizens of Nebraska a valuable recreation area. Thousands of Nebraska's citizens enjoy both water and land recreation in the area. The transfer of the land to the Bureau of Reclamation will allow the Bureau to lease the land to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission who will manage the property. The Department of the Interior strongly supports this legislation. I commend both Federal and State officials for working closely with the local community to achieve this coordinated agreement. It is a fine example of the Federal Government, the State government, and the local community working together to improve the quality and accessibility public areas.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I cannot say that I look forward to tapping on Senator Simpson's box in 2030. But I am enthusiastic about cosponsoring this resolution with him. One of the most difficult things to learn in life is that you are wrong. An awful lot of us--and I certainly arrived here in 1989 thinking the problem of eliminating the deficit--which was, I believe, $270 billion, or something--was going to be a relatively easy transaction, that we just needed to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, cut congressional pay, and all the odds and ends that you hear a lot, that it was going to be a relatively easy transaction. Then I started to listen to two Senators who, every year, came down with an amendment to the budget resolution--Senator Nunn of Georgia and Senator Domenici of New Mexico. They came down making this argument for reform of our entitlement programs. I must say I voted against them the first time it came up. I think they had 12 or 13 people who voted for it, and it kept getting larger. Eventually, by presenting the facts they persuaded me that looking for an easy solution, as I said, like waste, fraud, and abuse, and other odds and ends, was not looking in the right place. Basically, if you want to balance the budget, or, as important, if you want to restore some balance to the expenditures that we make in this country, taking us back to a point where we can say we are endowing the future with investments in education, transportation, and other sorts of things, then you have to change current law to affect the proportion of our budget that goes to entitlements. One of the pieces of misinformation perpetrated in this country is, A, we are broke, which we are not; the Nation is wealthier than any other on Earth. Our Nation is wealthier than at any point in the history of our country. We are wealthier than we were in the 1980's, 1970's, 1960's, and 1950's. The proportion of taxes collected and used for Federal expenditures is about the same as in the last 50 years. It went up end of the 1920's, and during World War II, and then the same during the Vietnam war. It is roughly 19 percent. What is changing dramatically is the percentage of that 19 percent that goes to entitlements versus what goes to those investments in our future. In this year's budget, it is about 67 percent. It is drawing to 72 percent at the end of the 2002 period. When the baby boomers start to retire--and demography is doing this, and there are 77 million baby boomers. This is not caused by Ronald Reagan, or conservatism, or liberals, or anything like that. It is caused by demographics. There are 77 million in the baby boom generation--the largest generation in the history of this country. When they start to retire in very short order, approximately 2013--unless we interrupt it with this kind of change--what happens is the entire Federal budget is converted to transfer payments. You cannot cut welfare enough, and you cannot cut all the other mandatory programs enough to be able to make up the difference. So this country will have gone in a span of approximately 2\1/2\ generations, or about 45, 50 years, from a point where 70 percent of the budget was taken up for investments in space, investments in transportation and education, all those sorts of things that do produce a long-term benefit; 30 percent for entitlements and interest, will have gone from that point to a rather balanced approach, where 100 percent of it will be transferred for current consumption, and will not be good for the future or for the economy. We know, looking at the numbers, that at some point we have to interrupt that trend. The only question is when. When we collectively say, ``I wish it were otherwise, I wish it was an easier approach, I wish what Senator Nunn and Senator Domenici have been talking about all the way through the late 1980's and the 1990's-- I wish they were wrong,'' they, in fact, were not wrong. They were right. This proposal tends to do something that is actually relatively modest. Those who will describe it as Draconian--as the senior Senator from Wyoming has said, AARP has already indicated that they are going to describe an adjustment in the CPI as Draconian--I remind my colleagues that we did not have a cost-of-living adjustment until 1973 after Wilbur Mills, who was thinking about running for President, enacted a back-to-back 20-percent increase in the payments for Social Security. After that occurred in 1970 and 1971, along comes the need to restrain the Congress. The COLA took place as a method of restraint in the initial days. Now it is considered to be sort of a sacred item without any regard for how it might adjust in an unfair fashion, without any regard for how it might, in fact, not bear resemblance to what is going on in the individuals' lives who are receiving the payment, and, most particularly, Mr. President, without any regard for what is happening for those people who are paying for that COLA; that is, to wit those individuals in the work force whose wages are taxed at 15.4 percent in order to provide not just a COLA but the income and the payment for the hospitalization under Medicare. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk specifically about the CPI. The two biggest proposals, the ones that produce the biggest benefits out in the future, are the adjustment in the CPI down half a point--you can see it is a $35 billion annual savings by the time you get out to the year 2003. I just challenge anybody to come up with a list of $35 billion worth of cuts in the appropriated accounts. Make a list of $35 billion and explain that to people who will be adversely impacted by this. Ask them: ``Do you want to cut defense by $17.5 billion? Do you want to cut the Department of Energy, or the Department of Transportation? Are these the things that you really want to do?'' Because unless you are prepared to walk to the floor--and some are; there are still a few left who will want to come down to the floor and say, ``Americans are undertaxed. Let us raise their taxes to be able to get the job done.'' You have to come to the floor to propose some offsetting cuts to be able to make up this kind of money, $35 billion in the year 2003. These years, as everybody with gray hair like mine will tell you, go by just like that. That 6- or 7-year period of time will be gone in a hurry, and we will be wondering as we stare 5 years into the future and see the baby boomers coming on line why we did not do it in 1996 when it was easy. Understand that it will never get easier than it is right now to make these kinds of adjustments. It only will get harder. Every year we wait these kinds of adjustments get more difficult. The second big item in our proposal is adjusting the eligibility age for retirement to 70 years. I caution citizens who are watching this. I am not talking about either current beneficiaries who are retired, nor am I talking about beneficiaries who are over the age of 50, nor am I saying that you have to wait until you are 70 to retire. That is not what Social Security is. It does not dictate that you retire at 65 or dictate that you retire at 67. What the program does is say this is when you are eligible. Many of our citizens, in fact, wait now to take a later payment knowing it is going to be larger because they have managed to save money. They have managed to save money. They have a private pension. They have private savings. They wait. They delay the eligibility for this collective payment to age 70 right now. This does not affect any current beneficiary. It does not affect any beneficiary over the age of 50. Most importantly, it does not affect the age at which you can choose to retire, if you regard Social Security as a supplement. One of the problems we have with this program is it began as a supplement, and increasingly we have been telling people it should be regarded as your only source of retirement income. The more we say that to people, the more we encourage people to regard Social Security as their only source of retirement and the less likely it is that we pay attention to what is going on in private pensions and pay attention to other Federal law that needs to be changed in order for people to accumulate that supplemental income. When Social Security was started in 1935, normal life expectancy was about 60 years of age. The normal eligibility age when this program began was age 65, 5 years after normal life expectancy. It took 1 percent of wages to meet that promise. Today normally life expectancy is 76 with the promise in payments beginning at 65, and the life expectancy by the time you get out to this point--actually this point here--life expectancy is forecast to be at 80. That does not take into account the possibility that you are going to have a decreasing number of people who are smoking and decreased mortality as a consequence and increased life expectancy. All sorts of things could happen in this crucible of good news that happens every single day. We are discovering new ways to prolong people's lives, to enable them to live longer, and for many people they are now discovering that they have the glory of living longer with the difficulty of trying to figure out how to pay the bills over that period of time. So the second big change in adjusting the eligibility age for these collective payments is 70 years. You can see, Mr. President, again the kinds of future savings--nothing in the year 2000 because this thing is phased in. I say that because my mailbag fills up every time I talk about moving the eligibility age. It does fill up for people who are 35 or 40 years old, or even 50. It fills up for people already retired. ``Gosh, are you proposing something to reverse the eligibility age and take something away?'' The answer is no. What we are trying to do is accommodate this enormous generation that is going to begin to mature in the year 2008, or 2010 depending upon how you calculate it. Moving the eligibility age for Social Security generates tremendous savings. Again, I just challenge colleagues. If they do not like this, imagine yourself out here at 2010 coming up with 2.5 billion dollars' worth of cuts because you have to do that. We are not going to be able to have these bake sales that we have been having in the last couple of years. We do not want to raise taxes. We do not want to cut entitlements. As a consequence, we sell the spectrum. How many times have we sold the spectrum? I mean, I have said facetiously that maybe we should call Disney and see if they want to convert the mall into a theme park. At some point you run out of assets to sell. You have, if you are not willing to come down and propose a tax increase, to get it out of entitlements. Mr. President, let me add briefly--other Senators want to speak--that the CPI adjustment is an entirely fair and appropriate thing for us to do. It is justified by economics, if you look and examine what the CPI is supposed to cover. It is justified most importantly by the fact that, if I do not make this adjustment, I have to get it out of the hides of people who are out there right now struggling to pay the cost of education and struggling to pay their property taxes. It is remarkable if you look at the State expenditures on people in the age group 5 to 18 that are in our primary and secondary school system versus the expenditures that we make on people over the age of 65. I am not trying to set up generational warfare here. There is strong generational commitment for these programs and intergenerational commitment. Social Security is perhaps the most popular program in the country. We are not trying to set up generational warfare. We are just trying to present the facts. The facts are that we are spending on a percentage basis less and less on education and our children and more and more on our seniors. As I have said, we have not seen anything yet. Wait until the baby boomers retire and the number of people working per retiree drops to 2 to 1. Justified by economics, justified by budget considerations, and justified by any American who wants to see this country become and remain hopefully an endowment rather than an entitlement society. Of all the things I hope this amendment does, the key amongst them, to me, is I hope that it presents an opportunity to change the terms of this debate from one of blasts being fired back and forth across the aisle between Republicans and Democrats. The facts of the matter, I believe, call upon us to come and say, ``Let us just present the truth to the American people.'' They may not like the truth any more than thousands of us who have discovered it. But in presenting the truth, let us not try to level the playing field. Give the American people the facts. In my judgment, they will level the playing field themselves. To continue to perpetuate a myth that all we have here is a paid-up system and have no problems and no adjustments are needed and we can solve this deficit by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse and all the other sorts of things we talk about, Mr. President, we are going to pay a very big price for it. I hope that we are able to muster a majority for this amendment. Those of my friends who have looked at this thing who are not perhaps as politically foolish as I, say you cannot survive this kind of vote. I do not believe we can survive the absence of this vote. I believe very much, like the votes on the Nunn-Domenici proposal, the more people examine the facts, the more they look at the truth, the more they will say, ``God help us if we do not change the law in this fashion.'' Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, last week the House of Representatives decided on an almost strict party line vote to create a special subcommittee to investigate the Clinton administration's decision not to stop Iran from shipping weapons to the Bosnian Government in violation of the arms embargo. And they voted to spend an additional $995,000 above their planned budget to conduct this investigation. $995,000. While not technically correct, I hope you can indulge me if I just round up and call it an even million. That's really what it is. Mr. President, while I believe Congress should look into this matter, we also need to be concerned about how we conduct our investigations. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has already held five hearings on the administration's decision not to intervene and prohibit the shipment of Iranian arms into Bosnia. Chairman Specter, myself, and the other members of the committee are well into our investigation at this point and will press on expeditiously to finish in a timely manner. It is important to note, however that we have conducted these hearings and will conduct further hearings as part of our normal oversight responsibilities using our regular committee staff fully within our regular committee budget for fiscal year 1996. And we have done this with the cooperation of both sides of the aisle. Mr. President, this is why I find the House Republican's actions so disconcerting. We on this side of the Capitol can investigate this matter with the cooperation of both parties, and without additional space, staffing, funding, and committees. Meanwhile, our House Republican counterparts have voted to spend an additional $1 million above their normal budget to acquire more space, to hire more staff, and to form another subcommittee to investigate this same issue. Knowing how difficult it is to start up a new organization, I'd bet we on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will probably finish our investigation before the House's special subcommittee gets moved into its new offices. I know the House is just as concerned as the Senate about the cost of performing necessary Government functions in these times of billion dollar budget deficits. The new Republican House leadership took some important, difficult measures to cut the cost of running Congress when they took control in 1994. I believe that was the right thing to do. So why spend a million dollars unnecessarily? Especially in this election year, you do not have to be a cynic to believe it was for political reasons. But even a cynic would be dumbfounded trying to figure out why the House Republicans went this extra, excessive step to try to try and make a political point. Mr. President, when you talk day-in and day-out about billion dollar weapons systems, hundreds of billion dollar deficits, and trillion dollars budgets, a one with just six zeroes after it doesn't seem to be very much. And I guess 9-9-5 plus three zeroes looks even smaller. But it takes 135 average Nebraska families working full time for 3 months to produce $1 million dollars in tax revenue. When there's already a committee structure, staffing, and budget to do the job, the $1 million House Special Committee to investigate Iranian arms flow into Bosnia is a prime example of superfluous Government spending. Mr. President, I say, let's perform our legislative oversight responsibilities, let's look for the truth in this matter, let's determine who did what when and whether their actions were within the letter and spirit of the law. But let's do it the way we are already organized to do it and within the budgets we set for ourselves. Let's live within out means like we expect or citizens to do.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Rear Adm. Irve C. LeMoyne, the U.S. Navy's highest ranking and longest serving SEAL. Admiral LeMoyne retires this month after 35 years of service to our Nation. His extraordinary accomplishments have been instrumental in the evolution of this country's special operations forces and will have a lasting impact as the U.S. military enters the 21st century. Admiral LeMoyne began his Navy career as an ensign in 1961. Following graduation from underwater demolition training and service with Underwater Demolition Team 22, he served in Vietnam with SEAL Team 1 and Underwater Demolition Team 11. During his tours in Vietnam, he led numerous successful combat operations and served as a senior provincial reconnaissance unit advisor. While commanding Underwater Demolition Team 11 he also participated in the recovery operations of Apollo 10, 11 and 12. During several high-level assignments in Washington, DC, Admiral LeMoyne held key positions where he was responsible for integrating naval special warfare into the U.S. regional military strategy and was a driving force behind the modernization of the community. In 1987 Admiral LeMoyne became the first commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command which was formed as the result of the Nunn- Cohen amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1987. His leadership of this command brought together the many components of Naval Special Warfare into a single community which was successfully integrated into the joint structure of the newly formed U.S. Special Operations Command. As the Director of Resources and then as the Deputy Commander in Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Admiral LeMoyne further ensured that not only Naval Special Warfare, but all special operations forces were prepared to meet the demands of Operations Desert Shield and Storm and the numerous contingency operations of the 1990's. Throughout his career Admiral LeMoyne has been a driving force behind the modernization of Naval Special Warfare. His accomplishments have paved the way for special operations forces as this country approaches the 21st century. The legacy of his leadership and foresight will carry on well into the next century as special operations forces meet the challenges of the battlefield of the future. I bid Admiral LeMoyne, his wife, Elizabeth, his son Irve C. Jr., and his daughter, Christian fair winds and following seas.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, last week we voted on an omnibus bill that completed our long-delayed work on fiscal year 1996 appropriations. This legislation's arduous and agonizing history defies belief--particularly since all sides claim to be committed to reducing the Federal deficit and balancing the Federal budget. However, I want to point out two egregious provisions in this legislation. They particularly disturb me because I share my colleagues' interest in balancing the budget. These provisions also trouble me because they will increase Medicaid spending--and therefore crowd out discretionary programs within this year's spending bill and in the future. Under the mantle of fiscal conservatism--the premise of this appropriations bill--we are providing additional Federal dollars to States that have won political favor. We are spending hard-earned tax dollars in these States, but will not see an improvement in their health systems nor any other public good that will benefit American taxpayers. Although Republicans claim that they want to control Federal spending, the reality does not live up to their rhetoric. The omnibus appropriations bill includes State-specific provisions that permit two States--States that blatantly abused Federal matching rules in the past--to draw excessive Federal Medicaid payments. According to a host of independent analyses, the disproportionate share hospital [DSH] schemes used by these States and others nearly single handedly created double-digit increases in Federal Medicaid spending in the early 1990's. Congress shut down these schemes in 1991 and 1993 by creating State-specific and hospital-specific limits on DSH payments. However, through Republican maneuvering under this omnibus bill, two States that relied on these schemes will once again disproportionately benefit from the Federal Treasury. First, New Hampshire will receive Federal matching payments for the disproportionate share hospital payments it made last year to a State- owned psychiatric hospital, even though these payments violate the hospital-specific limits enacted in 1993. The Department of Health and Human Services has deferred making Federal matching payments because these DSH payments normally would not be allowable under Medicaid matching rules. The omnibus appropriations bill would allow New Hampshire to receive matching payments up to $54 million, whether these payments are allowable or not. In addition, although the majority intended to provide a fix only for New Hampshire, other States may also qualify under this provision. Second, Louisiana will receive a guaranteed Federal payment of $2.6 billion--even though it will not be putting up the State dollars necessary to claim these matching payments. This provision, in essence, provides Louisiana with a higher Federal matching rate than allowed under current law, simply because Louisiana is unwilling or unable to commit sufficient State funds to support its existing Medicaid Program. Louisiana also used DSH scams to draw enormous Federal Medicaid payments and is now facing a budget shortfall under current, tighter rules. CBO initially estimated that this fix will cost the Federal Government an additional $900 million through 1999. Late-breaking negotiations have shortened the time-frame and lessened the Federal cost in the out-years. However, increased spending still will not be offset because the increase occurs later than fiscal year 1996. In 1991 and 1993 Congress chose to close down some States' creative bookkeeping schemes and construct reasonable limits to the disproportionate share hospital program. These appropriations provisions will undermine those important protections for the Federal Treasury. If congressional Republicans were serious about limiting Federal spending, they would have refused to include these give-aways in this appropriations agreement. Instead, Congress will provide additional funding with no additional gain to American taxpayers. The Republican Governors say that they can control Medicaid spending themselves--and they have clamored for Federal block grants to do so. Yet the Republican Governors in these two States sought these exceptions to Medicaid law. These legislative fixes signal that the Republican Governors in these States cannot even live within existing limits that control only one aspect of the Medicaid Program. If Medicaid block grants were to be enacted, we should expect a deluge of formula fixes in the future.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I want to compliment the work of the distinguished Senator from Alabama, Mr. Shelby, for securing the adoption of an amendment in the conference to modify the composition of the National Commission on Restructuring the IRS, which was authorized in Public Law 104-52. This amendment increases to 17 the number of members of the Commission. With this change, Mr. President, I believe we can stop the logjam which we have found ourselves in and get the majority and minority leaders of both bodies and the President to make their appointments to this Commission in an expeditious manner. I would, however, like to take this opportunity to clarify two points with respect to the Commission with the distinguished subcommittee chairman, Mr. Shelby. First, by increasing the number of Commission members to 17 under section 637(b)(2) of Public Law 104-52, we intended that the number of members to constitute a quorum under section 637(b)(4), would increase from seven to nine. Is that the Senator's understanding?

Mr. KERREY. Again, I thank the distinguished Senator for all of his work on this important matter. In addition, I want to thank the distinguished majority and minority leaders and the President for their involvement in this issue and urge them to make their appointments to this Commission as quickly as possible. establishment of a pediatric intensive care center in an empowerment zone encompassing camden, new jersey

Mr. KERREY. I thank the distinguished Senator for that clarification. Finally, I want to ask if it is the Senator's understanding we intended that the Commission not issue its report until after December 31, 1996?

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I, like my other colleagues, want to praise both Senators Chafee and Breaux for keeping this group on task and hope that this proposal, this bipartisan proposal, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, will provide a foundation upon which this Congress can act to enact a balanced budget plan sometime yet this year. I will focus my attention on the reforms in this proposal that address the unsustainable growth of entitlements that the distinguished Senator from Maine earlier referenced. There are three pieces to this proposal that will be regarded by many as controversial and by many as impossible to do. This chart is not a birthday cake here to my left, as the Senator from Louisiana joked earlier. This represents the kind of cuts that are going to be required in discretionary spending over the next 7 years. In the agreement just announced last night between the White House and the Congress, rather than cutting or raising taxes, we essentially sold 4.7 billion dollars worth of assets in order to be able to balance the budget--in order to be able to get an agreement, because nobody wanted to cut any deeper. Very few people want to cut deeper in discretionary programs. Next year, we will have to do 28 billion dollars worth of asset sales. By the time you get down to the seventh year under the President's balanced budget plan--let me applaud the President, I appreciate very much that he has a plan on the table because I think it is helpful--$91 billion in discretionary spending, defense and nondefense. It is impossible. I do not think there is anybody in this body that can come up with a list of things they would cut today of $91 billion. What that means is we are kidding ourselves. What it means is if you do not want to raise taxes, you have to go under the entitlement programs to be able to take the pressure off of discretionary spending. Even still, as the bipartisan proposal shows, even still we are suggesting substantial cuts in discretionary programs that will be very, very difficult to implement. My guess is these modest changes in entitlements that will be regarded as draconian and difficult, and there will be a wail of protest to change the CPI down one-half of 1 percent. That saves $100 billion over 7 years. We will hear all kinds of rationales and reasons why that cannot be done. All kinds of numbers will be put forth, and horror stories will be told as to why this change in the Consumer Price Index should not be enacted. In the alternative, you will have to do this sort of thing, or even worse. For those who oppose it, those who say, ``No, I do not want to do it,'' the first question for the citizen needs to be, then, does that mean you support these deep cuts in education, these deep cuts in investment, deep cuts in defense, deep cuts in law enforcement? Is that what you are supporting? You cannot merely oppose this. You have to come up with something that you will substitute in its place. Perhaps, the Member of Congress or the citizen supports a tax increase. Let them. Let them say so. Do not just stand and say, ``Gee, I do not want to adjust the Consumer Price Index because I will have an interest group or individual who says I do not want to take less.'' That is basically the formula here. We are on a course, as the Senator from Maine described, as a meteorite. We are converting our Federal Government into a transfer machine. We have an unprecedented event that begins in the year 2008: The largest generation in the history of the country, the baby boom generation, begins to retire. It is not like anything we faced in the past. We cannot afford to wait until we reach crisis. The second and third things that are done, we adjust the Medicare eligibility age to correspond with Social Security eligibility age, and we adjust civil and military service retirement age for future employees of the Federal Government of the armed services. I hope to have a chance to come back as the coalition builds. I urge colleagues who will hear from citizens saying ``do not support the Consumer Price Index change, do not support Medicare eligibility change, do not support adjusting civil and military service prospectively,'' I urge my colleagues to keep the powder dry. In the alternative, this is the sort of thing you will end up having to support. I applaud the junior Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Chafee, and the Senator from Louisiana, Senator Breaux, for their leadership.

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes in morning business.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, is the order morning business?

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the investigation which the Select Committee on Intelligence has undertaken at the majority leader's request regarding allegations that the administration may have secretly acquiesced in or facilitated Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnian Moslems in 1994 and 1995, in violation of stated United States policy. This is a serious request made by a Senator long involved with United States policy in Bosnia. Some have said this request was made for political reasons. Perhaps that is the case. But there is also sufficient reason to believe the Senator from Kansas would have made this request regardless of the political climate or season. The Intelligence Committee begins this task with a solid base of information because we received some, but not all, of the intelligence available to the administration at the time the Iranian arms shipments were occurring. Our committee has been reviewing and adding to that information base in the 2 weeks since Chairman Specter received the majority leader's request. We are well positioned to do a through job for the Senate on the sensitive intelligence issues surrounding this matter, particularly the question of whether or not the administration conducted a covert action without informing Congress. In addition to our familiarity with the topic, the Intelligence Committee is also likely to do a good job on its part of this investigation because we are a bipartisan committee. In setting the strength and composition of the committee, the Senate directed, in Senate Resolution 400, that our membership be close to balance at nine majority members and eight minority, regardless of the composition of the Senate floor, and that the senior minority member function as a vice chairman, not as a ranking member. In creating the Intelligence Committee, the Senate clearly believed that intelligence was too sensitive to be overseen in a partisan, adversarial manner. Chairman Specter approaches his leadership duties on the committee in that nonpartisan spirit, and so do I. The history of this committee is replete with conduct like that of Senators Cohen and Warner, Boren, Nunn, Moynihan, and others, who have come to this committee and said we are not going to serve in a partisan fashion. We are not going to answer the call of our party, we are going to answer the call of our country. The present and future course of this committee should as well. Open allegations against the administration, and a requirement to investigate those allegations, can strain even the most sincere commitment to bipartisanship. Those strains have not yet been felt in the Intelligence Committee in this case. Chairman Specter and I have tasked a single group of professional staff to support all committee members and all information which comes into the committee's hands will be shared equally with all members. This is the way we have always operated. As for myself, I don't see the vice chairman's role to be an advocate of the administration. As we pursue questions, I will not be a Democratic Senator defending fellow Democrats, but rather a U.S. Senator following the facts wherever they lead and reaching a conclusion based on those facts. I am confident Chairman Specter feels the same way about his role. I spoke of the Intelligence Committee's readiness to do a thorough job. Our thoroughness will be improved if we get all the relevant information from the administration. As many colleagues are aware, the committee has been denied the opportunity to read the intelligence oversight board's report on this case. The implication is clear that if we subpoena the report, the President will assert executive privilege. The intelligence oversight board is wholly within the Executive Office of the President, so there may be legitimate executive privilege here. But if the report is off limits to Congress, then the administration should not cite the report as having determined that no covert action occurred. The administration can't have it both ways. They should either give Congress the report, or stop citing it as vindication. An Associated Press story yesterday quoted a White House spokeswoman, Mary Ellen Glynn, saying, ``the point is not to withhold information. The point is to protect sources.'' Mr. President, this rationale for denying information to Congress has no basis. The Intelligence Committee has received and stored the most highly classified material for years, and its record for protecting sources and methods is far better than that of the executive branch. So security is simply no excuse, and an invalid reason to deny information to Congress. My advice to the administration is, fully inform Congress. The committee lacks all the facts, but on the basis of what we have, I do not see evidence of a covert action. But I stress that is a preliminary assessment and not a conclusion. I am open to the evidence. Certainly, if there was a covert action, Congress should have been informed, and the Intelligence Committee received no such information. If press reports are correct, in later 1994 CIA Director Woolsey sensed from information he was getting from CIA channels that a United States covert action, an action he and presumably other CIA personnel were not privy to, was in progress in Croatia. Director Woolsey reportedly came to the White House with his concerns. The Intelligence Committee needs to know what evidence was the basis of Director Woolsey's concerns. We also need to know why he did not share his concerns with the oversight committees. Mr. President, my interest in getting to the bottom of this case is not based solely on the majority leader's request. In my view, if the press reports are correct, the United States chose a course of action in Croatia and Bosnia with very serious down-side risks. The Bosnian situation was and is exceptionally complex and presented few good options to policymakers. But our alignment with Iran, even if it was a passive and accidental alignment, was very dangerous. Every President since Jimmy Carter has declared a state of emergency with respect to Iran, and United States laws and Executive orders have embargoed imports from Iran, limited United States exports to Iran, banned United States trade and investment in Iran including the trading of Iranian oil overseas by United States companies or their foreign affiliates, and placed sanctions on persons or countries who supply Iran with any goods or technologies that could contribute to Iran getting destabilizing conventional weapons or any weapons of mass destruction technology. These laws and Executive orders are there for a reason: to contain and isolate a country which conducts and supports terrorism and attempts to proliferate nuclear and chemical weapons. A policy which depends on such an amoral country to arm the otherwise defenseless Bosnian Moslems is dangerous--not merely politically dangerous, but potentially threatening to our allies and eventually to our own forces, when they deployed a year later. To turn a blind eye to Iranian shipments is to turn a blind eye to the possibility of United States casualties at the hands of the very people we have allowed to be armed, especially with a United States deployment imminent. Critics of this policy have to admit an inconvenient fact: risky as it was, the policy worked. Our allies did not pull their forces summarily out of the former Yugoslavia, which they might have done if we had unilaterally lifted the arms embargo. The Bosnian Moslems were not overwhelmed; in fact, they defended themselves creditably and even went on the offensive. The policy brought about a balance which made possible the Dayton Accords and the peace which IFOR is enforcing today. But even though the administration's risky Bosnia policy has worked, at least so far, the Intelligence Committee is obligated to investigate whatever may have been the United States role in the Iranian arms shipment. I take that obligation very seriously, and I look forward to joining with my chairman in rendering a full report. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY

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