J. Kerrey

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, the Omaha World Herald is a conservative newspaper, one that all of us in Nebraska at least are familiar with if not read on a regular basis, and in yesterday's editorial they discussed an issue that is very relevant to the question of why are teenagers having children. The headline for the editorial is ``An Ignored Law: Statutory Rape,'' and the first paragraph references a study done by the Alan Guttmacher Institute which indicated that at least half of the babies born to teenaged girls are fathered by adults. It goes on to describe that 10,000 mothers between the ages of 15 and 49 were interviewed between 1989 and 1991, and researchers found that half the babies born to mothers between ages 15 and 17 were fathered by men who were 20 or older, and generally the younger a mother was the greater the age differences between her and her baby's father. And the editorial goes on to describe, I think correctly, the need for increased vigilance by law enforcement people on the situation of statutory rape, I think a quite relevant and appropriate response given the analysis done by the Guttmacher Institute. The Guttmacher Institute did not say that these young girls were having babies as a consequence of seeing a financial incentive. Quite simply, teenagers are not examining Government benefits in general and making a rational economic choice when they decide to have babies, to the extent that this is a conscious decision at all. If this was the case, we might solve the whole problem by investing a little extra training in basic mathematics for whomever it is who thinks having a baby on welfare is a clever financial planning strategy. The truth is that if you could count on teenagers to see far enough ahead and understand enough home economics to respond rationally to the carrots and sticks the Senator from Texas proposes, or in this case mostly sticks, then the solution to this problem would get pretty easy. The problem is that most of us do not know any teenagers who can manage their lunch money from day to day much less engage in a detailed analysis of welfare benefits and decide whether or not to have a child based upon it. I do not know why children are having children; I do not have an easy, quick answer, nor can I in a simple fashion explain the terrifying breakdown in the American family in the last couple of generations. Senator Moynihan, who knows more about this subject probably than anybody in this body and maybe perhaps anybody in this country, displayed some disturbing charts yesterday that reveal a frightening social trend. I did not look at them and envision a sea of poor Americans making a series of rational economic decisions to have children out of wedlock. The Senator from Texas accuses the Democratic leadership of believing that having spent billions upon billions of dollars we can just handle poverty if we only spend a little bit more. I do not know anyone in the Democratic leadership who espouses this view. But let me say I do not consider it any more rational to say we can solve the problem just by spending more than it is to say, as the Senator from Texas does, that we can solve it just by spending less. The fact is that ending poverty will in the end likely cost us money. This is an inconvenient fact, to be sure, but it is a fact nonetheless. We are overlooking it these days because we have gone chasing after a rhetorical refrain about ``ending welfare as we know it,'' which, as I indicated at the start, is relatively easy for an awful lot of us since we do not know much about welfare. What we really mean, or should mean in my judgment is attempting to perhaps not end poverty but at least end the misery many still suffer as a consequence of it. Ending welfare as we know it is a simple legislative transaction. Just get rid of it, which is the strategy reflected in much of what the Senator from [[Page S 11824]] Texas proposes. Ending poverty is much more difficult. It requires us to commit time and resources, which has become at least in some circles a political taboo in an age in which we seem to be competing against one another to see who can be the toughest. Mr. President, I look forward to coming back to the floor to address this subject in more detail, but I thought a response to the senior Senator from Texas was in order. No one doubts his expertise as an economist, but before we get carried away with economic solutions we ought to be asking whether we are dealing with an economic problem. To some extent, we are. But to a very large extent we are not. It is helpful to make the distinction. To close my first statement on welfare, Mr. President, I should declare that while I do not know on a first name basis one person who receives AFDC or AFDC child care support, I do know what it means to be on welfare. I do know what it is like to have the bottom drop out of your life, and while you are falling, to be caught in the net of American generosity. Like many Americans who are wounded in wars and receive benefits that were earned in combat, I know that benefits given by our Nation do not have to make you lazy. They can make you grateful. I am forever grateful that I live in a country where people do care enough to try to help those who are suffering. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, my purpose in rising today is to discuss the statement that was made yesterday by the senior Senator from Texas who was here, among other things, to criticize the majority leader's welfare proposal for being too soft on illegitimacy. Mr. President, at the start of my own comments about the welfare system--and I hope and expect to have several opportunities to come and discuss this issue--I would like to stipulate that I do not know a single welfare recipient. That is to say, I do not know a single welfare recipient on a first-name basis. Perhaps some of my colleagues do, but I do not. Perhaps some of those who argue so confidently about what works and what does not work have poor friends who are on welfare and thus speak from experience. [[Page S 11823]] I do know and have friends who receive corporate welfare, and I know and I have friends who have argued with me forcefully about the urgent need for various tax incentives which will create jobs, promote homeownership, provide for investment in technology or stimulate exports. I am on a first-name basis with lots of people who receive something for nothing but none of them are poor. And none of them appears to have become lazy or sexually promiscuous as a result of a taxpayer subsidy. Mr. President, many of us are debating something about which we have little recent firsthand experience--poverty. In such circumstances, it would serve us well to acquire an attitude of humility as well as a little gratitude for the circumstances of our own births. As our colleagues know, the Senator from Texas is an economist by training, and as such his thoughts ought to be respected. But they ought to be recognized for what they are--an economic analysis. As we examine this analysis and the proposal that springs from it, we should ask one question: Are teenagers and single mothers having babies as a consequence of a rational economic decision? The Senator remarked on a television program over the weekend that the problem with welfare is that we punish work and family while rewarding people for not working and for breaking up families. As far as this analysis goes, I agree with it. Our system of incentives is sending the wrong signal. We should reward behavior we want and discourage behavior we dislike. The Senator from Texas correctly notes that our welfare system has perverse incentives. Unfortunately, his analysis causes him not to propose positive incentives for things we believe are right and negative for those we believe are wrong. Instead, he proposes to basically wipe the slate clean and punish everything. God help us if we wrote campaign finance laws with such an attitude. Mr. President, the issue of teenage or out-of-wedlock birth is an emotional issue. We need to be certain as we discuss this issue that we calmly and rationally answer some basic questions before we begin our consideration of what our laws should say. The first of those questions is: Why are teenagers and single women having children? The Senator from Texas answers this question with an economic analysis. We are paying them to do it. For a teenager, he argues, a baby is a free ride out of a parent's home and a permanent meal ticket. Research does not support this conclusion. Economic circumstances are not high on the list of reasons why our babies are having babies. While it sounds true, unfortunately, it is not. Such arguments make it seem that some Americans are poor because welfare benefits are too attractive. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an editorial that appeared yesterday in the Omaha World Herald be printed in the Record.

Mr. KERREY. I will be glad to. Unanimous-Consent Agreement

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask that I be allowed to talk 1 minute not charged to either side.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, this is a position--as I indicated earlier in my opening remarks--that is made upon beliefs, made in prayer; it is a decision of faith, not a scientific, intellectual decision. Once it is made, it leads you to a conclusion about what our laws should be. If you conclude that this is a human being at the moment of conception, you want the law to say it is murder and it should be outlawed. If you believe, in a moment of faith--again, no science enables me to reach my conclusion--if you believe, in a moment of faith and prayer, that it is not, then you want to protect the right of a woman and her doctor to make that decision. The dilemma here, Mr. President, is that we have employees who work for the Federal Government. Those who argue that health insurance is a source of payment and that it is a source of subsidy have a difficult time explaining what about the rest of their salary. Even if this amendment passes--or this language of the House which does not allow health insurance to be used to pay for abortion under any circumstances, even if that language is held, you will still have Federal employees with their salaries making a purchase. Only if this body is willing to pass a law sending police out to make sure Federal employees do not use any of their money, could we not have the subsidy. So, Mr. President, it is a very difficult dilemma. I hope my colleagues understand that there was a good-faith effort to try to negotiate. The Senator from Oklahoma agreed last night, and the Senator from Maryland did as well, to a time agreement in a UC. One of the things the Senator from Oklahoma wants to add is rape and incest. The House does not have that language in there. The House language makes no exceptions. The Senator from Oklahoma wants to add rape and incest. I would agree to that. However, the Senator from Maryland wants to add medically necessary and appropriate. I do not believe the Senator from Oklahoma wants to agree to that. So we have a difference of opinion as to how far we ought to go. I believe strongly, Mr. President, that the best course is to recognize that, whether it is a salary or whether it is a Federal employee's health insurance, as a consequence of the Nation saying we are going to protect that right, has a right to use money that we have given them through tax dollars to make that decision. So, Mr. President, I hope that the language of the House is stricken, as the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Nebraska and myself have indicated that we believe ought to occur in this piece of legislation.

Mr. KERREY. He is trying to cut me off.

Mr. KERREY. Now he does not like my answer in the midst of my answer.

Mr. KERREY. He cannot withdraw that time.

Mr. KERREY. He yielded me time.

Mr. KERREY. The Senator from New Hampshire asked me to answer the question. I did not answer the question. Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERREY. I want to answer the question. I want to answer that question.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, it may surprise the Senator from New Hampshire to know that he is not my God. As I indicated earlier, I make the decision.

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, this is the realm of prayer you are talking about--faith, a belief. That is what I was trying to say earlier. I was trying to give the Senator from New Hampshire and others who hold the belief that if a human being from the moment of conception ought to be protected and that it is murder, the Senator from New Hampshire wants abortion to be made illegal because he believes it is murder, I do not believe that it is a human being at the moment of conception, but only if you have that belief. That is your conclusion. He believes it is murder and, as a consequence, wants to ban abortion. But it is a realm of faith, a belief, if someone enters prayer when they make this decision. You do not reach it on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. KERREY. I object. If the Senator is going to give an answer to my question, he can do it on my time. If it is going to be a speech on something else, it should be on his time.

Mr. KERREY. I will be happy to allow the Senator to answer on his time.

Mr. KERREY. Can I ask the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. President, does the Senator from Oklahoma feel the same way about tax deductibility of insurance, that we should strike the right of business to deduct insurance if their employees have an offset against FICA? We are basically subsidizing abortions there, if that is the conclusion that he has reached about Federal employees. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Oklahoma if the same argument that he used against Federal employees being able to use insurance for, not to subsidize abortion, but to purchase a service that continues to be legal--it continues to be legal in the United States of America. I do not know, again, whether the Senator from Oklahoma feels that abortion should be made illegal, but until a majority of Americans feels abortion should be made illegal, it seems to me our employees should have the option to purchase insurance that contains it. I ask the Senator, does he think tax deductibility should be eliminated against businesses offsetting FICA? That seems to me, as well, that would be a subsidy.

Mr. KERREY. Will the Senator yield to answer a question so when we debate this, I have an understanding? Like I said, this is the first time the Senator from Oklahoma and I have stood nose to nose on this. Does the Senator believe abortion should be illegal?

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. You would not agree to allow ``medically necessary and appropriate'' be added?

Mr. KERREY. The House offered a restriction on the use of health insurance saying health insurance could not be used to pay for abortions except if the life of the mother was in danger.

Mr. KERREY. As I understand, the action that we just took was that the subcommittee in our legislation said we struck the general provisions that were offered by the House.

Mr. KERREY. Is not the committee amendment the pending business?

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, regular order. What is the pending business?

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. I do not understand, Mr. President. This time was reserved to discuss an amendment of the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma to strike language in fact that is authorized in language on an appropriations bill. The Senator from Wyoming is coming to the floor talking about us not having the right direction. I quite agree. I think the amendment itself is an indication why this body takes far too long to reach decisions. And I do not understand, if we are to be discussing the addition of authorizing language to an appropriations bill, why the Senator from Oklahoma has yielded time to the Senator from Wyoming to talk on a matter that seems not to be related to the amendment that he is offering.

Mr. KERREY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KERREY

Mr. KERREY. First of all, I am very pleased to join the subcommittee chairman, Senator Shelby, in bringing this bill to the floor. As the chairman pointed out, this bill is substantially below the requested and enacted levels for many programs and activities under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, the Executive Office of the President, and certain independent agencies. The 602(b) allocation given the subcommittee constrained us from funding many worthy programs to the levels needed to maintain appropriate levels of service and activity. Having said that, Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to sincerely compliment the distinguished Senator from Alabama on the cooperative relationship he forged in the committee, working closely not just with myself but with all subcommittee members, to put together a fiscally responsible and very defensible bill, under the most difficult circumstances. Chairman Shelby has already touched on the major funding highlights of the bill, and I will not attempt to repeat at least most of the points he has already made. Mr. President, what I would like to do at the outset is to cite a couple of stipulations that I have cited before, some of which may be slightly irrelevant to this particular piece of legislation, but it does have an impact upon what we are doing on the appropriations side. Mr. President, one of the biggest reasons, if not the biggest reason, that we continually see pressure upon appropriated accounts is that we have yet to face the growing cost of all Federal entitlement programs. Particularly, Mr. President, the two biggest among them are health care entitlements--which the distinguished occupant of the chair has been working on a long time--as well as retirement. These entitlement programs, as a percent of this year's budget, plus net interest, represent 66 percent of the entire Federal budget. That means the appropriated accounts are 34 percent. Mr. President, the year that the distinguished chairman of our committee, Senator Hatfield, came to the U.S. Senate, there was 30 percent of our budget allocated for entitlements and net interest, and 70 percent for all of our appropriated accounts. So the trend is shrinking domestic spending; that is to say, expenditures upon things we have decided, either for defense or for nondefense purposes, are important either for our current needs or for our future needs. The budget resolution under which we operate and has allocated money to the subcommittee has us going to 25 percent appropriated accounts in the year 2002 and eventually, when the baby boom generation retires--75 million Americans who are in that baby boom generation start to retire in the year 2008--the appropriated accounts will go to zero. Even at 25 percent, Mr. President, imagine what would happen this year if we were allocating that percent. We would be spending under the current level of revenue, by the way, a thing that has remained constant in this town. Except for World War II and a short period of time during the Vietnam war, the total level of taxation has remained at about 19 percent of the gross domestic product. You see a flat line over the last 50 years. With 19 percent revenue, Mr. President, and 25 percent of our budget allocated for domestic spending, we would have $400 billion this year-- $400 billion. Mr. President, I think even our most antidefense Member would probably spend $250-or-so billion on defense. That means we would this year try to figure out what to do with $150 billion for our crime efforts, for our education efforts, for our research efforts, for NASA, for veterans. It would be impossible, Mr. President. Now, I grew up in the 1950's and 1960's, and as a consequence of my parents being willing to pay cash for such things as the GI bill and the Interstate Highway System, I enjoyed an awful lot more prosperity and a much higher standard of living as a consequence of the investments which they made. There is far more agreement in this body than sometimes meets the eye that there are certain things where we should pool our collective resources; we should take some of our taxpayers' money and make investments whether, again, it is education, transportation, or other sorts of things. What entitlement growth does, Mr. President, is constantly press us to spend less and less and less. We are not saying that there are not things that cannot be cut. Indeed, there are some things we have cut out this year that I think even in times where if we were aiming to fix the cost of entitlement growth, we would probably zero in the amounts. I will, during slack times in the debate, come back and try to highlight this particular problem because it is an extremely difficult problem, forcing us to deal both with health care and with retirement, two very controversial items, two very difficult items to deal with. I believe, Mr. President, that time is not on our side, that compounding interest rates are working against us rather than for us, both at the national level and at the individual household level. I hope that Republicans and Democrats will, as we have attempted to do in this subcommittee allocation, come together for the good of the country and do the right thing. Mr. President, this bill is not business as usual. We have eliminated some accounts, which may cause alarm to some Members. We have zeroed out the so-called drug czar's office; the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which, by the way, is $9.9 million; we have zeroed out the Administrative Conference of the United States; and we have zeroed out the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Again, these actions are a direct consequence of shrinking domestic discretionary spending in the budget that this body adopted. We have funded programs where a compelling case has been made for their continued existence: The Counter-Drug Technology Assessment Center, the central counter- narcotics research and development office, has been continued in the Department of the Treasury and funded at a level of $20.5 million. The High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, which provides funding to implement Federal, State, and local antidrug strategies, has been funded at a level of $110 million in the Department of the Treasury. The Counsel of Economic Advisers, eliminated in the House bill, has been restored in this bill and funded at the requested level of $3.5 million. While most programs have been reduced below enacted levels, we have included modest increases for Treasury law enforcement bureaus to sustain current levels of vigilance in border interdiction, Presidential protection and security, financial crimes, law enforcement training, and violent crime investigations. We were not able to fully fund the President's 1996 request for counterterrorism. Mr. President, this request was transmitted to the Congress on July 17, 1 day prior to the 602(b) allocation meeting. We have, however, provided funding to continue those initiatives adopted in the fiscal year 1995 appropriations bill. We have reduced funding for the new Federal building and courthouse construction by $415 million from the requested level. The chairman has earlier highlighted the criteria that he came up with. I fully support these criteria. I think it is completely defensible. It lets taxpayers know we are continuing to monitor these expenditures to make sure that we are not wasting their money. Mr. President, the Internal Revenue Service budget, which in many ways, in most ways, took the biggest hit in our budget reduction, took a large hit because it makes up 63 percent of our discretionary spending. Funding in this bill for the IRS is $201 million below the enacted level, and $803 million below the President's request. The $405 million compliance initiative funded in fiscal year 1995 has been zeroed out. This unquestionably will have a major impact on revenue over the next 5 years. The IRS will also have to reduce personnel levels by some 5,000 to 6,000 employees. Tax systems modernization, the single most important initiative under way for bringing the U.S. tax revenue system up to date, will also have to be scaled back substantially. The bill contains $674 million for tax system modernization, which is $270 million less than the $944 million requested. Since the IRS budget makes up such a large portion of our budget, and an even higher proportion of our outlays, the chairman and I had no other choice, given the allocation of money for this committee, but to make large reductions in the Internal Revenue Service. I know many are concerned about it, and both the chairman and I are concerned ourselves. We find no other choice than to make these kinds of reductions. The IRS brings in $1.2 trillion in revenue a year--at a budget somewhere between $7 and $8 billion, which is less than 1 percent of the revenue it brings in. Common sense in the private sector would tell you if you had a business that brought in that kind of profit at that little cost, you would do everything you could to see the business had the money it needed to keep generating revenue. Instead, the IRS must compete side by side with every other Federal program without regard to the amount of revenue it brings in. I happen to believe the principal problem here is the governance of the Internal Revenue Service. The incentives are all on the wrong side. Somehow we have to come to grips with an agency that does not have the incentives to do, I think, what most people, as you examine the Internal Revenue Service, say it ought to be doing, which is working to make customers happy. Taxpayers are never going to be happy to pay taxes. At least, I think there are very few taxpayers who, on the 15th of April, are going to let out a whoopee and celebrate that great moment when they have to figure out what their taxes are for the year. Most taxpayers are not going to be terribly enthusiastic. But they ought to be able to get the information in order to pay the taxes. In spite of the money we have allocated, billions of dollars we have allocated in the past for tax system modernization, the General Accounting Office has evaluated their efforts as chaotic at best. They are making a good-faith effort, but the incentives simply are not there. Again, the distinguished occupant of the chair, as well as the chairman of this committee, and I, all three of us understand the private sector. We have been in business prior to arriving here. We know if you have incentives to make a profit and incentives to take care of your customers rather than incentives to satisfy some congressional requirement, frankly, it is likely, if you have those kinds of incentives, that you are going to perform differently. I feel strongly that the governance of the Internal Revenue Service is going to have to change and this agency is going to have to be given powerful private sector market incentives in order to be able to, not just deploy the technology, but do it in a way the taxpayers begin to say to us in coffee shops and townhall meetings, ``I hate paying my taxes, I think they are too high,'' or, ``I think they are not fair,'' or whatever, ``but finally I am getting the information in a timely fashion. Finally I am getting the facts. Finally, when I am called in, the Internal Revenue Service is able to come up with my tax returns for the last 10 years instead of telling me, no, it will take months and months to come up with it, long periods of time to correlate my tax return with my Social Security number.'' We had a tremendous problem this year with the earned-income tax credit. They were stripping out the refunds as a consequence of our concern about fraud--a legitimate concern. But any private sector business that has to pull this information manually, given the technology today and the information systems today, it seems to me, would not be in business very long. This agency needs a different kind of governance in order for us to be able to have taxpayers, the customers of this agency, begin to say that their needs are being taken care of. Again, I compliment the subcommittee chairman, Senator Shelby, on a good bill and commend him on moving to strike controversial general provisions that were in the House-passed bill. These are authorizing matters which I do not believe belong in this appropriation bill. I also want to acknowledge the fine work of the staff and thank them for their help in permitting us to bring this bill to the floor. Chuck Parkinson, Hallie Hastert, Stewart Hall, John Libonati, Abbie Raikes, and others have been enormously helpful. I urge the Members of this body to support this bill and the committee amendments.