John Kerry

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment of the Senator from Iowa, as a cosponsor thereof. I begin my comments by saying that, like most of us here, we all care enormously about the ability of the United States to carry out its responsibilities and to have a military that is second to nobody in the world. I believe we have that military, and I think that it is vital in the post-cold-war period to begin to make a tougher set of judgments about how we are spending money, what our priorities are within the military, to guarantee that the reforms that we are promised are delivered on, and to guarantee that we are making choices about technology that are totally connected to the nature and definition of threat. I agree with the Senator from Alaska that nobody can say with specificity exactly which country will emerge, but we can make some pretty good judgments about what is happening in the world. I have a chart here, and, regrettably, it is not blown up, but it does not take very much vision to see that there is only one significant bar on the entire graph. All of the others are very, very small compared to the expenditure of the United States in the $260- billion-plus mark. China is the next largest expenditure in the world, with somewhere in the vicinity--it is hard to figure out exactly--of $30 billion-plus. So we have $30 billion or so in China. The People's Liberation Army today is engaged in making CD's and engaged in pirating intellectual property in order to support the military. We know that their modernization program is not, by most intelligence analysts' determination, geared for expansionism. It is geared toward modernization. Most military intelligence analyst experts do not suggest that there is, at this moment, some enormous threat. We are supplying arms to Taiwan, and I think our combined threat with respect to Taiwan is fairly significant. China is the first of those sort of potential adversaries--if we wanted to put them in that category--that comes even close in terms of the next expenditures. But before China, the next highest expenditures in the world are Russia, now an ally; France, an ally; Japan, an ally; Germany, an ally; Britain, an ally. After China, you go to Italy, an ally; Saudi Arabia, an ally; South Korea, an ally; Taiwan, an ally; Canada, an ally; India, an ally; Spain, an ally; Australia, an ally; Turkey, an ally; Netherlands, an ally; Brazil, an ally; Israel, an ally; Sweden, an ally; and finally you get to North Korea. So you can look at all the potential threats of the world, and when you add the expenditures of all of our allies to the United States of America, you have to stop and say to yourself, ``What is it that we are really preparing for in a post-cold-war world?'' Mr. President, if you look at the potential weapons of most of these potential threats, you look at Syria, or North Korea, or China. The relative difference between Iraq, prewar, and those countries' weapons today is not really that enormous. Iraq, prewar, had 338 combat aircraft and 700 tanks. Iran, today, has less aircraft and marginally more tanks. North Korea has significantly less aircraft and maybe 3 times as many tanks. But we saw what the military of the United States was able to do in a matter of hours, let alone days, let alone weeks. The notion that we have to be proceeding to invest at a rate that is commensurate with the pre-cold-war period is simply irrational. So, Mr. President, I suggest that all the talk about the United States' military capacity being threatened by this amendment is just talk. It has no relationship to the reality of the threat or to what is happening in the world. We in the U.S. Senate ought to make a tougher set of judgments about our military expenditures.

Mr. KERRY. Yes.

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I would like to inquire. Was there an order of speaking being asked for, or might we have an alternative process here, seeking proponents and opponents?

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the Women's Pension Equity Act of 1996, and to thank Senator Moseley-Braun and Senators Mikulski, Murray, Boxer, and Feinstein for their leadership on this important issue. Mr. President, women are five times as likely to live out their final years below the poverty line. Research also indicates that almost 80 percent of widows living in poverty were not poor because their husbands died--while the same is not generally true of men, according to the General Accounting Office. I am proud to say that my wife, Teresa Heinz, contributed important work toward this bill. In April, she sponsored a conference in Boston entitled ``Women, Widows, and Pensions--The Unfinished Agenda.'' Senator Moseley-Braun was the keynote speaker and I believe many of the insights from the conference contributed to this bill. But I also want to highlight a letter from a woman named Marian from Attleboro, MA. She wrote me recently that she just turned 81 years old and worked from 1934 to 1994. Because of family responsibilities, she had to take a total of 7 years off from work to raise her children. She said that since her various jobs paid less than what a man would make, she now receives a worker's benefit that is less than one-half the benefit that was earned by her husband when he was alive. Mr. President, current pension laws do not take into account the circumstances of women in the work force. This bill takes an important step toward correcting pension inequities and helps to redress the overwhelming poverty suffered by older women. The bill would require the IRS to create a model form for spousal consent for survivor annuities so that couples understand the consequences of taking a larger annuity during the husband's life and giving up the survivor annuity. The bill would also require the Department of Labor to create a model order so divorced spouses get the pensions they deserve. Ultimately, we need fundamental reforms to address these pressing issues. Fewer women than men receive pensions and they receive less because they have fewer years in the work force: the average woman spends 11.5 years out of the work force largely due to greater time spent in nonpaying caregiving roles. Additionally, women earn less than men and are more likely to change jobs frequently and be affected by lack of pension portability and high vesting hurdles. But, Mr. President, along with the President's recent pension initiative the Retirement Savings and Security Act, this bill will move toward a day when the laws governing our Nation's pension system are truly gender neutral and older women are not faced with living their final years in poverty.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the Women's Pension Equity Act of 1996, and to thank Senator Moseley-Braun and Senators Mikulski, Murray, Boxer, and Feinstein for their leadership on this important issue. Mr. President, women are five times as likely to live out their final years below the poverty line. Research also indicates that almost 80 percent of widows living in poverty were not poor because their husbands died--while the same is not generally true of men, according to the General Accounting Office. I am proud to say that my wife, Teresa Heinz, contributed important work toward this bill. In April, she sponsored a conference in Boston entitled ``Women, Widows, and Pensions--The Unfinished Agenda.'' Senator Moseley-Braun was the keynote speaker and I believe many of the insights from the conference contributed to this bill. But I also want to highlight a letter from a woman named Marian from Attleboro, MA. She wrote me recently that she just turned 81 years old and worked from 1934 to 1994. Because of family responsibilities, she had to take a total of 7 years off from work to raise her children. She said that since her various jobs paid less than what a man would make, she now receives a worker's benefit that is less than one-half the benefit that was earned by her husband when he was alive. Mr. President, current pension laws do not take into account the circumstances of women in the work force. This bill takes an important step toward correcting pension inequities and helps to redress the overwhelming poverty suffered by older women. The bill would require the IRS to create a model form for spousal consent for survivor annuities so that couples understand the consequences of taking a larger annuity during the husband's life and giving up the survivor annuity. The bill would also require the Department of Labor to create a model order so divorced spouses get the pensions they deserve. Ultimately, we need fundamental reforms to address these pressing issues. Fewer women than men receive pensions and they receive less because they have fewer years in the work force: the average woman spends 11.5 years out of the work force largely due to greater time spent in nonpaying caregiving roles. Additionally, women earn less than men and are more likely to change jobs frequently and be affected by lack of pension portability and high vesting hurdles. But, Mr. President, along with the President's recent pension initiative the Retirement Savings and Security Act, this bill will move toward a day when the laws governing our Nation's pension system are truly gender neutral and older women are not faced with living their final years in poverty.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, once again I come to the floor about an issue of vital importance--international family planning funding. In the fiscal year 1996 foreign operations appropriations bill, a draconian provision was enacted that is decimating our family planning programs worldwide. Under that provision, no new funding can be used for population assistance until July 1, 1996--a full 9 months into the current fiscal year. Beginning in July, the program will be funded at a level reduced 35 percent from the 1995 funding level, to be allocated on a month-by-month basis for the next 15 months. Mr. President, in dollar figures, the effect of this provision is catastrophic. The net result is to cut funding for family planning programs from $547 million in fiscal year 1995 to $72 million for this fiscal year. This is an 86-percent cut in just 1 year. This is indefensible. This is foolish. This is wrong. Recognizing the damage being done by these restrictions, Senator Hatfield sponsored an amendment to the last continuing resolution [CR] which would have allowed funding for these programs to resume. Senators Dole and McConnell tried to defeat that amendment but their effort was overwhelmingly rebuffed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate. Unfortunately, the Hatfield language did not survive in conference. Once again, the Republican majority in the House, which opposes these family planning programs, refused to accept the Hatfield amendment, or in fact any other compromise language offered by the Senate conferees to deal with this issue responsibly. In a strange twist of fate, however, the conferees left in Senator Hatfield's language by mistake. The final bill that was passed by the House and the Senate would, in other words, remove these intolerable and destructive limitations on family planning programs. Now we are being asked to correct that mistake--in effect, to put back into place those very restrictions that a majority of us voted against and which we have worked so hard to overturn. I understand that this is merely the correction of an unintentional mistake. However, I would ask: Would the other side do the same for us if they were in our shoes? Would they agree to help us eliminate language they strongly supported? And sadly, the one recent instance I can remember of a case like this in the Foreign Relations Committee is that they did not accommodate us. So I think the Senate should be reminded of how far out on a limb we are going. I will not object to this unanimous-consent request. However, should the situation be reversed, and we err at some time in the future, I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will extend the same courtesy to us. I want to express my strong conviction that international family planning programs are in America's best interest. Funding for these programs is an investment that will save the lives of thousands of women and prevent millions of unplanned births and abortions in the future. These programs will help to ensure that newborn babies will be more healthy and to avert the problem of overpopulation. I joined Senator Simpson in representing the United States at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where the United States played a leadership role in galvanizing the international community to action. The conference called for a global effort to address overpopulation and to work together to promote maternal and child health care, educational opportunities for women and girls, and, most importantly, family planning programs. After pledging to provide world leadership in the area of international family planning, we cannot abandon our global partners at this juncture. Mr. President, let me take a moment to address what I believe is clouding the debate about family planning programs. There are some who want to equate family planning with abortion. Let me make clear: Family planning does not mean abortion. In fact, statistics prove that when women have access to voluntary family planning programs, the incidence of abortion decreases. Through education and contraception, family planning programs help women and families living in impoverished countries to begin childbearing later in life and to space their children. The issue of helping families better plan for children is in the interest of all those involved. In addition, Federal law prohibits the United States from funding abortions abroad. The U.S. Agency for International Development has strictly abided by that law. Those who argue that international family planning programs fund abortions abroad are simply wrong. Mr. President, by denying people access to the family planning programs worldwide by slashing their funding, there will be an estimated 4 million more unintended pregnancies every year, close to a million infant deaths, tens of thousands of deaths among women and--let me emphasize to my colleagues who oppose permitting women to choose abortions in the case of unwanted pregnancies--1.6 million more abortions. These programs provide 17 million families worldwide the opportunity to responsibly plan their families and space their children. They offer a greater chance for safe childbirth and healthy children, and avoid adding to the population problem that hurts all of us and hurts the unborn generations even more severely. In order to spend the population money the administration will have to send the required notifications to the appropriate congressional committees. When that process begins, I hope that those on the other side of the aisle who oppose family planning programs will remember that supporters of family planning programs, on both sides of the aisle, allowed this technical correction to be made and that they will not use the notification process to prevent the funds from flowing. The Senate has voted time and time again in favor of international family planning programs. Soon we will begin consideration of the fiscal year 1997 budget. Make no mistake about it. Family planning will be an issue and the Senate will continue to fight for its position on this issue. The time is long overdue for the House majority to start acting responsibly on an issue that will affect generations to come.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Thank you.

Mr. KERRY. Reserving the right to object, those times go beyond 3:30. It is contradictory. If you have 5 minutes and 10 minutes, it goes beyond 3:30. Therefore, if the order is set for 3:30, to fill the time we do not vote at 3:30. The unanimous consent request asked for a total of 15 minutes and it is now almost 20 after. I am trying to reconcile.

Mr. KERRY. In fact, 101 economists have all signed a letter, three of them Nobel laureates, suggesting this would have absolutely minimal impact just as it has since 1938. It is not as if we are suddenly coming to the floor and debating some new concept in America. This was passed in 1938, and it has been passed again and again and again, that we have increased the minimum wage. On some occasions we have increased the minimum wage when it has been worth more than it is today. It is now worth 27 percent of what it was in 1979. If we let it go to the end of this year, it will be at a record 40-year low. Leaving aside rhetoric about rich and poor, let us consider the rhetoric of work, the rhetoric of getting off welfare, the rhetoric of the values of our society. If you are going to value work, you have to pay people a fair wage for the day's work. What we are effectively saying, if we are going to ask people to vote below the level of poverty, is that we do not believe that a day's work in the United States is what it has been worth since 1938 or at those periods where we have raised the minimum wage to reflect what we thought it ought to be with respect to that day's work. Someone in my office was walking down to Union Station for lunch today and on the way back bumped into a panhandler and had a conversation with the panhandler, and asked him, ``How much do you manage to collect out here during lunch hour?'' He said, ``I usually make about six bucks out here during lunch hour.'' So what the Republican Party is suggesting is that people ought to go to work for a wage that is worth less than a panhandler can make in 1 hour during lunch hour near the Nation's Capitol. Is that a value of work? It seems to me, Mr. President, that if we are going to tell people you ought to get off of welfare and you ought to go to work, we ought to reflect the reality of who is working for what in this country. The fact is that, of those people on the minimum wage, 62 percent of the people on the minimum wage now live in a household in which someone else is also working. The vast majority, 46 percent, of those people in the work force in America are women; 60- plus percent of those working for the minimum wage are women. They are not teenagers; they are people out there struggling to try to work to break out of poverty. The fact is that you can work at the minimum wage in the United States today for the full 40-hour week without health care, without a pension benefit, without any of the kinds of benefits that most workers get, and you are working at three-quarters the rate of poverty. The maximum salary you take home is $8,500 a year. Our Republican friends seem to suggest it is OK for people to work for $8,500 a year and it is OK for them simultaneously to suggest taking away $32 billion of the earned-income tax credit over a 7-year period. So they want to have it both ways. They want to suggest that they can give a $245 billion tax break, most of which--these are not our words; this is the result of their construction--most of which goes to people who already have money. It is just a fact. If you are earning $300,000 a year, in the Republican tax break, you get about $12,000 a year. But if you are working at $30,000 a year or less and you are getting the earned-income tax credit, your taxes go up. That is not class warfare. That is just a fundamental question of fairness. Is it fair to give somebody who earns $300,000 a year $12,000 more and take away money from somebody earning $30,000 a year? The theory of that is that if you do make a lot of money and you work harder, you ought to make a lot more, but if you do not make a lot of money and you work harder, you ought to earn less. It is the most incredible equation I have ever heard of in my life. We are going to raise the minimum wage sometime around here. We are going to do it. We are going to do it because this issue is not going away. It is just like in the past. In 1989, we finally raised the minimum wage. Eighty-six Senators joined together to raise the minimum wage. All we are trying to do is get it back to that level when 86 of us were able to agree that it was the right thing to do. We will raise the minimum wage, but it will be after an extraordinary amount of expended political capital and energy and, frankly, wasted time. Ultimately, we are going to come to some kind of agreement around here because that is ultimately what I think most people will agree is fair. The last time we raised the minimum wage--it is very interesting-- Senator Dole, the majority leader, said and I quote: This is not an issue where we ought to be standing and holding up anybody's getting 30 to 40 cents an hour pay increase at the same time that we are talking about capital gains. I never thought the Republican Party should stand for squeezing every last nickel from the minimum wage. But here we are in 1996; it is worth less, and yet we are not just squeezing every nickel from it; we are squeezing every penny out of it at the very same time Republicans are talking about a tax break for a whole lot of people who make a lot more money than people on the minimum wage. Mr. President, I do not think we ought to be talking about rich versus poor. We ought to be talking about basic economics and what is good for the Nation. Every decade we have debated this you hear the same arguments. People come back and say: ``Oh, you can't do this because we are going to lose jobs.'' But in fact we do not lose jobs. America keeps growing. America gets stronger. America is creating more jobs. The fact is that studies have shown, for instance, in New Jersey, when New Jersey raised the minimum wage, measured against Pennsylvania, the argument was, ``Oh, don't do this because Pennsylvania will have an unfair advantage, and all the jobs are going to go across the border to Pennsylvania.'' Well, lo and behold, Messrs. Card and Krueger did a study, Princeton University did a study, Rutgers University did a study, and it showed that jobs increased. We have had testimony from chief executive officers of businesses who not only pay the minimum wage but they also give full health care to their workers, and they find that their business grows, they prosper, and they are able to actually hold on to people because they treat them decently. So I think this is an issue, the time of which has come, because the minimum wage is simply worth less than it was worth a few years ago. If we do not raise the minimum wage, we will have reached the unconscionable fact in this country that it is at the lowest it has been in 40 years at the very time that people are making the most political hay out of the rhetoric of going to work, getting off welfare, and living out American values. American values also require fairness. I hope we are going to have that fairness in this debate somewhere in the next days.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senator from Wyoming. Mr. President, let me respond, if I may, to a couple of comments made by the Senator from Wyoming. I am pleased to support the efforts of my senior colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, and I thank him for his persistent efforts to try to push this on the agenda. I regret that the reaction of my colleague from Wyoming is to suggest that raising the minimum wage is somehow not an appropriate effort in the Senate; that it is intruding on business of the Senate. Raising the minimum wage is the business of the Senate. It is the business of the Senate particularly when you consider the fact that all four of the amendments approved for debate are amendments of the Republican Party. In effect, what is happening here is that the legitimate process of the Senate under the rules by which amendments are permitted, are part of the business of the Senate, the minimum wage is being closed out by parliamentary tactics of the Republican Party that does not want a vote on it. I would suggest respectfully to my friend that this is not an issue of class warfare. There are countless rich people in America who support raising the minimum wage. There are countless people at the middle, at the upper, and at the very top level of our economy, all of whom believe that it is fair to raise the minimum wage. I ask unanimous consent that an article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which one might have thought would not have articulated such an opinion, on April 19, last week, be printed in the Record. It is an article which says, ``Minimal Impact From Minimum Wage. Increase Won't Have Much Effect on Economy.''

Mr. KERRY. I ask my friend for maybe 10 minutes. I do not think I will use it all.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I rise to support the Federal Gang Violence Act which we are introducing to combat the growing problem of gang violence. According to the FBI, juvenile gang killings rose by 371 percent from 1980 to 1992, the fastest growing of all the homicide categories. But, Mr. President, this problem is not just a series of statistics. Less than a year ago in Massachusetts, a young prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Paul McLauglin, was gunned down by a hooded youth in a display of gang violence and brutality unprecedented in my State. It was a brutal assassination of a public servant doing his job--the kind of violence we see in other nations, but thankfully, only rarely in America. Earlier this year, I met with law enforcement officials, local elected officials, and Justice Department officials in western Massachusetts where gang activity has grown dramatically. The officials told me that in the Route 91 corridor, gangs operate from Connecticut through Massachusetts and up into Vermont. In fact, last year a major incident involving gangs from western Massachusetts occurred in Rutland, VT. Because of this and similar meetings with law enforcement officials across Massachusetts, I went to Senators Feinstein and Hatch to offer my assistance in developing this antigang legislation. Although officials in western Massachusetts told me that the area is already benefiting from the COPS Program, we must do more. I am proud of the role I played in getting the COPS Program expanded in the crime bill, so that we will put 100,000 police officers on the beat to fight crime. The COPS Program is beneficial but not a sufficient Federal response to youth gangs. Nationally, juvenile arrests for violent crime increased by 75 percent during the past decade. According to a Department of Justice survey of law enforcement officials in 35 cities with organized antigang programs, there are almost 1,500 gangs and over 120,000 gang members across the country. The legislation we are introducing today would crack down on violent gangs by toughening Federal penalties against criminal street gangs and organized crime syndicates. Gang members who commit Federal crimes or recruit other youths--and especially gangs who cross State lines to commit crimes--would receive stricter penalties. Of course, the overwhelming majority of America's 27 million youths between the ages of 10 and 17 never commit violent crimes or enter the juvenile or criminal justice systems. Overall, children remain far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than offenders. According to the most recent data from the Department of Justice, one in nine children ages 12 to 19 was a victim of violent crime in 1993, while fewer than one in 200 youths was arrested for a violent offense. But ultimately, Mr. President, the solution to youth violence must address the fact that too many young people live in poverty, which puts children at particular risk for violent behavior by reducing the quality of their community supports such as housing and schools, limiting their opportunities for education and employment, and dimming their sense of hope about the future. We can pass tougher and tougher laws but without at least an ounce of prevention we will not solve the problem. We also must deal with the fact that handguns are too accessible. Handguns pose an ever-increasing danger to the safety and welfare of the American public. Nearly one-third of children ages 10 to 17 surveyed in 1993 said they knew how to get a gun. The source is often their own home. School security and law enforcement officials estimate that 80 percent of the firearms that students bring to school come from home. And according to the most recent figures, over 25 Americans are killed each day by handguns. If it's true that ``people kill people,'' it's also true that they most frequently do so with handguns. But we must also learn more about gang violence. Despite continuing research on the nature and extent of gang problems, data on youth gangs remain spotty. The Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP] recently reported that ``because research has been limited and because researchers have no real consensus on the definition of a gang or gang incident, the scope and seriousness of the youth gang problem are not reliably known.'' Better information is clearly needed. I look forward to working with Senators Feinstein and Hatch to making further refinements to the bill to ensure the delicate balance between bringing criminals to justice and protecting civil liberties. In particular, I'm interested in examining the provision which requires serious drug offenses committed as a juvenile to count toward the provision which imposes a mandatory minimum 15 year sentence for juveniles or adults who have a record of three serious drug offense convictions and commit a gun offense. We must be careful not to eliminate the juvenile justice system as the ``second chance'' it is intended to provide. Finally, I want to recognize the leadership of Senator Feinstein and Senator Hatch for their efforts to combat gang violence through this legislation. I also want to express my admiration for the Senator from California for her leadership on the assault weapons ban, both in her courageous efforts to pass it through Congress and her tenacity in stopping efforts to repeal it. Too many children in the United States go to sleep to the sounds of gunfire and accept as normal the violent deaths of siblings, friends, and schoolmates. Working together, we can combat gang violence, poverty, and handguns to ensure we no longer have to live under the constant threat of violence.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I rise to support the Federal Gang Violence Act which we are introducing to combat the growing problem of gang violence. According to the FBI, juvenile gang killings rose by 371 percent from 1980 to 1992, the fastest growing of all the homicide categories. But, Mr. President, this problem is not just a series of statistics. Less than a year ago in Massachusetts, a young prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Paul McLauglin, was gunned down by a hooded youth in a display of gang violence and brutality unprecedented in my State. It was a brutal assassination of a public servant doing his job--the kind of violence we see in other nations, but thankfully, only rarely in America. Earlier this year, I met with law enforcement officials, local elected officials, and Justice Department officials in western Massachusetts where gang activity has grown dramatically. The officials told me that in the Route 91 corridor, gangs operate from Connecticut through Massachusetts and up into Vermont. In fact, last year a major incident involving gangs from western Massachusetts occurred in Rutland, VT. Because of this and similar meetings with law enforcement officials across Massachusetts, I went to Senators Feinstein and Hatch to offer my assistance in developing this antigang legislation. Although officials in western Massachusetts told me that the area is already benefiting from the COPS Program, we must do more. I am proud of the role I played in getting the COPS Program expanded in the crime bill, so that we will put 100,000 police officers on the beat to fight crime. The COPS Program is beneficial but not a sufficient Federal response to youth gangs. Nationally, juvenile arrests for violent crime increased by 75 percent during the past decade. According to a Department of Justice survey of law enforcement officials in 35 cities with organized antigang programs, there are almost 1,500 gangs and over 120,000 gang members across the country. The legislation we are introducing today would crack down on violent gangs by toughening Federal penalties against criminal street gangs and organized crime syndicates. Gang members who commit Federal crimes or recruit other youths--and especially gangs who cross State lines to commit crimes--would receive stricter penalties. Of course, the overwhelming majority of America's 27 million youths between the ages of 10 and 17 never commit violent crimes or enter the juvenile or criminal justice systems. Overall, children remain far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than offenders. According to the most recent data from the Department of Justice, one in nine children ages 12 to 19 was a victim of violent crime in 1993, while fewer than one in 200 youths was arrested for a violent offense. But ultimately, Mr. President, the solution to youth violence must address the fact that too many young people live in poverty, which puts children at particular risk for violent behavior by reducing the quality of their community supports such as housing and schools, limiting their opportunities for education and employment, and dimming their sense of hope about the future. We can pass tougher and tougher laws but without at least an ounce of prevention we will not solve the problem. We also must deal with the fact that handguns are too accessible. Handguns pose an ever-increasing danger to the safety and welfare of the American public. Nearly one-third of children ages 10 to 17 surveyed in 1993 said they knew how to get a gun. The source is often their own home. School security and law enforcement officials estimate that 80 percent of the firearms that students bring to school come from home. And according to the most recent figures, over 25 Americans are killed each day by handguns. If it's true that ``people kill people,'' it's also true that they most frequently do so with handguns. But we must also learn more about gang violence. Despite continuing research on the nature and extent of gang problems, data on youth gangs remain spotty. The Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [OJJDP] recently reported that ``because research has been limited and because researchers have no real consensus on the definition of a gang or gang incident, the scope and seriousness of the youth gang problem are not reliably known.'' Better information is clearly needed. I look forward to working with Senators Feinstein and Hatch to making further refinements to the bill to ensure the delicate balance between bringing criminals to justice and protecting civil liberties. In particular, I'm interested in examining the provision which requires serious drug offenses committed as a juvenile to count toward the provision which imposes a mandatory minimum 15 year sentence for juveniles or adults who have a record of three serious drug offense convictions and commit a gun offense. We must be careful not to eliminate the juvenile justice system as the ``second chance'' it is intended to provide. Finally, I want to recognize the leadership of Senator Feinstein and Senator Hatch for their efforts to combat gang violence through this legislation. I also want to express my admiration for the Senator from California for her leadership on the assault weapons ban, both in her courageous efforts to pass it through Congress and her tenacity in stopping efforts to repeal it. Too many children in the United States go to sleep to the sounds of gunfire and accept as normal the violent deaths of siblings, friends, and schoolmates. Working together, we can combat gang violence, poverty, and handguns to ensure we no longer have to live under the constant threat of violence.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senators Kassebaum and Kennedy for their leadership in putting together this bill which the General Accounting Office [GAO] estimates will help over 21 million people. I also want to talk today about a woman from Florence, MA, who wrote me about her daughter. She supports this bill, she said, because her daughter has diabetes and the family had a terrible time finding health insurance that would cover her. In her letter she told me, ``I think it's immoral for health insurance companies to cut off coverage even while the people they cover are paying their premiums. No health insurance company should have the power to do this to their clients.'' Millions of Americans have medical histories or preexisting conditions that make it difficult to get comprehensive insurance coverage. As many as 81 million Americans have preexisting medical conditions that could affect their insurability. Many people are locked in their jobs because they fear they will be unable to obtain comprehensive insurance in new jobs. And many people who work in small businesses often have trouble getting insurance especially if one employee has medical problems. I am hopeful that this important bill will pass Congress and will be enacted into law this year. It is time that we help the American people get the health insurance they rightfully deserve. This bill takes very important steps forward. But we must do more, so that ultimately we have coverage for all Americans. Currently, 40 million Americans live without health insurance, and 23 million of the 40 million are workers, according to a study by the Tulane University School of Public Health. Furthermore, an average of more than 1 million children a year have been losing private health insurance since 1987. In Massachusetts alone, there are more than 130,000 children--one-tenth of all the children in my State--who are without any health insurance, private or public, for the entire year. And many more children lack health insurance for part of the year. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that almost one-quarter of U.S. 3-year-olds in 1991 lacked health insurance for at least a month during their first three years, and almost 60 percent of those lacked insurance for 6 or more months. Mr. President, this Congress has an unacceptable record when it comes to addressing the real needs of American workers and families. Political divisions and Presidential politics have become an everyday feature of Senate floor action, making it impossible for us to do much of the people's business. This bill still holds the promise of being a notable exception. I applaud the vision, commitment, and political savvy of the distinguished chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, Senator Kassebaum, whom I greatly admire, and the distinguished ranking member of that committee who is the senior Senator from my State. They have crafted a bill which will provide real help to meet the needs of real Americans, and have brought it to the Senate in a form that can become law. I urge all my colleagues to vote for this bill and the conferees to speedily send it to the President's desk for his signature. I will proudly vote for passage this afternoon.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the U.N. Human Rights Commission is preparing to consider a resolution that expresses the concern of the international community over human rights abuses in the People's Republic of China. As has been well-documented over the last year by the State Department, U.N. officials, and numerous human rights organizations, the Government of China has been responsible for an alarming number of human rights violations. In particular, there have been reports of arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, persecution of religious and ethnic minorities--particularly in Tibet, and censorship of expression. The evidence clearly demonstrates a deterioration in the human rights situation in China. Despite this overwhelming evidence, apparently some of the members of the Human Rights Commission are reluctant to support a resolution that criticizes China. Unfortunately, this seems to be a response to intensive diplomatic pressure from Beijing. In fact, the Chinese diplomatic pressure began even before a resolution was introduced at the U.N. Commission. At the end of March, I learned from the State Department that some members of the European Union [EU] were reconsidering their commitment to introduce a resolution on China at the Commission meeting this spring. I strongly believe that multilateral efforts, in institutions such as the Human Rights Commission, are potentially the most effective tool for pressuring China to improve its human rights record. Therefore, I authored a letter, signed by 10 of my colleagues from the Foreign Relations Committee, urging the Europeans to maintain their commitment to introduce a resolution on China at the Human Rights Commission. I am pleased that the EU members ultimately decided to introduce this resolution, and I hope that our letter encouraged this decision. The European initiative, however, will be in vain if the Commission does not act upon the resolution. This is an important and opportune moment for the members of the Commission to join together in a multilateral effort to persuade China to improve its human rights record. I urge all member states to support the resolution. Even more importantly, we must reaffirm the prerogative of the Commission to consider any country's human rights record and to hold a vote on any resolution that is offered. That prerogative is being challenged by China, which is attempting to prevent the Commission from even considering the European resolution. On December 10, 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the first time in history, the countries of the world made a commitment to recognizing international human rights. Motivated by a conviction to prevent future atrocities, such as those committed during World War II, this declaration defined the human rights basic to every human being and pledged an international effort to protect these rights. Since the adoption of that declaration, many other international conventions have been signed and ratified by the international community. These conventions address a variety of internationally recognized human rights, including political and civil rights, the right to be free from torture or religious or ethnic persecution, the rights of refugees, and the rights of the child. Why has the international community taken these steps to codify international human rights law? Because all societies around the world have recognized these principles as standards that should govern every state's behavior toward its own and other citizens. When a country violates the human rights of its citizens, it should be censured by the entire international community. We cannot allow any country--no matter how powerful or wealthy--to ignore the international legal norms of human rights. The United States has always supported the right of the international community to raise concerns over human rights violations in any country. In fact, last year the Government of Cuba introduced a resolution in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights condemning the United States for human rights violations. While this resolution was obviously ridiculous, the United States did not block a vote and the members of the Commission voted against Cuba's proposal. The important message here is that the United States recognizes the right of the international community to review every country's human rights record. It is therefore all the more outrageous that China seeks to prevent international consideration of its own dismal human rights record. Whether or not countries support the resolution, which I fervently hope they do, all members should reject China's effort to prevent the Commission from carrying out its mission of calling attention to and censuring human rights violations wherever they occur around the world. Mr. President, I urge all member states of the Human Rights Commission to vote against China's motion to prevent a vote and to support the resolution criticizing China's human rights record. It is only if the international community continues to work together multilaterally that we will be able to compel all countries-- particularly China--to uphold internationally recognized human rights standards.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am introducing the Federal Reserve Surplus Act of 1996 to provide a solution to an impending crisis in our financial services industry, and to avoid once again having to use taxpayers' money to bail out another round of S&L failures. I am happy to join my colleague in the House, Congressman Barney Frank as well as other members of the Massachusetts delegation, Congressmen Joe Kennedy, Marty Meehan, and Richard Neal, who introduced the companion bill in the House of Representatives. This bill will ease the obligation remaining from the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's with a creative approach that does not burden the banking institutions or taxpayers, but uses an existing $3.7 billion fund at the Federal Reserve. The GAO tells us that because the Federal Reserve's interest income so far exceeds its expenses, we believe it is highly unlikely the System will ever incur sufficient annual losses such that it would be required to use any funds in the surplus account. Savings and loans are required to pay almost $800 million per year in interest on financing corporation bonds which were sold to cover depositor claims on S&L's that failed in the 1980's. This legislation would use $3 billion from the Federal Reserve's surplus fund as a contribution toward the payment of the FICO interest obligation. This would leave about $1 billion in the fund. It is generally believed, within the financial community, as Congressman Frank has said, that ``continuing to require the savings and loans to pay the entire FICO interest obligation would worsen the disparity between what banks must pay to such a degree as to risk default by the SAIF, which would ultimately result in a further drain on the Treasury.'' Mr. President, this just makes sense. The Federal Reserve is controlling a fund with no specific purpose--paid in by banks--and the Congress should turn to this fund first before asking bankers in this country to bear the burden of recapitalizing the savings association insurance fund. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the bill printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the American Family Income and Economic Security Act. Not long ago the Treasury announced that the leading economic indicators were up 1.3 percent for February, the gross domestic product rose half a percent, the stock market is at record levels, inflation is subdued, interest rates are stable, unemployment is the lowest in the industrial world, job growth is the highest with over 8 million jobs since 1993; and--to topoff all of these positive indicators--the Democratic economic plan--that passed without one Republican vote--has cut the deficit by more than half--down from $290 billion to $140 billion. We worked hard with the President against Republican stonewalling, gridlock, and continued opposition to make this happen so that even the Republican Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, told me 2 weeks ago, at a Banking Committee hearing, that this is the longest period of the most robust and sustained economic growth since the end of the Second World War, and he expects the economy to continue to grow ``at a steady clip.'' But this economic growth is best reflected in corporate boardrooms-- businesses are finding it easier to borrow money, interest rates are low, executive salaries are up and continue to mushroom, regulations are being eased in every sector from financial services to basic manufacturing. But, in living rooms across Massachusetts there is extraordinary anxiety about jobs, health care, education, wages, and retirement. Mr. President, I have talked to family after family in Massachusetts who told me that people at the top are doing great, but their friends on the shop floor are not. Statistics show that corporate executives are earning 170 times that of their lowest paid worker. Just last year CEO's had an average salary increase of 15 percent while their workers are downsized into the street. These workers--whose real wages have fallen half-a-percent every year since 1973--worry about the future, about elderly parents getting sick, about their kids' education, about their own health care if they lose their job, about the debt they are carrying, and about their retirement. I understand how difficult it is when productivity rose 7 percent but real wages fell 3 percent in the first 6 years of the 1990's. A family that used to take out a loan for a major expense like a car, now put gas on their credit cards. They took out loans to send kids to college, now they take out loans to send kids to the pediatrician. The American family is sinking further and further into debt and this Republican Congress is making it worse. In 1995 commercial banks earned an all-time record high profit of $48.8 billion while consumer debt has soared 39 percent in the last 5 years and now exceeds $1 trillion. Personal bankruptcies rose by 6 percent in 1 year, and consumers owe $360 billion on their credit cards. And families in Massachusetts, fourth in the Nation in loan delinquencies, have defaulted on $80 million in consumer loans. Mr. President, in these economic times, the average American family has four credit cards--each with balances of $4,800. It's no wonder we are anxious. Thousands and thousands of families are one paycheck away from economic disaster. But, it took Pat Buchanan to wake up the Republican Party to do something the Democrats have been doing since the Roosevelt administration--fighting for working families and people struggling to make ends meet. Yet the Republicans have done nothing to alleviate this anxiety. They will not even raise the minimum wage--in fact they have downsized the American dream for millions of hard working families, but voted time and again to increase corporate welfare, and give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. Therefore, today, to fight back, I am announcing that I will introduce the American Family Income and Economic Security Act. It helps families by increasing the minimum wage, helps them educate their kids and re-educate themselves, helps secure portable, affordable, health care with no preexisting conditions clause, and makes investments for retirement easier. I believe that this legislation can go a long way to restoring faith in the American dream. The American Family Income and Economic Security Act gives incentives to businesses that become better corporate citizens and that foster a family-friendly environment that provides high-wage jobs for the 21st century. It includes 10 new approaches to family economic problems, and 10 initiatives that I have sponsored before. But, what makes this proposal unique is that it takes simple, necessary, common sense steps in the right direction. Each element of this plan can stand alone. It uses the Tax Code to help workers keep up, and rewards businesses that reward workers. I believe that these proposals are what real families need to make ends meet and to feel that they have a chance in the new economy. Let us start with wages. Under this proposal we reward work--those who are on the job and off the dole--by increasing the minimum wage from $4.25 and hour to $5.15 an hour. Maybe my Republican opponents don't know what an increase means in real terms: It means an additional $1,800--the equivalent of 7 months of groceries. Second, when it comes to educating kids--while the Republicans are cutting Pell grants and student loans for average working families--I want to use the Tax Code creatively. This proposal gives every family a $10,000 maximum deduction for tuition costs; and it allows their sons or daughters, who take out a student loan, to deduct the interest on that loan so they are not saddled with debt as soon as they graduate. But more than helping families pay for tuition costs, I want to help parents get the lifetime education and training they will need to compete. That is why my proposal encourages companies to provide education and training with a $5,200 per employee tax deduction for training. These proposals are real-life solutions to real-life family problems. How can we say that everyone should go to college--everyone should be trained and retrained--and then make it as difficult as we can to do it. How can we not provide incentives to help educate our workforce when we know that in 1972 people with advanced degrees earned 72 percent more than high school graduates--when we know that by 1992 those with graduate degrees made 2.5 times more than high school graduates--and when we know that today high school dropouts earn scarcely half as much as high school graduates and the education gap is widening? But education costs and retraining are not the only hurdles families are facing. Health care costs and the fear of catastrophic illness of a loved one add to America's insecurities. Every American has the right to feel secure that if they get sick, or their child or parents get sick, they will not face financial ruin. So, my plan endorses the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that makes health insurance portable and limits preexisting condition clauses. But it goes one step further. We know too well the horrors of a family who has tragically lost a loved one at a young age. The entire family, in a time of grief, can be faced with mounting medical bills. This proposal provides some security for younger families who are forced to sell family property because of a terminal illness. It zeroes-out capital gains taxes for them to give them a chance to recover. I am tired of going around Massachusetts and hearing stories of a family that took 10 years to crawl out from under the burden of debt caused by the loss of a loved one to breast cancer--which strikes 1 in every 9 Massachusetts women--or AIDS--which is the leading killer of Massachusetts residents aged 25 to 44. I am tired of going back to Washington to see Republicans continue their attempts to cut Medicare and Medicaid and cruelly leave so many of these young families in their political wake. Young families are the strength of this Nation. If they work hard they have every right to expect success, security, and a piece of the dream--and it is up to us to help them achieve it. I came to the Senate when my daughters were young and I know how hard it is to have a career and be a good parent. Many families cannot afford the cost of daycare, and do not want to be separated from their children. That is why I am proposing that businesses get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of their investment up to $150,000 for establishing on-site daycare centers for employees. Since the average American family spends $9,000 a year on daycare, it makes sense to help businesses keep families together--kids can be a few floors away rather than a few miles away, and we can take away parental anxiety while we raise their productivity. The Glass Ceiling Commission and others said that on-site daycare raises the productivity of American workers by 10 percent. So what are we waiting for? These are proposals to put more money in people's pockets, and there is one more proposal that is especially important to Massachusetts and working families everywhere: I am proposing to create a Federal tax deduction for local sewer and water fees to help those hardest hit by soaring water rates that are above 1 percent of a taxpayers adjusted gross income. In and around Boston, water rates continue to escalate--from $185 per year in 1985 to $525 per year in 1992 and $618 for 1996. By the year 2000, the rate is projected to rise to $800. The Tax Code allows deductions for State and local taxes, and this will similarly avoid the double tax on water and sewer rates for homeowners. And most importantly I reiterate my strong desire to double the income levels for those who participate in IRA's. I want individuals with incomes of $50,000 and couples who make $80,000 to be allowed to deduct IRA contributions. And I want them to be allowed early distribution to finance education, first time home buying, medical bills associated with catastrophic illness and long-term unemployment. This is a common sense approach to increasing the national savings rate without breaking the Treasury. This is an innovative approach that gives families the flexibility to grow and build and cope with economic reality. These are the creative programs we should incorporate into the Tax Code instead of giving tax breaks to MacDonalds to finance their foreign advertising budget. That is why I sponsored a bipartisan bill to cut $60 billion in corporate welfare and that is why I am proposing to stop companies from deducting the salaries of employees who earn over $1 million a year. No wonder the average American does not trust Government to help them. To begin helping business move us in the right direction I am proposing today a seven part business-to-family plan that provides direct assistance to high-growth, high-wage, job-producing businesses; and punishes businesses that put the bottom-line first and families last. On the positive side, I am proposing to completely eliminate capital gains taxes for investors who hold stock for more than 10 years in qualified small, high-growth, job-creating, critical-technology companies that do at least 75 percent of their business in the United States; and I am proposing to reduce the tax burden by 50 percent for investors who hold stock for at least 5 years. Massachusetts leads the Nation in these cutting-edge technology- driven businesses, and is a model for the Nation on making investments count for American working families. Let us make the Massachusetts high-tech experience, America's experience. These businesses are doing it right and expanding into the global market, and we should be encouraging that expansion. That is why this plan encourages small businesses to export and that is why it levels the playing field in Federal export financing between the Export-Import Bank's 90-percent guaranteed coverage and the Small Business Administration's 75 to 80 percent coverage. The Coalition of New England Companies for Trade strongly supports this export enhancement idea because they know it will work. But, most importantly, it encourages companies to keep jobs in this country and--like Aaron Feuerstein--it encourages them to recognize that their employees are an asset not a liability. My friends, as I meet people across this State, I find that many are concerned about their retirement. Employee pension plans should be sacred. That is why this proposal makes sure that private pension plans are not the toybox of corporate America. I am proposing that we prohibit companies from using pension plans when considering financing mergers and acquisitions; and we prohibit companies from deducting merger and acquisition expenses if the merger results in a 15 percent reduction in the work force. And we should not be rewarding corporate behavior with misguided tax loopholes that gives favorable tax treatment to companies that move offshore. If nothing else, a good corporate citizen keeps jobs in America, stays in America, and builds the American economy. I am proposing that we close those loopholes immediately. To take corporate citizenship one step further, I think we should punish Federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants. The Federal Government should lead by example and not allow its contractors to hire undocumented foreign workers at the expense of an American job. That is common sense and its the kind of corporate citizenship that we have every right to demand. I am also proposing that Congress give its unequivocal support to the idea of companies granting stock options to people they layoff and downsize out of a job. Why should not CEO's with guaranteed golden parachutes give loyal workers at least a tin parachute to make downsizing easier? I am also proposing that we retroactively and permanently extend the Research and Development tax credit that is so critical to a pro- growth, future oriented economy that understands that responsible, thoughtful investment in research and development can and will create the kind of high- wage jobs we need. This provision is, perhaps, the most critical of all. It establishes our commitment to investing in the future. It is not a gamble or a waste of taxpayers' dollars. It is a sure bet; and we should be willing to make it. We should be willing to accept the costs of any and all of these proposals--first because they can be offset by the $60 billion in savings we get from stopping corporate welfare under the bi-partisan bill that Senator McCain and I sponsored; and second, because we have to step up to the plate for what's right for working families and what's right for America. So, what does my American Family Income and Economic Security Act do? It helps workers, it supports businesses, and it rewards corporate citizenship. It addresses the anxieties of American working families, and it begins to move us in the right direction. It fights against the wrong-headedness of Republican policies that have downsized the American dream and shifted wealth to the top 10 percent of Americans. It is time to begin the shift back at least enough to protect hard working families from the extreme political agenda of the Republicans in Congress. So, this proposal is a hedge against the incredible odds that working families face every day in meeting the bills for health care, education, and a decent retirement. It is a hedge against stagnant wages, and it is a challenge to businesses to be good corporate citizens, and to build a family friendly workplace so that, together, we can build a better stronger American economy.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am introducing the Federal Reserve Surplus Act of 1996 to provide a solution to an impending crisis in our financial services industry, and to avoid once again having to use taxpayers' money to bail out another round of S&L failures. I am happy to join my colleague in the House, Congressman Barney Frank as well as other members of the Massachusetts delegation, Congressmen Joe Kennedy, Marty Meehan, and Richard Neal, who introduced the companion bill in the House of Representatives. This bill will ease the obligation remaining from the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's with a creative approach that does not burden the banking institutions or taxpayers, but uses an existing $3.7 billion fund at the Federal Reserve. The GAO tells us that because the Federal Reserve's interest income so far exceeds its expenses, we believe it is highly unlikely the System will ever incur sufficient annual losses such that it would be required to use any funds in the surplus account. Savings and loans are required to pay almost $800 million per year in interest on financing corporation bonds which were sold to cover depositor claims on S&L's that failed in the 1980's. This legislation would use $3 billion from the Federal Reserve's surplus fund as a contribution toward the payment of the FICO interest obligation. This would leave about $1 billion in the fund. It is generally believed, within the financial community, as Congressman Frank has said, that ``continuing to require the savings and loans to pay the entire FICO interest obligation would worsen the disparity between what banks must pay to such a degree as to risk default by the SAIF, which would ultimately result in a further drain on the Treasury.'' Mr. President, this just makes sense. The Federal Reserve is controlling a fund with no specific purpose--paid in by banks--and the Congress should turn to this fund first before asking bankers in this country to bear the burden of recapitalizing the savings association insurance fund. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the bill printed in the Record.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the American Family Income and Economic Security Act. Not long ago the Treasury announced that the leading economic indicators were up 1.3 percent for February, the gross domestic product rose half a percent, the stock market is at record levels, inflation is subdued, interest rates are stable, unemployment is the lowest in the industrial world, job growth is the highest with over 8 million jobs since 1993; and--to topoff all of these positive indicators--the Democratic economic plan--that passed without one Republican vote--has cut the deficit by more than half--down from $290 billion to $140 billion. We worked hard with the President against Republican stonewalling, gridlock, and continued opposition to make this happen so that even the Republican Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, told me 2 weeks ago, at a Banking Committee hearing, that this is the longest period of the most robust and sustained economic growth since the end of the Second World War, and he expects the economy to continue to grow ``at a steady clip.'' But this economic growth is best reflected in corporate boardrooms-- businesses are finding it easier to borrow money, interest rates are low, executive salaries are up and continue to mushroom, regulations are being eased in every sector from financial services to basic manufacturing. But, in living rooms across Massachusetts there is extraordinary anxiety about jobs, health care, education, wages, and retirement. Mr. President, I have talked to family after family in Massachusetts who told me that people at the top are doing great, but their friends on the shop floor are not. Statistics show that corporate executives are earning 170 times that of their lowest paid worker. Just last year CEO's had an average salary increase of 15 percent while their workers are downsized into the street. These workers--whose real wages have fallen half-a-percent every year since 1973--worry about the future, about elderly parents getting sick, about their kids' education, about their own health care if they lose their job, about the debt they are carrying, and about their retirement. I understand how difficult it is when productivity rose 7 percent but real wages fell 3 percent in the first 6 years of the 1990's. A family that used to take out a loan for a major expense like a car, now put gas on their credit cards. They took out loans to send kids to college, now they take out loans to send kids to the pediatrician. The American family is sinking further and further into debt and this Republican Congress is making it worse. In 1995 commercial banks earned an all-time record high profit of $48.8 billion while consumer debt has soared 39 percent in the last 5 years and now exceeds $1 trillion. Personal bankruptcies rose by 6 percent in 1 year, and consumers owe $360 billion on their credit cards. And families in Massachusetts, fourth in the Nation in loan delinquencies, have defaulted on $80 million in consumer loans. Mr. President, in these economic times, the average American family has four credit cards--each with balances of $4,800. It's no wonder we are anxious. Thousands and thousands of families are one paycheck away from economic disaster. But, it took Pat Buchanan to wake up the Republican Party to do something the Democrats have been doing since the Roosevelt administration--fighting for working families and people struggling to make ends meet. Yet the Republicans have done nothing to alleviate this anxiety. They will not even raise the minimum wage--in fact they have downsized the American dream for millions of hard working families, but voted time and again to increase corporate welfare, and give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. Therefore, today, to fight back, I am announcing that I will introduce the American Family Income and Economic Security Act. It helps families by increasing the minimum wage, helps them educate their kids and re-educate themselves, helps secure portable, affordable, health care with no preexisting conditions clause, and makes investments for retirement easier. I believe that this legislation can go a long way to restoring faith in the American dream. The American Family Income and Economic Security Act gives incentives to businesses that become better corporate citizens and that foster a family-friendly environment that provides high-wage jobs for the 21st century. It includes 10 new approaches to family economic problems, and 10 initiatives that I have sponsored before. But, what makes this proposal unique is that it takes simple, necessary, common sense steps in the right direction. Each element of this plan can stand alone. It uses the Tax Code to help workers keep up, and rewards businesses that reward workers. I believe that these proposals are what real families need to make ends meet and to feel that they have a chance in the new economy. Let us start with wages. Under this proposal we reward work--those who are on the job and off the dole--by increasing the minimum wage from $4.25 and hour to $5.15 an hour. Maybe my Republican opponents don't know what an increase means in real terms: It means an additional $1,800--the equivalent of 7 months of groceries. Second, when it comes to educating kids--while the Republicans are cutting Pell grants and student loans for average working families--I want to use the Tax Code creatively. This proposal gives every family a $10,000 maximum deduction for tuition costs; and it allows their sons or daughters, who take out a student loan, to deduct the interest on that loan so they are not saddled with debt as soon as they graduate. But more than helping families pay for tuition costs, I want to help parents get the lifetime education and training they will need to compete. That is why my proposal encourages companies to provide education and training with a $5,200 per employee tax deduction for training. These proposals are real-life solutions to real-life family problems. How can we say that everyone should go to college--everyone should be trained and retrained--and then make it as difficult as we can to do it. How can we not provide incentives to help educate our workforce when we know that in 1972 people with advanced degrees earned 72 percent more than high school graduates--when we know that by 1992 those with graduate degrees made 2.5 times more than high school graduates--and when we know that today high school dropouts earn scarcely half as much as high school graduates and the education gap is widening? But education costs and retraining are not the only hurdles families are facing. Health care costs and the fear of catastrophic illness of a loved one add to America's insecurities. Every American has the right to feel secure that if they get sick, or their child or parents get sick, they will not face financial ruin. So, my plan endorses the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that makes health insurance portable and limits preexisting condition clauses. But it goes one step further. We know too well the horrors of a family who has tragically lost a loved one at a young age. The entire family, in a time of grief, can be faced with mounting medical bills. This proposal provides some security for younger families who are forced to sell family property because of a terminal illness. It zeroes-out capital gains taxes for them to give them a chance to recover. I am tired of going around Massachusetts and hearing stories of a family that took 10 years to crawl out from under the burden of debt caused by the loss of a loved one to breast cancer--which strikes 1 in every 9 Massachusetts women--or AIDS--which is the leading killer of Massachusetts residents aged 25 to 44. I am tired of going back to Washington to see Republicans continue their attempts to cut Medicare and Medicaid and cruelly leave so many of these young families in their political wake. Young families are the strength of this Nation. If they work hard they have every right to expect success, security, and a piece of the dream--and it is up to us to help them achieve it. I came to the Senate when my daughters were young and I know how hard it is to have a career and be a good parent. Many families cannot afford the cost of daycare, and do not want to be separated from their children. That is why I am proposing that businesses get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of their investment up to $150,000 for establishing on-site daycare centers for employees. Since the average American family spends $9,000 a year on daycare, it makes sense to help businesses keep families together--kids can be a few floors away rather than a few miles away, and we can take away parental anxiety while we raise their productivity. The Glass Ceiling Commission and others said that on-site daycare raises the productivity of American workers by 10 percent. So what are we waiting for? These are proposals to put more money in people's pockets, and there is one more proposal that is especially important to Massachusetts and working families everywhere: I am proposing to create a Federal tax deduction for local sewer and water fees to help those hardest hit by soaring water rates that are above 1 percent of a taxpayers adjusted gross income. In and around Boston, water rates continue to escalate--from $185 per year in 1985 to $525 per year in 1992 and $618 for 1996. By the year 2000, the rate is projected to rise to $800. The Tax Code allows deductions for State and local taxes, and this will similarly avoid the double tax on water and sewer rates for homeowners. And most importantly I reiterate my strong desire to double the income levels for those who participate in IRA's. I want individuals with incomes of $50,000 and couples who make $80,000 to be allowed to deduct IRA contributions. And I want them to be allowed early distribution to finance education, first time home buying, medical bills associated with catastrophic illness and long-term unemployment. This is a common sense approach to increasing the national savings rate without breaking the Treasury. This is an innovative approach that gives families the flexibility to grow and build and cope with economic reality. These are the creative programs we should incorporate into the Tax Code instead of giving tax breaks to MacDonalds to finance their foreign advertising budget. That is why I sponsored a bipartisan bill to cut $60 billion in corporate welfare and that is why I am proposing to stop companies from deducting the salaries of employees who earn over $1 million a year. No wonder the average American does not trust Government to help them. To begin helping business move us in the right direction I am proposing today a seven part business-to-family plan that provides direct assistance to high-growth, high-wage, job-producing businesses; and punishes businesses that put the bottom-line first and families last. On the positive side, I am proposing to completely eliminate capital gains taxes for investors who hold stock for more than 10 years in qualified small, high-growth, job-creating, critical-technology companies that do at least 75 percent of their business in the United States; and I am proposing to reduce the tax burden by 50 percent for investors who hold stock for at least 5 years. Massachusetts leads the Nation in these cutting-edge technology- driven businesses, and is a model for the Nation on making investments count for American working families. Let us make the Massachusetts high-tech experience, America's experience. These businesses are doing it right and expanding into the global market, and we should be encouraging that expansion. That is why this plan encourages small businesses to export and that is why it levels the playing field in Federal export financing between the Export-Import Bank's 90-percent guaranteed coverage and the Small Business Administration's 75 to 80 percent coverage. The Coalition of New England Companies for Trade strongly supports this export enhancement idea because they know it will work. But, most importantly, it encourages companies to keep jobs in this country and--like Aaron Feuerstein--it encourages them to recognize that their employees are an asset not a liability. My friends, as I meet people across this State, I find that many are concerned about their retirement. Employee pension plans should be sacred. That is why this proposal makes sure that private pension plans are not the toybox of corporate America. I am proposing that we prohibit companies from using pension plans when considering financing mergers and acquisitions; and we prohibit companies from deducting merger and acquisition expenses if the merger results in a 15 percent reduction in the work force. And we should not be rewarding corporate behavior with misguided tax loopholes that gives favorable tax treatment to companies that move offshore. If nothing else, a good corporate citizen keeps jobs in America, stays in America, and builds the American economy. I am proposing that we close those loopholes immediately. To take corporate citizenship one step further, I think we should punish Federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants. The Federal Government should lead by example and not allow its contractors to hire undocumented foreign workers at the expense of an American job. That is common sense and its the kind of corporate citizenship that we have every right to demand. I am also proposing that Congress give its unequivocal support to the idea of companies granting stock options to people they layoff and downsize out of a job. Why should not CEO's with guaranteed golden parachutes give loyal workers at least a tin parachute to make downsizing easier? I am also proposing that we retroactively and permanently extend the Research and Development tax credit that is so critical to a pro- growth, future oriented economy that understands that responsible, thoughtful investment in research and development can and will create the kind of high- wage jobs we need. This provision is, perhaps, the most critical of all. It establishes our commitment to investing in the future. It is not a gamble or a waste of taxpayers' dollars. It is a sure bet; and we should be willing to make it. We should be willing to accept the costs of any and all of these proposals--first because they can be offset by the $60 billion in savings we get from stopping corporate welfare under the bi-partisan bill that Senator McCain and I sponsored; and second, because we have to step up to the plate for what's right for working families and what's right for America. So, what does my American Family Income and Economic Security Act do? It helps workers, it supports businesses, and it rewards corporate citizenship. It addresses the anxieties of American working families, and it begins to move us in the right direction. It fights against the wrong-headedness of Republican policies that have downsized the American dream and shifted wealth to the top 10 percent of Americans. It is time to begin the shift back at least enough to protect hard working families from the extreme political agenda of the Republicans in Congress. So, this proposal is a hedge against the incredible odds that working families face every day in meeting the bills for health care, education, and a decent retirement. It is a hedge against stagnant wages, and it is a challenge to businesses to be good corporate citizens, and to build a family friendly workplace so that, together, we can build a better stronger American economy.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to acknowledge a very talented and promising resident of Massachusetts, Brian Palmer Hafler. Brian was chosen as a seventh place winner in the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search, a national competition that recognizes the outstanding math and science achievements of high school students aged 16 to 18. Brian was recognized for his research involving T cells, research that may be instrumental in the future treatment of autoimmune diseases. After graduation from the Roxbury Latin School, West Roxbury, MA, Brian intends to continue his scientific research as a molecular biology student at Princeton University. In addition to his scholarly accomplishments, Brian has won varsity letters in wrestling and cross country, numerous academic awards, and a service award for his work in tutoring inner-city students. I applaud Brian on receiving the Westinghouse Science Award, and wish him success in his future endeavors.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, on Thursday, April 25, 1996, the English High School in Boston, MA, will be celebrating its 175th anniversary. The oldest public high school in the United States, English High School has changed with the times but has always maintained a high standard of education and compassion for its students. With award-winning teachers, students, and graduates, Boston English High is among the finest educational institutions in our Nation. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the English High School and join with the Boston Public Schools in celebrating its 175th anniversary.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, thank you. I am pleased to join with my colleagues in asking the rest of my colleagues to join with all of us in voting for this increase in the minimum wage. This vote is not a vote on process, it is not a vote on cloture, it is not a vote on who controls the Senate, it is not a vote on Presidential politics; it is a vote on whether or not people who are today working at the minimum wage who are at a record almost 40-year low in the purchasing power of that wage are going to get a raise. We hear colleagues try to make diversionary arguments: ``Well, this is going to lose jobs.'' We have heard those arguments, Mr. President. We put the minimum wage in America into effect in 1938 at 25 cents. Obviously, to get up to the $4.25, it has been raised in the meantime. In 1989, we raised it here, and 89 U.S. Senators, Democrat and Republican alike, joined in raising the minimum wage. We raised it each time against the arguments that, ``Oh, this is going to lose us jobs.'' Finally, in the last 5 years, because that argument keeps being raised, a series of studies have been done, study after study. More than two dozen of them have shown you do not lose jobs when you raise the minimum wage. As long as you obviously raise it to a reasonable level, you increase employment. The study by Lawrence Katz, of Harvard, and Alan Krueger, of Princeton, most recently has showed what happened in New Jersey. New Jersey, Mr. President, raised the minimum wage to a level that is well above the $5.15 that we are seeking. If you had a comparable level today to what they raised it in New Jersey, it would be the equivalent of $5.93. We are only asking to raise it to something that is still 13 percent below the level the minimum wage had in the 1980's. We are not asking to raise it to the full level of purchasing power the minimum wage has had in the past. America was never slowed by having it at that level in the past. We have increased employment in this country. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, studies would show that if we raised it now to just $5.15 an hour, you would still be below the purchasing power level of the minimum wage in prior years. The other day we had an employer stand with us talking about the minimum wage. He is in the restaurant business. That is one of the businesses you most often hear about might be negatively impacted. This employer not only pays more than the minimum wage in his restaurant business, but he gives everybody in that business full health care-- full health care--more than the minimum wage, and he is doubling his business every single year. He keeps the people employed. He keeps the people working for him. It is good for his business. It is good for the country, Mr. President. This is fair. When chief executives are getting paid more, when the stock market goes up 34 percent in 1 year, when the productivity of this country increases 12 percentage points over the course of the last 5 years, but wages only go up 2 percent, it is time to say, give those people working at the least point of the economic ladder a raise. I hope we will do that in a bipartisan fashion. Mr. President, let us not misunderstand this cloture vote today; let us not misunderstand what it means about the prevailing political agenda of the majority leadership who have consistently supported huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and millions of dollars in corporate give-aways, but will not allow a simple up-or-down vote on increasing the minimum wage. This cloture vote today is that vote. Some on the other side of the aisle would have us believe that this is a vote about schedules, or about Presidential politics, or about Democratic attempts to usurp control of the Senate when, in fact, it is none of those things. It is the vote on whether or not we support an increase in the minimum wage. It's a vote about economic justice. Mr. President, I have offered, on my part, and we, on this side, have all said that we would ``sit down and shut up,'' in exchange for a vote anytime between now and June--an honest, up-or-down vote on rasing the hourly wage of the poorest American workers. But even that request was rejected by the majority leadership. So, this is not about us--on this side of the aisle--taking hold of the Senate's agenda, or stalling action on the Presidio bill. On the contrary, it is an honest insistence that we address this fundamental issue of fairness and economic justice. The arguments that we are hearing from the other side--that an increase in the minimum wage loses jobs, that somehow giving people a better chance at survival is a bad thing--simply do not hold up on the economic side or on the fairness side. In fact, Mr. President, the last time we raised the minimum wage by 90 cents over 2 years, it was with broad bipartisan support and the signature of a Republican President. These arguments never came up then, but now, we cannot even get the Republican majority to bring the issue up for a vote. It would seem to me that the only thing that has significantly changed--besides the inability of 22 million hard working Americans to keep up in this economy--is the political imbalance of a Republican Party sliding hopelessly to the extreme. Because--based on empirical evidence--the need for an increase is clear. Study after study show that increasing the minimum wage helps. I have brought up example after example in the last few days of young single mothers and working families in my State, trying desperately to find a job that pays them enough to raise their families with dignity-- that pays enough to provide health care for their children, a decent safe place to live--enough to afford daycare and groceries, pay the heat and pay the electricity. Mr. President, is that too much to ask for people on the job and off the doles? The evidence is clear. This increase would not be out of the range of increases that have been enacted at the Federal level and in some States, and the overwhelming preponderance of evidence--in studies that looked at the two-step 90-cent increase in the Federal minimum at the turn of the decade, as well as State increases at the level of nearly $5.70 an hour in 1996 dollars--is that these increases do not increase job loss. So any argument here that points to job loss as a reason for voting against giving people a raise, is, on its face, absurd. David Card, in ``Industrial and Labor Relations Review'' in October 1992, studied the first 45-cent increase to $4.25 in the Federal minimum wage and found there to be no increase in job loss. Now, that study is in 1991 dollars. The equivalent in 1996 dollars is $4.93--without--without causing job loss. Another study by Card and Alan Krueger, ``The Effect of the Minimum Wage on the Fast Food Industry'' studied the effects of New Jersey increasing its minimum wage by 80 cents, from $4.25 an hour to $5.05 an hour in 1992--that's $5.69 an hour in 1996 dollars--and they found that the increase did not cause job loss. And a specific study by David Card entitled, ``Do Minimum Wages Reduce Employment: A Case Study of California, 1987-1989'' that looked at California's 90-cent increase in the minimum from $3.35 an hour in 1987 to $4.25 an hour in 1988--that's $5.68 in 1996 dollars--has no significant impact on job loss. Card concluded: ``Comparisons of grouped and individual State data confirm that the rise in the minimum wage increased teenagers' wages. There is no evidence of corresponding losses in teenage employment.'' Another study by Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton examined an increase on the minimum wage on the fast-food industry in Texas and found that the employment effects, if anything, were positive. Mr. President, let us not be fooled by diversionary arguments that muddy the waters. There's no correlation between increases in the minimum wage and job loss, and that argument should be put to rest once and for all. Harvard labor economist Richard Freeman, in the International Journal of Manpower, in November 1994, said it best. He said: ``at the level of the minimum wage in the 1980s, moderate legislated increases did not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher employment in some locales.'' He said, ``Studies based on employment across economic units such as States and counties yield more disparate results. Most studies, however, reject the notion that the late 1980's and early 1990's increases had adverse employment effects, and the studies that find adverse effects prior to those increases obtain small elasticities-- meaning small employment effects--which confirm the effectiveness of the minimum in redistributing wage income. He concluded: ``That moderate increases in the minimum wage transferred income to the lower paid without any apparent adverse effect on employment at the turn of the 1990's is no mean achievement for a policy tool in an era when the real earnings of the less skilled fell sharply.'' Freeman also observed that any net reduction in employment from a higher minimum wage that might occur among teenagers would be mitigated by the extremely high turnover rates of these workers. So even if a higher minimum wage means that it will take some low-wage workers a little longer to find jobs, once they do find a job they will benefit from the higher wages. Do you know what this vote comes down to, Mr. President? It comes down to whether or not to put $2,000 more in the pockets of workers. In these times, is that a difficult choice? That, $2,000 more for every minimum wage worker in local economies. My Republican friends rail against welfare, but when it comes to being fair, mark them absent. So what are we arguing about. What are my Republican colleagues trying to tell us. What straws are they grasping at to create an argument about job loss, and teenage employment--or about the imagine hobgoblins that would appear if we were to give more money to the people who need it most. Mr. President, the truth is that raising the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour, according to everyone, would make up slightly more than half of the ground that was lost to inflation during the 1980's. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the studies show that even if we raised the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour it would still be 13 percent below its average purchasing power during the 1970's. To have the same purchasing power that it had in 1996 it would have to be raised to $5.93 and we certainly would not get a vote on $5.93 when we can't get one on $5.15. Mr. President, the purchasing power of the minimum wage is now at its second lowest level in four decades. After adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is below its level for every year--except 1989--going all the way back to 1955. To put this in perspective: as real wages for the middle-class have been stagnant, the real wages of people at the bottom end have dropped. And so the dramatic shift in wealth and obvious wage inequities in America are contributing to an extraordinary change in worker morale. To put it simply: the dreams and hopes of millions of hard-working American families who or on the job and off the dole are at stake here. This is about whether or not we understand what people are going through in this country. Mr. President, we are talking about the working poor. In 1993 more than half of the poor, some 22 million people, lived in households with someone who went to work everyday--8 hours a day--7 days a week. Some 4.2 million workers in America paid by the hour in 1993 had earnings at or below the minimum wage. This was 6.6 percent of hourly workers. An additional 9.2 million hourly workers had earnings just above the minimum wage. Mr. President, these are not teenagers. These are not minorities. They are, to large extent, women. Less than one-in-three, 31 percent, were teenagers. About one-in-five, 22 percent, were 20 to 24 years old. Nearly half were aged 25 and older. And almost 62 percent of them were women. Mr. President, who are the real losers in today's economy? Not the corporate executives. Not the Republican leadership in the Senate that is looking to give them a massive tax cut, and reward these same corporations with huge giveaways. No. The ones being left further and further behind--are working women. They represent 46 percent of the paid work force, but 60 percent of those working for the minimum wage. These working women cannot make ends meet on $4.25 an hour. A single working woman with two children cannot pay for daycare, health care, housing, and food on subpoverty wages. For that family of three, the Federal poverty level is $12,500. At the minimum wage that family earns only $8,500, $4,000 below the poverty level. Times have changed since the 1960's and 1970's when the minimum wage was enough to raise families up to the poverty line. That imbalance is an unacceptable inequity in America. Yet, Republicans in Congress are quibbling over raising the minimum to $5.15--even though, since 1979, the minimum wage has lost 25 percent of its value--while at the same time they favor a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, and wonder why women who take home less than $132 a week are forced to choose welfare over work. While it may be easy for some to moralize about values and the dignity of work while they earn a congressional salary that is 10 times the poverty level for a family of three, common sense and common decency require that we look at what a single mother with a child and $148 a week faces in real terms, everyday. She has to hope that her employer provides or subsidizes the cost of daycare. But daycare programs at work are rare, particularly for minimum wage earners. Nationally only 5 percent of employers pay for or subsidize daycare costs for full time employees, and, if a mother is offered a second- or third-shift job, daycare is simply not an option. The Republicans response is not only to say no to increasing the minimum wage, but to cut food stamps, cut school lunches, and cut nutritional programs for underprivileged children. Yet, they ask single working mothers to work hard, stay off of welfare, pay for daycare, get a decent apartment, feed the children, pay for health care, save for the future, have a good time, and make ends meet. Times have, indeed, changed in the 57 years since Congress first set the minimum wage at 25 cents an hour in 1938. But what has not changed is our pride and our spirit and our sense of hope. There are millions and millions of young, hard-working Americans in the vanguard of a new labor movement that is no longer fighting against ruthless employers for child labor laws, fair labor practices, health and safety standards, decent working conditions, or an 8-hour day. I hope we have put those fights behind us because those labor wars were fought over the most fundamental rights of people trying to work for a living and survive the unregulated power of ruthless employers. Now, there is a new labor force struggling against downsizing and technology and a global economy. For them, an increase in the minimum wage is not too much to ask. The last time we voted to increase it, in 1989, a Republican President and a Democratic Congress did it together. And there were none of these arguments that we are hearing today. We worked together then to raise the minimum from $3.35 an hour to $4.25 an hour, and I was proud to have voted for it. The House passed it by a vote of 382 to 37 with 135 Republicans voting for the increase. It passed the Senate by a vote of 89 to 8 with 36 Republicans on the side of common sense. We can do it again together, if common sense and fairness are still bipartisan virtues in Washington. I yield the floor.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today the Senate is considering the conference report on the farm bill. I had hoped that the conference would produce a bill that would be more fiscally responsible than either its House or Senate predecessors. However, I regret that in my view it does not achieve that fiscal reform. I voted against final passage of the Senate's farm bill, S. 1541, when the Senate acted on it last month because, while it was improved considerably in some key respects from the bill that the Republican leadership originally introduced, ultimately, it was not the reform package that I believe our Nation needed and had the right to expect. Unfortunately, neither does this conference report provide the improvements that would be needed to secure my support. I understand that the President, with some reservation, is expected to sign into law the conference report now before us. I know that farmers, as they head into the spring planting season, need to know the conditions under which they must operate. And I acknowledge that this bill is probably the best package that could be expected to emerge from a conference with the House in the contentious, partisan environment which pervades Capitol Hill. Indeed, the conference package is far better than the House bill, which, in fact, was not complete legislation because it did not reauthorize important conservation and nutrition programs that have traditionally been addressed in omnibus farm legislation. It is imperative that I congratulate and sincerely compliment the Senators who worked diligently to secure an agreement at least as good as the one before us today. Agriculture Committee Ranking Democrat Pat Leahy deserves our commendation for his successful struggle to insist that adequate conservation and nutrition provisions be included. Chairman Lugar again on this bill demonstrated his well-known and respected ability to place the Nation's interests as his first objective instead of partisan scoring and ideological rigidity. The way in which Senators Lugar and Leahy worked together in pursuit of responsible legislation that could pass both houses and receive the President's signature is a model that others in this body would do well to emulate. I compliment Senator Leahy, also, for his instrumental role in including in this conference agreement a provision important to me and my New England colleagues allowing the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact to go into effect upon the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture. As a cosponsor of the compact legislation, I am very pleased that it will be included in a bill that apparently will become law. This conference agreement includes important rural development programs that are important to farmers in my State of Massachusetts as well as to farmers across the country. The bill retains new development initiatives such as the multimillion-dollar Fund for Rural America and the new structure for delivery for rural development programs, the Rural Community Advancement Program [RCAP]. RCAP provides important flexibility to States to allow them to develop innovative approaches to their unique rural development problems by permitting each State director to tailor assistance to local needs. This is a vast improvement over the previous Republican proposal for block grants to the States. But on the central question of the way it deals with farm incomes, I reluctantly must conclude this conference report fails to make the grade. While it eliminates the current price support structure for many commodities programs, it replaces it with an extremely costly fixed direct payment to farmers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that for the first 2 years under this new proposal--fiscal years 1996 and 1997--the Treasury will pay out $5 billion more to farmers than would be paid under a continuation of the current price support programs. While some claim that this 7-year direct payment program is necessary to wean farmers off Federal support, that argument is significantly weakened by the provision in the bill that retains the outdated 1949 Agricultural Act as the permanent law governing Federal commodity programs. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the 1949 statute, if enacted today, would cost taxpayers $10 billion for 1996 alone, substantially more than the recently expired provisions. I remain convinced that we need a new approach to farm policy. We need to transition to a situation where we permit the free market to function with much less interference, regardless of how well- intentioned it may be. When this issue first came before the Senate, I supported cloture on the Leahy-Dole reform package--although it was far from ideal in my mind--because it would have replaced the 1949 statute and the financial support provided by the current price support programs with a 7-year phase-out plan. Also, importantly, that package would have reauthorized critical conservation and nutrition programs, including food stamps, through 2002. The conference agreement reauthorizes food stamps for only 2 years. Today we must vote yes or no on the conference package in its entirety. While it contains many important and acceptable nutrition, conservation and rural development provisions, it falls well short of the kind of bill we ought to be passing. While I accept the explanation of Senators Lugar and Leahy that this is the best bill they could get their House counterparts to approve, it falls too far short of what our Nation needs and there will be too little to show for too great an expenditure of tax dollars for me to be able to vote affirmatively. Mr. President, for these reasons, I will cast my vote in opposition to this conference report.

Mr. KERRY

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this conference report that we are now considering on H.R. 1561 is not a traditional nuts-and-bolts authorization bill for the Departments of State, USIA, and ACDA. It is, regrettably, a nonbipartisan and controversial bill in its current form. This bill seeks to reorganize the foreign affairs agencies of the executive branch by forcing on the President a consolidation of one Agency, USIA, AID, or ACDA, even though the administration has made it very, very clear that is unacceptable to them. So, for that reason alone, this particular bill is subject to veto by the President. He has said that he will, indeed, veto it on that basis. I think it is regrettable we are going to take the time of the Senate to go through the process of sending the President something that he has already said he is going to veto, but that is what we are going to do. But there are other implications in here. If a President of the United States asserts constitutional authority with respect to particular prerogatives within the formulation of the conduct of American foreign policy, it seems to me we ought to be careful to at least examine, if not respect at face value, those assertions with respect to that constitutional authority. And I think that there are legitimate questions here about whether or not it is appropriate, if the President says that is a prerogative and he does not want to be forced into that position, whether or not we should not respect that and create a different formulation by which we end up with the same result. We did offer a different formulation by which we would end up with the same result during the course of the conference. That was rejected. Specifically, we offered the same amount of savings that we will achieve under the numbers in this bill--actually, a slightly lower aggregate amount of savings--but we recommended that we only hold out the threat of closure of these agencies if the President refused to return to us a sufficient plan with respect to the reorganization of our foreign policy agencies, and we had the right to determine whether or not we thought that was a sufficient plan. If we did not, we could reject it and start again. In addition to that, there are a series of policy issues attached to what should, in normal circumstances, be a nuts-and-bolts reauthorization. Those policy decisions, each and every one of them, present their own set of problems. One such policy issue is the very, very significant alteration of our relationship with China, it might be said, literally shaking the foundations of that relationship at a very precarious time in our dealings with both China and Taiwan. I will have more to say about that subsequently, as will other colleagues. In addition to that, it undermines the President's July 1995 decision with respect to normalization with Vietnam, and puts language into the authorizing process that, in effect, sets back our accountability process on the POW/MIA's. Furthermore, it fails to meet the administration's budget requests for fiscal year 1997, particularly for the critical account of peacekeeping. The United States is engaged, as we all know, in most critical peacekeeping efforts in the world, most recently in Bosnia. To suggest the Congress is going to be unwilling to meet what we know are the agreed-upon figures and responsibilities for those peacekeeping efforts is simply irresponsible. Moreover, it sends a very, very dangerous, damaging message to our relationships with our allies. Yesterday, I had the privilege of having a meeting with our Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Albright, whom I think most would agree has been really doing an outstanding job on our behalf in New York at the United Nations. She relates that, literally in every debate, in every single effort, now, to try to bring our allies along on some particular effort, she meets with not just resistance, but a level of cynicism and scorn with respect to the United States' arrearages and the United States' slowness in paying with respect to peacekeeping. Even in Bosnia, we are $200 million shy of a $200 million commitment. And the on-the-ground effort which the European representative, Carl Bildt, is trying to implement on our behalf and the European's behalf, is significantly restrained by virtue of the perception that we are not serious, we are not there, we are not going to really leverage this and try to guarantee that the on-the-ground civilian component can be as successful as the on-the-ground military component has been to date. In addition to that, the United States-assessed contributions to the United Nations and its related agencies, as well as ACDA and the International Exchange Programs, are all significantly underfunded for the 1997 year. I know, as my colleagues know, there is no easier whipping boy in the United States today than foreign policy and the United Nations. If you want to get applause at a local meeting at home, if you want to get people to kind of vent some of their anger at the waste of Washington, all you have to do is say to them, ``By God, I think the money ought to be going here to X, Y, or Z town instead of to these foreign efforts.'' And most people will automatically cheer and say you are absolutely correct. When you ask most Americans how much money they think is going into our foreign policy effort, it is really amazing how far off most Americans are. I go to town meeting after town meeting; when the issue comes up, I say, ``How much do you think we are paying for foreign assistance, foreign aid? Do you think it is 20 percent of the budget?'' And a number of hands go up. ``Do you think it is 15 percent of the budget?'' Quite a few hands go up. ``Do you think it is 10, 9, 8 percent of the budget?'' A lot of hands go up, the vast majority. ``Is it 5 percent of the budget?'' And you get the remainder of the hands with the exception of a few. Then, when you finally get down and say, ``Is it 1 percent or less of the budget,'' I usually have one or two hands go up. That is what it is. That is what it is. It is 1 percent or less. It is less than 1 percent of the budget of the United States that we commit to all of our interests in terms of peacekeeping, AID, efforts to leverage peace in the Middle East. And most of the money, as we know, is contained within, almost, two items, Egypt and Israel, but significant portions are spread around with respect to some of the development programs and other efforts to curb drugs, narcotics, money laundering, immigration-- a whole lot of things that we try to do in that field, including, I might add, one of the most important of all today: our economic enterprises. We are shortchanging ourselves in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, the Far East, with respect to our Foreign Commercial Service, where we are losing countless job opportunities for Americans, countless manufacturing opportunities in this country, because we do not have the people on the ground sufficient to marry those opportunities with the opportunities in this country. That is extraordinarily shortsighted, because we could pay their salaries many times over in a matter of months, and I think that has been proven many times over. So, Mr. President, the current level of funding is a very significant issue to the administration, and the administration has appropriately, in my judgment, suggested that those numbers are sufficiently low that that is a reason to veto this bill. In addition to that, there still is no satisfactory solution to the question of family planning, and it is ultimately a bill that, in my judgment, is deficient. I think many of my colleagues know that Senator Helms and I have been grappling in good faith with the central and perhaps most controversial issue in this bill, and that was the reorganization of the foreign affairs agencies. At the start of the year, I was excited about the proposition, and I still remain excited about the proposition, that we could consolidate, we might even merge, we need to reduce the size. I applaud the Senator from North Carolina in his efforts to try to press that. It is very legitimate. There does need to be a savings. There can be some savings, but I think there is an equally legitimate question about whether or not, at first instance, we should make an executive department decision regarding reorganization. I think if we were to create the framework, if we were to hold a very heavy sword over the head of the administration, suggesting that if they do not do it sufficiently, they will pay a price, I think that would have been a very appropriate approach and it is one which we offered. In the absence of the administration being willing to accept a forced agency numbered closure, it is very difficult, obviously, to pass a bill. I appreciate the fact--and I want the chairman to know it--I appreciate the fact that this conference report does contain a compromise on reorganization, and I think that did reflect a willingness of the House Republican conferees to move away from the House-passed bill's requirement that all three agencies be abolished. I want to respect the fact that they did move and say it on the record, and it would have been my hope that we might have been able to come to a final agreement on this. But regrettably, the compromise does not meet the veto proof test, because it denies the President that executive department right of how to reorganize and, therefore, it is not just the fact of reorganization that is being asserted here, it is the principle of Presidential prerogative which, as we know, is not unimportant in the context of foreign policy. Moreover, there is a very serious question, which I am confident the Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], who is on the floor, will share with me, that it is really inappropriate for this conference effort to prohibit the President from following through on an Executive determination and an Executive right with respect to diplomatic relations with another country. Having determined, as a matter of that Presidential right, that we will establish diplomatic relations, for the Congress to then not fund the requisites of that diplomatic process; that is, an embassy, is to come in through the back door to, again, deny the President the prerogatives of Presidential authority in the conduct of foreign affairs. So, again, that is a problem with respect to this particular issue. Mr. President, let me say further that one of the most damaging components of this conference report, which I know the Senator from Louisiana is going to talk about and I know Senator Nunn of Georgia is going to talk about, is the very provocative and, in my judgment, ill- advised initiatives with respect to Taiwan and China. I do not want to suggest that Taiwan should not be considered at some point for membership in GATT or the United Nations. It may well be that in the context of further marching down the road of one China and two systems and of bringing a sufficient dialog together between China and Taiwan, it will be possible to work those details out. But it is clearly on its face ill-advised in the context of the current difficulties for the U.S. Congress to step in and make extraordinarily important and provocative statements about that relationship that can only lend further fears to a Beijing that is so significantly caught up in, convoluted by, constrained by the transition process today, the leadership transition process. Any of us has to understand that there are certain limits as to what the center of China, the Beijing regime can do at a time when there is a leadership transition in the shadows and perhaps sometimes not even so much in the shadows. For us to step in and alter in a unilateral way the Shanghai communique and the Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 further communique would be to disrupt and, in fact, make more dangerous an already fragile and difficult situation. There is no question but that the President of the United States on those items alone--just on the question of President Lee Teng-hui's visit to the United States, GATT and U.N. membership, and on the question of the relationship of the Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 communique--those items alone, each and every one of them individually, let alone in the aggregate, ought to be grounds for a veto. I think it is important for us to understand that while all of us here share a deep-rooted belief that the words of the communique are critical with respect to peaceful transition in Taiwan and that the words of the communique are critical with respect to our commitment to the Taiwanese not to ever be subjected to an invasion or to takeover by force or to a subversion of the democracy they are increasingly choosing and practicing, it would be equally wrong for us to just move away from the policy track that has guided our movements in that region for so long. I think it is fair to say that if we were serious about establishing that as a policy of the United States Congress, it would be fair to understand that China would interpret that as an extraordinarily belligerent, provocative move that would elicit nothing but a hard-line response and wind up having exactly the opposite effect of what we are trying to achieve in the long run and make the world a far more dangerous place. I believe that we can continue to back the principles of the communique and Taiwan Relations Act without resorting to those measures. We will still sell weapons to Taiwan as they need it for defense, and we will still abide by the guarantees of the two systems and of a peaceful transition. But what a terrible mistake it would be to start to assert a sort of ``435-person House and 100-person Secretary of State policy'' from the U.S. Congress. Mr. President, finally, let me just say, turning to the funding levels, I want to speak for a quick moment about not just the peacekeeping money, but the relationship with the United Nations itself and our arrearages. Ambassador Albright has made it very, very clear, and I think all of us need to really think about this--I encourage colleagues to go to New York and meet with representatives of various countries, find people who they respect in the process as observers and truly inquire independently of an advocate of the administration--whether or not our arrearages are creating a legitimate problem in our ability to achieve the very reforms that we are seeking at the United Nations. In the context of this conference process, Congressman Hamilton and I offered a proposal that would have allowed for continued leverage to get reform from the United Nations. We proposed that we not pay the arrearages back in one lump sum so that we lose leverage and control, but rather that we agree to pay them back, that we make it clear that we are going to do that, while simultaneously over a 5-year period achieving a fixed set of reforms within the U.N. itself, as well as achieving from the U.N. commitments with respect to changing the formula for contributions in and of itself. I believe the contribution formula ought to change. The world has changed since the formula was set up. The gross domestic products of our partners have grown, and, on a relative basis, ours is shrinking compared to theirs. So it is appropriate for us to look to the United Nations and to our allies for fair contribution, for burden sharing and for a more fair distribution of that effort. But right now, as a consequence of our unilateral decision not to pay, our allies are paying more than 100 percent. I will tell you, our allies, ranging from the British, the Canadians, French and others, are looking at us askance and wondering and increasingly feeling a sense of the inappropriateness of our unilateral actions. I know that our envoys are hearing about this on a regular basis, and it is diminishing our ability, Mr. President, to be able to achieve the very goals we are trying to achieve. Let me say, finally, that this bill is an improvement over the House- passed bill on a number of different questions. It is my hope that after the President has vetoed this bill, that we might be able to quickly meet and resolve these particular issues. It was my feeling, had we embraced a couple of these concepts in the course of the conference rather than simply shunting them aside, we might still have been able to have the consensus and bipartisanship necessary to pass this. Mr. President, the conference report on H.R. 1561, which we are now considering, is not just a traditional nuts-and-bolts authorization bill for the Department of State, USIA, and ACDA. It is a controversial bill with far-reaching provisions. This bill seeks to reorganize the foreign affairs agencies in the executive branch by forcing the President to abolish one agency--USIA, AID or ACDA--even though the administration has made it clear from day one that it will not accept any forced consolidation of agencies. It undermines the President's July 1995 decision to normalize relations with Vietnam and threatens to set back the POW/MIA accounting process that we have worked so hard to put in place. It shakes the foundations of United States relations with China and tilts the balance toward Taiwan at a precarious time in the relations between Taiwan and China. It is a bill which fails to meet the administration's anticipated budget requests for fiscal year 1997, particularly for critical accounts such as peacekeeping, U.S.-assessed contributions to the United Nations and related agencies, ACDA, and international exchange programs. It lacks a satisfactory solution to the family planning issue. In short, it is a bill that I cannot support and that the President has indicated that he will veto. I think all of my colleagues know that Senator Helms and I have been grappling with the central, and perhaps most controversial issue in this bill--the reorganization of the foreign affairs agencies--for over a year. As I indicated from the start, I am sympathetic to the idea of consolidation, and I believe that Senator Helms provided the committee with a thought-provoking plan for reorganizing the foreign affairs agencies. Personally, I can envision ways in which functions of the State Department and one or more of the three other foreign affairs agencies could be merged. In fact, as the chairman knows, I offered an amendment in committee to abolish one agency and consolidate its functions into the State Department. However, this proposal--like the chairman's proposal to abolish all three agencies, AID, USIA, and ACDA--was rejected by the administration. The fact of the matter is that the administration does not now, and has never, supported the forced consolidation of agencies. That is why I worked with the chairman to forge a compromise in the Senate that would force consolidation through savings rather than through the mandatory abolition of agencies, and at the same time allow the Senate to act on S. 908. It was clear then, as it is clear now, that the Senate-passed version of consolidation was the only version that could possibly gain the support of Democrats in this body and of the administration. I appreciate the fact that this conference report contains a compromise on reorganization which reflects the willingness of the House Republican conferees to move away from the House-passed bill's requirement that all three agencies be abolished. However, this compromise does not meet the veto-proof test because it denies the President the right to determine how to reorganize the foreign affairs agencies under his control. I believe this is a right that any President, Democrat or Republican, would assert. Section 1214 of this conference report essentially prohibits the President from establishing an American embassy in Vietnam unless he certifies that Vietnam is fully cooperating on the POW/MIA issue in the four areas set forth by President Clinton. The Senate-passed bill contained nothing on this issue. The House bill contained weaker, sense of the Congress language. Unfortunately, the Republican conferees decided to up the ante by including the language now in section 1214-- language which was in the fiscal year 1996 Commerce, State, Justice appropriations conference report that President Clinton vetoed. He indicated his opposition to this provision in that veto statement and he has cited it as one of the provisions that will provoke a veto of this conference report. On the face of it, section 1214 might look like a harmless provision. But the fact of the matter is, this is a veiled attempt to go backwards--to nullify the decision made by President Clinton last July to normalize our relations with Vietnam. That decision was the culmination of a process begun several years ago by President Bush, when he laid out a road map for improvement in relations between the United States and Vietnam. Under the road map, which the Clinton administration has embraced, genuine progress on the POW/MIA issue would result in the establishment of full diplomatic relations. Genuine progress has been made. Through the efforts of people like Gen. John Vessey and the often heroic work by our own joint task force personnel and their Vietnamese counterparts in the field, we have a process in place that is producing that accounting. Of the 2,154 Americans technically classified as MIA's in all of Southeast Asia, we have only 50 in Vietnam whose fate has yet to be confirmed. That means we have confirmed the fates of 146 of the 196 priority discrepancy cases. We have determined that 567 Americans were lost over water or in other circumstances where survival was doubtful and where the recovery of remains is a very difficult. We have recovered 520 remains from Vietnam, 170 of which have already been positively identified as American. The remainder are pending identification by our scientists at CILHI. We have investigated all unresolved live sighting reports and received over 27,000 materials including photos and other archival materials. It is clear that Vietnam is working diligently to help us resolve outstanding POW/MIA cases. Last November, the Defense Department's POW/MIA office released its comprehensive review of individual cases of Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. In testimony on the report before the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the House Committee on National Security, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense James W. Wold stated the bottom line. He said, ``We have no evidence that information is being deliberately withheld.'' In addition, all of our United States military personnel involved in the POW/MIA accounting process, from the Commander in Chief of United States Forces in the Pacific to the private first class excavating a crash site have confirmed that Vietnam's cooperation has been extraordinarily extensive and represents a genuine effort on the part of the Government and people of Vietnam to resolve this issue once and for all. The United States under Presidents Bush and Clinton made a commitment to Vietnam that the bilateral relationship would move forward as their cooperation on the POW/MIA issue improved. Vietnam is doing its part. The United States must fulfill its commitment in turn. The language in section 1214 of this bill puts that commitment in question and, in so doing, threatens to undermine the successful accounting process that we have put in place. Apart from the damaging section on Vietnam, this conference report contains several provisions on China-Taiwan issues which are potentially damaging to our bilateral relations with Beijing. For example, section 1708 expresses the Sense of Congress that Taiwanese President Li should be allowed to visit the United States in 1996. Section 1709 advocates Taiwan's admission into GATT and the WTO. Most damaging of all, section 1601 subordinates the 1982 Joint Communique between the United States and China to the Taiwan Relations Act, in order to enable the United States to provide more weapons to Taiwan. This provision unilaterally repudiates a fundamental and longstanding element in the bilateral relationship between the United States and China. The administration has made it clear that this provision is a veto item. Taken together, these provisions are a provocation to China. They raise the specter of a United States that is tilting toward Taiwan, encouraging Taiwan's apparent quest for independence, and positioning itself to enhance Taiwan's military capabilities in contravention of the fundamental nature of the United States-China relationship. To adopt these provisions now, when China and Taiwan are reaching out to each other to defuse the tensions between them, would be a mistake. Turning to funding levels, this bill fails to meet the administration's likely budget request for fiscal year 1997, particularly, as I said earlier, in key accounts such as peacekeeping, assessed U.S. contributions to the U.N. international exchanges, and ACDA. I understand that the Republican conferees wanted to stay within the caps set by the budget resolution for function 150, the international affairs function. All of us, including President Clinton, understand that economies must be achieved if the budget is going to be balanced. However, the glide path in the existing budget resolution for function 150 is too steep--as it is for other functions--and if we stick to this glide path, our ability to promote and protect our national interests and to conduct diplomacy will be greatly jeopardized. For example, we are not going to be able to use our leverage effectively at the United Nations to secure management reforms and revisions in our assessed contributions if we continue to be the deadbeat debtor. This conference report prevents us from paying not only through inadequate authorization levels but also by withholding high percentages of our peacekeeping contributions and our contributions to the regular budget until the President can certify that various reforms have been achieved. There is no disagreement over the need for reform at the United Nations but there is real disagreement among us over how to achieve it. The money card can only work so long and I think its effectiveness has run out. Few, if any, at the United Nations believe we are going to pay and as long as they do not believe it, we have no leverage to promote reform. This conference report also includes some foreign aid provisions. Of these, the most problematic--and one cited by the administration as a reason for Presidential veto--is section 1111 which effectively terminates the housing guarantee program in several countries such as those in Eastern Europe and South Africa. Finally, I should point out that this bill is an improvement over the House-passed bill on the question of family planning because it does not contain the objectionable provisions on Mexico City and prohibitions on funding for UNFPA. However, in an effort to avoid a fight over this issue--on which the House and Senate are so divided-- the Republican conferees decided to remain silent on the family planning issue. In so doing they missed the opportunity to release funds for population assistance that have been held up under the fiscal year 1996 foreign operations appropriations bill. The restrictions in that bill cut family planning aid by 35 percent below last year's levels, and prohibit using any of the 1996 funds until July. Ironically, such restrictions could actually serve to increase the number of abortions and maternal deaths in developing countries, since they mean fewer couples will have access to contraceptives, health services and information. Therefore, the administration strongly opposes these restrictions and has cited the failure of this conference report to resolve the family planning issue as another reason for a veto. Mr. President, this conference report represents a radical departure, not only from the traditional bipartisanship that has marked American foreign policy for so long, but also from the traditional bipartisanship that has enabled the foreign affairs committees of the Senate and the House to fulfill their authorizing responsibilities for the State Department and related foreign affairs agencies. Some will argue this is just politics, but they are wrong. The gulf between us is rooted in policy and the policy in this bill is not in our national interests. That is why I am going to vote against this conference report and why the President is going to veto it. I reserve the remainder of our time at this point in time, Mr. President. Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. KERRY

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