Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the Senate will debate amendments that are in order under the unanimous- consent agreement in place with respect to the omnibus appropriations bill on Monday. There will be no rollcall votes on Monday. Any votes ordered in relation to that bill will occur on Tuesday, March 19, at 2:15 p.m. Senators with amendments in order to the omnibus appropriations bill should be prepared to offer those amendments on Monday in that there will be very limited time for debate on Tuesday. Senators are also reminded that at some point on Tuesday, the Senate will also be voting on passage of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act as well as a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the Whitewater Committee resolution. In addition, Senators should be aware that a rollcall vote will occur on Tuesday on the motion to invoke cloture on the conference report to accompany H.R. 956, the product liability bill, unless a consent agreement can be reached otherwise.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I now withdraw the motion.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Senate Resolution 227, the Whitewater legislation and send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Energy Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1412 regarding the Red River Waterway and the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, and be referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 419 be discharged from the Committee on Environment and Public Works and be referred to the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of House Joint Resolution 78, just received from the House.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the joint resolution be deemed read the third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the joint resolution appear at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until the hour of 11 a.m. on Monday, March 18; further, that immediately following the prayer, the Journal of the proceedings be deemed approved to date, no resolutions come over under the rule, the call of the calendar be dispensed with, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there then be a period for morning business until the hour of 12 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each, and further that at 12 noon the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 3019, the omnibus appropriations bill, as under the previous order.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote on the conference report occur on Tuesday, March 19, at a time to be determined by the two leaders.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Acquisition and Technology Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet at 10 a.m. on Friday, March 15, in open session, to receive testimony on emerging battlefield concepts for the 21st century and the implications of these concepts for technology investment decisions in the defense authorization request for fiscal year 1997 and the future.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland Forces be authorized to meet at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, March 15, 1996, to receive testimony on tactical aviation issues in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 1997 and the future years defense program.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Labor and Human Resources be authorized to hold a meeting during the session of the Senate on Friday, March 15, 1996, at 9:30 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The committee will hold a hearing regarding S. 581, the National Right-to-Work Act.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Objection.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, during the next 8 weeks, millions of Americans will file their income tax returns. According to estimates by the Internal Revenue Service, individuals will have spent about 1.7 billion hours on tax-related paperwork by the time their returns are completed. Businesses will spend another 3.4 billion hours. The Tax Foundation estimates that the cost of compliance will approach $200 billion. Mr. President, if that is not evidence that our Tax Code is one of the most inefficient and wasteful ever created, I do not know what is. Money and effort that could have been put to productive use solving problems in our communities, putting Americans to work, putting food on the table, or investing in the Nation's future are instead devoted to convoluted paperwork. It is no wonder that the American people are frustrated and angry, and that they are demanding radical change in the way their Government taxes and spends. It is no wonder that tax reform has become one of the major issues of this year's Presidential campaign. Mr. President, today I am introducing a resolution with more than a dozen of my colleagues that represents the first concrete step toward comprehensive tax reform. The resolution, which we call the tax limitation amendment, would establish a constitutional requirement for a two-thirds majority vote in each House of Congress for the approval of tax-rate increases. A companion resolution, House Joint Resolution 159, was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 1 by Congressman Joe Barton of Texas and 155 other House Members. The two-thirds supermajority that we have proposed was among the recommendations of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, appointed by Majority Leader Bob Dole and Speaker Gingrich. The Commission, chaired by former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, advocated a supermajority requirement in its recent report on how to achieve a simpler, single-rate tax to replace the existing maze of tax rates, deductions, exemptions, and credits that makes up the Federal income tax as we know it today. Here are the words of the Commission: The roller-coaster ride of tax policy in the past few decades has fed citizens' cynicism about the possibility of real, long-term reform, while fueling frustration with Washington. The initial optimism inspired by the low rates of the 1986 Tax Reform Act soured into disillusionment and anger when taxes subsequently were hiked two times in less than seven years. The commission believes that a two-thirds super- majority vote of Congress will earn Americans' confidence in the longevity, predictability, and stability of any new tax system. Mr. President, in the 10 years since the last attempt at comprehensive tax reform, Congress and the President have made some 4,000 amendments to the Tax Code. Four thousand amendments. That means that taxpayers have never been able to plan for the future with any certainty about the tax consequences of the decisions they make. They are left wondering whether saving money for a child's education today will result in an additional tax burden tomorrow. They can never be sure that if they make an investment, the capital gains tax will not be increased when they are ready to sell. Rules are changed in the middle of the game, and in some cases, the rules have been changed even after the game is over. President Clinton's tax increase in 1993 retroactively raised taxes on many Americans, including some who had died. The volatility of the Tax Code is not new. You will recall that the income tax was established in 1913 with a top rate of 7 percent; fewer than 2 percent of American families were even required to file a tax return. Just 3 years later, on the eve of the First World War, the top rate soared to 67 percent. By the Second World War, the top rate had risen again--to 94 percent--and it remained in that range through the 1950's. Of course, by that time, the tax had been expanded to cover almost every working American. Ten years ago, President Reagan succeeded in reducing the number of tax rates to just two--15 percent and 28 percent. But it was not long before additional rates were established, and taxes were raised again under the Clinton administration. The tax limitation amendment would put an end to the roller coaster ride of tax policy that has so bedeviled hard-working Americans. And it guarantees more than stability and predictability. It will also ensure that taxes cannot be raised--whether we ultimately adopt a single-rate tax as the Kemp commission has proposed, a national sales tax as Senator Lugar has proposed, or some alternative--unless there is sufficient consensus and strong bipartisan support in Congress and around the country. Mr. President, the last tax increase to have cleared the Congress was proposed by President Clinton in 1993, and you will remember that it was the largest tax increase in history. I was serving in the House of Representatives at the time. It seemed to me that most Americans strongly opposed the plan. The calls, letters, and faxes from my constituents in Arizona ran about 10 to 1 in opposition to the President's tax plan. There was a lot of opposition in Congress, too. The opposition was bipartisan--Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, the President was able to hold onto enough members of his own party in the House to pass it there, but only with partisan Democrat support. The story was different in the Senate. Not more than 50 Senators were willing to support the largest tax increase in history. A measure would normally fail on a tie vote--in this case, 50 to 50. The reason the tax increase passed was that the Vice President, as in the case of any tie in the Senate, had the right to cast the deciding vote. That is his right under the Constitution. The tax bill was not passed improperly, but it is notable that the largest tax increase in history managed to become law without the support of a majority of the people's elected Senators. To me, that is a travesty. The tax increase of 1990--the next largest in history after the 1993 law--passed with a majority of 54 percent in the Senate and 53 percent in the House. That was only slightly better. Yet given the size of the increase and the burden it placed on the American economy, it seems to me that there should have been greater consensus to pass it, too. Taxing away people's hard-earned income is an extraordinary event--or at least it should be. However, in Washington, it has become routine. A two-thirds majority vote is, as George Will put it, ``one way of building into democratic decisionmaking a measurement of intensity of feeling as well as mere numbers.'' He noted that supermajority requirements are a device for assigning special importance to certain matters, and maybe taxation should be one of them. The last two tax increases were passed without much intensity of feeling at all--without any real consensus that a majority of Americans supported them. Some people might say, fine, there should be consensus, but ours is a government of majority rule. I would respond by noting that supermajority requirements are not new to the Constitution. Two-thirds votes are required for the approval of treaties, for conviction in an impeachment proceeding, for expulsion of a member from either body, for proposed constitutional amendments, and for certain other actions. If it is appropriate to require a two-thirds vote to ratify a compact with a foreign country, it seems to me that it is certainly appropriate to require a two-thirds vote to approve a compact with our own citizens that requires them to turn over a greater share of what is theirs to the Government. I want to quote briefly from one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison. He was, of course, a strong supporter of majority rule. Yet he argued eloquently that the greatest threat to liberty in a republic would come from unrestrained majority rule. This is what he said in ``Federalist No. 51'': It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If Madison were here today, I believe he would conclude, first of all, that the Tax Code is oppressive to our people. Americans never paid an income tax until early in this century. By 1948, the average American family paid only about 3 percent of its income to the Federal Government. The average family now sends about 25 percent of its income to Washington. Add State and local taxes to the mix, and the burden approaches 40 percent. That is oppression. Note that Madison also warned, in the quotation I just read, about pitting one part of America against the rest of the country. That is happening here as well. Certain segments of our society--some call them special interests--have learned in recent years how to feed at the public trough while spreading the cost among all taxpayers. This cost- shifting has left the country with a debt that is $4.9 trillion and growing. Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined such profligacy, or I believe they would have imposed constitutional limits on taxing and spending at the very start of the Republic. If you are interested in lobbying reform, I will tell you this: a two-thirds requirement for tax changes would probably do more to curtail lobbying for special breaks than just about anything else we could do. Since every tax break must be offset with a tax increase on someone else to ensure revenue neutrality--and the second part of the equation, remember, would be out of reach without massive political support--the two-thirds requirement would make it virtually impossible for special interests to gain special advantage in the Tax Code. Confidence. Stability. Predictability. These are things that a two- thirds supermajority would bring to the Tax Code. Combine this with comprehensive tax reform that is aimed at simplifying the law and minimizing people's tax burden, and we could see an explosion of economic growth and opportunity unmatched in this country for many years. Mr. President, I invite my colleagues to join me in supporting the tax limitation amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, during the next 8 weeks, millions of Americans will file their income tax returns. According to estimates by the Internal Revenue Service, individuals will have spent about 1.7 billion hours on tax-related paperwork by the time their returns are completed. Businesses will spend another 3.4 billion hours. The Tax Foundation estimates that the cost of compliance will approach $200 billion. Mr. President, if that is not evidence that our Tax Code is one of the most inefficient and wasteful ever created, I do not know what is. Money and effort that could have been put to productive use solving problems in our communities, putting Americans to work, putting food on the table, or investing in the Nation's future are instead devoted to convoluted paperwork. It is no wonder that the American people are frustrated and angry, and that they are demanding radical change in the way their Government taxes and spends. It is no wonder that tax reform has become one of the major issues of this year's Presidential campaign. Mr. President, today I am introducing a resolution with more than a dozen of my colleagues that represents the first concrete step toward comprehensive tax reform. The resolution, which we call the tax limitation amendment, would establish a constitutional requirement for a two-thirds majority vote in each House of Congress for the approval of tax-rate increases. A companion resolution, House Joint Resolution 159, was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 1 by Congressman Joe Barton of Texas and 155 other House Members. The two-thirds supermajority that we have proposed was among the recommendations of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, appointed by Majority Leader Bob Dole and Speaker Gingrich. The Commission, chaired by former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, advocated a supermajority requirement in its recent report on how to achieve a simpler, single-rate tax to replace the existing maze of tax rates, deductions, exemptions, and credits that makes up the Federal income tax as we know it today. Here are the words of the Commission: The roller-coaster ride of tax policy in the past few decades has fed citizens' cynicism about the possibility of real, long-term reform, while fueling frustration with Washington. The initial optimism inspired by the low rates of the 1986 Tax Reform Act soured into disillusionment and anger when taxes subsequently were hiked two times in less than seven years. The commission believes that a two-thirds super- majority vote of Congress will earn Americans' confidence in the longevity, predictability, and stability of any new tax system. Mr. President, in the 10 years since the last attempt at comprehensive tax reform, Congress and the President have made some 4,000 amendments to the Tax Code. Four thousand amendments. That means that taxpayers have never been able to plan for the future with any certainty about the tax consequences of the decisions they make. They are left wondering whether saving money for a child's education today will result in an additional tax burden tomorrow. They can never be sure that if they make an investment, the capital gains tax will not be increased when they are ready to sell. Rules are changed in the middle of the game, and in some cases, the rules have been changed even after the game is over. President Clinton's tax increase in 1993 retroactively raised taxes on many Americans, including some who had died. The volatility of the Tax Code is not new. You will recall that the income tax was established in 1913 with a top rate of 7 percent; fewer than 2 percent of American families were even required to file a tax return. Just 3 years later, on the eve of the First World War, the top rate soared to 67 percent. By the Second World War, the top rate had risen again--to 94 percent--and it remained in that range through the 1950's. Of course, by that time, the tax had been expanded to cover almost every working American. Ten years ago, President Reagan succeeded in reducing the number of tax rates to just two--15 percent and 28 percent. But it was not long before additional rates were established, and taxes were raised again under the Clinton administration. The tax limitation amendment would put an end to the roller coaster ride of tax policy that has so bedeviled hard-working Americans. And it guarantees more than stability and predictability. It will also ensure that taxes cannot be raised--whether we ultimately adopt a single-rate tax as the Kemp commission has proposed, a national sales tax as Senator Lugar has proposed, or some alternative--unless there is sufficient consensus and strong bipartisan support in Congress and around the country. Mr. President, the last tax increase to have cleared the Congress was proposed by President Clinton in 1993, and you will remember that it was the largest tax increase in history. I was serving in the House of Representatives at the time. It seemed to me that most Americans strongly opposed the plan. The calls, letters, and faxes from my constituents in Arizona ran about 10 to 1 in opposition to the President's tax plan. There was a lot of opposition in Congress, too. The opposition was bipartisan--Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, the President was able to hold onto enough members of his own party in the House to pass it there, but only with partisan Democrat support. The story was different in the Senate. Not more than 50 Senators were willing to support the largest tax increase in history. A measure would normally fail on a tie vote--in this case, 50 to 50. The reason the tax increase passed was that the Vice President, as in the case of any tie in the Senate, had the right to cast the deciding vote. That is his right under the Constitution. The tax bill was not passed improperly, but it is notable that the largest tax increase in history managed to become law without the support of a majority of the people's elected Senators. To me, that is a travesty. The tax increase of 1990--the next largest in history after the 1993 law--passed with a majority of 54 percent in the Senate and 53 percent in the House. That was only slightly better. Yet given the size of the increase and the burden it placed on the American economy, it seems to me that there should have been greater consensus to pass it, too. Taxing away people's hard-earned income is an extraordinary event--or at least it should be. However, in Washington, it has become routine. A two-thirds majority vote is, as George Will put it, ``one way of building into democratic decisionmaking a measurement of intensity of feeling as well as mere numbers.'' He noted that supermajority requirements are a device for assigning special importance to certain matters, and maybe taxation should be one of them. The last two tax increases were passed without much intensity of feeling at all--without any real consensus that a majority of Americans supported them. Some people might say, fine, there should be consensus, but ours is a government of majority rule. I would respond by noting that supermajority requirements are not new to the Constitution. Two-thirds votes are required for the approval of treaties, for conviction in an impeachment proceeding, for expulsion of a member from either body, for proposed constitutional amendments, and for certain other actions. If it is appropriate to require a two-thirds vote to ratify a compact with a foreign country, it seems to me that it is certainly appropriate to require a two-thirds vote to approve a compact with our own citizens that requires them to turn over a greater share of what is theirs to the Government. I want to quote briefly from one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison. He was, of course, a strong supporter of majority rule. Yet he argued eloquently that the greatest threat to liberty in a republic would come from unrestrained majority rule. This is what he said in ``Federalist No. 51'': It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If Madison were here today, I believe he would conclude, first of all, that the Tax Code is oppressive to our people. Americans never paid an income tax until early in this century. By 1948, the average American family paid only about 3 percent of its income to the Federal Government. The average family now sends about 25 percent of its income to Washington. Add State and local taxes to the mix, and the burden approaches 40 percent. That is oppression. Note that Madison also warned, in the quotation I just read, about pitting one part of America against the rest of the country. That is happening here as well. Certain segments of our society--some call them special interests--have learned in recent years how to feed at the public trough while spreading the cost among all taxpayers. This cost- shifting has left the country with a debt that is $4.9 trillion and growing. Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined such profligacy, or I believe they would have imposed constitutional limits on taxing and spending at the very start of the Republic. If you are interested in lobbying reform, I will tell you this: a two-thirds requirement for tax changes would probably do more to curtail lobbying for special breaks than just about anything else we could do. Since every tax break must be offset with a tax increase on someone else to ensure revenue neutrality--and the second part of the equation, remember, would be out of reach without massive political support--the two-thirds requirement would make it virtually impossible for special interests to gain special advantage in the Tax Code. Confidence. Stability. Predictability. These are things that a two- thirds supermajority would bring to the Tax Code. Combine this with comprehensive tax reform that is aimed at simplifying the law and minimizing people's tax burden, and we could see an explosion of economic growth and opportunity unmatched in this country for many years. Mr. President, I invite my colleagues to join me in supporting the tax limitation amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wanted to speak briefly this morning on two subjects. The first concerns an announcement that the Senator from Minnesota, who is presiding as of this moment, and I and Senator Bob Smith made yesterday relating to a constitutional amendment proposal which we are soon going to be introducing in the Senate, which has already been introduced in the House with about 150 cosponsors, which we hope will be quickly adopted by both the House and Senate and sent to the States for ratification, in reference to a constitutional amendment to require a supermajority of two-thirds voting to approve any tax increase at the Federal Government level. We want to do this because of the possibility, and I hope the probability, that some form of simple, single-rate tax reform could be adopted sometime after next January. Some proponents call it a flat tax. But a tax proposal of the kind that I support would include exemptions and certain deductions, so it cannot be properly characterized as a pure flat tax, but a simpler tax rate system with a limited number of deductions and exemptions is the kind of tax reform that most Americans seem very supportive of at this time, and which I hope the Congress will adopt. If that occurs, it will be doubly important for us to ensure that tax rates cannot easily be increased. Because without the deductions, credits, and exemptions that taxpayers can take advantage of today to shelter their income, if tax rates are increased, once those exemptions and deductions and credits have been eliminated from the Tax Code, which is what we propose to do, there will be nowhere to go if Congress then begins to raise the single tax rate. That is why we think we need a constitutional requirement of a two-thirds support for such a tax increase in order to protect the taxpayers of America. Let me quote from the Kemp report. The Kemp Commission was a commission appointed by Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich to look into the question of fundamental tax reform and to make recommendations. It was chaired by former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp. Here is what the Kemp report says with regard to this proposal. The roller-coaster ride of tax policy in the past few decades has fed citizens' cynicism about the possibility of real, long-term reform, while fueling frustration with Washington. The initial optimism inspired by the low rates of the 1986 Tax Reform Act soured into disillusionment and anger when taxes subsequently were hiked two times in less than seven years. The commission concludes that a two-thirds super-majority vote of Congress will earn Americans' confidence in the longevity, predictability, and stability of any new tax system. That is what we hope to achieve by a simpler, fairer, single-rate tax system: stability, predictability and longevity. But if Congress can quickly raise the rate after we have put such a system into effect, then that stability and longevity and predictability will have been eroded. That is why we think it is important to make it a little bit more difficult for Congress to raise taxes by requiring a two-thirds vote. Let me note a couple of things about some history here. Since the last attempt at comprehensive reform in 1986, when the number of tax brackets were reduced from 14 down to 2, there have been 4,000 amendments to the Tax Code in less than 10 years. The number of tax rates, of course, is back up to five. But 4,000 amendments? It is too easy to change the Tax Code. Many of those amendments, of course, resulted in taxpayers paying more money. Not only have the rules changed in the middle of the game for many taxpayers, but for many it was after the game was over. The 1993 Clinton tax increase retroactively raised taxes, even on the dead. The frequency of changes not only makes people more vulnerable to tax increases but also makes it virtually impossible to make financial plans for the future, whether to save for a child's education or invest in your business or set money aside in a pension fund--or hold it to pay taxes. If you have to have that possibility, then you cannot predict with certainty that you can invest in these more important things. So the tax limitation amendment puts an end to that volatility by requiring there be sufficient consensus and partisan support around the country before taxes will be raised again. One final point. To the extent we are interested in reducing the power of the special interests, of the lobbyists who come to change the Tax Code to get special benefits for their particular interest, to reduce their tax burden, to create a loophole, as it were--this two- thirds majority requirement would really put an end to that kind of practice because, if we assume that we want to continue to collect a roughly equal amount of revenue and that therefore any proposal would have to be revenue neutral, any proposal to create a loophole for a special interest and therefore result in less money to the Treasury would necessarily require that tax revenues be raised in some other area. But to do that would require a two-thirds vote. So I think Members of the House and Senate would look much more skeptically at proposals to reduce taxes for certain taxpayers if we knew that, in order to make up that revenue, we would have to have a two-thirds vote. Therefore, I think the influence of special interests would be very much reduced. The tax limitation amendment represents an important reform whether we stay with the existing Tax Code or we go to a new system. But it will be particularly important if the American people conclude that a single-rate kind of reform is the one that we should adopt, because, again, once all of the deductions and exemptions and credits are eliminated, taxpayers will be particularly vulnerable to tax rate increases. I think we should ensure it is not too easy for Congress to raise their taxes again. Again, I compliment Senator Bob Smith from New Hampshire and the Senator from Minnesota, who is presiding at the moment, for their support as original cosponsors of this important constitutional amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will take a couple minutes to compliment the Senator from Mississippi, the distinguished majority whip presiding in the chair at the moment, for the comments just made, both to clear the record with respect to what we have been doing in January and February and to make a very important point with regard to Medicare. I would rather be home now in Arizona where it is over 80 degrees, than back here in Washington, DC, but this morning we are working on very important immigration reform legislation, which is very important in my State, and important to the entire country. Under the leadership of the Senator from Wyoming, Senator Simpson, and Senator Hatch, and others I think we will be able to get that legislation. It is taking a lot of time to put it together in the way we can get it adopted. As a result, we have to be here working. The other point I want to make relates to a recent trip that I took to Bosnia, visiting with NATO officials in Munich, Germany, after that trip. As a result of this, I have come to a rather disturbing conclusion, and that is, I do not think the NATO forces, the United States included, have our act together in anything other than a military sense. As one would expect, our troops are performing magnificently. We defined the mission narrowly: Stop the fighting parties from fighting with each other. Once the U.S. military moved in, nobody wanted to mess with them. Our troops, well trained, well equipped, well motivated, are performing just like all of us would expect them to. It really makes you proud to see them performing there, in addition, in a rainy, muddy, snowy, icy climate far away from home, where there is no clear-cut idea why they are there, but they are doing their mission and doing it well. They have the fighting forces separated, and I do not think the Bosnians or Serbs or Croats are going to mess with either our forces or the British or the French forces and the other nations under their command. What is not happening is that the European countries are not coming together to solve the political problems, the economic problems, the rebuilding of the infrastructure, the ensuring that the Bosnian Army is well enough equipped and armed to defend itself--all of the things that need to occur to make this peace treaty really work are being ignored by the Europeans. I know that is a harsh statement to make, but in the 2 days following our trip to Bosnia, a group of six members of the United States Senate, as well as Defense Secretary Perry and other United States officials, visited with our European allies and repeatedly asked the question: Are you going to help fund the economic reconstruction of the country, the infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt, if are you going to help get the government back on its feet? Will you lend a hand to us in arming the Bosnian Government so it can defend itself when we leave? Essentially, we got the cold shoulder. They do not want to talk about it. It requires money and requires a commitment. They want to pat themselves on the back for the military operation which is succeeding well and not get to the hard business of making the peace work in Bosnia. My concern with going into Bosnia is not that we would not be able to succeed militarily, but this is an insufficient commitment on the part of the Europeans to follow through and make peace work. That is what we have seen. This morning's wire, Mr. President, contains a very disturbing story. In an ominous sign from the AP wire story, ``Bosnian Serbs followed through today on their threat to sever with the NATO-led peace force ties because of the government's arrest of two Serb officers at suspected war criminals.'' They lost all top level contact with the Bosnian Serb Army and the ground commander said it was the worst crisis in Bosnia since the peace took hold 2 months ago. ``The commander, Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Walker, characterized the development as an ominous sign and direct breach of the Bosnian peace accord.'' At the same time, I note that the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, urged the Bosnian Government to immediately release Serbs against whom there is no evidence of participating in war crimes. Does that mean the two people arrested are being held? Very unclear. There is a total lack of cohesion because there has not been an agreement by the NATO allied forces of exactly what we are supposed to be doing over there, except keeping the warring sides from fighting with each other. There is an absolute commitment to leave in the year. The Europeans say they will leave when we leave. When we are out of Bosnia next October, I can only hope that the Europeans have gotten together and have made a stronger commitment than they have so far to help rebuild that economy and that government and to deal with the war crimes issue and the arming of the Bosnian Government so that when we leave all we accomplished will not have been for nothing. I especially have reference to one U.S. death and other U.S. casualties. I want to be able to say, when this is over with, that they did not die in vain. I am afraid if we do not get more cooperation from our European allies, that we will not be able to say that, and that will be a very, very big shame and a blot on the United States as well as our European allies. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The Senator is absolutely correct, which is why it makes it so important for the Senator from Oklahoma to have brought this to the Senate floor today. Even if you assume the most conservative estimate-- or I should say the most liberal estimate--of the time that the threat will be there, we are still not moving forward to meet that threat.

Mr. KYL. If I could make another comment. Perhaps the Senator from Oklahoma would want to add to this, too. Let us go back a little bit and put this in perspective. The weapon that killed 28 Americans in Saudi Arabia during the gulf war was a conventional explosive organ, just high explosives they call it, and yet the single largest number of American casualties occurred in that one instant. And 28 Americans died when that 1 Scud missile hit the barracks in Saudi Arabia. That was a relatively crude Scud missile with a range of maybe 300 miles or thereabouts. The point is that every year countries learn how to cause their missiles to go farther and farther and farther, and they put heavier payloads on them, and they make them more accurate in terms of where they will fall. What our intelligence has been telling us about the North Korean missile is that they are on a subsequent generation now. They have already developed missiles that will go these intermediate distances. They are working on missiles that will go farther and farther and farther. So what we are trying to do is estimate just when will it be that they will have advanced to the point that they can deliver that warhead all the way to the United States? We cannot tell that with precision. We do not know when that will happen. But the information we had suggested they were now getting along to the point where it would be perhaps within 3 to 5 years that they had that capability. That is what we are talking about here.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Oklahoma for his remarks on the report in the Washington Times concerning the potential threat of ballistic missiles from not only North Korea but other nations around the world, and the apparent modification of the threat estimate from our security agencies. Both of us sit on the Intelligence Committee and are well aware of the work that goes into our national intelligence estimates, well aware of the difficulty in gathering information and analyzing it, and the difficulty really of discussing the analysis in a way that does not compromise our ability to gather that information. The public does need to know that the factual information acquired over the years about the potential threat specifically from North Korea led to some conclusions in 1995 that were very disturbing. The Senator from Oklahoma just reiterated several of them. I would add that Admiral Studeman, then the acting Director, testified publicly a year ago that the North Koreans could be expected to deploy a missile within 3 to 5 years and that that missile could reach the United States of America. Why this is important is that some Members of the Congress have used a revision in the intelligence estimate to say there is no problem and therefore we do not need to fund ballistic missile defense. A year ago, the national intelligence estimate clearly would have led anybody to the conclusion that we needed to move forward with ballistic missile defense. Now, a year later, the estimate is that that is not necessarily required because countries like North Korea may not be in a position to deploy a missile that could harm the United States as early as we thought. But the facts have not changed, and that is what disturbs Senator Inhofe; it is what disturbs me. If the facts have not changed, what has changed? Has there been a change in the methodology of the assessment? If so, I am not aware of it. I intend to find out. Might there be other considerations for reaching a different conclusion based on the same information? I know the newspaper article speculated that politics could be involved. I would find it very hard to believe that the Central Intelligence Agency would permit that to happen. But something happened. And I think we have to find out because in this matter we are talking about the most serious possible consequences. It is literally a potential life and death situation. If, in fact, according to our intelligence estimates, countries that are unfriendly to the United States are going to develop capabilities that they could use against us in the very near future, we have to be prepared to deal with that, period. If, on the other hand, that threat is further away than we originally thought, we have a little bit more flexibility in determining when and how to respond. But it is important that the information be real and that it not be subjected to rose- colored filters of some kind either based upon hope or based upon politics. As I said, I cannot believe that anybody in the administration would skew the analysis of such an important matter just in order to cause the Congress not to move forward robustly with the ballistic missile defense system. That is why Senator Inhofe and I and others are going to get to the bottom of this and determine whether or not there is a reason for the change in the estimate. But the interesting part of this, Mr. President, is that it probably does not matter one way or the other in the sense that, if we began today to get on with the job of developing and deploying an effective ballistic missile defense system, it still would not be ready by the time the threat is said to exist.