Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank all of you here. I thank our Chaplain, Dr. Ogilvie, and I thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to present my rabbi. Youthful though he is, he is wise. I think the Presiding Officer knows one does not have to have age to have wisdom. And we credit Rabbi Daniel Cohen with having wisdom. This is an honor that I so much wanted to have bestowed upon him because he has earned the respect and the admiration of so many in our congregation. I think about 800 families worship and have their children taught by Rabbi Cohen. He is a native of New Jersey, as I am. And it is just an honor to have him and Mrs. Cohen, who is witnessing this from the balcony, join us this morning. Thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to hear from Rabbi Cohen. I am pleased and proud to have Rabbi Daniel Cohen from my own Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange, NJ here today to convene this session of the Senate. The fact that Rabbi Cohen is here to give this invocation means a great deal to me. It speaks to the diversity of religions and races that make up this body, and this great Nation. As Rabbi Cohen said, we are all privileged to live in this country. And it benefits us to work together and to use our individual talents to make this place as great as it can possibly be. I couldn't agree more. Rabbi Cohen and I have similar family backgrounds and share many values. He and I are respectively the grandson and son of immigrants. We have gotten to where we are today by taking advantage of the opportunities that were given to us, and we are both committed to giving back to the communities that treated us so well. We both believe in the right and ability of all people to be accepted and get ahead. It is symbolic that the name of our synagogue, ``Sharey Tefilo,'' means the ``Gates of Prayer.'' These gates of prayer to me represent open gates through which people of all faiths and backgrounds should be able to pass in order to succeed, find refuge from persecution, or simply start a better life. I want to add some quick words about Rabbi Cohen himself: He grew up in Berkeley Heights, NJ. He did his undergraduate work at Duke University, getting his degree in anthropology and religion. Some of that time he spent abroad studying in Israel. He went on to receive his masters in Hebrew letters from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and received his rabbinic ordination in 1993. He has been with my temple in New Jersey since his ordination, first as a rabbinic intern and then as the assistant rabbi. He currently serves as the associate rabbi of our congregation, enjoying a great deal of respect from members of the temple. He does a great deal of work in our synagogue with youth groups and educational programming, but has an exceptional ability to reach everybody in the congregation, both young and old. I want to thank Rabbi Cohen for coming today, and I am proud to have been able to share a bit of my heritage and home State with my colleagues in the Senate.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. May I add a word of poetry? We stood and looked away, Hoping for some accomplishment at the end of this day.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. If the majority leader will yield?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. We will try to split the time. I want to say, also, to the majority leader, thank you for the accolades and for the encouragement that you gave Senator Domenici and me throughout the process and for the comments about our other colleagues, all of whom worked diligently, worked honestly on getting the mission accomplished. At times, I can tell you that Senator Domenici--it's no secret--would kind of lay down the book and say, ``We have to check this upstairs.'' I don't think he meant all the way up. I think he meant only as far as the majority leader's office. Or, ``We have to turn to the leadership.'' I would do the same thing. But persistence was the keynote, persistence and patience. I want to say this about the majority leader and about the way he has conducted things. Serving in the minority, it's easy to find fault with the majority leader. But one has to give credit where due. The fact is that this majority leader has, with diligence and persistence, moved legislation through this place. He has come up to me, and I am sure other colleagues, and said, ``Frank, let's try to make sense out of this. What is it that you are trying to accomplish? Can it be done this time? Well, I don't think so. I think we can get halfway there, I think we can get three-quarters of the way.'' Or he'll say, ``That's not a bad idea and I do want to help you with that.'' And he made a commitment with me on trying to make sure our national passenger rail system keeps on functioning. He reaffirmed his commitment to help find a way to get that done. So I want to say, relatively, as we say around here--looking around here, looking at my white hair, I can say it comfortably--the new kid on the block, the majority leader, has done a good job. It's particularly evident when we look at the accomplishment of this piece of legislation, the one we are about to pass. And he is right; it's going to pass overwhelmingly. We want to have as many people on both sides say yes as we can, to indicate to the American people that we believe in this assignment that we took on. So, I thank the majority leader for his skill, his patience, and his persistence. I think he helped calm the waters a little bit. Because I don't remember, throughout the 7 or 8 months of discussion, often late at night, often without lunch, munchies, or otherwise, that the patience--the tempers never really got real hot. Am I right? Pete, once in a while, you know, would stamp on the floor or something like that, but he would come right back, bouncing up. We pushed our way through. So I thank everybody involved in the effort, and I am delighted to be here, to serve in this place and serve at a time like this when we have accomplished something.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. We will yield 5 and you have 5 so that the majority leader can have 10 minutes. Senator Daschle is on his way, and I know he would like to have a couple words, so we can extend the time if we need for just a couple of minutes. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, do we have any time left here?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I will in just a couple minutes because I want us to be able to hear from the leadership. I did not know whether or not Senator Daschle had some remarks that he wanted to make, but I would certainly be delighted to yield the time so that we apportion it with the time remaining on the majority side, so that the distinguished majority leader has the time that he needs to make his remarks. For the moment, I would just say that we are not done yet, in the words of the distinguished New Jersey philosopher Yogi Berra, who said, ``It's not over `til it's over.'' We are getting ever closer. I don't yet feel the attention that comes with championship bouts or things of that nature; we have another 10 hours' worth of debate on the second part of the reconciliation bill. At this point, I would be happy to yield the time back that we have, if the Parliamentarian could tell us how much time is remaining on our side.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Eight minutes. If I were to give up 5 minutes of that time, how much combined time would the majority leader have?

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I will speak for a couple minutes. There is a sense of the historical significance of what it is that we are about to do. It is not simply the accomplishment of having put in place a balanced budget. It goes further than that; that is, to note that this agreement has been developed, if I might use the word ``hammered'' out, by bipartisan cooperation. My friend and colleague, the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, and I and others, of course, labored long and hard to help present the views of all of our colleagues into an understanding and a package that would be acceptable as a consensus product. So we are here at this moment, and within 1 hour it is believed that we will have passed this reconciliation bill and will embark upon the work of passing the second reconciliation bill which will complete the task. I think we have set some records here this year, not only because we will have achieved a balanced budget, which is the best belief of all Members here who will be supporting this, but I took a moment, I say to Senator Domenici, to check on where we stand with our appropriations bills. There were 9, I believe, that have been completed, and perhaps a 10th one ready. That is quite fantastic, not yet August and having done those. I want to say to all of my colleagues, I am proud that we were able to get this job done under fairly stringent conditions. We do not have as much money as we were accustomed to having in the past, but with what we had we made it do very well. We have covered lots of things that needed attention, child health care, assurance of the solvency of Medicare, an opportunity for kids to get an education, to be investing in research in our society, a number of things that are very positive outcomes, again, within the context of the resources we had available. All Members of both parties deserve to be proud of our accomplishment. We have shown America something, that we can work together for the common good, and at the same time we can be fiscally responsible and we can help prepare for the next century, which is around the corner. This agreement will lead us, I think, to a positive path as we prepare to enter the 21st century, investing in all kinds of good things, as I have said, and education, particularly, I think as the cornerstone for the development of our society. The agreement shows that it is not inconsistent to be both fiscally responsible and progressive. There is now broad consensus that we simply have to live within our means, but there is also appreciation that the future will not simply take care of itself. It takes work. We have to prepare for it, investing to make sure that our people are ready for it. That is what we are doing in this legislation: getting our fiscal house in order. We are investing in our children. We are extending the educational opportunities for millions of Americans. In short, we are getting ready, and our children and grandchildren will reap the rewards in decades ahead. So, Mr. President, I am proud to be here as this balanced budget legislation is approved. We want to see it get to the White House. It is a moment in history, and I hope it will be regarded as a very positive moment in the record books years from now. I am grateful and proud to have been a part of the process. I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in support of the conference report on the tax reconciliation bill. Mr. President, before I begin to discuss this legislation, let me take a moment to again congratulate the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, Senator Roth and Senator Moynihan, for their leadership on this legislation. Both these distinguished Senators reached out to Members on the other side of the aisle to make this happen, and they deserve enormous credit for their leadership. Mr. President, I am supporting this legislation for four primary reasons. First, it will help ordinary, middle-class families and especially their children. Second, it will promote education. Third, it will help clean up our environment and promote economic development. And, fourth, it's part of a broader bipartisan agreement that will balance the budget and prepare our Nation for the 21st century. First, Mr. President, this legislation would provide valuable assistance to middle-class families in the form of a $500 tax credit for children under the age of 17. This credit will help millions of ordinary people who are raising their children, working hard, and struggling to pay their bills. For these Americans, an extra $500 or $1,000 per year can go a long way. And, so long as our Nation can afford to provide this relief in the context of a balanced budget, I think it's the right thing to do. Mr. President, I am especially pleased that the child tax credit included in this legislation will be available to lower income families who also qualify for the earned income tax credit, or EITC. This proved to be one of the most contentious issues in the conference, much to my surprise. Yet some around here argued that providing direct tax relief to police officers, nurses, and teachers somehow amounted to welfare. I never understood the logic of that. But, fortunately, Democrats made this a top priority. And, in the end, these hard-working Americans will be able to benefit from the child tax credit. Mr. President, the second major element of this legislation is the section that promotes education. The bill includes a $1,500 tax credit to help students afford the first 2 years of college. In addition, there's a tax credit worth up to $1,000 for those who want to pursue additional education beyond that. This latter benefit will be available to adults of all ages. And it's especially important. In an increasingly technological age, education must be a life-long process. And it's something that we should encourage and support. Mr. President, the third major reason why I'm supporting this legislation is that it includes new incentives to clean up thousands of contaminated, abandoned sites in economically distressed areas. That not only will improve the environment, but it will help encourage redevelopment of these areas, known as brownfields. It's a win-win approach that will make a real difference for communities around our Nation. Mr. President, the final reason I am supporting this legislation is that it's part of the broad bipartisan budget agreement that I helped negotiate with leaders from both parties and the President. That agreement will provide several benefits outside the tax area that we never could have achieved without this broader compromise. We're getting $24 billion to provide health care coverage for uninsured children. We're restoring disability benefits for legal immigrants. We're ensuring that 30,000 disabled children don't lose their Medicaid coverage. We're investing $3 billion to move people from welfare to work. And the list goes on. None of these important advances would have been possible without a broad bipartisan agreement. And to get that agreement, Democrats had to accept some significant new tax breaks that we otherwise would have resisted. Mr. President, I, for one, do not share the faith of my Republican friends that cutting taxes for rich Americans is the ticket to economic growth. We've tried trickle-down economics in the past. And it's proved not only unfair, but ineffective in promoting the economy. Most Democrats have a different approach, Mr. President. We like to focus on tax cuts for ordinary Americans. The people who work hard, raise their kids, and who often have a hard time keeping their heads above water. In other words, Mr. President, rather than showering tax breaks on the rich and having that money trickle down, we'd rather provide relief to ordinary Americans, and allow those funds to flow back up. Fortunately, Mr. President, while this bill does contain some new tax breaks for the very wealthy, the bulk of its benefits are focused on the middle class. The most expensive element in the package is the child tax credit. The next most expensive area is education. Both of these types of tax relief are targeted on people who really could use the help. Having said that, Mr. President, there clearly are other provisions, such as the capital gains rate cut and the backloaded IRA, I'm concerned about the costs of these new tax breaks, especially in the future. If it were up to me, I would have done much more to constrain those costs. But, Mr. President, these provisions were necessary to reach the broader agreement. There simply would not have been a deal without them. And so, on the whole, many on this side of the aisle felt that this was the price we had to pay to get the other benefits in the budget agreement. At least, Mr. President, the legislation before us does not include some of the more egregious proposals that would have exploded the deficit in the future. But the bottom line, Mr. President, is that, though it has real flaws, I am going to support this legislation. And I would encourage my colleagues to do likewise. No, it's not perfect legislation. But it's part of a compromise that will do a lot of good. It provides significant tax relief to middle- class families. It will help millions of Americans afford college. It will encourage millions of others to pursue their educations throughout their lives. It will lead to the cleanup and redevelopment of many abandoned sites around our nation. And it's part of a bipartisan plan that will balance the budget and prepare our Nation for the next century.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, millions of young people in America live in areas where drug use, violent and property crimes are a way of life. Unfortunately, many of these same young people come from one- parent homes, or from environments where there is no responsible, caring adult supervision. These at-risk children are on the brink-- their lives could go in either a positive or destructive direction. There is indisputable evidence, however, that at-risk children who have responsible adult mentors choose the right path. Mr. President, that is why today I am introducing legislation, the JUMP Ahead Act of 1997, that will take mentoring in this country to the next level to meet the needs of millions of at-risk youths and their families. All children and adolescents need caring adults in their lives, and mentoring is one effective way to fill this special need for at-risk children. The special bond of commitment fostered by the mutual respect inherent in effective mentoring can be the tie that binds a young person to a better future. Through a mentoring experience, adult volunteers and participating youth make a significant commitment of time and energy to develop relationships devoted to personal, academic, or career development and social, artistic, or athletic growth. Although in recent years there has been an increasing understanding of the importance and benefits of mentoring, too few at-risk children are being reached. It is reported that between 5 and 15 million children in the U.S. could benefit from being matched with a mentor. The status quo cannot meet this need. As I rise today to talk about the value and importance of mentoring to at-risk youth, we are in the midst of a crisis in the form of a growing tide of juvenile crime. While overall crime rates have been stabilizing and even decreasing in some areas, crime among our youth has been on the rise. If trends continue, juvenile arrests for violent crime will double by the year 2010. In addition to juvenile crime, today's youth faces other serious problems. Every day in America 2,795 teens get pregnant, 1,512 teenagers drop out of school, and 211 children are arrested for drug use. If we don't act quickly and decisively, we risk losing a whole generation of young people. We need to save our kids. Mr. President, that is why in 1992 I authored the Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP). JUMP is administered by the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). JUMP is targeted specifically at reducing juvenile delinquency and gang participation, improving academic performance, and reducing the dropout rate by introducing adult mentors as role models, counselors, and friends for at-risk youth. Both local education agencies and public/ private non-profit organizations receive JUMP grants. Since its enactment, JUMP has funded 93 separate mentoring programs in over half the States in the Union. The competition for these JUMP awards is great: Over 479 communities submitted applications for the recent round of grants. JUMP grantees use a variety of program designs. Mentors are law enforcement and fire department personnel, college students, senior citizens, Federal employees, businessmen, and other private citizens. The mentees are of all races they come from urban, suburban, and rural communities, and range in age from 5 to 20. Some are incarcerated or on probation, some are in school, and some are dropouts. In its first year, JUMP helped to keep thousands of at-risk young people in 25 States in school and off the streets through one-to-one mentoring. Mr. President, now is the time to take mentoring to the next level. The JUMP Ahead Act enhances the basic successful structure of JUMP, and increases awards to up to $200,000. It also increases authorized funding to $50 million per year for 4 years, for a total of $200 million. This initiative will not only vastly increase the number of mentoring programs able to receive grants, but it also creates a new category of grants that will enable experienced national organizations to provide needed technical assistance to emerging mentoring programs nationwide. Also, the legislation mandates the Justice Department to rigorously evaluate the program to document what is effective, and what does not produce results. The increased funding allows the DOJ to award grants to a wider group of applicants, allowing for greater diversity and creativity. However, the high standards set by the JUMP program still must be met by all grantees. Mr. President, mentoring works. Not only is this confirmed by common sense and life experience, but also by scientific study. Perhaps the most well-known mentoring program is the world-renowned Big Brothers/ Big Sisters of America, a federation of more than 500 agencies that serve children and adolescents. About one quarter of all JUMP grantees are Big Brothers/Big Sisters affiliates. They have been providing mentors to young people for over 90 years with wonderful results. And now those results have been scientifically validated. A carefully designed independent evaluation of mentoring programs found tremendously positive results and that mentoring programs offer great promise. Most noteworthy among those findings was that mentored youth were 46 percent less likely to initiate drug use. An even stronger effect was found for minority Little Brothers and Little Sisters, who were 70 percent less likely to initiate drug use than similar minority youth. Additionally, Mr. President, mentored youth were 27 percent less likely to initiate alcohol use, and minority Little Sisters were only about one-half as likely to initiate alcohol use. The study also found that mentored youth skipped half as many days of school, felt more competent about doing schoolwork, skipped fewer classes, and showed modest gains in their grade point averages. These gains were strongest among Little Sisters, particularly minority Little Sisters. Mr. President, effective mentoring programs require agencies that take substantial care in recruiting, screening, matching, and supporting volunteers. These are critical functions for an effective mentoring program. The investment in comparison to the benefits to individual kids and society as a whole is minimal; approximately $1,000 per child. Such a small price for such an enormous payoff. Mr. President, experience and now research tells us that there is a desperate need for a new, more positive approach to developing youth policy and discouraging juvenile crime and violence. Mentoring has proven to be one of the best way to get to kids before they get into trouble. We have been talking for years about the need to provide our children with a better future, to give our kids something to say ``yes'' to. JUMP was a great, but small, first step in the right direction. Now it is time to take a giant leap--a JUMP Ahead. In Washington, we talk easily about investing in our kids' future. Whenever we want to build a highway or a bridge, we call it an investment for the future. If we want to ratify trade treaties, we call it an investment in our future. The same goes for everything from cutting the deficit to building sophisticated defense systems to sending probes to Mars. Mr. President, there cannot be a more important investment in the future of our country and our people than directly investing in saving our kids. And that is what mentoring is all about. Mentoring works. Effective mentoring programs can significantly reduce and prevent the use of alcohol and drugs by young people, improve school attendance and performance, improve peer and family relationships, and curb violent behavior. Mr. President, what greater investment can we make? I hope my colleagues will support the bill, and ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to this motion to waive the Byrd rule. Mr. President, this has been a long budget process and we are near completion of these important bills. However we are still in the midst of a battle to save our kids from the health hazards and addiction of tobacco. This battle has just started. However, there are some in Congress who are hijacking this budget reconciliation process in an attempt to give the tobacco industry the upper hand in legislation implementing a global settlement of claims against the tobacco industry. We cannot allow this to happen. That is why I am opposing this motion to waive the Byrd rule. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Illinois has raised a point of order to a provision in the tax bill conference report that would credit the tobacco industry toward payments due on any legislative settlement with the revenue raised by the tobacco tax. This is ridiculous. This revenue is targeted toward children's health in this package. You can't have two uses for one revenue source. This is simply a nonsensical device designed to give yet another break to the tobacco lobby. Well, I will do everything I can to prevent this from happening in a global settlement. Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Just for a few minutes, Mr. President.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, in the almost afterglow of feeling pretty good about things, we worked hard, everybody together. There were no fingers pointed. I chided the chairman of the committee this morning when he excerpted from the headline of the Washington Post. He said that the headline in five words said, ``This is a Big Deal.'' I asked a question. Was the intonation properly affixed, or did it say, ``This is a good deal?'' It is quite a different meaning.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. It is a big deal; a giant deal. I think, without breaking our arms or patting ourselves on the back, there was a lot of goodwill that was injected into the discussion and into the debate. My colleague from Idaho, who is a man who has a way with words, kind of laid it on us and included the President in there as someone who did buy into the balanced budget notion but was dragged kicking and screaming. Mr. President, I wish it was 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we were all energized and we had a chance to talk a little bit. But I will not prolong the process except for a minute or two to say, since it took what I thought was a slight partisan turn--it makes me unhappy when things have gone this well this way to say that I have been here long enough to remember Presidents Reagan and Bush. I like them both. They are nice people. But people on their watch, as we say, who managed to have this deficit of ours skyrocket right up into the air--turn up the tax cuts and let the deficits run. That is what they did. When our President and the Democratic Party took over in 1992, 1993, he inherited a deficit that year of $290 billion without a balanced budget amendment but with the interest that was generated. Yes, we were profligates, and we spent too much money, and perhaps we did a few things wrong. But it was an honest try all the way. And the assertion or the insinuation that these guys didn't care or those guys didn't care, it is not a way to do business. I don't care if we never get a balanced budget amendment. I want to tell you right now. As a matter of fact, I hope you don't. I love the Constitution, and the Constitution loves America, and it is the best document ever written. The fact that we have altered it so few times is a testimony to the strength and the wisdom of the Founders and those who have written amendments. The only time we wrote an amendment that kind of restricted our activity was prohibition, and it was soon canceled. It is a wonderful prescription for how a society should function, preserving individual rights and making sure that the freedoms as much as possible are extended to every citizen in our country. So I just felt like I had to respond. No one worked harder than the man on my right, the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici. I didn't always agree with him, but nobody worked harder, and no one assembled a more honest attempt to do it in a bipartisan fashion. There were things that he wanted that we on my side of the aisle didn't want. But he was willing to explain them and willing to take a deep breath when necessary not to fight them. I have gained great respect for him, as well as personal affection, honestly. Mr. President, I just want to change the tone for a minute, and let off a little steam and say that I hope we will move on to pass this document into law and make sure that everybody understands there was a good attempt by everybody working in this place to get it done with, to get on with the task that we have a very good start on because of the shape of the deficit that we see now. So, Mr. President, I yield the floor. I know the Senator from New Mexico has a UC that he would like to propose. I hope that we will have a chance to hear that. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. The way the Senator read it himself as opposed to, ``This is a Big Deal?'' I want to say to Senator Roth, who was pulled from so many directions, I was amazed to see him arrive in one piece each day. He listened with great patience--great patience and great interest. Everybody is pleased. I will speak about it from the Democratic side. People don't realize, when there is a majority and a minority, the minority doesn't always get a chance to present their views. But Bill Roth, Senator Bill Roth of Delaware, is known as someone who is a fair- minded person, and while he would not always agree, he would almost always listen. I have never found him to say ``no,'' and I appreciated that. I think it produced a very good product. It is, under the circumstances, I think, perhaps the best that could have been gotten. All of us wish there were other things in there--everybody. If you ask any Member of the Senate whether they did not think there was another thing that should have been in or another thing that should have been out, they would have, I guarantee, a menu of things they would like to select from. I am so pleased that we are joined in the Chamber by the ranking member of the Finance Committee, my good friend and colleague from New York, Mr. Moynihan. Senator Moynihan is a man with vast knowledge about so many things that I often say I would enjoy, even with all my white hair, going to college with Professor Moynihan and hearing his views on things. But there is always a background of information that adds so much to the dialog and the debate, and I congratulate him for his role and for his willingness to hear the arguments and to work to try to get a consensus in the legislation which we now have in front of us.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I will continue to extend congratulations to some who are not here. I have to take my time to salute the efforts of Senator Daschle, who was ever present in his encouragement to get this job done--let's see what we can negotiate together, let's see if we can make this adjustment or that adjustment, or talked to his counterpart on the other side. And I want to say for Senator Lott, the majority leader, he, too, was someone who wanted to get this bill behind us, get this job done, and he has shown his interest in doing that as he runs the Senate from the majority leader's position that we do move things along. There were Members on both sides of the aisle who also helped, too numerous to mention, but I think it is fair to say that those whom we have talked about had a significant role. Pete Domenici and I were among the four elected representatives to be negotiating, and we were often closeted days at a time. Though the atmosphere got stuffy, I think neither one of us did, and we were able to continue talking in a civilized fashion. The bill before us is the culmination of those many months of intense effort and people of both parties deserve to be proud of this accomplishment. This budget proves that when leaders with good will come together, we can overcome partisan divisions and find common ground. That is good news for all Americans. I will say this. We have gotten a lot of salutations, a lot of compliments about getting this job done. Threaded through those comments were the kinds of remarks that might surprise, like: Finally, the bickering has stopped, there is no partisanship involved; hurrah, the Senate and the House are working to get our interests put up front. I think that was kind of a noteworthy thing. It's not that we spend all of our time in the boxing ring here. But sometimes, when people's positions on legislation get too entrenched, they lose sight of the fact that we have to stop the argument and get on with producing a product. So, I think the Nation is going to be better off because of this. The budget agreement is not perfect. It is not drafted exactly as I, as I said, nor any other Senator would have written it. But it is an honorable compromise that, on balance, is an enormous step forward. It will lead to the first balanced budget in this country since 1969. It invests in education and helps ordinary Americans afford college. It provides health coverage for many of America's uninsured children. And it provides tax relief for middle-class families. It provides important protections for kids and legal immigrants, people who were invited to come here and who later became disabled. And it helps accomplish something that President Clinton has had on the agenda for a long time--to move people from welfare to work, and to provide the means with which to make that transition. More generally, it shows we can both be fiscally responsible and true to our highest values as a nation. This budget agreement will produce roughly $900 billion in net deficit savings over the next 10 years. It will give us the first balanced budget in a generation. It will build on President Clinton's tremendous success in reducing the deficit. And one cannot ignore--and Senator Domenici knew this was coming--one could not ignore the incredible accomplishments, economic accomplishments that have been made since President Clinton has been in office--with a budget deficit that was at $290 billion when he took over in 1993, and at the moment looking like it is going to be something less than $50 billion for the year 1997. It will build on President Clinton's tremendous success in reducing that deficit. It will build on the success that we have had in getting new jobs for people in our country--12 million new jobs created. And the stock market--one can't help but notice that indicator. I noticed today, after hearing the news and yesterday after hearing the news, the market continued to move upward. Inflation is in check. People feel very good about the strength of the United States, leading the world's most developed countries in competing in the marketplace. That is a terrific record upon which to build. This balanced budget amendment is an extension of all of those good things. But I think the President is due a lot of credit for having brought that deficit down to where it was, based on his hard work and, yes, a turn of very good events at the same time. But it was his foresight and his planning that helped enable us to get to this point. The budget agreement, also, will move our Nation into the 21st century by providing the largest investment in education in 50 years. I, as a recipient of the benefits of the GI bill--I served in the war. I don't always like discussing which one. Sometimes people ask me if it was the Spanish American? It was not. It was World War II. But, without the GI bill, my widowed mother, age 36 when my father died, and the poor circumstances in which our family found ourselves when I was discharged from the Army--never, never would have enabled me to get a college education and get a start on a career that has been very satisfying for me and, I hope, worthwhile for the country. So I saw the value of helping someone get a head start in life, someone getting an education and being able to contribute to our society. That is what I want to see us do and the President certainly led us to that point. The tax bill we are going to be considering also will include a $1,500 tax credit to make the first 2 years of college universally available. There will be a tuition tax credit for all working Americans who want to pursue lifelong learning, continue to learn. That enriches the mind, enriches the body, and enriches the quality of life. That is what we have seen in so many cases. If you look in the universities and research laboratories and so forth, you see the people who continue to learn and who gain vitality and youth, even as they do that. These provisions are critically important to the future of our economy. In addition, the budget agreement also includes $24 billion for children's health care, the largest increase in children's health care since the enactment of Medicaid in 1965. This will help provide health insurance to millions of uninsured children and it is a tremendous achievement. The budget agreement also protects Medicare and extends the solvency of the Medicare trust fund by roughly another 7 years. Unlike earlier proposals, it does not ask senior citizens to bear unfair burdens and it doesn't threaten the quality of their health care. Instead, it reforms and modernizes the program and includes significant new preventive benefits. We all know there is going to be a more thorough review of Medicare in the years ahead, to see whether we can comprehensively make changes that will guarantee that solvency for as long as one can imagine. In addition, the agreement provides tax relief for the middle class. As we will discuss when we turn to the tax bill, the agreement provides a $500 tax credit for children under the age of 17, to help families to be able to bring up their children in the fashion that would provide them with sustenance and direction, and perhaps help them get started on their education. Importantly, that credit will be available to working families with lower incomes. This sounds a little mysterious but there are people whose incomes are supported by assistance from the Government, earned-income tax credit, in which a family that is below a certain level of income gets a stipend or a tax refund from the Government. It often makes their lives livable. But there was a huge debate about whether or not this credit would be available for people who do not pay taxes in the first place. But we know they are working families and they do pay payroll taxes and we decided, jointly, that it would be appropriate to give some credit on those payroll taxes that they pay. We, the Democrats, made that a priority. With support from our Republican friends we won an important victory for millions of ordinary Americans. The conference report also restores a basic level of fairness for people who have come into this country legally, who have obeyed the law, paid their taxes, and then fate delivers them a disability whether through accident or just sickness. Last year the Congress pulled the rug out from under these people and eliminated their disability benefits; for some, the only provision that they have that enables them to get along. But today we are restoring that basic safety net. It is the right thing to do. As the Senate sponsor of this amendment I am particularly pleased that it will be enacted into law. Another important section of the conference report will protect 30,000 disabled children who otherwise would lose Medicaid coverage. This corrects a serious defect in last year's welfare legislation and will make a huge difference for these children and their families. I am also pleased that the budget agreement includes a renewed commitment to environmental protection. We will be enacting new incentives to clean up thousands of contaminated, abandoned sites in economically distressed areas. That not only will improve the environment, but it will help encourage redevelopment of these areas, known as brownfields. I have seen it in towns in New Jersey, industrial cities that had a glorious past but now suffer from the delinquency that often results from industrial pollution. Some of these communities have had these sites, dormant sites, small sites that were unused, yet with people begging for work not blocks away, able to get there; people begging for retail facilities--they are not used. We have seen, in New Jersey, where we have cleaned up a few of these sites, good retail activity--in one site in Hackensack, NJ, with a couple of hundred people working in a discount store, a marketplace that people can go to, to get their goods, buy their food. It has been a miracle, almost, to see these things. And it is, often, for very small sums of money. So we now have brownfields that I worked very hard on. It's now in place. It's a win-win approach that will make a difference for communities around the Nation. Additionally, the conference report includes important provisions to move people from welfare to work as I mentioned. One million long-term welfare recipients stand to benefit from this initiative. And the Nation as a whole will benefit, as more Americans leave welfare and become productive members of our economy, lift their heads high, lift their spirits, provide some vision for themselves and their families. It is a wonderful vision and I am pleased to see we are putting the resources there to make it happen. Mr. President, I am going to leave to others the discussion on some of the other details of this legislation. But I once again take the opportunity to congratulate the President, President Clinton, for his outstanding leadership in this effort. We are here today on a bipartisan basis only because the President decided it could happen and he wanted to make it happen. His people were all over the place, working alike with Democrats who occasionally disagreed and Republicans who occasionally disagreed. He brought us all together and we are grateful for that. I think his commitment will be acknowledged for many years to come. Mr. President, I don't think, as I said earlier, there is anyone who would say they are 100 percent happy with this agreement. But, while no one sees it as perfect, everyone should see it as good. It is fair, it is balanced, and it will serve our country well. It will balance the budget. It will invest in education and training. It will provide tax relief to the middle class. It will protect Medicare. It will provide health care coverage to millions of children. It will throw a life vest to disabled legal immigrants. It will invest in environmental protection, move people from welfare to work, and will make life better for millions of ordinary working Americans. So I urge my colleagues to put aside as much challenge as they can. Yes, everybody in this place is free to make their statements, to say what they want. But I hope in the final analysis they are going to support this budget agreement enthusiastically, because it sends a message to the American people. It will say yes, this wasn't something that was nurtured through an inch at a time. This is something that was supported by people across the room from different States and from different parties. That is the way it ought to be. It is the right thing for America and I am proud to have been a part of it. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, in supporting the conference report on this budget reconciliation bill, which, along with the conference report on the tax bill, will finally implement a bipartisan plan to balance the budget. I have to ask Senator Domenici, because he talked about the five words that appeared in the Washington Post, I wonder whether it read like this. I heard him say, ``This is a big deal.'' Or did it say, ``This Is A Big Deal?'' I wasn't sure quite where the emphasis was. But I assume it was the way it was intended.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Be happy to.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I agree, Mr. President. The I-70 interchange in Frederick, MD, is the type of project that is worthy of funding under the 4-R Program.