Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I also would like to thank my colleagues for their help.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I offer to let our friends on the other side who want to speak in opposition go ahead now if they want. I will pick up my time when that is done, if that is all right, if anybody has any interest.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I may yield to the Senator from Oklahoma for 5 minutes without losing any time on our side. That comes off their time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Yes.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Beyond using the emergency designation and using two sets of books, the majority has resorted to the gimmick of artificially shifting huge amounts of spending into the next fiscal year. The Washington Post described this as adding a 13th month to the fiscal year, kind of changing the calendar. It is a gimmick, and the public, again, ought to take notice. It is like getting out of debt by putting existing debts on a second credit card. It may make you feel better today, but it is sure going to make things tougher tomorrow. These are a few of the gimmicks that are being proposed in this legislation. But no matter how many are used, there is no getting around the fact that the majority has busted the spending caps, and they are spending Social Security surpluses. Let's make sure that is clearly understood. They are using the budget surpluses created in the Social Security account to fund Government. They want to take even larger cuts out of programs. There is a better alternative. Instead of using scorekeeping gimmicks, we can use real offsets; that is, take it from another place. For example, we can close special interest tax loopholes. The Republicans even included some of those loophole closers in their tax bill, so this should not be at all that hard. Another option that I personally favor is to simply go to the source that cost this country of ours lots and lots of money, the tobacco industry. Let them fully compensate taxpayers for the costs of tobacco- related diseases that they create. Why should they be protected? I do not understand it. Why cannot we get our friends across the aisle to join us in saying to the tobacco industry: Pay the $20 billion that you cost us with the diseases that you have helped render on our society? It is an outrage. We are going to let them get away with what they do while we say to our citizens: OK, we are going to cut veterans benefits; we are going to cut police efforts; we are going to cut education. Come on. That by itself could virtually eliminate the raid on Social Security--$20 billion by the bills already approved by the Senate. To its credit, the Justice Department is trying to recoup these costs through civil litigation against the tobacco companies. But as we all know, that could take years. Meanwhile, Congress can act now to make the taxpayers whole. We ought to do it. The Nickles amendment, however, proposes another approach. It says: Rather than closing tax loopholes or asking the tobacco industry to pay its fair share, let's cut education, let's cut defense, let's cut the FBI, let's cut the Border Patrol, let's cut environmental protection, and let's cut veterans health care. We heard it said that these across-the-board cuts might be a 2- or 3- percent difference. But those figures are not based on CBO's own estimates; they are based on the so-called ``Directed Scorekeeping.'' That is a direction from the Budget Committee or the leadership to say: Hey, you say it's going to cost $10 billion. I tell you what, let's say something else. Let's say it's only going to cost $9 billion. OK, $9 billion. There is no basis in fact, but let's say it. It is based on politically driven assumptions about how much bills will cost, not the objective analysis of CBO estimators. The truth is that if we are serious about protecting Social Security surpluses, the across-the-board cuts would have to be much greater. And if we look at the bills the Senate has already approved, we would need a 5.5-percent cut. And that is not my figure; that comes from the Congressional Budget Office--5.5 percent. The Transportation bill that we just processed through here--and I shared the Democratic leadership in getting that bill to the floor--would take a cut of over $2.5 billion. But even that is unrealistically low. First, many Senate bills still need to be reconciled with the House, which has adopted a variety of emergency provisions--gimmickry--to allow for increased spending. In addition, Congress almost inevitably will increase spending for other items in the near future: Funding for hurricane victims--that ought to be fresh in our minds--for health care providers that are suffering from excessive cuts, preventing the expected closings of long-term care facilities in major quantities, for operations such as Kosovo; and then it is also a good bet that at some point this year there will be other emergencies: earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes--who knows what--that will also require more funding. If we do not offset that spending, it will come straight out of the Social Security surplus--cut the Social Security surplus. When you account for these additional costs, you would have to cut discretionary spending roughly 10 percent under this amendment--10 percent. Do my colleagues want to go on record in supporting cutting education by at least 5 percent, more likely 10 percent? Do they want to call for cuts in defense, veterans programs, crime initiatives, and health research? I am sure the American public does not want that to happen, and none of us elected to represent them ought to support this wild scheme. Senator Nickles has offered his amendment as a second degree to his own underlying amendment. But at an appropriate point, once his second- degree amendment is disposed of, I plan to offer an alternative amendment. My amendment will call for rejecting scorekeeping gimmicks and indiscriminate across-the-board cuts. Instead, it will urge that we protect Social Security surpluses by closing special interest tax loopholes and using other appropriate offsets. My alternative amendment does not limit the types of offsets that could be used, nor does it single anything out. But it would put us clearly on record in opposition to the broad-based cuts proposed by the amendment offered by the Senator from Oklahoma, and in strong opposition to the continued use of budget gimmickry to avoid tough decisions. For now, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Nickles amendment. I ask the public who may learn of this amendment to let their Representatives know they do not like it, that they want to protect Social Security surpluses. Let's not make the deep cuts that are arbitrary in education, defense, crime, veterans, and other programs. Instead, let us close special interest tax loopholes, find other appropriate offsets that will allow us to save Social Security, as all of us agree should be done, in a direct and honest way. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. We have, by unanimous consent, established a half hour on each side. If the Senator from Nevada has used 6 minutes, then we have roughly 24 left. Parliamentary inquiry: How much time remains?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I want to make sure we mean it when we say we are going to protect Social Security. Right now I ought to say welcome to the magic show because what we are hearing is rather hypothetical: If we want to protect Social Security by adopting across- the-board reductions in all discretionary appropriations, it should be sufficient to eliminate such deficit if necessary. I believe it is more important to say how we are going to do that without at the same time dipping into Social Security. It is not realistic. This is pie in the sky, and the American public ought to know about what we are talking. I do not support deep, indiscriminate cuts in education, defense, or law enforcement. Tell the veterans you want to cut further. I want to hear anybody stand on this floor and say to the veterans who served our country when we needed them and we made promises: Sorry, we are going to cut your benefits. I want them to talk about that. I want to hear them talk about how we are going to provide the kind of law enforcement we want when we will be getting rid of FBI agents and Border Patrol people. Cuts to the Immigration and Naturalization Service could result in a reduction of approximately 2,000 Border Patrol agents, when everybody is screaming about the number of illegal immigrants pouring across our borders. I want to hear them talk about programs such as Head Start that give children a chance to learn if they have not had the benefit of a home life that encourages learning. Mr. President, 43,000 children will be cut from the program. I hope the American public listens. I know they get tired of our droning, but this is the kind of thing they ought to view with interest. I hope we are going to defeat this amendment. Everyone knows it is now October 6. The fiscal year is almost a week old. But obviously, the Republican majority still does not know how they are going to put together their budget. They have declared they do not want to use Social Security surpluses. No, but the declarations ring hollow. In fact, they have been moving legislation that would raid those surpluses of billions of dollars, and they do not want to admit it. The Republican tax bill, for instance, would use Social Security surpluses in the years 2005 through 2008. That is not very far away from our initial attempt to increase the longevity of Social Security. In fiscal year 2008, that raid on Social Security would reach almost $50 billion. Public, listen to this: Now they are pushing bills that will use roughly $20 billion in Social Security funds this very year, the year which started October 1. That is not just my opinion, it is the opinion of the Congressional Budget Office, which is directed by a Republican appointee. The majority has that right. Over the past few weeks, the majority has twisted itself into knots to evade the discretionary spending caps. They have used gimmick after gimmick, to the point where, frankly, the integrity of the whole budget process has been compromised. I hope my colleagues can see this chart. This is what a prominent paper, the Wall Street Journal, had in its issue of July 27: GOP using ``two sets of books.'' Lying about the numbers. That is a budget expert, a fellow by the named of Stan Collender on the GOP. ``Directed Scorekeeping''--we will talk about that in a minute. Republicans are double-counting a big part of next year's surplus, papering over the fact that their proposed tax cuts and spending bills already have exhausted available funds. In the House, the Republicans have declared the census that we are required to take, mandated by the Constitution; it comes around every 10 years--they want to declare that an emergency so it gets out of the spending loop. It is hardly an unexpected crisis. Calling it an emergency gets around the discretionary spending caps. For House Republicans, apparently, that is more important than direct, honest budgeting. The Republicans are also using two sets of books, as we see described here, to get around the discretionary spending caps. When it suits their purposes, the majority uses CBO scoring; when it does not, they use OMB scoring. This is mumbo jumbo. For those who are not familiar with what goes on here--using this set of books on the one hand and that set of books on the other hand. If someone was the chief executive of a major corporation--I had the honor of serving in that capacity before I came here--and did that, they could wind up in jail--using books here to describe what is going on on one side, and using books over here to describe a different picture to the public. That is unacceptable behavior but certainly not in this institution. That way, they can pretend they are spending less than they technically are. Today, I am releasing a report that explains this so-called ``Directed Scorekeeping.'' As the report explains, the majority is forcing CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, to fudge the numbers in an unprecedented way. The report is available from my office. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that report be printed in the Record.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma stresses the difference between OMB and the Congressional Budget Office. It is the typical preference to use the Congressional Budget Office. I point out a letter dated October 4 sent to a senior member of our staff. It says: Dividing the projected deficit by the available outlays results in an across-the-board cut of 5.5 percent. This is from the Congressional Budget Office. They are the gospel, I think, when it comes to making decisions in the Budget Committee. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute so I may respond.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Parliamentary question: Is there not time usually reserved as leader time and as time allocated outside of debate?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the 8 seconds.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. In my opening comments, I said that we viewed things differently. There was no suggestion of lying or dishonesty. I displayed this because that is what was said by a bunch of experts. I was careful not to accuse any of my colleagues of acting unethically.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask if the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania wants to use any of the time available on that side at this time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Five or 10. I prefer he not take the ``or''; take the 5 or 6 minutes, please. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I listened very carefully. One of the things that sometimes the public does not understand is, we can disagree on things because it is an honest view of what is taking place. Perhaps our friends on the Republican side would see things one way and we on this side see them another way. But when we talk about OMB and CBO, these are rather arcane acronyms for the public at large. We work with them all the time. They are arcane for us. But OMB is something that usually is thought to represent the White House view, the administration view, on calculating where we are, our budget--how much we are spending and how much we are taking in. So I guess it is easy to say that those of us who are on the same party side as the White House want to pay attention to what OMB says and those who represent the majority in the legislature--the House and the Senate-- want to rely exclusively on CBO--except when it is convenient. This difference is what we are seeing now in talking about whether or not we use OMB scoring. Our distinguished colleague from Oklahoma said: Well, we want to use some of the scoring the President uses, from OMB. But, Mr. President, they only want to use OMB scoring selectively--only when OMB's numbers make it appear that they are using less of the Social Security surplus. In court, you are not allowed to do that. I am not a lawyer, but I know lawyers can't pick and choose from the laws of various states when they present their cases, and use only those laws most favorable to their clients. They have to live under the rules of their jurisdiction. But here in the Congress, the Republican majority wants to use CBO scoring when it suits their purposes, and OMB scoring when it doesn't. For example, the majority is using CBO's estimate of the non-Social Security surplus. That's because CBO is projecting a $14 billion non- Social Security surplus, whereas OMB's estimate is much lower--$6 billion. But then when it comes to scoring the defense appropriations bill, all of a sudden the majority wants to use OMB numbers. In other words, they are using two sets of books. Mr. President, there may be rare occasions when the majority will truly believe that CBO has erred in their scoring. But that is not what is going on here. This ``directed scoring'' is not based on the merits. The Republicans are simply trying to make it appear that they are spending less than they really are. And that they are using less Social Security surpluses than they actually are. I also would point out that when the Senator from Oklahoma says, well, they want to raise taxes, let me remind the Senator that when the tax bill was sent to the President, it had $5.5 billion over 10 years of tax increases. So the Republicans themselves have admitted that there are legitimate savings to be had from closing loopholes. But apparently now their position is that there is not a single loophole to be closed in the tax code. Or at least that we should not close any loopholes before we cut education and defense first. I say, let's take a look at the tobacco industry. Let's try to recover some of the expenses they force us to incur. Let's see if we can't get back the $20 billion a year it costs taxpayers to treat tobacco-related diseases. That by itself would essentially solve our budget problem and allow us to avoid dipping into the Social Security trust fund. Mr. President, if there is any time left, I yield it back and hope our colleagues will support this sense-of-the-Senate amendment.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I will use just a couple minutes to respond, and then we will have finished.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Will the Senator yield for a comment?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the time to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Nebraska-- how much time does the Senator need, 5 minutes?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I listened to our colleague from Georgia with interest. He said we were not too specific about things. But we are specific about one thing, and that is we do not want to touch Social Security. A long time ago, someone said: Touch not a hair on that old gray head. I have the color hair that evokes thoughts of Social Security, and I am eligible to be a recipient. I know how important it is, as does everybody here. I do not want to diminish everybody else's view. They all know how important it is. Let's start with what is in the Nickles amendment. It says that Congress should eliminate any on-budget deficit by adopting an across- the-board reduction in all discretionary appropriations, if necessary. All discretionary appropriations --that could mean anything: Farmers' aid, Veterans Administration, FBI, drug enforcement, Coast Guard, you name it. All these programs would have to suffer deep cuts under this amendment because, according to CBO, the Senate has already approved legislation that would use $19 billion of Social Security funds. And we're likely to use even more Social Security funds when we conference with the House, which is proposing higher spending levels, and when we provide relief to hurricane victims and others suffering from genuine emergencies. Mr. President, before I go further, I see my colleague from Illinois on the floor. I yield 5 minutes to him, and then we will be able to come back to our point.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I want to continue to use some of the time we have reserved. How much time remains?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, obviously, I went in a slightly different direction as we introduced our second-degree amendment because I wanted the clerk to particularly read some of the implications of what it is we are facing if we adopt the Nickles amendment. My amendment is a substitute for the Nickles amendment. It is very simple. It expresses the sense of the Senate that the Congress must not permit raiding Social Security surpluses nor indiscriminately cut defense, emergency relief, education, veterans' health care, law enforcement, transportation, environmental cleanup, and other discretionary appropriations across the board. Instead, we should fund fiscal year 2000 appropriations--I point out that the year began October 1--without using budgetary gimmicks by closing special interest tax loopholes and using other appropriate offsets. In my view, this is a much more rational and appropriate way to approach the budget. Deep across-the-board cuts are a bad way to do business. They will prove extremely unpopular. Americans didn't send us to Washington to simply use a meat ax approach to governing. They want us to do it thoughtfully. They want us to go after waste and inefficiencies, to use our judgment and support essential programs such as education. The Nickles amendment, by contrast, puts the budget process on automatic pilot. It would cut indiscriminately. I read from the text of the Nickles amendment where they say in the sense-of-the-Senate amendment that ``Congress should ensure that the fiscal year 2000 appropriations measures do not result in an on-budget deficit''--that on-budget is excluding Social Security trust funds. They put parentheses around it--``by adopting''--this is the solution they offer--``an across-the-board reduction in all discretionary appropriations sufficient to eliminate such deficit if necessary.'' The language is quite clear. But to further clarify, it says cut these programs--the ones I talked about--cut veterans' health benefits, cut educational benefits, cut law enforcement, cut FBI, cut border guards even though our border is saturated by illegal immigration. And we ought to make an orderly process about that. The Nickles amendment makes no distinction between critical priorities such as education, defense, and lower priorities such as corporate subsidies or pork barrel spending. There is no need for a meat ax approach. The Republicans' own tax bill proposed to close various tax loopholes. Now that the bill has been vetoed, why not use some of the same loopholes to help protect Social Security, to prevent potentially painful cuts in education and other priorities? Why not search for waste from other Government programs? How many of us have talked about that waste as we campaigned for office? Shouldn't we go after that before we take money away from our schools or our Armed Forces? My amendment does not specify the offsets we should adopt, and it in no way endorses raising income taxes on ordinary families, but it does say we have to treat the budget candidly. One of the things we should all be alerted to--the public in particular, but certainly we who are going to vote on this--it says: ``GOP Using Two Sets of Books,'' in a commentary by the Wall Street Journal of July 27: Republicans are double-counting a big part of next year's surplus, papering over the fact that their proposed tax cuts and spending bills already have exhausted available funds. If it were up to me, as I said earlier, I would ask the tobacco industry to compensate the taxpayers for the damage they have caused and help pay for the tobacco-related diseases that cost us some $20 billion a year. If we could get that $20 billion a year, we wouldn't have to be faced with the prospect of cutting Social Security surpluses by some $19 billion. Once again, my amendment doesn't endorse that particular approach, or any specific provision. It just says: Let's be honest with the American people, and let's find real offsets. I will tell you what I learned from the Congressional Budget Office in a letter to one of my staff people: Our estimates of the outlays available to be cut is $351.7 billion. Dividing the projected deficit by the available outlays results in an across-the-board cut of 5.5 percent. Across-the-board cuts--that is all of those programs that we have discussed several times. We shouldn't use gimmicks. We shouldn't use that kind of treatment, and not indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts which drastically slash funding for teachers, military personnel, veterans, and other priorities. In fact, we have an endorsement of that view, I think it is fair to say, when Appropriations Committee chairman Bill Young of Florida says to cut 2.7 percent of all discretionary spending would result in cuts of about $7 billion from defense which would wipe out the pay increase that lawmakers recently provided for the military. We all know the military is having a problem recruiting new members and getting new recruits to join the various branches. Would we want to discourage that effort even though we are having a problem filling those important positions that we must have to protect ourselves? I think not. Mr. President, pretty simply, I hope my colleagues will support the amendment. I yield the floor. I reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the keeper of sanity in the Senate, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, for his ever available courtesy. Amendment No. 1922 (Purpose: To state requirements applicable to air carriers that bump passengers involuntarily)