Trent Lott

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I object to further consideration of this bill at this time.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I call on the American people to use this weekend and Monday to express their views to the Members of the U.S. Senate on whether or not we should have a balanced budget. The American people can influence the vote that we will take next Tuesday at 5:15 p.m. The American people overwhelmingly support a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget because they know, they understand, without this guarantee, without this leverage, it will not happen. So the decision we make next Tuesday is in the hands of the American people. They need to let their Senators know how they feel. If their Senators have said they will be for it, commend them for it. If they have said they are going to vote against it, ask them why. Ask them what is the alternative. Ask them, where is the historical proof that a balanced budget will occur without the constitutional amendment. If a Senator has switched his vote from a year ago or 2 years ago, or if a Senator has switched his vote from what he said he would do in last year's elections, ask them why. How can you do that? How can you, in 6 months, change your mind on so fundamental an issue? Mr. President, this is a question of honesty. It is a question of truth in Government. We wonder why people are cynical, why they wonder about us, why they question us. This is exhibit A. When you give your word to your constituency in your State during the election campaign that you are going to vote for a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget and then 6 months later you say, ``Gee whiz, I have learned something new, it is hard to take.'' These are not new members to government and politics. These are people with experience at the State level, at the Federal level, in the House of Representatives. What is new? No, this is a question of basic honesty. But the American people can make that difference. If they will get on the phone, if they will call, if they will write, if they will express themselves, they can make sure that this amendment passes next Tuesday. The press, the Washington press, is saying it is over, they will not get but 66 votes. The fat lady has not sung. This ``ain't'' over. It is not over until we take the vote. I would hate to be a Senator who votes next Tuesday against this constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, especially if I had said earlier that I was going to do something else. I am still working on a couple of angles, too. I have been working with the rules of the Congress for 24 years, and I tell my colleagues you are never going to be absolutely sure what I am going to do. If I can find a way to do what I think is right for the American people, I will do it, and I will be innovative. I have a couple of ideas. Believe me, there are a couple of Senators in this Chamber who are sweating right now. I bet they will not be doing any press conferences this weekend. No. That is an age-old strategy when you are in Congress. If you do not want to talk about something you are fixing to do that your constituents do not agree with, you hide. Press availability is not possible. We need to do this. Now, the argument is made by the President, ``Oh, we should just go ahead and balance the budget.'' I agree. We should have done it last year. The Congress passed a balanced budget. The President vetoed it, just 1 year ago. Why did we not do it the year before, the year before, or the year before? Why haven't we done it for 28 years? Who among us believes we will do it in 2 more years or 4 more years? I am an optimist. I believe in the positive attitude of men like Ronald Reagan--there is a pony in there somewhere. We will find a way to do this job. But I have not seen any evidence of it yet. I have done my dead-level best to calm down the rhetoric and try to be positive and hold out hope and hold out an olive branch to Members of the Congress on both sides of the aisle and between the two Chambers and with the President. I have said we should work together for the American people. We should get this job done, balance the budget. Mr. President, you have just been reelected. We have a majority in the Congress. The American people want us to do some things for our children and for the future of our country. I have said we can do that. We should do that. The President suggested early on in one of our discussions that we should set up a commission for a particular matter--which I will not talk about now--and I said, ``You know, Mr. President, you just got reelected, we just got reelected. That is what we are for. We should do the job.'' We don't need a commission. Why do we always have to have this deal where we punt it off to commissions where we can see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. They did it, not us. So let's see what we can do, and then maybe we will talk about a commission. I said, ``Mr. President, please, please, show leadership and show some courage in your budget. Show me that we can do it.'' And then he sent us his budget. We didn't trash it, cuss it, and throw it out into the street and say it's dead on arrival. We weren't, obviously, happy with it. I took over a day before I had much of anything to say. I actually read it and looked at the numbers, and I called him and I said, ``Mr. President, this is not what I hoped for. It is political cover.'' I understand. We have made it clear that we weren't going to go through the exercise we went through last year. He was afraid, maybe, to take political risks in sending up a budget that really would get us where we needed to go. He felt like, well, we will negotiate a real result. But you can't have shell games and remove home health care from one part of Medicare over to the other, and say, gee, I just magically saved $50 billion. You can't have triggers and lookbacks and optimistic assumptions and shove all the tough decisions off on the next President. Two-thirds of what would be saved would occur after the year 2000. No, it wasn't adequate, and I expressed my concern about it. But I continue to say that, well, okay, I understand how that can happen. I am prepared to do my dead-level best to work with the Congress and with the American people and the President to get a balanced budget agreement this year. But I am not going to be a part of a fraud and hold hands with the President, or anybody else, and say, this is it, we got it done, unless it is real. So I think it puts additional pressure on us to have the constitutional amendment. I have been here all these years, in the House and in the Senate, and we have tried. Good men and women have said, yes, we can do this. Jimmy Carter said it; he meant to do it. Ronald Reagan said it; he intended to do it. Congress has said we are going to do it. We had the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings act to force us to do it with a sequestration, but it was a statute. It was only a statute. Guess what happened. One by one, we removed all the hurdles, all the requirements that would have actually gotten us to a balanced budget. First, we said, oh, gee, we can't have it apply to this or to that program. I remember the negotiations. I was there. We said maybe not this program, maybe not that program. We started off and we only exempted seven programs. Then, one day, it was 21 programs. And in spite of already exempting 21 programs from an across-the-board cut of sequestration, as it was called, we got up to the ``lick log'' when we were going to actually have the programs cut across the board. Guess what Congress did. Changed the date. They said, oh, gee, we will move it a year. Congress will always find a way to avoid the tough decisions, unless it is in that revered document, the Constitution. So we have tried laws, we have had good men and women in Congress and in the Presidencies saying we are to go do it, and we have not done it. It is not easy. It takes courage, like I know the Senator from Connecticut has. He would do what we need to do to encourage growth in the economy. He would step up and cast the tough vote to control the growth in spending in some of these programs--all of these programs. Everybody has to ante up and kick in. But I haven't seen it. I don't like the idea of amending the Constitution. I voted to do it a few times, and probably if I could take back some of those votes, I would do so. But this is not an insignificant thing. This is our children's future. I have a 29-year-old son, a young entrepreneur who is working hard. He employs 55 people. He sells pizzas. Today, I won't give the label of the pizza, but he is what the American dream is all about. He is out there working hard, making money, creating jobs, and paying a lot of taxes. He figured it out recently. He said, ``Dad, I am paying over 50 percent of everything I make in taxes.'' You know, that is terrible. It is terrible. A young, 29-year-old man, whose work hours usually are the toughest between 5 p.m. and 2 o'clock in the morning. He is having 50 percent of it go to State, local, and Federal Governments. That is not the American way. I have a 26-year-old daughter, a young professional woman, who works hard and promotes our State of Mississippi, promotes tourism. She does a great job. I am proud of her. But I am saddling that son and daughter with an incredible burden, because I have not been able to help find a way to stop the deficit spending, to control the debt--yes, to reduce the debt of the country, and the $340 billion in interest on the national debt. Only Social Security exceeds the cost of interest on the national debt. If we don't do something and do it now and do it tough, there will be over another trillion dollars added to the debt by the year 2002. So I think this is something that is worth amending the Constitution for, because we are talking about the future of the country, the future of our economy, the future of our children and their children. If we don't do it now, who will do it? When will it be done? So we should amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. And if we don't, the American people will know truly that we are not serious about it when we say we want to balance the budget. I have gone back and looked at the arguments over the years--even this year--as to why we should not pass a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. There is no end to the things that have been suggested. Some are absolutely hilarious, and some are purely political. Amendments have said basically that we should not do it until a Republican President submits the balanced budget, or maybe we should say we should not do it until the Democratic President submits the balanced budget. That is ridiculous. Then they said, well, it's because the escape hatch in times of recession or national emergency is too high--three-fifths. We should not have to have 60 votes. Just about everything we do around here takes 60 votes. Just about everything. And if it is easy to get out from under a balanced budget requirement, do you think Congress won't take advantage of that? We are masters. We have done it over and over and over again. Capital budgeting has been talked about. Oh, they do it in the States. Great. Let us take everything off the budget. Let's take out all the trust funds. I have been an advocate of that on occasion. But it is just a red herring. Social Security. Oh, that is a good one. We can always rely on Social Security to scare the bejeebers out of folks. So that is a great cover. Oh, yes, if we don't find some special way to deal with the Social Security requirement, oh, this would destroy the system. My mother, 83 years old, bless her heart, counts on Social Security. She knows I am not going to do anything to endanger that for her. I would not do that. If we don't do that, that is what will endanger Social Security. I could go on. I will speak again next Tuesday to try to help put this thing in a proper perspective from the beginning to the end with a quote from Thomas Jefferson and some modern quotes about why we need to do this and why we should have done it. I wanted to take a few minutes this morning to say to the American people that it is up to them. If they really want this, a way will be found to get one more vote--just one more vote. Is it a Senator from Nevada or South Carolina? Maybe it is a Senator from South Dakota, or maybe even New Jersey. Somewhere, there will be a Senator who will say: This does matter, and I am going to make the difference. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. LOTT

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

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

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today the Senate will be in session for a period of morning business. There will be no rollcall votes conducted during today's session, and when the Senate completes its business today, it will convene then, again, on Monday, March 3, with no rollcall votes occurring during Monday's session. In accordance with the agreement reached last night, on Tuesday, the Senate will vote on Senate Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, at 5:15 p.m. I remind my colleagues that there will be rollcall votes conducted throughout next week. We anticipate taking up a couple of nominations, including the nomination to be the U.S. Trade Representative, next week. We will give the exact times that we expect action on that to occur, and the time agreements, when we come in on Monday or Tuesday morning. But the next rollcall vote will be conducted on Tuesday at 5:15. I thank my colleagues for their attention. I am pleased to see the distinguished Senator from Nebraska here ready to speak. I am looking forward to hearing his remarks. I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the bill be considered read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, could I inquire how long this might take?

Mr. LOTT. I appreciate your confirming my understanding of the intent of the reauthorization act. Also, I join you in urging the administration to make its appointments without delay. The commission must begin working on a long-term funding solution so that we can avoid such problems as we are addressing today.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I renew my unanimous-consent request to proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 19, H.R. 668.

Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the statement of the Senator from Florida, my unanimous-consent request again recur with H.R. 668.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania and the leadership of the Finance Committee, the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from New York. I thank them very much for their leadership.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 19, H.R. 668.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, that is the airline ticket tax issue.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, today the Senate will be immediately resuming consideration of Senate Joint Resolution 1, the constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. By unanimous consent, Senator Graham of Florida will be recognized to debate his amendment. Following 90 minutes of debate on Senator Graham's amendment, a vote will occur on or in relation to the Graham amendment at approximately 12:30 p.m. Following that vote, Senator Feingold will be recognized to debate on one of his amendments, and we will continue debate on several pending amendments with those votes stacked this afternoon. I do not believe we have an exact time agreed to yet when that will occur. We will notify the Members, when we have the 12:30 vote, when the next vote will actually occur. Following those stacked votes, we will turn to Senator Bumpers' amendment, with additional rollcall votes expected during today's session. We will also, hopefully, get a final agreement on all the amendments that may be offered, and then we will be able to give the Members some information about what to expect, if anything, on Friday and also on Monday. Even though we had some disappointment yesterday with one of the Senators who indicated he would be voting for this amendment last year and now has indicated he will not, I encourage my colleagues to remember the vote has not been taken yet, and I still am hopeful that we are going to find a way to have the number of votes, the 67, that is required to pass this constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. We are still working on it, and I am looking forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this effort. I thank the Senator from Florida. We will be look forward to hearing his comments on this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. I thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding this time so that I may enter a unanimous-consent agreement which has been reached with regard to an amendment that Senator Hollings had intended to offer to the balanced budget amendment on campaign financing. I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader, after notification of the Democratic leader, may turn to the consideration of a Senate joint resolution, the modified text of which is Senate amendment No. 9 filed yesterday to Senate Joint Resolution 1 regarding campaign financing. I further ask that no amendments or motions be in order during the pendency of the Hollings constitutional amendment, and following the conclusion of the debate, the joint resolution be read a third time and a vote occur on passage of the joint resolution, with the preceding occurring without any intervening action. Before the Chair puts this consent request to the body, it has been pointed out to me by Senator McCain that this consent is for a constitutional amendment regarding campaign spending limits. There are other campaign-related issues that may be pending in the Senate committees that do not amend the Constitution but are statutory language. So this is not to be in place of or in any way block other consideration, or to indicate that there will not be hearings and further consideration of this matter. But Senator Hollings agreed to this arrangement so that it would not be a part of or relate to the consideration of the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Senator McCain agreed that it be done this way. It has taken the cooperation of both of them and of all the Senators. This is an important issue which should be brought up freestanding with a reasonable amount of time for discussion. I have indicated to Senator Hollings that, if it takes a couple of days or so, we will be prepared to do that. I think that is about what it would take, but if it takes 2 days and 2 hours, I do not know of anyone who would object to that. But it should be a very interesting debate. So I now make that request, Mr. President.

Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I just had a discussion with the Democratic leader with respect to the pending balanced budget constitutional amendment. This agreement would allow the Senate to conclude the matter on Tuesday, March 4. Having said that, I now will propound a unanimous consent for final disposition of the constitutional amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the time between 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday and 12:30 be equally divided between the two managers for closing remarks on Senate Joint Resolution 1. I further ask that, at 2:15 on Tuesday, there be 1 hour under the control of the manager on the Democratic side of the aisle, with the first 20 minutes under the control of Senator Byrd, to be followed by the next hour under the control of Senator Hatch, to be followed by the next 30 minutes under control of Senator Daschle, or his designee, with the final 30 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee. I further ask that following the conclusion or yielding back of time, a vote occur on the passage of S.J. Res. 1 at 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday, and that paragraph 4 of rule XII be waived and all occur without intervening action.

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could just comment on the Democratic leader's comments of a moment ago. First of all, I think we have had a good and full debate on this issue. I said from the beginning that I hoped we would do that, and that it would be a thoughtful and provocative debate that would cause Members to think seriously about this issue. I think that has happened. There has been some suggestion that we put it off, and I thought about that. If there were some reason to do that, I would be willing to delay it further. But I think we should be ready to vote. We have had amendments and the debate, and we would be prepared to do that, then, on Tuesday under this agreement. But, as always is the case, we need to be aware of and respectful of extenuating circumstances beyond our control. I will join the Democratic leader in moving the vote to the next morning, or whatever, if we have that need, based on a genuine illness or family problem that could not be avoided.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that in the event a motion to reconsider the final passage vote is entered, and the motion to proceed and the motion to reconsider are agreed to, then at that time Senate Joint Resolution 1 be debatable.

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, with my apologies to the Senator from Pennsylvania, was there anything I needed to respond to at this juncture, or would you like to go ahead with the unanimous-consent request?

Mr. LOTT

Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LOTT. I now ask for its second reading, and I object to my own request on behalf of Senators on the Democratic side of the aisle.