Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to ask the distinguished managers of the bill if they would consider a request I have concerning the conference. Knowing the great difficulty they faced in reporting a bill that would not exceed this year's stringent budget caps, I was not too surprised to see that they were not able to provide funding for New York University's Center for Cognition, Learning, Emotion, and Memory, or CLEM, in the bill. However, I do hope that funding for CLEM can be found in conference. CLEM can help educators, physicians and other health care givers, policymakers, and the general public by enhancing our understanding of normal brain development as well as the many disabilities, disorders, and diseases that erode our ability to learn and think, to remember, and to emote appropriately. CLEM focuses on research and training in the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms that underlie learning and memory--the acquisition and storage of information in the nervous system. Current studies by the faculty at NYU are determining why fear can facilitate memory; how memory can be enhanced; what conditions facilitate long- term and short-term memory; and where in the brain all these memories are processed and stored. The Center for Cognition, Learning, Emotion and Memory will draw on the University's strengths in the fields of neural science, biology, chemistry, psychology, computer science, and linguistics to push the frontiers of our understanding of how the brain develops, functions, malfunctions, matures, and ages. NYU researchers bring substantial strength in psychological testing, computational sophistication, advanced tissues staining and electrical problems, and humane animal conditions. These core facilities are well regarded by their peers and together have been awarded a total of $7 million from federal agencies and private foundations for their research. Also, the University is presently recruiting additional faculty in other areas of memory and learning specialization. As a major training institute, the Center will help prepare the next generation of interdisciplinary brain scientists. I believe that the work of this Center is an appropriate focus for the Department of Veterans Affairs because research into how cognition and emotion interact can have applicability to other diverse areas of interest. For example, in understanding maladaptive responses and emotional disorders, researchers are better able to understand and treat phobias, panic attacks, and post-traumatic stress disorders. In addition, research into the learning process as it relates to attention and retention will lead to insights on mental losses and the decay of memory. Similarly, research at the center could prove most valuable to the EPA in its efforts to learn about and prevent the effects of toxic substances on man and animals. Mr. President, funding for New York University in this bill would be entirely appropriate under VA, EPW, or as an item in the EDI account. It would be money well spent. I ask the distinguished managers if they will consider providing $1 million for NYU.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank both my distinguished colleagues for their cooperation. national science foundation

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to thank the Senate for its good judgment in confirming Judge Naomi Buchwald for Appointment to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. After working in private practice and in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Judge Buchwald became a Magistrate Judge in the Southern District. She has served with distinction in that position for nearly two decades. Her extensive experience in the court's rules and procedures will make her a splendid United States District Court Judge in the Southern District. I thank the distinguished Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Hatch, and the distinguished Ranking Member, Senator Leahy; I also thank our leaders, Mr. Lott and Mr. Daschle, and my colleague, Senator Schumer. Judge Buchwald's confirmation is a fine result for the State of New York and for the judiciary.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to thank the Senate for its fine judgment in confirming Judge David Hurd for Appointment to the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. I thank Senator Hatch, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, the Ranking Member; I also thank Mr. Lott, Mr. Daschle, and my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer. This is a great result for New York and for the judiciary. A veteran and skilled private practitioner, who tried both civil and criminal cases for more than twenty-five years, Judge Hurd became a Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of New York in 1991. He has served with distinction for the past eight years in that position. His experience on the bench and in private practice before that has provided him with a complete familiarity with the practices and rules of the Northern District. Judge Hurd will be a superb United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of New York.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to celebrate the life of Frederick P. Rose who died last week at the fine age of seventy-five, after a life that enhanced the lives of so many others. He was, of course, a member of the celebrated Rose family which rose, if you like (and he would have done!) with New York City itself, ever upwards and onwards. His craft was building--he was a graduate engineer--his art was friendship, but his genius lay in the way he would use his own wealth and epic energies to engage the support of legions of friends in the widest range of civic enterprise. The range was exceptional, from the New York Public Library, to the American Museum of Natural History, to Yale University. As his richly-detailed obituary in The New York Times records, most often his gifts were anonymous, although eventually most were known, for how could we not notice how things changed around him. He was for all this rather a private person, devoted to family, his wife Sandra, their children and grandchildren, his brothers Daniel and Elihu. These and also the musicians and chess players and plain fun- loving folk with whom he cavorted through three-quarter's century of the life of New York with a grace rarely imagined and yet more rarely attained. We whom he leaves behind take consolation in Yeats' lines: Think where man's glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends. I ask unanimous consent to have his full obituary printed in the Record. The obituary follows: [From the New York Times, Sept. 16, 1999] Frederick P. Rose, 2d-Generation Builder and a Major Philanthropist, Is Dead at 75 (By Charles V. Bagli) Frederick P. Rose, a highly successful builder who poured his energy into two dozen major apartment projects and an equal number of institutions that adorn the New York skyline, from Lincoln Center to Rockefeller University and the Children's Aid Society, died Tuesday night. He was 75. He died at his home in Rye, N.Y., after a brief illness, his family said. A second-generation member of a New York real estate dynasty, Mr. Rose could be found until earlier this year supervising construction of a 50-story apartment house, the Belvedere, at 29th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. It was the latest project for Rose Associates, which owns or manages 12,000 apartments in New York and four million square feet of commercial space. At the same time, and with equal enthusiasm, he was overseeing construction of the $150 million Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History, the giant sphere that houses the new Hayden Planetarium. Mr. Rose not only wrote a $20 million check for the planetarium but also was the project leader for the trustees. ``He was a builder in every sense of the word, not just of buildings, but of institutions,'' said Ellen Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History. Over the years, Mr. Rose also donated $5 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $15 million to the New York Public Library and $18 million to Lincoln Center; in all, he gave away more than $95 million. A forceful man with a reputation for keeping his word, Mr. Rose could breeze into a meeting, as he did earlier this year with his longtime friend and partner, Charles Benenson, and within minutes size up the situation and agree to a $24 million real estate deal for land on 44th Street, near Third Avenue, for a 51-story apartment house. Mr. Rose was still building tall buildings while his nephew, Joseph B. Rose, current chairman of the New York City Planning Commission, labored to change the zoning laws to bar oversized towers in Manhattan. Although the Rose family's buildings were known more for efficiency than architectural detail, Mr. Rose was most proud of building two towers that won awards for design: the Bankers Trust Building at 280 Park Avenue, near 48th Street, and a 40-story apartment house at 45 East 89th Street. His interests ranged widely. Mr. Rose always carried a stack of foreign currency and American dollar bills, which he would fold into intricate origami figures of birds, cows and walruses and present to his delighted friends. At the end of a stuffy board meeting at Lincoln Center, Mr. Rose would often stroll over to a piano and play a few songs for the amusement of the other directors. He played golf up to four times a week and, last year hired a national chess champion to sharpen his skills. Mr. Benenson, who had been a partner in many of Mr. Rose's real estate deals since the early 1960's, said he called his friend two months ago, suggesting that they raise $100,000 from each of 10 people for the refugees in Kosovo. The next day, Mr. Benenson recalled, the developer called back and said, ``O.K., we'll do it through the American Jewish Committee, because we want to show the world that Jewish people are helping Muslims.'' ``Two or three days later,'' Mr. Benenson concluded, ``we had $1.4 million.'' An engineer by training, Mr. Rose wrote in a 1994 journal commemorating the 50th anniversary of his graduation from Yale University that the central focus of his life had been his family. He wrote that he had been on the boards of 35 organizations, from Con Edison to Yale University. He took pride in being a builder. Finally, he wrote: ``I don't read trash, watch TV or have an interest in spectator sports. This leaves time for active participation in things I enjoy: music, chess, tennis, golf, travel, skiing and friendship.'' Mr. Rose's insistence on providing advice and hiring consultants for projects to which he had contributed sometimes rankled other developers, but institutions and their directors embraced him. Until recently, Mr. Rose was chairman of the real estate company started by his father, Samuel B. Rose, and his uncle, David Rose, in the Bronx around the time he was born, in 1923. The two brothers built small apartment houses in the Bronx before moving into Manhattan a decade later. Samuel had three sons, Daniel, Elihu and Frederick, all of whom joined the company after World War II. Frederick's son, Adam, is now president of Rose Associates. Mr. Rose married his teen-age sweetheart, Sandra Priest of Rye, in the early 1940's. She survives him, along with a daughter, Deborah Rose; two sons, Jonathan F. P. Rose and Adam R. Rose, both of New York; two brothers, Daniel and Elihu, and three grandchildren, Ariel, Rachael and Sarah. Mr. Rose served in the construction battalions of the Navy Seabees during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant before he returned to New York and Rose Associates. He took charge of design and construction, while Daniel did the planning and finances and Elihu took over management of the family's apartment houses. Mr. Rose built more than 2,000 units of middle-income housing under the state's Mitchell-Lama program, as well as the family's first office tower, at 280 Park Avenue. But unlike some developers who showed up in the gossip columns during the 1980's and 1990's, Mr. Rose and his family avoided publicity. He usually contributed money to charities anonymously, and word of the donations rarely leaked out until years later. ``He built good-quality housing and he was devoted to community service,'' said Robert I. Shapiro, a real estate broker who knew Mr. Rose. A longtime opponent of rent control, Mr. Rose converted more than 3,000 apartments in Manhattan during the early 1990's to condominiums and co-ops. Many people in the industry thought it was a risky move, given the recession. But unlike many landlords at the time who were struggling with enormous loans, the Rose family had buildings that were largely free of debt, and the conversion went off without a hitch. ``He secretly believed he was the finest construction superintendent in the city,'' said his brother Daniel, who is now chairman of Rose Associates. ``He liked to kick the bricks.'' Mr. Rose applied the same energy enthusiasm and discipline to his philanthropic work as his professional work, his brother said. When Mr. Rose, along with his wife, gave $15 million to Lincoln Center, he also helped engineer the construction of the Rose Building, a 31-story tower that houses rehearsal space and dormitories for the Juilliard School of Music and offices for the School of American Ballet and the New York Philharmonic. ``He had a mercurial mind and it was fun trying to keep up with him,'' said Beverly Sills, the chairwoman of Lincoln Center. ``He was a man of the world in every sense of the word. I'm really going to miss him.''

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to note briefly the union of two talented and beloved people, Mr. Patrick John McGonigle and Miss Jennifer Bravo. On this Saturday past, following a nine-year courtship begun at their alma mater, Saint Louis University, the couple were wed in resplendent fashion among friends and family in New Orleans. Mr. President, over my twenty-three years in the United States Senate, it has become increasingly acceptable to decry the loss of virtue in our young--to suggest that television, popular culture, et al., have conspired and, indeed, triumphed over American values. Anyone who knows Patrick and Jennifer and their loving families or fortunate enough to attend their beautiful ceremony would surely dispute such a view. Mr. President, I extend my sincerest congratulations to the newlyweds and wish them the greatest luck as they embark this most cherished journey.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. This is wonderful news indeed. The Institute of Museum and Library Services provides essential support to our nation's 8,000 non-Federal museums and, through a different appropriation, 120,000 libraries. It goes about its business quietly and professionally, with scant attention paid here, but the thriving condition of our museums provides ample evidence of its competence and importance. I think, perhaps, we have turned the corner on Federal support for the arts and humanities, for culture. The chairman deserves much of the credit and an enormous debt of gratitude for his unwavering support for the NEA, NEH, and IMLS and for steadily shepherding their appropriations during these past few, difficult years. Federal Museum Collections at the Utah Museum of Natural History

Mr. MOYNIHAN. As the chairman knows, several of us--Senators Warner, Bennett, Cochran, Jeffords, Reed, and Kennedy, among others--support the House-passed funding level for IMLS, and contemplated offering an amendment here on the floor to achieve it.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I want to commend the chairman for the excellent job he has done under difficult circumstances in providing funding for our cultural agencies--the National Endowments for the Arts (NEA) and the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I was pleased to co-sponsor those amendments. I think we have done well by those two agencies. Now, as I understand it, the House of Representatives appropriated $24.400 million for IMLS.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Murray B. Light will end his career in journalism on September 19th, the 50th anniversary of his first day at The Buffalo News. Throughout his long and outstanding tenure at The News, he has had a profound influence on Buffalo and Western New York. He will be greatly missed. Murray and I have been friends for many years. On one occasion, during my first term, Murray was kind enough to loan me his typewriter. I have a photo using it. They have long since switched to computers at The News, but I have yet to abandon my typewriter. As The Buffalo News Editor, Murray B. Light has had an honored career. Stanford Lipsey, The News President and Publisher, said ``The responsibility of editing a daily metropolitan newspaper is enormous. It involves critical and complex decisions made against stressful deadlines. Murray Light never faltered in his courage, principles or judgment. He has left his mark on this newspaper and the entire community. It has been both stimulating and satisfying to have worked with him these past 20 years.'' I have long admired Murray's aggressive editorial style. Nearly 20 years ago, I said that The Buffalo News and The Courier Express ``succeeded in making a not so simple point to the Congress of the United States: The leaking of hazardous chemicals at the Love Canal in Niagara Falls was not an isolated event but indeed the ominous warning of a national epidemic.'' This couldn't have been more right. They made the case for immediate passage of the Superfund Bill in 1980 and many more since then. As I was often a guest of The Buffalo News at the annual Gridiron dinner, I had many opportunities to speak with Murray about our common concern of preserving Buffalo's architecture and historic buildings. Murray made efforts to secure funding for the Darwin Martin House. He also made outstanding contributions to save Louis Sullivan's marvelous Guaranty Building, surely the world's first skyscraper, and to the renovation of Kleinhans Music Hall. My Buffalo office is in the Guaranty Building. Saving it from destruction is one of my greatest achievements as a senator. Murray is a patriot having served in the Army in World War II as part of the Pacific force. Thanks to the assistance of the GI Bill of Rights, he did graduate work at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and earned a master's degree in 1949. He also was a member of the State Judicial Screening Committee for the Fourth Department and the State Fair Trial Free Press Conference. At the request of Gov. Mario Cuomo, he served on the New York State Temporary Commission on Constitutional Revision in 1994. A native of Brooklyn and a graduate of Brooklyn college, Murray came to Buffalo in 1949 as a reporter. While at The Buffalo News, he worked as a copy editor, assistant city editor, assistant news editor, swing editor, makeup editor and news editor, and managing editor. Thirty years after he began working for The News, Warren E. Buffett named him editor and vice president. He became senior vice president in 1983. Murray and his wife of 45 years, Joan, have three children. In a letter to Murray, Warren Buffett wrote: ``From both a professional and a personal standpoint, you are the perfect person to be editor of The Buffalo News. I've always considered myself very lucky in having you there when I arrived in 1977.'' Mr. President, in this spirit, I ask that Edward Cuddihy's article from The Buffalo News, be printed in the Record. The article follows. [From The Buffalo News, August 9, 1999] Light to Retire as Editor After 50 Years at News (By Edward Cuddihy) Buffalo News Editor Murray B. Light, the only editor most of his newsroom staff members have ever worked for in Buffalo, announced Sunday that he will retire Sept. 19, ending an illustrious journalism career at The Buffalo News that spans a half-century. Light, who also is senior vice president of The News, made the announcement ``his way,'' not before a gathering of the public officials and civic leaders he has worked with for the past 30 years, but before about 1,200 fellow workers and their families at an employee appreciation picnic, amid the smell of hot dogs and the sounds of children. Light's announcement came immediately after he was honored by News President and Publisher Stanford Lipsey on the upcoming 50th anniversary of Light's first day at The News. The actual date of that anniversary is Sept. 19, the day Light has chosen as his last day at The News. In brief remarks, Lipsey said of Light: ``The responsibility of editing a daily metropolitan newspaper is enormous. It involves critical and complex decisions made against stressful deadlines. Murray Light never faltered in his courage, principles or judgment. ``He has left his mark on this newspaper and the entire community. It has been both stimulating and satisfying to have worked with him these past 20 years.'' Light's newsroom leadership began in 1969, the day this feisty young news editor was named managing editor for news. Since then, he set both the tone of the newspaper and the news agenda for the community. During the past 30 years, Light has been on a first-name basis with governors, senators, congressmen, state legislative leaders, mayors, county executives and anyone else who might have, or wanted to have, an influence on Buffalo and Western New York. Light's three all-consuming concerns have been The Buffalo News, which he recently described to one colleague as ``my life,'' the City of Buffalo, his adopted hometown, and his newsroom staff with whom he agonized over the paper's failures as much as he gloried in its many triumphs. Among those triumphs were the launching of the Sunday News, which he describes as ``the most exhilarating challenge of my entire career''; the creation of the popular weekly entertainment section Gusto; and the development of the Sunrise Edition, which made The News one of the nation's all-day newspapers. Light has been comfortable taking part in every aspect of the newspaper, whether it be his daily attendance at the Editorial Board meetings, where the newspaper's editorial page policy is developed, or his choosing of comics and puzzles for the back pages. No matter what part of the newspaper he dealt with, his news instincts, often initially seen by his colleagues as a quick shot straight from the hip, usually proved impeccable. For example, Light's idea for Gusto initially was rejected by many as impractical and unnecessary. But Light persisted, and a generation later, nearly every metropolitan newspaper in the country has a section like Gusto, which proved to be popular beyond his imagination. Light has been directing the morning and evening news meetings at which the editors decide which stories will be played on the front page since those meetings were initiated at The News 15 years ago. At times, an informal vote is taken on what editors describe as ``a close call,'' but everyone around the table knows that only the single ballot at the head of the table counts. Light, who will be 73 in October, runs the newsroom by the sheer force of his dominant personality. His enthusiasm for every detail, large or small, has been a hallmark of his career. He once told the story of his teen-age job in Brooklyn, operating a machine that inserted three pennies change into cigarette packs for vending machines. ``No job is ever too small to demand your attention,'' he told young editors, adding with a smile that he nearly knocked his finger off when he let his concentration drift for a moment. Only the fourth person to hold the title of editor at this newspaper during the 20th century, Light came to Buffalo and The News as a reporter in 1949. A native of Brooklyn, his first newspaper job was as campus correspondent for the old Brooklyn Eagle while he was earning his bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College. He enlisted in the Army and was part of the force in the Pacific being readied for an invasion of Japan, a force that this country never needed to utilize. After his return, he did graduate work at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University under the GI Bill of Rights and earned a master's degree in 1949. During his brief stint as a copy editor at the old New York World-Telegram, Light was hired by the legendary editor of The News, Alfred H. Kirchhofer, a man whom Light quotes to this day with the degree of respect and loyalty he has expected from his employees. Light worked as a copy editor, assistant city editor, assistant news editor, swing editor, makeup editor and news editor before being named managing editor for news in June 1969. In October 1979, Light was named editor and vice president, and in 1983, he was named senior vice president. Light recalls that in 1977, when investor Warren E. Buffett purchased The News, the amiable billionaire from Omaha, Neb., told Light he would never interfere in newsroom operations. ``And to this day, he has lived up to that pledge one hundred percent,'' Light said. Among his memorabilia of 50 years is a carefully folded letter Light received from the chairman of The Buffalo News just prior to Light's 70th birthday. Buffett wrote: ``From both a professional and a personal standpoint, you are the perfect person to be editor of The Buffalo News. I've always considered myself very lucky in having you there when I arrived in 1977.'' During Light's watch as managing editor and editor, he saw the transformation of American newsrooms from manual typewriters to word processors, and in the mid-80s, when many of his younger colleagues were balking at giving up their typewriters for computers, Light insisted that he be among the first to turn in his trusty Royal for the new invention. Light has been characterized as an editor right out of ``The Front Page,'' a hard-nosed, often irreverent newsman, hell-bent at getting the big story on the press. He has lived through tumultuous change in American journalism, but he has not altered his fundamental views on a newspaper's relationship with its readers. Speaking to a group of advertising executives 20 years ago, Light summed up those views when he said: ``The News will not sensationalize to create a headline. We will not, through reference or emphasis, play to the emotions of a segment of our readership and in the process denigrate, dismay or demolish the reputation of a group--whether it be civic, political or ethnic * * * ``We will not use our news columns to reinforce and/or espouse the causes of our editorial page. The News wants to sell newspapers * * * but we will not attempt to do so by yielding to expediency and destroying our news integrity.'' In January 1979, Light began writing a column, ``Your Newspaper,'' in which he shared his views on the newspaper and its staff with the readers. Since then, he has written hundreds of such columns, which he keeps in a cardboard box in his office. Light said he plans to write a column for The News Sunday Viewpoints Section, starting this fall. Light held offices and holds membership in a large number of professional organizations, including past president of the New York State Society of Newspaper Editors. He also has been honored by scores of business, civic, social and charitable organizations. Never a man to court personal honors, one of his most treasured accomplishments was to be chosen by his peers to be part of the nominating jury for journalism's coveted Pulitzer Prizes, a post he held in 1990 and 1991. Light served on the advisory council to the journalism department at St. Bonaventure University and has served on the Community Advisory Council of the University at Buffalo. He is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Associated Press Managing Editors Association. He also was a member of the State Judicial Screening Committee for the Fourth Department and the State Fair Trial Free Press Conference. Gov. Mario Cuomo appointed him to the New York State Temporary Commission on Constitutional Revision in 1994. A staunch supporter of the City of Buffalo, Light and his wife of 45 years, Joan, moved from suburban Amherst in the 1970s to a home near the city's Allentown section and most recently to a condominium in the Waterfront Village community. Joan recently retired as vice president of Sovran Self Storage, Williamsville. The Lights have three children. Lee, a registered nurse with the Buffalo Red Cross Chapter; Laura, a medieval scholar on the Harvard University faculty; and Jeffrey, deputy editor of the Orange County (Calif.) Register. Light seeks to quench his life-long thirst for knowledge through reading. He recently told his colleagues, without as much as raising an eyebrow, that he reads ``about a hundred books a year, give or take a few,'' in addition to newspapers, news magazines and professional journals. In his younger years, Light would be hard-pressed to pass up a poker game, and he and Joan were regulars on the tennis court. Just 19 years ago, Light was quoted as insisting he could never share his wife's fondness for golf. But in recent years, the Lights have been regulars on the golf course at Wanakah Country Club, where they are members. And this summer, the Lights were spectators at the British Open in Carnoustie, Scotland. Murray B. Light has always had the ability to alter his view in the face of a persuasive argument made by someone he trusts--even an argument about golf.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, might I begin on a general point with which our revered chairman has just concluded, which is the reservation of the Social Security surpluses of the next decade for purposes of retiring the debt. This is a fact easily unobserved because we are not arguing about it. There is agreement here. What we will do, we will cut the national debt by more than half, the publicly held debt, and the interest costs accordingly. Just a few years ago interest costs had become the third highest item in our budget. It is not noticed because we don't debate it. We don't decide how much we will pay in interest costs; it is automatic. But this has now happened. There has been a great recovery of American Government finances from a grim moment in 1992 when we had a fiscal year with a $290 billion deficit. I will point simply to this morning's New York Times and the lead story, sir. I will just read the headline, ``Government Plans to Buy Back Bonds and Save Interest: Would retire some debt using the surplus to replace high-interest securities at lower rates''--a complex proposal being worked out in Treasury under Secretary Summers. Also, in the business section of this morning's New York Times, there is another story, ``The Dwindling Market in U.S. Treasury Bonds,'' discussing how the market is going to respond to the bond buy back. And there is this: ``This is a sea change,'' said James M. Keller, senior vice president and portfolio manager for Treasury securities at Pimco Advisors, an asset management firm. ``I was struck by the Treasury's observation that the last time there were two back-to-back years of budget surpluses was in 1956 and 1957. I wasn't alive then, so this is a new thing for me.'' Indeed, it is a new thing and hugely to be welcomed. I might also say that the chairman stated that this bill, which we will vote on at 7:06 this evening, is a clean bill; there is no provision in it that was not in either the House or the Senate proposals. But now I have to say to the Senate, with the utmost deference to my friend--I say to the Senators from Nebraska, Florida, Minnesota, Senator Bingaman--we have the word of the chairman, and his word is absolutely bondable in this body. If he says it, it is so. But that is the only way you would know it is so because we just received a copy of the bill this morning, and certainly have not been able to review all 589 pages. This is not the way to handle the second largest tax decrease in history. There was no conference on this matter. We met formally for 20 minutes, and the negotiation was entirely between party leaders of the majority. It is an age-old practice of the Congress to, at the end of a conference, distribute the signature papers that the conferees sign or do not sign. I was the conferee for this side of the aisle; no signature paper came to me. There was no participation of any kind from this side of the aisle. I think that would be true in the House as well as in the Senate. That is something we have to watch in terms of our procedures. It was not the way the Senate conducted itself in such a matter when I first came here and became a member of the Finance Committee. During the debate last week on the Senate version of the reconciliation bill, I attempted to put the debate in a ``doctrinal perspective,'' as I put it. I traced the development from the 1960s of an intellectual movement which holds that the only way to restrain the growth of Government is to deliberately create a protracted fiscal crisis. This was disarmingly put by then President-elect Reagan. It was just 16 days before his inauguration in 1981. He said: There were always those who told us that taxes couldn't be cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know, we can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath. Or we can cut their extravagance by simply reducing their allowance. So in 1981 to 1983, the allowance of the Federal Government was reduced. While other intervening events--a sharp recession in 1981-82-- impacted on revenues, nonetheless, there was a precipitous drop in revenues from 19.0 percent of GDP in 1980 to 17.5 percent of GDP in 1983. Simultaneously, the recession and defense buildup conspired to increase outlays from 20.2 percent of GDP in 1979 to 23.6 in 1983. The result, a huge gap--6 percent of GDP--between revenues and outlays, and deficits of $200 billion or more ``as far as the eye could see,'' to quote the former Director of OMB, David Stockman, and with this huge gap, the national debt quadrupled from under $1 trillion to $4 trillion between 1980 and 1992. In August of 1993, with a deficit of $290 billion, we chose to confront that, to raise taxes and reduce outlays by a little more than a half trillion dollars. More recently, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that ``the total deficit reduction has been more than twice this--$1.2 trillion.'' In 1997, a bipartisan measure was passed. We are now in a situation of reasonable surplus, reasonable expectation. But there is no reason to act on a surplus that does not yet exist. Here we are, with unemployment at 4.3 percent, near zero inflation, real economic growth at 4 percent, and an economy in the ninth year of an expansion. All the economists--the ones we care much about--are saying: Not now. Alan Greenspan suggested, speaking before the Senate and House Banking Committees just last month, the most effective means that we can have to regenerate the economy and keep the long-term growth path moving higher is if we hold tax cuts until we need a stimulus. Contrariwise, to stimulate when you don't need it is to invite inflation--inflation, which is a tax on anyone when interest rates go up. Anybody who pays a car loan and has a credit card or a mortgage pays it. Dale Jorgenson described this persistent interest in cutting down the size of Government by reducing revenue ``fiscal disaster'' in his 1995 testimony before the Finance Committee. Yet it persists as a conviction. There is very little testing of the proposition. I won't go on too long in this doctrinal discourse, but back in 1973, Herbert Kaufman of the Brookings Institution published a small book called ``Are Government Organizations Immortal?'' He reported that of 175 organizations he could identify in the Federal Government in 1923, no less than 148 were still there a half century later, and of the others, most of their functions had just been moved to different organizations. Recently, the Cato Institute, a conservative group here in Washington, looked at the half dozen organizations which the 1995 House Contract With America targeted for extinction--$75 billion worth of programs, out. Sir, not one of them is out. Indeed, the appropriations for them have gone up by $2 billion. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table prepared by the Cato Institute and printed in the Washington Post be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I hope we have listened carefully to what the Senator from Louisiana has said. He is generous and optimistic, and it might just turn out to be true. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I point out that 80 percent of non-retired American adults pay more in Social Security taxes than income taxes. That is a point we are not dealing with much. I have the honor and privilege to yield 5 minutes to my friend from Louisiana.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I have the great pleasure to yield 10 minutes to my good friend and colleague on the Finance Committee, the Senator from Montana.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Of course.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from New Jersey on a forceful argument. I now have the pleasure to yield 10 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota and 10 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask there be printed in the Record a statement ``Sequester Impact of Tax Bill,'' prepared today by the Office of Management and Budget. I will read two sentences: Beginning in 2002, Medicare would be cut by 4 percent each year. * * * In 2002, the $28 billion cut in mandatory savings resulting from a sequester would still be $6 billion less than the cost of the tax bill.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I believe we have yielded back the remainder of our time.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I say to my friend from Massachusetts that the Office of Management and Budget has computed exactly what those sequesters would be, and they are horrendous.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield back such time as remains. Mr. President, would you believe there is one more Republican speaker?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we now have a sense of why the Senator from Montana is an appreciated treasure in this body. Now I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Massachusetts.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Of course, 2 minutes because we are running down on time.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I reverse my request.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill that would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to purchase the Hunt House in Seneca Falls, New York. This summer the owners of the Hunt House put it on the market for $139,000. Of four historic buildings in Seneca Falls that should be part of the Women's Rights National Historical Park, the Hunt House is the only one that is not. It was the site of the gathering of five women (the founding mothers, you might say) who decided to hold the nation's first women's rights convention. That convention took place in Seneca Falls in July, 1848. The Women's Rights Park is a monument to the idea they espoused that summer, that women should have equal right with men; one of the most influential ideas of the last 150 years. Adding the Hunt House to the Park would complete it. The problem is that the Department was not given the authorization to purchase the Hunt House in the bill I offered 20 years ago so that speculation would not drive up the price of the house when it eventually went on the market. That worked. But now the lack of an authorization should not keep us from being able to acquire the house at all. This bill simply removes the restriction against a fee simple purchase by the Park Service. I hope my colleagues will offer their support, and I ask that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. The bill follows: