Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on Saturday, February 1, Wilcomb Washburn, a champion of unfashionable truths and a scholar in the truest sense of the word, died here in Washington. He had retired as director of the Smithsonian's American Studies Program exactly a month before, on January 1, after almost 40 years at the institution. He was 72 years old. He remained dedicated, most especially, to the integrity of academic life and to keeping the spirit of free inquiry from being compromised by politics. Perhaps more than anyone else, he recognized the grave threat posed by the politicization of scholarly professional associations. Last year I had the honor to present him with the National Association of Scholars' Sidney Hook Award in recognition of his work. In his acceptance speech, he quoted the sociologist James Coleman, the first recipient of the Hook Award: ``The greatest enemies of academic freedom in the university are the norms that exist about what kinds of questions may be raised in research.'' Coleman was nearly expelled from the American Sociological Association for his findings on the effect of home and neighborhood environment on learning. Wilcomb Washburn had a vision of the academy as a place that would live up to the ideal of the open society in which no claims on truth are more privileged than others. As he said in his acceptance speech that day ``let us hope that those who have chosen to speak truth to power rather than power to truth will prevail.'' Wilcomb Washburn was also a U.S. Marine, serving in both World War II and Korea. As both a scholar and a soldier, he combined the exacting rigor of the former with the tenacity of the latter to attack, often singlehandedly, the bastions of irrationality. We honor his life and mourn his passing. Mr. President, I ask that the obituary from the Washington Post of February 2 be printed in the Record. The obiturary follows: [From the Washington Post, Feb. 2, 1997] Wilcomb Washburn, Smithsonian Official, Dies Wilcomb Edward Washburn, 72 a retired American studies program director of the Smithsonian Institution, past president of what is now the Historical Society of Washington and teacher of history at three area universities, died of prostate cancer Feb. 1 at his home in Washington. He also had a home in Princess Anne, Md. He came to Washington and joined the Smithsonian in 1958 as acting curator of its political history division. From 1965 to 1968, he was chairman of the American studies department of the National Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American History. In 1968, he became the Smithsonian's American studies program director, a post he held until retiring on Jan. 1, 1997. He was president of the Historical Society of Washington from 1976 to 1980. He was a past national president of the American Society for Ethnohistory, the American Studies Association and the Society for the History of Discoveries. He had been an advisory editor of ``Terrae Incognitae,'' the annals of the Society of American Historians, and had served on the commandant's advisory committee on Marine Corps history. Over the years, while working for the Smithsonian, he had taught at the University of Maryland and at George Washington and American universities. He also wrote six books on subjects such as Colonial history, anthropology, architecture and museums. He was the recipient of three honorary degrees as well as the National Association of Scholars' Sidney Hook Memorial Award. Dr. Washburn was born in Kansas and raised in New Hampshire. He was a 1948 summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, where he also was elected to Phi Beta kappa. He received his doctorate in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. He served with the Marine Corps as a Japanese language officer in World War II and served on active duty again during the Korean War. He retired from the reserve as a colonel. Before coming to Washington, he had been an information and education officer with the military government in Japan and spent a year as a teaching fellow in history and literature at Harvard. From 1955 to 1958, he served on the history faculty of the College of William and Mary. His marriage to Lelia Kanavarioti Washington ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Katheryn Cousins Washburn, of Washington and Princess Anne; a son from his first marriage, Alexandros E., of New York; a brother, John, of Baltimore; and two granddaughters.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, though perhaps most Americans outside the world of art will not readily recognize the name of Lawrence Fleischman, they will know his legacy. Before he died last week at 71, his extraordinary contribution to the Nation's major museums ensured that his name will live on, along with the magnificent artistic treasures he and his family so generously donated. As an art dealer, he was, by any measure, a success. But his refreshingly modest attitude toward the worldly goods he accumulated bears repeating. Many of these were priceless antiquities from ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. If I may quote from the New York Times obituary: ``No one owns a work of art,'' he said. ``You're the custodian of it for the future. You take care of it, you have the pleasure of living with it, and then you pass it on. It is our hope that we leave it to the public.'' Here in Washington, he helped establish the Archives of American Art, a wonderful research resource of the Smithsonian Institution. In New York, the Lawrence A. and Barbara Fleischman Gallery of American Art will stand as long as the Metropolitan Museum stands, as well as the three other galleries the couple so thoughtfully supported. He has also promised the New York Public Library a substantial gift. In short, Lawrence Fleischman was a philanthropist, a word with a distinctly archaic ring to it. But in an age of private wealth and public stringency, it is a word we need to hear much more often.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Sidney W. Dean was a man devoted at once to the public and to the private. Before he passed away last month at the age of 91, he had worked for 41 years toward the cause of good government in New York, while at the same time becoming one of the city's strongest advocates of free speech and the right to privacy. He will doubtless be remembered as longtime trustee, president, and chairman of the City Club of New York, but perhaps as much so as an advocate of using the emerging technology of cable television as a way for those who are poor and ignored to be seen--and heard. Long before most others, he saw the potential power of television pressing the city to require cable companies to provide public access channels. He met with some success, though perhaps not exactly what he had envisioned. Few things turn out that way. His devotion to free speech was instilled in him by his father, a newspaper editor. A member of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Democratic Action, he took up the cause, helping to keep New York what it has always been: the center of the world of ideas and the free exchange of information. I ask that the full text of the New York Times obituary of February 3 be included in the Record. The obituary follows: [From the New York Times, Feb. 3, 1997] Sidney W. Dean Is Dead at 91; Served as Trustee of City Club (By David Cay Johnston) Sidney W. Dean Jr., a longtime trustee of the City Club of New York and a strong advocate of free speech who fought for years to make cable television a positive force for the city, died on Jan. 24 at his Greenwich Village apartment. He was 91 and died after suffering a stroke, his wife, Eugenia, said. Mr. Dean was an advertising and marketing executive who in 1952 became a trustee of the City Club of New York, the city's oldest good-government organization. For the next 41 years he used his roles as trustee, president and chairman of the City Club, as well as volunteer positions with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Democratic Action, to argue for municipal policies favoring free speech. ``He was on the forefront of telling us about the privacy and First Amendment issues and teaching us about communications and communications technologies,'' said Amy Isacs, national president of Americans for Democratic Action. In 1970, when cable television franchises were first being proposed for New York City, Mr. Dean began pressing the city to require numerous public access channels and to prevent cable operators from having any financial interest in programs or channels they carry. ``So long as cable systems can control their content they will attempt to deny market access to all other producers and distributors of print and electronic communications,'' Mr. Dean wrote in a 1973 letter to The New York Times. Such issues persist today as Rupert Murdoch tries to get his new 24-hour news channel onto the cable system operated by Time Warner, his rival in the news and entertainment business and the owner of CNN. Today Time Warner owns many of the channels on its system and so does Cablevision, the other cable franchise holder in the city. In 1980 Mr. Dean criticized the city's process for awarding cable television franchises as a ``blind man's bluff- purchasing agent act'' in which the city was ``settling for too little from the cable companies.'' He said that nothing in the city's franchise award plans ``holds out any hope of cable reaching out to the poor, ghettoized and handicapped.'' Today, fewer than half the households in the city subscribe. During the debates over awarding cable franchises, Mr. Dean was once invited to a private meeting of city officials and representatives of the franchise seekers, but declined. ``I will never go into a backroom discussion,'' he told Sally Goodgold, another City Club trustee. Mr. Dean was the son of a Boston newspaper editor who constantly preached the First Amendment's virtues to his son. After graduating from Yale University in 1926, Mr. Dean joined J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency, and later worked with other marketing companies. During World War II, as an Army Air Force officer, he analyzed photographs of bomb damage. He volunteered to fly on some bombing runs because he felt it would make his analysis more accurate, his friend Peter Stanford said. Mr. Dean is survived by his wife and a son, Ronald Stowe, who lives in the Philippines.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we now have a consensus that the year 2000 is going to arrive before the Federal Government has prepared its computers for the date. Yesterday, in a hearing held by my esteemed colleague Representative Stephen Horn, officials from the General Accounting Office [GAO] warned that many of the Government's computers will stop working in 2000 because agencies have failed to take the appropriate precautions. Joel Willemsen, GAO's Director of Information Resources Management, warned: ``There is a high probability there will be some failures.'' Though widely pronounced in small circles for a year now, this fact is now being heralded by the General Accounting Office--Congress' dutiful investigative arm. To its credit GAO has added the year 2000 problem to its list of ``High Risk Government Programs;'' promised to report periodically on the status of the agencies' responses; asked agencies to focus on their most critical computer systems; and now, has warned that we must be prepared for some amount of failure. Are we ready for failure? In Medicare payments? In our air traffic control system? In our national defense system? We must act, and place responsibility in a body to ensure compliance. My bill, S. 22, would set up a commission to do just that. I can only hope that my colleagues and the leaders of the executive agencies take heed of GAO's warnings of probable failure. I ask that an article from today's Washington Post entitled ``Double Zero Will Arrive Before the Fix'' be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the Washington Post, Feb. 25, 1997] Double Zero Will Arrive Before the Fix GAO Says Reprogramming Some Computers for 2000 Is Running Late (By Rajiv Chandrasekaran) The General Accounting Office warned for the first time yesterday that some of the government's computers will stop working in 2000 because agencies will not be able to finish reprogramming their equipment to understand years that do not begin with ``19.'' ``There is a high probability there will be some failures,'' Joel Willemssen, the GAO's director of information resources management, told a House subcommittee. He urged government agencies to focus their efforts on the country's most critical computer systems, including those that handle air traffic control, Medicare and national defense. Many large computer systems use a two-digit, year-dating system that assumes 1 and 9 are the first two digits of the year. If not reprogrammed, those computers will think the year 2000--or 00--actually is 1900, a glitch that could cripple many systems or lead them to generate erroneous data. It's a particularly serious problem for the federal government, experts said, because most agencies have older computers that use the two-digit system. Earlier this month, the GAO, the watchdog arm of Congress, added the ``Year 2000 problem'' to its list of high-risk issues facing the nation. The GAO does not have any estimates on how many computers-- or which systems--might fail in 2000. Although every Cabinet department has told the Office of Management and Budget that it is aware of the complicated and costly process of fixing its computers, some congressional leaders yesterday questioned whether the agencies were moving fast enough and have allotted enough money to make the changes in time. Some agencies still are studying--and have not yet begun actually reprogramming--their systems, according to a recent OMB report. ``Only a few of them have specific, realistic plans to solve the problem before the stroke of midnight on the last day of 1999,'' said Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), chairman of the House subcommittee on government management, information and technology, who oversaw yesterday's hearing before an overflow crowd. Six departmental chief information officers testified before the panel, each trying to describe just how complex the glitch will be to fix. At the State Department, for example, chief information office Eliza McClenaghan said there are 141 programs totaling 27.7 million lines of computer code written in 17 programming languages that need to be changed. Almost half of the code cannot be reprogrammed and will have to be replaced, she said. Others highlighted the fact that many government officials only recently have become aware of the problem. ``I didn't even know there was such a thing as a year 2000 problem until August,'' said Michael P. Huerta, the acting chief information officer at the Department of Transportation, which last year was given an ``F'' by Horn for its inattention to the date issue. Horn and Rep. Thomas M. David III (R-Va.) said they were concerned that some agencies have allotted only six or seven months to test the changes to their computer systems. Yesterday the GAO recommended agencies give themselves at least a year for testing. ``They're pushing the envelope so close to D-Day,'' Horn said. The chief information officers, however, promised the subcommittee that their systems would be fixed in time. ``You can be confident we'll get the job done,'' said Emmett Paige Jr., an assistant secretary of defense. He complained that a requirement to report the department's progress regularly to the OMB, the GAO and the subcommittee ``stretches our resources [to fix the glitch] a little thinner.'' Some computer systems already are experiencing the date problem, said Keith A. Rhodes, a GAO technical director. A Defense Department contractor last month received a 97-year delinquency notice on a three-year contract due to be completed in January 2000, he said. Horn also questioned the OMB's latest cost estimate for fixing the problem, which it has pegged at about $2.3 billion. After the hearing, Horn called the figure ``way too low'' because it does not include devices such as elevators that rely on microprocessors that might need to be reprogrammed. The estimate also does not take into account higher labor costs for computer programmers as December 1999 draws closer, he said. Yesterday, some department officials stood by their estimates, while others took the opportunity to slightly revise projections. The Department of Transportation, for example, added $10 million to its estimate, raising it to about $90 million. At the Defense Department, which faces the largest problem of any federal agency, Paige said its current $1.2 billion price tag is only temporary. ``I submit that as we continue the assessment [of computer systems], that figure will continue to rise,'' Paige said.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I introduce a bill that makes a small but significant change in the hospital mortgage program and the nursing home mortgage program administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Section 242 Program, as it is known, enables HUD to guarantee to private lenders that they will not lose money on a construction loan to a hospital. If the hospital cannot make its payments, HUD will assume the mortgage. The program insures loans for renovation, modernization, and new construction, and also covers the refinancing of existing mortgages. The Section 232 program does the same for nursing home projects. In August, 1995 the portfolio included 100 projects in 18 States. It is particularly important in New York where State regulations require hospitals to secure such insurance and where construction costs are high. Further, because New York is deregulating its hospitals, in the next few years the hospitals need as much flexibility as possible, including the ability to refinance existing debt. The program will be more important than ever. Ensuring hospital mortgages may seem to be a risky venture, but this program is successful. Since 1969 it has made a net contribution to the government of $221 million through fees it charges the hospitals, and in only three years has it had a negative net cash flow. The most recent was 1991. The bill I am offering today would strengthen the program by giving HUD partial payment of claims authority. Currently, if a hospital or nursing home cannot make a mortgage payment, HUD must assume the entire mortgage at considerable cost and administrative effort. Partial payment of claims would prevent this. If, for example, a hospital owes a $10 million payment and only has $6 million available, HUD would simply provide the $4 million shortfall. There would be no requirement nor necessity of assuming the mortgage. HUD already has partial payment of claims authority in most of its other mortgage insurance programs, such as the multifamily housing program, and it works well. There is no reason for the Agency not to have this authority in the hospital and the nursing home program, and in fact it makes eminent sense. My friend and colleague, Senator D'Amato, joins me as a cosponsor of this bill. I ask my other colleagues to join us in supporting this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, in introducing a bill that would establish a commission to address the long term problems confronting the Medicare Program. In 1983, I joined with then-Senator Bob Dole as a member of the Greenspan Commission, which proposed a series of reforms and improvements in the Social Security program. Congress' ability to resolve the complex and controversial issues facing Social Security at that time were in doubt up until the last minute. In the end, it was the bipartisan nature of the Greenspan Commission that allowed Congress to agree on a solution. This year, combined tax income to the Medicare and OASDI trust funds has been less than the amount paid out of these trust funds. The trustees of the Federal hospital insurance trust fund, the independent actuaries at the Health Care Financing Administration [HCFA] and the Congressional Budget Office all agree that the HI trust fund will run out of money in the year 2001. Near-term insolvency can be resolved by reducing the rate of growth in the Medicare Program in legislation implementing the federal budget for fiscal year 1998. Yet current proposals do not address the demographic and structural factors that threaten the solvency of the Medicare Program over the longer term. Approaching changes in our Nation's demographics are well known. The so-called ``baby boom,'' consisting of individuals born between 1946 and 1964, will begin turning 65 in the year 2011. The sheer number of people in this demographic bulge will be overwhelming to the Medicare Program. At the same time, the number of people in the generations that follow is significantly smaller, such that by the year 2030 there will be only 2.2 workers for each individual over 65, and thus eligible for Medicare. In 1995 there were 3.9 workers per beneficiary. These demographic changes, combined with projected growth in program costs under its current structure, guarantee an imbalance between the amount of money we will have to pay for the program and the cost of the benefits that it is expected to cover. During the recent Presidential campaign, the Republican candidate, Bob Dole, asked if I would sit on a Medicare Commission that he wanted to set up if he were elected President. I responded that I would be happy to serve on any such commission, regardless of which candidate won the White House. In the meantime, President Clinton has also called for a bipartisan process to address the long term difficulties facing Medicare. The President's most recent call for such a process came in his State of the Union Address last week. The bipartisan bill we are introducing today will begin this process. We urge our colleagues to join this important effort.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we are now at the height of a contentious debate on whether or not Social Security payments will be made in the 21st century if we pass the balanced budget amendment. The question is moot. According to a report released yesterday by the General Accounting Office [GAO], come January 1, 2000, the ``Year 2000 Computer Problem'' will render all Social Security funds impounded. On the first day of the new millennium thousands of computer systems at the Social Security Administration as well as all the other Federal Agencies--Defense included--could malfunction. It is February 13, 1997; we have 1,051 days remaining until January 1, 2000. Not only does the Year 2000 Computer Problem render our balanced budget debate moot, but its extent and impact will have consequences unseen in history. I have introduced a bill, S. 22, that would set up a commission to address the problem. This issue should be the No. 1 priority of the Governmental Affairs Committee, and of the 105th Congress. If this matter lingers unaddressed, I can only imagine what else besides Social Security will fail in our computer-dependent society.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague and friend, Senator D'Amato, as a cosponsor of his bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Francis Albert Sinatra. Frank Sinatra is one of the most famous singers in the history of popular music. He is known as ``The Voice,'' ``Old Blue Eyes,'' and ``The Chairman of the Board.'' These nicknames attest as clearly as anything to his talent, his popular appeal, and his impact on American music. Mr. Sinatra began his career with local bands in New Jersey. He joined Harry James' band in 1939, but began to achieve his great popularity touring with Tommy Dorsey from 1940 to 1942. His solo career began in 1943 and never ceased. After conquering the musical world Mr. Sinatra began a film career that quickly earned him an academy award, in 1953, for his supporting role in ``From Here to Eternity.'' He went on to appear in some 50 movies. Mr. President, New York has no official State song. For six decades now Frank Sinatra has entertained New Yorkers in music and film. His impact has been tremendous. But more than anything else his version of ``New York, New York'' has given us cheer, enjoyment, and pride. It is certainly the unofficial song for millions. Therefore, I am delighted to cosponsor this bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Frank Sinatra. I encourage my colleagues to join us.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague and friend, Senator D'Amato, as a cosponsor of his bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Francis Albert Sinatra. Frank Sinatra is one of the most famous singers in the history of popular music. He is known as ``The Voice,'' ``Old Blue Eyes,'' and ``The Chairman of the Board.'' These nicknames attest as clearly as anything to his talent, his popular appeal, and his impact on American music. Mr. Sinatra began his career with local bands in New Jersey. He joined Harry James' band in 1939, but began to achieve his great popularity touring with Tommy Dorsey from 1940 to 1942. His solo career began in 1943 and never ceased. After conquering the musical world Mr. Sinatra began a film career that quickly earned him an academy award, in 1953, for his supporting role in ``From Here to Eternity.'' He went on to appear in some 50 movies. Mr. President, New York has no official State song. For six decades now Frank Sinatra has entertained New Yorkers in music and film. His impact has been tremendous. But more than anything else his version of ``New York, New York'' has given us cheer, enjoyment, and pride. It is certainly the unofficial song for millions. Therefore, I am delighted to cosponsor this bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Frank Sinatra. I encourage my colleagues to join us.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Good government venture.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, might I first take the opportunity to congratulate the chairman for this initiative. It is characteristic of his leadership of the Finance Committee, which is bipartisan whenever that is possible, which is factual, which seeks evidence and answers. This sense-of-the-Senate resolution recognizes the mounting evidence that, contrary to the intent of the Congress and the President, Federal tax provisions, Social Security benefits, and other Federal program benefits are being overadjusted for inflation. The resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that: * * * all cost-of-living adjustments required by statute should accurately reflect the best available estimate of changes in the cost of living. In its final report issued on December 4, 1996, the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index--the Boskin Commission concluded that: While the CPI is the best measure currently available it is not a true cost of living index. . .. The Boskin Commission concluded that the CPI overstates the cost of living in the United States by 1.1 percentage points. The Commission's findings are very much in line with the prevailing professional judgment of economists as to the size of the upward bias in the CPI. In October 1994, in a memorandum to the President entitled ``Big Choices'', then-OMB Director Alice Rivlin stated that the ``CPI may be overstated by 0.4 percent to 1.5 percent.'' And in testimony at a joint hearing of the Senate and House Budget Committees in January 1995--and reinforced in testimony last week before the Senate Committee on Finance--Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, estimated the range of plausible values at 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points. The standard objection to correcting the Consumer Price Index has been, to cite one such statement, ``The right way to adjust the CPI is to allow the experts at the BLS to continue doing their jobs and keep politics out of it.'' We now have the definitive response from Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In testimony last week before the Finance Committee, he reported that the Federal Reserve Board had made its own study of this issue and had come to roughly the same conclusions as those of the Boskin Commission. He recommended a two-track procedure. First, let the BLS improve the CPI by as much as can be done and as quickly as it can be done. And second, establish an independent national commission to correct for the remaining upward bias. He then said: There has been considerable objection that such a second track procedure would be a political fix. To the contrary, assuming zero for the remaining bias is the political fix. On this issue, we should let evidence, not politics, drive policy. To say again, to do nothing in the face of overwhelming evidence would be a political decision. Wrong-headed and shortsighted, with large long-term implications And to do nothing until we have a more precise estimate of the bias-- as if estimating changes in the cost of living is equivalent to measuring atomic weights--recalls the wise admonition of Lord John Maynard Keynes who said: It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. There is some history here. It happens that this Senator's association with the statistical system in the executive branch began over three decades ago. I was Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy and Planning in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. This was a new position in which I was nominally responsible for, inter alia, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I say nominally out of respect for the independence of that venerable institution, which as I noted earlier long predated the Department of Labor itself. The then-Commissioner of the BLS, Ewan Clague, could not have been more friendly and supportive. And so were the statisticians, who undertook to teach me to the extent I was teachable. They even shared professional confidences. And so it was that I came to have some familiarity with the field. Upon our arrival in Washington with the new administration in 1961, we had waiting for us a report on price indexes from a committee led by George J. Stigler, who later won a Nobel Prize in economics. The committee noted that: If a poll were taken of professional economists and statisticians, in all probability they would designate (and by a wide majority) the failure of the price indexes to take full account of quality changes as the most important defect in these indexes. And by almost as large a majority, they would believe that this failure introduces a systematic upward bias in the price indexes--that quality changes have on average been quality improvements. Through indexation of Federal tax brackets, Social Security, and other Federal programs, Congress and the President have undertaken to protect taxpayers and beneficiaries from the erosion of purchasing power due to inflation. Based on over 35 years of mounting evidence, it is clear that the current formulas for indexation overstate the true cost of living. Over 12 years the upward bias increases outlays and reduces revenues, for programs tied to the CPI, by a cumulative $1.07 trillion. The actuaries of the Social Security system estimate that a 1.1 percentage point correction would eliminate about two-thirds of the long-run deficit in the Social Security Program. The trust fund exhaustion date would be extended by more than 20 years, from 2029 to 2052. Somewhat more than one-half of the 1.1 percentage bias can be eliminated rather quickly if the BLS would develop a cost-of-living index [COLI] and factor into their calculations research on quality improvements. Members of the Boskin Commission think it can be done within a year. Over time, some of the remainder of the bias could be reduced by further research on measuring quality improvements. Any residual can be dealt with by an independent national commission, as suggested by the Boskin Commission and by Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan. The computational procedures that would be used by BLS for a new cost of living index [COLI] are now used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis [BEA] in the calculations of GDP and its components--consumption, investment, and so on. BEA uses a Personal Consumption Expenditures [PCE] deflator to estimate changes in real consumption. For the 12 months ended November 1996, the CPI increased by 3.3 percent. Yet over roughly the same period, the PCE deflator increased by only 2.5 percent. BEA's use, in the PCE deflator, of more up-to-date consumption patterns and of adjustments for quality, lowers the reported inflation rate by 0.8 of a percentage point relative to the CPI. And this is consistent with what you would get if BLS developed a COLI with adjustments for quality improvements; that is, it is close to the 1.1 percentage point estimate of the bias. I hope we will have broad support for this resolution on both sides of the aisle, and that we will do the Republic some good today. Mr. President, thank you for your courtesy. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on Tuesday, January 22, 1997, I introduced S. 112, the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1997. One day after its introduction, the Law Enforcement Steering Committee--a committee of 10 police associations, representing 500,000 law enforcement officers nationwide--wrote me to endorse this bill in the strongest terms. This legislation will require the Treasury Department to work with the Justice Department in order to develop uniform ballistics standards for testing the capability of ammunition to pierce police body armor. This bill will, I hope, mark my final step in a 15-year journey to ban all cop-killer bullets in America. In 1986 and 1994, Congress recognized the importance of this issue, and we passed bills that established a content-based ban on this type of ammunition. But, until we ban these bullets based on performance, rather than on their physical characteristics, policemen everywhere will remain in extreme peril. As the Law Enforcement Steering Committee wrote in their letter to me, ``This is an issue of life-or-death importance to every law enforcement officer in America.'' I have faith that my colleagues will once again recognize the crucial nature of this issue and enact S. 112 early in the 105th Congress. I ask that the full text of the Law Enforcement Steering Committee's letter be printed in the Record. The letter follows: Law Enforcement Steering Committee, Washington, DC, January 22, 1997. Hon. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Moynihan: On behalf of the Law Enforcement Steering Committee, an organization representing approximately 500,000 law enforcement officers nationwide, we write in strong support of the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1997, your legislation to require uniform ballistics standards for testing the capability of ammunition to pierce police body armor. This is an issue of life-or- death importance to every law enforcement officer in America. The existing statutory ban on armor-piercing bullets, which you wrote and successfully shepherded through Congress in 1986, and updated in 1993, has worked flawlessly for more than a decade. As you have pointed out, however, new styles of armor-piercing bullets continue to appear, making it impossible for the current content-based ban on ``cop- killer'' bullets to remain effective indefinitely. This is why we applaud your efforts to revise the law to ban any new bullets that are determined by a standardized ballistics test to have armor-piercing capability. These ``cop-killer'' rounds have no legitimate sporting use, and it is imperative to ensure that criminals do not gain access to them. Now that the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated that it is possible to develop a ban based on performance standards, we agree with you that immediate action should be taken to enact such a ban. Our members appreciate your continued attention to this issue since 1982, when you first introduced legislation to ban armor-piercing ammunition, and we hope that the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1997 will be enacted early in the 105th Congress. Sincerely, James A. Rhinebarger, Chairman, National Troopers Coalition, Chairman, LESC. Members of the Law Enforcement Steering Committee Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, Fraternal Order of Police, International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Major Cities Chiefs, National Association of Police Organizations, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, National Sheriffs' Association, National Troopers Coalition, Police Executive Research Forum, Police Foundation.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, while people in Washington and around the country celebrated the Presidential inauguration this past weekend, people in New York State observed the 1-year anniversary of an event of a very different kind--one of the worst natural disasters we have ever faced. In New York, especially upstate New York, January 19, 1996, will forever be known as the day the waters came. A combination of severe thunderstorms and melting snow led to one of the worst floods in our State's history. Forty-one of the State's 62 counties were declared disaster areas. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, damages were greater than $100 million. My home county, Delaware, was the hardest hit; bridges were washed away, homes were ruined, roads were destroyed, fields were inundated, and entire villages were left under water. Six of the eleven fatalities caused by the flood were in Delaware County. Over the past year, the people of New York have tried to rebuild their homes and their lives. Our towns, villages, and counties have tried to rebuild their roads and municipal facilities. FEMA and the State Emergency Management Office, or SEMO, have been there to help, but it has not been easy. The flood of January 19 was not the only one of the year. It came just 2 weeks after the great blizzard of 1996. Then in October, the New York City area was hit by a severe flood, and only a month later, large parts of upstate New York were flooded again. Although not as severe as the January floods, heavy rains again caused damages in several areas of the State, especially Clinton and Essex Counties in the northeast corner, and once again, Delaware County was hit. Ask any local official in upstate New York what they will remember most about 1996 and invariably he or she will say the floods. We have spent the last year trying to recover and rebuild, and I thank FEMA Director James Lee Witt and Regional Director Lynn Canton and SEMO Director Ed Jacoby for all their help. We have made a lot of progress but, as Delaware County Board of Supervisor's Chairman Ray Christensen will often tell you, ``We have to realize things will never be the same.''

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my distinguished colleague, Senator Chafee, in introducing this legislation to extend permanently the full, fair market value deduction for gifts of publicly traded stock to private foundations. Much of the focus in Congress over the last several years has been on efforts to control or reduce Government spending in order to balance the budget. As programs are cut to meet budget constraints, pressure will be placed on other sectors, particularly the independent sector, to fill the void. Already, the extent to which nonprofit institutions in the United States perform functions that are typically governmental undertakings in other countries is perhaps not fully understood or appreciated. It is a unique feature of our society of inestimable value and must be sustained. As demand on the independent sector grows, we must support its efforts to promote the common good and confront social problems. A bit of history: prior to 1969, contributions of appreciated property were deductible at their fair market value. In 1969, Congress adopted a number of rules to address certain abuses then occurring with respect to a small number of private foundations. These included a series of targeted Treasury Department recommendations to impose excise tax penalties on self-dealing transactions, excess business holdings, insufficient distributions for charitable purposes, and the like. However, in response to the negative publicity surrounding private foundations at the time, Congress felt it necessary to impose other restrictions beyond the targeted Treasury proposals. These included a provision to limit the deduction for gifts of appreciated property to private foundations to the donor's basis, usually, the original purchase price. After 1969, the IRS and other experts concluded that the targeted antiabuse rules worked well to correct the problems with private foundations. And nothing indicated that the 1969 limit on deductibility of gifts of appreciated property to private foundations was necessary to prevent abuse, at least to the extent that the property's value was readily determinable. Thus, in 1984, Congress approved a rule, that sunset after 10 years, providing a deduction for the full value of gifts of publicly traded stock to private foundations. This temporarily restored parity of treatment to contributions of stock to public charities--already fully deductible--and to private foundations. Then came the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was largely an effort to broaden the tax base and reduce rates. One such base-broadening provision was the creation of a tax preference under the individual alternative minimum tax [AMT] for gifts of appreciated property to charitable organizations. Thus, taxpayers subject to the AMT could only deduct the basis of property donated to charitable organizations. As it turned out, the 1986 Tax Act worked all too well. Not only was the base broadened, but charitable giving of appreciated property nearly disappeared. And the charitable organizations let us know that our action had hurt them financially in such a way that not only they, but the larger public trust they serve, were suffering. Thus, at the behest of this Senator, in 1990 Congress at first temporarily, and then in 1993 permanently, repealed the tax preference for contributions of appreciated property. At the end of 1994, however, the full deduction for contributions of appreciated stock to private foundations expired. It had been intended as a 10-year experiment; the 10 years ran out, and the experiment was over. But most observers concluded that the experiment had worked--the private foundation rules continued to work reasonably well to prevent abuse, even while gifts of appreciated stock were fully deductible. In particular, the rule was not a source of compliance problems for the Internal Revenue Service. Thus, we agreed to extend the provision temporarily just last year in the Small Business Job Protection Act. Unfortunately, it will expire once again at the end of May. There being no harm done by this provision, and much good, it is a rule we should like to see extended once again--and this time permanently. Mr. President, no reason exists to provide different treatment under the Tax Code for gifts of appreciated stock to private foundations than is provided for such gifts to public charities. Private foundations are an important component of our nonprofit, independent sector. They make vast contributions to our society in the areas of education, health, disaster relief, the advancement of knowledge and the preservation of historical and cultural artifacts, to name only a few. Government must play a role in ensuring that nonprofit institutions not merely survive, but thrive--particularly during an era of Government cutbacks. The legislation we introduce today will be a great help in this regard. I look forward to its early and favorable consideration in the 105th Congress.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise in support of the nomination of Madeleine K. Albright to be Secretary of State. We stand at the end of a century of European conflict: two world wars followed by a cold war. In the wake of this hundred years' war it is hugely important that the President has nominated a woman, born in Europe amidst this turmoil, to be his Secretary of State to lead us into the next century. The first point I would like to make, a point that deserves to be stressed by every Senator, is that when Ambassador Albright is confirmed, she will become the 64th Secretary of State, and the first woman ever to hold that office. No woman has ever held a higher office in the executive branch. I congratulate both the President and his distinguished nominee on this milestone. Ambassador Albright came to the United States at the age of 11, having experienced herself the realities of this hundred years' war. Most recently she comes to us from Turtle Bay, NY, where she has served as our Permanent Representative to the United Nations. As the only Ambassador-Senator, and having served in the same post at the United Nations, I feel it incumbent upon me to inform my colleagues that for her to have endured 4 years of mind-numbing addresses at the United Nations is no small feat. As Ambassador, she has earned the respect of many. Not the least of which are the editors of the New Republic who wrote in a December 30, 1996, editorial: The good news about Albright, in sum, is that she is a creature of the twentieth century. For this reason, she understands how appallingly similar to this century the next century is likely to be. A person whose primal scene was Nazism and then Stalinism is not likely to get drunk on talk of a new millennium. She is likely to know, rather, that evil is never permanently retired, and certainly not by technological change. Albright recognized early that the most pressing order of business for Clinton's foreign policy in its first term was not protectionism, it was genocide. And a person whose primal scene was not Vietnam will know that there is only one way to stop genocide, and this is the harsh, airborne way. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we find ourselves at the end of a century of conflict. We began the century trying to stay out of the affairs of Europe. That lasted only through Wilson's first term. Now we end the century having played a pivotal role in the events which shaped it. This is an occasion on which we recall the great hopes that Franklin D. Roosevelt had for the United Nations. We can now use the fruit of our century-long labors, most importantly the United Nations Charter, to realize the hopes of Roosevelt, Truman, Marshall, and Acheson. Nowhere is the importance of the Charter more pronounced than in Bosnia. I have spoken in this chamber many times on the subject of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Had we invoked the charter early in the conflict and its provision for demonstrations under article 42, by ``air, sea, or land forces, [to] restore international peace and security,'' much of the genocide that followed could have been prevented. We had the tools, but waited too long to use them. The Bosnian conflict is far from over. Though the Dayton agreement and NATO forces have achieved relative stability over the past 13 months, there are still many important issues to be resolved. None is more important, or pressing, then the work of the International Criminal Tribunal. Today 75 persons have been indicted for war crimes. It is appalling to report that 68 of them remain at large. Not because they cannot be found, but because pressure has not been brought to bear on countries to deliver indicted war criminals to The Hague. This is an issue that cannot afford delay. I would ask the Secretary- designate to seek to address this important problem at the earliest possible date. She has made such a pledge during her testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee and I look forward to working with her to achieve these goals. I say this with the deepest respect for Ambassador Albright, who, having spent 4 years at the United Nations, is keenly aware of the importance of these issues. I wish her well on her historic appointment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my distinguished colleague, Senator Chafee, in introducing this legislation to extend permanently the full, fair market value deduction for gifts of publicly traded stock to private foundations. Much of the focus in Congress over the last several years has been on efforts to control or reduce Government spending in order to balance the budget. As programs are cut to meet budget constraints, pressure will be placed on other sectors, particularly the independent sector, to fill the void. Already, the extent to which nonprofit institutions in the United States perform functions that are typically governmental undertakings in other countries is perhaps not fully understood or appreciated. It is a unique feature of our society of inestimable value and must be sustained. As demand on the independent sector grows, we must support its efforts to promote the common good and confront social problems. A bit of history: prior to 1969, contributions of appreciated property were deductible at their fair market value. In 1969, Congress adopted a number of rules to address certain abuses then occurring with respect to a small number of private foundations. These included a series of targeted Treasury Department recommendations to impose excise tax penalties on self-dealing transactions, excess business holdings, insufficient distributions for charitable purposes, and the like. However, in response to the negative publicity surrounding private foundations at the time, Congress felt it necessary to impose other restrictions beyond the targeted Treasury proposals. These included a provision to limit the deduction for gifts of appreciated property to private foundations to the donor's basis, usually, the original purchase price. After 1969, the IRS and other experts concluded that the targeted antiabuse rules worked well to correct the problems with private foundations. And nothing indicated that the 1969 limit on deductibility of gifts of appreciated property to private foundations was necessary to prevent abuse, at least to the extent that the property's value was readily determinable. Thus, in 1984, Congress approved a rule, that sunset after 10 years, providing a deduction for the full value of gifts of publicly traded stock to private foundations. This temporarily restored parity of treatment to contributions of stock to public charities--already fully deductible--and to private foundations. Then came the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was largely an effort to broaden the tax base and reduce rates. One such base-broadening provision was the creation of a tax preference under the individual alternative minimum tax [AMT] for gifts of appreciated property to charitable organizations. Thus, taxpayers subject to the AMT could only deduct the basis of property donated to charitable organizations. As it turned out, the 1986 Tax Act worked all too well. Not only was the base broadened, but charitable giving of appreciated property nearly disappeared. And the charitable organizations let us know that our action had hurt them financially in such a way that not only they, but the larger public trust they serve, were suffering. Thus, at the behest of this Senator, in 1990 Congress at first temporarily, and then in 1993 permanently, repealed the tax preference for contributions of appreciated property. At the end of 1994, however, the full deduction for contributions of appreciated stock to private foundations expired. It had been intended as a 10-year experiment; the 10 years ran out, and the experiment was over. But most observers concluded that the experiment had worked--the private foundation rules continued to work reasonably well to prevent abuse, even while gifts of appreciated stock were fully deductible. In particular, the rule was not a source of compliance problems for the Internal Revenue Service. Thus, we agreed to extend the provision temporarily just last year in the Small Business Job Protection Act. Unfortunately, it will expire once again at the end of May. There being no harm done by this provision, and much good, it is a rule we should like to see extended once again--and this time permanently. Mr. President, no reason exists to provide different treatment under the Tax Code for gifts of appreciated stock to private foundations than is provided for such gifts to public charities. Private foundations are an important component of our nonprofit, independent sector. They make vast contributions to our society in the areas of education, health, disaster relief, the advancement of knowledge and the preservation of historical and cultural artifacts, to name only a few. Government must play a role in ensuring that nonprofit institutions not merely survive, but thrive--particularly during an era of Government cutbacks. The legislation we introduce today will be a great help in this regard. I look forward to its early and favorable consideration in the 105th Congress.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will make permanent the tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance under section 127 of the Internal Revenue Code. This bill, which is cosponsored by the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Finance, Senator Roth, and by Senators Baucus, Boxer, Bryan, Chafee, Craig, D'Amato, Ford, Glenn, Grassley, Hatch, Kennedy, Kerry, Kyl, Leahy, Lieberman, McConnell, Moseley-Braun, Murray, Robb, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Shelby, Torricelli, Wyden, and Bingaman ensures that employees may receive up to $5,250 annually in tuition reimbursements or similar educational benefits for both undergraduate and graduate education from their employers on a tax-free basis. Section 127 is one of the most successful education programs that the Federal Government has ever undertaken. A million persons benefit from this provision every year. And they benefit in the most auspicious of circumstances. An employer recognizes that the worker is capable of doing work at higher levels and skills and says, ``Will you go to school and get a degree so we can put you in a higher position than you have now--and with better compensation?'' Unlike so many of our job training programs that have depended on the hope that in the after-math of the training there will be a job, here you have a situation where the worker already has a job and the employer agrees that the worker should enlarge his or her situation in a manner that is beneficial to all concerned. This is a program that works. Yet, outside the organizations involved, not many people know of this program. It administers itself. It has no bureaucracy--there is no bureau in the Department of Education for employer-provided educational assistance, no titles, no confirmations, no assistant secretaries. There is nothing except individual contracts, employee and employer, with a great value-added. Since its inception in 1978, section 127 has enabled millions of workers to advance their education and improve their job skills without incurring additional taxes and a reduction in take-home pay. Without section 127, workers will find that the additional taxes or reduction in take-home pay impose a significant, even prohibitive, financial obstacle to further education. For example, an unmarried clerical worker pursuing a college diploma who has income of $21,000 in 1997 and who receives tuition reimbursement for two semesters of night courses-- worth approximately $4,000--would owe additional Federal income and payroll taxes of $866 on this educational assistance. If the worker has children and was receiving the earned income tax credit, the worker would owe additional taxes--including loss of the EITC benefits--of up to $1,708. Section 127 makes an important contribution to simplicity in the tax law. Absent section 127, a worker receiving educational benefits from an employer is taxed on the value of the education received, unless the education is directly related to the worker's current job. Permanent reinstatement of section 127 will allow workers to receive employer- provided educational assistance on a tax-free basis, without the need to consult a tax advisor to determine whether the education is directly related to their current job. A well-trained and educated work force is a key to our Nation's competitiveness in the global economy of the 21st century. Pressures from international competition and technological change require constant adjustment by our work force. Education and retraining will be necessary to maintain and strengthen American industry's competitive position. Section 127 has an important, perhaps vital, role to play in this regard. It permits employees to adapt and retrain without incurring additional tax liabilities and a reduction in take-home pay. By removing the tax burden from workers seeking education and retraining, section 127 helps to maintain American workers as the most productive in the industrialized and developing world. Section 127 has also helped to improve the quality of America's public education system, at a fraction of the cost of direct-aid programs. A survey by the National Education Association a few years ago found that almost half of all American public school systems provide tuition assistance to teachers seeking advanced training and degrees. This has enabled thousands of public school teachers to obtain advanced degrees, augmenting the quality of instruction in our schools. Our most recent extension of section 127 last year excluded expenses of pursuing graduate level education for courses beginning after June 30, 1996. This was a serious mistake. Historically, one quarter of the individuals who have used section 127 went to graduate schools. Ask major employer about their training systems, and they will say nothing is more helpful than being able to send a promising young person, or middle management person, to a graduate school to learn a new field that has developed since that person had his education. When we eliminate graduate level education from section 127, we impose a tax increase on many citizens who work and go to graduate school at the same time. But not all of them. Only the ones whose education does not directly relate to their current jobs. For these unlucky persons, we have erected a barrier to their upward mobility. Who are these people? The engineer seeking a masters degree in geology to enter the field of environmental science. The bank teller seeking an MBA in finance or an MPA in accounting. The production line worker seeking an MBA in management. Simple equity among taxpayers demands that section 127 be made permanent. Contrast each of the above examples with the following: The environmental geologist seeking a masters in geology, the bank accountant seeking an MPA, and the management trainee seeking an MBA each qualify for tax-free education. There is no justification for this difference in tax treatment. Thus, section 127 removes a tax bias against lesser-skilled workers. The tax bias arises because lesser-skilled workers have narrower job descriptions, and a correspondingly greater difficulty proving that educational expenses directly relate to their current jobs. Less- skilled workers are in greater need of remedial and basic education. And they are the ones least able to afford the imposition of tax on their educational benefits. It is important to note that employer-provided educational assistance is not an extravagant benefit for highly paid executives. It largely benefits low- and moderate-income employees seeking access to higher education and further job training. A study published by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in December, 1995 found that 85 percent of section 127 recipients in the 1992-93 academic year earned less than $50,000, with the average recipient earning less than $33,000. An earlier Coopers & Lybrand study indicated that over 70 percent of recipients of section 127 benefits in 1986 were earning less than $30,000, and that participation rates decline as salary levels increase. I hope that Congress will recognize the importance of this provision, and enact it permanently. Our on-again, off-again approach to section 127 creates great practical difficulties for the intended beneficiaries. Workers cannot plan sensibly for their educational goals, not knowing the extent to which accepting educational assistance may reduce their take-home pay. As for employers, the fits and starts of the legislative history of section 127 have been a serious administrative nuisance: there have been 8 retroactive extensions of this provision since 1978. If section 127 is in force, then there is no need to withhold taxes on educational benefits provided; if not, the job-relatedness of the educational assistance must be ascertained, a value assigned, and withholding adjusted accordingly. Uncertainty about the program's continuance magnifies this burden, and discourages employers from providing educational benefits. For example, section 127 expired for a time after 1994. During 1995, employers did not know whether to withhold taxes or curtail their educational assistance programs. Workers did not know whether they would face large tax bills, and possible penalties and interest, and thus faced considerable risk in planning for their education. Some of my constituents who called my office reported that they were taking fewer courses--or no courses--due to this uncertainty. And when we failed to extend the provision by the end of 1995, employers had to guess as to how to report their worker's incomes on the W-2 tax statements, and employees had to guess whether to pay tax on the benefits they received. In the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 enacted last August, we finally extended the provision retroactively to the beginning of 1995. As a result, we had to instruct the IRS to expeditiously issue guidance to employers and workers on how to obtain refunds. The provision expires after June 30, 1997. Will we subject our constituents, once again, to similar confusion? The legislation I introduce today would restore certainty to section 127 by extending it retroactively--from July 1, 1996--for graduate level education, and maintaining it on a permanent basis for all education. Thomas Jefferson, as ever, was right to observe that American liberty depends on an educated electorate. In 1816, the year in which the Senate Committee on Finance was founded, Jefferson warned ``If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.'' Previous efforts to extend this provision have enjoyed broad and bipartisan support. Encouraging workers to further their education and to improve their job skills is an important national priority. It is crucial for preserving our competitive position in the global economy. Permitting employees to receive educational assistance on a tax-free basis, without incurring significant cuts in take-home pay, is a demonstrated, cost-effective means for achieving these objectives. This is a wonderful piece of unobtrusive social policy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill that comprehensively seeks to control the epidemic proportions of violence in America. This legislation, the Violent Crime Control Act of 1997, combines most of the provisions of two of the other crime-related bills I am introducing today as well. By including two different crime-related provisions, my bill attacks the crime epidemic on more than just one front. If we are truly serious about confronting our Nation's crime problem, we must learn more about the nature of the epidemic of bullet-related violence and ways to control it. To do this, we must require records to be keep on the disposition of ammunition. In October 1992, the Senate Finance Committee received testimony that public health and safety experts have, independently, concluded that there is an epidemic of bullet-related violence. The figures are staggering. In 1995, bullets were in the murders of 23,673 people in the United States. By focusing on bullets, and not guns, we recognize that much like nuclear waste, guns remain active for centuries. With minimum care, they do not deteriorate. However, bullets are consumed. Estimates suggest we have only a 4-years supply of them. Not only am I proposing that we tax bullets used disproportionately in crimes, 9 millimeter, .25 and .32 caliber bullets, I also believe we must set up a Bullet Death and Injury Control Program within the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. This Center will enhance our knowledge of the distribution and status of bullet-related death and injury and subsequently make recommendations about the extent and nature of bullet-related violence. So that the Center would have substantive information to study and analyze, this bill also requires importers and manufacturers of ammunition to keep records and submit an annual report to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms [BATF] on the disposition of ammunition. Currently, importers and manufacturers of ammunition are not required to do so. Clearly, it will take intense effort on all of our parts to reduce violent crime in America. We must confront this epidemic from several different range, recognizing that there is no simple solution.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I introduce two bills: the Violent Crime Reduction Act of 1997 and the Real Cost of Handgun Ammunition Act of 1997. Their purposes are to ban or heavily tax .25 caliber, .32 caliber, and 9 mm ammunition. These calibers of bullets are used disproportionately in crime. They are not sporting or hunting rounds, but instead are the bullets of choice for drug dealers and violent felons. Every year they contribute overwhelmingly to the pervasive loss of life caused by bullet wounds. Today marks the fourth time in as many Congresses that I have introduced legislation to ban or tax these pernicious bullets. As the terrible gunshot death toll in the United States continues unabated, so too does the need for these bills, which, by keeping these bullets out of the hands of criminals, would save a significant number of lives. The number of Americans killed or wounded each year by bullets demonstrates their true cost to American society. Just look at the data: In 1995, 13,673 people--68.2 percent of all people murdered--were murdered by gunshot. In addition, others lost their lives to bullets by shooting themselves, either purposefully or accidentally. And although no national statistics are kept on bullet-related injuries, studies suggest they occur two to five times more frequently than do deaths. The lifetime risk of death from homicide in U.S. males is 1 in 164, about the same as the risk of death in battle faced by U.S. servicemen in the Vietnam war. For black males, the lifetime risk of death from homicide is 1 in 28, twice the risk of death in battle faced by Marines in Vietnam. As noted by Susan Baker and her colleagues in the book ``Epidemiology and Health Policy,'' edited by Sol Levine and Abraham Lilienfeld: There is a correlation between rates of private ownership of guns and gun-related death rates; guns cause two-thirds of family homicides; and small easily concealed weapons comprise the majority of guns used for homicides, suicides and unintentional death. Baker states that: * * * these facts of the epidemiology of firearm-related deaths and injuries have important implications. Combined with their lethality, the widespread availability of easily concealed handguns for impetuous use by people who are angry, drunk, or frightened appears to be a major determinant of the high firearm death rate in the United States. Each contributing factor has implications for prevention. Unfortunately, issues related to gun control have evoked such strong sentiments that epidemiologic data are rarely employed to good advantage. Strongly held views on both sides of the gun control issue have made the subject difficult for epidemiologists. I would suggest that a good deal of energy is wasted in this never-ending debate, for gun control as we know it misses the point. We ought to focus on the bullets and not the guns. I would remind the Senate of our experience in controlling epidemics. Although the science of epidemiology traces its roots to antiquity-- Hippocrates stressed the importance of considering environmental influences on human diseases--the first modern epidemiological study was conducted by James Lind in 1747. His efforts led to the eventual control of scurvy. It wasn't until 1795 that the British Navy accepted his analysis and required limes in shipboard diets. Most solutions are not perfect. Disease is rarely eliminated. But might epidemiology be applied in the case of bullets to reduce suffering? I believe so. In 1854 John Snow and William Farr collected data that clearly showed cholera was caused by contaminated drinking water. Snow removed the handle of the Broad Street pump in London to prevent people from drawing water from this contaminated water source and the disease stopped in that population. His observations led to a legislative mandate that all London water companies filter their water by 1857. Cholera epidemics subsided. Now treatment of sewage prevents cholera from entering our rivers and lakes, and the disinfection of drinking water makes water distribution systems uninhabitable for cholera vibrio, identified by Robert Koch as the causative agent 26 years after Snow's study. In 1900, Walter Reed identified mosquitos as the carriers of yellow fever. Subsequent mosquito control efforts by another U.S. Army doctor, William Gorgas, enabled the United States to complete the Panama Canal. The French failed because their workers were too sick from yellow fever to work. Now that it is known that yellow fever is caused by a virus, vaccines are used to eliminate the spread of the disease. These pioneering epidemiology success stories showed the world that epidemics require an interaction between three things: the host--the person who becomes sick or, in the case of bullets, the shooting victim); the agent--the cause of sickness, or the bullet); and the environment--the setting in which the sickness occurs or, in the case of bullets, violent behavior. Interrupt this epidemiological triad and you reduce or eliminate disease and injury. How might this approach applies to the control of bullet- related injury and death? Again, we are contemplating something different from gun control. There is a precedent here. In the middle of this century it was recognized that epidemiology could be applied to automobile death and injury. From a governmental perspective, this hypothesis was first adopted in 1959, late in the administration of Gov. Averell Harriman of New York State. In the 1960 Presidential campaign, I drafted a statement on the subject which was released by Senator John F. Kennedy as part of a general response to enquiries from the American Automobile Association. Then Senator Kennedy stated: Traffic accidents constitute one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of the nation's public health problems. They waste as much as 2 percent of our gross national product every year and bring endless suffering. The new highways will do much to control the rise of the traffic toll, but by themselves they will not reduce it. A great deal more investigation and research is needed. Some of this has already begun in connection with the highway program. It should be extended until highway safety research takes its place as an equal of the many similar programs of health research which the federal government supports. Experience in the 1950's and early 1960's prior to passage of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, showed that traffic safety enforcement campaigns designed to change human behavior did not improve traffic safety. In fact, the death and injury toll mounted. I was Assistant Secretary of Labor in the mid-1960's when Congress was developing the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, and I was called to testify. It was clear to me and others that motor vehicle injuries and deaths could not be limited by regulating driver behavior. Nonetheless, we had an epidemic on our hands and we needed to do something about it. My friend William Haddon, the first Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, recognized that automobile fatalities were caused not by the initial collision, when the automobile strikes some object, but by a second collision, in which energy from the first collision is transferred to the interior of the car, causing the driver and occupants to strike the steering wheel, dashboard, or other structures in the passenger compartment. The second collision is the agent of injury to the hosts--the car's occupants. Efforts to make automobiles crashworthy follow examples used to control infectious disease epidemics. Reduce or eliminate the agent of injury. Seatbelts, padded dashboards, and airbags are all specifically designed to reduce, if not eliminate, injury caused by the agent of automobile injuries, energy transfer to the human body during the second collision. In fact, we've done nothing revolutionary. All of the technology used to date to make cars crashworthy, including airbags, was developed prior to 1970. Experience shows the approach worked. Of course, it could have worked better, but it worked. Had we been able to totally eliminate the agent--the second collision--the cure would have been complete. Nonetheless, merely by focusing on simple, achievable remedies, we reduced the traffic death and injury epidemic by 30 percent. Motor vehicle deaths declined in absolute terms by 13 percent from 1980 to 1990, despite significant increases in the number of drivers, vehicles, and miles driven. Driver behavior is changing, too. National seatbelt usage is up dramatically, 60 percent now compared to 14 percent in 1984. These efforts have resulted in some 15,000 lives saved and 100,000 injuries avoided each year. We can apply that experience to the epidemic of murder and injury from bullets. The environment in which these deaths and injuries occur is complex. Many factors likely contribute to the rise in bullet- related injury. Here is an important similarity with the situation we faced 25 years ago regarding automobile safety. We found we could not easily alter the behavior of millions of drivers, but we could-- easily-- change the behavior of three or four automobile manufacturers. Likewise, we simply cannot do much to change the environment--violent behavior--in which gun-related injury occurs, nor do we know how. We can, however, do something about the agent causing the injury: bullets. Ban them. At least the rounds used disproportionately to cause death and injury; that is, the .25 caliber, .32 caliber, and 9 millimeter bullets. These three rounds account for the ammunition used in about 13 percent of licensed guns in New York City, yet they are involved in one-third of all homicides. They are not, as I have said, useful for sport or hunting. They are used for violence. If we fail to confront the fact that these rounds are used disproportionately in crimes, innocent people will continue to die. I have called on Congress during the past several sessions to ban or heavily tax these bullets. This would not be the first time that Congress has banned a particular round of ammunition. In 1986, it passed legislation written by the Senator from New York banning the so- called ``cop-killer'' bullet. This round, jacketed with tungsten alloys, steel, brass, or any number of other metals, had been demonstrated to penetrate no fewer than four police flak jackets and an additional five Los Angeles County phonebooks at one time. In 1982, the New York Police Benevolent Association came to me and asked me to do something about the ready availability of these bullets. The result was the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act, which we introduced in 1982, 1983, and for the last time during the 99th Congress. In the end, with the tacit support of the National Rifle Association, the measure passed the Congress and was signed by the President as Public Law 99- 408 on August 28, 1986. In the 1994 crime bill, we enacted my amendment to broaden the ban to include new thick steel-jacketed armor-piercing rounds. There are some 220 million firearms in circulation in the United States today. They are, in essence, simple machines, and with minimal care, remain working for centuries. However, estimates suggest that we have only a 4-year supply of bullets. Some 2 billion cartridges are used each year. At any given time there are some 7.5 billion rounds in factory, commercial, or household inventory. In all cases, with the exception of pistol whipping, gun-related injuries are caused not by the gun, but by the agents involved in the second collision: the bullets. Eliminating the most dangerous rounds would not end the problem of handgun killings. But it would reduce it. A 30-percent reduction in bullet-related deaths, for instance, would save over 10,000 lives each year and prevent up to 50,000 wounds. Water treatment efforts to reduce typhoid fever in the United States took about 60 years. Slow sand filters were installed in certain cities in the 1880's, and water chlorination treatment began in the 1910's. The death rate from typhoid in Albany, NY, prior to 1889, when the municipal water supply was treated by sand filtration, was about 100 fatalities per 100,000 people each year. The rate dropped to about 25 typhoid deaths per year after 1889, and dropped again to about 10 typhoid deaths per year after 1915, when chlorination was introduced. By 1950, the death rate from typhoid fever had dropped to zero. It will likely take longer than 60 years to eliminate bullet-related death and injury, but we need to start with achievable measures to break the deadly interactions between people, bullets, and violent behavior. The bills I introduce today would begin the process. They would begin to control the problem by banning or taxing those rounds used disproportionately in crime--the .25-caliber, .32-caliber, and 9- millimeter rounds. The bills recognize the epidemic nature of the problem, building on findings contained in the June 10, 1992 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association which was devoted entirely to the subject of violence, principally violence associated with firearms. Mr. President, it is time to confront the epidemic of bullet-related violence. I urge my colleagues to support these bills.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce two tax bills which I introduced together for the first time last summer. The two bills are both significant in their own rights. Yet, when taken together, they correct a serious misallocation of our limited resources under present law: a tax subsidy that inures largely to the benefit of wealthy sports franchise owners and their players would be replaced with increased for higher education and research. The first bill, the Higher Education Bond Parity Act of 1997, has been introduced several times previously by this Senator, with several of my distinguished colleagues as cosponsors. It would undo what ought never have been done. It would remove the ``private activity'' label from the tax-exempt bonds of private, nonprofits higher education institutions and other organizations, and thereby eliminate the arbitrary $150 million cap on the amount of tax-exempt bonds that such as institution may have outstanding. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 imposed the ``private activity'' label (and a $150 million cap) on bonds issued on behalf on nonprofit institutions, collectively known as section 501(c)(3) organizations. This was a serious error. The cap has relegated private, higher education institutions to a diminished, restricted status, relative to their public counterparts. Already, this has caused observable, harmful effects on many of our Nation's leading colleges and universities. Thirty-four of them presently are at or near the $150 million cap, and unlike their public counterparts are precluded from using tax-exempt to finance classrooms, libraries, research laboratories, and the like. A few years ago, as the $150 million cap was bargaining to take effect, 19 of the universities that ranked in the top 50 in research undertaking were private institutions. Today, only 14 of those 19 private institutions remain in the top 50, and all but one are foreclosed form tax-exempt financing as a result of the $150 million per institution limit. We must act soon to restore the access of private colleges and universities to tax-exempt financing equal to that of their pubic counterparts. Otherwise, the vitality of our private institutions in higher education and research will be at risk. And we will lose a distinguishing feature of American society of inestimable value--the singular degree to which we maintain an independent sector--``private universit[ies] in the public service,'' to paraphrase the motto of New York University. This is no longer so in most of the democratic world; it never was so in the rest. It is a treasure and a phenomenon that has clearly produced excellence--indeed, the envy of the world--and it must be sustained. The practical effect of the $150 million cap is to deny tax-exempt financing to large, private, research-oriented educational institutions most in need of capital to carry out their research mission. This will have a predictable impact over a generation: the distribution of major research in this country will inevitably shift to public institutions. If I may use California as an example, we could look up one day and find Stanford to be still an institution of the greatest quality as an undergraduate teaching facility--with a fine law school and excellent liberal arts degree program--but with all the big science projects at Berkeley, the State institution. By removing the ``private activity'' label, this legislation will restore the parity of treatment of private nonprofit institutions and their public counterparts, and reinstate proper recognition in the tax code of the essential public purposes served by such private institutions. The capital needs of private colleges and universities merit the close attention of this body. The cost of these changes is modest, given their importance. The staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated the revenue loss previously at $308 million over 5 years. The Senate has twice passed legislation to remove the ``private activity'' label and the $150 million bond cap--in the Family Tax Fairness, Economic Growth, and Health Care Access Act of 1992 (H.R. 4210) and the Revenue Act of 1992 (H.R. 11)--only to have both bills vetoed for other reasons by President Bush. We should correct this error before it is too late. Otherwise, we will soon look up and find that we do not recognize the higher education sector. Mr. President, the second tax bill I introduce today--the Stop Tax- exempt Arena Debt Issuance Act (or STADIA for short)--was introduced by this Senator for the first time last summer. Since that time, the bill has attracted the close scrutiny of bond counsel and their clients and has received much attention in the press almost all of which has been favorable. Mr. Keith Olbermann, anchor of ESPN's Sportscenter program, even declared that the introduction of the bill was ``paramount among all other sports stories'' last year. Mr. Olbermann's support for this legislation is so emphatic that he compared its author to Dr. Jonas Salk. Passage of the bill, Mr. Olbermann says, is ``the vaccine that * * * could conceivably at least towards the cure, if not cure immediately, almost all the ills of sports.'' Mr. Olbermann is far too generous to this Senator, but he is right about the importance of this bill, both to sports fans and to taxpayers. This bill closes a big loophole, a loophole that ultimately injures State and local governments and other issuers of tax-exempt bonds, that provides an unintended Federal subsidy (in fact, contravenes Congressional intent), that underwrites bidding wars among cities battling for professional sports franchises, and that contributes to the enrichment of persons who need no Federal assistance whatsoever. A decade ago, I was much involved in the drafting of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. A major objective of that legislation was to simplify the Tax Code by eliminating a large number of loopholes that had come to be viewed as unfair because they primarily benefited small groups of taxpayers. One of the loopholes we sought to close in 1986 was one that permitted builders of professional sports facilities to use tax-exempt bonds. Mind, we had nothing against new stadium construction, but we made the judgment that scarce Federal resources could surely be used in ways that would better serve the public good. The increasing proliferation of tax-exempt bonds had driven up interest costs for financing roads, schools, libraries, and other governmental purposes, led to mounting revenue losses to the U.S. Treasury, caused an inefficient allocation of capital, and allowed wealthy taxpayers to shield a growing amount of their investment income from income tax by purchasing tax-exempt bonds. Thus, we expressly forbade use of ``private activity'' bonds for sports facilities, intending to eliminate tax-exempt financing of these facilities altogether. Unfortunately, our effort in 1986 backfired. Team owners, with help from clever tax counsel, soon recognized that the change could work to their advantage. As columnist Neal R. Pierce wrote recently, team owners ``were not checkmated for long. They were soon exhibiting the gall to ask mayors to finance their stadiums with [governmental] purpose bonds.'' Congress did not anticipate this. After all, by law, governmental bonds used to build stadiums would be tax-exempt only if no more than 10 percent of the debt service is derived from stadium revenue sources. In other words, non-stadium governmental revenues (i.e., tax revenues, lottery proceeds, and the like) must be used to repay the bulk of the debt, freeing team owners to pocket stadium revenues. Who would have thought that local officials, in order to keep or get a team, would capitulate to team owners--granting concessionary stadium leases and committing limited government revenues to repay stadium debt, thereby hindering their own ability to provide schools, roads and other public investments? The result has been a stadium construction boom unlike anything we have ever seen. In the last 6 years alone, over $4 billion has been spent on building 30 professional sports stadiums. According to Prof. Robert Baade, an economist at Lake Forest College in Illinois and a stadium finance expert, that amount could ``completely refurbish the physical plants of the nation's public elementary and secondary schools.'' An additional $7 billion of stadiums are in the planning stages, and no end is in sight. What is driving the demand for new stadiums? Mainly, team owners' bottom lines and rising player salaries. Although our existing stadiums are generally quite serviceable, team owners can generate greater income, increase their franchise values dramatically, and compete for high-priced free agents with new tax-subsidized, single-purpose stadiums equipped with luxury skyboxes, club seats and the like. Thus, using their monopoly power, owners threaten to move, forcing bidding wars among cities. End result: new, tax-subsidized stadiums with fancy amenities and sweetheart lease deals. To cite a case in point, Mr. Art Modell recently moved the Cleveland Browns professional football team from Cleveland to Baltimore to become the Ravens. Prior to relocating, Mr. Modell had said, ``I am not about to rape the city [of Cleveland] as others in my league have done. You will never hear me say `if I don't get this I'm moving.' You can go to press on that one. I couldn't live with myself if I did that.'' Obviously, Mr. Modell changed his mind. And why? An extraordinary stadium deal with the State of Maryland. The State of Maryland (and the local sports authority) provided the land on which the stadium is located, issued $87 million in tax-exempt bonds (yielding interest savings of approximately $60 million over a 30 year period as compared to taxable bonds), and contributed $30 million in cash and $64 million in state lottery revenues toward construction of the stadium. Mr. Modell agreed to contribute $24 million toward the project and, in return, receives rent-free use of the stadium (the franchise pays only for the operating and maintenance costs), $65 million in sales of rights to purchase season tickets (so called ``personal seat licenses''), all revenues from selling the right to name the stadium luxury suites, premium seats, in-park advertising, and concessions, and 50 percent of all revenues from stadium events other than Ravens' games (with the right to control the booking of those events). Financial World reports that the value of the Baltimore Ravens' franchise increased from $165 million in 1992 (i.e., before the move from Cleveland) to an estimated $250 million, after its first season in the new stadium. It's little wonder that Mr. Modell recently stated: ``The pride and presence of a professional football team is far more important than 30 libraries, and I say that with all due respect to the learning process.'' Meanwhile, the City of Cleveland has agreed to construct a new, $225 million stadium to house an expansion football team. When Mr. Modell decided to move his team to Baltimore, the NFL agreed to create a new Cleveland football team with the same name: the Cleveland Browns. Most cities are not as fortunate when a team leaves. We are even reaching a point at which stadiums are being abandoned before they have been used for 10 or 15 years. A recent article in Barron's reports that this owner-perceived ``economic obsolescence'' has doomed even recently-built venues: The eight-year-old Miami Arena is facing a future without its two major tenants, the Florida Panthers hockey team and the Miami Heat basketball franchise, because of inadequate seating capacity and a paucity of luxury suites. The Panthers have already cut a deal to move to a new facility that nearby Broward County is building for them at a cost of around $200 million. Plans call for Dade County to build a new $210 million arena before the end of the decade, despite the fact that the move will leave local taxpayers stuck with servicing the debt on two Miami arenas rather than just one. How do taxpayers benefit from all this? They don't. Tickets prices go way up--and stay up--after a new stadium opens. So while fans are asked to foot the bills through tax subsides, many no longer can afford the price of admission. A study of Newsday recently found that tickets prices rose by 32 percent in five new baseball stadiums, as compared to a major league average of 8 percent. Not to mention the refreshments and other concessions, which also cost more in the new venues. According to Barron's the projects ``cater largely to well-heeled fans, meaning the folks who can afford to pay for seats in glassed-in luxury boxes. While the suit-and-cell-phone crowd get all the best seats, the average taxpayer is consigned to `cheap seats' in nosebleed land or, more often, for following his favorite team on television.'' Nor do these new stadiums provide much, if any, economic benefit to their local communities. Professor Baade studied new stadiums in 30 metropolitan areas. He found no discernible positive impact on economic development in 27 of the areas, and a negative impact in the other 3. Any job growth that does result is extremely expensive. The Congressional Research Service [CRS] reports that the new $177 million football stadium for the Baltimore Ravens is expected to cost $127,000 per job created. By contrast, the cost per job generated by Maryland's economic development program is just $6,250. Another recent study in New York found that a proposed $1 billion stadium for the Yankees would cost over $500,000 for every job created. Finally, Federal taxpayers receive absolutely no economic benefit for providing this subsidy. As CRS points out, ``Almost all stadium spending is spending that would have been made on other activities within the United States, which means that benefits to the nation as a whole are near zero.'' After all, these teams will invariably locate somewhere in the United States, it is just a matter of where. And should the Federal taxpayers in the team's current home town be forced to pay for the team's new stadium in the new city? The answer is unmistakably no. The STADIA bill would save about $50 million a year now spent to subsidize professional sports stadiums. So I ask you once again this year, should we subsidize the commercial pursuits of wealthy team owners, encourage escalating player salaries, and underwrite bidding wars among cities seeking (or fighting to keep) professional sports teams, or, would our scarce resources be put to better use for public needs, like higher education and research? To my mind, this is not a difficult choice. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the two bills be printed in the Record, along with explanatory statements. I also ask unanimous consent that the following articles be printed in the Record following the bills and explanatory statements.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to repeal section 434 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, and subsections (a) and (b) of section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Section 434 of the first act provides that: Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, no State or local government entity may be prohibited, or in any way restricted, from sending to or receiving from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) information regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an alien in the United States. This provision, along with portions of section 642 of the aforementioned illegal immigration law, conflicts with an executive order, issued by the mayor of New York in 1985, prohibiting city employees from reporting suspected illegal aliens to the Immigration and Naturalization Service unless the alien has been charged with a crime. The executive order, which is similar to local laws in other States and cities, was intended to ensure that fear of deportation does not deter illegal aliens from seeking emergency medical attention, reporting crimes, and so forth. On September 8, 1995, during Senate consideration of H.R. 4, the Work Opportunity Act of 1995, Senators Santorum and Nickles offered this provision as an amendment. The amendment was adopted by a vote of 91 to 6. The Senators who voted ``no'' were: Akaka, Campbell, Inouye, Moseley-Braun, Moynihan, and Simon. Four of these six--Senators Akaka, Moseley-Braun, Simon, and the Senator from New York--were also among the 11 Democrats who voted against H.R. 4 when it passed the Senate 11 days later on September 19, 1995. The provision remained in H.R. 3734, the welfare bill recently signed by President Clinton. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City filed suit last year to challenge section 434 of the new welfare law and section 642 of the illegal immigration law in U.S. District Court and I introduced a similar bill at the time. The mayor's lawsuit deserves to succeed for the same reason this legislation deserves to pass: the provisions at issue are onerous and represent bad public policy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I am joined by Senators D'Amato and Dodd in introducing the War Crime Disclosure Act. This legislation is a companion to a measure introduced in the House, sponsored by Representative Maloney. The measure is a simple one. It requires the disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding individuals who participated in Nazi war crimes. Ideally, such documents would be made available to the public without further legislation and without having to go through the slow process involved in getting information through the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Researchers seeking information on Nazi war criminals are denied access to relevant materials in the possession of the U.S. Government, even when the disclosure of these documents no longer poses a threat to national security--if indeed such disclosure ever did. With the passing of time it becomes ever more important to document Nazi war crimes, lest the enormity of those crimes be lost to history. The greater access which this legislation provides will add clarity of this important effort. I applaud those researchers who continue to pursue this important work. I would also like to call to the attention of my colleagues the excellent work of the Office of Special Investigations of the Department of Justice. This office has a monumental task and I would not wish to add to that burden or divert its officials from their primary goal of pursuing Nazi war criminals. To that end, I would note that this legislation does not apply to the Office of Special Investigations, as it is not identified in paragraph (1)(B) of the bill as a ``specified agency.'' I would also add that there is a provision in the bill which specifically prohibits the disclosure of information which would compromise the work of the Office of Special Investigations. I would like to thank Representative Maloney for her original work on this subject in the House of Representatives. I would also thank Senators D'Amato and Dodd for joining me in this effort here in the Senate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill to recognize the immeasurable debt which we owe to a leading Soviet dissident. Dr. Yuri F. Orlov, a founding member of the Soviet chapter of Amnesty International and founder of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group (the first nation-wide organization in Soviet history to question government actions), who now lives in Ithaca, New York, is threatened by poverty. Yuri Orlov could not be stopped by the sinister forces of the Soviet Union and, no doubt, he will not be stopped by poverty. But I rise today in hopes that it will not come to that. Dr. Orlov's career as a dissident began while he was working at the famous Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow. At the Institute in 1956 he made a pro-democracy speech which cost him his position and forced him to leave Moscow. He was able to return in 1972, whereupon he began his most outspoken criticism of the Soviet regime. On September 13, 1973, in response to a government orchestrated- public smear campaign against Audrei Sakharov, Orlov sent ``Thirteen Questions to Brezhnev,'' a letter which advocated freedom of the press and reform of the Soviet economy. One month later, he became a founding member of the Soviet chapter of Amnesty International. His criticism of the Soviet Union left him unemployed and under constant KGB surveillance, but he would not be silenced. In May, 1976 Dr. Orlov founded the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group to pressure the Soviet Union to honor the human rights obligations it had accepted under the Helsinki Accords signed in 1975. His leadership of the Helsinki Watch Group led to his arrest and, eventually, to a show trial in 1978. He was condemned to seven years in a labor camp and five years in exile. After having served his prison sentence, and while still in exile, Dr. Orlov was able to immigrate to the United States in 1986 in an exchange arranged by the Reagan Administration. A captured Soviet spy was returned in exchange for the release of Dr. Orlov and a writer for U.S. News & World Report who had been arrested in Moscow, Nicholas Daniloff. Since then, Dr. Orlov has served as a senior scientist at Cornell University in the Newman Laboratory of Nuclear Studies. Now that he is 72 years old, he is turning his thoughts to retirement. Unfortunately, since he has only been in the United States for 10 years, his retirement income from the Cornell pension plus Social Security will be insufficient: only a fraction of what Cornell faculty of comparable distinction now get at retirement. His scientific colleagues, Nobel physicist Dr. Hans A. Bethe, Kurt Gottfried of Cornell, and Sidney Drell of Stanford, have made concerted efforts to raise support for Dr. Orlov's retirement, but they are in further need. To this end, I have agreed to assist these notable scientists in their endeavor to secure a more appropriate recompense for this heroic dissident. That is the purpose that brings me here to the Senate floor today, on the first day of the 105th Congress, to introduce a bill on Dr. Orlov's behalf. While I acknowledge the daunting prospects that face private relief bills these days, I offer the bill at least as a step toward bringing the kind of attention to Dr. Orlov's situation which he deserves. To understand Dr. Orlov's contributions to ending the Cold War, I would draw my colleagues attention to his autobiography, Dangerous Thoughts: Memoirs of a Russian Life. It captures the fear extant in Soviet society and the courage of men like Orlov, Sakharov, Sharansky, Solzhenitsyn, and others who defied the Soviet regime. Dr. Orlov, who spent 7 years in a labor camp and two years in Siberian exile, never ceased protesting against oppression. Despite deteriorating health and the harsh conditions of the camp, Dr. Orlov smuggled out messages in support of basic rights and nuclear arms control. His bravery and that of his dissident colleagues played no small role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I am sure many would agree that we owe them a tremendous debt. This then is a call to all those who agree with that proposition. Dr. Orlov is now in need; please join our endeavor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, last January, I outlined a brief two- step plan to balance the budget by the year 2002. I proposed that we correct for overindexation of Government programs resulting from using the Consumer Price Index [CPI], and that we postpone tax cuts. Starting with the President's budget proposals, and using CBO scoring, these two steps would have produced a balanced budget by 2002. I now present my second, and if we act quickly my last, annual plan to balance the budget. As under the first plan, balancing the budget is relatively easy if we correct for overindexation and forgo tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office is expected to estimate the baseline deficit in 2002 at about $200 billion. If Congress acts now to balance the budget by 2002, interest rates will fall, economic growth will increase, and CBO will declare a fiscal dividend in 2002 of about $50 billion. So Congress need only find $150 billion in 2002. Here is how to get that $150 billion: [In billions of dollars] Correct Indexation of Government Programs and Tax Laws by 1.1 Percentage Points (The Boskin Commission Estimate).................55 Reduce Growth in Medicare and Medicaid by at least amount in President's FY 1997 budget.........................................45 Slow Annual Growth in Discretionary (both defense and non defense) by about 1.0 to 1.5 percentage points.................................50 Total Savings in 2002.............................................150 These steps can be modified; for example, revenues from reinstating expired excise taxes can be used to finance high priority investments or avoid reductions in important domestic discretionary programs. But the point remains. With the correction for overindexation a balanced budget is within sight. Without the correction, we will have a protracted fiscal crisis.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to reintroduce legislation that would establish a medical education trust fund to support America's 142 accredited medical schools and 1,250 teaching hospitals. These institutions are national treasures; they are the very best in the world. Yet today they find themselves in a precarious financial situation as market forces reshape the health care delivery system in the United States. Explicit and dedicated funding for these institutions, which this legislation will provide, will ensure that the United States continues to lead the world in the quality of its health care system. This legislation requires that the public sector, through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and the private sector, through an assessment on health insurance premiums, contribute broad-based and fair financial support. brief history My particular interest in this subject began in 1994, when the Finance Committee took up the President's Health Security Act. I was chairman of the committee at the time. In January of that year, I asked Dr. Paul Marks, M.D., president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, if he would arrange a seminar for me on health care issues. He agreed, and gathered a number of medical school deans together one morning in New York. Early on in the meeting, one of the seminarians remarked that the University of Minnesota might have to close its medical school. In an instant I realized I had heard something new. Minnesota is a place where they open medical schools, not close them. How, then, could this be? The answer was that Minnesota, being Minnesota, was a leading State in the growth of competitive health care markets, in which competing managed care organizations try to deliver services at lower costs. In this environment, HMO's and the like do not send patients to teaching hospitals, absent which you cannot have a medical school. We are in the midst of a great era of discovery in medical science. It is certainly not a time to close medical schools. This great era of medical discovery is occurring right here in the United States, not in Europe like past ages of scientific discovery. And it is centered in New York City. This heroic age of medical science started in the late 1930's. Before then, the average patient was probably as well off, perhaps better, out of a hospital as in one. Progress from that point sixty years ago has been remarkable. The last few decades have brought us images of the inside of the human body based on the magnetic resonance of bodily tissues; laser surgery; micro surgery for reattaching limbs; and organ transplantation, among other wonders. Physicians are now working on a gene therapy that might eventually replace bypass surgery. I can hardly imagine what might be next. After months of hearings and debate on the President's Health Security Act, I became convinced that special provisions would have to be made for medical schools, teaching hospitals, and medical research if we were not to see this great moment in medical science suddenly constrained. To that end, when the Committee on Finance voted 12 to 8 on July 2, 1994 to report the Health Security Act, it included a Graduate Medical Education and Academic Health Centers Trust Fund. The trust fund provided an 80-percent increase in Federal funding for academic medicine; as importantly, it represented stable, long-term funding. While nothing came of the effort to enact universal health care coverage, the medical education trust fund enjoyed widespread support. An amendment by Senator Malcolm Wallop to kill the trust fund by striking the source of its revenue--a 1.75-percent assessment on health insurance premiums--failed on a 7 to 13 vote in the Finance Committee. I continued to press the issue in the first session of the 104th Congress. On September 29, 1995, during Finance Committee consideration of budget reconciliation legislation, I offered an amendment to establish a similar trust fund. With a new majority in control and the committee in the midst of considering a highly partisan budget reconciliation bill, my amendment failed on a tie vote, 10 to 10. Notably, however, the House version of the reconciliation bill did include a graduate medical education trust fund. That provision ultimately passed both houses as part of the conference agreement, which was subsequently vetoed by President Clinton. The budget resolution for fiscal year 1997 as passed by Congress also appeared to assume that a similar trust fund was to be included in the Medicare reconciliation bill--a bill which never materialized. The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Representative Bill Archer, was largely responsible for the inclusion of trust fund provisions in the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 and the budget resolution for fiscal year 1997. He and I share a strong commitment to ensuring the continued success of our system of medical education. Indeed, Chairman Archer and I were both honored last year to receive the American Association of Medical Colleges' Public Service Excellence Award. That is the history of this effort, briefly stated. need for legislation Medical education is one of America's most precious public resources. Within our increasingly competitive health care system, it is rapidly becoming a public good--that is, a good from which everyone benefits, but for which no one is willing to pay. Therefore, it would be explicitly financed with contributions from all sectors of the health care system, not just the Medicare Program as is the case today. The fiscal pressures of a competitive health market are increasingly closing off traditional implicit revenue sources (such as additional payments from private payers) that have supported medical schools, graduate medical education, and research until now. In its June, 1995 Report to Congress, the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission [ProPAC], created to advise Congress on Medicare Hospital Insurance [Part A] payment, summarized the situation of teaching hospitals as follows: As competition in the health care system intensifies, the additional costs borne by teaching hospitals will place them at a disadvantage relative to other facilities. The role, scale, function, and number of these institutions increasingly will be challenged. . . . Accelerating price competition in the private sector . . . is reducing the ability of teaching hospitals to obtain the higher patient care rates from other payers that traditionally have contributed to financing the costs associated with graduate medical education. ProPAC's June, 1996 Report to Congress confirmed that ``major teaching hospitals have the dual problems of higher overall losses from uncompensated care and less above-cost revenue from private insurers.'' The State of New York provides a good example of what is happening as health care markets become more competitive. Effective at the end of the 1996 calendar year, New York repealed a State law that set hospital rates. Hospitals must now negotiate their fees with each and every health plan in the State. Where teaching hospitals were once guaranteed a payment that recognized, to some degree, its higher costs of providing services, the private sector is free to squeeze down payments to hospitals with no such recognition. While the State of New York operates funding pools that provide partial support for graduate medical education and uncompensated care, it is largely up to the teaching hospitals to try to win higher rates than other hospitals when negotiating contracts with health plans. Some may succeed in doing so, but most will probably not. New York's State law was unique, but the same process of negotiation between hospitals and private health plans takes place across the country. Who, in this context, will pay for the higher costs of operating teaching hospitals? It is obvious that teaching hospitals can no longer rely on higher payments from private payers to do so. Nor should they. The establishment of this trust fund, which explicitly reimburses teaching hospitals for the costs of graduate medical education, will ensure that teaching hospitals can pursue their vitally important patient care, training, and research missions in the face of an increasingly competitive health system. Medical schools also face an uncertain future. There are many policy issues that need to be examined regarding the role of medical schools in our health system, but two threats faced by medical schools require immediate attention. This legislation addresses both. First, many medical schools are immediately threatened by the dire financial condition of their affiliated teaching hospitals. Medical schools rely on teaching hospitals to provide a place for their faculty to practice and perform research, a place to send third and fourth-year medical school students for training, and for some direct revenues. By improving the financial condition of teaching hospitals, this legislation significantly improves the outlook for medical schools. The second immediate threat faced by medical schools stems from their reliance on a portion of the clinical practice revenue generated by their faculties to support their operations. As competition within the health system intensifies and managed care proliferates, these revenues are shrinking. This legislation provides payments to medical schools from the trust fund that are designed to partially offset this loss of revenue. None of the foregoing is meant to suggest that the new competitive forces reshaping health care have brought only negative results. To the contrary, the onset of competition has had many beneficial effects, the dramatic curtailing of growth in health insurance premiums being the most obvious. But as Monsignor Charles J. Fahey of Fordham warned in testimony before the Finance Committee in 1994, we must be wary of the ``commodification of health care,'' by which he meant that health care is not just another commodity. We can rely on competition to hold down costs in much of the health system, but we must not allow it to bring a premature end to this great age of medical discovery, an age made possible by this country's exceptionally well-trained health professionals and superior medical schools and teaching hospitals. This legislation complements a competitive health market by providing tax- supported funding for the public services provided by teaching hospitals and medical schools. description of legislation Accordingly, the medical education trust fund established in the legislation I have just reintroduced would receive funding from three sources broadly representing the entire health care system: a 1.5 percent tax on health insurance premiums--the private sector's contribution--Medicare and Medicaid--the latter two sources comprising the public sector's contribution. The relative contribution from each of these sources will be in rough proportion to the medical education costs attributable to their respective covered populations. Over the 5 years following enactment, the medical education trust fund provides average annual payments of about $17 billion. The tax on health insurance premium--including self-insured health plans--raises approximately $4 billion per year for the trust fund. Federal health programs contribute about $13 billion per year to the trust fund: $9 billion in transfers of Medicare graduate medical education payments and $4 billion in federal Medicaid spending. This legislation is only a first step. It establishes the principle that, as a public good, medical education should be supported by dedicated, long-term Federal funding. To ensure that the United States continues to lead the world in the quality of its medical education and its health system as a whole, the legislation would also create a Medical Education Advisory Commission to conduct a thorough study and make recommendations, including the potential use of demonstration projects, regarding the following: alternative and additional sources of medical education financing; alternative methodologies for financing medical education; policies designed to maintain superior research and educational capacities in an increasingly competitive health system; the appropriate role of medical schools in graduate medical education; and policies designed to expand eligibility for graduate medical education payments to institutions other than teaching hospitals. Mr. President, the services provided by this Nation's teaching hospitals and medical schools--ground breaking research, highly skilled medical care, and the training of tomorrow's physicians--are vitally important and must be protected in this time of intense economic competition in the health system. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that additional material be printed in the Record.