Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the motion be dispensed with.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I send to the desk a motion and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on December 21, 1995, I rose on the Senate floor to note the seventh anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland--an outrageous act of international terrorism which claimed the lives of 270 innocent people. Seven long years have passed, but still the victims' families have no solace that the alleged masterminds of this evil act will ever be brought to justice because the Libyan Government refuses to extradite them. Yesterday, in an interview with Gayle Young of the Cable News Network, Libyan dictator Muhammar Qadafi attempted to justify his position: ``We are ready [for] these suspects * * * to go there for a trial. But the Governments of America and the British, [sic] they don't want to solve this problem * * * . They have no proof [so] they avoid the trial.'' Three assertions. Three untruths. Three additions to the endless stream of lies and falsehoods issuing from the tyrant of Tripoli. A state which harbors outlaws must, of necessity, remain an outlaw state. The United States and the community of civilized nations must keep steadfast to our commitment to the rule of law and our demand for justice for the victims of Pan Am 103 and their families. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce, with my esteemed colleague Senator D'Amato, a bill to eliminate an impediment to an important economic development project in Queens. The Queens West development is 12 years in the making. Construction of the first apartment tower should create 1,000 construction jobs, and the entire project should ultimately create 14,000 construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs. This in a county with unemployment two points higher than the State average. With the financial parties ready to go to closing this month, the title search turned up an impediment that threatens to make the entire project uninsurable, and therefore untenable. A portion of the development would be built on an area that in the last century was on the watery side of the historical high water mark of the East River. Since then it has been filled, bulkheaded, or otherwise developed. The Federal Government, however, retains the right of navigational servitude, which means the Government can condemn the area because it is still navigable in law, if not in fact. The only solution is for Congress to declare the area nonnavigable. This bill does so. The declaration of nonnavigability would apply only to areas that ``will be bulkheaded, filled, or otherwise occupied by permanent structures or other physical improvements''--including parklands. The declaration would expire in 20 years if the area is not occupied by permanent structures. Mr. President, I believe this is a commonsense effort to allow an important project to go forward. We will not need to resume navigating this portion of the East River. We do need the economic development that the Queens West project will bring. Senator D'Amato and I ask for the support of our colleagues. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce, with my esteemed colleague Senator D'Amato, a bill to eliminate an impediment to an important economic development project in Queens. The Queens West development is 12 years in the making. Construction of the first apartment tower should create 1,000 construction jobs, and the entire project should ultimately create 14,000 construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs. This in a county with unemployment two points higher than the State average. With the financial parties ready to go to closing this month, the title search turned up an impediment that threatens to make the entire project uninsurable, and therefore untenable. A portion of the development would be built on an area that in the last century was on the watery side of the historical high water mark of the East River. Since then it has been filled, bulkheaded, or otherwise developed. The Federal Government, however, retains the right of navigational servitude, which means the Government can condemn the area because it is still navigable in law, if not in fact. The only solution is for Congress to declare the area nonnavigable. This bill does so. The declaration of nonnavigability would apply only to areas that ``will be bulkheaded, filled, or otherwise occupied by permanent structures or other physical improvements''--including parklands. The declaration would expire in 20 years if the area is not occupied by permanent structures. Mr. President, I believe this is a commonsense effort to allow an important project to go forward. We will not need to resume navigating this portion of the East River. We do need the economic development that the Queens West project will bring. Senator D'Amato and I ask for the support of our colleagues. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I express the appreciation and relief of all Members of this body and Americans everywhere that we shall, in very short order, under this agreement extend the debt ceiling to $5.5 trillion. That will take us through this fiscal year and past the next election to about September 30, 1997. This particular drop-dead date is out of our way. We can have a good national debate on other issues. I make the point, Mr. President, that while, again, we have to extend the debt ceiling, for the first time since the 1960's, the United States has a primary surplus in its budget, which is to say that the revenues from taxes and other activities exceed the costs of the operations of the Federal Government. Debt service makes for a continuing deficit, but it is coming down. The total deficit this fiscal year will be approximately 2 percent of gross domestic product. It was 5.7 percent just a few years ago. This is a good development. It is a bipartisan one. The vote was bipartisan in the House. It is responsible behavior. I thank all concerned. Finally, Mr. President, I particularly want to thank my colleague, the chairman of the Committee on Finance. Mr. President, my friend and distinguished associate, Senator Jeff Bingaman, has some very laudable concerns to raise the earnings limit for the blind so that in future years it will increase in parallel with the increase for retirees under Social Security, a provision included in this bill. In that regard, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Senator McCain for his thoughtfulness in pressing a matter of concern to him. The earnings limitation is an obsolete provision from the 1930's. We are gradually going to get rid of it now. Senator McCain deserves great credit for that, and I would like to so express my appreciation. With that, I yield the floor, and I thank the managers of this legislation for allowing us to interrupt. Otherwise, it was default by midnight--well, midnight tomorrow. Even so, we have averted that, and we can go on to the proper business of the Senate. I thank the Chair. Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Yes, the Senator from New Mexico is correct.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. The Senator from New Mexico is correct.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise in the serene confidence that this measure is constitutionally doomed. That speaks to the stability of the American political system, a stability sustained in so many moments of peril by the American judiciary. By contrast, I find myself once again agitated that a measure of such enormity--I use that word in both of its meanings--comes to us for so frivolous a reason. We are told by the committee of conference that the purpose of the conference report, which is to say the bill, is to promote savings. We are further informed that this is necessary because the American people consistently cite runaway Federal spending and a rising national debt as among the top issues of national concern over the past 15 years alone. The national debt has quintupled from 1981 and 1996. Our total national debt amounted to just $1 trillion in 1981. Yet today, just 15 years later, that debt exceeds $5 trillion. Those numbers are not quite accurate, but they are approximate and will do. I have stood on this floor for on to 15 years making the plain point that the increase in debt of the 1980's was an act of policy, designed to reduce the size of the Federal Government by reducing its fiscal resources. Fifteen days into his Presidency, February 5, 1981, President Reagan declared in a television address, ``There are always those who told us that taxes can't be cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know, we can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath or we can cut their extravagance by simply reducing their allowance.'' ``Starve the beast'' was the phrase. A huge increase in debt was the result. But at least until now we have not set out to mangle the Constitution to make up for the honest mistakes of one administration. The separate enrollment bill passed by the Senate last March would have required appropriations bills to be disassembled by the enrolling clerks after passage and presented to the President, one by one, for his signature. During that debate I spoke at some length about its constitutional and practical defects. The legislation before us is somewhat less convoluted. But its effect on the separation of powers between legislative and executive branches would be just as profoundly destabilizing. I will describe at this point what has been described as the methods, the procedure for cancellation. Once such a cancellation is made, it would ultimately require a two-thirds vote of the Congress to override. The legislation would have us depart dramatically from the procedures set forth in the plain language of the presentment clause in article I, section 7. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it . . . There is nothing ambiguous about this provision. The Supreme Court declared in INS versus Chadha in 1983 that--I quote the Court: It emerges clearly that the prescription for legislative action in Art. I, Section 7, represents the Framers' decision--[the framers' decision, Mr. President]--that the legislative power of the Federal Government be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered procedure. In Chadha the court held unconstitutional a statute that permitted either House of Congress by resolution to invalidate decisions of the executive branch as to whether certain aliens could be deported. This so-called legislative veto, according to the Court, impermissibly departed from the explicit procedures set forth in article I, which the court said were ``integral parts of the constitutional design for the separation of powers.'' And 3 years later, in Bowsher versus Synar, the Supreme Court was equally scrupulous in requiring strict adherence to the procedures set forth in article I. In Bowsher, the Court invalidated the provision of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Control Act, giving the Comptroller General of the United States authority to execute spending reductions under the act. The Court held that this violated the separation of powers because it vested an executive branch function in the Comptroller General, who is a legislative branch official. ``Underlying both decisions,'' the Congressional Research Service has written, ``was the premise . . . that the powers delegated to the three Branches are functionally identifiable, distinct, and definable.'' There is no ambiguity about the meaning of the requirements of article I, section 7, nor is there any uncertainty about why the framers vested the power of the purse in Congress. Madison in Federalist No. 58: This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure. Until the Supreme Court considers this bill--and it surely will--we will not have a definitive constitutional determination. But some of the Nation's leading constitutional scholars have already concluded that this legislation will be struck down by the courts when it reaches them. Michael J. Gerhardt, a sometime professor of law at Cornell University, and now professor of law at the College of William and Mary, has written me to say, that in his opinion--I quote--``its constitutionality is plainly doomed.'' He argues first that this legislation violates article I, section 7, in that it permits enactment of a bill that has never been voted on by Congress as such. That is, by exercising its power to cancel any part of the bill after signing it, the President would be creating a new law in a form never considered by Congress. That is plainly unconstitutional. Professor Gerhardt argues that granting the President power to reconfigure bills passed by Congress is a legislative function which may not be delegated to the Executive. Finally, he notes that even if Congress could delegate the proposed veto power to the President, ``Congress lacks the authority to restrict Presidential authority by limiting the grounds a President may consider as appropriate for vetoing something.'' In his treatise, ``American Constitutional Law,'' Laurence H. Tribe of the Harvard Law School writes that-- . . . empowering the President to veto appropriations bills line by line would profoundly alter the Constitution's balance of power. The President would be free not only to nullify new congressional spending initiatives and priorities, but to wipe out previously enacted programs that receive their funding through the annual appropriations process. Professor Tribe goes on to say: Congress, which the Constitution makes the master of the public purse, would be demoted to the role of giving fiscal advice that the executive would be free to disregard. The Framers granted the President no such special veto over appropriations bills, despite their awareness that the insistence of colonial assemblies that their spending bills could not be amended once they passed the lower house had greatly enhanced the growth of legislative power. Yesterday, we asked Professor Tribe for his opinion on the legislation before the Senate today. He graciously telephoned our office this morning to say that after studying the conference report, he has concluded as follows. This is Laurence H. Tribe this morning: This is a direct attempt to circumvent the constitutional prohibition against legislative vetoes, and its delegation of power to the President clearly fails to meet the requisites of article I, section 7. Furthermore, nothing in my letter of January 13, 1993 regarding ``separate enrollment'' has any bearing on the mechanism that would be enacted here. Professor Tribe refers to a letter that was quoted several times in last year's debate in which he discussed the possibility that separate enrollment might be constitutional. He emphasizes now that his 1993 letter should not be interpreted to indicate any support for this legislation, which he concludes is certainly not constitutional. Those are the constitutional considerations briefly stated. Now to an additional subject that is of particular interest to me as ranking member and sometime chairman of the Committee on Finance, I direct the attention of the Senate to the provision of section 1021(A)(3) of this legislation dealing with limited tax benefits. This new language appears to be a response to the argument, raised in the debate last year, that spending and tax benefits should be treated equally under a line-item veto. The provision purports to subject tax benefits to the same treatment under the line-item veto as other spending, yet the bill's application to limited tax benefits would have very little real effect, save, as I believe, pernicious ones. Under the proposal, ``limited tax benefit'' is defined as any tax provision identified by the Joint Committee on Taxation as, (first), a revenue-losing provision; (second), having 100 or fewer beneficiaries in any fiscal year; and (third), not within a number of very broad exceptions designed to exempt from the line-item veto any tax provision under which ``all similarly situated persons receive the same treatment.'' Any transition rule that the Joint Tax Committee estimates will benefit 10 or fewer taxpayers in any fiscal year would also be defined as a limited tax benefit. This definition is so narrowly drawn that it will be almost effortlessly circumvented, for it is surely simple enough--and, Senators, as a member of the Finance Committee for 20 years, let me assure you, there is no problem expanding the number of beneficiaries from 10 to 100. It is very readily done and perhaps too often so. To the extent the drafters are unwilling or unable to manipulate this numerical standard, one of the ``similarly situated'' exceptions often will be available to avoid the limited tax benefit designation. By way of an example, the conference report states that a provision that benefits only automobile manufacturers would not be treated as a limited tax benefit because ``the benefit is available to anyone who chooses to engage in the activity.'' Thus, a provision that benefits only Ford Motor Co. but is drafted in a manner potentially open to General Motors and Chrysler would apparently escape the line-item veto. The tax-writing committees often and properly find that tax relief may be justified in narrow circumstances. Such narrow relief is and ought to be granted sparingly, yet these features of the bill create a perverse incentive to craft broader tax benefits than necessary in order to avoid application of the line-item veto. This is surely counterproductive. Second, while seemingly objective on its face, the definition includes several elements that are seriously ambiguous, raising a number of questions. For example, what does it mean to be ``similarly situated?'' Can a provision be drafted to benefit all baseball team owners to the exclusion of other sport franchises? How does one determine who are the beneficiaries of a particular provision? Would the football coaches pension provision--and, yes, there was one, in the vetoed Balanced Budget Act of 1995--be deemed to benefit only the pension plan itself or the more than 100 coach participants? I could go on longer than the Senate would be interested or perhaps even edified to hear. There is a final point, sir. By vesting in the Joint Committee on Taxation the exclusive authority--not subject to judicial review, not subject to debate on the Senate floor--the exclusive authority to make these determinations, this legislation would effectively grant great additional power in drafting tax legislation to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance and the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means--those two persons to the exclusion, I fear, of the rest of the Congress, the Members of either body. While the Joint Tax Committee may indeed be the best institutional decisionmaker on technical tax issues, the decision of what constitutes a limited tax benefit can and no doubt would be quite political. The chairmen of the two tax-writing committees could exert pressure on the Joint Tax Committee to exclude favored items from application of the bill. Conversely, the chairmen would be granted potentially undue influence over other Members' legislative items with the implicit threat that such items would be deemed subject to the line-item veto. In his letter to which I referred earlier, Professor Gerhardt expresses similar concerns about this provision. Now, I mentioned that the purpose of this legislation, according to the conference committee, is to limit runaway Federal spending and thereby reduce the debt. I am here to report--and I hope someone will hear--that, in point of fact, the era of runaway spending is behind us. The Federal budget is in primary surplus for the first time since the 1960's--for the first time. This came about largely as a consequence of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which provided for deficit reduction of some $500 billion--the largest deficit reduction measure in the half century since the wartime-incurred deficit was reduced following World War II. Such was the size of the reductions that interest rates fell sharply, and the deficit premium, as it had been called, in the markets dropped, and another $100 billion was saved. And we are, at long last, moving our deficits down--down to 2 percent of gross domestic product this year. The difference between the present deficit and a true surplus is merely the debt service on the debt accumulated in those previous 15 years. If we had the debt of the 1970's, we would be in surplus today. The sequence whereby that happened was the surpluses of the Kennedy- Johnson era became neutral in the Nixon administration, and the recessions and inflation of the Ford and Carter administrations produced small primary deficits. Then came the 1980's. Then came 1993 and, among other things, I stand here saying -- happily, to an almost empty Chamber--we had the largest tax increase in history, and I was chairman of the Finance Committee. It was not forgotten entirely in New York when I came back from the election. How did we do this? Very simply, we did it by compromise. We did it by the kind of compromise the Framers anticipated. The Framers said they did not create a system of government which presumed virtue. They took interest as a given and virtue as something to be acquired. And the offsetting principles, as Madison put it, to make up for the defect of better motives. We made all manner of compromises in that legislation, and we would not have our deficit down to 2 percentof GDP today had we not. For example, the business meal tax deduction was reduced from 80 to 50 percent. That was something a chairman from New York could offer and say, ``Here, I am willing to do this.'' The restaurant owners said, ``What about us?'' They were given a tax credit for the FICA tax they are required to pay on their employees' tips. Well, it was a compromise. I could go on and on about that. Gasoline and diesel fuels were raised 4.3 cents per gallon. Oh, Mr. President, do I remember that 0.3 cents--1 week in a room on the third floor without windows of this Capitol. But we got that. How? Airlines were given a 2-year exemption from the increased tax. We also took away tax benefits previously accorded exporters of raw timber. Mr. President, these compromises make major legislation agreeable and effective. Supposing a member with which a chairman worked were asked to make a concession in return for an accommodation; supposing that member had to think: The minute this bill becomes law, that chairman will go to that President and say, ``Take out that provision that was made for the Senator from Louisiana, because it was only done to get your bill by, Mr. President.'' You will not have that which makes legislation possible. You will not have that spirit of trust, which performance reinforces and creates the stability of our institutions. For if there is no trust, there will be no compromise, and if there is no compromise, there will be no Government--no stable Government. I sometimes think of this simple fact. Mr. President, there are seven nations on Earth that both existed in 1914 and have not had their form of government changed by violence since 1914. There are two since 1800, and we are one of them. We are one of the seven and we are one of the two. That stability did not come easily, nor should it be assumed a given. That stability rests on the rock bed of the Constitution, and we do a very poor service to that stability when we begin to dynamite away parts of that rock bed. I will close with simply one statement, which we are all required on our oaths to observe. The Judicial Conference of the United States has written to us to say: Do not do this. We are the least harmless branch--again, remember Madison--and we cannot make you do it. I will quote them: The line-item veto authority poses a threat to the independence of the judiciary because a President could put pressure on the courts or retaliate against the judges by vetoing items in judicial appropriation bills. This is a profound responsibility which--in the end, we will turn to the courts to see sustained. I believe this is a serious concern. I hope that it will be attended to. Mr. President, I thank the Senate for its careful, courteous attention. I thank Senator Domenici. I thank, with special gratitude, Senator Byrd. I will also, finally, ask unanimous consent that the letter from Prof. Michael Gerhardt, along with two letters from the Judicial Conference of the United States, be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I believe I have two moments. I yield them to whichever Senator wishes to use them. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I would like to begin by joining the chairman of the Budget Committee in expressing my profound gratitude and admiration to the revered, sometime President pro tempore of the Senate, Robert C. Byrd, who has set us a standard which if we fail to meet today, will remain to measure those who come after us.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I will take just a moment of the Senate's time to prepare for a general debate. I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed for 4 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, New York State, or upstate New York, has been shocked--I think that is a fair term--and finds itself in near disbelief to learn that the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] has closed the Ithaca station, which is part of a broad network of monitoring stations that collect data critical to understanding the impact of acid rain on the Adirondack Preserve. There is little enough institutional memory around Washington, but one should think the EPA would know that the concern about acid rain began with the disappearance of trout from a number of lakes in the higher Adirondacks. This was a puzzle and, in the end, it was resolved by a fish biologist at Cornell University, Dr. Carl Scofield, who traced the cycle: acid rain caused by increasingly acidified air released aluminum from the granite surrounding the lakes. That aluminum leached into the lakes and was absorbed into fish gills. The fish died. In 1980, I obtained approval of legislation--the Acid Precipitation Act--which was based on a bill I introduced here in the Congress the year before. My bill was incorporated as title VII into the Energy Security Act of 1980--Public Law 96-294--and directed the EPA to study, over a 10-year period, just what was going on--not to panic, not to go screaming to high Heaven that the skies were opening with awful substances that would burn holes in our children's heads, and things like that--but just to say, ``What is this?'' Some longitudinal work obviously was in order. The effort was to last for 10 years, at $5 million per year. During the Reagan administration, as demand for action grew and knowledge was needed, money was collected from research budgets around the country, such that our project, in the end, became a half-billion dollar research project, the largest of its kind. We ended up knowing more about this subject than any of the other industrialized nations. It is a real enough subject, but if our understanding of it is to progress confidently, we need more data, such as can be collected by normal scientific inquiry. In the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments--Public Law 101-549--we made the best use we could of our research on the subject. We called for large reductions in emissions in the Middle West. Winds blow those emissions toward the Adirondacks, of course. And just to see that we continued along this track, as the then-ranking member of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works--in the conference committee on the bill-- I included certain provisions. One was designed so that the lay person could understand what was going on. The provision directed the EPA to compile and provide a registry of acidified lakes. Now, in Florida, that could be all lakes, of course; but it would not be in Pennsylvania or in New York. With the registry, over time, we would see how many lakes were being added, how many were being subtracted; how might we measure, essentially, the effect of our legislation? That has not been done. I asked for other research measures in law, in statute, that have not been followed. And now the EPA has the arrogance and the insolence and the stupidity to close the research facility at the site where this whole subject was first understood, brought to national attention, and was addressed with national legislation. Mr. President, I regret to say this, but I hope the administrator is hearing. I am not surprised that persons are calling for the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency. If it will not obey the law, and if it will not follow elemental common sense, do we in fact need it, or is it an obstacle to the environmental concerns we share? Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, March 10, 1996, marked what would have been James Thomas Valvano's 50th birthday. It has been almost 3 years since the Queens, NY, native lost a rather public battle with cancer. The intent here, however, is not to eulogize. And any attempt to do so would pale in comparison to the impassioned eloquence of that offered on this floor by my distinguished friend and colleague from North Carolina, Mr. Helms on April 28, 1993. I did not know Jim Valvano--barely knew of him. But I am aware of the good work done by the foundation he founded in the final weeks of his life. On March 4, 1993, Jim Valvano was awarded the inaugural ESPN Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at the American Sports Awards. In an acceptance speech that was widely noted and shall long be remembered, he announced the creation of the V Foundation for Cancer Research. With a Churchillian stoutness of spirit, Valvano set forth the mission: It may not save my life. It may save my children's lives. It may save someone you love. . . . [I]t's motto is, ``Don't give up, don't ever give up.'' That's what I'm going to do every minute that I have left . . . so that someone else might survive, might prosper and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. . . . I'm going to work as hard as I can for cancer research and hopefully, maybe, we'll have some cures and some breakthroughs. Since that night the V Foundation has raised more than $2.3 million for that mission. Here are just some of the organizations and programs to which the V Foundation has contributed: $250,000 to fund a national public awareness campaign through the NCCR [National Coalition of Cancer Researchers]; $100,000 to fund Dr. Gerold Bepler at Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center; $100,000 to fund a 2-year grant for Dr. Phil Hochhauser at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; $100,000 to the UNC Lineberger Cancer Center for construction of the Jim Valvano Cancer Research Lab; $100,000 to fund Dr. Leland Powell at the University of California at San Diego; $100,000 to fund the research of Dr. Thomas Gajewski at the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center; $29,000 to the Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, KY, for the construction of the Angela Valvano Classroom. Any basketball coach who carried a collection of Emily Dickinson poems in his gym bag and quoted Edna St. Vincent Millay and Ralph Waldo Emerson to sports reporters most certainly knew the impermanence of athletic achievements. Records are broken, victory banners fade, championship rings tarnish. But when all of these are long forgot, James Thomas Valvano will be remembered to the beneficiaries of the foundation that bears his name. And through them, to us all. Mr. President, I ask that the entire text of Jim Valvano's remarks at the 1993 ESPN Awards be printed in the Record. The remarks follow: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's the lowest I've ever seen Dick Vitale since the owner of the Detroit Pistons called him in and told him he should go into broadcasting. I can't tell you what an honor it is, to even be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Ashe. This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it said on the tape, and I also don't have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I'm going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That's the way it goes. Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have something that will be important to other people, too. But, I can't help it. Now I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how's your day, and nothing is changed for me. As Dick said, I'm a very emotional and passionate man. I can't help it. That's being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory. We hug, we kiss, we love. When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it's the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special. I rode on the plane up today with Mike Krzyzewski, my good friend and a wonderful coach. People don't realize he's 10 times a better person than he is a coach, and we know he's a great coach. He's meant a lot to me in these last 5 or 6 months with my battle. But when I look at Mike, I think, we compete against each other as players. I coached against him for 15 years, and I always have to think about what's important in life to me are these three things. Where you started, where you are and where you're going to be. Those are the three things that I try to do every day. When I think about getting up and giving a speech, I can't help it. I have to remember the first speech I ever gave. I was coaching at Rutgers University, that was my first job, oh, that's wonderful [reaction to applause], and I was the freshmen coach. That's when freshmen played on freshmen teams, and I was so fired up about my first job. I see Lou Holtz here. Coach Holtz, who doesn't like the very first job you had? The very first time you stood in the lockerroom to give a pep talk. That's a special place, the lockerroom, for a coach to give a talk. So my idol as a coach was Vince Lombardi, and I read this book called ``Commitment to Excellence'' by Vince Lombardi. And in the book, Lombardi talked about the first time he spoke before his Green Bay Packers team in the lockerroom, and they were perennial losers. I'm reading this and Lombardi said he was thinking should it be a long talk, a short talk? But he wanted to be emotional, so it would be brief. So here's what I did. Normally you get in the lockerroom, I don't know, 25 minutes, a half hour before the team takes the field, you do your little X and O's, and then you give the great Knute Rockne talk. We all do. Speech No. 84. You pull them right out, you get ready. You get your squad ready. Well, this is the first one I ever gave and I read this thing, Lombardi, what he said was he didn't go in, he waited. His team was wondering where is he? Where is this great coach? He's not there. Ten minutes he's still not there. Three minutes before they could take the field Lombardi comes in, bangs the door open, and I think you all remember what great presence he had, great presence. He walked in and he walked back and forth, like this, just walked, staring at the players. He said, ``All eyes on me.'' I'm reading this in this book. I'm getting this picture of Lombardi before his first game and he said, ``Gentlemen, we will be successful this year, if you can focus on three things, and three things only. Your family, your religion and the Green Bay Packers.'' They knocked the walls down and the rest was history. I said, that's beautiful. I'm going to do that. Your family, your religion and Rutgers basketball. That's it. I had it. Listen, I'm 21 years old. The kids I'm coaching are 19, and I'm going to be the greatest coach in the world, the next Lombardi. I'm practicing outside of the lockerroom and the managers tell me you got to go in. Not yet, not yet, family, religion, Rutgers basketball. All eyes on me. I got it, I got it. Then finally he said, 3 minutes, I said fine. True story. I go to knock the doors open just like Lombardi. Boom! They don't open. I almost broke my arm. Now I was down, the players were looking. Help the coach out, help me out. Now I did like Lombardi, I walked back and forth, and I was going like that with my arm getting the feeling back in. Finally I said, ``Gentlemen, all eyes on me.'' These kids wanted to play, they're 19. ``Let's go,'' I said. ``Gentlemen, we'll be successful this year if you can focus on three things, and three things only. Your family, your religion and the Green Bay Packers. I told them. I did that. I remember that. I remember where I came from. It's so important to know where you are. I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. You have to be willing to work for it. I talked about my family, my family's so important. People think I have courage. The courage in my family are my wife Pam, my three daughters, here, Nicole, Jamie, LeeAnn, my mom, who's right here, too. That screen is flashing up there ``30 seconds'' like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I'm worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot. I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ``Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,'' to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality. Now I look at where I am now and I know what I want to do. What I would like to be able to do is spend whatever time I have left and to give, and maybe, some, some hope to others. Arthur Ashe Foundation is a wonderful thing, and AIDS, the amount of money pouring in for AIDS is not enough, but is significant. But if I told you it's 10 times the amount that goes in for cancer research. I also told you that 500,000 people will die this year of cancer. I also tell you that one in every four will be afflicted with this disease, and yet somehow, we seem to have put it in a little bit of the background. I want to bring it back on the front table. We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. I may save my children's lives. It may save someone you love, and ESPN has been so kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight, that with ESPN's support, which means what? Their money and their dollars and their helping me, we are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research. And its motto is, ``Don't give up, don't ever give up.'' That's what I'm going to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have. If you see me, smile and give me a hug. That's important to me, too. But try if you can to support, whether it's AIDS or the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. I can't thank ESPN enough for allowing this to happen. I'm going to work as hard as I can for cancer research and hopefully, maybe, we'll have some cures and some breakthroughs. I'd like to think, I'm going to fight my brains out to be back here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year! I know I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I've said it before and I want to say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you and God bless you all.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I had the pleasure of attending the American Jewish Congress' Profiles in Courage Awards Dinner last Saturday night in New York City at which former Israeli President Chaim Herzog delivered a most memorable address. I first met Chaim Herzog some 21 years ago when then-President Ford appointed me the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations. He was the Israeli Ambassador to that body where a Soviet-led coalition wielded enormous power and used it in an assault against the democracies of the world. In that regard, I cite an editorial in the New Republic which recently said of the United Nations, ``During the Cold War, the U.N. became a chamber of hypocrisy and proxy aggression.'' Proxy aggression in particular directed against the State of Israel, which became a metaphor for democracy under virtual siege at the United Nations. Those who failed to destroy Israel on the field of battle joined those who wished to discredit all Western, democratic governments in an unprecedented, sustained attack on the very right of a U.N. member state to exist within the family of nations. The efforts in the 1970's to delegitimize Israel came in many forms, none more insidious than the campaign to declare Zionism a form of racism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, both the Zionism resolution and the rejectionist Arab Front lost their major source of support. On June 19, 1991, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a coffee-hour for then-President-elect Yeltsin of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In the receiving line, one of the members of the Russian delegation asked if I remembered him. ``I was stationed at the United Nations when you were the U.S. Representative. You did not think anyone was listening, did you? But we heard you.'' He was, in fact, Andrei Kozyrev. The very last vote that the Soviet Union cast in the General Assembly was the vote on December 16, 1991, to repeal Resolution 3379. And the same Andrei Kozyrev who served the Soviet Union at the United Nations in 1975, was, in his capacity as Foreign Minister of Russia, one of the two witnesses to the historic Oslo Accords, signed on the South Lawn of the White House on September 13, 1993. The same Andrei Kozyrev who monitored Leonard Garment's remarks before the Third Committee joined Warren Christopher in witnessing Yasser Arafat's signature to a paper that three decades of Soviet foreign policy sought to prevent. The Soviet Union has gone to its richly deserved place in the dustbin of history which it once promised would be the burial place of democratic society. The Soviet Union may be gone. But events during the past few weeks must remind us all that Israel remains very much a metaphor for democracy in the twilight struggle between the forces of totalitarianism and the values of freedom. The bombs that rocked London and the terrorist violence that shattered the peace of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were attacks on all democracies. While the immediate victims of the recent bombings in Israel may have been Israeli citizens of the Jewish, Moslem, and Christian faiths and visitors and pilgrims from other nations, those responsible for these actions are simply at war with all civilized societies. There can be no place in the family of nations for the murderous cowards who send others on suicide missions to slaughter civilians in the name of any cause. President Clinton has taken important measures to help protect the people of Israel from a continuation of these atrocities. President Herzog spoke Saturday night of the appropriate response to these terrorist atrocities. His message concerning the future of the peace process is an important one and I ask that his remarks be printed in the Record. The remarks follow: Address by President Chaim Herzog to the American Jewish Congress on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Profiles in Courage Awards Mr. Chairman: I am most grateful to you for your kind words, and, indeed, to the American Jewish Congress for having made this memorable award to me in such distinguished company as former comrades-in-arms, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Leonard Garment. As I stand here in this building I recall the years in which I represented Israel--years in which we were treated by so many as a pariah state, years in which the theater of the absurd which was the United Nations at that time devoted so much time, energy and resources to condemning the small State of Israel while ignoring the evils that befell the world on all sides. At that time, we were outnumbered by the automatic majority comprised of an alliance of hatred based on the Soviet bloc, the Arab bloc and the so-called Non-Aligned group. If ever there was a misnomer, it was this, because nobody was more aligned in those days than the so-called Non- Aligned. They were aligned in hatred of Western democracy, they were aligned in support of Communist hegemony, they were aligned in the common lofty purpose of maligning Israel with a view to leading to its delegitimization. The battle began in October 1975 in the Third Committee, the so-called Human Rights Committee, with a violent attack against Israel and Zionism. The three great bulwarks of democracy and freedom--Cuba, Somalia and Benin--had submitted to the UN Third Committee, the Human Rights Committee, an amendment proposing an addition to the existing resolution attacking racism and apartheid. What they wanted to add was an attack on Zionism, equating it with racism. This move was particularly grave because it was the first attack in the United Nations on an ``ism.'' Nobody had ever attempted to attack Communism, Socialism or capitalism before. But now our national liberation movement was becoming the center of attack. In that debate, Leonard Garment, the U.S. representative on the committee, attacked the resolution with the dramatic words, ``This is an obscene act.'' On Friday evening, October 17th, the debate concluded in the Third Committee, and it met to vote on it. In my remarks, I thanked the delegations who had stood by our side, and said that we would never forget those who voted to attack our religion and our faith. I shouted out the last words, ``We shall never forget.'' The resolution passed with a majority, and our enemies seemed to be on the verge of a victory war dance. I saw Pat Moynihan, the blood rushing to his head, livid, standing up. He straightened his tie, pulled down and buttoned his jacket, and crossed the floor to me. I rose to greet him and held out my hand. He took it, pulled me to him and embraced me in front of the entire hall. I shall never forget that gut reaction of his, which spoke more than anything else. It was not planned, it was not part of policy--that was just Pat Moyniham behaving instinctively. I was very moved. He whispered to me what we could do to our enemies. I was perplexed and could not understand the absence of any meaningful Jewish reaction to the vote at the time, and when I addressed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, I pulled no punches. As soon as my remarks at the meeting were published, the reaction amongst American Jewry was something that had to be seen to be believed. Paul Johnson, the brilliant editor of ``The New Statesman,'' wrote an outstanding article which concluded with his views that ``The melancholy truth, I fear, is that the candles of civilization are burning low.'' In the General Assembly, I delivered the speech defending Israel, and indeed the Jewish people, and at the conclusion of my remarks I took the resolution in my hands and tore it up in front of the Assembly. The effect of the debate and the resolution on Jews all over the world was electrifying. The fight had done more for Zionism than thousands of speeches by Zionist leaders. It had clearly touched a nerve. Nothing can demonstrate more vividly the change which has occurred than the attitude to Israel in the United Nations today. The resolution was rescinded by an overwhelming majority in 1992. Our delegation is no longer the whipping boy of the United Nations, and enjoys open and cordial relations with many Arab delegations. The Soviet Union has disappeared, and with it the hostility that it bred in the Assembly. Perhaps few events can demonstrate the unbelievable success of Israel in its efforts to achieve peace and break down the barriers of hatred than the attitude towards Israel in the General Assembly today. I have come from Israel, which has been through some very difficult experiences in the past months. Like many other countries in the area, we are at war with Islamic Fundamentalism. It is a bitter struggle, fuelled by deep hatred and an approach by the Islamic Fundamentalists which entertains no compromise. The new type of terror which is being used by our enemies is not easy to cope with, because here you have individuals who have been promised that they go straight to heaven and benefit from the priorities given to holy martyrs on their arrival, if they blow themselves up. This is a very difficult problem to deal with, and it is not always easy to detect the individual bent on creating havoc and chaos by detonating himself. It has been difficult to apply emergency legislation, but every one of these would-be suicide bombers now knows that an attack by them will involve very severe official action against their families, who will not have had the good fortune to reach heaven with them. I do not have to recall to you the scenes of horror and devastation which filled the television screens of the world and which you doubtless saw, but we can be proud of the fact that the Opposition rallied behind the Government on the occasion of these disasters, and of the leadership given by Prime Minister Peres in these difficult and almost impossible times. We have been through very difficult periods in the past when we had ranged against us the entire Palestinian people. We are experiencing a very difficult period now. But there is a difference: some 70% of the Palestinian people, represented by the PLO and led by a leader who was elected by secret ballot, has withdrawn from the circle of terror and has ceased to use terror in the struggle against Israel. It has been active in coordination with Israel against the terrorists of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, although we have maintained, and continue to maintain, that its action has not been as determined and as effective on occasions as we would wish. But one thing is clear: 70% of the Palestinian people have withdrawn from the circle of terror which endangered us over the years and they no longer partake in such activities. We have to remember that the forces in conflict with us are also in conflict with the government of Jordan; are engaged in a life-and-death struggle in Algeria; and in Egypt, where President Mubarak has been successfully curbing their activities. The terrorists who have unleashed this recent violence have the same goal as their predecessors during the past fifty years: the destruction of Israel. They understand that their ambition will never succeed if the peace process succeeds and the Palestinians compromise. Those of us who react to trauma by despairing that the peace process will succeed are handing the terrorists a victory. The arrangements under the Oslo Agreements have been moving along fairly satisfactorily. The Palestinian elections gave a convincing majority to those favoring the peace process, but we face the danger of terrorism instigated by a comparatively small minority. This is complicated by the new and very serious phenomenon of suicide bombing. We have demanded from the Palestinians to honor their commitments under the Oslo Agreements, and above all, to join us in fighting this new terrorism organized by the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. There is daily cooperation, there are joint patrols everywhere, but because of the complexities of Arab society we have not been convinced that the Palestinian Authority has been doing its utmost to combat the wave of terrorism. I emphasize that it has done a great deal, and a large number of what could have been tragic events were prevented: but it is just not enough. The closure of the territories and the creation of a dividing wall between Israel and the Palestinians is having a very serious economic effect on the Palestinian population. They will thus have to reach painful decisions for they are entirely dependent on Israel for their economic existence. The phenomenal success of Israel's economy has placed Israel in a dominant position, from an economic point of view, in the area. Israel's annual gross national product is going on 90 billion dollars and is more than the gross national product of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinians together. The closure of Israel to labor from the Arab sector will deprive the Palestinian Authority of an income of some $700 million, but these facts do not influence the Fundamentalist activities of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad who would create chaos throughout the area. The battle is going on in each and every one of the countries against the Fundamentalists, but so long as Iran is the home of terrorism and the finance center of the terrorist activities in the area, we have to adapt ourselves to a long struggle in many countries around us. Let us remember that Israel has been at war with Arab terrorists throughout its history, and the terrorists who have unleashed this present violence have the same goal as their predecessors during the past hundred years--the destruction of Israel. We have always moved forward and pursued our national interest in the face of violence and horror. Most Israelis understand that Palestinian self-rule with security guarantees for Israel is in our interest. This is no time to throw up our hands and declare that the peace process is finished. That would be an admission of defeat unlike any in our history. We did not back down in 1929, when hundreds of innocent Jews were slaughtered by Arabs in Hebron. We did not back down in 1947, when the UN resolution to partition Palestine promoted mass murder and the ransacking of Jewish neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria, in Aden, Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa. We buried our dead, rolled up our sleeves and created a Jewish state. We did not back down in 1948, as Arab armies blocked the roads to Jerusalem and cut off food and weapons from its inhabitants. I was in that city in a building when a bomb destroyed it and nearly killed my wife. After I carried her out of the charred ruins and rushed her to hospital, it never occurred to us to surrender to those who wanted to destroy us. That spirit was nearly universal in our small population--one percent of which was killed in the War of Independence; it animated most Israelis and our supporters around the world in the decades--and wars--ahead. We certainly did not back down under Labor, Likud and national unity governments when hundreds of Israeli men, women and children were killed by all manner of terrorist. We fought against terror while emphasizing our commitment to peace. Israel and the Jewish people need much more of that spirit now. In recent years, the sense of permanent siege that has defined our national experience has begun to lift. But after so many decades of being a pariah state, at times it is hard for many to see that each and every Arab is no longer an enemy. And that is precisely what Hamas wants. As their popularity wanes in the West Bank and Gaza, their only hope is to generate violent conflict by returning to the days when to Israelis, all Arabs were indistinguishable from one another. That is why Hamas has created a new breed of desperate fanatic with sophisticated explosives and the will to die. We must not let them win, and that means not only stopping murder, but also insisting that peace with legitimate Palestinian partners remains our national goal. The effect of the recent terrorist attacks in Israel has been dramatic, leading to the joint initiative of President Clinton and Prime Minister Shimon Peres, together with King Hussein and President Mubarak, to convene a summit conference at Sharm el-Sheikh to set up a united international front against the danger of terrorism. We can only be gratified that finally the nations of the world seem to be awakening to the inherent danger of the Terrorist International threatening the free world. We can only hope and trust that the resolutions reached at the summit conference will be strictly adhered to, and what is most important of all, that the organizational aspects of the international struggle against terrorism will be implemented. As I stand here in this building, I cannot but recall the dramatic debate which took place here in July 1976 after the unforgettable rescue by the Israel Defense Forces of the Jews hijacked to Entebbe, Uganda, in an Air France plane. In the course of my remarks in the debate in the Security Council in this very building, I said: ``It has fallen to the lot of my small country, embattled as we are, facing the problems which we do, to demonstrate to the world that there is an alternative to surrender to terrorism and blackmail. ``It has fallen to our lot to prove to the world that this scourge of international terror can be dealt with. It is now for the nations of the world, regardless of political differences which may divide them, to unite against this common enemy which recognizes no authority, knows no borders, respects no sovereignty, ignores all basic human decencies, and places no limits on human bestiality. ``. . . We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over 100 innocent people--men, women and children-- but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom. ``We call on this body to declare war on international terror, to outlaw it and eradicate it wherever it may be. We call on this body, and above all we call on the Member States and countries of the world, to unite in a common effort to place these criminals outside the pale of human society, and with them to place any country which cooperates in any way in their nefarious activities.'' Mr. Peres has done what an Israeli Prime Minister should do by making it crystal clear that Israel will take stern and-- if necessary--unilateral measures to thwart these killers. And he has told Arafat that the Palestinian Authority must prove that it is a real partner by dismantling the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza, once and for all. If Arafat does demonstrate the capacity to stop the fanatics, Israel should not take the coward's way out by capitulating to the rejectionists: it should do everything possible to make sure that the Palestinian Authority fulfills its obligations under the Oslo Agreements. It must insist that our security comes first, even as we continue to mourn our dead. That is the brave as well as the sensible thing to do. There is a debate in Israeli society about the advantages or disadvantages of the peace process. When evaluating the possibilities, one has to remember that we are now becoming more and more an integral part of the Middle East. We have relations with many Arab countries; trade with the Arab world is booming; joint projects are being set up on all sides; tens of thousands of Arab tourists are pouring in from Jordan and now from Egypt too; our hospitals are flooded with Arab patients from all over the Middle East. A new form of life is developing which these terrorist organizations see as a great danger to them. When evaluating our reaction to the current events, we must recall that the alternative to moving along the path of the peace process would cause 70% of the Palestinian population which had ceased to use terror as a weapon to return to a tragic and dangerous situation. It would mean a return to the `intifada,' with the terrible consequences of such an ongoing struggle. It would mean, according to some, a return to the alleyways and backyards of Gaza, with all that that implies. The enemy says openly that its purpose is to destroy the peace process, hence nothing could be more counter-productive to our cause than giving in to the terrorists and stopping the process. I emphasize, of course, that we have to insist that our Palestinian interlocutors honor all the obligations which they have taken on themselves, otherwise they know full well that we hold all the strong cards. My friends, only five years have passed since the Gulf War, during which Iraq attacked senselessly with Scud missiles the civilian population of Israel. At that time, the grand alliance organized by President Bush reacted and soundly beat the Iraqi army. But at that time Israel could not convince the alliance that it had a place in it. It is an indication of the long distance we have covered since then and the revolution which has occurred in the Middle East, that this week the leaders of the Arab world and of the free world sat together with the Prime Minister of Israel, who was treated as a full and equal partner in this international struggle against terrorism. This was followed by President Clinton's third visit to Israel, in which a far-reaching agreement on a joint effort to combat terror has reached between the United States and Israel. That is the measure of advance that has occurred in our area, and the degree to which Israel has become an ally of, among others, the leading Arab countries in the Middle East. That is the measure of advance and positive change which we have witnessed in the Middle East. I am convinced that the international effort being made to coordinate the struggle against terrorism will ultimately bear fruit. In the meantime, Israel continues its impressive march along the road to regional peace and economic development, a road along which it is advancing in partnership with the leading Arab countries of the area. Let us not forget the intricate path along which we have advanced; let us not forget the struggle conducted by many others before me who received the award being given tonight; let us not forget that many of our leaders of old would have given their right hands just to see the revolutionary change which has occurred to Israel in the Middle East. We in Israel have lived through very trying and difficult times, but we have always known that our cause is just. Our dedication to that cause is what will advance us to new goals and a new and promising era in the future.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, some while ago, the New York Historical Society conceived the notion of collecting holograph accounts of notable events in our city from contemporary New Yorkers, and thereafter auctioning them off to help with the expenses of that venerable institution. I was asked to participate and was happy to do. As would anyone my age, I have all manner of memories of our city, going back, for example, to December 7, 1941, when I learned about Pearl Harbor from a man whose shoes I was shining on the corner of Central Park West and 81st Street, across from the Planetarium. I do not really recall what I thought about all that; all I do recall for certain is that when I got home later in the day, the regular radio programming had been interrupted by bulletins from the Pacific. Between bulletins, the station played martial music. Well, sort of martial music. It seemed the only such record they had on was the ``fight song,'' as they say, of the Fordham football team. Pearl Harbor brought war to the United States but only seemed to enhance the greatness of our city. At war's end, it seemed only natural that New York should be chosen as the site of the headquarters of the United Nations, the victorious alliance that won that war. The years since have not been so generous. At times, they have been ominous, putting our city in peril in a way world war never did, albeit much of the peril has come from abroad. I thought of this matter, and, of a sudden, knew the event I would relate--with a penmanship that would mortify the brothers to this day. Here is what I wrote, on New Year's Day, 1995. Early in 1985, I flew up from Washington to New York. As is our custom, I was met by Detective ``Chuck'' Bennett of the N.Y.P.D. On our way into town we discussed events of the day. Bennett, with a detective's eye, commented that men were appearing on street corners snapping their fingers for no apparent reason. Two month's later he reported that they were selling something called ``crack,'' the finger snapping being a form of street cry. It remained for Douglas Hurd, then British Home Secretary, to visit New York and tell our Drug Enforcement Agency that a new form of cocaine, which had appeared in the Bahamas in 1983, was known as ``crack'' and was spreading. The Plague had reached New York. Charles Joseph Bennett, the detective who had met me at LaGuardia, was and remains a preternaturally subtle, observant, normally silent, at times near-to-invisible presence on our city streets for near quarter of a century. For 20 of those years, he has been keeping me out of harm's way. Not an easy thing to do, for public figures in our time are commonly threatened, sometimes openly, sometimes not. It has been his lot to assess the threats involved, first having learned of them or divined them. It was in this latter gift that ``Chuck'' excelled. Be it a U.S. Senator, the least of his worries, a head of state, a peace delegation, a terrorist infiltrator, a building, a bridge, a tunnel, there has been no threat of violence or subversion or sedition in a quarter century that he has not been involved with or aware of. His personal qualities are legendary. Affable until the moment of danger when he can be terrifying; near-to-invisible until he must make everyone in the room stop instantly and do as he says; self-effacing, funny, deadly serious. It may seem an unusual quality for an officer of a very old organization, set in its ways and fixed in place, but ``Chuck'' Bennett has proved an extraordinarily adept ambassador. First with our own law enforcement organizations such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Capitol Police here in Washington, but notably also with foreign detective forces, ranging from London to Melbourne. He has formed lasting friendships not just between individuals but also between organizations that have hugely benefitted all concerned. This April 28 he retires: at the top of his grade and the top of his form. He goes with the profound thanks of Liz, Tim, Tracey, John, Helen, and Maura for his friendship and his guardianship. And the great good wishes of all manner of New Yorkers for how well he has served us. Only Chuck Bennett would notice odd gestures on street corners and spot an epidemic on its way. Let us hope he returns regularly to New York, keeping an eye on things, and keeping in touch with those of us who love him so.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank the Chair. Again to say, a default by the Treasury would have disastrous consequences for the domestic economy of the United States and for global financial markets. I make the point that during the 1980's, we became a debtor nation, the world's largest debtor nation. To jeopardize the full faith and credit of that debt is to jeopardize the well-being of the Nation. I have, Mr. President, one last thing to say, a point to make, a positive point. I know that there are many persons who legitimately feel that in extending the debt ceiling we are only somehow extending the tendency to spend more than we have in the way of income, to be excessive and improvident and, in consequence, debt ridden. Mr. President, this is not the case. Owing in large measure--or so I choose to believe--to the budget measures, tax and spending measures we took in 1993, we are now in a very solid cash-flow situation for the first time since the late 1960's. We are seeing the legacy of debt but also the consequence of legitimate behavior. In this period, 1994-97, for the first time since the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the Federal Government will have more revenue than expenditure on programs and procurement. This also went through to the first years of President Nixon. We had a very small surplus, tiny, $3.1 billion in the first half of the decade; $2.3 billion in the second half. Then there was the period of the Nixon administration when matters were just even, properly so. Then with the onset of President Ford's administration, then President Carter's, with the great increase in oil prices, inflation, things of that kind, we began to borrow money to pay for ongoing programs, $22 billion, then $13 billion. The first years of the Reagan administration we borrowed $80 billion to pay for ongoing programs. Some of it is investment, but it was ongoing. Then in the administration of the latter years of Mr. Reagan, it dropped to $21 billion. Then Mr. Bush had the misfortune of a recession, which reduced revenues, and in some ways raised outlays, and you have a big deficit, back to a $64.8 billion shortfall between revenues and outlays. Mr. President, we are now at a $56.7 billion surplus. That means what we call the deficit is entirely accounted for by interest on the debt we accumulated in this period. We have our budget in balance, save for what we borrowed in the 1980's. There were those who had in mind that is what we should do--that deficits would end up choking the life out of the Federal Government and its programs. They had a phrase for it called ``starve the beast.'' They were not wrong. It was the idea that you could not argue this program out of existence and that program out of existence; just starve the Government of revenues. And you are then forced to do things you would have never dreamed of previously. For example, the present administration proposed a 7-year balanced budget glidepath which had enormous reductions in discretionary spending. Now you seem to have no alternative because of the debt service. But I do say, Mr. President, we can see our way out of this. We have cut our outlays. Our revenues are solid. If we stay on this path, we will get to the point where the debt begins to decline. Then it can be a very rapid event. I say this to those Members of the House, really, who themselves had the good sense in 1979 to make the debt ceiling extension automatic. Passage of the budget resolution automatically increased the debt ceiling by the necessary amount. I say to them that, if they see an increase in the debt ceiling as being an invitation to spend moneys you do not have, that you have been forced to borrow--that may indeed have been the case in the 1980's; it is not the case today. We are beginning to act in a mature and open and defensible way. Let us put this debt ceiling behind us. Let us not have 3 weeks of saying, my God, in 3 weeks it is doomsday. No. Let us not put this off and let us do the right thing--pay our bills until next May. In the interval there will be a Presidential election. We will hear a lot about this subject. We will have a new administration. I hope we will have the same President, but he will be in his second term. If we do not, we will have the distinguished majority leader, one-time chairman of the Finance Committee, a man who will know what to do. We are on the right path. Let us do the right thing. With that, Mr. President, reserving the remainder of my time, I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time be equally divided.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, first, let me say to my friend from Minnesota that he is quite right that we spent moneys we did not have. We spent them in the 1980's. This is clear and inexorable. This table shows it in these bar charts. We have finally gotten to the point where we have revenues above the levels of outlays. We did this in 1993 with a vote on which not a single vote was found on the other side of the aisle to do so. But we did it. Now, can we not put this argument aside, resolve our remaining legislative matters, and get on with the Presidential election, rather than holding the full faith and credit of the United States at jeopardy? I want to thank my esteemed chairman for the clarity and tone of his remarks. Whichever way this vote will go, we will manage to get through this. But that we are doing this for the 17th time since 1980 suggests that we better look to our procedures in the future. Mr. President, with thanks to the chairman, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank the Chair. And as you have observed, this is a succinct matter. We are simply taking the debt ceiling now at $4.9 trillion and raising it to $5.4 trillion. The statutory limit on the total outstanding public debt of the United States subject to that limit will be reached on March 15, 1996 or shortly thereafter. Might I make the point here that when we speak of the public debt, we include here all the debt owed to the various trust funds of the Federal Government as, for example, Social Security trust funds which are really internal financing arrangements that do not represent debt held by private investors. Today is the third time in this fiscal year that I have offered an amendment to extend the permanent debt ceiling. On November 9, I proposed simply raising it to $4.967 trillion in order to provide time to complete action on the budget reconciliation bill. The amendment was tabled 49 to 47. On January 26, I offered an amendment to raise the debt ceiling to $5.4 trillion, which would have taken us beyond the November elections to about May of next year. And that amendment was also tabled by a very close vote, Mr. President, 46 to 45. And the amendment I have just sent does the same thing. It would bring us to about May 31, 1997. Anything sooner than that gets us involved with a Presidential election which will have occurred, a State of the Union Message, a February recess. It seems to me that taking this issue up next May is an orderly way to do it, a way to tell financial markets that this country is not in jeopardy of default. The very idea of default has not existed in the vocabulary of American politics. I made the point, Mr. President, that in 1814 the British invaded Washington, burned the White House, burned the Treasury Building, burned the Capitol; but the interest on the national debt continued to be paid out of the sub-Treasury in Manhattan. The thought of default never occurred to us. Here we are, talking about 3 weeks until doomsday. Three weeks until doomsday? That is no way for a grownup, mature, solvent nation to behave. The General Accounting Office has produced a report, ``Information on Debt Ceiling Limitations and Increases,'' which was prepared at my request, and reports that we are in the 21st debt ceiling crisis or debt issuance suspension period since 1946. All these crises, save four, have occurred since 1980-- 17 since 1980. And it is, therefore, no coincidence that we have closed down the Federal Government 11 times since 1981--something unthinkable in previous years. But we do it. The current debt ceiling crisis, which began on November 15, has already lasted 114 days. Prior to this crisis, the longest one was 100 days; that was 1985. So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the General Accounting Office report be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Roth may have 1 minute.

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. With that, Mr. President, I would simply say I feel that while the 2-week extension is urgent and absolutely indispensable, we ought to do more. And with the conclusion of this part of our debate, I will proceed, when the chairman is ready, to offer an amendment that would in fact extend us to the spring of 1997 when we have a new cycle in American Government and a new fiscal year.