Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, Senator Crapo and Senator Sarbanes have an amendment that we have agreed to. Then I believe Senator Pryor wants to discuss his amendment. I think we can handle both of those. Senator Sarbanes, do you want to start? Amendment No. 2784

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we are making good progress. I think we have three additional amendments that have been cleared on both sides: an amendment by Senator Hagel; an amendment by Senator Santorum; and an amendment by Senators Hatch and Biden and Kohl. I send all three to the desk and ask for their immediate consideration.

Mr. NICKLES. I yield my colleague from Pennsylvania 30 seconds.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we voted on this amendment last year. I thought our colleague was going to withdraw it. The amendment will increase spending by $55.5 billion and increase taxes by $60.5 billion. I urge our colleagues to vote no on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first, let me compliment my colleague. I think we should handle the rest of our votes by a voice vote. I thank our friend from Minnesota. Amendment No. 2790

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, has an amendment at the desk.

Mr. NICKLES. We have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, Senator Corzine has an amendment pending.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we give extra points for colleagues who withdraw amendments after 12 o'clock. Three colleagues will make about 2 minutes worth of remarks and then we can be voting on final passage. I believe Senator Kennedy is first.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, will the Senator from California yield?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we have entered into a time agreement where the total time consumed on the Boxer amendment will be 20 minutes equally divided.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Texas such time as he desires on this amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator such time as he may consume from the resolution to complete his statement. Mr. CORNYN: I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. Alan Greenspan said: Generic capabilities in mathematics, writing, and verbal skills are key to the ability to learn and to apply new skills and thus to earn higher real wages overtime. The avenues to acquiring those skills are many, and one effective tool we have developed to facilitate the transition to a new job or profession has been our community colleges. These two- year institutions have been in the forefront of teaching the types of skills that build on workers' previous experiences to create new job skills. Currently almost one in three of their enrollees are age thirty or older, a statistic that suggests that these individuals have previous job experience. I support the job training and community college initiatives the President has endorsed in his State of the Union Message and which Alan Greenspan just referred to. They are a good and positive thing. They provide much of the answer to the global competitiveness we now find with globalization. I believe much of the instruction they provide ought to have been given at the lower levels, but we can't go back and change that. As it is, these programs give many Americans the opportunity to change their job track midstream and to pursue greater dreams and more fulfilling careers. But that is not enough. If we in Government fail to acknowledge what the outsourcing crisis truly means, if we think more job training alone is a sufficient answer to the problem, we are just fooling ourselves, and we haven't addressed the real problem. As Ronald Reagan once said: We've gone astray from first principles. We've lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything we've accomplished. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. In America today, we are seeing that all too clearly. All too many of our states have reached the point where they are simply no longer friendly toward the free market. Why should a business choose to stay in America where they will have to deal with ever expanding red tape and regulation, where they face exponential legal risks in states without real commonsense tort reform and class action reform, where they are virtually guaranteed to pay higher and higher taxes every year? No, raising taxes won't solve this problem. Job training and educational programs alone won't solve the problem either. The knee- jerk response of many in government, to take more money from the taxpayers so we can throw it around, doesn't work. The only way we will solve the problem is when we in the Federal Government work in concert with those in the states to effect fundamental change in our government's attitude toward business and the free market--not just for the benefit of business or indeed for an abstract free market, but for the benefit of everybody in this country who wants to work and wants to find a job. We must once again value the principles of free trade and competition. We must encourage success and innovation, and not punish it. We must renew that old American conviction that protecting freedom, not restricting it, is the highest goal of government. The vision of America as a free market paradise is a very real one, not just the stuff of the so-called overexuberant economists. I strongly believe we have the best workforce in the world, the most dedicated people you can find. We have in this country innovators and thinkers, we have doctors and scientists, and we have all the resources they need. We have people who started businesses in their garage and now create things that change the very way we live and communicate. We have young people who are ready to follow in their footsteps. That is, simply stated, the foundation for a thriving free market economy. It is all right here. We still hear the voices of those who say the bureaucrats really know best, and government will take care of you if you will give us more and more of your tax dollars. But the truth is the people across this land know that government doesn't know best, and they know government cannot create prosperity; that instead prosperity is created by the entrepreneurs and risk takers, and the people who work hard every day to provide for their families. The truth is, instead of raising taxes, we ought to reduce the tax burden on the American people by eliminating the tax increases that come with the expiration of the tax cuts this Congress previously passed. There are people, some of whom are in this very body, who still honestly believe we can sue, tax, and regulate our way to economic growth and prosperity. Finally, I want to say I realize we are in an election season, and there are some who have pinned their political prospects on America doing badly, on unemployment remaining high. When they see that the facts are against the trend they want, that the economy is actually doing better, their only hope for their political prospects is to talk about a ``jobless recovery.'' Well, the economy is recovering; it is creating jobs. But it will not continue to do so if we reverse the policies that have brought us to where we are today. We must ensure that the taxpayers keep more of the money they earn, so they can save it or invest it in a small business--which is a great job-creating engine in this country--the small businesses that proliferate in this Nation, which provide jobs by huge numbers to the American people. I simply believe we should not let ourselves lose confidence in what has brought us here today. There are those who think they will benefit politically from trash-talking the American economy, from causing a loss of confidence by the American people, from saying that we are no longer the land of opportunity and freedom. But the truth is there are people who are dying to come into this country because they see this nation as their only hope and only opportunity. There are not people knocking down the doors to try to leave this country, because the truth is people are voting with their feet. They understand America remains the last, best hope of freedom-loving people everywhere. For those who want an opportunity to achieve part of the American dream in the free market system we have in this country--not a government command-and-control system, but a free market system is one that best allows them to achieve those hopes and dreams--they recognize that system is what we need to preserve, not defeat. The effect of passing this amendment and others that would raise taxes on the American people would defeat that system. I hope we don't listen to the nay-sayers, that we don't believe those who would have us lose confidence in our economic system, because I think that provides the best opportunity for a bright future for all the American people. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I love everybody in this Senate, but I want to finish this bill this week. My guess is we have a few amendments in the pipeline and we have considered one amendment today and we are not quite finished with it. That is not the kind of discipline we need to finish it. I ask, how much time remains on the resolution on both sides?

Mr. NICKLES. I plan on yielding back some time, as I have said. Unfortunately, we started this amendment at 9:30 and we have been on it now for a couple of hours. It is an interesting amendment, but it is not that interesting. I am troubled. I have 6 hours and 50 minutes. Mr. President, I yield back 4 hours off of our time on the resolution.

Mr. NICKLES. I plan on yielding back additional time. I came in today thinking we should have 10 minutes on each side on every amendment today. I don't want to cut people off from being able to debate their amendments. My colleague from North Dakota is correctly wanting to have time agreements on a multitude of amendments. I am willing to enter into those, but I am insisting on being able to see the amendment. I know my colleague from North Dakota is trying to get them. A lot of people say I want a time agreement, but they are rewriting the amendment as we speak. That is not fair. We need to have both sides be able to analyze the amendments so we will know what we are debating, especially if we are going to be in a very truncated timeframe. If I am debating an amendment and I say it increases taxes by $24 billion, I want to be accurate. I actually insist on accuracy. It bothers me if we are not accurate. Mr. President, I am going to speak on the Boxer amendment for a moment. We had a time limit of 20 minutes on each side on the Boxer amendment. It was breached very significantly primarily on the Democrat side, and maybe a little bit on our side. This is an amendment that says we want to do some things to create jobs domestically, but in effect it says we want to sock it to the people creating jobs by increasing their taxes. Then it says we will give tax credits if you do such and such. It is a tax-spend amendment, $24 billion of increased taxes. Incidentally, the taxes we are assuming for next year--and this has an $8 billion tax increase for 2005. What we are assuming in the budget for 2005 is $2.6 billion for child credit and $5.4 billion on marriage penalty. So this could eliminate the child credit and the marriage penalty. I find it to be a very flawed concept. Also, I can't help but think the repercussions they would have if we actually did some of what is contemplated in this amendment. We are going to sock it to companies that have runaway plants. I wonder if ``runaway plants'' is defined by Microsoft or by Intel or General Electric or some of our great multinationals we have in this country. If we are going to tax them at rates that are greatly to the disadvantage to their competitors, this amendment is more or less saying we would like your headquarters, Intel, to be in China, or maybe we should have Microsoft's headquarters in Japan. Our Tax Code actually encouraged the location of Chrysler to be in Germany, and this amendment would make it worse: Let's export jobs and headquarters overseas. This may be well intended, it may be a political amendment, but its economic consequence would be a disaster. The Finance Committee is working on a FSC/ETI bill that has broad bipartisan support. The essence of it is to be WTO compliant and also to assist manufacturers. I do not happen to agree with preferential corporate rates for manufacturers vis-a-vis other corporations, but it has a lot of positive provisions to help make us competitive with particularly our European allies. That bill has bipartisan support. We ought to pass it. I think the proposal that has been discussed for the last 3 hours would be very detrimental. It is a big tax increase, and since the only tax change we are contemplating is keeping the tax laws as they are for American families, I am afraid this will be a big hit on American families. At the appropriate time, I will urge my colleagues to vote no on the amendment. Mr. President, the next order of business is the Senator from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, to offer an amendment. I ask unanimous consent that we set the Boxer amendment aside and consider the amendment of Senator Sarbanes.

Mr. NICKLES. Not on my time.

Mr. NICKLES. How much time remains on the amendment?

Mr. NICKLES. Does the Senator from Mississippi mind if I make a couple of additional comments and I will be happy to yield him additional time if he wishes. I know some people think we never do enough anywhere. Basically they will want to increase spending everywhere. In this particular area we are increasing spending a lot. The Department of Homeland Security has a 15-percent increase, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That is counting bioshield. That is kind of hard to compute. Take bioshield out. It is a 10-percent increase--a 10-percent increase. Secretary Ridge wants to reallocate some of it into higher threat areas. I know some people want to use homeland security as basically revenue sharing and give more money to every city in the area, or every county in the area, maybe every police department or fire department and say this is for homeland security. Secretary Ridge said we should reallocate some of these moneys. It is still a big increase. Actually, it is the largest percentage increase of any of our major departments, and we should direct this toward the high critical threat area. I compliment him for that. I also say this is money wasted. A lot of money is being wasted. Maybe a little tightening might be in order. The District of Columbia used this to outfit leather jackets on the police side; in Maryland, money is used to buy the Prince George's County prosecutor's office a security system. This is homeland security, but this is all in one pot. We can try to pretend this is going to this or that, but, frankly, we are giving so much money to the appropriators. But we are expecting at least a 10- percent increase going to homeland security. In Virginia, a small volunteer fire department spent $350,000 on a custom-made fire boat. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments used some of the money for janitorial services. The District of Columbia Hospital Association shows a formula that guaranteed every city hospital a share of an $8 million grant. Prince George's homeland security funds, instead of buying protective gear for police officers, they chose to purchase a half-million-dollar digital camera system used for mug shots. The District of Columbia, Leslie Hotaling, director of the District's Department of Public Works said, ``If we can tie it to 9/11 and build capacity into our core functioning, let's do it.'' Her agency spent more than $55,000 on basic training courses such as map reading and handling problem employees. My point is that Secertary Ridge requested--and he has a very difficult and challenging job--10 percent more money for the Department of Homeland Security, and we have provided it for them. He wants to reallocate some of it to higher priority areas. I think we are trying to give that to him to fulfill that function. Senator Cochran manages this appropriations bill, and he does it very well. I urge our colleagues to vote no on the Sarbanes amendment. Also, I failed to add this amendment raises taxes by $2.9 billion. It is another big tax increase. The only taxes we are really assuming in the next couple of years are family-friendly tax cuts. Maybe that means the 20-percent tax credit won't continue to be as broad as it is. Maybe it means the child credit won't be extended. I urge our colleagues not to support this amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will speak on time off the resolution. My colleague keeps coming back saying we want to sock it to the wealthy. You don't do that in a budget resolution. You tell the committee to raise more taxes. I will tell you that all we are assuming the committee is going to do is extend present law. This would make it so you can't do that. That means low-income people are going to see a tax increase, if we don't extend present law. That is what we are assuming we are going to do. I know my colleagues would like to raise the 35-percent rate. That is what corporations pay. A lot of us really do not think individuals will pay more than Exxon. How about a little fairness? I tell my colleagues that this idea of tax and spend, we are always going to tax that person behind the tree, it is going to be that multimillionaire, that is not the way the Budget Committee works and that is not the way the Finance Committee works. We have defeated these amendments. I hope we will continue to defeat the amendments that sock it to them by raising taxes and increasing spending. I hope our colleagues will realize it is not going anywhere, and then maybe we can eliminate a lot of these amendments so we can get some business done. I am trying to cooperate with my colleague from North Dakota. But we are making very little progress. I know there are a lot of amendments. I am trying to be fair to all colleagues if they wish to debate their amendments. But this idea of spending 3 hours on 2 amendments is not very productive. I hope we will be more successful in moving a little more quickly through amendments, especially ones that are so close to being repetitive. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will make a couple of comments and maybe Senator Gregg may want to speak. He is more knowledgeable about this program than I am. What is very clear to me to see is that this amendment is another one of these amendments on which we had the pleasure of voting. This will increase spending, yes, and it will also increase taxes. We have had that debate several times. I guess we will have it several more times. I am happy to debate it. Some think individuals should pay more than corporations. I don't. I think that is bad tax policy. I think the power to tax is the power to destroy. If you have to work more than half the time for the Government, then you lose your personal freedom. Looking at the COPS Program, I remember the objective of the COPS Program was to have 100,000 new cops on the street. According to the figures I was just handed, we have 118,000 as a result of the COPS Program, a program that started with an enormous Federal subsidy, I believe. I have to refresh my memory, but I believe the Federal Government pays 75 percent of the costs of the first year and then something like 50 percent the next year and maybe 25 percent the third year. Then it is on the community. In other words, local police are supposed to be paid by local communities. But we said we would give them an additional incentive to hire additional police officers basically by a big subsidy, but that subsidy would curtail and it would be the responsibility of the community, certainly entirely by the fourth year. Some want to keep it forever. As Will Rogers once said: All Federal programs have something in common: a beginning, a middle, and no ending. We accomplished the objective, I guess, but yet some people want to continue it. I have no doubt there are lots of cities that would say, Hey, we would love for you to pay three-fourths of the cost of a new police officer, because they have people retiring, they have people leaving, and so on. So, yes, we would love to have the Federal Government come in and pay three-fourths of it. I question, How long are we supposed to do that? I do not think that is really the Federal Government's responsibility. Maybe it was a little easier to do when we had enormous surpluses. We do not have those surpluses today. And this really is not the Federal Government's responsibility to be putting police officers in every city. I know we had a city in Oklahoma--I am trying to remember the name of the city--that had no police officers. Yet when the COPS Program came in, they thought: We need to have a police officer. We are going to have the Federal Government pay three-fourths of the cost of our police officer for the first year. Oh, we have to get him a car--and on and on. It was almost comical because they never had a police officer in this town. It probably had a population of 65 or something. But my point is, we have significant increases for the Department of Justice. We have significant increases to help the FBI, to help law enforcement. I do not think this is that high of a priority for us to try to be subsidizing police departments all across the country. Nor do I think it is good economics to say, oh, well, we are going to have the upper whatever percent. Everybody knows. I guess I will repeat this every time. All this amendment does is raise taxes. And all we have on the assumption in the budget resolution is that middle-income taxpayers are going to get to keep present law. Now, if that goes away because of a tax increase, the middle-income taxpayers better look out because their taxes are going up by this multitude of amendments. Incidentally, if it makes any difference, we are counting how many tax-and-spend amendments are being offered. And we assume it is going to be the millionaires. That is not the way it works. You tell the Finance Committee: raise more money, and the Finance Committee is going to raise taxes. And you know with this President we are not going to be raising marginal rates. The marginal top rate is 35 percent. When Bill Clinton was elected, it was 31 percent. He took it up to 39.6 percent. It took us this long to get it at 35 percent. Who benefits from that? Entrepreneurs, people who are growing, building, and expanding their businesses. When they expand, they create jobs. Let's not stifle economic growth by some of these ridiculous expansions to try to grow Government. I think these amendments are getting a little redundant, maybe a little bit repetitive. If our colleagues want to finish, I do not know why we have to have so many of them. But I urge our colleagues to vote no on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I will be very brief. I was looking at some additional information about the COPS Program. The grant programs administered through the COPS Program were 100 percent earmarked in 2004 appropriations bills. The administration feels the earmarking has gotten out of hand and seeks to eliminate funding in favor of a new grant program located in another account. This new account consolidates almost all State and local law enforcement grant programs and activities. Rather than have the programs spread out over a half dozen accounts, it assumes consolidation in one account called justice assistance. A lot of the old COPS Program is included in the new Justice Assistance Program. Maybe it won't be quite so directed by Congress. Maybe it will be more appropriate. I don't know if it is the Federal Government's responsibility to hire hundreds more police officers in North Dakota or Oklahoma. I happen to be one who says: We all have to do our fair share. I just don't know that it is the Federal Government's responsibility to be putting police officers in every little town in America. We have accomplished our objective in hiring and training 118,000 police officers. We should say a job well done and not continue this program forever.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I believe we have an agreement to next consider an amendment by our colleague and friend from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg. We are almost ready to enter into a time limitation, but I need to consult with the chairman of the committee, Senator Inhofe. At this point we will not, but I understand there has been a general agreement for 20 minutes equally divided or 20 minutes a side. Is the Senator from New Jersey willing to have a time agreement? I cannot enter into it at this moment, but is he looking for 20 minutes each or 20 minutes a side?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I am trying to be fair to everybody, but if colleagues keep coming down and taking 40 minutes or an hour on their amendments, that means a lot of people are going to get zero debate on their amendments. I don't want them to be mad at me, nor do I want them to be mad at my colleague from North Dakota. People will have to be restrained in their request or else people later in the queue will have very little debate time. I will leave it at that. I cannot enter into a time agreement. I will be happy to talk to Senator Inhofe. He may be more than happy to do that.