Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I want to compliment my colleague from the State of Missouri who has given great leadership on this issue to give all Americans the same choice and options that we give Federal employees. I cannot believe my colleagues on the other side will not allow us to go forward with this bill. They can filibuster it. They may kill it. They may kill the whole darn thing. But I think they ought to be ashamed. If they want to vote for the Baucus amendment, let us vote for cloture. The Baucus amendment would be in order. Let us vote on it. Then for my colleague to say this is against working women, that is hogwash. Working Women magazine and Working Mother magazine both endorse this bill. This bill, particularly the flextime provision, is very positive for working women. I compliment my colleague and urge all of my colleagues to vote for cloture so we can help the working men and women of this country.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, if my colleagues from Massachusetts and Louisiana and Montana wish to offer a substitute, they can vote for cloture. We can consider their amendment. I am happy to vote on their amendment. If other Senators have different ideas, we would like to get to the bill. Yet, our colleagues on the other side, they say, ``We've got amendments,'' but they do not let us vote on the amendments. They want to filibuster. They want to talk. But they do not want to vote. We want to vote. We want to give all Americans the same rights that we give Federal employees. If flextime is so bad, why don't my colleagues introduce a resolution or amendment to stop flextime for Federal employees? They can offer that as an amendment on this bill. Let us find out. Federal employees happen to like flextime. It works. It has not been abused. It is not employer-only. If my colleagues on the other side read the bill, it says ``mutually agreeable.'' It does not say the employer has the sole decision or the employee has the sole decision. It says ``mutually agreeable.'' That is in the bill. It works for Federal employees. Why don't we make it available for everybody else in America? Because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not trust Americans? They do not trust businesspeople? They do not trust employees to be able to make this decision? The bill allows people, if they try comptime and they do not like it and they accumulate some hours and they did not use it, they can cash out. The employer has to pay. That is not optional. If the employee wants out and says, ``Hey, I don't like it. I want to go back to the old time where I can be paid overtime, be paid instead of comptime,'' they can be paid. Our colleagues do not trust employees to be able to make that decision. They do not want to give them the choice to be able to say, ``Wait a minute. I have something coming up next week. I would like to work an extra hour, maybe every night for 5 days so I can have Friday afternoon off with my kids.'' They do not trust American women and American men to be able to make that kind of decision. They are saying they are going to deny that kind of decision. That is what they are doing by filibustering this bill. They are saying to all Americans, we think you should not be able to make that decision. We are going to preempt you from making that decision. I think that is a serious mistake. They do not trust American citizens, employers and employees, to be able to work out what is mutually agreeable. They are not going to allow employees, women or men, to be able to work, say, 9 hours a day for 8 or 9 days, and be able to take off every other Friday. Why won't they let them do that? Why don't we give Americans that opportunity to have that choice, have that option? We are not mandating it. We are trying to give them that option. So I want to compliment my colleague from Missouri. I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute, or ask my colleague for an additional minute.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield further, I would like to ask unanimous-consent three pieces of paper, a chart showing the 788 Federal school programs, and the $98.1 billion that we currently spend on educational programs, be inserted in the Record accompanying my statement.

Mr. NICKLES. I am going to insert a couple documents in conjunction with my statement.

Mr. NICKLES. I ask unanimous consent a couple of charts be inserted in the Record accompanying my statement.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, with great respect for my colleague from Illinois, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this amendment. This amendment basically says, taxpayers, you pay $5 billion more in taxes and now we are going to have a new Federal program designed to build new schools or to renovate schools. Is that really a Federal responsibility? I do not think so. We already have the Federal Government involved in education in many areas; as a matter of fact, a lot more than I was quite aware of. I asked my staff to find out, and they told me. I heard originally the House said there were 760 programs. We find out now there are 788 programs. I asked my staff, how much does it cost? And they said about $100 billion, and I sent them an E-mail and said, ``That can't be right.'' It is right. I will insert it into the Record. It is $96.8 billion that we spend on these 788 programs. We have a little program for construction. The total cost of it is $627 million, I might mention. I am going to guess that is for military schools and Indian schools, and so on. But this says, well, let us have a $5 billion education building program, a new program, one that would have to comply with Federal rules, like Davis-Bacon. In other words, if a school is going to be built in South Dakota--they may have to build a new school in South Dakota because of the floods--they would have to build according to Federal rules, and that includes Davis-Bacon. That means the Federal Government is going to determine what the wage rates are. In all likelihood the wage rates might be 30 percent more than they are in South Dakota. So you get a lot less school built for the same amount of money. My point is that this really is not a Federal responsibility, and $5 billion cannot come close to scratching the surface of the need. I do not doubt that you could have a lot of pictures of dilapidated school buildings. Is that really the Federal Government's responsibility? I do not think it is. Even if we had a surplus, I do not think that is a Federal Government responsibility. How in the world could we in Washington, DC, decide which State, which school, which local area should have their schools fixed or renovated? If we made this available, I could see just for the District of Columbia or just for any State--New Mexico, Oklahoma, Illinois, any State--a lot of schools. A lot of cities have real needs. Are we going to be the superintendent? Are we going to be deciding who should get the renovation and who should not? We will not come close; $5 billion would not scratch the surface. I am sure $5 billion could not take care of all the public school needs in the State of Illinois or in the State of New York. So, my point being this is not a Federal responsibility. It is not a Federal obligation, and I think it would be a serious mistake for us to start down this line of new spending which would have an ever-growing demand that we would never be able to fill, so I urge my colleagues to vote no on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] and the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] would each vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and in answer to the question, obviously Davis-Bacon applies, because all Federal contracting dealing with Federal money would apply. We would have the Federal Government setting wage determination rates. So I object to this amendment for that reason, but also for other reasons. The Federal Government does not have a primary responsibility of trying to build new schools or to rebuild schools. That is not a Federal responsibility. Some people say, ``Well, we need more education money, we need more education programs.'' We have 788 education programs spending $98 billion a year spread all throughout the Government. One that we don't have, if we adopted the Senator's amendment, would be a $5 billion school building program. That is one program we do not need, and we cannot afford. Schools are the primary function of State and local government, and to build or rebuild or to figure out which schools should be rehabbed, that really should be decided by local and State government. That should not be decided by Washington, DC. Contingent with that money comes Federal strings, regulations, such as Davis-Bacon. The Federal Government would be determining what the wage rates would be to comply, to rehab the school building. Some of those wage rates are outlandish in comparison to what is normally paid for schools or for other buildings and projects in those areas. With greatest respect for my colleague from Illinois, I know her intentions are very sincere and I know a lot of schools need to be rehabbed, I know a lot of schools need to be replaced, I know a lot of schools are in pathetic shape, but it is not the function or responsibility of the Federal Government to try and solve all the problems and certainly not the construction of local schools or the rehab of local schools, which, I might mention, $5 billion would hardly scratch the surface. Then we would have to have the Federal Government determine if the needs in the hundreds of billions of dollars--how is the Federal Government going to determine who wins and who loses? I imagine you could spend $5 billion for school renovation in the State of Texas alone. Quite possibly, I imagine the State of Illinois alone. So you have all this competition amongst the various schools and States for who is going to get this money. This is not a function for the Federal Government. The 10th amendment to the Constitution says all other rights and powers are reserved to the States. We should certainly leave this one, school construction and renovation, to the States and to the localities, not to the Federal Government. I yield the floor. Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. No, I want to speak on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. But there is no exemption from Davis-Bacon?

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NICKLES. It will come from our time.

Mr. NICKLES. Does the current law, Davis-Bacon, apply as well? You mentioned flexibility, but would the schools who do the building or do the maintenance also have to comply with Davis-Bacon regulations?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, to conclude, a couple of points. A deal is a deal. If we are going to break the deal, if we are going to be amending what the size of the tax cut is, if people want to do that, then I am going to have an amendment. This amendment cuts the size of the tax cut by $30 billion. I am going to have an amendment to increase the tax cut by $30 billion. If this amendment spends $20 billion more, I am going to have an amendment to spend less money someplace else. In other words, this bill unravels the whole package and people will find out this is not the easiest package to craft. There is no question it unravels the package, if one would just look at the budget package we already have. So I urge my colleagues, if for no other reason, to vote ``no''. Also, likewise, I urge them to vote no on the substance. Somebody said something about, wait a minute, because you are trying to defend tobacco--that is hogwash. If my colleagues want to have an amendment to raise tobacco prices, let them do it. But let's not be doubling the size of the new entitlement program before the new entitlement program even starts. Let's not more than double it in the name of fiscal austerity. It is ridiculous. When the tax package comes out, if people want to, on the reconciliation bill, if they want to have an increase in the tobacco tax, so be it. If we offset it with another tax reduction, maybe I will support it. But let's not do it in this package. This, in my opinion, would be a killer amendment and certainly should be defeated. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. He said 5.

Mr. NICKLES. I asked the Senator from New Mexico for an additional minute.

Mr. NICKLES. So, Madam President, I----

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I would like to make a couple comments about where we are, and I also wish to thank our colleague from California, as well as Louisiana, in saying there is an agreement; we ought to abide by it. I was looking at the budget agreement. There is one enclosure which says children's health, and it says 5-year expenditure, $16 billion. It is enclosed. It says we want to provide health care, $16 billion, 5 years, to provide health care for 5 million children by the year 2002. That is in the agreement. It is included. So for somebody to say that it was included in the agreement to add another $20 billion, to make this $16 billion $36 billion, is absolutely not the case. It really loses credibility, and it makes a lot of us wonder whether we can trust the White House, whether we can trust our colleagues in trying to implement a 5-year deal if we could not trust them basically for a day, not to mention we are trying to make obligations for the next 5 years. I am a little shaken. I will absolutely say I have wanted to support this deal, hope to support this deal, but when I hear some of the people who have negotiated it say it is within the context of the budget agreement to have $36 billion for child care, a new additional child care entitlement, when the provision clearly added to the budget resolution was $16 billion, not $36 billion, there is a difference. There is a big difference. Now, I want to make a few comments concerning the underlying bill that Senator Hatch and Senator Kennedy are promoting and maybe respond to some of the statements that were made and maybe challenging some provisions of this bill. I do not support the bill. I think the underlying bill that individuals are trying to promote--that is not what we are voting on. We do not have bill language added to this budget resolution. A budget resolution, for the information of colleagues and the public, is not a law. It is a guideline. It says spend so much money, tax so much money. This amendment spends $20 billion more and it raises taxes $30 billion more, both of which are inconsistent with the agreement, both of which, frankly, are outside the scope of the agreement. Now, should we pass it? I would say no. Should we pass the so-called Hatch-Kennedy bill? I would say no. I would tell my colleagues from Utah and Massachusetts, I think they did very well in this budget negotiation. They got 16 out of 20--that is 80 percent--for a new program, a new entitlement program when we are trying to balance the budget. I think they should be high-fiving each other and saying, hey, we won; we got 80 percent of what we want. We stuffed those people who really wanted to hold the lid on new programs. We beat them. But instead of saying, hey, we got 80 percent, we are happy, they came back and said, we are going to double our offer. We are not satisfied with 16. The original bill that they introduced was 20, but now they want 36. I just find that to be grossly fiscally irresponsible. Now I want to talk a little bit about the substance of the underlying bill. I heard my colleague say that, well, it is not an entitlement. And I have stated repeatedly that it is an entitlement. Let us look at the bill. If you look at page 19, it says ``budgetary treatment.'' ``Authority in advance represents an obligation of the Federal Government to provide payments to the States.'' An obligation. It does not sound like it is discretionary to me. An obligation for the Federal Government to provide payments to the States. Now, in the first place, maybe I should ask, the tobacco taxes envisioned, are those discretionary? I do not think so. All the States would have to pay into the program; all the States would be paying additional taxes. That is not discretionary. I don't think anybody has made that allegation. Page 19 says there is an obligation of the Federal Government to pay to the States. I mentioned earlier that the Federal mix of this is much more generous than under Medicaid, that the Federal Government would be paying, in many cases, 80 to 90 percent of the cost of this program, not 50-50, not splitting the cost with the States. The Federal Government paying 4 to 1, 5 to 1 what the States are paying. Now, sure, a State is going to opt out of that. If Uncle Sam is going to be paying 90 percent of the cost of the program, more generous than Medicaid, the States are going to opt out. First, the States have to pay the taxes and then you create a new entitlement program. The Federal Government is going to pay up to 90 percent of the cost of the program, and you say, oh, the States do not have to participate. They have to pay the taxes and then Uncle Sam will pay 90 percent of the costs, and the States are going to say, no, I don't think so. And then you look at the underlying provisions of the bill; what do the States have to do. If this is such an optional program, you need to look at page 6, ``Requirements for Qualifying Children's Direct Benefit Option.'' Page 7. ``The States shall insure.'' Paragraph 2: States shall insure, each participant shall insure, shall insure, shall provide, States may not, and on and on. States may not allow imposition of cost sharing; States may not enter into a contract, on and on. There are something like 30 ``States shall'' or ``States may not'' in this provision. This is not optional. All kinds of mandates, telling the States what to do with this program, including saying, States, you do not get another Medicaid waiver. Most States have Medicaid waivers pending. This says, ``No more. Need not apply. Cannot do.'' They don't want to touch on the issue of abortion, because I heard my colleague say this bill does not mandate abortion. I just disagree. I think people are entitled to their own opinion, but I don't think they are entitled to their own facts. If my colleagues would look at page 5 in the bill: For purposes of this title, qualifying children policy is a policy for an eligible child that provides coverage for medical care for such child that is the equivalent of medical assistance available for State child assistance available under title XIX of the Social Security Act. If this is available for a State plan, if abortion coverage is available in Medicaid under a State plan, then it must be provided under this plan. I know I heard my colleagues say, wait a minute, this is covered by Hyde language, and we don't pay for abortion under Hyde language. That is not what this says. This says, if abortion is a benefit under a State plan--and you have a lot of States, 14 States, including some of the biggest States, New York and California, for example, they have State-paid-for Medicaid coverage of abortion; 14 States have it. The Federal Government does not pay for it. But remember, Medicaid is a Federal-State program and some States have mandated State program benefits. In this case, the State pays for abortion coverage. This bill says that if the State provides this benefit, they have to provide the same benefits they provide under the State Medicaid plan. It does not say Federal Medicaid plan. It doesn't say only Federal Medicaid benefits. It says State Medicaid benefits. So you have 14 States that now have State-paid-for abortion coverage that would have to have it under this plan. It is in the bill. It is on page 5, line 19 through 25. So I just make that point. I want to be very factual. This bill leaves a lot to be desired. We should not set up a new entitlement and have the Federal Government paying 80 or 90 percent of the costs of Medicaid coverage for kids when we do not pay that much for the lowest income. This is a higher level than for the lowest income level. We are going to have a greater subsidy for this group than we are for the lowest group? I don't think so. What we have is we have the situation now where we find ourselves, where we have the $16 billion entitlement--I think it should be discretionary under the underlying bill--$16 billion to provide health care for kids that, for whatever reason, do not have insurance. I might review that scope because I have heard people say, wait a minute, we are going to provide health care for 10 million kids. Let us look at that scope. Madam President, 3.3 million of those kids already are eligible. They have health care. They are eligible for Medicaid. They qualify. About a third of them have incomes above 200 percent of poverty. If they are a family of 4, if they have an income of $32,000 or more, we should not be buying them insurance. That is not the Federal Government's role. So you have about 3.5 million between 100 percent of poverty and 200 percent of poverty. You have 30-some-odd States that already have coverage for kids in excess of the Medicaid eligibility standard, Medicaid eligibility standards going up to 133 percent of poverty. Thirty-some-odd States, 39 States, have Medicaid coverage in excess of Federal mandates. We are going to preempt those in this case, and we are going to provide a very expensive Federal mandate on the States to provide that coverage for that 3.5 million, which, I might mention, half of those kids will have insurance within 4 months. So, really, the chronically uninsured population is probably around 2 million. The underlying bill provides $16 billion. It starts out at a couple of billion and grows to 2.5 billion, 3.5 billion, almost 4 billion over that period of time. That is enough, maybe more than enough, to provide ample coverage for the chronically uninsured child. What we do not need to do is say: Here is $16 billion--the original Hatch-Kennedy bill had $20 billion--so they have $16 billion. They have 80 percent of what they are looking for. Then they want to, maybe--I don't know what the purpose is--to say now we want $20 billion on top of our $16 billion, we want $36 billion, even though in the bill they originally introduced, they wanted $20 billion. Now the demand is for $36 billion--certainly a budget buster. Certainly a deal breaker. If we have a deal that says new kid care entitlement is $16 billion, and we are going to have an amendment and just make it $36 billion; if we are going to have a deal that says net tax reduction is going to be 85, and then all of a sudden it turns into 55, then we don't have a deal. That means maybe we cannot trust people. If we cannot trust people, that does not speak very well for this institution. I urge my colleagues, if and when we get to an up-or-down vote on the Hatch-Kennedy bill, I urge them to vote ``no''. First, because it is a deal breaker, and, second, I urge them to vote ``no'' because this is not good policy and we do not need to do it twice. We do not need to try to solve this problem on uninsured kids both in the Finance Committee and the Labor Committee and give equal amounts of money for both to solve this problem. I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I want to echo the comments made by my colleague from New Mexico. This is even more important than the budget agreement. You are only, in the Senate, as good as your word. There is a document that says we are going to have net tax cuts of 85. This makes net tax cuts 55. There is an addendum that says there is going to be a kid care initiative that costs 16. This amendment makes that kid care initiative 36. This is not the agreement. If people on the other side are now saying this is consistent with the agreement, that is not the case. And it really does unravel this deal. It is beyond me. I would like to think that people would have more credibility in their word and would say, ``I will always tell you the truth.'' If people are going to say this doesn't break the deal and the Vice President is going to come down and say this is consistent with the deal, then we don't have a deal. Some people are just evidently quite happy to break it up and make sure that we don't have a deal. I will go further to say that this is consistent with the deal. I can certainly have an amendment to cut discretionary spending by $20 billion and increase the tax cut by $30 billion. I would like to offer that amendment. Tell the majority leader, I would like to offer that amendment. I think we spent too much money on the discretionary side, and I think we didn't cut taxes enough. It wasn't my intention to offer that amendment because it would be inconsistent with the deal. I want a balanced budget. I want some tax relief. But this amendment, if it passes, tells me there won't be a budget. It tells me that people who ``negotiated in good faith'' can say that this is consistent. Frankly, that bothers me more than the amendment. It bothers me a lot. You have to be as good as your word. There is a package here that says here is the agreement. It says kid care, $16 billion. It didn't say 36. It said net tax cuts 85. It didn't say net tax cuts 55. I do not want to go to my constituents and say it was going to be 85 but now it turned out to be 55. But, boy, we got gypped. We didn't do what we said we were going to do. We ought to at least try to do what we said we were going to do, but yet we have not been here 1 day and people are undermining this agreement and, frankly, making allegations that this is consistent with the package when it absolutely is not. If this amendment should pass, this is one Senator who will not be supportive of this package. And it bothers me because I want to balance the budget. I want to provide some tax relief. I want us to help save Medicare, and I think the net result is the passage of this amendment says there will be no budget package this year. I hope people are aware of this when they cast this vote. I hope they do not think this is just a free vote. I hope they do not think the rest of the people are going to run over on this side and put this budget resolution together and pass a net tax cut of 55. I do not think that will be the case. I do not think it will happen. So I hope people will recognize we are not talking about trivial, little things, that we have legislation in here that encompasses the Hatch-Kennedy bill, but we do have language that says we are going to have a net tax cut of 55. There is a $30 billion tax increase. If somebody wants to raise taxes--and I hear my colleagues talk about this--if they want to raise taxes on tobacco, very easily they can wait until the reconciliation bill comes in the Chamber. The reconciliation bill, consistent with the budget package, will have a net tax cut of $85 billion. If they want to have an amendment to that tax cut that says they want to raise cigarette taxes and cut other taxes, that is consistent with the package; they can do that. They cannot come in and say, we want to spend an extra $20 billion in kid care that is not consistent with the package, but they could do that. And then they will be playing with the real bill. They are talking about real bullets. They are talking about taxes. If they want to raise cigarette taxes and cut other taxes, I might support them. I might help them draft it. But they cannot come in and say, hey, we are going to change the net side of this tax cut as this amendment proposes to do from 85 to 55. They cannot do it. It is not consistent. It is a deal-breaker. This says the agreement is not worth the paper it is written on. And if the President is going to come down here and endorse it by his vote, or his effort, his presence, that means we have a real credibility problem. We have a real credibility problem. This amendment is not consistent with the agreement, and I do not think anybody should make that allegation. This is a budget-breaker. This amendment basically says we do not want a budget this year. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Idaho [Mr. Kempthorne] is necessarily absent.