Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I understand that S. 1441, introduced today by Senator Helms, is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I now ask for its second reading, and I object to my own request on behalf of Senators on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Again, I thank my friends and colleagues from Virginia and Montana for bringing this important bill to the floor. I hope our colleagues will strongly support it and that the President will sign it. It will mean jobs in our States. It will help rebuild our national road infrastructure. I compliment them. The reason I come to the floor today is to speak specifically on the issue on speed limits, because I have heard some of our colleagues imply that this bill increases speed limits. It does not do that. What this bill does do is insert a provision that myself, Senator Burns, and others, support. It would eliminate the Federal penalty mandating a national limit. It does not say we eliminate speed limits. I happen to favor speed limits. But I favor States setting them instead of the Federal Government. Some people assume that we are automatically going to have higher speed limits all across the country. I do not know that that will be the case. Undoubtedly, in many cases, you will have increased speed limits, if the State legislatures, working with their Governors, make that decision. So it is really not a question of whether or not we are going to have speed limits or what the speed limits will be. It is a question of who defines what the speed limits will be. What many of us are saying, and what this legislation says, is we are going to repeal the Federal penalty. This Federal penalty says if you do not comply with the national speed limit, we are going to withhold some of a State's funds--funds which rightly belong to the State. I am amazed sometimes that some people think the Federal Government knows best, so the Federal Government is going to set speed limits. I disagree. The Federal Government is going to set other criteria. What we are saying in this legislation is that the proper body or electorate to make this decision is at the State level. We have heard a few people talk about the 10th amendment, but the 10th amendment states: ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' That is exactly what we are doing in this legislation--reserving to the States the power to set the speed limits in their States. The appropriate speed limits in Oklahoma or Montana may be quite different than the speed limits in Delaware or Rhode Island. So it makes sense if the elected representatives of those individual States would set those speed limits. They know the road conditions better than we do on the Federal level. And 55 may be too fast. That is the national speed limit. It may be too fast, or it may be too high in some areas. The State should have the authority to set it. Maybe 55 is not high enough in some other areas. Let the States decide. Some of my colleagues assert that it is going to result in a large increase in fatalities. That, I think, misses the question. I think the States, and the elected officials in the States, are just as concerned about the safety and health of their constituents--maybe more than we are on the Federal level. They are concerned. They know those stretches of roads that have a higher number of fatalities, and they are the ones responsible for fixing them. It may be that, on a rural interstate, 55, 65, or 70 miles an hour may be safe. But it may have some winding areas that maybe should be set at 40 miles an hour. The State should know that, and they should make that determination. We should not have a Federal law that says nowhere in the country can it exceed 55. We passed a law in 1987--and I was a sponsor--that on rural interstates limits could go to 65 miles an hour. Even when we passed that, my argument was, really, it should not be set by the Federal Government. It should be set by the State governments. This is an area where, really, State and local governments should have priority. Again, I want to take issue with the fact that some people say there are going to be thousands of more deaths or fatalities if this bill passes as it is. I take issue with that. One, I believe they are looking at a study that assumes that all roads that are now 55 will be going to 65 or 70. I do not think that is the case. You have a lot of States that probably had higher speed limits that now are at lower speed limits. They may leave them there. That is fine. I could really care less. I think it should be their responsibility, the State's responsibility. And to assume that all of the highways in the country that are now at 55 will be increasing to 65 or 70 would be a mistaken assumption. But the States should be the ones that would have that responsibility. I just happen to believe that Governors and legislators in those States are just as concerned, maybe even more than we are for their constituents' safety. I think they will keep safety in mind when they make those decisions. They are the duly elected body of the people from that State and hopefully will be responsive to their wishes and to their safety needs. I am delighted that this legislation finally takes away this Federal mandate, this Federal law that says if you do not comply with ``Government-knows-best, Washington, DC,'' we will withhold some of your money. I am delighted we finally have repeal of the Federal mandate. We did not repeal speed limits, we had the repeal of the national Federal speed limit, and now we will be returning speed limit decisions to the rightful level of Government, and that is to State and local authorities. Again, I compliment my friends and colleague, and I wish to compliment the Senator from Rhode Island for his leadership in passing this bill as well. I am delighted it is on the floor. I hope the President will sign it.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Virginia, as well as my colleague and friend from Montana, for their leadership in bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. First, Mr. President, I would like to compliment my colleague and friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley, for an excellent speech. Also, I would like to compliment Senator Domenici for his leadership in bringing this budget package to the floor, as well as Senator Dole and Senator Roth, and Senator Abraham, who is managing the floor, and I think doing an exceptional job. Mr. President, in my opinion, this is probably the most important vote that we will cast in my 15 years in the Senate. We had historic votes during President Reagan's term and President Bush's. But we really never really had a vote to balance the budget. We never had a vote that would enact into law changes necessary to balance the budget. Tonight we are going to have that vote. And I understand that our colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle and the President will not support us. I think that is unfortunate. I hope that after this vote maybe they will work with us to enact a balanced budget. For the first time in history, we are going to have the courage to do what is right and actually balance the budget. Such action by Congress has not happened in decades. You would have to go back to 1969 to find the last time we balanced the budget. I think it is important, too, that we use facts. I have several charts I am going to put in the Record to back up some of the comments I am going to make. One, I want to refute some of the statements that President Clinton has made. He said, his 1993 budget reduced deficits by $500 billion. I heard him say that as recently as yesterday. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a chart that shows the CBO baseline in January 1993, which had very high deficit projections, and the CBO baseline in August of 1995, which had significantly lower deficits. This chart shows why those deficits are lower. I ask unanimous consent to have that chart and others printed in the Record at this time.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, what this chart shows is that the President did not make any spending cuts in his first 3 years whatsoever, none. He did have significant tax increases, actually, the largest tax increase in history. But the bulk of the so-called deficit reduction was technical changes, economic changes and debt service savings, in other words, reductions that were not the result of his policies. But I wanted to note, of that $500 billion in so-called deficit reduction, in the first 3 years there were no spending cuts. Actually, spending increased over the CBO baseline $4 billion in 1993, $9 billion in 1994, $3 billion in 1995. So now, those facts are in the record. Also, we heard the President say in one press conference that he wanted to balance the budget. He mentioned the word ``balanced budget'' 16 times in a recent short press conference. As a matter of fact, he has mentioned several times about his desire to balance the budget. As a candidate in 1992, he said that he would submit a 5-year plan to balance the budget. On May 20 of this year he said, ``I think balancing the budget clearly can be done in less than 10 years.'' In June he said, ``It's going to take a decade to wipe out the deficit.'' In October he said that ``We could reach it,'' balancing the budget, ``in 7 years.'' Also, in October he said, ``We can do it in 8 years.'' Also, in October he said, ``We can do it in 9 years.'' The President has been all over the lot on how long it would take to balance the budget. The point is, Republicans actually have a bill--not a statement--we have a bill before us which, if enacted, will balance the budget in 7 years. I think that is real. It is significant. It is substantive. Now, I heard some of my colleagues on the floor say, ``Well, if we enact your plan, it is going to devastate Medicare, it is going to devastate Medicaid, and it is going to give all these wealthy people big tax cuts. They say that we are going to cut these programs and transfer more wealth to the wealthy.'' That is totally, completely, irrefutably false. And I will put the facts in the record to prove it. But first, I want to talk about these cuts for a second. For example, Medicare spending rises under our plan. This year it is $178 billion. In the year 2002, it is $293 billion. That happens to be a 65-percent increase. Not a decrease, an increase. Medicaid spending rises from $89 billion to $122 billion. That is a 37-percent increase. Overall mandatory spending increases from $739 billion to over $1.93 trillion. That is a 48-percent increase. Maybe we did not cut spending enough. Those are big increases. Today we are spending about $1.5 trillion. In 7 years, we are going to spend $1.85 trillion. In other words, spending increases every single year. Do we slow the growth of spending down? Yes. Do we make these programs grow at more affordable rates? Yes. Do we offer some tax relief for middle-income Americans? Yes. Should we make apologies for that? I say definitely not. I think this package that we have put together is a fair package. I think it is a good package. Also, I have to say, Mr. President, we have to compare it to the President's budget. What has he submitted as his plan? In January 1995, he submitted a budget that never came into balance. His budget actually had deficits rising substantially. He submitted a revised budget in June. According to CBO, the deficits in his new budget go up as well. Let me give you his deficit figures. This year, the deficit was $164 billion. Under the President's plan, it rises to $210 billion in the year 2002. Our budget has a surplus in the year 2002 of $4 billion. We actually balance the budget in 7 years. The President's budget deficits continue to escalate to over $200 billion for as far as the eye can see. That is the difference in our visions for the future. Those are the only two proposals on the table. I might mention, the President's proposal was about 20 pages on a fax machine. Not a significant, substantive document. It was more a theoretical document. We have a real budget that says if we curb these entitlement programs and make other spending cuts, we are going to have a balanced budget. Republicans are going to change budget laws. We did not balance the budget under President Reagan, and I love President Reagan. We did not do it under President Bush, and I think very highly of President Bush. But we never had the votes or the courage to curtail the growth of entitlement programs. Some of these programs are exploding in cost. Over the last several years Medicaid grew at 28, 29, 30, 31 percent. The earned-income credit grew from $2 billion in 1985 to $23 billion in 1994. That is an unbelievable growth rate, 11 times what it was just 9 years ago. In other words, we had a lot of entitlement programs just exploding in cost. Now, for the first time, we are curtailing the growth of those programs. Some people say we are slashing those programs. I take issue with that. Medicare is probably the one issue that has been demagogued by opponents of this package more than any other. I mention, in our budget, that in 1995 in Medicare we spend $178 billion. By the year 2002, we spend $293 billion. That is a 65 percent increase. Mr. President, what is shocking--I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will look at this chart--as I compare the spending that we propose in Medicare every year to the spending proposed in the President's June budget--and I find very, very little difference. Under our proposal, Medicare grows at an annual rate of 7.4 percent. Under the President's proposal, Medicare grows at 7.5 percent. Under our proposal, for which we are being lambasted so much--I heard people say we are killing Medicare and we are being unfair to senior citizens--actually, our budget proposes spending more in the year 2002 than the President's proposal in Medicare. That is kind of surprising. My point is, these cuts are not draconian, they are not drastic. Somebody said, ``The Republicans are trying to cut Medicare $270 billion and the President is only trying to cut $124 billion.'' The President uses different economic assumptions. He assumes the health care costs are going to grow at a slower rate than we do on the Republican side. Our point is that we are using the Congressional Budget Office. I might mention, President Clinton originally said that he would use the Congressional Budget Office. It does make a difference. Over a 10-year span, the President's budget comes to balance by assuming a more favorable economic situation that equals $475 billion more that he would like to spend. But the President, in his State of the Union Address in 1993, explained to Congress why he used CBO numbers to score his budget proposal. He said: I did this so that we could argue about priorities with the same set of numbers. I did this so that no one could say I was estimating my way out of this difficulty. I did this because if we can agree together on the most prudent revenues we're likely to get if the recovery stays and we do the right things economically, then it will turn out better for the American people than we say. The President was right: We should use the same numbers. But unfortunately, now he is trying to estimate his way out of difficulty. We need to balance the budget. We need to make difficult decisions. It is not always easy to do, but I think we have a very balanced proposal, one that does not inflict undue paid. Somebody said, ``Oh, look at all the pain.'' I do not see pain in this proposal. I see us doing what we should do. [[Page S 17255]] Let us look at Medicare. My Democrat colleagues on the Finance Committee offered to cut Medicare part A, the hospital portion, by $89 billion. They offered that as an amendment on the floor too. So we basically agree on the amount of cuts on hospitals. Then they said, ``Republicans are trying to raise premiums on part B beneficiaries, the doctor portion.'' What do we really do? We keep the premium rate at 31.5 percent of program costs. That is what the beneficiaries pay today. That is fair; that is reasonable. The program started out at 50 percent. Keeping it at 31.5 percent, I think, is fair. Do premium costs increase? Yes, but they increase under the President's proposal too. As a matter of fact, the President's increase in part B premiums follow right along with ours. There is only, I think, a $5 difference in the year 2002 in premiums. What he did not tell people is, ``Present law goes down to 25 percent, and I am going to take credit for that and really lambaste and demagog the Republicans.'' The fact is, keeping premium levels at 31.5 percent is fair. We also say wealthier people should pay a little more. We should not be asking everybody who is making $20,000 to be subsidizing wealthier people on their part B premium.

Mr. NICKLES. We also made some tax changes that are fair to American families. I have heard a lot of colleagues say, ``Well, that's not fair.'' The heck it is not. We are giving tax relief to individuals and families who have kids, a $500 per child tax credit. Somebody says that does not mean very much. Well, I disagree. I only have one child now who would qualify, because they have to be under the age of 18. I used to have four kids who would qualify. A lot of American families need help. Four kids is $2,000 in tax relief. That is targeted toward the American family. That will help. An individual or couple who has two kids gets $1,000. That is $1,000 that they get to spend on themselves instead of sending it to Washington, DC, to have politicians spend on a multitude of items. It is the idea that they can choose. They may want to spend it on education or a home or transportation or to buy food or pay utilities. We want to let families make that decision, not the Government. We have targeted the bulk of tax relief to American families. We did it with the inheritance tax; we did it with the child credit; we did it with IRA savings accounts; we did it with medical savings accounts. Mr. President, I think this is a balanced package, it is a good package, and it is the only package we have before us that will balance the budget. We said we were going to do it. We are going to do it. I think what we are doing is vitally important. I thank the manager of the bill and I yield the floor. Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I want to respond to a couple of comments made by my friend and colleague from the State of Massachusetts. I heard two or three statements that Republicans have a budget and they are trying to balance the budget on the backs of senior citizens and making unrealistic cuts in Medicare would be the thrust. I disagree. Mr. President, if you look at the Medicare fund, it is going broke. The Medicare system is funded by a payroll tax. All the money goes into one fund. It is financed by a tax that costs right now 1.45 percent of payroll, matched by employer. That is 2.9 percent. Now, next year the fund pays out more than it takes in. You cannot continue to do that indefinitely. The fund is going broke. The President's own trustees said it is going broke. Some of us do not want that to happen. Some of us think that would be unfair to seniors. Maybe some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say, ``Well, do not do anything. We will not solve that problem.'' I disagree. Now, there are two ways to solve the problem--either reduce the rate of growth of spending in Medicare, which is, frankly, what we are proposing, or you increase payroll taxes, which is what Congress has done in the past. Just for my colleagues' information, I looked up years ago what was the history of Medicare taxes. The maximum tax in 1977 was $177. That is employee and employer maximum tax. The maximum tax in 1993 was almost $4,000. So it went substantially from $177 to almost $4,000. Guess what? The fund is still going broke. So we have increased the tax rates, we have increased the basis. We are spending a lot more money, and still spending exceeds the revenues. Next year, the spending is greater than the revenue in spite of the fact that now there is no cap. It is 2.9 percent of payroll. It can be well over $4,000 and the fund is still going broke. If it goes broke, it cannot pay the bills. It cannot pay the hospital. It cannot pay the doctor. How is it responsible to allow that to happen? I do not believe it is responsible. So we need to fix it. That is part of our budget. Somebody says, ``Well, you are cutting Medicare.'' I disagree. This year we are spending $178 billion in Medicare. By the year 2002, we will be spending $286 billion in Medicare. That is an increase. That is an increase at twice the rate of inflation. So, Medicare under our proposal grows twice the rate of inflation, and it stays solvent. We keep the Medicare trust fund solvent for beyond the year 2010. The President keeps it solvent for a couple more years. That is not satisfactory. We are trying to be responsible. Some people are playing politics. The President is playing politics. The Republicans wanted a 25- percent increase in beneficiaries' payments. That is so demagogic. The facts are, just to be very simple, part B, part B is voluntary. It pays for the doctors. When the system started 30 years ago, it was supposed to be 50-50. Now the percentage that beneficiaries pay is 31.5 percent. That means taxpayers pay 68.5 percent. That means my son and daughter, who are not wealthy by any means but they have jobs, they are helping to subsidize the wealthiest persons' Medicare--they help pay 68.5 percent of the Medicare premium of the wealthiest persons in America. We are trying to make some changes in that. One, we try and keep the perk at 31.5 percent under our proposal. Anybody that has looked at the problem of financing Medicare says that the Medicare beneficiary should probably pay at least 31.5 percent. Here you have the President of the United States saying that is an outlandish increase in Medicare copayments. No, we were trying to keep the percentage at 31.5 percent. People should know the country's law says it will drop to 25 percent. Should it drop to 25 percent when it is going broke? We are trying to keep it at that level. Is that an unfair attack on senior citizens to give rich people tax cuts as was alluded to on the floor? Definitely not. As a matter of fact, we passed a provision that says any increase between the 25 percent and 31.5 percent, 100 percent of that goes into the part A trust fund, which is going broke. Any of the changes that we made in part B, any of the changes we made as increased contributions-- and we say wealthier people--we will drop off the subsidies. If they make over $150,000 or something, they have to pay 100 percent of their Medicare payments. We will eliminate the subsidies for wealthier people. I believe that subsidy phaseout begins at $60,000 for an individual and $90,000 for a couple. We say above those amounts --and it takes $50,000, I think, to get to where there is no subsidy--we say above that amount people should pay their own. I think that is a good proposal. Why should our kids be subsidizing people who have incomes of over $150,000? That is a good proposal. Does that wreck the Medicare system? No. It helps save the Medicare system. It reduces the subsidy that a lot of people are paying for people who can well afford to pay for their own. I want to make a couple of comments concerning the stopgap spending measure that we in Washington, DC, call a continuing resolution. The President vetoed one that we sent him the other night, on Monday night. I wish he had not. He vetoed it because of the part B, and he demagogued it and maybe scored some points. It might have helped electionwise, but it was bad policy for him to do that. I regret that. What else did he veto? I met with the negotiators yesterday. And I compliment Senator Domenici and Congressman Kasich. And we met with Mr. Panetta and Secretary Rubin representing the administration, we said we will not mess with Medicare. We say what we really want is a commitment to balance the budget in 7 years. So we want to pass a continuing resolution, a stopgap spending bill, that will allow Government offices across the country to stay open, but we want a commitment from them to balance the budget in 7 years. Mr. Panetta said that is not acceptable. Why? Because we want to use Congressional Budget Office economics because we feel those are more realistic than the Office of Management and Budget, than the President's economic figures. They said it was not acceptable. I will just remind you, Mr. President, that the President of the United States in a speech in the House of Representatives, in a State of the Union speech, said that he would use Congressional Budget Office figures. He did not want smoke and mirrors. He did not want to play games. He said, let us use the same numbers. There was a big round of applause. Now the President does not want to use the Congressional Budget Office. You say, what difference does that make? I will tell you. Over a 10-year period of time it makes $475 billion difference, the difference in economic assumptions. So you are talking about a lot of difference. That is twice what we are talking about for changes in Medicare and so on. So we are talking about a significant difference. The President says we can balance the budget just by having greater economic expectations and so on. We are saying, no, let us use realistic numbers, let us use the same numbers the President said he would use 2 years ago. So that is what we are saying. Then we said we want to balance the budget in 7 years. President Clinton, as a candidate in June 1992, said we can balance the budget in 5 years. In the last 4 months, he has said we should balance the budget in 10 years, 9 years, 8 years, 7 years, and more than 7 years. He said all the above. We believe it should be done in 7 years. Do we know what is right? Why did we pick 7 years? Because, when we had a balanced budget amendment on the floor of the Senate, we said we would balance the budget by the year 2002, and we said we would try to do it whether we had a balanced budget amendment or not. We happened to think that was the right thing to do. We should balance the budget. That is what this is all about. Do we want to fund Government? Do we want to shut Government down? No. Do we want to pass a responsible short-term spending resolution? Yes. But we also want the President to start working with us to balance the budget. And, so far, he has been AWOL: absent without leadership. He has not been at the table. His negotiators have said, send us a bill, we will veto it, and then we will negotiate. Why should we not negotiate now? Why should we not try to solve the problems now, not later, but now? We have not been able to get anybody's attention in the White House to make it happen. We want it to happen. We want to save Medicare and we want to balance the budget and we want to be able to give American families tax relief. Then I just have to answer the claim that I heard two or three times by my colleague from Massachusetts, when he said Republicans want to make all these changes, they are cutting all this spending, and they want to do it so they can give their wealthy friends tax cuts. I disagree. Are we cutting spending? Not really. Today we are spending $1.5 trillion. In 7 years we are going to spend almost $1.9 trillion. Spending rises every single year. Do we slow the growth of spending? Yes. Do we curb the growth of entitlements? Yes. Have we done that before? For the most part, no. Congress has never really had the courage or the leadership to slow the growth of entitlements, and some entitlement programs have been exploding. So now we are saying, let us control their growth. In most cases, like Medicare, it is growing at over twice the rate of inflation. But we can do that and balance the budget, moderate their growth and save Medicare. All the savings in Medicare go in to help save the Medicare fund, so Medicare reductions in growth have nothing whatsoever to do with tax cuts. But we are saying we can make this slope. We can actually make it happen, balance the budget by the year 2002, and allow American families to keep more of their hard-earned dollars. Over 70-some-odd percent of our budget, 75 or 76 percent, is directed toward American families. The bulk of that is the $500 tax credit per child. Most all that--we passed it in the conference--it comes out to individuals who make less than $70,000 or families who make less than $110,000. So we target it toward working families who are paying taxes. Then they can use that. If you have two kids, that is $1,000 a year. If you have four kids, that is $2,000 a year. If you have an income of $24,000, you will not pay any income tax. If you have income of $30,000 with two kids, we just cut your tax in half. If you have income of $40,000, we just cut your income tax by a fourth. If you have income of $75,000, we did not reduce your tax very much percentagewise, but we still allow that person to have $2,000 more. If they have four kids and they can send their kids to college, that will help them make that decision. People will be able to make that decision, not Government. To me, that is very profamily. We do some other things. We have some IRA enhancement so people can be encouraged to save. We have some inheritance tax changes so people can be encouraged to build a small business and pass that on to their children and grandchildren. There are some very positive things in this bill that I think would be supported and should be supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and we do it in a responsible fashion. Mr. President, I have been here for 15 years and we have never voted for a balanced budget. We have never voted for the implementing legislation to make it happen. Now we are talking about doing it. Granted, the White House does not want to participate. They do not want it to happen. But we are really serious about making it happen. We want to balance the budget. To me, this battle is not about who wins, Democrats or Republicans. It is who wins as far as our children are concerned. Are we to continue piling up debt after debt after debt? The President's budget, according to CBO, has $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see. For 7 years, 10 years, it is over $200 billion and climbing. That is not acceptable. That is not realistic. It needs to be changed. We are trying to convince the President he is going to have to negotiate with us to get us to a balanced budget. He says he is for a balanced budget; he just does not have one. We are producing one, and hopefully in the next couple of days we will vote on one. Mr. President, I am optimistic. I hope the President and his advisers would quit saying ``what makes me look better in the polls'' instead of saying what is right for America. I know some of the President's advisers, and I know they know we can never ever get to a balanced budget unless we start curbing the growth of entitlements, which is about $1 trillion out of a budget today that is $1.5 trillion. They know you cannot say we are going to balance the budget and only work on a third of the budget. They know you have to work and really look at the entire budget, and that is what we are trying to do. So I urge the President--I hope we send the President a short-term spending bill tonight. I believe the House will be taking up one soon. That bill will be a continuation--it will be a short-term spending bill, and it will also have language that we should balance the budget with real economics by the year 2002. I hope the President receives that bill tonight. I expect he will receive that bill tonight, and I hope he will sign it. Thousands of people can go back to work and we can go back to work and we can finish our business, and that business should include balancing the budget. To me, that is not a victory for Republicans or Democrats; it is a victory for Americans. That is what we should be doing. That is what this Congress has been working on for the most part of this year, and now it is coming to a crisis point; it is coming to a head. Now is the time to do it. In my opinion, if we send the President a clean CR with language that we should be balancing the budget in 7 years, he should sign it, and I hope he will. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President----

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes each, so if we have discussion we can have discussion on both sides of the issue.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be 1 hour of debate equally divided under the control of Senator Exon for 30 minutes and Senator Santorum for 30 minutes; at the conclusion of that hour that the Senate would stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. That is correct.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. We are not on debt limit.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Senator Leahy's amendment. I will read it for my colleagues' information: Provided, That in determining eligibility for assistance from funds appropriated to carry out section 104 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, nongovernmental and multilateral organizations shall not be subjected to requirements more restrictive than requirements applicable to foreign governments for such assistance: Provided further, That none of the funds made available under this Act may be used to lobby for or against abortion. It sounds kind of reasonable, until you realize we do not have restrictions on governments dealing with the prohibition of abortion. So this language is meaningless. It has no restriction whatsoever. That means that we would be funding international family planning groups that use abortion as a method of family planning. A lot of us really do not want to do that. It is troublesome to think that international groups, some of which support abortion as a method of family planning, would be receiving tax dollars to be used in that fashion. Maybe this amendment is a nice attempt to cover that up, as a substitute for the House language. I just hope that our colleagues will not agree to it, for a lot of different reasons. One, I do not think we want to fund international groups that promote or support or fund abortions. I do not think U.S. taxpayers' dollars should be used for that purpose. We have restrictions in this country. We have restrictions in this country that prohibit the use of taxpayers' dollars to be used to fund abortions, except in necessary cases--to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest. That is really what the House language is trying to do. The House language reinstates the so-called Mexico City policy, and it goes back to 1984 through January 1993, which includes the Reagan and Bush era. It says we do not want to fund international groups that support or fund abortion. That was the policy of this country for that period of time. The Clinton administration, through an Executive order in January 1993, reversed that policy. So now we have a policy, and Tim Wirth who served in this body has been actively promoting it, where we actually have been involved in encouraging countries to change their laws on abortion. I think 95 countries have significant restrictions in their laws against abortion. I think using U.S. taxpayers' funds to be telling other countries to change their laws is very offensive. Certainly to be contributing to organizations that use part of their money or some of their moneys for abortions is also offensive. Again, our stated policy in this country is we do not want to support abortion. We do not want taxpayers' moneys used to subsidize abortion unless it is necessary to save the life of mother or in cases of rape or incest. To be giving money to international organizations that either support or use abortions as a method of family planning or to try to change Government laws for abortion, in my opinion, is wrong. I looked at the House language and it basically says that money will not be used for organizations, nongovernmental or multilateral organizations, until the organization certifies it will not, during the period for which the funds are made available, perform abortions in any foreign country except if the life of the mother were in danger if the fetus were carried to term, or in cases of forcible rape or incest. I think that is good language. I think that language mirrors the language that we have agreed to on this floor dealing with Labor-HHS, the so-called Hyde language. Why in the world would we be supporting and giving money to foreign organizations that do the opposite? I think that is a serious, serious mistake. Also, I might mention this House language says that we do not want any money to be used to violate the laws of any foreign country concerning circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated or prohibited. We do not want U.S. taxpayers' dollars used to go into other countries to lobby, to encourage, to change laws that they may have dealing with abortion. Why in the world should we have the idea that we know best, and so we want to manipulate and make those laws basically more pro-abortion. I want to touch for a second on the issue of the People's Republic of China. There had been restrictions under the Reagan and Bush eras that we did not give money to the UNFPA organization if they were giving money to the People's Republic of China, because they had a coercive abortion policy. The House language, likewise, says we would not give money to the U.N. family planning organization if they were still supporting the coercive policies or contributing to the policies in the People's Republic of China. Mr. President, I remember when Mrs. Clinton addressed a large conference in Beijing earlier this year and she condemned forced abortion. Unfortunately, that happens to be the policy in the People's Republic of China today--a one-child policy, enforced by, in some cases, coercive abortion. That is unbelievable. It is also undeniable. Yet UNFPA has actually made supportive comments about some of the things that are going on in the PRC today concerning their family planning efforts. It is reprehensible to think that we might be contributing to an organization that might be assisting in coercive abortion. That should not happen. Mr. President, I look at the language that we have before the Senate in the so-called Leahy language. I do not find it acceptable. I find no restriction whatever on U.S. funds to international organizations, no restriction whatever. If it passes and if it became law, we will be giving money to international groups that use abortion as a method of family planning. That is offensive to me as a taxpayer. It is offensive to me to think that the result of that is that U.S. tax dollars will be used in some way or another to subsidize the destruction of innocent, unborn human beings. I look at the House language. The House language is basically reinstating the policy that we had from 1984 to January 1993. That policy saved [[Page S 16494]] lives. Did it restrict use of family planning? No. Did family planning continue? Yes. Did family planning continue with funding from the United States? Yes. Over 350 organizations signed up and said, ``We will take your money and use it for family planning, but we will not use abortion as a method of family planning.'' That means organizations all across the world. It worked. Some people said they would not sign up, but they did. So we had family planning efforts, but we had family planning efforts separate from abortion. That is what we are trying to do with this House language. I urge our colleagues to reject the Leahy amendment and support the House language. I might mention, also, I think that the House language, which passed overwhelmingly, passed by a vote of 232-187. My guess is that if we do not have language similar to that, we will not have a bill. We will be looking at the foreign operations bill in a continuing resolution, in all likelihood, throughout the year. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Leahy amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask that the March 13, 1995, editorial from the Washington Post regarding President Clinton's Executive order prohibiting the use of permanent replacement workers during an economic strike if you do any business with the Federal Government be printed in the Record. The editorial follows: [From the Washington Post, Mar. 13, 1995] The Striker Replacement Issue President Clinton and the filibustering Senate Democrats are wrong on the striker replacement issue. The Senate Republicans are right, and we hope a couple of Democrats can sooner or later be persuaded to switch sides. Then the filibuster can be broken. The president has no particular history of commitment on this issue. The executive order he signed, disturbing and tilting settled labor law in labor's favor, was plainly an effort to propitiate a constituency that couldn't get its way through normal procedures. The resisting Senate Republicans think that in issuing the order, the president was trying to snatch what ought to be regarded as a legislative prerogative, and they are determined to take it back. If not on the current appropriations bill, you can expect them to do it on some other. In the long run the law seems unlikely to be changed; this is more a fight over symbols, the president who frustrated organized labor on other issues over the last two years trying now to look on the cheap like its friend. The executive order would bar large federal contractors from hiring permanent replacements when workers strike over economic issues. That's the rule that labor had tried and failed to get Congress to apply to all employers. The unions argue that the ban has become necessary to protect what they depict as a threatened right to strike. But it isn't because of labor law that unions have lost membership and clout in recent years. Rather, it's because, in part by virtue of their own past actions, they find themselves in an increasingly weak competitive position in a world economy. The insulating change they seek in labor law would be much more likely over time to make that problem worse than to make it better. The law is contradictory. The National labor Relations Act says strikers can't be fired; the Supreme Court has nonetheless ruled that they can be permanently replaced. The contradiction may be healthy. By leaving labor and management both at risk, the law gives each an incentive to agree. For most of modern labor history, management in fact has made little use of the replacement power, and labor hasn't much protested it. The unions say that now that's changed. The replacement power has been used in a number of celebrated cases in recent years, and labor is doubtless right that in some of these cases it wasn't used as a last resort, but as a union- breaking device from the beginning. The problem is that situations also arise when strikers by their behavior forfeit the right of return and ought to be permanently replaced. This newspaper faced such a situation in dealing with one of its own unions in the 1970s. A ban on the hiring of permanent replacements goes too far. Rather than restore some lost balance in labor law, as its supporters suggest, it would throw the law out of balance and in the long run likely do great economic harm. Maybe there are some modest changes that can usefully be made in current law. But the president's order ought to be reversed. He should find some other way to pose as labor's champion.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.