Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, this is an amendment offered by myself and Senator Brown that tried to clarify a couple things. One, we want to state very clearly exactly what we did in the bill and that is an increase in the earned income credit for individuals with one child from $2,094 in 1995--that is present law--to $2,156 in 1996. That is an increase of about--whatever the difference is--$60 some- odd, and an income credit for a family of 2 from $3,110, to $3,208. That is an increase of about $100--$98. So we make that very clear. The second part of that is we say we want to deny benefits to illegal aliens and make the effective date December 31, 1994. Some people are shocked to find out that they were eligible. I was surprised. But I looked at a GAO report, and it said: Illegal alien receipts. IRS expects more than 160,000 illegal aliens received the EIC in 1994. We ought to stop that. Right now it is legal. It says: The Internal Revenue Code does not prohibit illegal aliens from receiving EIC if they meet prescribed eligibility requirements. Well, they should be, and so let us make that illegal. If they are here illegally, why in the world should we be giving them a check, especially a check if you are talking about to the tune of $3,000. So let us tighten that up. That is a loophole that needs to be tightened. We need to tighten up loopholes. Senator Roth mentioned several. I compliment Senator Roth because he has shown great courage and leadership in trying to tackle the fastest growing entitlement program in Government. No other program is growing as rapidly, as fast as the so-called EIC. No other program costs over 10 times as much as it did 10 years ago and continues to explode. So it needs to be reformed. And no other program that I know of has error rates and fraud rates at such astronomical levels as the EIC. This is a GAO report that is dated March 1995: ``Earned Income Credit Targeting to the Working Poor.'' Well, we should target. I just read from a couple of their highlights. It says the IRS did a study in 1994 on electronic returns only. They said 29 percent of the returns received too much EIC, and 13 percent were judged to have received intentional errors. In other words, that is fraud. It also mentioned, it says that the most recent taxpayer compliance measured showed that about 42 percent of EIC recipients received too large a credit and about 32 percent were not able to show that they were entitled to any credit. One out of three in the comprehensive study were not able to show they were entitled to any credit. And that is about 34 percent of the total EIC. What other program has a 34 percent failure rate, or 30 some-odd- percent error rate? This program does. And part of it is because the cost has just exploded. You have a program that grows at 10 times the rate it was just a few years ago, and you have a program where the maximum benefit is six times what it was 10 years ago, you realize you have a program that is rife with fraud and needs to be reformed. It has not been yet. The IRS is trying to tighten down around the edges, but they have not been totally successful. They may have reduced it somewhat, and I compliment them, but they have a long way to go if you have an error rate of 30, 40 percent. And so we need to make some changes. Senator Roth has made many of those changes. We say that we must count almost all income. We find hundred of thousands of people who receive benefits that make a lot more than the income eligibility called for, people making a lot more than $30,000, some making more than $50,000. They have interest income that is tax free. It does not count toward their income eligibility and therefore they can continue receiving EIC benefits. Mr. President, we need to make some reforms and we need to make clear that we want to target these benefits to those people who are truly needy. That is the kind of reforms that we are making today. I want to answer my colleague from New Jersey. He said, what about the--maybe I could get his attention. My friend from New Jersey asked about a couple that made $15,000. Well, in 1995, they received an EIC of $2,360. In 1996, under our reform proposal, they are going to have an EIC of $2,488. That is a $128 increase. Now, my colleague from New Jersey would like that increase to be $400, but we have it increased by $128. They have an increase. And, again, they did not pay any income taxes. They are getting a return in excess, or at least 100 percent of all their FICA taxes, including what their employer paid, and we are giving them $100 more than they had last year. That is not a tax increase. My colleague from Pennsylvania said, ``Well, how in the world can you call something a tax increase if you are giving somebody $3,000, and next year you are going to give them $3,200? How can you call that a tax increase?'' Well, let us just take, for example, that you have a rich uncle. The rich uncle wants to encourage certain behavior, saying if you work a little bit, he is going to give you a bonus. If you work about $10,000 or $12,000 worth, he is going to give you a $3,000 bonus because he wants you to work. Is that not nice? The uncle says, ``I'm going to give you $3,000. Next year I am planning to give you $3,500.'' But your uncle's board of directors said you cannot afford that, you are breaking the bank. So instead, they gave you $3,000 next year--actually $3,100 next year instead of giving you $3,500. ``We cannot afford it. Let's give him $3,200. Let's keep it to a more moderate growth. Give him an increase, $100, but not $400 or $500. Don't do that; the program is growing too fast. But it is a bonus.'' It does not have anything to do with taxes. This is far in excess of any tax liability, either FICA or income tax. That recipient said, ``You increased my tax base. I hoped I was going to get more money.'' I do not think so. This body is going to show, I believe, that we have the courage to curtail the growth of Medicare, which is a very popular entitlement program. And we are going to have that program grow about 7 percent per year. We have a program here that continues to grow. The total growth in the EIC program is going to grow about 10 percent over the next few years. The out-of- pocket costs in fiscal year 1995 are about $20 billion. It will be about $23 billion in the year 2002. That is an increase of 15 percent in 7 years. That is an increase in outlays, so the program grows. It does not grow as fast as some people would like. President Clinton and others would like it to grow up to $30 billion. Well, frankly, we cannot afford that. We can never balance the budget if we do not have the courage to at least control the growth of entitlement programs. And this is the fastest, most fraudulent entitlement program in Government. We need to curtail its growth. That is what we are trying to do. We allow the EIC benefits to go up for individuals with two or more children. They do not grow as fast as some people would like. President Clinton and others would like it to grow faster. We cannot afford it. So we allow the benefit to go up by over $100 a year. For individuals who have one child, we make no change. Individuals that have one child get the exact same benefit as they get under present law, under our proposal or President Clinton's proposal. We did not make a change. We did eliminate the benefits for individuals without children. And I think about that. I have kids that could qualify. Other people do. We are expanding eligibility by several million people. How much money are we talking about? We are talking about $308, I think, this year, giving that benefit to lots of people. And you say, ``Why do you care about that? That is a small amount of money.'' Well, look at what this program cost a few years ago. The maximum payment on families with two or more children was $500 in 1985. Today, 10 years later, it is $3,000. What is the benefit going to be for that individual that happens to be $300 or $400 today? Ten years from now maybe it is $3,000. We will have a program again that continues to escalate. This program, Russell Long mentioned it. I have an article in which he states this program should not have been expanded. Russell Long was one of the fathers of this program. He said it should not have been expanded for individuals without children. I might mention in the 1993 tax bill, there was no Republican that voted for it, and when it passed the Senate it did not have a benefit for individuals without children. That was added on in the House. And, unfortunately, the Senate concurred with the House in conference. But it was not in the bill that passed in the Finance Committee in the Senate nor in the bill that passed on the floor of the Senate. It was added in conference. That was a mistake. It was a massive expansion of entitlement, added entitlement to several million people. So we changed that. We eliminate illegal aliens. And we say we should count almost all income. You should count tax-exempt interest as far as determining who is eligible for this program. You should count other income in determining who is eligible. We allow eligibility, and the amount of income to determine eligibility, to increase. Right now you qualify for this program if you have income up to $26,673. Some people say, ``You really cut that back.'' No. The facts are, under our proposal, by the year 2002 you can have income up to $29,200 and qualify. Now, that does not grow quite as fast as President Clinton would like for it to. He allows people to receive the benefit if they have income equal to $34,600. Let us think about that. Are we going to have Uncle Sam writing checks--remember, 85 percent of this program is Uncle Sam writing a check, not reducing anybody's taxes, but writing checks--for families that have incomes less than $34,000. You are going to be talking about a majority of American families. And old Uncle Sam is going to be paying people. So we use this income for a massive income redistribution program. Contrast that to what we are trying to do on the Republican side. We are saying, ``No. We are going to give a tax cut for families, a tax cut for people who pay taxes,'' not just come up with schemes to have a negative income tax and have Uncle Sam write big checks at the end of the year. No. We are going to try to reduce all families paying taxes, reduce their taxes so they can take the tax reduction on a monthly basis and keep more of their own money. That is what we are talking about doing. That is what is fair. Then my colleague from New Jersey, or one of my colleagues, was denigrating the fact that we made some changes on the inheritance tax, said how terrible that was. Maybe they should come into my State and talk to some of the members of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau or Farmers Union or some of the wheat growers, because you have a situation where inflation has built up the value of some of these farms and ranches, estates, machine shops, whatever, to say they are worth something. Uncle Sam comes in and says, ``We want to--'' Somebody dies. They want to pass the property on to their family, and Uncle Sam says, ``Well, we want 18 percent of it or we want 55 percent of it.'' That makes it very difficult to pass on to succeeding generations. So what did we do? Well, we said for a family estate, let us increase right now the exemption from $600,000 and increase that over 6 years to $750,000. We increased that amount $25,000 per year. And then we also say if it is a family-held business, we want to encourage that. We happen to be profamily, and we happen to be probusiness. We want to encourage family-owned corporations, whether it is a janitor service or whether it is a car dealership or whether it is an insurance company. We want to encourage family ownership, whether it is a farm or a ranch or a dairy operation. We want to encourage that. We say, if they are going to pass the property on to their own heirs, they should be able to have a better deal. So we raise that estate exemption up to $1.5 million. And we cut the rate down for those between $1.5 million and $5 million so they can keep it in the family and not have to sell it, not have to sell a family business just to pay an inheritance tax. I think that is a fair and a good idea. I think that is profamily and that is going to encourage growth and encourage a father, instead of saying, ``Well, I might as well spend the money because I cannot pass it on. I do not want to give it to Uncle Sam,'' we want to encourage people to build up businesses, to expand, to hire more people, to create more jobs, and give that to their children, and let their children build it up and be second, third, fourth, fifth generations in some of these family-owned operations or businesses. Now, we limit it really to the lower size family operations. We did not help the people that have the very largest estates. But I think we were very family friendly. And I think this entire tax bill is very family friendly. And again I want to compliment the chairman for crafting, I think, a very good, targeted approach, one that has 70- some-odd percent--three-fourths of this package is very family friendly. If you look at the tax credits for children, you look at the gradual reductions in the marriage penalty, you look at the estate tax exemptions that we make for family-owned farms and ranches and businesses, this is a very family friendly tax bill, probably the most profamily bill that Congress has ever seen. I would encourage my colleagues to support it and to reject those who say we should not make any reduction whatsoever in the growth of EIC, which is the fastest growing, most fraudulent program that we have in Government today. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally charged.

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

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, first I wish to compliment Senator Frist, Dr. Frist from Tennessee, for his leadership on this issue. I think he has brought a great deal of experience and expertise on the entire health care issue. I compliment him for it. I also wish to compliment the Senator from Colorado for this amendment. The amendment that we have basically says this reports with instructions back to the Finance Committee to make sure that we have a lockbox provision to make sure all the savings or changes that we have in part B go into the savings in part A so it will help make sure part A does not go bankrupt. Our colleagues on the other side do not have that in their provision, but I think it is a very good, solid provision. It is one the Finance Committee adopted. This is kind of a second key on the lockbox to make sure that of any of the costs that would be incurred by beneficiaries, that 100 percent of those costs go directly into the solvency of part A. I think that is an excellent amendment, so I compliment my colleague and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Some people have alluded to the fact, well, we do not really have a problem with Medicare. I beg to differ. The trustees report clearly states we do. We have seen charts that next year under Medicare we start paying out more money than we take in, and that over a 7-year period of time the trust fund is totally used up and then they cannot pay the bills. That is not acceptable. That is not an alternative that is agreeable or acceptable to anyone. Some say the $89 billion would solve the problem. It does not solve the problem. It does not even come close to solving the problem. If we take the changes that we have proposed in the Finance Committee, reiterated by the amendment that we have from the Senator from Colorado, we are ensuring the trust fund. We are saying we are going to make some changes in part B, as the trustees said we should, because the part B trust fund has problems, it is running out of money. We take those savings and use that to ensure the solvency of part A. That makes sense. We are going to keep part A solvent, not just for 2 years but, really, for more than 10 years. I think that is an excellent step in the right direction. What have we done in the past when we had a problem under Medicare? In the past we have had problems. We have had reports from the trustees, as was alluded to by some of our colleagues, that it is running out of money. What have we done? Every time in the past what we have done is we have increased payroll taxes and we have had big, big increases in payroll taxes. There are only two ways you can solve the Medicare trust fund problem. You either increase the money going in--that is paid for by a payroll tax. Presently we are paying 1.45 percent; the employee pays that. The employer matches that. So it is 2.9 percent of payroll going to fund Medicare. That is what we are doing today. When we have had problems in the past, how have we financed it? We have financed it with a big increase in payment, in taxes. That is what the trustees said we are going to have to do. We are going to have to have big payroll tax increases to solve the problems in the trust fund or we are going to have to reduce the rate of growth of expenditures. We elected not to increase taxes. That is unheard of. Because I will tell you something--I want to put something in the Record. In the past, all Congress has ever done is increased payroll taxes. I just ask a question, does anyone know what the maximum tax rate is, if someone paid maximum taxes in Medicare in 1978, what the total tax was for them and their employer combined? It was $177. Do you know what the maximum tax rate was in 1993? It rose a little bit. It went from $177 to $3,915. And today it is even more, because we took the cap off. So it went from $177 to over $4,000 in a period of 15, 17 years. There are unbelievable increases in premiums, and that is still not enough. It is an unbelievable increase in taxes, and it is still not enough. So what did we do? We said, let us reduce the rate of growth in spending. Some people said, you are cutting $270 billion. We are spending, today, $178 billion in Medicare; in the year 2002 we are going to spend $286 billion. That is an increase. I am going to put into the Record how much Medicare spending is increasing every year. Most people said 6.4 percent. I have said that. Actually, it averages out right at 7 percent. So I will put this into the Record. It is interesting. I went back to see what the President's figures were when he revised his budget on June 22, 1995, what the President's figures were for Medicare. Guess what? He proposed changes. He uses OMB. He uses a different baseline, uses different growth rates, but the differences in outlays are minuscule. In 1995, he estimates we are going to spend $4 billion less than what CBO does. He says 174. In 1996, we estimate we are going to spend 193 in our proposal; the President says we are going to spend 192--almost identical. In 1997, we estimate we are going to spend $207 billion, a 7 percent increase. The President says we are going to spend $208 billion. In 1998, there is only $3 billion difference. In 1999, the President said we should spend $5 billion more. My point being there is very little difference in outlays estimation. Granted, the President is using OMB, he is using a rosier scenario, forecasting a lower growth rate in Medicare costs, but there is very little difference in outlays between what the President is estimating we are going to spend in Medicare than what we estimate using the Congressional Budget Office. Why did we use the Congressional Budget Office? Because that is what we agreed to use. That is what the President said he would use when he gave his State of the Union Message. He said he was going to use the Congressional Budget Office. Now he is not doing it. Now he is not doing it. But we are. Mr. President, I am going to ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Medicare spending comparisons, both by this budget resolution that we have before us and by the President, and tell my colleagues that over the 7 years, our plan says we should spend $l.655 trillion, and the President, over that same period of time, spends $l.676 trillion, a minuscule difference in the total spending over that period of time, of $21 billion--the difference in outlays between the President's budget and our budget granted that he uses OMB and a rosy scenario. Also, Mr. President, I am going to ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the growth rates of the maximum amount taxable for Medicare, the tax rates, and the maximum amount paid, because it will shock our colleagues to find out that in 1978 we were spending total taxes of $177, and today the maximum tax is over $4,000. That is still not enough. That says we need to reduce the rate of growth in this program, not increase taxes. I compliment my colleagues for this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of the reconciliation bill tomorrow, that the Democrats have 5 hours remaining on the bill and the Republicans have 3 hours and 15 minutes remaining.

Mr. NICKLES. I will not. I want to answer a couple of allegations that were made. When somebody said you did not refute it, I want to refute a couple of them.

Mr. NICKLES. No.

Mr. NICKLES. I only have 6 minutes. I have several points that I want to make. The point being when someone says they are offsetting FICA, the amount not only offsets FICA, but 200 percent, actually 235 percent of FICA, and that includes employer and employee. The employees actually only pay half of that amount. In reality, it is about four and a half times what an employee pays on FICA. The cost of this program is exploding--my colleague from New Jersey said he knows the Senator is going to stand up and show how this program has exploded. I grinned at him because I am. This program cost less than $2 billion in 1985; in 1986, less than $2 billion. Today the program costs $23 billion. That is 11 times what it cost in 1986. This is an entitlement program. What is the definition of an ``entitlement'' program? It is when you pass a law under which, if you met certain criteria, you are going to get a check. That is what the EITC is. It is a cash payment program--$23 billion in payments. Actually, I will give the exact figure. In 1995, the figure is $23.7 billion, over $20 billion of it is a cash outlay with Uncle Sam writing checks--not reducing somebody's cash income taxes and/or payroll taxes on a monthly basis. It is Uncle Sam, in 99 percent of the cases, writing a check once a year, a cash outlay program that I mentioned before which exceeds Aid for Families with Dependent Children. AFDC is paid out in a monthly basis to help low-income families. This is a lump-sum payment that is paid out at the end of the year at a cost of $20 billion. This program was lauded by President Reagan and others when it was a $2 billion program and when the maximum benefits were $435. The maximum benefit in 1985 was $550. By 1990, it had increased to $953. It was actually $1,500 in 1992, and President Clinton doubled it again. It went up to $3,110. So we are talking about a program, if you have two or more children, where your maximum benefit went from $500 to over $3,000. Some people said these Republicans have just slashed this program, and people are going to receive less. I saw a program on CBS tonight, they interviewed a woman who had a couple of kids. She had a couple of jobs. I compliment her. They made her think that she was going to get less money than she got this year. The facts are, if she is getting $3,110 this year, next year she gets over $3,200, and the next year she gets over $3,300. Under our proposal the benefit rises from $3,110 to $3,888, an increase of over $700 in the next 7 years. So we did not freeze this program. We did not cut it. We do say some people should not be eligible because we found hundreds of thousands of people that make over $30,000 a year who are qualifying for it. They should not be. We found out that illegal aliens are receiving benefits, and they should not. So we eliminate them. Frankly, we agree with Senator Russell Long that we should drop the benefit for individuals without children. This program was always formulated with the idea of helping individuals and families with children. We are reforming the system. We are trying to target the assistance to those people who really need it. But then we allow the system to grow. That is my point. It really is bothersome to have individuals stand up and say, you are increasing somebody's taxes when I know what the facts are. I will read the figures. If you have two or more children, the maximum benefit today is $3,110. The maximum benefit next year is $3,208. The maximum benefit the next year is $3,312. And, again, it increases over $100 per year to the maximum benefit. In the year 2002, it is $3,888, a significant increase every single year. It grows with inflation. So how can people say, ``Well, you are increasing taxes''? It does not make sense.

Mr. NICKLES. Has all time expired on our side on this amendment?

Mr. NICKLES. I will wait until my colleague from New Jersey concludes. At that point in time, I will send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 25, 1995, at 2 p.m. to hold an open hearing on Intelligence Support to Law Enforcement.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 25, 1995 at 9:30 a.m. to hold an open hearing on Intelligence Support to Law Enforcement.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 25, 1995 at 4 p.m. to hold a closed briefing on intelligence matters.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet on Wednesday, October 25, 1995, at 10 a.m. in executive session, to consider certain pending military nominations.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 25, 1995, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on religious liberty.

Mr. NICKLES. The Committee on Veterans' Affairs would like to request unanimous consent to hold a hearing on pending veterans' health care legislation at 10 a.m., on Wednesday, October 25, 1995. The hearing will be held in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The agenda includes: An original bill to expand VA authority to contract for health care services; S. 293, a bill to authorize payments to the States of per diem for veterans receiving adult day health care; S. 403, the Readjustment Counseling Service Amendments of 1995; S. 425, a bill to require the establishment of mental illness research, education, and clinical centers; S. 548, the Women Veterans' Mammography Quality Standards Act; S. 612, the Veterans Hospice Care Services Act; and S. 644, a bill to reauthorize the establishment of research corporations in the Veterans Health Administration.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development and Related Matters be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 25, 1995, to review the status of the special committee investigation.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9 a.m., Thursday, October 26; that following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date, no resolutions come over under the rule, the call of the Calendar be dispensed with, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate immediately resume consideration of calendar No. 216, S. 1357, the reconciliation bill, and Senator Bradley be recognized for up to 30 minutes for debate on the EITC motion.

Mr. NICKLES. I further ask unanimous consent that following the remarks of Senator Bradley, Senator Graham or Senator Pryor be recognized to offer a motion to recommit with respect to Medicaid, to be followed by amendments or motions relative to education, deficit reduction and rural restoration.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, the Senate will resume consideration of the reconciliation bill tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Therefore, Members can expect votes throughout Thursday's session of the Senate on amendments, but those votes are not expected prior to 12 noon. The Senate is expected to be in session late into the night in order to complete action on the reconciliation bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, during the conference with the House, it is my desire that the senior Senator from Texas will defer to the House level on funding for the National Weather Service. As my colleague is aware, the National Weather Service has been undergoing a complete modernization and restructuring to prepare it to give even better service as the Nation enters the next century. With two thirds of this modernization complete, it is not time to begin the restructuring--realigning people and consolidating offices to gain the efficiencies and cost savings that modernization promises. An especially important step in the restructuring will come in fiscal year 1996--the activation of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Using the latest in communications and the best weather science, these centers will streamline the way the National Weather Service produces and disseminates forecasts. A good example is the new Storm Prediction Center now being organized in Norman, OK. This will provide detailed guidance and coordination to the Weather Service's new offices around the country on all severe weather except hurricanes. I believe the proper course is to fund the National Weather Service and its supporting laboratories at the level authorized by the House of Representatives which will allow modernization to continue and restructuring to proceed as planned. Is it the Senator's intention to work toward the end during conference?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. About 5 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES. I thank my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania for yielding the time. Mr. President, I urge our colleagues to vote to proceed to this appropriations bill. I cannot recall--and it may be that we have done it--somebody objecting to a motion to proceed to an appropriations bill. Maybe a couple years ago in dealing with an Interior bill, which I was actually a manager of, that had on it an issue on grazing, and there was some legislation on that bill. Maybe that happened and we wrestled with it for a couple of days. But I do not recall anyone objecting to proceeding to the bill, though. I have heard a couple colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying they had problems with one of the provisions in the bill relating to prohibiting President Clinton's Executive order dealing with striker replacements. If they do not like that language, if we proceed to the bill, they have the opportunity to amend it and strike that language if they have the votes. That is fine. That is the way we usually handle appropriations bills. There are some things in this appropriations bill I do not agree with and on which I plan on having an amendment. Not everything done in committee I agree with. So I understand that some people on that side of the aisle are not happy with the bill or want to see some changes, some amendments. Other people on this side, would like to see some changes. Maybe we can come to an agreement on the number of amendments and hopefully pass this bill. We happen to be running out of time. We are supposed to have all appropriations bills done by the end of this month. We lack two. This is one of them. Let us find out where the votes are concerning this one provision dealing with the President's Executive order. The House put in language that denies funding to implement the President's Executive order, which prohibits companies from hiring permanent replacement workers during strikes. The Senate kept that language in. I happen to agree with that language. Somebody might say, why is that language necessary? Well, the President, by Executive order, is trying to pass legislation. I really disagree with that. I disagree with the substance of the legislation, and I also disagree with Executive orders that try to legislate. In this case, there was legislation introduced that was very high on President Clinton's priority list. The Democrats controlled Congress for the first 2 years of his administration. They introduced legislation that would state basically that companies could not hire permanent replacement workers during a strike. They did not have the votes. They were not able to pass that legislation. So after the change in the control of Congress, President Clinton said, well, I will bypass Congress and do it by Executive order. Basically, it states that if any company or any branch of any company does any contracting with the Federal Government, therefore, they will be denied access to Government contracts if they hire permanent replacement workers during a strike. That is clearly legislation. Again, I hope that our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, will [[Page S 14455]] take exception to the executive branch if they are legislating. The Constitution, in article I, says Congress shall pass ``all'' laws. It does not say ``some'' laws; it says ``all'' laws. It does not say that if the President cannot get his legislative program through Congress, he can do it by Executive order. That is exactly what this President is trying to do. He is trying to legislate. I hope and think that people from the legislative branch would take exception to that--even if they agree or disagree with the substance of his Executive order or his legislation that he is trying to enact through Executive order. So, again, I understand and respect that we have differences of views on this legislation. That is fine. I might say it is not totally partisan on this one issue, but we should vote on it. We should legislate on it. If colleagues wanted to pass a prohibition, they should introduce legislation and let Congress work its will. We have the right to pass this prohibition. For Members to say we are not going to take up the Labor-HHS appropriations bill because it has an amendment that we do not like--this bill has total funding, I think, of $263 billion in budget authority for the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services. That is a big bill. To say we want to totally deny taking up this bill because we disagree with one funding prohibition, I think, is not very mature. I hope that we would not do it. Again, I cannot remember Congress doing it. In my opinion, also, it is not a responsible way to legislate. Congress should legislate and we should enact our will. I should have a chance to offer my amendments on some things that I disagree with and find out where the votes are. Maybe I will win, and maybe I will lose. I doubt, when you have a bill this large, that everybody is going agree with everything. So we should work our will. We should have a chance to amend this bill, and we should finish this and all appropriations bills by the end of this month. I think we are being somewhat irresponsible if we do not. I urge my colleagues on the Democratic side, all of whom voted against the motion to proceed, to allow us to proceed to this bill and have Congress work its will and hopefully pass this and the Commerce, State, Justice bill before we adjourn this month.