Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I object.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield further, Gene Scalia was reported out of the Labor Committee on October 17. He has been on the calendar. I urge that we have a vote. There is not an anti-labor bone in his body. If anybody questions that, I urge them to talk to him. Some people are trying to hold up his nomination because he had some questions about ergonomics. The Senator from Nevada, I know, had serious questions about ergonomics. In their proposed regulations, the Clinton administration tried to almost legislate a Federal workers compensation system without going through Congress. Again, I think Gene Scalia is an outstanding nominee. I think the Secretary of Labor is entitled to a solicitor, and he is certainly entitled to a vote to find out where the votes are. I urge my colleagues to help us make that happen, to give him a vote and a day in the Senate, and not keep him in limbo indefinitely.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I congratulate and compliment my friend and colleague, Senator Domenici, for his statement and also for his leadership and his innovation. He has come up with an idea to help stimulate the economy that is far superior than some of the proposals being discussed, one of which is to give $300 per individual or $600 per family if they did not get a check last year. Last year, we gave checks to people who paid taxes. Some people were saying, ``Give money to people that did not pay taxes,'' notwithstanding the fact they were eligible for the earned-income tax credit, which, in many cases, was worth 3 or 4 times whatever payroll taxes they might have paid. The position of the Senator from New Mexico is far superior. I happen to be one concerned about deficits and I am concerned about runaway spending. I contacted some individuals and said, we have agreed to 13.3 percent spending growth for next year, but many others say that is not near enough; we need to do more. So I will state a few facts. Last year's spending--the spending we completed in September of 2001, total discretionary spending, the spending we control by appropriations, that fluctuates, whatever we appropriate--was $640 billion, 9.6 percent more than the previous year, which was at $584 billion. The President's budget for 2002, which we have just started for the fiscal year, was to grow at 6.1 percent. He agreed in a bipartisan agreement to throw in a few billion more for education, and there was an agreement with the appropriators to increase that figure to $686 billion. That calls for a growth rate of 7.1 percent. That was agreed to in October. Some of our colleagues almost insulted the President, saying they wanted it in writing. The President gave it in writing, in a letter in October, that all the appropriated accounts would be at $686 billion, a growth rate of 7.1 percent. With the tragedy of September the 11th, the President agreed we had a bipartisan agreement to increase that level. Originally, it was $20 billion, and at the last day that was doubled, from $20 billion to $40 billion, due to requests in New York, New Jersey, and other places. There is, again, bipartisan agreement that was adopted unanimously in the Senate. Adding the $40 billion on top of the $686 billion, it is $726 billion, an increase of 13.3 percent. That is where we are now. That is a lot. It is several times the rate of growth of inflation. But the $40 billion is extraordinary, so maybe we should not count that, but we have a lot of other things happening. We still need budgets. Senator Domenici, former chairman of the Budget Committee, used to hammer on fiscal discipline, and we are acting as if fiscal discipline does not matter. A few other things have happened. We have passed an airline assistance or the airline bailout bill. The cost of that, most people believe, is $15 billion. It is not really. There was a $5 billion cash outlay and $10 billion in loan guarantees. Hopefully, the $10 billion in loan guarantees will not cost that much; it will be significant cost. We have also passed a victim's compensation fund. I know the occupant of the care has to be familiar with this because he has constituents involved. There is a lot of liability dealing with the victim's compensation funds. We passed that as part of the airline bill. I opposed it because I didn't think we had enough time to consider how to compensate victims from the September 11 disaster. A lot of people were killed and a lot of people injured. How do we compensate them? We created a special master. The President appointed a special master. I compliment him. The special master has one of the toughest jobs anywhere. I compliment him. He is doing it pro bono. It is a big challenge. He will try to meet deadlines, in months, to come up with a fair and equitable compensation system for victims. It could cost the Government billions of dollars. No one has a clue how much that will cost. That is already the law of the land. We don't know how much the insurance companies are going to pay. Hopefully, most of the money comes from insurance proceeds. Again, that is out there. It is a liability. And there are other items. Many that we are considering will be resolved in the next couple of weeks. One is the railroad retirement bill, with an outlay of $15 billion. We will write a check. I am embarrassed for the House, saying this doesn't count, this check we will write does not count; we will not score it. I can't remember ever doing that, certainly not to the tune of billions of dollars. It is shameful and disgraceful, and it should not happen. I will work to see it does not happen. I predict I will be successful. If it passes, we might as well throw away the budget. If we are going to put in language, ``this doesn't count toward the budget; ignore it; don't count it or score it,'' then why have a budget? There is no sense whatever. The cost of that bill is $15 billion. Also, when Senator Domenici was speaking, he came up with an idea for a payroll tax holiday. His idea was not written by lobbyists. The railroad retirement bill was not written by Congressmen or Senators. I cannot remember in my 21 years in the Senate ever having a bill totally written by special interest groups that cost billions of dollars that nobody even touched. Nobody had a hearing. There was no hearing in the House or in the Senate. I have been working on pensions for a long time in my own company, and when I was in the State senate, I was on the retirement committee. My first trip to Washington, DC, was on ERISA, Employee Retirement and Income Security Act. I know a bit about pensions. Nobody is looking at it. I will look at it a lot more since we will be on that next week. My point today is some are willing to commit another $15 billion. All of this adds to the deficit, all of this adds to the publicly held debt. Some people have suggested there is no cost involved. We are moving from government to government debt, or government IOU in a fund that does not cost us an outlay, real outlay. Now we are moving it to publicly held debt where the Federal Government will have to write a check, where taxpayers have to pay $1 billion in interest expense for the $10 billion. That is not the only spending program we have going. We would have the stimulus package. Senator Baucus had a bill from the Finance Committee. There was over $2 in spending for every $1 of tax cuts. I will have this printed in the Record so people can see it. There were tax cuts of $19.4 billion, but the rest of it is spending--maybe using, in some cases, the Tax Code, like supplemental rebate checks. We would give people checks even if they did not pay taxes. How can you call that a tax cut? That is a check. We are writing checks. It doesn't have anything to do with cutting taxes. There is expansion of unemployment benefits, which I am sure we will probably agree to a significant expansion of unemployment benefits, probably a 50-percent expansion in time eligibility, going from 26 weeks to an additional 13 weeks. I expect that will be agreed upon. Most of this is $66.8 billion, with the compensation of $19 billion; the rest of it is spending. There is over $2 in spending for every dollar in tax decrease. So I am adding that spending under the spending we have already had. If that were included, and hopefully most will not be, we have a lot of spending in that capacity. We have the farm bill. If our colleagues have not looked at the farm bill--and I heard there may be a motion to move to the farm bill before too long--I hope they will look at it. I am from a farm State. I am embarrassed for the farm bill that came out of the Agriculture Committee. I am embarrassed for it. I was embarrassed when we had the stimulus package and I noticed there were several billion dollars for agriculture for subsidies for bison and cranberries and items that we never had in an agricultural program, and now we are looking at the farm bill and talking about subsidies in the billions of dollars. We are talking about raising the price of milk 26 cents a gallon for everybody in America. This farm bill goes the wrong way and it spends a whole lot of money. I don't know if people are trying to harvest the Government or what, but the net result of that farm bill is people are going to make more money from the Government than they will ever make from agriculture. The sad point is 10 percent of the farmers are going to get over half the benefit. We are going to have to discuss that for a while. We are going to have to change it. The Senate is the place to change it. I don't care if we do it this year or do it next year--that is the majority leader's call--but we are going to spend a little time on that bill. It needs to be improved. It costs a lot of money and that is the essence of my comments today. Who writes the budget? Where is the Budget Committee chairman? Where is the fiscal discipline? We are now in the red. Granted, we had bipartisan agreement to go to increases of spending to 7.1 percent. Then we all agreed, let's have another $40 billion to deal with the disaster. But there are lots of other proposals. I didn't mention Senator Byrd had another proposal for another $15 billion for homeland security. I think a lot of that can be financed out of the $20 billion. We have not even finished spending the second $20 billion of the $40 billion that is now added to the Department of Defense bill. We have not finished that. Yet some say we have to add $15 billion on top of it. If I look at the spending package submitted by Senator Baucus, I am looking at spending that is close to $50 billion. Since they add Senator Byrd's package to it--or at one time it was over, it was $60 billion in spending and $19 billion in tax cuts. Then we have the farm bill, and I see the farm bill will cost billions and billions of dollars. I think that is grossly irresponsible. I am looking at the farmers in my State. How much are they making? I have farmers in my State making millions of dollars a year from taxpayers. These are millionaires in the first place. I love them, but I don't think we should have to be writing them a check--just as I don't think we have to write major investment companies a $4,800 tax credit for every employee they employ in New York City. I want to help New York City, but what are we doing giving them almost a $5,000 tax credit? If they have 100 employees, we are going to give them a $500,000 tax credit? For what? Let's help people who need help. I think it is running away. I think spending has gotten out of hand. I think we are going to have to draw the line. I think we are going to have to show some fiscal discipline. We have not been showing it lately. President Bush has actually drawn the line and said: I am going to stay with this amount. He said: I will come back to Congress and work with Governor Ridge and make additional submissions when we really know exactly what we need and we will do that next year. He has the votes to support him in the Senate. I hope we do not say we will try to run over him and come up with a higher amount and defy him to veto it. He said he will veto it. We have the votes to sustain the veto so let's not waste our time. Let's act together, start acting as if we have a budget and not pass bills that say this $15 billion doesn't count. That would be the height of fiscal irresponsibility. I urge my colleagues, let's start showing a little fiscal discipline. Let's start totaling up what we have done so far on the spending side and make sure we do not build ourselves into such a fiscal posture that the new base of spending is such we will never be able to climb back into a surplus. I notice my friend and colleague from Nevada is here. Let me conclude with a couple of requests.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Reserving the right to object, I suggest the absence of quorum.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I rise in opposition on a motion to proceed. I have great respect for my friend and colleague from Nevada, but I happen to disagree that moving to railroad retirement is what we should be doing. Railroad retirement is an issue that some people say has been considered by Congress. It hasn't been considered. We didn't have a hearing in the House; we didn't have a hearing in the Senate. We have a bill written by special interest groups, by railroad companies and unions. They negotiated a deal and said, great, now have the American taxpayer pay for it. If there is ever special interest legislation, this is it. We are going to say we want to set aside the stimulus package so we can take this bill up. I have told my friends and colleagues if we take it up, we will have to have a lot of amendments and a lot of debate. I read where tier 1 is the same thing as Social Security. But it is not. It is not the same thing. There are differences. People who receive Social Security do not get to retire at age 60 with 100-percent benefits. And this is what this legislation does for railroad retirees. Under private pension benefit plans, survivors of deceased usually receive 50 percent; the survivors under this bill receive 100 percent. We are going to do that? We are going to put that in the statute and say the Federal Government will pay for it? People say they want to be treated like the private sector. Private sector gets to invest in the stock market. Great. Make this a private sector plan. We can do that. We are going to give them $15 billion, that is a heck of a cash infusion to a pension system. We have never done that in the history of America where we have taken $15 billion, given it to one industry for their retirement system. It benefits primarily a few companies and a whole lot of employees and retirees. They have worked it out in a mutually beneficial manner. They both benefit, almost exactly the same amount. They negotiated a deal to save $4 billion in 10 years and the employees get $4 billion in new benefits. And the Federal Government will gives them $15 or $16 billion in the process. I question the wisdom of doing that. We have not had a hearing and have not been able to ask people: Why are we doing this? How does it work? Where does the money come from? If we move to this bill, as I expect may well happen but, will have to have some amendments. We will have to consider should tier 1 really be equivalent to Social Security. If they are going to be in the Social Security system and pay Social Security taxes, they pay identical tier 1 taxes to Social Security, shouldn't we give them identical Social Security benefits? Or do we give them benefits far in excess of what Social Security provides? We are going to have to consider that. What about this survivor benefit? They say this is great, we have a survivor benefit, and it is a big increase. Everyone likes it. If we are going to increase the survivor benefit for railroads, should we do it also for Social Security? Or conversely, should survivor benefits, at least for Social Security, be the same for all Social Security beneficiaries? There is a big difference. We have to look at that and we have to look at the cash infusion. The argument is made that this is just moving $16 billion of Government IOUs over into the private sector for real investment. I asked the Treasury Secretary, how are you going to do it? He said: I am going to go out and borrow $16 billion. We are in a deficit situation. It is all going to be added to debt, so we are going to add $16 billion to our national publicly held debt that you and I and all taxpayers will be paying interest on every year. That means if we are paying something like 6 percent interest on $15 billion, we are going to be paying $1 billion per year in interest maybe forever for this cash infusion to go to this retirement fund which will greatly increase benefits and also reduce the contributions to that retirement fund. I used to be a fiduciary and trustee of a retirement fund. You can't do that. You would have the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation saying: You are not making your minimum allocation requirements to make these funds adequately financed. You are doing just the opposite. You have a grossly underfunded actuarial benefit that is required, and you are not making those payments. We are doing just the opposite. We have an unfunded plan that has financial problems in the future, and what we are doing is cutting taxes and increasing benefits. Oh, yes, we are going to transfer a whole bunch of money so it will last a little while, but it doesn't last even that long. As a matter of fact, it is kind of startling to find out the amount of money available. This fund starts evaporating pretty quickly. It is projected in 20 years the taxes are going to have to be raised as much as 70 percent--in 20 years, because of the shortfall. My biggest problem is the way we have directed scorekeeping in here to say we are not going to count that $15 billion. Hocus pocus--write a check, and it doesn't count. That really bothers me. There is language in the House-passed bill on page 25 that says: Means of financing. For purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the Balanced Budget Act and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985--and on and on--notwithstanding the purchase or sale of non- Federal assets--shall be treated as a means of financing--i.e., it doesn't count; they are kind of clever legal words that say it doesn't count. It will be interesting to see how Democrats and Republicans vote on this bill because we have a little section in here that says ``the budget doesn't count.'' I ask you, if you can do this for the railroad retirement system, why can't you do it for Social Security? Why don't we write a check for $1 trillion or $1.8 trillion, or whatever the Social Security trust fund balance is that is Government-held debt, Government IOUs to itself? Why don't we just write a check for that entire amount and say now we have real securities? If you do it, you are going to have outlays and we are going to have to borrow money. This $16 billion we are going to have to borrow. We are going to increase the national debt to do this. I wonder if people really thought about that and what that really means. Can we do this for Social Security? Is this real? Are we moving away from Government T-bills into Government stocks? No, we are not. We are moving away from Government IOUs, which are on paper, into real debt that we will have to write checks for and pay interest on every year--real debt, publicly held debt that could be held in the United States or overseas, on which we will be writing checks. We will have to pay interest on it to the tune of $1 billion a year. We will put it in the railroad retirement fund and at the same time say: Railroad companies, you don't have to pay as much. We are going to reduce your taxes. Even though you signed contracts that are very generous in retirement benefits, we are going to reduce your contribution. Incidentally, retirees, because you were willing to go along with this, we are going to increase your benefits. We are going to give you benefits nobody else has in the private sector. We are going to give you benefits that are greater than Social Security. You are tier 1, which is supposed to be equivalent to Social Security. In Social Security, the retirement age is going to 67. For tier 1 benefits, the retirement age is going to 60. For Social Security beneficiaries, for everybody--every Senator, every civil servant, employee who is on Social Security today--when they receive benefits, every person in the private sector on Social Security today, if they retire at 62, they receive 80 percent of their normal retirement benefit--80 percent. Not railroad retirement; it is 100 percent under age 62, and under this bill it will be 100 percent at age 60. And they pay the same taxes. That is 12.8 percent, 6.4 percent by the employer, 6.4 percent by the employee for tier 1 taxes and Social Security taxes. These are the same taxes everybody else pays in America, but they get a lot better benefit under this bill we are considering. The House almost passed this bill unanimously. Did they really know what they were doing? Did they realize the cost implications of this legislation? Does that really make sense, and can we afford it? Is this trust fund in such good shape we can give the most generous benefits in America? Does it make financial sense to do that? I don't think so. I think people are going to be embarrassed when sometime, at some point, if and when this bill ever becomes law--and it has not become law yet because it still has to go through the amendment process, and I hope we can improve it, I hope we can strike out language that says this $16 billion check we are going to write doesn't count. I am on the Budget Committee. I have been on the Budget Committee for 21 years. I am horrified by this language. I am embarrassed the House passed it, and I am embarrassed we would even consider it in the Senate. So we are going to have amendments to strike it, and we will find out whether or not people think when you write a check it doesn't count. If we say it doesn't count, let's just tear up the Budget Act totally. Speaking about budgets, a lot of people are talking about emergencies. I met with the President last night, and I said we have been trying to respond to emergency situations in a bipartisan fashion, but I am looking at spending that is growing rather dramatically. The President proposed a budget that grew at 6.1 percent. We had an agreement at $686 billion. We signed a letter. Members of Congress actually asked the President to sign the letter that said: Here is our deal. October 2, our budget deal, $686 billion discretionary spending, a growth rate of 7.1 percent. We added a few billion more for education. All signed on, this is the deal. Then we agreed, let's add $40 billion as a result of the September 11 attack. So that moved the $686 up to $726 billion. The growth of spending now is 13.3 percent. That doesn't include $16 billion coming in for railroad retirement. That doesn't include $16 billion or $15 billion or $7.5 billion for additional homeland security. That doesn't count the additional billions of dollars--we don't know how much it is going to cost--in the victims' compensation fund that is already the law of the land. That doesn't count the $15 billion we have for airline security and loan guarantees. If we add all that together, we are on a spending spree in Congress. It looks to me as if people are trying to ram through all the spending they can this year because they know that next year we are in red ink. Next year we are going to have deficits. There was a front page story in the Washington Post today alluding to the situation that we may have deficits for several years, so let's run this through now and put in little language in the bill that says it doesn't count. So I hope to have several amendments to this legislation if we are forced to consider it. Although, I think it is more important that we stay on the stimulus package and visit this legislation at another time. I hope we finish the Nation's business. I hope we get our appropriations bills done, pass the stimulus package trying to help this economy which is in a recession, and go home. But if we are going to say let's come out and spend this kind of money, we are going to have to rework this program and improve it. Let's allow the unions and railroad companies to come up with whatever benefits they want. I don't care if they have retirement at age 40, as long as they pay for it and don't ask us to pay for it. If it is their retirement system and they are responsible for it, great. If they are asking taxpayers to pay for it, wait a minute, we should be a little more cautious. If they are going to have survivor benefits greater than almost every survivor benefit in America, that is fine, as long as they pay for it. But don't ask us to guarantee it. So I urge my colleagues to vote no on the motion to move off the stimulus package and move on the railroad retirement bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Will the majority leader yield?

Mr. NICKLES. I remember when the majority leader was minority leader and also trying to protect President Clinton. He did an outstanding job in so many ways. Well, President Bush has already said he did not want additional spending this year; he would consider the spending next year. Some of us will work to protect that. We think we have the votes to do that. I also urge the majority leader to stay on the stimulus package. That is the regular order. That is the bill pending. I think the majority leader's request, to move off of that and pass railroad retirement, will not happen easily. There is strenuous opposition. There may be a lot of cosponsors but maybe not everyone read the bill. Maybe the bill never had a hearing in the Senate. In fact, it has never had a hearing in the Senate. It is a $15 billion giveaway. It cuts taxes for a few firms for a few billion dollars and raises benefits and in 10 years has a heck of a problem. We will spend a lot of time on that bill. I urge that the Senate stay on the stimulus package. There are challenges facing the Agriculture bill, which will not pass in a day or two. That bill has significant problems. Let's stay on the stimulus bill; let's work together to see if we cannot resolve some of the problems and actually help the economy. That is my request and my urging of the majority leader. I want him to know at least a couple of the bills he was talking about taking up, which imply these can pass in a couple of days, will not happen. I give friendly advice to my friend and colleague, that will not happen. I would like to have a fruitful, productive 2 or 3 weeks, whatever we will have to finish out this year to have some success in the appropriations and on the stimulus package. I was hoping we would do an energy package. The President has requested we do the energy package. The House passed it months ago. We have yet to consider it. I understand your priorities are different. I make those thoughts known to the majority leader that there will be strenuous objection to the railroad retirement bill, using procedural devices that are available to all Members so people can become familiar with this bill. So it will not pass quickly. I urge staying on the stimulus bill and have unlimited meetings to get the stimulus bill completed this week or next.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the majority leader yield for a comment?

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. I will try to make it a question. I think the Senator from Pennsylvania is making a good point; I think we are entitled to ask questions. I don't think we are entitled to make statements. You asked several questions. Which part of this don't we like? If you read Director Ridge's statement, he said ``in next year's budget.'' Some of us do believe in budgets. Some of us do believe we had a deal with President Bush that said $686 billion on October 5, plus $40 billion. We have not even finished spending the $40 billion. Many of the things you suggested might well be in that $40 billion and are good causes. And ``budget'' is a key word. President Bush has said he believes there is ample money in the $686 billion and the $40 billion to meet the needs, things that are needed now. The items the Senator listed were not requested by Director Ridge. They might be in next year's budget, and they may have offsets from other spending to pay for those needed items. The budget is a key item. We should have a budget. We agreed to $686 billion, and then we added $40 billion on top of that, and then we did $15 billion for airline security. We did untold billions in victims' compensation. No one knows how much that will cost. So some of us are saying, wait a minute, let's slow down just a minute on the spending. Let's at least request it be requested by the President. Again, I compliment my colleague. You defended your President very well--President Clinton. Some of us want to defend President Bush, trying to make sure we do not go too far, too fast on spending. Again, many of those items you have mentioned may well be in the second $20 billion that we have yet to allocate and appropriate. So that is part of the reason some of us are saying let's be reasonable; let's have a stimulus package that still can go for stimulus. Most of the stimulus package--just to make the comment--a lot of us believe should stimulate the economy, not be another excuse for spending. I wish to answer my colleague's question. You are saying, which one of these items are we against? We are not saying we are against any of those. We think they can be accommodated in the $40 billion that is yet to be totally allocated by this Congress.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Smith) are necessarily absent. I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Smith) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment our colleague from Texas on his statement, and I will add a few comments. I earlier told the majority leader that there would be strong objection to moving forward with this bill. I am disappointed that he did. After the tragedy of September 11, many of us thought it would be very much in our Nation's best interests for us to be working together to try to pass legislation that is in our national interest. We passed emergency legislation. We passed antiterrorism legislation. We passed spending bills, a lot of which, in some cases, we thought were maybe overly generous. Yet we wanted to do that in a very bipartisan way. Unfortunately, the majority leader is now moving forward with some legislation which, I think we have informed him, leaves a lot to be desired and which doesn't fit into any national criteria as far as a national emergency. It is purely and simply a special interest bill designed and written by special interests. This bill wasn't written by the Finance Committee. It deals with taxes. I am on the Finance Committee. This bill had no input by the Finance Committee. Not one member of the Finance Committee has had any input in this bill. This is a bill written by and for special interests. They did a pretty good job. They benefit themselves by at least $15 billion. They benefit themselves by increasing benefits, cutting taxes, and keeping Uncle Sam as the guarantor of the benefit. Senator Daschle said something about wanting to provide the railroad companies and employees the same opportunity as every other private pension plan so they can invest their funds in the marketplace and enjoy good rates of return. I welcome that but take away the Federal guarantee. We can do that. I don't care if they make early retirement at age 50. I will be happy to let the employees and the railroads work out whatever benefit package they so desire as long as they are liable. What they did in this case, as Senator Gramm eloquently pointed out, greatly increases their benefits. They cut the payroll taxes to pay for those benefits, and they say Uncle Sam is still liable. That is what I disagree with. They increase benefits far and above what almost any other pension plan in America has. Name another private pension plan that has a 100-percent survivor benefit. Social Security doesn't do that. For Social Security, if you are a survivor, you get maybe a 50-percent benefit. Not in this package. For Social Security, you don't get full retirement benefits at age 60. You get full retirement at age 65. Senator Gramm mentioned that it is going to 67. This bill says you get full benefits at age 60. Again, maybe that is fine, if the railroad companies and employees want to pay for that. But they have asked us to pay for it. We are liable. Some say: Wait a minute. They have a scheme in here that says even though their payroll taxes go down and their benefits go up, we think maybe it will all work out. But if it doesn't, Uncle Sam is still liable. We still have a law on the books saying these benefits are going to be paid. Why don't we privatize this system and allow the employees and the railroad companies to come up with whatever retirement system they want? God bless them. It would be a generous system. I love the railroad companies. I love the railroad employees. Let them work out whatever they mutually desire to get us off the hook. Why should some poor company in Delaware or Oklahoma or Texas have to guarantee benefits that greatly exceed any benefits they provide and they are liable for it as taxpayers? Then somebody said: Wait a minute. Isn't this $15 billion that we are transferring to them their money? No, not really. They may claim it is in a trust fund. I have looked it up. For the life of the railroad retirement system, the total amount of money paid out in benefits exceeds all the payroll tax contributions by employees and companies by about $90 billion. That means Uncle Sam has been putting in and subsidizing a lot of money for the railroad retirement system since its inception. Basically, it is a pay-as-you-go system. It has problems because the number of active workers in relation to retirees has declined. So it has a significant problem, as any payroll system, any pension system would have if they were stupid enough to go on a pay-go system. Private plans do not go pay-go. Private systems have actuaries. They want to have funds, real funds, that are really invested. You could say let's go private. We can do that. The administration has offered to do that. There are many of us who are willing to work with the railroads and the employees of the railroads to come up with a truly private pension system but not a Government guarantee that says: Hey, let's increase benefits, cut payroll taxes, make great big guarantees. Government, you guarantee it all. And then, oh, incidently, if there is a problem a few years down the road, Uncle Sam, that is your problem because it is a benefit stipulated by law of the books. As to this proposal, even the railroad's own actuaries think it would be a problem. Looking at the payroll taxes, they reduce payroll taxes significantly in the immediate few years, and then they expect that by the years 2020 and 2021 the payroll taxes will go up about 69 percent. In other words, under their own scheme, they say: Oh, we are going to have lots of problems. Well, that is somebody else's problem. Wait a minute. Whose problem is it? Right now it would be the Federal taxpayers' problem because the Federal taxpayers would still be liable. So I strongly object to this bill and will work very aggressively to see that this bill does not become law. I will be happy to work with people. The unanimous consent request that was offered said let's move this bill with no amendments. Wait a minute. If we are going to move this bill, we will have lots of amendments. Every Senator is entitled to offer amendments. I may want to have an amendment that says, let's eliminate the Government guarantee. Let's make it purely private. Why have tier 1 benefits that are supposedly the equivalent to Social Security--that is what everybody says in railroad retirement--but they offer benefits much greater than Social Security. In Social Security, the normal retirement age is 65. The normal retirement age in the railroad system right now is 62; and they take it to 60. But yet we tell all of our constituents, your normal retirement age is 65--and now it is going to 67--but just the opposite in this bill. All the while we do it by cutting payroll taxes. And there are a lot of other benefit enhancements. A survivor benefit of 100 percent? There may be some, but I have not found any private pension plans that will allow survivor benefits of 100 percent. But I am all for it as long as they pay for it. Great. If a private company and their employees have a benefit system that says, here are your benefits for your retirement system--so much on an annuity, so much per month, or whatever--if you pass away, your survivor gets the same amount, fine, as long as they pay for it. I think what is wrong is if they start asking us to pay for it, if they ask us to guarantee it. If they want us to make that the law of the land, where the Federal Government is ultimately liable for it, then that is wrong. That is what is in the bill before us. So I am just amazed. We have asked for hearings on the bill. This bill has never had a hearing in the Senate, and a good reason is that people would be embarrassed. People would be embarrassed when you started asking interesting questions, difficult questions to the CEOs. They do not want to appear before the Finance Committee. The actuaries do not want to appear before the Finance Committee answering why we should guarantee benefits that are far in excess of everybody else's private pension system. Why don't we truly privatize it? Then they can invest 100 percent of their money in any investment they so desire. I would love for that to happen. Let them invest. I hope they make great returns. But to give $15 billion--and they pretend that is their money when, in reality, for every year that the railroad retirement system has been in existence, more money has gone out to beneficiaries than has come in in payroll taxes. That means Uncle Sam has been paying a lot, subsidized the system a lot, I believe to the tune of about $90 billion since the 1930s. So to say, oh, we want that $15 billion, that is really ours, so we can go out and invest it just like everybody else does, kind of leaves a little bit short the idea that Uncle Sam has been subsidizing this system for a long time. We still underwrite it and guarantee it. It is still part of the law of the land. Let's change that. Let's allow the railroad retirees and the active employees and the railroads to have whatever pension system they want, desire, and can afford, but let's not pass a law that says we will increase your benefits, cut your taxes, and thank you very much; Uncle Sam will guarantee the outcome now and forevermore. I think that is a serious mistake. We have asked other countries, we have encouraged other countries, to move towards a market system, to move towards the private sector, to move to entrepreneurship, and yet, with the railroad companies, we maintain this absurd idea that Government knows best, Government should control it, Government should own it, and Government should dictate it. I think we should get out of that. I want to turn them loose. I want the employers and employees to work out whatever is mutually advantageous and affordable and let them pay for it. Those are big companies. Those are big unions. Those are people with good jobs. Let's make sure they have their own good pension system, and let them pay for it and not be asking Uncle Sam to be guaranteeing it now and forevermore. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Texas (Mr. Gramm) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, it is with regret I urge my colleagues to not support our friends and colleagues on the other side. I will just take issue with a few things that have been stated. First, I compliment Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus because they worked together earlier this year in a bipartisan way and we passed tax relief. It was done by a bipartisan vote in the Finance Committee, done by a bipartisan vote in the Senate, and by and large that bill became law. Senator Baucus and others alluded to the fact that we have already passed emergency legislation providing $40 billion to assist in the aftermath of the September 11 events. That was done in a bipartisan fashion. When we provided airline relief, that was done in a bipartisan fashion. Unfortunately, the bill we have before us, the so-called stimulus bill, has not been done in a bipartisan fashion. The makeup of the Senate is so balanced that it cannot happen. Democrats cannot pass a Democrat-only bill. The Republicans cannot pass a Republican-only bill. So we are going to have to work together. Regrettably, that has not yet happened. The result is in the bill that passed out of the Finance Committee, now modified by Senator Byrd's amendment, and modified by additional amendments made by the chairman or the Democratic leader, we have a bill that not only will not stimulate I think but may depress the economy. We have a bill that is not supported by both sides. We have a bill that obviously will not become law. We have a statement by the administration that says: The administration opposes passage of H.R. 3990 as reported by the Senate Finance Committee. The President said he doesn't like it. It is strongly opposed for lots of reasons. That is in direct contrast to the bipartisan work that many of us as leaders did, meeting with the President several times after the September 11 events to say let's work together. President Bush agreed to the $40 billion. We haven't even spent the $40 billion. I am looking at the list that has $15 billion of new spending. That is in direct contradiction of the agreement we made with the President, that we have in writing from the President, the agreement that said $686 billion and, oh, yes, we will do $40 billion of the emergency spending. We have not spent that $40 billion. Then they say we want another $15 billion. I do not doubt many of those provisions requested in the $15 billion will be in the second $20 billion that is yet to be appropriated, yet to be allocated, in some cases yet to be requested. The administration hasn't requested those. They are receiving input and requests from a lot of different agencies. But they haven't requested it yet. Yet we are trying to say that is the deal from last month. Now we are coming up with a new deal. Last year's spending grew by over 14 percent. This year, we are going to spend about 8 percent. Now we have added $40 billion. Some people say, let us add $15 billion on top of it. We may well support those attempts. But I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we could not put those in the $20 billion additional upon which we have already agreed. Looking at the substance of this legislation, there is nothing in this legislation to really stimulate the economy. I was a businessman prior to coming to the Senate. I guess spending $35,000, which might be 1 percent of this bill, or maybe a smaller amount, might be useful; or 10 percent to appreciate for 1 year might move spending up a little bit. That is almost nothing. Looking at all the other provisions in here, I was kind of shocked. Some of this is similar. What is it about having a new sugar beet program? Sugar beet disaster program? What does that have to do with anything? What is stimulative about having the Federal Government buying apples, apricots, asparagus, bell peppers, bison meat, cranberries, dried plums, lemons, peaches, and onions? What is stimulative about that? Are we going to spend up to $3 billion doing that? Then I look and I see other items. I see the Amtrak program that the Congressional Budget Office says is a crummy way to do it. We are going to do it through allowing a tax credit, and so on. The Congressional Budget Office did an analysis in September of this year and said, in other words, that the tax credit funding mechanism would essentially be a new and more expensive way for the Federal Government to assist Amtrak. They say it would be a lot more expensive. We could just write them a check or allow them to use tax-exempt bonds. No. We came in with a whole new game that is a lot more expensive. This bill is not stimulative. It won't help the economy. It is not bipartisan. We need to defeat this package and go back to work-- Democrats and Republicans together--and pass a package that can be supported by Members on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Texas (Mr. Gramm) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I ask the assistant Democrat leader what the intention is at the conclusion of morning business.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, in a memorandum issued yesterday to Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson, Attorney General Ashcroft overturned a 1998 decision by Attorney General Janet Reno that allowed for the use of controlled substances for physician assisted suicide. Until June 5, 1998, everyone understood that assisted suicide was not a ``legitimate medical purpose.'' On that date, Attorney General Janet Reno issued a letter carving out an exception for Oregon to use Federally-controlled substances for assisted suicide, a decision that overturned an earlier determination by the Drug Enforcement Administration and which was in direct conflict with 29 years of practice under the Controlled Substances Act. Attorney General Ashcroft wrote that assisting in a suicide is not a ``legitimate medical purpose'' under federal law and determined that prescribing, dispensing, or administering federally controlled substances to assist suicide violates the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of whether State law authorizes or permits such conduct by practitioners. This important decision restores the uniform national standard that federally-controlled substances can not be used for the purpose of assisted suicide by applying the law to all 50 states. Federal law is clearly intended to prevent use of these drugs for lethal overdoses, and contains no exception for deliberate overdoses approved by a physician. The Controlled Substances Act requires that these substances can only be used for a ``legitimate medical purpose'' in the interest of ``public health and safety''. Assisted suicide can neither be counted as a ``legitimate medical purpose'' or in the interest of ``public health and safety.'' I have personally been a long, strong advocate of States' rights and the limited role of the Federal Government. This decision neither overturns or pre-empts any State legislation related to suicide. Instead, it clarifies that the dispensing of controlled substances for the purpose of assisted suicide is prohibited under longstanding federal law. Because of Attorney General Reno's letter, for three years the federal government has been complicite in allowing the use of Federally controlled substances for the specific purpose of causing death--in my opinion, in violation of Federal law. There is no role for the Federal Government in providing assisted suicide. I compliment Attorney General Ashcroft's decision to return to the correct and only reasonable interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act. Federally controlled substances should be used for a ``legitimate medical purpose'' and not for assisted suicide. In my opinion, this is very good news for patients and health care providers in all 50 States. Yesterday's decision encourages doctors to aggressively use Federally-controlled drugs to treat pain while making sure that one State cannot overturn Federal law. This move by Attorney General Ashcroft was absolutely the right thing to do and I applaud him for it. A couple of other editorial comments: I heard someone say, Well, wait a minute; this directly overturns Oregon law. It does not. Conversely, the State of Oregon cannot overturn Federal law, and that is what the State of Oregon tried to do. Federal law has been in effect for 29 years. The Controlled Substances Act goes way back, and it said the Federal Government regulates the use of these very strong and in some cases deadly drugs. The Federal law states it can only be used for a legitimate medical purpose. The State of Oregon tried to pass by referendum a law that says these drugs can be used for assisted suicide. The Drug Enforcement Administration said they cannot be used for assisted suicide. Attorney General Reno made a serious mistake 3 years ago when she said it was okay. She was wrong. She was overturning basically and not interpreting the law correctly, not agreeing with the Drug Enforcement Agency that said they never could be used. They reviewed it extensively. I think she made a serious mistake, and as a result some physicians in Oregon were using federally controlled drugs to assist in death. Attorney General Ashcroft has overturned her letter. Her letter, in my opinion, was in direct contradiction of law. It was very explicit. These drugs can only be used for a legitimate medical purpose, and assisted suicide was never considered a legitimate medical purpose. Attorney General Ashcroft has now corrected that. Somebody says he has overturned Oregon law. No. What he did was interpret the Federal statute exactly as it was written, exactly as it has been interpreted for the last 30 years, and overturned Attorney General Janet Reno's mistaken interpretation of law. The fact is, neither Oregon nor Oklahoma can overrule Federal law. If so--we have Federal laws against cocaine--some States could say, we are going to legalize cocaine. But they cannot do that. Individual States cannot overturn Federal statutes. That is exactly what the State of Oregon tried to do. They were mistaken in their legislative approach through the referendum. Some people say this is denying the people of Oregon their right to vote. That is not correct. The people of Oregon can vote all they want. They just cannot change public law by a public referendum. That is what they tried to do. So again I compliment Attorney General John Ashcroft for his decision and for his memorandum to Asa Hutchinson, who is the Drug Enforcement Administration chief. I think both are doing an outstanding job, and I think the decision is good news for patients because now these drugs can be used to alleviate pain. I still hope we will pass legislation to encourage the use of these very strong drugs to alleviate pain. We have thousands of citizens all across this country who are suffering greatly, and they should be allowed and encouraged to use these very strong drugs to alleviate the pain. If that is the purpose, that is fine. If the purpose is to cause their death by suicide, assisted by a doctor or not, that is not right. That is not allowed under this statute. This statute cannot allow these very strong drugs to be used to alleviate pain. We should encourage that. Senator Lieberman and I have introduced legislation to that end, and I hope and expect we can get that passed in the not-too-distant future. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I yield myself 3 minutes under the Republican leader's time.

Mr. NICKLES. Some people have equated this with a patriotic vote because we appreciate the firefighters in New York and Virginia. Certainly we do. The firefighters in Virginia were nonunion. The firefighters in New York were union. That is not the issue. The issue is whether or not the Federal Government is going to go in and preempt States or dictate to the States collective bargaining laws for public employees. We have never passed a law that says we are going to have collective bargaining dictated by the Federal Government for State employees or for city employees. We have never done it in 225 years. We never passed such a law. We have never passed a law that says: Sheriffs, officers, you can have collective bargaining. We have never done that, but we are getting ready to do it. We have never done it to all cities. Right now, this legislation goes to cities with populations of greater than 5,000. Other States have different laws. Every State has a law dealing with collective bargaining, but now we are saying we are going to tell the States what to do, and the States have to pass laws that are basically, substantially equivalent with this law or else it doesn't apply. A Federal bureaucrat is going to decide whether the existing State laws are in compliance. Some States have a local option. The majority of States have a local option. They let cities make that decision. We are trying to say: Cities, you can't make it. Small towns in North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, you can't make that decision. We are going to make it for you. I think that is a serious mistake. I applaud the bravery of firefighters, police officers, people who work in the ambulance system, the sheriffs, officers, but I don't think we, on the Federal level, should dictate their collective bargaining arrangements. That has been done by the States, done by the cities, done by the counties. They have done a good job. We should not tell them how to do it.

Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Madam President, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Daschle- Kennedy amendment. This is an amendment which, for the first time in over 200-some-odd years in our Nation's history, we have the Federal Government trying to pass a law dealing with collective bargaining for cities, counties, and States for fire, police, sheriffs, and emergency personnel. We have never done it before. We shouldn't do it now. That is and should be the prerogative of the States. The 10th amendment to the Constitution says all of the rights and powers are reserved to the States and to the people. It doesn't say: States, you have been doing this for all these years, but now we will have the Federal Government pass a collective bargaining law that also says you should have remedies, arbitration, and so on. Why is the Federal Government doing that when States should be doing it? The States are doing it. Why should we tell the States they are not doing it well enough? We will have a bureaucrat go in and review the State's laws and say, maybe your State doesn't comply. Some people have estimated 26 to 30 States don't comply. Maybe the State of Missouri will have to rewrite its collective bargaining law or the State of Oklahoma. Frankly, over half of the States have local options where the State legislatures have said: We will leave that up to the cities. And now the Federal Government will say: No, that is not good enough; we will have the Federal Government come in and make that decision. This bill says we will exempt small communities. Communities that have less than 5,000 will not be covered by this law. If we don't get cloture, we will have an amendment because I will raise that number. I think 5,000 is way too small. We will exempt cities with fewer than 5,000 employees. I think that is too small. We will have to have a bigger exemption. The legislation forgot to exempt volunteers. Why should we cover volunteers? So we will have to have an amendment dealing with volunteers. There are over 800,000 volunteer firefighters and police officers in the country. Why should we mandate that people contribute to an organization against their will? We need voluntary contributions. This bill is legislation on an appropriations bill. It should be dealt with separately. It doesn't belong on this appropriations bill. Let me read comments from a couple of organizations. The U.S. Conference of Mayors: However, the federal government should not impose collective bargaining procedures and practices on these local governments that have chosen over time to develop alternative methods for the management of human resource and personnel needs. The National Volunteer Fire Council: . . . representing over 800,000 Members of America's volunteer fire, EMS, and rescue services. . . . On behalf of our membership, I urge you to oppose the Daschle Amendment as currently written that would insert the language of [this bill]. The National League of Cities: . . . the Federal Government should not undermine municipal autonomy with respect to making fundamental employment decisions by mandating specific working conditions. From the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, written to Senator Jeffords: The Vermont League of Cities and Towns strongly urges you to oppose the amendment. The amendment would create a Federal collective bargaining law that applies to State and local government employees. We believe strongly this is an issue better dealt with in the Statehouse in Montpelier than in Washington. This amendment is not only intrusive but has the potential of causing confusion with conflicting and overlapping statutes. They said it well. The League of Cities said it well. The Conference of Mayors said it well. The National Conference of State Legislatures said it well. Leave this area of jurisdiction to the States, where it has always been, not trying to preempt it by a Federal statute. I urge my colleagues to vote no on cloture.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Allen) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate today has confirmed Stephen P. Friot, an outstanding individual and a superb attorney, to be U.S. District Court Judge for Oklahoma's Western District. President Bush could not have chosen a finer individual to serve our country as a district court judge. Steve Friot is exceptionally well qualified and will prove to be a great asset to the judicial system in Oklahoma and our country. Steve graduated from the University of Oklahoma School of Law in 1972 and upon his graduation went to work for the firm that now bears his name, Spradling, Alpern, Friot & Gum. While focusing his practice on corporate, tort defense and aviation litigation, Steve has shown a strong commitment to equal justice for all. He has continually strived to include pro bono cases in his practice. Steve has been actively involved in the Oklahoma legal community. He has been very active in the Oklahoma Bar Association serving several times as a member of the Association's House of Delegates. He has also served as chairman of the association's committees on Legal Specialization and Administration of Justice. Steve served as president of the Oklahoma County Bar Association and is the current president of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg American Inn of Court. He is described by colleagues as being a ``competent, honorable individual who possesses the judicial temperament and intellect we all want on the Federal bench.'' His colleagues know him as an extremely hard worker with the highest ethical standards. Steve's commitment to his community is hardly limited to the legal profession. He has been very active in the Boy Scouts of America where he currently serves as Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 4. Steve has also worked diligently for the Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity where he currently serves as vice chairman of the board of directors. In 1995, Gov. Frank Keating appointed Steve to serve on the Board of Trustees of the Oklahoma Housing Financing Authority. Steve currently serves as vice chairman of the board which assures that the agency is serving Oklahomans in need of affordable housing. Steve and his wife Nancy, a dedicated kindergarten teacher, have been married for more than 25 years. They are particularly proud of their son Andy whose early involvement in the Boy Scouts encouraged Steve's commitment to that organization. Andy is in the Air Force ROTC at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. His dedication to his country is in no doubt a reflection of his parents who have shown a strong sense of community with a commitment to serving the public good in Oklahoma. I congratulate Steve and his family on his having earned the position for which President Bush has selected him. I thank Chairman Leahy and Senator Hatch, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, for their work on Steve Friot's nomination. I applaud the Senate for confirming him. He will make an outstanding judge who will work diligently to administer justice in the Western District of Oklahoma.