Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Texas for yielding, and appreciate the fine job she is doing as to present an argument as to why this balanced budget resolution is so important to the future in this country. We will hear a lot of demagoguery about how terrible everything is, and what the Senator from Texas is doing is focusing on positive effects of getting to a balanced budget. Today we have the opportunity to debate this. This is the President's budget that he sent up here earlier this year. It is for fiscal year 1996, and it calls for in his budget, as we see by this chart, the red line calls for budget deficits of around $200 billion a year. That is what his budget numbers call for, using the Office of Management and Budget. As we know from the President's State of the Union speech, it might have been even his first State of the Union speech, he says we should not use Office of Management and Budget numbers. Those are not the right numbers to use. We should use the Congressional Budget Office, they are the better estimator, they have been shown to be more correct over time. They would be the ones that we should use in all budget debates. Given that fact, the purple line is the actual CBO estimate of what the Clinton budget, this budget right here, this budget will project out. Budget deficits starting around $170 billion this year, going up to almost $275 billion by the year 2000. And then up even further, up to over about $300 billion by the year 2002. He is going to add, with this budget--if we approve this budget today, we will add $1.2 trillion to the debt, to the national debt. That is the solution offered by the White House. Further deficits, increasing deficits, further mortgaging of our country's future, further mortgaging of our children's future. That is the leadership. The President of the United States is seen by the world as having the moral authority to lead the world. We are, in fact, the greatest country in the world. We are a country that is a leader among nations, and our President stands as the head of that country as the supreme leader in the world today--leader--leadership. Is this leadership? I suggest it is not. So, as I said yesterday when I came to the floor, I am going to come to the floor every day, and I am going to ask the President why he is refusing to lead, why he is refusing to take part in possibly the most historic debate that we have seen in the last couple of decades here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, why he is abdicating his responsibility as the leader of the free world, putting the country that is most important to freedom for the world at risk by profligate spending, continued profligate spending. I think it is an act that is beneath the office, to stand on the sideline and throw barbs at those of us who are trying to accomplish the goal that, if I recall, when he ran for President he was going to do his best to accomplish, to balance this budget. He said it in 1993 when he was putting forward his plan to raise taxes to help solve the deficit. ``No hot air; show me Republicans' plan for balancing or reducing the budget. He did not want any smoke and mirrors, he wanted a plan. This is not a plan that gets you to a balanced budget. Mr. President, you have an obligation--you have an obligation to lead this country and to show us where. So, I will put up, now, unfortunately, day 2 of the days with no proposal to balance the budget from President Clinton. I will be here every day that we are in session, adding number after number after number, until we reach 135 days, which is October 1 of this year when the new fiscal year starts and it is then basically too late to do anything about it. Mr. President, we beseech you: Participate. Take the job seriously. Get involved in the process. Try to make a difference. Show the American people you really do care about what happens to the future of this country.

Mr. SANTORUM. You are a brave man.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I have been authorized by the chairman to speak, and the time to come off the resolution.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I feel somewhat privileged to be the first person to speak on this historic resolution that has just been laid down by the U.S. Senate. It is, in fact, a historic moment for this Chamber that we are going to finally come to grips and face and look straight in the eye the future of our country and the children of our country and say we are now prepared to act on your behalf. We are now prepared to take the tough stands and to weather the beatings that we will be getting from the press and from the other side to stand up for the future generations of Americans so we can, like my grandfather who came here as an immigrant and my father who came here as a immigrant, try to leave the country better off and with more opportunities than their generation had. We have stopped doing that in America, and this is a chance to start over, to start anew, to give us the opportunity right here on this Senate floor to move forward, to move this country forward into a new millennium with sound fiscal policy and with opportunity available to every American. That is what this is all about. This is not about the minutiae that you are going to hear on the floor of the Senate about, ``Oh, well, we're going to cut this program and as a result of the program''--listen, a Government program, a Government program which most people know, most Government programs, big administrative costs, do not necessarily target the way they are supposed to, but we are going to cut a Government program and there will be hundreds of them discussed in the next 50 hours. We are going to take a Government program and that program itself will jeopardize our future so greatly that it is more important to preserve this little bit more funding for this program than it is to balance the Federal budget and to preserve the long-term future of this country. That argument in itself just fails; it is ridiculous. There is nothing we do in Washington, DC--nothing--no individual program that stands above providing future generations the opportunity to succeed in America. Nothing. So when you look and you hear all the debate about all the minutiae that you are going to discuss, all the little programs that somebody likes to scare people with that we are going to abolish or cut or whatever, remember the big picture. The big picture is: We balance the budget in 7 years, we provide fiscal sanity for future generations and, frankly, for this generation with several programs, and that is what we have to focus on. That is what the issue is. You are going to hear a lot about, as I was hearing a few minutes ago, tax cuts for the rich paid for by cutting working middle-class programs, so we are going to take money away from working Americans, working American families for tax cuts for the rich. I do not know about you, but as far as I understand the Tax Code, you get taxed if you work, you get taxed if you make money. So if you are cutting taxes for people who work, I do not know how that is hurting working American families, particularly since the biggest item in the tax cut proposal that is being proposed is a tax cut of $500 for families, a credit of $500 per family. Now, how is that hurting families? The only families that could conceivably hurt are those that do not have children and those who do not make enough money to pay taxes. But to say that you are cutting programs for taxpaying families, yeah, OK, but then we are giving it back to them where they can spend the money where they want to spend it. They get all of it, not siphoned off from Washington with the administrative costs and the overhead and the direction of what we think is best to spend money, but they get the whole pot. I see the majority leader is here, so I will cease my comments because I know he is really the proper one to lead this off. But I am telling you, this is going to be a great day in the U.S. Senate. It is a day that we should be very, very proud, as all Members of the Senate, that we are having this discussion. It is unfortunate that the President of the United States has chosen not to participate in this discussion, that he has chosen to sit on the sidelines and throw either confetti or darts from the stands and not participate and get involved in solving the No. 1 problem of this Nation by presenting a budget that is balanced. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I would be happy to yield the time I have to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I had the opportunity, Madam President, to be on the floor for just a few minutes when the resolution was laid down, and spoke about what a historic time this was for our country, and that a majority of Senators from the House and from the Senate--the House having passed their budget resolution earlier today--had the courage to come forward and present a budget resolution that brought our Federal budget into balance. That is not an easy thing to do. If it was an easy thing to do, it would have [[Page S6888]] been done at least 25 times over the last 25 years, but it has not been done once. I give a lot of credit to the Senator from New Mexico for his tremendous work on crafting the legislation; the Congressman from Ohio, John Kasich, for the work he has done on the House side; and to all of the Republicans who are standing shoulder to shoulder to push this effort forward for the future of this country. This is a historic time. This is a great opportunity for America as a country to face the realities of the future, to stop the endless political games of promising what we cannot deliver on, and letting other generations of Americans pay for our political expediency. I am excited. I am excited to be here during this time. I think this will be one of the great debates in history. I think this will be one of the great defining moments of our time. It is just unfortunate, it is truly unfortunate, that at one of these defining moments where the country can really face the future, it is going to be done without the Chief Executive Officer of this country. He has decided that he is going to take absence without leadership, AWOL on this issue. He has decided that he does not want to participate in the process. He has decided in debates with himself that he is not relevant to this process, and that he is going to sit on the sidelines and throw whatever he can at those who are trying to move this country forward to balance the budget. It is a great disappointment to me and I know to many Americans that the Chief Executive Officer, the President, has decided to take this course. What I have decided to do is to remind everyone here of the President's action or inaction on this effort. Starting today, the first day in which the budget resolution was laid down here on the Senate floor, I am going to bring this chart to the floor every day between now and October 1 of this year, when the next fiscal year starts, and going to tell the American public how many days it has been since the Republicans laid down a balanced budget resolution to get this country to balance, and how many days it has been since Bill Clinton has decided to leave town when it came to this issue. The Senator from Massachusetts, in the last election for President had the rallying cry of ``Where's George?'' Well the question today is ``Where's Bill?'' I guess on day one, the answer is, as the Senator from Kansas the majority leader has said, he is AWOL. Absent without leadership. Today is day one. I suspect, although I hope it is not the case, that over the next 135 days between now and the end of September, that I will be putting up day after day, numbers on this chart to show that the President truly is not serious about leading this country, about moving forward in a direction that will preserve this country's not just financial future but future as a society. I am actually fairly sad to have to come here and do this. I think it is in a time of great courage that we are seeing in the Congress, a very sad state of affairs that we have a President who has decided not to participate. By the way, this is the same President who in 1993 he and his budget directors and many on the other side of the aisle, were clamoring about how the Republicans were not putting up their plan. Where was their plan in 1993 to reduce the deficit? We are not talking about just reducing the deficit here. We are talking about getting to a balanced budget. Something which the President's plan does not do. I want to quote the President in February of 1993. The President's demand to the Republicans in Congress, ``Not hot air, show me where.'' Well, Mr. President, ``Not hot air, show me where.'' If the President wants to lead, lead. That means the President has to propose, just for some instruction. The President has to propose something in order to lead somewhere. The situation is the President being absent from this debate is not unusual when it comes to the budget this year. We have a President who has refused to put forward a balanced budget resolution, has refused to put forward anything that is going to reduce the rate of growth in the deficit. In fact, according to the numbers of the President, modest numbers he wants us to use, his deficit goes up over the next 7 years up to $267 billion by the year 2002, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office of which the President said we should use in determining his numbers. And his first chance this year, his first chance this year to put a downpayment on the deficit, is a $16 billion rescissions bill, which yesterday in the Washington Post he said that he was going to veto; a $16 billion rescissions bill. There is a President who simply wants to preserve the status quo, and all you will hear over the next 5 days are people who created this Government here in the Congress and who want to defend every program, and if we touch a hair on one of them, the sky will fall, the Earth will erupt, and life will never be the same again here. Well, let me just suggest that, if we do not touch some of these programs, literally thousands and thousands of programs, if we do not start consolidating, eliminating, reducing the rate of growth of some of these programs, truly the sky will fall and the Earth will open up because we simply will not have a future for our children. We will leave nothing for them. So I would suggest that when you hear the gnashing of teeth that you will hear, you will hear about how hopeless things are in America--the previous speaker was talking about, the Senator from Washington, talking about how hopeless people are if not for some Government program that is going to help them through their hopelessness, or how fearful people are, if it was not for the Government to take care of them. I would just suggest that our job here in Washington is to provide opportunity and hope for people, to give them the chance to succeed. I will tell you the best way that I believe you can give people a chance to succeed is by letting them keep the fruits of their labors, but not taking all of it from them, and when I hear this debate, it absolutely blows my mind. I do not know what budget they are working on. I hear all of this debate all day long, and from the White House how we are cutting Medicare, cutting all of these programs to pay for ``tax breaks for the rich.'' I know a lot of you heard this. A lot of you have heard this. Let me tell you what the budget resolution says. This budget resolution--I do not know what budget resolution they are talking about. It is not this budget resolution. It is not this budget resolution. In this budget resolution is a provision that 90 percent of all tax cuts must go to people under $100,000; 90 percent. I do not know. We may be redefining wealthy in America; and, that is, that people under $100,000 are wealthy. People who make under $100,000 are wealthy. Those are wealthy. But when you have 90 percent of any tax cut provision in this budget as it appears on the floor of the Senate today, going to under $100,000, I do not know how you make that statement. I do not know how you make the statement the Senator from South Carolina made a few minutes ago that they are going to cut taxes now, and the spending cuts will not come until later. I do not know what budget he is looking at. This budget, almost all of the cuts in taxes that occur come the last 3 or 4 years after we have shown that we can get on a glidepath, after we do cut spending first. Why does that come about? Why do we get this $170 billion? It is a very important point. Why is it that the Congressional Budget Office gives us a bonus of $170 billion? Let me explain why. It is very simple. Because they believe, as I am sure every economist in this country would believe, and you can see it by what is happening already to the dollar and how the dollar is rebounding since we have introduced this resolution, how interest rates are coming down since we have gotten serious about balancing the budget here in this Chamber--the Congressional Budget Office believes accurately that, if we have in place a mechanism to balance the budget over the next 7 years, interest rates will come down; therefore, the cost to refinance the debt will come down, inflation will come down, and the economy will grow faster. Those are all assumptions the Congressional Budget Office made in calculating this bonus of $170 billion of [[Page S6889]] which we were going to take that bonus and return it to the people who work very hard to pay those taxes. Think about this. Getting to a balanced budget will create more growth. That means more jobs. That means for opportunity, lower interest rates, which means lower payments on mortgages, more affordable housing, and other programs, lower debt costs which means lower deficits. This is what we are focused on, growth, low inflation, low interest rates. But that is a pretty good plan. That is how we get the deficit even further reduced. What we are saying is that once we have established the plan to get us to zero, if we do get that bonus, if we do get that savings, then we are going to give you the dividend. You, the taxpayer of America, boy, I will tell you. By the way, 90 percent of that will go to people under $100,000. I do not know, folks. I do not know what budget they are reading over there. But if that is cutting Medicare to pay for tax breaks for the rich, tell the Congressional Budget Office because that is getting it right, balancing the budget, causing positive effects on the economy and letting people who work their tails off in this country keep some of the money they worked hard for. You would think that the only people who care in this town are people who want to take your money and give it to somebody else to help them; that those of us who believe caring sometimes can mean letting you keep some of the money you worked hard for. No. That is not caring. That is tax breaks for these bad people who work; or these people who succeed. I happen to think that rewarding people for doing what we all, everyone in this Chamber, want people to do in this country--work --is a good thing. It is a good thing. So when you hear about these nasty things that we are going to do about, you know, helping the wealthy, substitute every time you hear ``wealthy'', substitute ``taxpayer.'' If you are a taxpayer, you are the one they are after. They do not want to give you any relief up there. No, no, no. Those of you who pay taxes, you are bad. We have to make sure that you give us the money that you worked hard for so we can spend it, where we, of course, know best. That is just absurd. It is even an absurd statement here in Washington DC. This is a good budget plan. This is a fair budget plan. I will talk over the next few days about how we are doing. I went to town meeting after town meeting after town meeting in the last 4 or 5 years. I was in Congress before being in the Senate this year. And every place I went, the comment I got was whether you want to get to a balanced budget but do not single out anybody, do not single out any group, spread it around. You know. Make it fair. We are willing to take our share. We understand we have a problem. We are willing to pitch in. This is America. When we have a crisis in this country we are willing to step up to the plate. We are not going to run and hide. ``Oh, no don't hurt us. Don't touch us.'' That is what the other side would have you believe. We have a bunch of people who are not willing to sacrifice or put forward their piece to solve the problem. Of course, they are. Of course, you will. Do not let these people appeal to your weaker side. Appeal to the better angels of your nature. Appeal to the side that says America is a great country, if we all pull together and we stand shoulder to shoulder to solve problems. That is what this budget does. It bridges us all in, everybody. It says let us all pull together. And we are not talking about radical stuff here folks. We are not talking about enormous pain here. We are not talking about enormous pain here. We are talking about Government growth at 3\1/2\ percent a year, increasing at 3\1/2\ percent a year. Under this budget resolution, spending goes up 3\1/2\ percent a year. Some pain. Three and a half percent a year, that is just draconian; it is horrible. Again, the sky is going to fall if the Government only goes up 3\1/2\ percent a year. This is the right medicine. It is absolutely crucial medicine. It is absolutely crucial that we pass this resolution and that we move forward to put this country back to where my grandfather, who came to this country back in the 1920's, before the Depression--he lived in a company town, in the hills of Appalachia, in Pennsylvania. He was a coal miner. And he came here not because he did not have a good job. He had a great job in Italy. That is where he came from. He had a great job. But he left there because he wanted freedom. He wanted to be able to collect the fruits of his labor, and most importantly he wanted to leave his sons and daughter better off than he was. That has been the dream of every American who came on our shores. They came here because they wanted to leave the next generation better off and with more opportunities than they had. We are sitting here and standing here as Members of the Senate, and we are looking at a future that will do just the opposite if we do nothing. If we fail, the next generation will not have what we have, will not have the opportunity to succeed. As I look around and see people in the gallery with their children, I know their one hope is that those children will be better off than them; that they love them so much. Well, folks, love them enough to do the right thing. Love them enough to set this country straight and balance this budget so they can have a better future. I yield the floor. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about an issue that greatly disturbs me at a time when we are debating in this country how we are going to get to a balanced budget and what steps we need to take and the tough decisions in setting priorities about where Federal spending should go in the next 7 years. We had a process that went through here in the Senate and over in the House that just came from the conference committee to cut $16 billion, $16 billion of funding that has been appropriated by this Congress over the past year or two--a truly minor downpayment on reducing the Federal budget deficit. It is about 1 percent of what we will spend this fiscal year. We are talking about cutting 1 percent, not just in this fiscal year but this fiscal year and the next combined. About $16 billion is what the rescission package will do. I see the headline in the Washington Post, not the one I am particularly proud of, which is ``Capitals Dismantled by Penguins,'' which I am happy to see that, but one which greatly disturbs me under that which is, ``Clinton To Veto $16 Billion Rescissions Package.'' The President--who has presented a budget that is going to add almost $2 trillion to the national debt over the next 7 years, who refuses to come to the U.S. Congress and present a balanced budget, who says there is no problem in Medicare, who says that everything is just fine--now decides he cannot support cuts in spending. He cannot support cuts in spending: That $16 billion is too much. We just cannot do it. We cannot tighten our belt to do that. So he is going to go to some group. I am sure he will wrap himself--I do not know, I did not read this completely--wrap himself with either a group of seniors or a group of children because that is what you do when you do not want to change things. You hide behind children or you hide behind seniors, and you say: ``We cannot hurt these vulnerable in our society.'' But the fact of the matter is this is a drop in the bucket. These are spending cuts, many of which he advocated, to programs many of which do not work. Sure there are some tough cuts in here, things I am uncomfortable with. We cut, in this bill, low-income home energy assistance, not this year which I am happy to see, but next year, by $300 million. I think that is a painful thing. But we have to share. We cannot do everything. We cannot continue to spend everything we are spending now. I think that is a good compromise. There are other things in there that cause me some problems. They may be good programs but we have to be able to say we are going to tighten our belts [[Page S6768]] a little bit. And here you have a President who is holding dialogs with himself about his relevancy, showing he is not going to be relevant to balancing the budget, he is going to stand in our way every step of the way to block any kind of reducing the size of Government or cutting spending here in Washington, DC. Mr. President, $16 billion out of $1.6 trillion and we cannot do that. It is too tough. I think the American public should see this for what it is, a President who just wants to blame the other side for being mean and being cruel and offers nothing in return, who offers no balanced budget to this body, who says he is not for the balanced budget amendment to force us to get there, who says there is no problem in Medicare when it is going to go broke in 7 years. His own trustees say it is going to go broke in 7 years. Denial, denial, denial; no, no, no. Where is the President? You know, we had the great debater from the State of Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, stand up and say, ``Where is George? Where is George?'' Where is Bill? Where is Bill? Where is he going to be if we are going to balance this budget? Where is he going to be if we are going to put this country back on sound footing again? Is he going to continue to hide behind the status quo, to be the President who goes down defending this policy that has just continued to pile up debt after debt after debt? Where is Bill? Where is he when it comes to setting this country back on the course of fiscal responsibility? I will tell you where he is, hiding behind a group of people, vetoing legislation to get us back on the right track. We deserve better. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Based on the response of my colleague, may I validly draw the following two conclusions? First, this legislation allows the continuation of flow control as previously enacted under State law under certain conditions but not require or mandate flow control. Second, it is the intention of the distinguished subcommittee chairman that this legislation not be used in and of itself as an argument to suppress the free market.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank my distinguished colleague and again commend him for so ably discharging this difficult responsibility.

Mr. SANTORUM. Last, with regard to title II, flow control, may I inquire of my colleague whether this legislation imposes flow control or in any way makes it mandatory and thereby suppresses the free market?

Mr. SANTORUM. Further, it appears to me that the interstate title of this legislation gives my Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the tools it needs to prevent abuse of our resources and environment. Could my colleague comment on that?

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I seek recognition for the purpose of engaging in a colloquy with the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, Senator Smith, the manager of S. 534. First, may I congratulate my colleague on his skillful handling of this difficult legislation. Second, it is that very difficulty on which I would like to focus in this colloquy. I think my colleague would agree with me in my characterization of this legislation as statutory interference with the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. This interference comes as a result of the Carbone versus Clarkstown decision, which has caused problems with certain public facilities financed by revenue bonds. Carbone invalidated State and local laws which create a solid waste monopoly for those facilities. And, of course, there is the continued desire to come to grips with the problem of interstate transfer of solid waste. I am especially aware of this problem because my own State of Pennsylvania has been the unwilling recipient of solid waste exported from New Jersey and New York, in particular. Thus, we have a clash between the fundamental wisdom of the commerce clause and the practical effects of the interstate trade in solid waste. May I ask my colleague from New Hampshire the following question? Is it fair to state that he has attempted to craft legislation which would interfere as little as possible with the commerce clause and thereby he would try to protect the free market where it has worked?

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his comments. I wholeheartedly agree with him. I think this is a question of leadership, what kind of leadership we are going to see not only out of the White House but out of the U.S. Senate. I think the rhetoric to date has not served this institution well. There is, indeed, a crisis in Medicare. I know there are a lot of folks on the other side of the aisle who are saying we knew about this crisis, you folks denied there was a health care crisis. We are not talking about a health care crisis, we are talking about a Medicare crisis. We are talking about a trust fund problem that says there is not enough money in the trust fund to be able to fund Medicare past a 7-year window. That is immediate, that is real, and that is something that we have to deal with, and I believe we will only deal with if we do so in a bipartisan way. If this becomes a partisan issue where one seeks to take political gain at the expense of doing something that is responsible action, we will not succeed and the trust fund will continue to go further and further to the brink of insolvency, and we will be left with not a lot of options but very dramatic choices that are going to affect a lot of taxpayers and a lot of seniors and the availability of Medicare benefits into the future. The other comment I keep hearing is, ``Well, this crisis has been around a long time and we have known. This is not the first trustees report that has been published that says Medicare is in trouble and will go bankrupt in a few years.'' That is true. In fact, over the last 10, 15 years, the average solvency of the Medicare trust fund has been about 12 years. Now it is at 7, which is I think a low. That is the shortest timeframe that we have seen recently where Medicare is in trouble and scheduled to go bankrupt. So it is important, but we are usually running around 12, 14 years as the average. So why the big hullabaloo now? The reason for that is, once we get through the next 12 years or so, to the year 2010, we can do that pretty well by doing a fix. Senator Domenici's budget calls for roughly $250 billion in reductions in the growth rate of Medicare over the next 7 years. That will fix Medicare, again, to make it solvent for about 12 years from now, which will be about average of where the fund has been. The problem with that is not the 12 years, it is what happens in the 13th, 14th, 15th year and beyond, because after 12 years from now or 13 years from now that is when the baby boomers begin to retire and that is when Medicare really takes off. Spending in Medicare just goes up astronomically once the baby boomers and that big chunk of the population starts getting into this program. So when we look at Medicare funding now, we have to look at it with a whole new ball game in mind. We have to preserve the long-term funding and solvency of this program through a period where we are going to see a rapid escalation, not in the cost of Medicare and inflation, but in the number of people in the program. So when we look at Medicare now, and I hope we will have this informed discussion, that we will look at it over the long term recognizing that Medicare costs, just by demographic reasons, are going to escalate beyond what we have ever seen before in the history of the Medicare program. So I am hoping we can have this kind of constructive dialog and we will not use brinkmanship for political gain, that we will have a good, bipartisan solution to the problem that faces this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the nomination.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes of my time to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator for yielding. I would like to address a specific issue in the next 100 days in the Senate that I think is going to attract a lot of attention. It has already attracted a lot of attention. It is an issue of great importance to this country and people rely on this program--that is the Medicare Program. There is a lot of discussion going on in this town--and I hope across America-- about Medicare and where it fits in with the scheme of things here in Washington. Is Medicare going to be used to balance the budget? Is Medicare a program that is in trouble? What is the truth? What is the real story and who do you believe? Unfortunately, in Washington, that is a problem we have a lot, which is that every issue, irrespective of the importance of the issue, turns into a partisan battle, and one side says one thing and the other side says another. You would think with an issue such as Medicare, with the information we have before us, that we could act as adults and face the problem squarely, maturely, discuss it, debate it, and come up with a solution to the problem. But as is the case around here all too often, political gain comes before responsible action. We have folks who think we can make political gains from Medicare, so let us delay responsible action for a while and see how much hey we can make in the process. Here are the facts. The facts are that the Medicare trustees issued a report that says that Medicare will be insolvent by the year 2002. In other words, it will not have any money left in the trust fund to pay out benefits to anyone. That is not 25 years or 30 years from now, which is the problem of Social Security. Americans seem to be tuned into that Social Security is in trouble in the long term and that we cannot sustain it. The insolvency of Social Security is a little over 30 years away. It is a problem and we have to deal with that. We have a little bit more time. Medicare is an immediate problem. Medicare runs out of money in 7 years. You would think, as I said, as mature adults elected here to govern the country, we could sit down and accept that, accept the findings of the trustees. Four out of the six Medicare trustees are Clinton administration officials. They have issued this report that says, ``The Medicare trust fund will be able to pay benefits for only 7 years and is severely out of financial balance in the long-range.'' That is what this chart shows. Here is where the Medicare trust fund is exhausted, 2002. Here is the gap. It grows and grows. This is the revenue shortfall. It only gets worse, particularly in the outyears when the baby boomers start to retire. There are less people working to support the Medicare trust fund. It is obvious that we have to do something; it is obvious that the time to act is now while we have a meager surplus that is going to be exhausted, as I said before, in 7 years. You would think that we could come to the table, accept the Clinton administration's own findings that this is a problem that must be solved, accept their own recommendation--again, the recommendation of the trustees--that says we need urgent action. But, no, you are going to see the big dance that goes on around here, the big dance on how we are going to scare seniors, lie to them; and anybody who wants to touch Medicare is not going to try to save Medicare. Oh, no, they just want to take the program away from them. They want to ruin Medicare. They want to break their promises to the American public. Why? Why would people say things that are blatantly false? Why would they say that? Well, it is certainly not to preserve the trust fund, certainly not to make sure Medicare is there for future generations--I should not even say future--this generation of seniors. That certainly is not the reason they are saying it. Why are they saying it? Very simple: Political gain. Political gain. It is a tried and true American maxim in American politics, and that is if you can square seniors enough so that they will vote against the other side who wants to take their programs away, you can win elections and then after the election, you will discover the problem. After the election is over, after you have reaped the benefits by scaring seniors that these bad guys out here who want to touch Medicare are out really to kill the program, after you have accomplished the scare tactics and succeeded in victory, then come to the floor, come to the American people after the election, after you have won and lied, and after you have accomplished what you wanted, and then say, look, the Medicare trust fund is going to be out of money, we have to do something. That is what is going to happen. That is what happened on Social Security in 1982. It is going to try to happen in 1996. I just hope--I really hope--that the American public is smart enough to see through these scare tactics, not only by the Clinton administration, by the Democrats here in Congress, by these the fear of seniors to swell their membership and get contributions and be able to fund their lobbyists and TV commercials and continue to go out there and feed on this frenzy. I hope the American public and seniors can see through this. It is a scare tactic that should not succeed. See through this. See that there is a problem, and see that those who want to tackle the problem now are doing it because we care, not because we want to destroy a program. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, this morning, the leader time has been reserved, and the Senate will immediately resume consideration of H.R. 956, the product liability bill. Under the order, there will be 60 minutes of debate equally divided between the two managers, or their designees. At the conclusion of debate, at 11 o'clock, the Senate will begin a series of rollcall votes on, or in relation to, the pending second-degree amendments to the McConnell amendment. The Senate will recess between the hours of 12:30 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. today for the weekly policy luncheons to meet. Senators should be aware that further rollcall votes can be expected throughout today's session.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar Order No. 52, S. 349, the Navajo-Hopi Relocation Housing bill.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Senate Resolution 111, submitted earlier today by Senators Dole, Daschle, Cochran, and Lott.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be deemed read for a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be placed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar Order No. 75, S. 441.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be deemed read for a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be placed at the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar Order No. 73, S. 268.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask unanimous consent that, in further respect of the passing of the Senator from Mississippi, Senator John Stennis, the Senate stand in recess under the provision of Senate Resolution 111.