Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to hold a business meeting during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 6, 1995.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that subcommittee on Securities, of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 6, 1995, to conduct a hearing on securities litigation reform proposals.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to discuss the issue of a bill I introduced recently that I understand is going to be highlighted tonight on a Dateline/NBC telecast having to deal with the issue of fugitives--felons--who are not only running from the law, but under the law receiving welfare benefits, and under the law the police are not able to assert information from the welfare office to be able to help track this person down. Believe it or not, that is exactly the issue that we are going to discuss and hopefully be able to remedy. I got into this in the House. I was Chairman of the Task Force on Welfare in the House of Representatives and was presented with a whole lot of information about some of the problems in the welfare system, and worked extensively putting together the House welfare reform package in 1993 and 1994. This issue is while there have been a lot of partisanship with respect to the welfare issue and gnashing of teeth as to the mean- spiritedness of the welfare proposals that have been put forward, this particular area of the welfare bill has attracted broad bipartisan support. When explained, most Americans--all Americans--support this kind of change. I have not heard of any organized opposition to the bill I introduced along with Representative Peter Blute from Massachusetts in the House or the one that was introduced here in the Senate. The House of Representatives, in the welfare reform debate, debated this issue on the floor and it passed, I believe, unanimously on the floor of the House. The bill now comes to the Senate as an amendment to the House welfare reform bill. Whether we bring it up, I hope this issue can be addressed, because I think it is important in not only reducing welfare fraud--and this is clearly welfare fraud--but also facilitating police operations in tracking down wanted criminals. We know from the National Crime Information Center there are roughly 400,000 outstanding fugitive warrants in this country. As I say, believe it or not, a sizable portion of those fugitives are on welfare receiving food stamps or AFDC or some other welfare assistance, Federal welfare assistance. SSI is a big one, where they receive assistance from the Federal Government to help support their lifestyle while hiding from law enforcement authorities. That is bad enough, but under current, law Federal and State law, law enforcement authorities are not able to contact the welfare offices to assert any information about this fugitive. Why? Because of welfare privacy laws. If a person gets on welfare they can collect their check, collect their benefits, and be completely immune from anybody ever finding out that they are on the welfare rolls. This is almost unbelievable. But that is, in fact, the case. Now people may say, how many people are on this? Is this really a problem or is this an isolated case? Let me first give Members the case. The case that really brought this to my attention was an article in the July 29, 1994, Pittsburgh Tribune Review. I will read: Fugitive Used Real Name for Welfare James Brabham knew who he was. During a decade on the lam for a 1984 slaying in Pittsburg, he used at least five aliases and five Social Security numbers. But when he went on welfare he used his real name--and his State-issued welfare card bore his current address and photo. The cops who arrested him on Wednesday in Philadelphia saw the card when they asked Brabham for identification. They hadn't known he was on welfare. ``I'm sure it would have made things a lot easier,'' said Detective Joe Hasara of the Federal Fugitive Task Force in Philadelphia, one of the squads that for years pursued lead after dead-end lead searching for Brabham. I went and met with the Federal Fugitive Task Force in Philadelphia. What they told me was absolutely amazing. They believe from the 90-some fugitives they have caught since years that 75 percent of the people they have tracked down had welfare cards. Seventy-five percent. They have no way to go and find out the information about what their current address is, what their Social Security number is, or even a photograph. In Cleveland, the Fugitive Task Force ran a sting operation--one of these things where a person gets free things and they invite only certain people and they catch the folks who show up--33 percent of the people who showed up at this sting operation had welfare cards. Again, because of court decisions and the Welfare Privacy Act, they had no way of contacting or getting this information from the welfare office. People may say, ``OK, these folks have welfare cards. But how many of them use their real name?'' I asked that of the Philadelphia Fugitive Task Force. I said, ``How many use their real name?'' They laughed, and they said almost all of them use their real name and real Social Security number. I said, ``Well, why in the world would they do that?'' The answer is, because they do not want to lose their benefits. They do not want to be accused of a welfare problem, and they can get in trouble for a whole bunch of other things, so they use their real name and real Social Security number so they can get the benefits. It is a very good source of the true name and the true Social Security number of people who are on the lam. Now, what we have suggested in this legislation is to permit law enforcement agencies that have a fugitive warrant to be able to go to a welfare office and say ``Look, we would like to know if John Doe is in your file and, if so, we would like the address of John Doe, we would like the Social Security number of John Doe, and we would like a photograph of John Doe.'' People wonder why we need a photograph. In the original legislation I proposed in the House, I did not have ``photograph.'' But the Fugitive Task Force in Philadelphia said this is very helpful information because a lot of times they have fugitives who are first-time felons, and they have absolutely no idea what they look like. So this gives a current picture to be able to track this person down. It is very helpful information. Now, again, this is a bipartisan bill. There is bipartisan sponsorship on the bill here. We hope that this is a measure that can sail through the House, whether we do a welfare reform package or not, and it passes again, this is something we can do to eliminate a welfare problem that we know is occurring. People who are fugitives are not permitted to be on welfare. Again, there is no way of checking that. And, number two, to give police officers the opportunity to track these people down and get better information. There is another part of the bill I will briefly discuss, and that is another situation we found out about from our hearings on welfare in the last couple of years, which is the definition of what ``temporarily absent'' is from a home. We have situations where we have parents who have children who are on AFDC, whose children end in jail for long periods of time, or run away from home for long periods of time, or are in detention, or a whole lot of other things, but they are out of the house. If they are out of the house for any period of time the welfare benefit that goes with the child--that is where most of the welfare cash goes and other benefits go--should cease to the mother or the parents--not necessarily the mother. There is no definition in most States as to what ``temporarily absent'' means, so we provide a definition of how long a child should be away from home to determine whether that person is temporarily absent, or in fact, permanently absent. It they are permanently absent, they lose their welfare benefits. We have seen situations where parents have collected welfare benefits literally for years when kids are in jail, and they keep collecting the money, because the State has never determined what ``temporarily absent'' means. That, we believe, is an abuse that can be stopped. Again, this provision had bipartisan support and we hope will be so supported here in the U.S. Senate. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we are waiting around. Probably lots of people are wondering what we are doing while the House of Representatives is storming along at a rapid pace, accomplishing an enormous amount of work here in the first 100 days. They are over there right now trying to pass a tax bill--a tax-cut bill, not a tax increase. You get a tax bill around here and you think to reach for your pocket. No, this is a tax-cut bill. I actually wonder why the people are here. The action is over there. The action is not here. We are waiting here. We are waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. What are we waiting for? We are waiting to hear from the leaders on the Democratic side as to how much more money they want to spend this year--not how we can get to a balanced budget but how much more money they want to pack into this appropriations bill, not how we are going to get the budget down to zero but how much more we are going to spend this year. And I can say that I speak for a large body of people on this side of the aisle who question the sincerity of folks who during the balanced budget debate got up and said, ``I'm for a balanced budget. I am just not for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But I am for a balanced budget. We have the power to make these tough decisions. We have it right now. The power is within us. We can do it. We do not need some phony baloney constitutional amendment to get us to face the tough decisions of getting this country back on track. We can do it.'' And so they used that argument and the phony baloney about Social Security to oppose the balanced budget amendment. Well, as a sports announcer in Pittsburgh likes to say, ``The turkey is on the table.'' Right here is a spending cut proposal, a proposal that funds California disaster relief assistance that they need but makes further rescissions, cuts in spending, for this fiscal year and next fiscal year. So what do we see? We have seen for the past 2 weeks a filibuster. Oh, no, you will not see it called that in the national media. They would not dare call anything that the other side of the aisle is doing a dilatory tactic. They are delaying and delaying and delaying so we do not get this bill passed. This a rescission bill. Let us not cut spending. Let us not put a downpayment on deficit reduction. Let us, as the leaders of the other side want to do, trot out an amendment to spend more money. And so what are we doing? We are waiting. We are waiting--the unwritten story of the first 100 days. I have not seen it anywhere. It is absolutely unbelievable to me. The unwritten story of the first 100 days is not that the House accomplished so much and what happened to the Senate? The unwritten story is the filibustering, delaying tactics of the minority in the Senate to stop what the November election was all about. That is what is going on here. You want to point to the folks who are trying to derail the train from happening in this country? Look across the aisle. Look at the empty desks. Look at the folks who want to delay, delay, delay. They know if they delay this bill over the recess, a lot of these spending cut proposals go away. Why? Because they are spending cut proposals for this fiscal year. And by the time we get back in May a lot more money will be spent because we are another month and a half into the fiscal year. And so the longer they wait the less we can cut. They know this. And so that is what is going on. Delay, delay, delay. Do not give anybody success. God forbid that we have any bipartisan effort to try to achieve anything around here. Let us play the partisan game of delay, and then stand up and say, ``Geez, these folks can't get anything done around here,'' when the fact is they do not want to change Washington. They do not want to change Washington. They built Washington, and they like it just the way it is. And any time you touch any of their sacred cows, oh, you are mean-spirited. You do not care about people. I care about kids born today who will be saddled, if we do nothing to reduce this deficit--and that is what this bill is all about, reducing the deficit--if we do nothing to reduce the deficit, who will be saddled with 82 percent tax rates--82 percent tax rates over their lifetime, 82 percent of everything you earn goes to the Government to take care of people. That is the message here in Washington today: You just give it to us and we will take care of everything you need. Folks, that has been rejected all around the world. It is just incredible to me, it is incredible to me that the very people who blocked the balanced budget amendment will now come to the floor and stop any further deficit reduction. How can you justify that in your own mind, unless, of course, you are not really for deficit reduction, not really for a balanced budget in the first place. I do not have any problem--and there are several Senators who come up to the floor, and I give them a lot of credit, who come up to the floor and looked into these cameras and looked around at their colleagues and said, ``I'm not for a balanced budget. I think the Federal Government can be just fine running a deficit and we will be fine.'' That is being intellectually honest. I do not agree with it, but there is a body of economists out there who believe we can run a deficit and disaster is not impending. Again, I do not agree with it. I think the weight of the evidence is contrary to that. But at least they have the courage to come to the floor and say they do not want to do it. But quit double-crossing the American public by putting out these passionate speeches about how much you want to get this budget into balance and how the children of this country need it, and when the chance comes where the pedal is supposed to be put to the metal and the rubber hits the road, we call off the race. We decide, no, no, no, we cannot do that. Oh, we cannot cut that program; oh, no, we cannot cut that program. ``You know, oh, no, well, this is only .003 percent of the budget. You cannot cut that; I mean, it is so small. Why would you want to cut that?'' Or, ``We have got a brand-new program of AmeriCorps, which is a great program.'' Of course, we have increased funding on that. You can go down the list. I mean, how is the American public going to take this institution seriously? I mean, they are going to look at what happens here and they are going to say, ``Wait a minute.'' Are we really serious about solving problems? What were we elected to do here? I do not think we were elected in the last election just to come down here and keep doing the same old thing. We were not elected to do the same old thing. We were elected to make changes. We were elected to get our house in order. And now we have this debate going on between the leaders of the Democratic side and us, the Republican side, about how much more they want to spend. And, do you know something? We made a proposal. We said, ``OK. You want to spend $1.3 billion more''--that is what they came up with, $1.3 billion more--``fine.'' We made an offer. We said, ``How about if we give you half of what you want. You give us half of what we want, we will give you half of what you want. We will split the difference, and let us do the bill.'' That is the art of compromise. I mean, not just here in Washington, but in everyday life. I mean, we do not always get everything we want. Sometimes you have to sit down and you have to have minds meet. And so we said, ``Let's hear the reasonable offer.'' Now, that is what we are debating right now--whether a reasonable offer will be accepted. Let us just each meet each other half way. In the end we will have a $15 billion deficit reduction. You can restore the programs that you say will jeopardize the health and safety of so many millions of people. We do not agree with that, but you are passionate about it. Let us put the money back in. We will provide some offsets--in other words, some spending cuts--to pay for these programs and we will be able to put it back together and move the bill. The leader just walked on the floor. I mean, the leader is spending day after day after day trying to get things done around here. All we have is people obstructing, obstructing, obstructing, obstructing, obstructing. Let us not let these folks succeed in what they want to do. My goodness, if they accomplish the Contract With America, the American public may actually like them; may actually support what they want to do. They may actually vote for them in the next election. We cannot have that. We cannot have them vote for them, because that means they will vote against us. And if they vote against us, then we will not be here. And if we stall, if we delay, maybe--maybe, maybe--we will be able to cloud the issue up enough, muddy the waters enough, that they will blame all of us. Since there are more of them now than there are of us, we will be OK. We may lose a little bit, they may lose a little bit, but we will not really get hurt. That is the strategy. That is what is going on here in the U.S. Senate. You know, I ran for U.S. Senate and I was told this was the upper Chamber, a more deliberative body, where, you know, you had statesmen actually come here and do what was right for the country--do what was right for the country--not worry about partisan advantages or playing politics, but do what was in its best interests of this country. And so what we have seen is the House of Representatives follow through with a promise they made to America. They promised the American public that they were going to do these 10 things. Imagine that. Imagine. Politicians making promises. Oh, we have heard a lot of promises from politicians around here. All over the campaign trail, we make promises. But think of this: Politicians who made promises who lived up to their promises. Is not that amazing? That is exactly what they are doing over in the House of Representatives. These 10 things they said we were going to bring to the floor of the House of Representatives and, darn it, did they not? Every single one of them came to the floor for open debate, for amendments. And, do you know what? After today, when they vote the tax bill-- which I understand is supposed to pass--they will have passed 90 percent of the Contract With America. Not only did they live up to the promise of bringing all the stuff to the floor--and that is what the contract said, we will bring it to the floor. They brought it to the floor not saying, well, we are going to promise a tax cut and then bring a tax bill that was a tax increase. No, no. No bait and switch here. No ``read my lips'' class tax increase. But elected officials, people in Washington, Congressmen, who actually lived up to what they said they would do. Amazing. Amazing. And so here we are in the U.S. Senate, looking at the model over there, and saying, ``Boy, wouldn't it be nice if we could come to the U.S. Senate floor, and we could stand up''-- and we do not have to vote in lockstep with the House. I would not suggest it. It is a different body; different rules; different procedures; and different ideas. But to stand here and play politics and delay on an issue that is--of all the issues that we are dealing with here in Washington, the one that is highest above all is getting our financial house in order. That is what the American public want us to do. They want us to get our house in order. And so, we have our first chance, right here--the first spending cut bill since the balanced budget amendment. The first chance for the U.S. Senate where the vote of the balance budget amendment occurs, right here--all of us, all 100 of us were sitting in our chairs. We stood up one at a time. It was a very impressive moment for a young--I know the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Michigan, was just as impressed in casting that vote. It was a very awe-inspiring moment. But we lost. And we lost because of the argument that we did not need the amendment to force us to make tough decisions. OK. Fine. You say we do not need the amendment. We do not have the amendment. Now we have the tough decisions. And where are we? We are nowhere. We are waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. And they are delaying and delaying and delaying, just like they did--you know, the amazing thing is they just are not delaying on this bill. The Democrats have delayed on every bill--every single bill. Even bills they liked. I have heard the leader stand up here many times and say, you know, we passed a bill here earlier in the year, the congressional accountability bill, that makes us live by the laws here in Congress that we impose on other people's lives around America. It was over a week of debate, of delay, of dilatory tactics. It passed 98 to 1--98 to 1. It took us better than a week. It took the House an hour--98 to 1. The next bill was the unfunded mandates bill, another bill that passed 86 to 10, 2 weeks or more. Two weeks of endless debate, delay. Why? Did they disagree? Of course not, 86 to 10. Was the bill changed a lot? No. So what was the point? What was the point there? Why did we do that? Why did we go through that? Why have we gone 2 weeks on this rescission bill? Are there a lot of amendments substantive to the bill? Oh, a couple. Have we had lots of interesting debate? Some. Have there been agreements to move the bill along, to actually come to votes on some of these things? No, no; we cannot do that. Well, tomorrow we have a vote on cloture on this bill. Cloture means to end the debate. Let us get this thing done. Let us end the debate tomorrow and let us stay here and finish the bill. We will see how many of these deficit hawks, these people who really are concerned about getting the deficit under control--and I will guarantee you, every one of the people delaying this bill will go back home to their States over the recess and talk about how they are for deficit reduction; how they are for changing Washington; how they want to make things different here; how this just happened to be a bad bill; how this just went a little too far. Folks, this is $15 billion in deficit reduction--excuse me, $15 billion in spending cuts and deficit reduction. That is out of $1.6 trillion, and this goes too far? Get serious. Nobody believes it goes too far. These are the decisions we have to make that we are no longer forced to make, that we are not going to be forced to make because the balanced budget amendment did not pass. So the unwritten story, the story that may be written here--I hope not--but the story that may be written here in the next couple of days is going to be how 46 Senators conspired to stop the train, did everything they could, everything they could to make sure that elections do not matter. That is right, that elections do not matter; that what people on November 8 said is irrelevant, that it did not happen. Denial and hope that if they just keep muddying the waters, if they just keep deflecting away the real issues before us, that maybe they will just blame the whole lot of us and not them. I had to come out here today and just say the buck stops there. You want to change Washington? You know where the change has to happen. It is very simple. Do not let all these cries about, oh, how this is going to be so terrible--offer your amendments. You want to put back money for WIC? I will offer an offset. I will pay for the increase, and I will vote with you. I will increase money for WIC--Women, Infants, and Children. I have no problem with that. That is a good program. We will put more money back in. You will get a lot of Republicans to vote for that. Just come up with the money to offset it. Just pay for it. Keep the deficit reduction at the same level so if you want to add in $50 million for it, fine, we will take $50 million out of, oh, let us pick the AmeriCorps Program and offset it. Set your priorities. Is that not what you want us to do? Do you not want us to set priorities? Do you not want us to say this program is more important than this program? We, obviously, would love to give all the money to every program and everything we want to do. But as everybody in America, maybe outside of 46 people in this room, believes and knows, we do not have all the money to give for everything. So we have to set priorities. Let us set them. Come on down to the floor. Offer those amendments. Put that money back in for WIC. I will be right there with you. Take the other programs you say are just outrageous cuts; come on, let us talk about them and let us set priorities. Let us offset that money. Let us do it. Let us show the American public we really do care, that the deficit is really important. You have the chairman of the Budget Committee here, the Senator from New Mexico. I know he cares about the budget. I know his family has not seen much of him because that is all he is doing probably is working on how to get to that balanced budget, and he is making a lot of tough decisions. Folks, we are ready to make the decisions. You told us in the balanced budget debate you were ready to make the decisions. Why are you not here? What is the problem? Is it just politics? Is it just partisanship? Do you not want to come here and solve problems? We deserve better. This institution deserves better. Eleven freshmen Republicans did not come here to let the status quo continue. You want to fight; you do not want to come here and make things happen. We are ready. We are ready. We will stand here as long as it takes. We are ready to do battle. We are ready to let the American public decide what direction they want this country to take: More spending, more Government, more power, more control in the hands of the people in Washington; or more money, more power, more control, more freedom in your hands on Main Street, America? That is the issue. We are ready. We are waiting. And we will wait, and we will wait, and we will wait. I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. SANTORUM

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

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be granted permission to conduct a business meeting Tuesday, April 4, 10 a.m. to consider the nomination of Shirley Ann Jackson to be member, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet on Tuesday, April 4, 1995, at 2:30 p.m. in open session to receive testimony on the Department of Energy national security issues and the fiscal year 1996 budget request and future years' Defense program.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Seapower of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 4, 1995, in open session, to receive testimony on surface shipbuilding programs and the Department of the Navy's plans for modernization and recapitalization in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 1996 and the future years' defense program.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 4, 1995, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on punitive damages tort reform.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of the Governmental Affairs Committee to meet on Tuesday, April 4, 1995 at 10 a.m. for a hearing on the subject of earned income tax credit.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be permitted to meet on Tuesday, April 4, 1995, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-215, to conduct a hearing on the trade policy agenda and trade agreements program.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 4, 1995, at 1:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on Western Hemisphere drug control strategy.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be allowed to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 4, at 9:30 a.m., in SR-332, to discuss market effects of the Federal farm policy.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 4, 1995, at 10 a.m., in room SH-216 to conduct a hearing focusing on the Small Business Administration's 8(a) Minority Business Development Program.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on consumer affairs, foreign commerce and tourism of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on April 4, 1995, at 9:30 a.m. on S. 565, Product Liability Fairness Act of 1995.

Mr. SANTORUM

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

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask to speak 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to respond to the Senator from Georgia, who I have the utmost amount of respect for, and respect his views on the national service plan. I just happen to disagree with them. I wanted to comment on a couple of the points he made. I have heard often this analogy that national service corps members are volunteers as much as people who are in our military are volunteers because we have an all-volunteer force. The reason we call it an all volunteer force, it is the only area that I am aware of where we have the Government authority that can force people to do something they would not otherwise do. Force people to work. In other words, work in the military. The Government, through our authority as a Government, can if we so choose, force people, conscript people into the military. As I am sure the Senator from georgia knows, there is a whole body of employment law out there that says an employer cannot force an employee to perform for the employer. If I am an employer outside of the government, outside of the military--not just outside of the government, outside the military--I cannot force someone to go to work for me. If a person wants to leave my employment, I cannot force them to stay. So the reason it is called a volunteer army is because the military has the authority to make a person work for them even if they do not want to. To suggest that AmeriCorps and national service is volunteer, based on that motto, makes me a volunteer. No one forced me to run for the U.S. Senate. So I guess I volunteered for it. So I guess people could call me a volunteer. The young lady standing in front of me who is taking down my words, is, in fact, a volunteer. No one made her take this job. She took it because she volunteered for it. So we are all volunteers. Well, that is nice. That is sort of fuzzy and makes the waters a little murky. If we are all volunteers, then-- none of us are volunteers, really. And that is really the point. This is no more a volunteer than any other job in any other agency of the Federal Government. In fact, I believe the Senator from Missouri who came up here yesterday, Senator Bond, had a chart that showed that about 10 percent, or 15 percent of AmeriCorps employees work for the Federal Government, work for the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the National Endowment for the Arts. A lot of them are, in fact, plain old Government employees, paid for through this AmeriCorps Program. I just hope we get the rhetoric right here. This is not voluntarism. There really is not any other example that would suggest that someone who is making what an AmeriCorps volunteer makes is a volunteer. Senator Grassley was on the floor yesterday talking about employees from ACORN, which is a housing organization, funded with $1 million for Americorps. The average cost for each AmeriCorps volunteer is $41,000. That is what each ACORN volunteer is paid in compensation packages, from the Federal Government. The Legal Services Corporation has a $1 million AmeriCorps grant. These volunteers make $48,000 a year. Now, it is hard to sell, at least to me and I think a lot of Americans, that people making that amount of money are truly volunteers. What the Senator from Georgia did say that I agree with is that there are worthwhile projects going on within Americorps. I do not think there is any question there certainly is a need to help children learn how to read or help people who need some assistance. The AmeriCorps program does fill in some gaps and holes and can be very helpful. What I have suggested in the past, and I suggest to the Senator from Georgia, is that there will be a bill coming to the floor of the Senate this year, and it is a welfare reform bill that is going to have work programs in place for people who truly are in need of the work experience, the training, the education. Those people are the folks we should be targeting these kinds of projects on, these kinds of duties that can be done by people who truly need them. The problem with AmeriCorps is you do not have to be poor to be in AmeriCorps. You do not have to be young. You always hear people defending AmeriCorps, saying, ``All these young people, we need to help them.'' You can be in AmeriCorps if you are 60 years of age. You can be in AmeriCorps if you are a millionaire. There is no age limitation up to 60; there is no limitation on income. In fact, 25 percent of the people already in AmeriCorps have family incomes of $50,000 or more. So when you hear of all these wonderful images of poor young children out there doing these things and this is what these programs are for, that is just a few examples. That is not the norm. What we should do is take this idea of community service, which is a very beneficial one, and focus it on the people who need it the most and create those work programs for the people who are already receiving the Government benefit, and that is people on welfare who desperately need, desperately need the opportunities that these kinds of worthwhile jobs--and many of them are worthwhile jobs--would have. So I am not against community service. I do not think anybody who stands up here says we are against community service. We believe community service is a laudable thing. We also believe it should still be a volunteer thing, not a paid position. I think it undermines the whole volunteer spirit in America if you take a selected class of people and say these people are somehow better volunteers, and therefore should be paid, than those who are not. So again, I commend the Senator from Georgia for his idealism, but I think we can better focus it on the people who are in need, the people who already receive Government assistance, the people who need the opportunity to move forward as opposed to folks who are being targeted for the AmeriCorps Program today. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. That is amazing.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I want to continue the discussion on the Dole amendment which, again, provides an additional cut in spending of $1.3 billion for this fiscal year, the year we are in right now. It would supersede the Daschle amendment that would put back another $1.3 billion in spending, and it leaves in place the $1.3 billion that was going to be taken away from the original purpose of this bill, which was a disaster relief fund. So $1.3 billion is scheduled to go to California under this bill. Again, the reason for this bill even being here is because of the earthquake disaster in California. The amendment of the Democratic leader takes $1.3 billion, takes that away, and replaces it with a whole bunch of other programs. What we do is leave the money there, take his programs away and, in fact, reduces the deficit by $1.3 billion more. We think that is the general direction that we should try to reduce the deficit and programs that we believe merit further scrutiny and reduction without being disruptive here in the middle of a fiscal year. One of the programs, as the Senator from Iowa just very articulately said, is the AmeriCorps Program. This is the one area where not only is there a contention whether we should cut it, but where the Democratic leader wants to increase funding for AmeriCorps from the current bill, and the majority leader wants to decrease funding from the bill. It is the one area we have in common on the two amendments, but we are going in opposite directions. I think it is appropriate, because it probably represents the best discussion of the differences between the direction of the two parties when it comes to the role of Government in providing services to individuals, and, really, the concept of what Government should do and what can be left to the private sector. Interestingly enough, we have a program such as the AmeriCorps Program which hires Corps volunteers. Most people say, if you hire someone, they are no longer a volunteer. That is somehow lost on the people who created the AmeriCorps Program, because hiring a volunteer is, in fact, part of the vernacular. They hire volunteers in the AmeriCorps. What do the volunteers get paid? We heard the number around here, I will give you a number, from Wisconsin, which is put together by Representative Tom Petri from Wisconsin. That AmeriCorps volunteer, the one who was, in fact, mentioned by President Clinton, I guess it is Kentucky, a woman who was mentioned by President Clinton in his speech on the state rural Kentucky, a compelling story that the President used during his State of the Union Address. This person gets paid $9,000--not a lot of money--but $9,000 in stipend pay. In addition, she gets a voucher to pay for her higher education of a little over $5,000; she gets roughly $8,000 in child care benefit paid to by the Government under this program; she gets Medicaid coverage which is $4,000 for her family of five; because most of her benefits are tax free she qualifies for another $3,200 in earned income tax credits, making this job that she has equivalent to a job that pays $34,000 in the private sector. Now, that is a lot for a volunteer. I happen to agree with what the President of the Ohio-West Virginia YMCA said: The national service movement is about institutionalizing Federal funding for national and community service. It is about changing the language and the understanding of service to eliminate the words ``volunteer'' and ``community service'' and in their place implant the idea that service is something paid for by the Government. That was someone from the YMCA. This is dangerous program. People say, wow, dangerous program. Is that not extreme? How can this program be dangerous? This is dangerous to the whole philosophy of who America is, what we are all about. Are we a country that is a great country because we have great Government employees? I would think that the people around the world look at America and they say we are a great country, but probably not anywhere in their top 50 of their reasons is that we have great bureaucrats, that is the reason America is a great country. I can guarantee on the top 10 of any list is that America has a great spirit of community and helping your neighbor and voluntarism. As de Tocqueville said, ``America is great because it is good. When it ceases being good, it will no longer be great.'' Paying volunteers decreases our goodness. It is not the American spirit. It is not reaching out to help your neighbor just because they are neighbors, not because you get paid for it. Do not tell me all these compassionate stories of how these people are so wonderful because they are helping. They are wonderful. It is great to help. But they are no different than the insurance agent who helps someone who comes and has their car wrecked and comes and helps then. It is their job. It is a wonderful job. It is an important job. It is necessary for the insurance person who helps. But do not raise this to some elevated standard of national and community service when, in fact, it is paid bureaucrat. I have a suggestion. I happen to agree that there is a lot of work out there that can and should be done by folks in the genre of the AmeriCorps Program. We have a solution for that. It targets the people who need the jobs. It targets the people that need the training, who need the work experience. I heard the Democratic leader say ``all these young people in AmeriCorps.'' Again, talk to the facts. You can be 60 years of age and be in AmeriCorps. It is not focused at young people. You can be a multimillionaire and you can be in AmeriCorps. There is no age other than up to 60, and there is no income qualifications. Now, I can tell Members that we have a pool of people who desperately need help, who desperately want to work to feel that they can give back. The community needs them as much as they need the community. It is people on public assistance. People on welfare. We create a program as we do in the Republican welfare reform bill that puts people needing job skills, training, and just some success in their life, give them the opportunity to go out and work that job. Why not give them the chance? Why give some rich doctor's kid $34,000 a year to go to school? That is not what this program should be about. That is not a program, I do not think, this body wants to defend. It sounds so grand and it sounds so wonderful when they talk about how wonderful voluntarism is, but, folks, look at the facts. As well-meaning as this program is, this is a program that is another social experiment based in Washington that is destructive of our nature and our character as Americans. We should end it. Quickly, decisively, and hopefully, tomorrow. I reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. SANTORUM. How much time is remaining on the Republican side?