Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. He is chasing the wrong--in this case, the dog is chasing the wrong person. What you end up chasing is chasing very skilled technical people and very highly competent managers of people out of the business who want to be more and more competitive. Again, I chair the subcommittee on Acquisition and Technology. My real concern here in the committee is the technological advances. What we are hearing in the testimony is more and more we will have to go out into the commercial sector and get the technology that is being put together in the commercial sector to bring that into the defense area at a lower cost that is more efficient and more effective. If we limit the compensation, we are just simply not going to get those commercial entities involved in the defense industry. That is a real crime. We are giving up resources and talent and capability by limiting it, as we are here, to a salary of one-quarter of what a shortstop of the Pittsburgh Pirates makes who bats--actually the shortstop is batting over .200, but not much over .200 right now. That is not right. And I think it is counterproductive for national security. I reserve the remainder of my time. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. I would agree with the Senator from Virginia. The Senator from Iowa has been a dogged--I don't mean to use metaphor-- dogged in his watchdog of the Federal Treasury. But he is chasing----

Mr. SANTORUM. That is correct.

Mr. SANTORUM. What would happen is a couple of things. According to the Grassley amendment, it is my understanding they would be roped in no matter whether they did any work or not. They would be covered under this because their company is. It doesn't limit it just to people involved in defense contracts. It is anybody in the country. That is No. 1. No. 2, it would shift the cost of paying those salaries away from the defense contract to the private sector, which would make them less competitive out there in the private commercial sector, which would then probably say, Look, we can't be as competitive out there in the private sector. We are just going to walk away from this defense contract.

Mr. SANTORUM. That is correct. The amount of money that will be allocated to defense contracts would limit his salary to a percentage which would be probably below what he would be paid otherwise.

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the Senator from Virginia whatever time he needs.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may need. I want to respond very briefly. The Senator from Iowa says it is a market decision on how much people should be compensated. They use the term ``executive compensation.'' This is not a limitation on that; it is a limitation on anyone's compensation. They do not designate certain executives, as we do in our underlying bill. We designate the top five executives. They limit it to every person in the company, including maybe that guy who sits in the cubical and doesn't come out very much and drinks a lot of coffee, who makes the place run because he has all the ideas. He may not be the executive, but he is the brains behind all the research going on in that company. They limit him, too. Let's understand that. They said it is a market decision. Well, it is only a market decision as to what you pay your people if you have other markets, because if you are just in the defense market and have cost-type contracts, the decision is made by the Senator from Iowa, not by the company, because the Senator from Iowa will say, if your company does defense work and you have cost-type contracts, you can only get paid this amount, no matter whether everybody else--those brilliant technologists--get paid a lot more somewhere else, like in Hollywood, which is where they will go. It is not a market decision. It is in some cases, but not always, and those are the cases I am most worried about. The Senator from California is suggesting that I was concerned about how much executives got paid. I said during my statement, and I will repeat it, that I don't care how much executives get paid. I care about keeping the best and brightest, particularly the people with the technology and the skills, those needed skills, to work in the sector that does work particularly for national security. When we limit compensation--at least that is what is being suggested--to those individuals who are out there on the leading edge of technology and we drive them out of the Government procurement area--particularly in the area of national security--we have hurt the national security of this country. I know it wasn't deliberately intended to do that, but that is exactly what this does. I would, in fact, change the name. I think our underlying bill is an executive compensation amendment or provision. The Boxer-Grassley amendment is a scientist compensation limitation amendment. Let's call it what it is because it doesn't just limit executives. In particular, it gets scientists compensation who work for defense contractors or for contractors in the national security area. That is a very serious decision this Senate is going to make today as to whether we are going to go out and drive the leading-edge technology people in this country out of national security issues and put them--maybe there is a motive here, to send them out to California to work for the movie industry. Maybe that is what is involved. I say that tongue-in-cheek, but that is exactly what will happen, and that is not right. That is not in the best interest of this country. As the Senator from Iowa points out so eloquently, these caps on executives for the big companies don't work. Why? Well, quite aside from any claim of fraud or not telling us the real numbers is that a lot of the contracts that these corporations have are not cost-type contracts. They are fixed-price contracts. So the executives can get paid anything they want on fixed-price contracts, because as long as they deliver the item being procured at a certain price, they can pay anybody in the organization anything, and they do. That is OK as long as they give it to us for what we agreed to pay them for it. So to suggest that somehow this cap works on lowering the compensation of high-priced executives in big corporations, it doesn't work; it will never work. We will come back every year with these charts because we don't do all cost-type contracts, nor should we. In fact, it goes against one of the things we have been pushing for in reform of our acquisition in defense. Instead of just looking at low cost, we look at best value. We look at the best value for the taxpayer--not just cost, but value. And so what I think we are going to increasingly see is that this amendment is, in a sense, irrelevant for the large companies, but incredibly relevant for the small defense contractors who are leading-edge, doing leading-edge technology, many of whom are in California, I might add, and some of whom are in Pennsylvania, I am proud to say. But we are going to lose those people--the best and the brightest in the science fields--to industries other than national security, and that would be the crime if this amendment would succeed. I yield to the chairman for such time as he may consume.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I yield such time as the Senator from Virginia may need.

Mr. SANTORUM. The answer is yes. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. You then accept the fact that by limiting the compensation to everybody, particularly those firms that do 90 or even more percentage of their work with the Federal Government, you in effect put a salary cap on everybody at that firm, even the scientists, who they have to go out and compete for?

Mr. SANTORUM. Is the Senator aware there are many businesses that contract with defense and other Government agencies that do primarily, almost exclusively, Government work? Are you aware that there are many companies involved that do that?

Mr. SANTORUM. The answer is yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Again I ask the question, does it apply to people who are scientists, who, as the Information Technology Association of America said, people with highly technical skills? Do they apply to this cap?

Mr. SANTORUM. It does not limit just to executives?

Mr. SANTORUM. Your amendment limits it just to executives?

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the memory of one of the most beloved sons of Pennsylvania, Mr. Jimmy Stewart. A native of Indiana County, Mr. Stewart honored all of us by identifying himself, in the fullest sense, as one of us. Throughout his career, he was hailed as the Everyman, the quintessential American male, an example of ``inspired averageness,'' as one writer put it. And that was his special gift--doing the extraordinary in a way that didn't call attention to itself. But what he did with his life, what he accomplished, did, in the end, call attention to itself, because Jimmy Stewart was not ordinary. In ``Liberty Valance,'' one of Mr. Stewart's movies in which he plays a Senator returning to town for a rancher's funeral, a newsman says to him: ``This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.'' I would like to recall today, Mr. President, how the fact of Jimmy Stewart became the legend. Because with Mr. Stewart, the fact and the legend are one. Jimmy Stewart was born in Indiana, PA in 1908. His father owned the local hardware store and he always retained ties to his hometown and the traditions that it embodied for him. As he himself said, ``This is where I made up my mind about certain things--about the importance of hard work and community spirit, the value of family, church and God.'' He graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1932 with a degree in architecture and even did well enough to earn a scholarship to pursue graduate studies in that field. But it was acting he chose to pursue and he would eventually appear in 71 films, among them some of the best ever produced, such as ``The Philadelphia Story,'' ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' ``It's a Wonderful Life,'' and ``Rear Window.'' For someone with a reputation for uncomplicated wholesomeness, the successful portrayal of so many diverse characters in so many films suggests, as others have remarked, the possession of something more-- something deeper and more compelling than simple wholesomeness, although he had that too. This ``something more'' was seen most clearly, perhaps, in Mr. Stewart's exemplary service in World War II. When other stars were content to remain at home and fulfill their patriotic obligation in less hazardous ways, Jimmy Stewart willingly left a thriving and prosperous film career to enlist in the Army Air Corps. He enlisted as a private and by 1945 had attained the rank of colonel. He also aggressively campaigned for combat duty and would eventually fly 20 dangerous missions over enemy territory as a command pilot. By war's end, he had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the French Croix-de-Guerre, and the Air Medal. He stayed active in the Air Force Reserve and retired a brigadier general, the highest rank ever attained by a professional entertainer. Just as he had the humility to leave a successful film career to be a soldier like any other in that war, he also had the modesty to return to acting and wonder if he could reclaim a place in Hollywood. And he did, of course. ``It's a Wonderful Life'' was his first film after the war and it not only returned him to American movie audiences, it gave us and every future generation the wonderful character of George Bailey. George Bailey, who changed so many lives without even knowing it. And, of course for many of us, Jimmy Stewart was George Bailey. Someone who succeeded in so many ways without ever appearing to fully realize how extraordinary those achievements were. Jimmy Stewart continued to distinguish himself as a citizen, as an actor, and a devoted husband and father for the rest of his life. Once he retired from the movies, he remained active in charitable and community work, wrote poetry and became an ardent champion of film preservation, often coming to Washington to testify before Congress on the subject of colorizing old black and white films--a practice he opposed. With his death, he leaves two twin daughters and a son. He also leaves millions of devoted fans who admired him as much for his work as for the exemplary character and intelligence he projected throughout his lifetime. Jimmy Stewart once said that he agreed to do ``It's a Wonderful Life'' because of one line in it: ``Nobody is born to be a failure.'' He believed that ordinary Americans, in their everyday life, could, and did, do extraordinary things. Jimmy Stewart may have behaved as if he were just like everyone else. And he may have even believed it himself. But he really wasn't. He wasn't average at all. It was simply a final act of skill and generosity that he let us believe he was.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments of Senate business to give a special word of thanks to the Tasty Baking Co. for its generosity to some very special inner-city children. As many of my colleagues may recall, the Philadelphia Flyers recently faced the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals. To make the game a bit more interesting, Senator Abraham and I placed a friendly wager on the outcome. Unlike most interests in this series, the junior Senator from Michigan and I each picked a food donor and an inner-city school that would receive a complimentary party. If the Flyers lost, the Tasty Bakery agreed to donate 800 Tastykakes--400 to Warren G. Harding Elementary School in Detroit and 400 to William Penn High School in Philadelphia. If the Red Wings lost, Little Caesars Pizza would give a pizza party to both schools. Regardless of the outcome, the children stood to win. Mr. President, I'm sorry to say that the Flyers did not bring the Stanley Cup back home to Pennsylvania. So, on June 16, the students of William Penn enjoyed their complimentary Tastykakes and Crazy Bread-- which Little Caesars graciously donated despite the Red Wings' victory. Recently, the children of Warren G. Harding Elementary celebrated their victory party. In closing, I would like to thank Little Caesars and the men and women at the Tasty Bakery for making these parties possible. I would particularly like to thank Kathleen Grim, Tasty Bakery's manager of community affairs, for coordinating this effort. I ask my colleagues to join me in extending the Senate's best wishes for continued success to the Tasty Bakery in Philadelphia, PA.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre upon her retirement as president of the Philadelphia School District's Board of Education. Dr. Hayre is a remarkable woman whose successful career was built on the strong work ethic she developed early in life. At the age of 15, Dr. Hayre graduated with honors from West Philadelphia High School. After winning the mayor's scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, she earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Once Ruth completed her studies, she began a distinguished career in the field of education. Dr. Hayre's teaching career began at Arkansas State College, but eventually, Ruth returned to Philadelphia to teach English at Sulzberger Junior High School. At William Penn High School, she was promoted from teacher to vice principal and then to principal. Dr. Hayre's achievements are even more impressive considering that she was the very first African-American teacher in the Philadelphia school system, the first African-American high school teacher, and the first African-American principal of a Philadelphia senior high school. Still, this was only the beginning. Ruth rose to the position of superintendent of district four. Once again, her list of firsts grew, since she was the first African-American superintendent of a Philadelphia public school. On December 2, 1985, she received an appointment to the Philadelphia Board of Education. Five years later, Dr. Hayre was unanimously elected president of the board--becoming the first female to hold this position. In 1991, she was reelected as president of the board. Moreover, she has taught a course in urban education and administration at the University of Pennsylvania. After years of dedication to the children of Philadelphia, she is retiring this year. In addition to her commitment to education, Ruth has served her community in numerous other ways. She has served on the boards of many prestigious organizations including Blue Cross, the Philadelphia Council of Boy Scouts, the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, the Educational Alumni of the University of Pennsylvania, and most currently, the Dr. Ruth W. Hayre Scholarship Fund. Dr. Hayre is also actively involved in religious, civic, and community service organizations such as the Northeasterners, the Coalition of 100 Black Women, and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Dr. Hayre has received numerous awards and commendations for her contributions to the field of education. For instance, the Governor of Pennsylvania honored her as a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania for establishing the Wings to Excellence Program at William Penn High School. Likewise, she received the Philadelphia Award for her efforts to provide quality education for all. The University of Pennsylvania and Temple University have each granted her honorary doctoral degrees. Similarly, she received national recognition for establishing a fund at Temple University to provide college tuition for 119 graduates of the sixth grade classes of the Kenderton and Wright Schools who complete high school and are admitted to an accredited college. All of her achievements notwithstanding, Dr. Hayre once remarked that her greatest accomplishment was, ``Being a wife, a mother, and a grandmother.'' Mr. President, Dr. Hayre is truly a great American. She has dedicated her life to one of the single most important vocations--educating young people. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Dr. Ruth W. Hayre for her life-long accomplishments and in extending the Senate's best wishes for continued happiness as she retires.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment for myself and Senator Lieberman that would extend the authority of the Department of Defense to consider alternative approaches to the fulfillment of the education and training requirements in the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act in chapter 87 of title 10, United States Code. In the report to accompany the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998, the Armed Services Committee noted its continuing concern with ensuring that our defense acquisition workforce has the necessary education and training support for the new environment in Government acquisition. Section 812 of the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993 directed the Department of Defense to develop alternative standards for the fulfillment of the training requirements for the acquisition workforce under the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act. These standards will sunset on October 1 of this year. The amendment I am offering would extend the life of these fulfillment standards for an addition 2 years. This extension will allow the DOD to explore alternatives to formal internal training programs, including completion of courses outside of the Department of Defense educational system.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. SANTORUM. If this amendment is adopted, there is no money for tax cuts, if that money was available from extra funds. I do not think that is a good idea. I think it hamstrings Congress. If there is extra money, we should give it back to the people who paid it here. We should not be putting it into more Government spending. No. 1, my understanding is that this violates the Budget Act and is subject to a point of order.

Mr. SANTORUM. I would like to associate myself with the comments of my colleague, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise in very strong support of the bill that came out of the Finance Committee, the tax bill that provides tremendous tax relief for all Americans, because what this bill is aimed at doing is creating jobs, creating opportunities, getting an infusion of capital so we can increase our productivity. Those are the kinds of things I thought we were going to be debating on the floor of the Senate. I thought we were going to talk about how we can create economic growth, how we can create better jobs for people, how the people at the bottom end of the economic strata can rise as a result of the opportunities that are available in the United States. And now what the Senate has evolved into today has been a bunch of charges that this isn't fair, that we should not look at economic opportunities or growth or jobs, a tune that is heard often here--jobs, jobs, jobs. We shouldn't look at job creation; we shouldn't look at economic growth; we should look at what is fair, who is getting the benefit, and we should draw class warfare lines in the sand here. I just want to, if I can--I hate to even sort of get down, though, to that level, but that has really been the focus of this debate. I want to throw out--I hesitate to do this because we just get numbered to death in the Senate, but let me throw out a couple of numbers that I think are very easy to understand. The top 20 percent of income earners in this country, the rich, the top 20 percent pay 79 percent of all income taxes. The top 20 percent pay 79 percent of all income taxes. Now, they pay 79 percent of all taxes. What percentage of the tax cuts in this bill do the ``rich'' get? Twenty-two percent. In other words, the group that pays three-quarters of the tax get one-fifth of the benefit. And this is being charged as a tax break for the rich. If I were rich, I would say you are ripping me off. I am paying all the taxes and everybody else is getting all the benefit. But, no, they come here to the floor and they charge this is unfair; these people who are poor need tax cuts. Well, let me just straighten this out a little bit. Thirty-seven percent, the ``bottom 37 percent,'' of income earners in this country pay no taxes net. In other words, with the tax credits and the EITC and the other things that are out there, they pay no Federal income taxes. Now, I do not know how you give tax cuts to people who do not pay taxes, but that is what the other side wants to do. In fact, if you go deeper into the analysis, you find that not only does the bottom 37 percent pay no Federal income taxes, the bottom 20 percent pays no payroll taxes net. In other words, all that money, the FICA that you have to pay out for Social Security and Medicare, if you are in the bottom 20 percent of income earners in this country, you get more back in earned-income tax credit than you pay out in payroll taxes. But that isn't good enough. So people are getting--not only do they pay no income taxes, they pay no payroll taxes. In fact, they get more back than they pay. The other side wants to give them even more money. I am not opposed to helping people out, but where is this money coming from? It is coming from people who are paying taxes, people who are in the middle class who have been paying taxes for the last 16 years at very high rates, who deserve a break. I am really about up to here with people running around saying we are for tax breaks for the middle class, but what they propose is welfare for people who pay no taxes. So let us get it straight. I am going to offer a resolution, a sense of the Senate, that says Federal income tax relief should go to people who pay Federal income taxes. Now, you would think that that would be a joke, that everybody would vote for that--anybody who pays Federal income tax would be the only ones eligible to get tax relief--but, unfortunately, you are going to find a whole bunch of people who are not going to vote for that. That is how far we have come. This is ``Washingtonspeak.'' For those of you who have not been in Washington very long, welcome, and this is what it is like. People actually stand around here and talk about giving tax breaks to people who do not pay taxes. While people who do pay taxes, anybody, is rich. Anybody who pays taxes in this country, by definition of what the Democratic plan is, is rich. If that is where we have come in America, then I think the Founding Fathers will be turning over in their graves because they thought they created the land of opportunity where people were rewarded for working hard, for taking care of their families, for providing for themselves. What we are saying here is you are the bad guys, you are the ones who have to pay more.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we had this debate during the welfare reform bill in the last session of Congress. We said we wanted people who are on welfare to work, not to go into more education and training. There is a time for that. We allow for education and training, but at a certain point in time we are going to require people to go to work. Now, what this amendment says is, no, you do not have to go to work; continue education and training. This is a weakening of the work requirement. This is not going to get people into the workplace to learn the skills necessary to be competitive and to get good jobs and to improve their future. This is more of the same what we have been doing here in Washington prior to the welfare reform bill. The President did not request this change. It is not in the budget agreement. It was not anything that anyone advocated. It should be defeated. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.