Alan Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. 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 30, 1996, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on California and affirmative action.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I believe now we should go to the regular order, and we are prepared to do that. cloture motion

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate and recognize the concerns of the Senator from Idaho [Mr. Craig] and our other colleagues in this area. I commend my colleagues for coming here with a concrete, compromise proposal and respectfully suggest the most appropriate next step would be to fully consider this proposal in the Immigration Subcommittee. The H-2A program was intended to fulfill all the purposes my friend mentions and I do want to work with my colleagues to make certain this program is workable and meets the needs it is intended to meet.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I withdraw the pending motion to recommit and amendment No. 3744.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I know there is an obligation for many of us at 6:45. I am going to be very brief, and I will cover this issue in more complete detail tomorrow so that we might meet those obligations. This is a very fascinating amendment. It is, I gather, a list of only the issues or the programs that would be deemed to be income. I hope people can hear what we are trying to do here. There are two choices: Either the sponsor pays for a legal immigrant or the taxpayers do. That is about the simplest kind of discussion I can come to. This issue of deeming is very simple. Deeming is this, and I hope we can try to keep toward this in the debate: The purpose of deeming is to make the sponsor of the immigrant responsible for the needs of the immigrant relative, that immigrant relative that the sponsor brought to this country. Everything we have done here with regard to this immigration issue, including the new affidavit support requirements, says if you bring your relative to the United States, you are going to be sure that they do not become a public charge. That has been the law since 1884 in the United States of America. The question is very simple. Either you deem the income of the sponsor, and every other thing that this person is going to get, or the taxpayer will pave to pick up the slack. That is where it is. Any other assistance will be required to be picked up by the citizens of the United States. If you are going to be specific, as in this amendment--and remember that we are told that this is for clarity--these are the issues, these are the programs that are deemed to be judged as support. We have not even talked about Medicaid, Pell grants, State general assistance, legal services, low-income heating, as if they were not there. This is one that needs the clear light of morning, the brilliant sun coming over the eastern hills so we can pierce this veil, because this is a concept that will assure that someone who sponsors a legal immigrant will be off the hook and that an agency will provide services and not be able to go back against the sponsor. Ladies and gentlemen, the whole purpose of this exercise is to say, ``If you bring in a legal immigrant, you give an affidavit of support, you pledge that your assets are considered to be the assets of that person. And that will be so for 5 years or until naturalization. And if you do not choose to do that, then know that the sponsor is off the hook and the taxpayers are on the hook.'' I do not think that is what the public charge provision of the law ever would have provided. With that, Mr. President, unless the Senator from Florida has something further, I will go to wrap up, if I may. I thank the Senator from Florida for his courtesy.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as always, over the years, in dealing with this issue of illegal immigration and legal immigration, I appreciated the courtesies and attention of the Senator from Massachusetts. That is evident again. He has a very serious issue he wants to bring before the U.S. Senate. We understand that. I understand that. I would be doing the same were I in his role. I do regret that the procedural aspects of the last few days made it appear that we were doing the business all over here, and that was unfortunate. We moved some amendments without, perhaps, doing the usual procedure of back and forth and back and forth. So we will now go to Senator Graham, and that is the Cuban Adjustment Act rather than the Cuban- Haitian. It is not a Cuban-Haitian issue. It is a Cuban Adjustment Act issue. I will define it as an anachronism, and in other terms, a little later. And then he may, if he desires, go forward with a second amendment to reduce my level of guilt.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President I thank the Senator from Florida. This is an issue that continues, and I hope my colleagues can hear it and understand what it is that we have done here over the years. This is the Cuban Adjustment Act. It has not anything to do with the Cuban-Haitian Adjustment Act. This is a measure that went on the books in the early 1960's when the freedom flotillas were bringing in hundreds of thousands of Cubans who were being given parole. People say, ``What is parole?'' It is a very distinctive remedy. It is just bringing them here, really outside the scope of immigration laws, in a sense. It is a temporary status, and the only way to change to permanent status is through adjustment. Hence, the Cuban Adjustment Act. The Cuban Adjustment Act is a relic of the freedom flights of the 1960's and freedom flotillas in the late 1970's. The Senate repealed it first in 1982, if I recall, and then it went to the House, and it was left out of conference. The Senate has repealed it again--I do not recall that date--and it was replaced in conference. At the time of the original Cuban Adjustment Act--it was a time of crisis, obviously a time of crisis has been continuing in that part of the world--Cubans were brought to the United States by the tens of thousands, even the hundreds of thousands. Most were given this parole status, which is this indefinite status which you cannot remain in, and it requires an ``adjustment'' in order to receive a permanent immigrant status in the United States. So since we welcomed these Cubans, and we should have, and we intended that they remain here, the Cuban Adjustment Act provided--and here is the issue--that after 1 year in the United States of America all Cubans could claim a green card and become permanent residents here. Since 1980, we have discouraged, thoroughly discouraged the illegal entry of Cubans, and there is no longer any need for the Cuban Adjustment Act. The provision in the bill which repeals the Cuban Adjustment Act exempts--and I hope all hear this--those Cubans who come under the current agreement between the Castro Government and the Clinton administration. Those 20,000 Cubans per year who are chosen by lottery and otherwise to come here, under that agreement they will be able to have their status adjusted under the committee bill provisions. There is no change in the status of those people. However, other than that one exception, there is simply no need for the Cuban Adjustment Act, and it should be repealed. It is very clear. No other group or nationality in the world, regardless of what is going on in their country, no other group or nationality in the world, in the entire world is able to get a green card merely by coming to the United States legally or illegally and remaining here for a year. That is what you have here. It is an extraordinary thing. Millions of persons who have a legal right to immigrate, to join family here, are waiting in the backlog sometimes for 15 or 20 years. It makes no sense to allow a Cuban to come here illegally on a raft or an inner tube or to fly in with a visitor's visa to see friends in Miami and then simply stay on a year, violating our laws in doing so, and then be rewarded with the most precious thing we can give, and that is the green card. It strains all reason. You have a situation where a person comes on a tourist visa, goes immediately to the home of a relative in Florida, stays there, to be sure to pick up a receipt or show something they did with a date on it, a rent receipt or something, and in a year you go into the INS and you show anything you have to show that you have been here a year and you get a green card. We do not do that with people fleeing the most oppressive realms on the Earth. We do not do it with anybody. It is a total anachronism. It does not fit. I know that we are all trying to whack Cuba and whack Castro. I am ready to do that day and night. I admire what Senator Helms has been up to on that. There are others--Senator Graham, Senator Connie Mack--I understand that, and I have joined that. But if we are going to have a law on the books which does not have anything to do with oppression, it has to do with the most remarkable lapse that we can ever imagine in our immigration law, the Cuban Adjustment Act I think should be repealed. Even though this is a different and quite unique amendment than previously, it still is a situation where it is the only country on the face of the Earth where you come, stick around a year under any circumstances--even if you violated the law--and walk in and get a green card, whereas if anybody else did that, if they had their adjustment lapse, they would be pitched. So that is where we are. It is an interesting vote again. We will make the decision and move on. It has been thoroughly debated in years past, and I admire my friend from Florida. You cannot represent Florida and not do this. Senator Connie Mack is the same. And I understand that. For anyone who would miss the significance, this is very critically important for them to be doing, and they do it with great directness and authenticity, and I commend them. Mr. President, since there seems to be a lack of spirited debate on this issue, I wonder if the Senator from Florida would wish to go forward with the second amendment and perhaps debate that and then when Senator Kennedy returns, I believe he is supporting the Senator's position, is that not correct? Is Senator Kennedy supporting the Senator's position on this? I am trying to determine if we have proponents and opponents, but we need not do that. If the Senator is ready to go forward with the second amendment, I would ask that we simply set aside this amendment for the moment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SIMPSON

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

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes it business today it stand in adjournment until the hour of 9 a.m., Tuesday, April 30, further, that immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date, no resolutions come over under the rule, the call of the calendar be dispensed with, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, and there then shall be a period for morning business until the hour of 10 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each, except for the following: Senator Chafee and Senator Breaux for a total of 60 minutes. I further ask unanimous consent that immediately following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the immigration bill, and that the Senate recess from the hours of 12:30 p.m., to 2:15 p.m., for the weekly policy conferences to meet.

Mr. SIMPSON

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

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send a joint resolution to the desk and ask unanimous consent that it be placed on the calendar.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 1664, the immigration bill, and the pending amendment offered by Senator Graham, tomorrow morning. Senators are encouraged to offer their germane amendments to the Simpson amendment throughout the day, therefore, rollcall votes may occur prior to the 12:30 recess, and can be expected throughout Tuesday's session. A cloture motion was filed to the immigration bill this evening, therefore, that cloture vote will occur on Wednesday. As a reminder, under the provisions of rule XXII, Senators have until the hour of 12:30 tomorrow in order to file first- degree amendments to the underlying bill, S. 1664.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I believe we are at the order of business under the previous order.

Mr. SIMPSON. Which is to go to the illegal immigration bill, is that correct?

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam President, I think we may be nearly ready to properly proceed to a rollcall vote on this issue. And then I think that will remove greater delay, as we move into the other items that are in the amendments that we are presently aware of. I hope that people with amendments will submit those, giving us an opportunity on both sides of the aisle to see what amendments there may be yet forthcoming, because at some point in time--maybe today--we can close the list of amendments so that at least we would have some perspective. I have given up one or two of my amendments--one that Senator Feingold and I debated in committee. I have withdrawn that. I hope that that marvelous, generous act will stimulate others to do such a magnanimous thing as to take one of their ``babies,'' one of their very wonderful things, and lay it to rest, perhaps. In any event, I think that we are nearly ready to proceed to a final vote on that. I think anything else I would say would be repetitive, other than to say that the choices are clear. To do all the things we want to do, which play upon your heartstrings, you have to raise the numbers. If you do not raise the numbers, then you have to make priorities. If you are making priorities, it was my silly idea that you ought to have the priorities as minor children and spouses, and not adult brothers and sisters. That is where my numbers would come from. No mystery. That is where they would come from. They would go to spouses and minor children and come from adult brothers and sisters, who, in my mind, are removed from the immediate family category. That comes with wife, children, mother, father. All of us surely will remember that that is from whence we all sprang. We can proceed, hopefully. I yield the floor.

Mr. SIMPSON. I think we have had a good debate. I listened attentively to the remarks of my friend from Texas. I heard him speak of a woman who is remarkable, Wendy Gramm. I can only tell him that people have told me many times in the past years that anyone who knows Senator Phil Gramm and Senator Al Simpson and knows Wendy Gramm and Ann Simpson, knows that the two of us severely overmarried--severely. In fact, a lot of people do not vote for us; they vote for them. But that is just an experience that I share. As we close the debate, I hope we can keep this in perspective. We will continue to have the most open door of any country in the world, regardless of what we do here. The numbers in my amendment are higher than they have been for most of the last 50 years. We will continue to have the most generous immigration policy in the world. We take more immigrants than all the rest of the world combined. We take more refugees than all the rest of the countries in the world combined. That is our heritage. We have never turned back. An interesting country, started by land gentries, highly educated people, sophisticates who came here for one reason--to have religious freedom. The only country on Earth founded in a belief in God. That is corny nowadays, but that is what we have in America. And it will always be so. People who came here were not exactly ragamuffins. They read Locke and Montesquieu and Shakespeare and the classics. Interesting country. No other country will ever have a jump-start like that in the history of the world, period. So it is unique, it is extraordinary. Amendment No. 3737

Mr. SIMPSON. I believe Senator Gramm is coming to indicate his support against the amendment so we certainly will withhold. I just want to say to my friend from Michigan, I think what happens in issues like this is you establish a degree of trust. You may have your own views, but we do not lay snares on each other. That is a very important part of legislating--to establish trust, and then you get in there and belt it around and then you move on. That is what I do and have always done in 30 years of this work. I have been in some that are much, much more intense than this particular one. However, I do have to comment on the one thing that keeps coming back like a theme. Oh, then I wanted to say that there is one group the Senator left off of that list, the American immigration lawyers. You would not want to leave them off the list. They have messed up more legislation in this area than any living group, and they will continue to do it forever. This is their bread and butter. The bread and butter of the American immigration lawyers is confusion. And when you try to do something, you use families, children, mothers, sons and daughters, and violins. That is the way they work, but they never give us many other options, nor do the opponents ever give us many options. What priorities would you, I say to the opponents, like to take away if you do not raise the numbers? If you do not raise the numbers, what priorities of the preference system would you reduce? You cannot have it both ways. It cannot be. That is really one of the big issues. Then the argument is we need to separate legal and illegal immigration because legal immigration reform is so important that it deserves our full and separate consideration on the Senate floor. That is the theme of all of those who are opposed to this amendment. It is curious, very curious, that many, in the House at least, who support no benefits at all for permanent resident aliens, none, are talking about that as if it were separate and apart. I do not see how that can be. You are talking about permanent resident aliens. That means you are talking about illegal immigration and legal immigration. You cannot separate them. It is a purpose of the original measure--and I compliment those who created this remarkable--not the Senator from Michigan. Some of the think tanks, whoever, some of the Government reps. Give them the credit. When you see it work, give them the credit. I compliment them on that issue because here we are--and this is the curious part. They say out there, down the street, wherever they are, in support of the argument, that the House voted to divide the legal and illegal issues. That is very true. The House voted to split their bill, and I assume the same arguments were made about the importance of legal immigration and the need to deal with that separately. What actually occurred in the House is quite instructive. Legal immigration in the House is dead--dead. That is exactly what the message was in the House--dead. It will never get the careful and separate consideration that this body wishes to give to the issue-- period. That is exactly what many of those who complain about combining the issues want--death. They want to kill legal immigration in all of its reforms, in every form of reform as suggested by the Commission on Immigration Reform. They want to kill legal immigration reform in any form, in any incubation, in any rebirth, in any form in the Senate just as it has happened in the House. They do not want a reduction of numbers. They do not want reform of the priorities. They want death, and that has worked very well in the House. In the Senate, I appreciate the remarks of those in opposition because they are telling me they want a separate and careful consideration. I think that is great. I am going to wait for that. I am waiting for the separation. I will wait after this bill is finished to hear the separate and careful consideration of legal immigration. It is very pleasing to me to know that we will have that debate, I take it. I am overjoyed. Perhaps we can work out a time agreement. Perhaps we can work up the amendments. I would certainly drop away from some of the things. But to know that these things should be separated and to know with a heartening of my bosom that we will have that separate and careful consideration of legal immigration, that will be a very appropriate response at some future time. I think that all of us then will be looking forward to that because we know that in the House it was simply the death knell, and to hear it is not here is quite heartening. I thank the Chair. Mr. ABRAHAM addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join Senators Chafee and Breaux and the rest of the Centrist Coalition in announcing this bipartisan proposal for a balanced budget. This is a comprehensive plan that confronts our budget problems head on. I encourage all of my colleagues to take a serious look at it. I am particularly pleased that our plan partially corrects the inaccuracy of the Consumer Price Index [CPI]. What we propose is to reduce the CPI by one-half of a percentage point in 1997 and 1998--and by three-tenths of a percentage point thereafter--for purposes of computing cost of living adjustments [COLA's] and for indexing the Tax Code. While the AARP and other seniors groups will shriek and wail to the high heavens about this being some backdoor effort to cut Social Security benefits, that is not what is driving this issue. What we are striving to do is to have a more accurate CPI that reflects the true level of inflation. Last year, the Senate Finance Committee heard compelling testimony from Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and others who believe the CPI may be off the mark by as much as two percentage points. A commission appointed by the Finance Committee issued an interim report which estimates the CPI to be overstated in the range of 0.7 to 2.0 percentage points. The Coalition has selected the figure of 0.5 percentage points--which is a conservative estimate of how much the CPI is overstated--precisely because we want to avoid any perception that we are being unfair or unduly harsh. This modest step achieves $110 billion in savings over 7 years. This is not a popular proposal, but it is understood by us as a critically important component of our plan. Before I discuss other elements of our plan, let me join my colleagues in underscoring the importance of our product being received as a total package. Any balanced budget plan will have elements that we do not like. But we will all have to accept some of the undesirable in order not to lose all that is so necessary. Accordingly, this bipartisan budget plan also includes some very appropriate first steps toward slowing the growth of Medicare spending. These reforms would achieve $154 billion in savings over 7 years. From a long-term perspective, the most important reform is a provision that would conform the Medicare eligibility age with the Social Security retirement age. By gradually increasing the eligibility age to 67, this plan acknowledges that life expectancies are certainly higher now than when Medicare was first enacted in 1965. We also impose an affluence test on Medicare Part B premiums, beginning with individual seniors who have annual incomes exceeding $50,000 and couples who have incomes exceeding $75,000. I personally believe we should begin this affluence test at much lower income thresholds, but I realize that we simply do not have the votes to do that at this time. The Coalition plan also limits the future growth of Medicaid spending, saving $62 billion over 7 years. While our plan does not give the States as much flexibility as I would like to give them, I am willing to swallow these Medicaid reforms in the context of this comprehensive budget package, even though I might not be able to support them if they were to be considered separately in isolation from the broader package. I am absolutely convinced that the positive aspects of the total package are so critically important that they overwhelmingly outweigh certain concerns I have about the Medicaid provisions. On another front, our plan also calls for meaningful welfare reforms, including tough work requirements for welfare recipients and a 5-year time limit on cash assistance. At the same time, we include additional funds for child care assistance--thereby recognizing the importance of child care in helping recipients make the transition from welfare to self-sufficiency. Overall, these welfare reforms achieve another $45 billion in savings. In the area of taxes, many of us had to bite the bullet--and hard--on specific issues in order to reach consensus on the broad package. What we have here is a tax package that provides $130 billion in tax cuts. On the child tax credits, I have a personal concern about just giving away $250 for every child under the age of 17. But in the spirit of cooperation and consensus, we were able to address some of my objections by offering a real savings incentive if parents contribute $500 toward an individual retirement account established in the child's name. The tax package has something for everyone to like--and to dislike. I urge my colleagues to look at this package in its entirety. If we start picking it apart, the package will fail and the Coalition that worked so hard to bring this all together will collapse. This plan brings us to the goal we have all been working so hard to achieve--a balanced budget and tax cut package that ends deficit spending by the year 2002. Again, I urge all of my colleagues to consider this plan. Those who automatically reject the notion of a bipartisan budget will have no trouble finding one or two reasons to oppose it. But I am convinced that anyone who approaches this plan with an open mind--and a recognition that bipartisanship always requires some degree of compromise--will conclude that this is an impressive plan. It does not rely on gimmickry or smoke and mirrors. Instead, it makes the tough, politically unpopular decisions that Republicans and Democrats alike have been putting off for too long. It deserves our earnest support. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I shall not object. I do not think there is any need for all this activity, and I have the greatest respect. I am supposed to be up at 10 o'clock. So I am not going to lose any sleep on that. Let us proceed and then we will go to the regular order. Senator Murkowski can have 5 minutes and certainly Senator Bryan. There is no rule in the U.S. Senate in morning business, in any sense, that there be an accommodation on both sides. That is not morning business. It is the first one present and the first one seeking recognition. Really, I hope there will not be any acrimony with regard to that decision.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Caucus on International Narcotics Control be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 25 at 19:00 a.m. to receive testimony on the domestic consequences of illegal drug trade.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I move to table the motion to recommit and ask for the yeas and nays.

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

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