Alan Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, let us be very clear here, that will not happen. The House leadership told us, and I hold it not in any sense a directive or anything else, but the House leadership has told us whatever comes out of here in the form of the Craig-Simpson amendment will be acceptable to the House. There will be no slicing of salami. There will be no slicing of anything. In addition, that measure will not come up on Treasury-Postal. That is a critical thing. We cannot continue to delay the program because certain people have certain things they want. But there are certain things that are critical, not in the eyes of three Members of the House, but by the entire House, or at least a majority of the House. So that is why we have altered--altered?--we have slashed the measure to shreds and leave now the basic element of what we did in the Senate unanimously and the issue of the 501(h), which is a minimal, tremendously minimal requirement. This is not going to go back into the grinder. It is not going to come forward. But if you are looking for clarity and simplicity and speed, I can tell you, it will not come with a motion to strike, because the motion to strike will create a most horrendous reaction in the House which, again, is destructive of the process. So we are trying to get a crumb when we cannot get a loaf, and all of us who legislate know that. This is not any dramatic thing. The principal substance of it passed here on a voice vote, so it cannot be that bad.

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, indeed.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I would have no estimation of that. When we started our work months ago, I recall that it took us quite a while to find out how many 501(c)(4)'s there were, and how many of them really got into this lobbying game, and how many did not. But, we have not said, here, in this amendment, that only non-Federal funds are counted. We leave the formula to apply to Federal and non-Federal funds received, as is the current law. (Ms. SNOWE assumed the chair.)

Mr. SIMPSON. I do not know how better to explain the situation. If you are going to change this formula, obviously the means testing or affluence testing, as I call it, of part B premiums cannot be done properly if you are going to give more of a break to people regardless of their net worth or income.

Mr. SIMPSON. Obviously, it would. If we cannot maintain the current level of 31.5 percent, we are in deep trouble, to go back to 25, to strike everything we are trying to do in means testing.

Mr. SIMPSON. It was a very fine bipartisan vote of 15-5.

Mr. SIMPSON. That is correct.

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam President, I will not go further. The Senator and I will visit together and break bread and resolve this one. But there are existing limits on lobbying, on 501(c)(3) corporations, and everyone should hear that. And there have not then been improper restrictions of the use of private funds. No one is alleging violations. What is objectionable to me about the spending limits under 501(h) is why should they not cover those who are administering public money? I am interested in people who are administering public money. That is what I am interested in. And these people that give to the 501(3)(c)'s are called taxpayers. And in the case of Federal grantees, the taxpayer is contributing to them. They have no choice. Should they then be forced to support the various activities of those organizations that they do not concur with? Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam President, I am very pleased that question has been asked. That is the nub. Why? Why should an organization that receives tremendous amounts of money in dues, tremendous amounts of money in unrelated business activities, a tremendous benefit by mailing through the Federal postal authority--and I asked for only one when I started. But this amendment and my work pertains to every single one of these, whether from the Christian right to the evil left. I hope people are hearing this exactly because that is exactly what we are talking about. And the Senator from Tennessee is absolutely correct. What is the purpose of allowing that to occur when they receive money from the Federal Government, when in a sense they are awash in money and have an awesome power, which is called the unlimited lobbying expense? They can raise as much as they want and they can spend as much as they want without any limitation whatsoever, and then take the Federal grant money and make it fungible, which gives them more ability to try to get more money out of the Federal Government. I have a question that I might ask of the Senator from Michigan, since it is question time. Does the Senator from Michigan, Madam President, believe that the existing limits on lobbying by 501(c)(3) corporations are improperly restrictions of use of private funds?

Mr. SIMPSON. What page, Mr. President?

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Nebraska. I hear him clearly. I was kind of reviewing the continuing resolution and who did what to who--a good thing to do in political combat from time to time. I remember how those on the other side of the aisle would hang their laundry on the continuing resolutions in days of yore. I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, we are going to be here a long time, and I have eaten well and refreshed myself, and I will be glad to stay here for as long as it takes. [[Page S 16868]] My language does not seek to apply any penalties to anyone. It is not to strike at the first amendment. It is not to weave the web of a chilling effect. My question was the one I started on many weeks ago right here in this Chamber, which must have been somewhat acceptable to my colleagues, since the first vote on it was 57-20 or 30, whatever. The next time it passed unanimously. The rub is, should this Government give money--and I was, at that time, speaking of the AARP, which is a 501(c)(4) corporation, which has the power of unlimited lobbying expenditure--unlimited. I said, ``Why should the taxpayers of the United States cough up $86 million a year to the AARP or--listen carefully--to the NRA? I hope that people are listening to this. I am talking about every single 501(c)(4) corporation or the Heritage Foundation or the Christian Coalition--you name it; any one organization that gets Federal money, when they have the ability of unlimited lobbying activity--that is who I am after. You can decide what you wish to do with that. You can bring up every nuance of question, every shading of meaning. I hope--strange, wonderful thing that drives us around here--that you realize that 96 percent of all 501(c)(3)'s spend less than $25,000 on lobbying; 96 percent of all 501(c)(3)'s spends less than 25,000 bucks on lobbying. I can furnish those statistics. That may not answer your question. It may be a great diversion. I can tell you who we are after. I think I have explained that for the last several weeks. The Senator from Michigan was on the other side then. He will be on the other side tomorrow. He will be on the other side the day after tomorrow. So we should at least realize what it is we are addressing. We are talking about the big guys. That is why we put in the $125,000 provision. That is why we have done this, done that. We are after the big guys. We are not after the little guy. We are not after the soup kitchen people. We are after people who really ought to be addressed--and we will have hearings on it--on business activities, untaxed business activity. I hope the Senator from Michigan will help me on that, and I think he will because there is serious abuse with huge organizations that bring in unrelated business income. We will have some hearings on that. That is big time, big ticket. That is where we start. Where we will end, only the Senate knows.

Mr. SIMPSON. That is described in that way, yes. As I say, we are going to apply to all Federal grantees what is currently applied to 501(c)(3). I would now yield to my friend from Idaho, who has been absolutely superb in assistance with this matter, and I commend him greatly. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. That is the language that has to be identified from your previous legislation and the language of the two or three paragraphs of substantive legislation. Under that section we are applying to Federal grantees what is currently applied to 501(c)(3).

Mr. SIMPSON. I would say to my friend from Michigan, a 501(c)(3)--and that is what most of these are, that do good works out in the land--can spend more on lobbying if they get grant money. So we are not talking about those that serve the commonweal. We are talking about groups that come in before us in our offices and say we want to see more money for this program or that program or that program or that program. If they get Federal money, it frees up, it frees up--it is fungible, and they can go out and use more to do their lobbying after they offset that. Some have said, ``Well, if you take away the Federal money, we'll be able to do less for people.''

Mr. SIMPSON. Under current law, the groups can count Federal money toward allowed expenses for lobbying.

Mr. SIMPSON. If I might direct my comments through the Chair, I say to the Senator, it must be evident to many that these groups get Federal money, and then they lobby us for more Federal money, for Medicare, Medicaid--you name it--Social Security. That is what they do. And as 501(c)(4)'s, they have unlimited ability to lobby and unlimited amounts of money to spend in that process.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it is very important to hear this. Most of the 17 pages of definitions the Senator speaks of are the Senator's creation. These are definitions taken from Senator Levin's lobbying reform bill and maybe two or three paragraphs of the substance--nothing dramatic. We are not talking about the first amendment, I submit to my friend. We are not talking about the chilling effect. We are talking about responsibility, and what is the responsibility of the Federal Government in handing out grants to groups that then use the money to lobby the Federal Government for more money--using Federal money for that purpose, and that we ought not to have public moneys administered by political organizations in some cases, and that is exactly what this is about. It is not about the first amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. It has this additional matter. It retains fully the Simpson-Craig, or Craig-Simpson ban on grants to large 501(c)(4)'s. The definitions section has no expansion whatsoever, but it defines lobbying activities as passed by the Senate, in the lobbying reform bill of which the Senator from Michigan was very instrumental, and, of course, adds the definition of ``grant'' in that section. And then there is a reporting requirement. These are the only things added, so I want the Senator from Michigan to know--a bare-bones reporting requirement, which is that grantees must simply say whether they spent less than $25,000 on lobbying activities or estimate the amount if they spent more, and finally it also applies the 501(h) formula for lobbying to Federal grantees, not just 501(c)(3)'s, and that is it. It also says that if you will--I know the Senator from Michigan well. We want to remember that these groups, some of them, are huge. One of them is a $5.5 billion operation. They filed their returns, and they are not public. And we are saying that those returns will be public-- 501(c)(4)'s only. That is what this amendment does. That is all that it does.

Mr. SIMPSON. Under the Simpson amendment, which would come to the attention of the Senate first, the Istook language would be stricken, if it passes the Senate.

Mr. SIMPSON. There is a motion to strike. The motion to strike is amended by the series of amendments to fill the tree, as the Senator knows, of the Senator from Idaho and myself, to strike completely the Istook amendment and leave only behind something that passed here unanimously by voice vote, passed the Senate unanimously. It was called a restriction on 501(c)(4), and it had to do with a 501(c)(4) receiving Federal grants. And if they received Federal grants, they could not do unlimited lobbying. That passed here unanimously.

Mr. SIMPSON. Indeed.

Mr. SIMPSON. I hope that everyone hears that. That was magnificent work by my friend from Michigan, and he is addressing the language that I am striking. Everything the Senator from Michigan has said is what I have taken out. He has debated the Istook amendment, and we have stripped that. This is startling to me, because there is not anyone more adroit in this body than my old friend from Michigan, who came here when I did. Every single bit of the debate in these last minutes by the Senator from Michigan has addressed the Istook-McIntosh-Ehrlich amendment, and I and Senator Craig have struck it.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me, as chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, to summarize and comment briefly on legislation to grant to recipients of VA compensation and dependency and indemnity compensation [DIC] benefits a cost of living adjustment [COLA] increase, effective on checks delivered to them at the first of the year. This legislation is appropriate--even as we proceed this very week to each final agreements with the House on reconciliation measures. Mr. President, let me assure this body from the get-go that the Committee on Veterans Affairs will meet its reconciliation targets. Indeed, this legislation contains one provision--the so-called round- down provision that I will explain in just a moment--which will help the committee meet its targets. I give this assurance up front--just so all will be comfortable that this Senator has not suddenly gone soft and become a wild-eyed big spender. I surely have not. Even so, however, I believe that the recipients of veterans' compensation ought to receive a COLA--especially since we on the Veterans Committee have found a proper way to reach our reconciliation targets, and get this Nation on a path to a balanced budget, without denying such a COLA. This bill, which was approved unanimously by the Committee on Veterans' Affairs on September 20, 1995, is simple and straight- forward. It would grant to recipients of certain VA benefits--most notably, veterans with service-connected disabilities, who receive VA compensation, and the survivors of veterans who have died as a result of service-connected injuries or illnesses, who receive dependency and indemnity compensation or DIC--the same COLA that Social Security recipients will receive. So, for example, if Social Security recipients receive a 2.6-percent adjustment at the beginning of next year--as it appears they will--then so too would the beneficiaries of VA compensation and DIC. The bill would also do one other thing: It would modify the methodology by which VA computes the amount of monthly benefit checks, as so adjusted. VA benefits, Mr. President, are paid in round-dollar amounts. As a result, when a round-dollar benefit amount--say, as an example, the current benefit of $260 per month going to a 30-percent disabled veteran--is multiplied by a Consumer Product Index percentage of, say, 2.6 percent, it almost invariably yields a mathematical product that is not a round-dollar amount. In the case of a $260 benefit check, for example, a 2.6-percent increase would yield a nonrounded number of $266.76. VA practice, in the past, has been to round up fractional dollar amounts of [[Page S 16938]] $0.50 or more, and round down fractional dollar amounts of $0.49 or less. So, in the above case, a 30-percent disabled veteran would get a monthly check next year of $267 under past practice. This bill would direct VA to round down next year in all cases, so, in the above example, a 30-percent disabled veteran would get a monthly check of $266. Some might say, ``What's the big deal?'' They might also say, ``Why is Simpson boring us with this green-eye-shade, accounting stuff?'' I'll tell you why: it is because this simple rounding-down provision-- because it affects so many VA beneficiaries, but only to a degree which is painless to each--yields big money over time--big money--in terms of savings and deficit reduction. According to the Congressional Budget Office [CBO], this simple provision will save the taxpayer $520 million over a 7-year period. I repeat: 520 million bucks. That's real money. Real money that benefits taxpayers collectively--and, I daresay, harms no individual VA beneficiary to the point that he or she will even miss the loss. This simple example of what can be done to balance the budget, Mr. President, ought to strengthen the resolve of each of us to get that vital job done. In the Veterans Committee, we have found ways to reduce the growth of VA's mandatory budget accounts by over $6 billion in 7 years--over 6 billion dollars--and no veterans are going to have to suffer any inordinate harm. Despite the inaccurate, unfair, and unfounded pronouncements of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and despite what veterans--and Senators--have heard from service organizations crying wolf, we will not be cutting off compensation benefits to 10- and 20-percent disabled veterans. We will not be taxing or means-testing anyone's compensation benefits--though a good case for doing just that can be made and, in fact, was made by a disabled veteran who is a member of this body, the distinguished Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerry], in testimony before the committee. And we will not be establishing a performance-of-duty standard now as a condition to receipt of disability compensation--though I can assure all that this Senator continues to be interested in exploring that option at much greater length. We will, however, be making a huge dent in the deficit. As I stated when I opened this statement, I want all to understand that we can give our disabled veterans, and their widows, a COLA and still meet our deficit reduction targets. And we will do so. Please, all of you, keep this in mind when any person tries to tell you that the Congress is going to ``balance the budget on the backs of the Nation's veterans.'' It simply is not so. And no one--no one--has seriously suggested such a course. The Nation and the Congress have been good to our veterans. We will continue to be good to our veterans. Mr. President, I appreciate the time that has been afforded me to address this subject. I ask unanimous consent that at this point that CBO's cost estimate of S. 992, which is the text of the substitute amendment with a minor technical adjustment, be printed in the Record.