Alan Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Certainly this is not obviously the most propitious time to come here, just wandering in from my post in the Dirksen Building, to find that this spirited debate is being participated in by my friends. I have just come to the floor on behalf of my fine, bipartisan party crew of Senator Kerrey of Nebraska and Senator Hank Brown of Colorado and Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Robb and myself to place before the body nothing more than a sense-of-the-Senate resolution-- which that type of resolution has taken certainly some heavy abuse in these last moments. However, in regard to everything we do here, if everybody else is doing it, I get to do it. Therefore, with regard to Senator Murkowski, I hope he will repair to his chambers until I finish mine. That would be perfectly appropriate. I was trying to think of a new name for it. Mr. President, SOS. That is what it is, an SOS--sense of the Senate. It means I could not get this handled in committee; nobody will vote for it in any other way. I thought I would SOS the thing out to see what would happen to it, kind of throw it up on the pole, and then people can say when they get home, ``Well, I voted for it, but it was just a sense-of-the-Senate resolution,'' getting you off the hook, or you voted against it, saying ``Well, it was just a sense-of-the-Senate resolution.'' Thus, it is something that enables you to get off the hook. So it is. But my friend, Frank Murkowski, is right. So is Senator Domenici and so is Senator Exon. They really get to the point of wretched excess. But they bring before the body issues which do not seem to find their way into any other niche. I think sometimes they become, especially in foreign policy, they become quite dramatic. I can remember being in other countries and suddenly one of the emissaries of that country will come up and say, ``Why does your U.S. Senate vote to do this to our country?'' I will say, ``I am not aware of that.'' They will say, ``Yes, here is the rollcall vote''--a sense- of-the-Senate resolution, usually at 2 a.m. in the morning, maybe 11 o'clock at night. We see them in the Cloakroom. We come out and we pass a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that is usually best described in foreign policy as ``totally meddlesome,'' usually about religion or whatever they do in their own culture. It passes 90 to zip, or 95, and we know not what we do on those. This is about domestic policy, and we know what we do. You will not want to do this if you think about it because this sense of the Senate is about the entitlements, the eternal discussion, the eternal plea, ``Well, if we could just do something with the entitlements.'' I tell you, if we could, we would solve all of the problems of this fine chairman, Pete Domenici, and his ranking member, Jim Exon, who have solved them all because we are in a situation where none of us in this body even vote for 67 percent of the national budget--do not cast a single vote. It all just ``goes out,'' automatic pilot. Amendment No. 4016 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate on long-term entitlement reforms)

Mr. SIMPSON. I send an amendment to the desk with regard to long-term entitlement reform.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, my colleagues will be over momentarily to debate this and discuss with you, but let me just say I feel this amendment is extremely important to help to establish the greatest credibility for this balanced budget resolution. This resolution already represents a tremendous, laudable effort on the part of the Budget Committee chairman. No one does this with greater energy and dedication than Senator Pete Domenici and Senator Exon. They have done so much. This is the work product we will soon vote upon. I believe we can make the effort a bit stronger, a bit more credible, by expressing in this resolution how we intend to make good on the promises that it contains. All of us have heard the directives leveled at the President's budget and on the budgets offered by the Republican majority for deferring too many of the ``tough decisions'' until future years, leaving them to future Congresses and future Presidents. We have a great tendency here to want to take credit for setting up a balanced budget path, but not to enact any of the tough choices. We all do it. I do it. We all do it. We will not do the tough choices right now which would give any force or effect to those aims. So we could easily wind up in a situation we could have a balanced budget in the year 2002 but it explodes again into massive deficits afterward. Or quite likely we might not get there at all, even in the year 2002, because we leave too many ``tough calls'' to that Congress legislating those last few years. We have all been through that process before and we know how it goes. We sure do. It goes nowhere. If we are going to make good on the promises of balancing the budget, I believe we have to make the choices which once made now will produce significant savings in those distant years. This resolution attempts to put the Senate on record with respect to the central factors which caused the explosive growth caused in this Nation's entitlement program. Those factors, my colleagues, are population aging, the compounding of generous cost-of-living allowances, COLA's, and our total failure to structure our Nation's pension systems, Social Security systems, to generate real savings and economic growth. This issue of eligibility ages for retirement benefits is a serious one. This is one we cannot duck. This country is aiming at a tremendous rate. Recently we did away with much of the Social Security earnings limit for seniors who work. That has been discussed heavily today. We did that because we recognize that America is growing older gracefully. People can work longer and be productive longer. We find that very easy to do when it comes to handing out benefits, or perhaps I should say, shoveling out benefits, regardless of your net worth or income, you get it. At the same time, we are not dealing with population aging as far as it affects the amount of time which people are spending collecting retirement benefits. That failure is driving the Federal deficit, the Social Security system and the Medicare system to absolute extremity. If we ignore that one, I can assure you we are dooming today's young American worker. When we started a few months ago, Medicare was going to go broke in the year 2002. Then we shaved it a little, broke in 2001, and now we say 2000. With Social Security, we do not even touch that. We are not supposed to utter the word or crawl under your desk and try to get out of the building before the AARP detonates your chair. That is where we are left. If they do not detonate your chair, the great deed will be reported by Martha McSteen and her crew, or perhaps by the Gray Panthers, who will lob over types of explosive devices. That is what we get out of this debate. Do not touch CPI. Do not touch this. Do not touch that. We will fix it some day, but we will not fix it now. When we do fix it, we know there are three ways to go: either you reduce the benefits of that system, you increase the payroll taxes, or you borrow more money. That is the subject of another debate. Do not think that my colleagues and I are leading you down the path of Social Security long-term solvency reform. We are not that dazed. So, we are going to have to phase in these changes. We are saying in this resolution that we will make the gradual changes in eligibility ages to bring some realism to them, that we should phase in the changes over generations to give Americans ample time to prepare for the changes. Consider what it means to be a young worker today to retire on Social Security at the age of 70. Hear this one. Today's 26-year-old will turn 70 in the year 2040. Guess what? If we do not make changes, Social Security will be bankrupt a full decade before then. Who will be hurt by asking the worker to wait until the age of 70? Certainly not that young worker. That is the only way he or she stands to collect one single nickel. Today's retirees would not be affected one whit. This debate has been polluted by seniors who continue to raise hob with us who will not be affected in any way by what we are doing. Anybody over 51 might get a little ding and anybody over 55 is not going to get a ding at all. They are the ones that show up all the time. I think it is not very seemly. Another provision in this resolution should be a cost-of-living allowance only for that portion of civilian and military pension levels that do not exceed $50,000 a year. This is an extremely modest gesture. Indeed, I personally have concluded, after years of study and my service on the Entitlements Commission with Senators Kerrey and Danforth, that we have to take a harder look at these COLA's than that--not only within the Federal employee COLA's, but also our own COLA's regarding Congress and within Social Security. But this provision in our resolution does not even suggest that we deal with Social Security COLA's at all. It is an extremely tentative step, which I feel represents a bare minimum of what this body should support. Let me just say that we talk of COLA's and limiting it to the first $50,000 of a retirement pension. We do not mean that people with pensions greater than $50,000 will get no COLA at all. They will still get a COLA no matter how large a pension they are receiving. We simply suggest that the cost of living for an individual with a $100,000 pension is not really any higher than that individual with a $50,000 pension. So the wealthier individual should not be getting a greater cost of living allowance. If you go out in the land and ask them whether Federal employees with $50,000 pensions in retirement are able to keep up with the cost of living, I can assure you most Americans will say that they are and give you a horrid horse laugh in the process. Only 6 percent of the people in America, while they are working, make over $60,000 a year. Here we have a figure that we probably will have difficulty dealing with some of the senior groups about. But that is part of the problem. The sooner the American people realize it, the better off they will be. Finally, the key provision in this resolution says that workers will be allowed to divert 2 percent of their total payroll tax into their own personal investment plan, ``as long as there is no effect on the solvency of the Social Security program.'' That last part is a key phrase because no one who votes for this can fairly be accused of attacking the ``solvency'' of Social Security. In fact, quite the contrary is true. The President's own Advisory Council on Social Security Produced a series of recommendations about how to actually guarantee the solvency of the Social Security program, and more than half of the Council suggested that some form of personally owned investment accounts must be part of the solution. So there are a variety of reasons why that is so. One is that all conventional solutions to the solvency problem tend to hurt the very people who stand to get a ``raw deal'' from Social Security--today's young workers. Already, today, they stand to get a ``negative return'' on their Social Security, as compared with the bonanza enjoyed by today's retirees--and that is so even if the system remains solvent. In order to keep solvent via ``conventional'' solutions--raising payroll taxes, delaying retirement ages, cutting benefits, all of it, borrowing money--the deal for these young Americans gets far, far worse. I will let my colleague from Nebraska speak further with regard to the personal investment plan, which he and I have been talking about for a long time. Somewhere along the line, we have to see people saving, let them know they own these plans, and that their heirs can inherit it. The Government cannot ``get to it,'' or spend it. Hopefully, we can get away from the old adage that this Congress steals from the Social Security fund and that we pillage the fund and rip, unravel, and ruin all the things that go with it. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no fund. There is no trust fund. It is a great stack of IOU's. You know it, I know it. The trustees of the Social Security system know it. It is a huge ``trust fund'' consisting only of T-bills, mere ``promises to pay,'' that the Government will raise the money at some distant future date through general revenues-- not from such trust fund, but from general revenues, and we have an unfunded liability in Social Security of $8 trillion. So here we go. I commend my friends, Senators Kerrey, Brown, Nunn, and Robb, for their fine work. We have been in this a long time. I think the first time we got 18 votes. The second time we got 27 votes. The last time we got 43 votes. This time, it will probably drop like a rock. But we are going to keep coming right back. Maybe we can get to where we can see that the American people see this as a vital vote for the Senate. It will reveal much about whether or not we are truly serious about facing up to the long-term problems facing this country. I hope we might send that message even in the form of a resolution that we can indeed be trusted to deal with these long-term challenges, regardless of the response from the special interest groups whose sole function in life is to terrorize people so they can pick up the dues money. I am tired of those people. That does not mean that you should not stay at the Westin Hotel for $70 a night instead of $140, or not take advantage of all the airline discounts and rental car discounts. But whatever they send you about legislation, toss it, give it the deep-six, because every bit of it is further destined to bring this country to its knees. I do not understand that philosophy, unless they have no children or grandchildren. To those who are going into the 21st century, I intend to be right there with them. But in the year 2030, tap on my box and let me know how it is going. Right now, it does not look too good. Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, the status of the matter is that the Lott amendment is pending?

Mr. SIMPSON. I ask unanimous consent that that amendment be temporarily laid aside.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I want to commend the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Pete Domenici, for the outstanding work that he has done, and always does, on this budget resolution. He acts with integrity, with a rich understanding of the issues, and with extreme fairness to all of us. I am in somewhat a rare position in this budget debate because usually around here, we find it easy to oppose the best-laid plans of mice and men, especially in this area of the budget, where one cannot get the job done without making some extremely unpopular choices. But I am proud to have been a supporter of the efforts spearheaded by the Budget Committee chairman and by our distinguished majority leader. While also a participant in the bipartisan Chafee-Breaux budget group, with two trains leaving the station, it is my fond hope that more of our colleagues will get aboard. But I will not count on it to a great degree. I see nothing conflicting between these two efforts. In fact, we ought to make every change in Medicare originally envisioned by the first Republican plan of last year, plus we ought to also make every additional restraint on spending, as proposed by the Chafee-Breaux group, such as making adjustments in the CPI. That amendment will come before us, and it is a fine bipartisan effort. We hear a lot about that here, but nobody ever does it. Mark my words, this Congress will have to do all of the above before we claw our way out of this deficit mess and a debt that, even if we did it all right, at the end of 7 years would be a debt of $6.4 trillion. This is not an either/or situation. The one singular way to err in this process is to repeat last year's exercise and experience and get nothing done in terms of restraining mandatory spending growth. We presented the President with a balanced budget reconciliation bill last year and he vetoed it. Did he veto it because there was something else waiting in the wings, something that would be enacted into law and would get the job done? No, you bet not-- nothing, nothing. A perfectly workable balanced budget reconciliation bill was vetoed, and the resulting burden will be placed on the backs of the future taxpayers. As a consequence, billions more are going sailing out the door on auto pilot. I hope we will do better this year, and one way to do it is to enact into law one of the balanced budget plans before us. Debate time is limited on this resolution, so I will make just a few points that I believe are of importance. First, I call the attention of the Senate to an amendment that was attached in the Budget Committee by the occupant of the chair, Senator Rod Grams of Minnesota. It is worthy of our attention and commendation. That amendment gives the sense of the Senate that our budget resolution should include an analysis prepared in consultation with CBO, which would show the impact on entitlement spending for the next 30 years. That is one of the most important things we will do here. This country is facing a ticking fiscal time bomb in the form of a demographic explosion coming in the early 21st century--the retirement of the baby-boom generation. The real crisis faced by this country does not occur within the budget window that we see here envisioned in this or any other budget resolution. It starts happening in a very severe sense around the year 2012, and it will mean disaster. This is the work of the entitlements commission. We presented it to you; 30 of the 32 of us signed it. You have neglected it totally, and the President neglected it totally. But Bob Kerrey and Jack Danforth did tremendous work. So it will mean fiscal meltdown if we do not change our course. We have had a number of hearings on this subject, and every expert who has come before us has said we cannot wait to deal with this problem; we must address it now. Every year we wait means more severe benefit cuts in Social Security and Medicare, more drastic tax hikes in the years ahead, and payroll tax increases. But we are not making those tough choices in this budget. The reason is that we are simply not looking far enough ahead. If this Congress would raise its sights above the short-term horizon, beyond the next 7 years, it would see a disaster looming approximately two decades away. The amendment of my friend, Senator Grams, is vitally important because it will force us to confront this reality. Further, the amendment says that the President should include generational accounting information each year in his proposed budget. This is a favored cause of mine. I think this is so important. My colleagues may recall that when the President submitted his first budget after his inauguration, it had a generational accounting chapter, which contained the alarming information that future generations stood to face 82 percent lifetime tax rates if present trends are sustained. Some political advisers in the White House must have dispensed with that one when they realized what it said that first year when the President was seeking the support of the American people, because we have not seen that data in any subsequent budget. I have asked this administration time after time, ``What happened to the generational accounting in your first budget?'' No one in the White House has ever given me an adequate explanation as to why this information should remain concealed from the American taxpayers. They have even asserted that the information now really is not all that bad, is not quite as alarming as before. But, still, they will not publish it for reasons that are vague and mysterious. Perhaps not so mysterious--it would have been difficult for the President to criticize our balanced budget plan last year if his own budget were to admit that these confiscatory tax rates awaited future generations if we did not get the job done. This is vital information, information about one of the greatest inequities ever foisted by the U.S. Government upon a generation of Americans. And we ought to see it revealed. I commend the Senator from Minnesota for adding the language in committee, and I do hope that the administration will heed it. Finally, I want to advise my colleagues that it is now my intention to offer a sense of the Senate, which I hope would be uncontroversial. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, please note that Senator Moynihan is an original cosponsor of that amendment. It is simply a sense of the Senate that our budget choices should make use of the most accurate measures of inflation that are available to the Federal Government. Simply that, a proposition that I believe no Senator should disagree with. I believe it will be acceptable to the managers of the budget resolution, but I think a rollcall vote may be appropriate on this at the appropriate time, simply because I believe it is so important that each Senator is on record as recognizing that we have an obligation to use the most accurate data that we have, when billions are at stake. We know that if we overstate inflation, it means that we erroneously pay out extra billions in terms of cost-of-living allowances, COLA's, we fail to properly index our tax brackets, and the deficit is increased by billions--indeed, hundreds of billions, when counting over a decade or more--as a result. This is not a matter of dispute. This amendment, I hasten to say, does not condemn, nor does it enforce, any particular measure of inflation for any particular purpose of the Government. Because of this, I believe it must be approved. It is my hope that by recognizing our obligation to use the most accurate information available to the Government, the Senate can subsequently proceed to best determine how to properly meet that obligation. I thank my colleagues and yield the floor.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the comments of the distinguished chairman of the VA--HUD and Independent Agencies Subcommittee on Appropriations, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. He does a tremendous job. I have watched him through the years. He is attentive, he does his homework, he is impressive, and he gets quite involved in every way and in every issue in a most positive way. What has been curious to me, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, is the remarkable behavior of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Jesse Brown. He is continually distancing himself and the VA from the President's budget. I understand he testified early last month before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee that he ``felt the President's budget would be devastating for veterans.'' Later in the month, April 24, the Secretary appeared before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which I chair, and which I oversee as chairman. In response to a question from my friend, Senator Craig of Idaho, the Secretary stated that the VA budget described in a document submitted to the Congress--over the signature of the President and entitled ``Budget of the United States of America''--does not represent the policy of the President. I ask, whose policy does it represent? Did an employee of the Government Printing Office change the numbers for the proposed VA budget on his or her own, making the President of the United States and the Congress the victims of some wild practical joke? Did some cyber surfer hack his way into the White House computer system and change the numbers? Did somebody forge the signature of the President of the United States on a document submitted to the Congress in his name? My Heavens, we may have a real scandal here on our hands. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs told the committee that VA's future medical budget will be subject to annual renegotiation by the President. He tells us he has received the President's assurances that the budget numbers are not binding. Well, that makes quite a puzzle. The President of the United States has proclaimed to the American people that he will balance the budget in 7 years. His plan, like any budget, includes difficult decisions allocating limited resources between many worthwhile programs. But, according to the Secretary's testimony, the President does not stand behind the parts of that plan relating to the Department of Veterans Affairs. There are only 2 ways the President can deliver on his commitment to Secretary Brown. He can increase the VA spending by abandoning the goal of the balanced budget. But the President has made a commitment to the American people to present a balanced budget. We have heard that discussion for several hours. So I am sure that he would not take that course. Or, in the alternative, the President could increase the VA's budget by reducing the budget of other programs. Does that mean the President has a secret plan to cut non-VA discretionary spending programs in order to fund increases in veterans' health care? I am sure he does not, Mr. President, because his budget also represents a funding promise made to the beneficiaries of non-VA programs. Mr. President, the veterans' health care budget proposed by the President--when examined through the lens created by the statements of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs--presents the Senate with a remarkable mystery. Veterans may wonder upon which rock the Senate should build their future, Mr. President--the budget proposed by the President? Or Secretary Brown's hopes that those budget numbers will be changed? That is what he said. Mr. President, on April 24, Secretary Brown testified that, since 1980, VA's medical care funding has increased 20 percent--after adjusting for inflation. The resolution reported to the Senate by the Committee on the Budget builds on that rock. So I submit to America's veterans--and to the Senate--that a generous history of increasing funding, combined with already-identified proposals for more cost-effective operation of the VA Health Care Administration, are much firmer rock upon which to build for the future than the administration's budget--a budget Secretary Brown tells us the President has already repudiated. That, I think, is a most extraordinary thing. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I thank you, Madam President.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam President, apparently at this point in the order of the day, it is appropriate to make some remarks about a very special man who has made a very dramatic announcement today. Let me just say that I speak from perhaps a little special vantage point because I served as the assistant leader to Bob Dole for 10 years. Those were 10 of the finest years I have spent in public life, and I have had some very exciting times, and some less exciting times, in public life. But the 10 years serving as first lieutenant to Bob Dole as he served as our captain were tremendously satisfying and gratifying years for me. Let me just say that the decision he has made today is one that is typical of Bob Dole in that he thought that thing through for a long time. He talked with people he respects and admires and cares for, and he came up with a decision which is going to be very good for him and very good for the United States of America because the greatest part of it will be that he will be out in the land and the people of America will see him and the people of America will see Liddy Dole at his side. Bob Dole and Liddy Dole will be deeply impressive to the American people. The greatest pleasure I have is knowing that they will get to know him in the same way that we here know him, in the same way that I know him as an extraordinarily deep, complex, competitive, compassionate, complete man, a steady man of great, great sensitivity. I have seen all those attributes. Many of us who have worked with him have. So it is going to be a wonderful thing to see him go forward from this place where we will no longer have the usual stuff. We would pull the same tricks if we would have had the same lay of the land. It is no reflection upon the fine leadership of the minority, Senator Daschle. I wish to compliment him in a very class act in being there at the press conference today, along with Senator Bradley, along with Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, along with Senator Harkin and Senator Wellstone. Those were acts of political grace. We do that with ourselves and among ourselves. You have to remember that when we do this act, and we do some of that--a little bit of theater--as I say, we would have been doing some of that had the tables been reversed, but finally it does get to be rather an exhausting process. It is like getting pecked to death by ducks and you want to get away from it as fast as you can. He has, and he is smart to do it, and now the show can start. For me, it has a western vernacular. It is like taking the hood off of a hunting falcon and now the prey is being observed and the prey is right there at the end of 1600 Pennsylvania. That is a pretty dramatic reference, but it is like an eagle with the tether off. It is like a race horse without the leg irons, and that is Bob Dole. Boy, I tell you, he is going to run quite a race, and the people of America are going to be very proud and very, very impressed by Bob and Liddy Dole as they leave this particular arena and go out into the land, not as the Senator from Kansas or the majority leader of the Senate but as an American citizen from Kansas, who, as he said so very beautifully, is either headed for the White House or home. I intend to invest a great deal of my efforts in seeing that he gets to the former location rather than the latter. I thank the Chair. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1748, a bill to facilitate the reorganization of the headquarters of the Veterans Health Administration [VHA], Department of Veterans Affairs. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated June 22, 1995. That letter was referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs on July 20, 1995. This measure, Mr. President, also requests that the Congress authorize a VHA reorganization notwithstanding the notice and wait provisions of section 510 of title 38, United States Code. By the time that this request had been referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, July 20, 1995, the waiting period specified under section 510 of title 38, United States Code, had nearly expired and, thus, those provisions were, for practical purposes, moot at the time the committee received this request. Nonetheless, I have introduced this bill in its entirety today since it contains provisions which are not related directly to the reorganization which is now being implemented. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all Administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1749, a bill to amend certain provisions of title 38, United States Code, first, to delete references to ``working drawings'' and substitute therefor the words ``construction documents;'' and second, to delete references to ``preliminary plans'' and substitute therefor the words ``design development.'' The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated September 18, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1750, a bill to modify the disbursement agreement authority to the Department of Veterans Affairs [VA] to include residents and interns who are serving in any VA facility providing hospital care or medical services. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated September 26, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1751, a bill to revise the procedures for providing claimants and their representatives with copies of Board of Veterans' Appeals decisions and to protect the right of claimants to appoint veterans service organizations as their representatives in claims before the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated October 11, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1752, a bill to amend certain provisions of title 38, United States Code, to exempt full-time registered nurses, physician assistants, and expanded-function dental auxiliaries from restrictions on remunerated outside professional activities. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated February 21, 1996. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1753, a bill to expand the authority of the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs to suspend special pay agreements for physicians and dentists who enter residency training programs. The Secretary of Veterans' Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated October 18, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1748, a bill to facilitate the reorganization of the headquarters of the Veterans Health Administration [VHA], Department of Veterans Affairs. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated June 22, 1995. That letter was referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs on July 20, 1995. This measure, Mr. President, also requests that the Congress authorize a VHA reorganization notwithstanding the notice and wait provisions of section 510 of title 38, United States Code. By the time that this request had been referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, July 20, 1995, the waiting period specified under section 510 of title 38, United States Code, had nearly expired and, thus, those provisions were, for practical purposes, moot at the time the committee received this request. Nonetheless, I have introduced this bill in its entirety today since it contains provisions which are not related directly to the reorganization which is now being implemented. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all Administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1750, a bill to modify the disbursement agreement authority to the Department of Veterans Affairs [VA] to include residents and interns who are serving in any VA facility providing hospital care or medical services. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated September 26, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1749, a bill to amend certain provisions of title 38, United States Code, first, to delete references to ``working drawings'' and substitute therefor the words ``construction documents;'' and second, to delete references to ``preliminary plans'' and substitute therefor the words ``design development.'' The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated September 18, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1751, a bill to revise the procedures for providing claimants and their representatives with copies of Board of Veterans' Appeals decisions and to protect the right of claimants to appoint veterans service organizations as their representatives in claims before the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated October 11, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1753, a bill to expand the authority of the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs to suspend special pay agreements for physicians and dentists who enter residency training programs. The Secretary of Veterans' Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated October 18, 1995. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have today introduced, at the request of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, S. 1752, a bill to amend certain provisions of title 38, United States Code, to exempt full-time registered nurses, physician assistants, and expanded-function dental auxiliaries from restrictions on remunerated outside professional activities. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs submitted this legislation to the President of the Senate by letter dated February 21, 1996. My introduction of this measure is in keeping with the policy which I have adopted of generally introducing--so that there will be specific bills to which my colleagues and others may direct their attention and comments--all administration-proposed draft legislation referred to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Thus, I reserve the right to support or oppose the provisions of, as well as any amendment to, this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, together with the transmittal letter and the enclosed analysis of the draft legislation.