Bob Smith

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I do appreciate the Senator yielding briefly to me. In the spirit of friendly debate, I ask the Senator if there was any significance to the fact that when I happened to come on the floor to give relief to Senator Hatch, who has been out here many hours during this debate, he mentioned Cyclops. I wondered whether there was any significance to that fact that when he saw me on the floor, immediately the debate went to Cyclops. I think he is a better expert on history than I am, for sure, but the Cyclops had one eye, as I remember. I suppose there is some relevance here, because it is going to take more than one eye to stay focused on where this debate is going and where this debt is going in this country. I do not know if the Senator wishes to respond, but I did take notice of that fact that immediately, Cyclops became the topic of discussion when I came on the floor.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. I thank the Senator from Utah for yielding the time. Mr. President, as I indicated in previous remarks on the floor in this debate on another day, this really is the defining moment. This is the opportunity for us to move on balancing the Federal budget. If we do not do it during this time when we have the opportunity to pass this amendment, it will be the last time. The House has passed it 300 to 132. It is very close here in the Senate. Some would say that we do not have the 67 votes that are required as of now. Here we are, out here talking about a right to know, so-called. Everyone knows that is a smokescreen. It is dilatory. It is a delay tactic to try to stop us from voting on this amendment or to try to obfuscate the issue so much that no one will understand what the real problems are. Here is the real problem, Mr. President. This is the President's budget. It is interesting that the color is green, and it should be because in this budget the President spends one heck of a lot of money. In this budget, the President adds, over 5 years, well over $1 trillion more to the national debt. The annual deficits run over $200 billion a year, on an average, for the next 5 years, adding over $1 trillion to the national debt. That is what it says. The other side says we need a right to know. Well, what about the President of the United States? Why does he not submit to us at least something that leads toward a balanced budget? budget. It is green. You know, Mr. President, here is the color it should be--red--because it is red ink, more red ink, more red ink, more red ink, business as usual, politics as usual. We stand down here on the floor and we talk and talk and talk, and the debt goes up and up and up, and our children's future is at stake. That is what this is all about, Mr. President. Let us face it, that is what it is all about. How can the President of the United States, with his party on the floor trying to delay this amendment by using this phony argument of the right to know, keep a straight face in presenting this budget? He ought to replace Jay Leno, for crying out loud. It is hysterical. It is so funny that no one could possibly take the man seriously. How can you say that? If you want further evidence of what this thing is all about on this amendment--and I say to my colleague, the floor leader from Utah--I remind him because he was very much a participant in this debate a year ago, in February 1994, when we had the amendment up here and we lost it by three or four votes, as the Senator well remembers. The sponsor of this right-to-know amendment by the minority leader of the U.S. Senate was on the floor, and it is interesting to hear what he said because he supported the amendment in that debate and voted for the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Here is what he said: To remedy our fiscal situation, we must stop spending beyond our means. This will not require the emasculation of important domestic priorities, as some suggest. He also said: We are building a legacy of debt for our children and our grandchildren and hamstringing our ability to address pressing national priorities. And then he said: In this debate on a balanced budget amendment, we are being forced to face the consequences of our inaction. Quite simply, we are building a legacy of debt for our children and our grandchildren and hamstringing our ability to address pressing national priorities. Here, Mr. President, ironically is what Senator Daschle, the minority leader, said on February 28 on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the right to know: Congress and the President will have 7 years to address the current deficit and reach a consensus on our Nation's budget priorities. We will have time to find ways to live within our means and still meet existing obligations to our citizens, particularly the elderly. So you have the sponsor of this amendment on the floor of the Senate 1 year ago in support of the balanced budget amendment and saying pass the amendment and we will lay out the plan and we will work together to lay out a plan to balance the budget. That is 180 degrees in reverse of where we are today with the Senator from South Dakota with his so- called right-to-know amendment. When are we going to do this? The reason why we need the amendment could never be more obvious than it was when the President submitted that budget, because we will not do it without the amendment. I want to comment for a few moments on this issue of the right to know, because it is kind of fascinating. I hear about the public's right to know as if we have to know every single item, everything we are going to do before we pass the amendment. If Congress wanted to get a balanced budget, they would have done it, Mr. President, and we would not need the amendment. The reason we need the amendment is because they will not do it. That is the reason--because they will not do it. Do you know what I think? I think the public has a right to know why every child born in America today, even as I speak, is born approximately $18,000 in debt. I think that child has a right to know why that is happening in this country and what we are going to do about it. That is a right to know that I think we ought to have. Also, I hear on the floor that we are going to make the tough decisions. Give me a break. That is why we need the amendment. We are not making the tough decisions, and the President did not make the tough decisions in this budget. He did not make the tough decisions. He took a walk. That is going to continue to happen until the national debt goes right through the roof. It is already fast approaching, or will be by the turn of the century, over $6 trillion. Where does it stop, at $12, $13, $15, $16, $20, $100 trillion? That is where it is going to go if we do not stop. We just have to do it. Why would anybody think the American people are going to trust us to make those decisions? Why should they? We have never done it. That is why 80 percent of them have said over and over again that they support an amendment. That is why they said it. That is why they want this amendment. And that is why those who do not want it are using these delay tactics and phony arguments, because they do not want to make the tough decisions. In order to force us to do what we have been unwilling to do for the past 15 years or longer, we need this amendment. Do you know what has been really lost in this debate, beyond the right to know? We are forgetting about the American people. They are the losers in this debate. Many of my colleagues say, oh, the Governors are against it, State legislators will not support it; there will be a lot of polls cited next week saying that. The only poll that the Framers of the Constitution ever thought about or knew about, as far as I am concerned, is whether or not 38 States deem this amendment essential and a majority of the House and Senate deem it essential. If they do, we will be bound by the Constitution that all of us swore to uphold to put our fiscal house in order and, by doing so, we will bring some dignity to this body and restore fiscal sanity to this country. That is what it is all about, fiscal sanity and dignity. How in the world can we call it dignified to roll up trillions of dollars more of debt on our children, basically saying I am not going to worry about it today, I am going to live the good life and do what I have to do, and I am going to pass my debts on to my kids. That is what we are doing with trillions of dollars. My friends who oppose the amendment speak only of their ability to make the tough choices. ``We will make the tough choices,'' they say. I heard one of my colleagues say how they made the tough choices. In fact, it was said this morning that they made the tough choices in 1993 in the President's budget. He said, ``No Republican voted for this agreement.'' I remind my colleagues that Republicans were not a party to the agreement. We did not have anything to do with negotiating the agreement. We were not invited to participate in it. I do not know what the discussion was like behind closed doors, nor do any of my Republican colleagues know. Do you know what they talked about in those meetings and discussions? They did not talk about cutting spending or balancing the budget. They talked about, should we raise the top tax rate 5, 8, 9 percent? What are we going to raise it to? They talked about raising taxes. They talked about, should we make tax increases retroactive for 6 months, 1 year, year and a half? How long can we go with a millionaires' surtax? Should it be $500,000 or $250,000. That is what was going on. There were no talks in those meetings about spending cuts or about tough decisions. So that is one of the reasons why I believe my friends fear the constitutional amendment, those who are opposing it, because they know exactly what is going to happen. You will have to cut spending and cut the bloated bureaucracy and eliminate outdated programs, and you will have to make the tough decisions. That is the truth. They are not ready to do it. That is the bottom line. I will close on this point. I was very much interested in the story in the Washington Post this week regarding Washington, DC. They announced they are $722 million in debt. And Mayor Barry is telling us in the papers that home rule does not work. He is one of the most noted figures in the history of home rule in the District. He is now saying: I have to have the Federal Government take over some of the services, the prison system, and other programs that he says he cannot maintain. He is in debt. Now, why has the Mayor changed his mind? Why has he changed his tune from the big government mayor that he was for all those years? It is quite simple. He does not have the tax base any longer to maintain predecessors. The well is dry. They cannot raise any more taxes. Indeed, we have the representative from Washington, DC, in the House saying we may want to eliminate income taxes altogether for people who live in the District. They cannot pay any more taxes. They are up to here. That is the problem. That is not the answer. The answer is not raising more taxes. The answer is cutting spending. That is the issue. So he has given up. So the Mayor says, ``Come in. Take these things from me. I can't deal with it any more. I do not have the tax base.'' That, my friends, is exactly the predicament that we are going to be in in the very, very near future. We are going to go to the well once too often. There is not going to be any more money there. You cannot squeeze any more blood out of this turnip, out of the American people. They do not have it any more. They are fed up. They have had enough. You cannot get any more. And, therefore, the end is in sight. That is what is going to happen. That is where we are going to get to. And when that point comes, what do we do? Are we are going to turn and say, ``Take these programs''? The answer is no. We all know, when that comes, it is going to be too late and we will have bankruptcy, the equivalent of chapter 1, where we spend a whole bunch more dollars. That is not what the American people want. The American people want us to be fiscally responsible, to make the tough decisions and pass this amendment so that the Congress and the President, both political parties, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, sit down in a room and make the decision to balance the budget. Yes, we will differ on where the priorities are, but we have to do it. Now we do not have to do it. That is why we need the amendment. So I urge my colleagues to move off this phony debate of right to know and exempting programs and get on to the business of passing this amendment sooner rather than later and stop the dilatory tactics. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Utah for yielding to me.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, section 153 of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act [ISTEA] of 1991 (Public Law 102- 240) penalizes States that do not institute mandatory motorcycle helmet and seatbelt laws. Today, I will introduce a measure to repeal this patently unfair provision that forces States to transfer scarce construction funds to other programs. The November elections have shown that the American people want more decisionmaking authority with their State and local governments as opposed to heavy handed Federal mandates. Furthermore, outlining how a State spends its own money, which is collected through the consumer gas tax, infringes on States' ability to control their own budgets. Dangling essential highway construction money in front of States to coerce them into adopting helmet and seatbelt laws is fiscal blackmail. State governments are aware of the need for safety programs and I do not support Washington's micromanagement of issues that should clearly be left up to the States. Mr. President, I am a strong supporter of highway safety. However, mandatory motorcycle and seatbelt laws do not guarantee safety. In fact, of the 10 safest States in which to ride adults. Furthermore, New Hampshire, which does not have mandatory helmet and seatbelt laws, has been ranked as one of the five States with the best highway safety record in the Nation, as far as fatalities per million miles traveled. Mr. President, highway safety education programs are the key to highway safety and I believe that States have the expertise and know- how to develop their own programs without Federal intimidation. I invite my colleagues to join me in supporting their States' highway departments and highway users by repealing helmet and seatbelt mandates.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, this debate is the defining moment for the American people, if we are going to turn this escalation of debt, if we are going to turn away from this and protect our children and our future generations. This is it. This is the moment. If we defeat this amendment to the Constitution, then we are on the fast track to economic destruction of the United States of America. People must understand that. Those who would use the dilatory tactics to delay this amendment or to put killer amendments on this amendment, must understand that. And the American people out there who are serving as the constituents of those Senators must also understand that. This is the defining moment. This is it. There will not be another chance to pass an amendment to balance the budget to the Constitution of the United States of America. It will not happen. We have been trying for years. I ran for Congress the first time in 1980. I ran on a balanced budget amendment then. I have been running on it ever since. I have been campaigning for it, both in my campaigns, as well as a Member of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives before that, trying to get to this moment. We are here. The House of Representatives by the Senate. This is it. People must understand that. There will be no tomorrow for this amendment if we defeat it today. It is over. The American people, 80 percent of whom--some polls are higher than that-- support this amendment. We must understand the significance of this debate and how important it is. The focus of the last elections, the focus of those elections, the midterm election, in 1994, was change. ``We are sick of it,'' the American people said. ``We are tired of business as usual.'' ``We are tired of politics as usual. We want this country changed. We want the direction of this country changed.'' That is what they voted for-- Democrats, independents, Republicans. They voted to change this country. One very important aspect of that change was a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. They spoke loudly, and they spoke very clearly. They want Washington to turn away from--frankly, I cannot think of a better way to say it--the disgusting habit of piling up debt on our children, deficit spending, and increasing the national debt. It imposes an enormous and unconscionable responsibility on our children. Not only our children, all future generations. We must realize that the national debt right now is almost $5 trillion. If we borrow at 8 percent, that is $400 billion when we get to $5 trillion-- $400 billion a year in interest on that debt. It will get to the point in a very few years, less than 15 years, when the national debt is so big that we will not even have enough money in revenues to pay the interest on that debt. When that happens, it is over. We default. Or we print money, and we print so much of it that we need to take a wheelbarrow of money with you to go to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread. Think it cannot happen in America? That is what we thought in South America, not too many years ago. It can happen. It will happen. I heard the distinguished minority leader talking on the floor a few moments ago about all of the horror stories out there, all these terrible things that are going to happen. All of these budget cuts. That is the point. If we do not have the amendment, that is all we will ever hear--one horror story after another about who will get cut, who will lose money, how much are the States going to lose in their States, how much is Medicare going to use, how much is Medicaid going to lose, how much is defense going to lose. Over and over again. That is the point. That is why we need the amendment, because we will not get the budget balanced because we will hear speeches like that time and time again as we have heard overwhelmingly over the past 30 years, if not more. The election of 1994 was a mandate. ``We have had enough of that,'' the people said. ``We have had enough talk. We want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States because you won't do it without the amendment.'' There can be no doubt about that. There are 11 Members of the class of 1994. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator sitting in the Chair at this moment is one of those, from Tennessee. They heard the message. That is why 11 new Senators are here, all of whom--all of whom--support this amendment. In demanding change in 1994, the American people said, ``We are not only concerned about America's economic future, not just that. We are concerned about America's moral future.'' That is what they said. It is immoral to pass this debt on to our future generations. How can anyone--any American citizen, I do not care whether they are a Medicare recipient, Medicaid recipient, defense contractor, I do not care what you are or who you are or in what livelihood you have, what you do for a living. How can a person in good conscience say I am willing to break the bank of the United States of America and pass on my debts to my kids? Do parents want to pass their mortgage on to their children? Or would parents rather pass their home on to their children? Think about that. That is really what is at stake here. We hear all this rhetoric about all the horror stories. Let me tell Senators what the horror stories will be if we do not do it. There will not be anything in the Social Security trust fund. There will hot be anything for Medicare. There will not be anything for Medicaid. There will not be anything for national defense because there will not be anything left. It will be gone. No less an authority than the distinguished author of the Declaration of Independence himself, Thomas Jefferson, spoke about this. He spoke, he even thought ahead about this type of debate that we are having right here. He said this: The question whether one generation has the right to bind another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles of government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle our posterity with our debt, and morally bound to pay those debts ourselves. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence. I am amazed, as I serve in political office, the number of times I hear our distinguished colleagues come down on this floor not only here in the Senate but in the House, but even in the courts where decisions are made interpreting what our Founding Fathers said. I think our Founding Fathers would probably turn over a few times in their grave, maybe even do a rapid spin in their grave when they hear this stuff. Thomas Jefferson knew what he was talking about. He knew this could happen. He was against it. Let me tell Members why it is immoral. A couple gets married. They decide to have a baby. In making that decision to have a baby, do they also plan where the baby will go to college? Do they plan where they are going to live to have that baby for 20 years? Do they plan the meals for that baby for the next 20 years? Do they plan the schools? Do they get the pencils and books and notebooks ready and the homework ready for each assignment before they decide to have the baby? That is what Senator Daschle's amendment is saying. Lay it out. Lay it out completely. We cannot do that. It is irresponsible. It does not make sense. Know what the problem is? We will not make the decision. That is the problem. Another example. Take 50 American citizens, any citizens, anywhere in the United States. Put them in a room and say, ``OK, do you agree we should balance the budget?'' If the answer is ``yes,'' you set about doing it. You may not like it, one person may not like what the other guy says cut, but you do it. You make the decision to do it. We have not made the decision. That is the bottom line. That is what our colleagues over there are saying. We have not made the decision. Indeed, we do not want to make the decision. That is why they are being dilatory. That is why they are delaying. Frankly, it is an insult to those on their side of the aisle who have been distinguished in their leadership for this amendment, like Senator Simon, Senator Heflin, Senator Moseley-Braun, and others. In that declaration, Jefferson wrote majestically, very majestically, about inalienable rights with which man is endowed by his Creator and among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Can any one of my colleagues doubt that a crushing burden of national debt on our children infringes on their God-given right to pursue happiness? Right now every single American baby, born as I speak, is born some $17,000, $18,000 in debt because that is your share, each person's share of the national debt. Lest there be any doubt where Thomas Jefferson would have stood on the balanced budget amendment, that doubt ought to be laid to rest by the following statement he made in 1798: I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our Government to the genuine principles of its Constitution. I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. Taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. How right Jefferson was. If you want to modify it a little bit, if you want to borrow, pay it back. Pay it back. That is what every single American has to do. Borrow money; pay it back. Do not pay it back; go to jail or lose your home or whatever it is that you put up for credit. But we are asking our children to pay the cost--selfish, immoral, unconstitutional, in my opinion. According Constitution, it will be unconstitutional. That is why they do not want it in over there, because then they cannot play politics anymore, because then the decision has been made in the room and then we have to sit down and do the job. But we will not even sit down and do the job without the amendment. That is the issue. Now, when you go to buy a home, you go to the bank. You borrow money. You buy your home. And if you are smart, you will get some type of insurance, mortgage insurance, so that if you die, your mortgage will be paid off and the home will be left to your children or your spouse, whatever the case may be. But that is not what we are doing here. What we are doing here is, to use an analogy, we are buying a house, and what we are saying is I am not going to go to the expense of buying mortgage insurance. Hey, I am going to go buy myself a new car; I am going to go to Hawaii. I am not going to buy mortgage insurance. That costs too much money. I am going to make my kids cosign the note. I am going to make my wife cosign the note so if anything happens to me, they have to pay for it, not me. This is the now generation. I am going to have a good time. I am going to do my thing. I am not going to be responsible for this. Let my kids pay for it. That is exactly what we are doing, and we have been doing it. The American people know it, and they are sick of it. That is why they voted the way they did in 1994. I cannot believe that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not gotten that message yet. I will tell you, I predict, if this amendment goes down, they are going to get the message in 1996, loud and clear. Mr. President, there can be no doubt that the fate of this amendment, the fate of this amendment rests in the hands of about 12 or 15 Members on the other side of the aisle. That is the fate of not only this amendment to the Constitution, it is the fate of the United States of America. In a few days, perhaps a week, 2 weeks, whenever it happens, we are going to be standing right here and we are going to be called. The clerk is going to say, ``Mr. Smith,'' and I am going to stand up, and I am going to vote ``aye.'' And the clerk is going to call other names. Those who are going to say ``nay''--and there will be many--do so at great peril because when those nays are tabulated, if we do not have the 67 votes that we need and this amendment goes down, the economic future of the United States of America and indeed the moral future of the United States of America is imperiled. I say again, it will be a long, long time, Mr. President, before we ever get back to it because I envision the consequence of this as being something along these lines. President X 20 years down the road, 50 years down the road--I do not know when it will be--will stand up and do a press conference and he or she will say, ``My fellow Americans, I regret to inform you today that the United States of America must default on every single obligation it has because we cannot pay our bills.'' I hope and pray that we do not subject our children and our grandchildren in any future generation to that press conference or any President to have to deliver it. I truly hope that does not happen. And it does not have to happen. We must make the decision. If you listen to the remarks of our colleagues, well-intentioned, it is a dilatory attempt to obfuscate the issue, to get away from the focus. What do we hear? Oh, we are going to cut Social Security. We are not going to cut Social Security. Or we are going to cut off money to this State or that State and we are going to cut this and we are going to cut that. Something has to be cut to balance the budget. The alternative is pass on the debt. And pretty soon--it might be 100 years, it might be 50 years; no one knows for sure, but it is not going to be too many-- 100 percent of our budget will be interest on the national debt. In the year 2013, according to a bipartisan commission headed by Senator Bob Kerrey and one of our former colleagues, Senator Danforth, they say by the year 2013 100 percent of our budget will be spent on interest and entitlements if we do not change it. It is immoral. Sixty-seven votes, that is what we need. Now, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are very proud of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of their party, and I implore them to listen to him. Listen to the founder of your party. He is right. He believed it was immoral for one generation to saddle another generation with its debt. Mr. President, he said that he wished it were possible to obtain a single constitutional amendment that said the Government did not have the power to borrow money. It is not just Jefferson to whom our colleagues should listen. Let us jump up a little bit to Andrew Jackson, a pretty famous Democrat. Even though I am a Republican, he is one of my favorites--from Tennessee, I believe. ``Once the budget is balanced,'' Jackson said, ``and the debt is paid off, our population will be relieved from a considerable portion of its present burdens and will find not only new motives to patriotic affection, but additional means for the display of individual enterprise.'' Another great Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, spoke even more clearly on that issue, on the balanced budget amendment. This is what he said: Money being spent without new taxation and appropriation without accompanying taxation is as bad as taxation without representation. It is as bad as taxation without representation. Wilson was the only President--I believe I am right--who had a Ph.D. in government. As a student of government, Wilson knew that the American revolution was sparked by a moral uprising against taxation without representation, which was imposed by the British on the American colonies. Thus, it can be said that to liken deficit spending to taxation without representation was perhaps the strongest possible denunciation that Wilson knew how to make. It is pretty heavy company, to put it in the company of taxation without representation. This should not be a partisan political issue. It has not been a partisan political issue. Senator Craig and Senator Simon have worked together side by side on this issue for years. It is not a partisan issue. Why are we making it a partisan issue? The American people said to us: Work together. This is the time to work together for the good of the country. This is a perfect example, the best example I have seen in any item we have had, with the possible exception of the vote on the Persian Gulf war, to say we are going to get together in a nonpartisan way and do what is good for the country for a change. I am proud to have the support of my distinguished colleague, who is on the floor now, Senator Simon, and Senator Heflin, and Senator Moseley-Braun, and others--I am proud of it and I am proud of them. It is not partisan. On the House side, I think it was 72 Democrats who voted for the balanced budget amendment, including a young Democrat from Massachusetts by the name of Joseph Kennedy II. That is a pretty famous name in American politics. None of us are going to serve here forever--God forbid we ever serve here forever. When we leave--I speak for myself--when I leave, I would like to be remembered not as some partisan politician who opposed everything the other party was for, but as somebody who tried to be a statesman, who tried to do what was right for his country. I am standing now in front of the desk used by Daniel Webster--Daniel Webster's desk. His name is inscribed in it in the drawer. It is one of the few original desks in the Senate. He was one of the greatest orators of all time. He served here at a time prior to the Civil War when the debate was hot, and many times he stood in the Chamber of the U.S. Senate and spoke out forcefully on various issues. But when you stand before the desk of someone who has served here before you of the stature of a Webster, you know the time is fleeting. You are only here for a little while. It is a very insignificant time. This is not my seat. This is a seat that belongs to the people of New Hampshire. That is whose chair this is; that is whose desk this is. It is not mine. I am only going to be here for a short time. Somebody else will fill it. Regardless of when I leave, there will always be somebody there. will be one of the most important votes I believe I will cast in my time here, because it affects the future of our country. I say to my colleagues with the greatest respect, those on the other side--the reason I keep saying ``those on the other side'' is because we have, I believe, 52 or 53 of our colleagues who are for this amendment. So the balance is held by a few on the other side of the aisle. I say to you in all good conscience, vote to be worthy as a successor of Thomas Jefferson. Be worthy of that. Honor your party leader. Make a vote that you will be proud to talk about, to place in the center of your legacy to your posterity, a vote in favor of a balanced budget amendment. I would like to focus briefly--and then I will yield the floor--on the amendment offered by the minority leader, Senator Daschle. This is basically an amendment to an amendment to the Constitution. It is a killer amendment. It is going to kill the amendment, if it passes, because it is unconstitutional. It will be challenged. It will not work. You cannot put something between what the Congress passes and the State legislatures before they approve it. That is unconstitutional-- everybody knows it. So why is it up here? It is up here because some on the other side do not want to make those hard choices. They do not want to make the choices. They know they do not have to make the choices if we do not pass this amendment. That is the point. We can talk forever. That is all we do around this place is talk. It is time to act. We have to pass the amendment or it will not get done. You say that is not true? I heard the distinguished minority leader say that is not true. We need to make the tough decisions. The Senator from Washington, while I was in the chair a short while ago--we can make the tough decisions. Let me just comment on the tough decisions. In 1921, we passed a statute and it required the President to make recommendations to Congress whenever there was an estimated deficit or surplus. In 1964, we passed the Revenue Act of 1964, a sense of the Congress to balance the budget. In 1978, we passed the Revenue Act of 1978. It called for a balanced budget by the year 1982. The Bretton Woods agreement, in New Hampshire in 1978, known as the Byrd amendment, required a balanced budget by fiscal year 1981. In 1978, we passed the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978, the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, including a provision calling for a balanced budget. In 1979, we passed a temporary increase in the public debt limit and it required Congress to balance the budget. We called on the Budget Committees and the President to produce balanced budget plans. In 1980, the Bretton Woods Agreement Act of 1980, the Byrd amendment, reaffirmed Congress' commitment to a balanced budget by fiscal year 1981. In 1985, we passed a Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, better known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. What happened to that? The rest is history. In 1987, the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987 revised Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and set the deficit targets to require a balanced budget by the year 1993. And finally, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, which revised maximum deficit targets to reduce the deficit $83 billion by fiscal year 1999. Here we are. We started in 1921. We have all these wonderful acts we have passed requiring all these balanced budgets, and we are almost $5 trillion in debt. What more proof do you need than that? How much clearer can I make it than that? It does not work. Congress will not do it--period. That is why we need the amendment. If I did not think we need the amendment, I would not be for the amendment. I wish Congress had done this. I wish they had balanced the budget. I wish they had the guts to come up here and do the job. I wish they had done it in 1921, 1985, 1987--all those years I mentioned. But they did not. Republican Presidents, Democratic Presidents all through the years, and Republican Congresses, Democratic Congresses--there is enough blame to go around. There is plenty of blame to go around. We did not get the job done and we are never going to get it done because we are going to hear all these horror stories. This is what you are going to hear next week: The Republicans will not exempt Social Security; we will not exempt Social Security from the balanced budget amendment and therefore we want to cut Social Security. You cannot exempt Social Security. Do you want to put Social Security in the Constitution? You cannot do that because do you know what will happen? Everybody will put everything under Social Security. We will probably have aid to some of our States in the Constitution--we will put that under Social Security. We will put anything you can think of that you want to protect, stick it under Social Security. And what will happen? We will drain the Social Security trust fund. So those who say this amendment exempting Social Security is going to save Social Security are dead wrong. Those out there lobbying in favor of it are also wrong. I say to my senior citizen friends out there, beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing, because it is going to destroy Social Security, it is not going to save it. The way to save Social Security, believe me, is to pass this amendment to the Constitution of the United States requiring a balanced budget. That is the way to save Social Security. We cannot get there without the amendment because people will not do it. If people over the years really wanted to do it, if the moral argument does not turn you around, what will? If knowing that your children are going to have to pay for what we are doing does not turn you around, what will? The answer is nothing. I saw the charts that the minority leader had up there. He had a chart that said that if in order to balance the budget, if we take defense, Social Security, and interest on the debt, which we cannot until we reduce the debt, and exempt them, which everybody says we have to do, then Medicare has to take a hit, the IRS has to take a hit, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has to take a hit, the FBI has to take a hit, Medicaid has to take a hit, veterans have to take hits, and retirees have to take hits. Put them all up there. Scare everybody to death. But when we go broke, what is there for the veterans? You have a family. You invest. You open up a business. You fall on hard times, and you loose the business. The bank is not going to do it. The bank says they need the collateral and they need it now. You are a year behind. It is gone. That is the way it works. So what is left then? Nothing. We have to have the courage to take this issue on. We should not be debating and talking about how hard the cuts are going to be. Of course, they are going to be hard. They are going to be very hard. They are going to be very painful. The American people want to know the truth. They deserve to know the truth. We ought to be telling them the truth instead of politicizing this thing on the floor of the U.S. Senate hour after hour talking about how terrible these cuts are going to be. Of course, they are going to be terrible. They are not going to be as terrible as the consequences of going bankrupt and defaulting on every single loan, and every single fiscal obligation we have. Nothing is worse than that. That is what is going to happen. That is exactly what is going to happen, my colleagues. So if you assume that under this right-to-know provision, as sponsored by the minority leader, if we assume that we have to have the right to know everything--that is, we have to know where that baby is going to live, where that baby is going to go to school, what meals that baby is going to eat, and where that baby is going to go to college before we have the baby--if we have to do that, then we are not going to get there; period. You are not going to have the baby. You will be so frustrated. That is exactly what we are talking about here. They are not going to do it. We are not going to balance the budget. We are not going to do it without the amendment. How much more proof do you need than what I have given amendment and are required to do it. We have had plenty of time. I was very excited when I came here in 1985 to the Congress of the United States and shortly thereafter the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced budget amendment passed. Warren Rudman, the Senator from New Hampshire--with a lot of fanfare, and a big deal. We are going to balance the budget, and have it laid out. It is right. True. We had it laid out. What happened? We voted to change it, change it, roll it back and roll it back, and we piled up $2 or $3 trillion since then. We are going to keep right on piling it up. I tell you. If we lose this vote sometime this month, when we have this vote, if we lose it, somebody is going to be standing here at Daniel Webster's desk some years from now looking at a $12 trillion debt. Then what are we going to do? That is what is going to happen. I urge my colleagues in the strongest way that I possibly can, out of moral concern--moral concern, forget the economics, forget the politics--moral concern, I urge my colleagues to please consider the damage you are going to do to future generations in this country without this amendment. If we do, then we can get the job done. Without it, I would be the first person to stand up here and say we cannot, and we will not. We have to do it with the amendment. Putting something in between passage of this amendment on the floor and the State legislatures, three-quarters of which have to ratify, is unconstitutional. It is dilatory. It is not going to work. It is obfuscating the issue. I urge my colleagues to step up to the plate, and do what is right for the country. Put the politics aside. Tell the truth to the American people that we cannot afford not to have this amendment because we cannot afford not to have a balanced budget. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to salute U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Carl A. Clement, from Sunapee, NH, who died January 10, 1995, from injuries suffered in an automobile accident while serving his country in South Korea. The accident that took the life of this fine young man was a terrible tragedy for his family and for the State of New Hampshire. Carl was born in Newport, NH. He is the son of Charles and Mary Clement and graduated from Sunapee High School in 1983, where he received the outstanding athlete award. Carl was married to Sandra Clement, of Lawton, OK. They have two daughters, Jacqueline Amalia and Pamela Megan Clement. Carl joined the Army on July 5, 1983, and he was stationed at Fort Sill in OK, prior to his tour of duty in Korea. He left for Korea in March 1994 where he served as a generator mechanic. The Clement family can be proud of Carl and his service to the United States. Carl was an outstanding soldier, devoted family man, and trusted friend. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am honored to have represented Staff Sgt. Clement and his family in the U.S. Senate. Sergeant Carl Clement joins a distinguished list of New Hampshire patriots who have given their lives in the service of their country.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, we have a major opportunity early in this Congress to enact vitally important legislation to protect our Nation against the scourge of international terrorism. On behalf of myself, the distinguished chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, Senator Simpson, and Senators D'Amato, Cochran, Gregg, and Reid, I introduce the Alien Terrorist Removal Act of 1995. Mr. President, one of this Senator's greatest disappointments about last year's crime bill was that certain members of the conference committee from the House side insisted on stripping from it the Smith- Simpson alien terrorist removal amendment. Apparently at the instigation of a number of aliens' rights organizations, they killed a sorely needed antiterrorism measure that had been proposed by the Reagan Justice Department and actively promoted by the Bush Justice Department. In her letter to the conferees regarding the crime bill, in fact, Clinton administration Attorney General Janet Reno said that our amendment is both constitutional and addresses a problem that needs to be solved. shares our disappointment. A December 2, 1994, article in the Los Angeles Times quotes Director Freeh as saying that the Justice Department should make resurrecting the Smith-Simpson amendment one of its highest antiterrorism legislative priorities in the 104th Congress. Let us explain briefly what our proposal is all about. The Alien Terrorist Removal Act of 1995 would establish a special procedure under which classified information could be used to establish the deportability of alien terrorists. It is designed to safeguard national security interests, while at the same time according appropriate protection to the constitutional due process rights of aliens. the problem addressed by the bill Under current law, classified information can be used to establish the excludability of aliens, but not their deportability. Thus, when there is insufficient unclassified information available to establish the deportability of a terrorist alien, the Government faces two equally unacceptable choices. First, the Justice Department could declassify enough of its evidence against the alien to establish his deportability. Too often, however, that simply cannot be done because the information in question is so sensitive that its disclosure would endanger the lives of human sources or compromise highly sensitive methods of intelligence gathering. The Government's second, and equally untenable, choice would be simply to let the terrorist alien involved remain here. Unfortunately, that is not just a hypothetical situation. It happens in real cases. Recently, in fact, we understand, it happened in the case of an alien terrorist who is a high-ranking member of a notorious Middle Eastern terrorist organization. Due to the unavailability of the procedure that would be established by our bill, that terrorist had to be allowed to remain at large in the United States. how the bill would solve the problem Utilizing the existing definitions of terrorism in the Immigration Act of 1990 and of classified information in the Classified Information Procedures Act, our bill would establish a special alien terrorist removal court made up of sitting U.S. district judges that is modeled on the special court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The special court procedure established by our bill could only be invoked when the Justice Department certifies under seal that: First, the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General has personally approved invoking the special procedure; second, an alien terrorist is physically present in the United States; and third, the removal of the alien in normal public immigration proceedings would pose a risk to the national security because it would disclose classified information. Under our bill, once the Justice Department made those certifications, a U.S. district judge would determine whether the invocation of the special procedure is justified. In order for the procedure to be invoked, the district judge would have to determine that: First, the alien involved has been correctly identified; second, a public deportation hearing would pose a risk to the lives of human sources or the national security because it would disclose classified information; and third the threat posed by the alien's physical presence is immediate and involves the risk of death or serious bodily harm to American citizens. Our bill provides that if the U.S. district judge makes those determinations, a special removal hearing would be held. The alien would be provided the right to be present at the hearing and to be represented by counsel, at public expense if necessary. The alien also would be given the right to introduce evidence on his or her own behalf and to ask the judge to issue subpoenas for witnesses. For its part, the Justice Department would provide the U.S. district judge with the classified information, in camera and ex parte, to establish the need for the alien terrorist's removal. Under our legislation, the U.S. district judge then would review the classified information in chambers. Where possible, without compromising the classified evidence, the Federal judge would give the alien an unclassified summary of the evidence and/or the facts established by that evidence. Ultimately, the Federal judge would determine whether, considering the record as a whole, the Justice Department has proven, by clear and convincing evidence, that the alien is a terrorist and should be removed. Finally, under our bill, the alien involved would be given the right to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and to petition for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court. why the bill is constitutional When the Bush Justice Department was in the process of deciding whether to adopt the Reagan administration proposal that our bill embodies, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel reviewed its constitutionality. As a result of that review, the OLC determined that the proposal is constitutional and the Bush administration subsequently endorsed it. When the Senate considered the Smith-Simpson amendment late in 1993, our colleague, then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, agreed. Calling the case for the constitutionality of this proposal irrefutable, Senator Biden commented that nothing in the proposal rises to the level of being unconstitutional. Finally, as we have noted, when the Senate adopted our amendment and sought the Clinton Justice Department's comments, the Department wrote to members of the conference committee that it continues to regard our proposal as constitutional. The constitutionality of our bill would be determined under the test set forth by the Supreme Court in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. at 335. The Court set forth these three factors to inform a court's decision, in a given case, whether due process has been satisfied: First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail. Given the compelling nature of the national security interests at stake in the rare cases in which the need for this special procedure would arise and the protections that are afforded to the alien by our bill, we have no doubt that our proposal is fully constitutional. Mr. President, I urge the Judiciary Committee to hold prompt hearings on this important measure. I would hope that it can be passed and sent to the President in the early months of this historic 104th Congress. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Here we are facing fines of $25,000 a day, trying to fix $18 million worth of problems. Does that make sense? Does it really make sense to fine these people to try to comply? That is what an unfunded mandate does. Not only is it an unfunded mandate; it is fining for not complying with an unfunded mandate, which compounds it. It makes it worse. You cannot get $25,000 a day from people who do not have jobs, who are worried about the mill closing. It just does not work. Yet, here we go. I have people in those towns tell me, ``Senator, why don't you have the Federal Government come up here and take over the town because it will be a lot easier. It will give us less headaches. You run it. You want to tell us what to do, so go ahead and run the town.'' Rochester, NH, same thing--mandate under the Clean Water Act. I could mention numerous examples all over my State, and of course every Senator could mention similar horror stories all over America. Because of the enormous costs associated with the removal of these materials, for example, in Rochester, it has been forced to hire lawyers now to fight its case. Oh, boy, there is always the opportunity to hire lawyers. Get the lawyers involved and stretch it out to cost even more. There is always a lawyer on either side to get a lot of money out of this thing. So we do not spend any money on cleanup; we spend it on lawyers rather than on cleanup, which makes it worse. Why? You know why? Do you know why we have the lawyers involved in this? Because somebody back beginning approximately in the New Deal era, and built upon since then, has said that the 10th amendment ought to be torn up and thrown in the waste basket and ignored, and that we ought to put mandates on the people of America. That is why lawyers are fighting. And it is ironic that these same lawyers are the ones who are sworn to uphold the Constitution and to work under the Constitution. I was a local official. I was a school board member for 6 years. I was the chairman of that same school board for 3 years. I know what it is like. I have seen what happened to my school district when an unfunded mandate came in that said: You will do this. I do not care what it costs, you will do it. That forces many small communities to go out and raise additional taxes on that mandate. But again, we always get the debate off on whether or not what the mandate directs is good or bad. That is not the issue. In most cases, they are good. For example, handicapped children, absolutely, educating the handicapped, helping those people to get mainstreamed, absolutely supported by me and others. But should it be an unfunded mandate? If you want to mandate it, if that is what America wants, then fund it. Do not force a community that cannot pay for it to pay for it. Do you really want to cut taxes for the middle class? That is what I hear the President say--cut taxes for the middle class. Then, Mr. President, when you get this bill, if you ever get it, if your party ever will let us get it to you, sign it and you are going to save hundreds of millions of dollars--hundreds of millions of dollars on middle-class Americans who carry the load. Unfunded Federal mandates encroach on the authority of the States in contravention of the 10th amendment. So what is the solution? The solution has been proposed by my most distinguished colleague, the Senator from Idaho [Mr. Kempthorne], himself a former mayor, who drafted this legislation, who traveled all over the country getting support for it and pulling this thing together and managing it so brilliantly in the Chamber. Some say he has only been here 2 years as a Senator. But he had several years as a mayor on the receiving end of these mandates. He knows what those mandates do to his tax base, as the mayor of Boise, ID, and he knows what it does to the tax base of every community that is impacted by one of those mandates. This is a vital step. It will end a deplorable practice of Congress imposing unfunded mandates on State and local governments. Now, S. 1, the bill which we are talking about, sets a tough standard. It is stuff. You bet it is. And it ought to be. We are trying to get back to the Constitution of the United States, which we have ignored. It needs to be tough. This bill provides that it shall not be in order for the Senate to even consider any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that would increase the direct costs of Federal intergovernmental mandates by an amount that causes the $50 million threshold to be exceeded unless the mandate is paid by the Federal Government. That is the way it ought to be. We cannot even consider it, let alone pass it. That is how tough it is, and that is good. That is why it is being opposed by some on the other side, because some of our colleagues on the other side--not all--are responsible for the fact that we have these mandates in the first place, and they do not want them to go away. But the American people want them to go away. Any bill that imposes an unfunded mandate above that threshold of $50 million on State and/or local governments shall be out of order on the Senate floor. You cannot even get a chance to vote on it to pass it. That is tough. That is the way it should be. There is a further step. I am going to support Senator Hatch's constitutional amendment to prohibit unfunded mandates on State and local governments unless two-thirds of the Houses of Congress decide to do so. And there again is another irony. We have a 10th amendment that says we cannot have unfunded mandates, in my opinion, yet we are now going to probably have to have a 27th or 28th amendment which says we are going to prohibit them. That tells you where we are at in this country. It tells you that people in this country--some in this Congress--are willing to trash the Constitution of the United States of America. For what? Political gain? I do not know. How do you get political gain out of something the majority of the American people do not want by advocating it? It beats me. become necessary. Our Founding Fathers are probably spinning around in their graves right now. They created a limited Federal Government that would respect the rights of the States and here we are on the floor of the Senate, trying to gain back what the Founding Fathers never wanted to lose in the first place. They made that protection very explicit in that 10th amendment. Frankly, not only the Congress, the Supreme Court as well--let us not let the Supreme Court off the hook here--all these brilliant judges, scholars, over the years who have allowed this to happen. They are responsible, too. They have not afforded sufficient respect to the 10th amendment. There have been some brilliant people who have served in Government since the Constitution was written, many of them. I stand at the desk of one of them, Daniel Webster. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun--great orators, great Senators down through the years as well as others in the House and the Senate. And, frankly, out of politics--on the courts: brilliant people. But I have not yet met the match for Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and John Jay and others during that time, our forefathers, who wrote this brilliant document. They knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing. I think we made some terrible mistakes. The Senator from Idaho with this legislation is giving us the opportunity to correct some. The Senator from Tennessee, who is a surgeon, who was talking about health care a while ago on floor when I was in the Chair--we are going to have to perform corrective surgery. And it is about time. It is about time. That is why the American people changed course on November 8. I hope this Senate will get the message and pass this legislation next week, get it through the House, and get it to the President of the United States so it will become the law--which it already should be under the 10th amendment. In conclusion, we must never forget--and I think we have--that it was the States, there were only 13 at the time, but it was the States that created this Government. I used to teach history, so forgive me for a moment. The States created this Government. Without the large State- small State compromise, the Senate would not be here. The House would not be here. The Federal Government would not be here. They decided to give certain powers to the Federal Government and created that Government as a result. They never wanted the Federal Government to go beyond the specific powers they were given. Let us get back to the Constitution. If we do the debate, the integrity of the debate is on our side, and we will win. I think we will. It is just going to take a little time. It is a little frustrating that Senators exercise the right that they have to delay and debate. If you are going to delay to debate to make your point that is fine. If you are going to delay simply to stop the legislation, from us getting a chance to vote on it, I think that is wrong. Especially when you are trying to repeal something that is unconstitutional, in my opinion, to begin with. Mr. President, I yield.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, the bill that has been before the Senate for 8 days now basically has been delayed and stalled, is very important business for the people of the United States of America and certainly many communities around the country who suffer from the unfunded mandates that they have to comply with. I want to discuss that legislation today for a few minutes and also to say that I sincerely hope that in the very near future, hopefully some time early next week, that we will be able to pass that legislation and get it on through the House and the Senate and get it to the President. Hopefully he will sign it. This is a major piece of legislation that the majority, overwhelming majority of the American people support. I do not understand why we are delaying it. Apparently there seems to be, based on those we talk with, a great number of people on the other side of the aisle who say they support the bill yet when it came down to signing the petition for cloture, we did not get much help at all. Indeed, we only had one vote. I find a strange inconsistency here that those who say they support the legislation cannot bring themselves to bring the legislation to a vote. I think sometimes we get criticized here for not being able to accomplish anything and the American people look at this and say, why is it that a Senator, perhaps my own Senator, would say, ``I am for this bill but I do not want us to vote on it.'' When we get criticized out there in the public, we really should not wonder why that happens. There is nothing wrong with debate. All Senators have every right to debate this legislation as long as they wish. Certainly, I stand here today before one of the most historic desks in the U.S. Senate. This desk belonged to Daniel Webster, one of the few original desks in the Senate. Daniel Webster, of course, at one time represented New Hampshire in the House, was born in New Hampshire, and represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, one of the greatest orators of the pre-Civil War time. He certainly stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate before this desk and debated many of the great issues of the day and, I am sure, frustrated a lot of people on the other side. That is the way it should be. That is what the Senate is. There is nothing wrong with that. I do not criticize that in any way. I will say that this is an issue, the unfunded mandate issue, that is so overwhelmingly supported by the people in this country--I hesitate to say this, but I think it is true--that the American people, I think, are going to exact a price from those who delay it. I think they do it under grave risks. This legislation places, very interestingly, increased and added responsibilities on those who want to create the new mandate. It would also increase the cost of an existing one. In other words, they must get an estimate of the cost of the new requirement to both State and local government and the private sector and provide the comply with the change. So it puts the responsibility on those who want to produce the mandates. It is a very important piece of legislation that is going to provide not only relief from the unfunded mandates--that is a very general way of saying it--but it is also going to provide relief for the taxpayers, the local and State taxpayers who have to pay for this when the Federal Government puts the mandate in and does not fund it. Those are the people who are going to benefit from this bill. Those are the people who need relief. When we pass a piece of legislation without funding it and insist that the local community pay for it, what has to happen? Money does not come from heaven. It has to come from the taxpayers. It is extracted involuntarily from those taxpayers in those local communities. These local communities, Mr. President, all over the country are speaking out to us saying, ``Pass this bill.'' It is enthusiastically endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National League of Cities, Council of State Governments, National School Boards Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Governors Association--and on and on-- National Association of Counties. This information has been stated on the floor during the debate, but it is interesting, one quote comes from John Motley, the vice president of NFIB, who strongly supports S. 1, who said: It was not the cities and States who paid roughly $10 billion in unfunded mandates during the 1980's. It was the taxpayers, small business owners as well as everybody else. In June 1994, a poll of all NFIB members resulted in a resounding 90 percent vote against unfunded mandates. Even the Democratic Governor, who is the chairman of the National Governors Association, Gov. Howard Dean, said: We begin the 104th Congress with S. 1, the Unfunded Mandate Relief Act of 1995, which is a major priority for all State and local officials. We have reviewed the new bill, drafted in full consultation with all our organizations, and strongly support its enactment. So it is bipartisan support that we have--support from communities, from selectmen, from mayors, from Governors, from taxpayers all across America in every State and hamlet. It is one of the most overwhelmingly supported pieces of legislation in recent time. Yet, here it is bottled up in the U.S. Senate for 8 days. We are essentially doing no business today, other than debating it and offering amendments. We are in morning business, which means we do not have to debate it. I choose to debate it because I think it is important. That is why I am here. The majority leader, to his credit, sought on the floor last evening to get support to bring this thing to a head, and I hope that this will happen in the next few days and that we will see a vote. In talking about unfunded mandates, it really is an interesting dichotomy, just the very fact that we are here to try to repeal unfunded mandates or to stop future unfunded mandates, as this bill specifically does, because we always hear experts, if you will, constitutional experts, telling us what the Founding Fathers intended or what they did not intend. It is always very interesting. I would be fascinated to see people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and others come here and listen to the debate that goes on in this Chamber regarding what they thought these gentlemen really believed and what they were saying in the remarks that they made. It is interesting the way we twist and turn these remarks. If you take them literally, there is not any doubt. Let us listen to Thomas Jefferson: When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. It does not get any clearer than that. Jefferson was saying that we left England, we separated from the Government of England for this very reason. They created a government here where they did not want all of the power in Washington, and they made it very clear in the 10th amendment to the Constitution that all power would not be in Washington. Yet, here we are debating a bill that we want to pass to eliminate unfunded mandates which we really should not have in the first place. That is exactly where we are. The 10th amendment is the constitutional embodiment of Jefferson's belief in a limited Federal Government, respectful of the rights of the States. How are we being respectful to the rights of the States, Mr. President, when we simply put unfunded mandates on them telling them they must do this without the money? That is not being respectful. With all due respect, that is being disrespectful. Of course it is being disrespectful, and we have been doing it to the States and the communities all across this country for years in education, environment, you name it, we have done it to them and they know it. That is why we have so much support, so much grassroots support from all over America, at the levels that I discussed, coming back and saying to us, ``Get this off our backs, we are sick of it, we are tired of it. We want it off our backs.'' What does the 10th amendment say? Again, we get all these interpretations. Let us read it. It is very simple: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectfully, or to the people. Yet somebody somewhere along the line at some course in our history has come up with this terrible idea, stupid idea that this is wrong and that we ought to be able to provide unfunded mandates to the States and communities. This is in direct conflict with the 10th amendment. But all these great legal scholars and constitutional scholars and probably some of our predecessors on the floor of this body thought otherwise and basically took the 10th amendment and tore it up as if it did not exist. And there it goes. So here we are now trying to get this corrected. That is what went wrong. When did this start happening? We can go back to the New Deal. Ever since then, the Federal Government has increasingly encroached upon fiscal and constitutional prerogatives of the State and local governments. When you put a mandate on a State, on a community, you force the taxpayers to pay for it. That is where it comes from. The State and local government has no choice but to increase those taxes. So you are mandating a tax increase on a small community, whether it is in Indiana or New Hampshire or Georgia or West Virginia, or wherever. This is exactly what Jefferson warned us against. Very clearly he warned us against it: Do not draw all the power to Washington, for the same reason they did not want all the power drawn to England or to a monarch or to a tyrant. They were afraid of it. They feared it. That is why they came here and built this country. That is why they wrote the Constitution, because they did fear it. That is why they disseminated the power among the three branches of government as they did, and between the States and the Federal Government. These States were reluctant to create this country from the Constitution. The Federalist papers by Madison and Jay and Hamilton were particularly written to convince the people to write the Constitution. They had to be persuaded because they were afraid to give up their State and community rights. That is why the 10th amendment was put in the Constitution, my colleagues. Unfunded Federal mandates impose enormous costs on the States. Nationwide examples are all over the place. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently reported that the Clean Water Act alone mandated costs on the cities with populations greater than 30,000 more than $3.6 billion in 1993. Now, our opponents will say, ``What's wrong with the Clean Water Act?'' I am not opposed to cleaning up the water in the United States. I do not think there is a citizen in America who wants to drink dirty water or swim in dirty water. The issue is not that. The issue is should this Congress, this Government, pass laws that mandate that be done without providing the dollars? Did they ever stop to think that maybe a community of a few hundred people cannot raise that kind of money out of the taxpayers? It is not there. That is what is wrong. That is why the American people voted the way it. They are sick of it. They want it changed. They made it very clear. Now, from 1994 through 1998, the Conference of Mayors reports 10 Federal mandates that they studied--10, just 10 Federal mandates, unfunded some of them--will cost $54 billion. The Clean Water Act alone is $29.3 billion; Safe Drinking Water Act, $8.6 billion, and RCRA, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, $5.5 billion--again, well intended pieces of legislation, some of which do a good job. But should it be mandated without the funds? The answer is no. That is what we are here talking about. That is what is being delayed. That is what the other side, our friends on the other side of the aisle are doing. They are delaying this bill to stop this stuff so it does not happen in the future. Now, there was a Price Waterhouse survey that said counties are spending $4.8 billion annually--1993, $4.8 billion annually--to comply with just 12 of many unfunded mandates in Federal programs, and that they will spend $33.7 billion over the next 5 years. Let me give you a couple of examples in New Hampshire. The city of Berlin, NH, economically depends on one business really for its livelihood, and that is a big paper mill--11,700 residents and declining. It is under an EPA order to construct a new $18 million water supply system pursuant to this Safe Drinking Water Act, mandated $18 million. Berlin has problems with its water, and it is trying to correct them, and it needs the time to do that. Those citizens, many of whom I know personally, do not want to drink polluted water. But they cannot bond this amount of money within the time that is dictated to them by the EPA. They simply cannot do it. So they are facing fines of $25,000 a day, a depressed community of 11,700 people facing $25,000 a day fines for not complying with the regulations. I might inquire of the Chair, has my time expired?

Mr. SMITH. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 10 minutes.

Mr. SMITH. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. I realize there is a conference pending at approximately 3:15. I would like to have my views heard on this very important piece of legislation which I strongly support. I want to congratulate Senator Grassley on the fine job he has done in his leadership on this issue. I am in very strong support of S. 2, the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate is now addressing itself to this issue, finally. It is a very important matter, assuring that Congress obeys the same laws by which it requires the rest of the Nation to abide. That is certainly not an unreasonable approach to take, I think. It is an issue in which I have long been interested, and I am pleased to have served with Senator Grassley on the Senate Republican working group that developed the proposal that is now embodied as S. 2. Mr. President, we are all aware that public opinion polls, whether we like it or not, consistently report that the American people hold Congress as an institution in very low regard. The people's lack of esteem for Congress is based in large part on the perception that Congress is an arrogant and imperial body that has placed itself above the law. We should not be doing things to enhance that perception. It should be the opposite. Unfortunately, in modern times at least, this perception has been well grounded in reality. For decades, Congress has routinely-- routinely--exempted itself from a wide range of laws governing such matters as civil rights, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, workplace safety, and on and on and on. In a very real sense, then, Congress indeed has placed itself above the law. That decidedly was not what the Founding Fathers of our great Nation intended. They have been amply quoted here, and there is the possibility of repetition; I would like to quote a couple of more times. In Federalist No. 57, Madison assured the American people that under the Constitution, Congress would not abuse its lawmaking power because ``it can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends.'' So Madison was very clear about that. Later, as a Member of the first Congress, Mr. Madison spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives about the important principle that all laws should be made to operate as much on the lawmakers as upon the people. It is amazing when you go back and read the words of these founders, Mr. President. They were so brilliant, and so many times we walk away from their logic. It is interesting to hear contemporaries interpret their words almost 180 degrees differently from what they intended when the Founders wrote them. Mr. President, Madison was not alone in articulating this principle that Congress should not be above the law, but rather under it. And in his manual of parliamentary practice, Thomas Jefferson, another pretty well-known founder, noted that ``the framers of our Constitution took care to provide that the laws should bind equally on all, and especially that those who make them shall not exempt themselves from their operation.'' Sadly, however, all too often the Congress has seen fit to ignore the solemn principle that those two great founders, Madison and Jefferson, so clearly enunciated. In recent years, mounting public pressure for change has prompted a movement toward reform with respect to congressional coverage, and in response to that call for change in the 103d Congress, I, among others, introduced legislation to deal with it. Mine was S. 579, the Equity for Congress Act. The principal difference between the bill that I introduced, the Equity for Congress Act and the other congressional coverage bills in the last Congress, is that the bill I introduced would have kept the Congress out of the business of policing itself with respect to its compliance with the laws that my bill would have made applicable to the legislative branch. So under the bill that I introduced, there would have been no office of compliance created within the legislative branch. Rather, the executive and judicial branches would have enforced the laws with respect to Congress in the same manner in which it has done in the private sector. But I still believe the approach to enforcement taken under the Equity for Congress Act in the last Congress is House objected to this approach, however. It is a parliamentary body, and we sometimes have to compromise a bit. They use the separation of powers as the grounds for not wanting to do that. Their concern is focused particularly on what they see as a potential for partisan motivation in the manner in which the executive branch might enforce the law. In an effort to ensure the broadest possible support for, as well as speedy enactment of, congressional coverage legislation, I agreed to support this compromise, the compromise embodied by the bill before us now, S. 2. Under this compromise, congressional employees who believe that their employer--congressional employer--is violating one of the laws made applicable to the Congress by S. 2 have a choice, they have a choice that is a compromise here. After counseling, they can either file a formal complaint with the new congressional office of compliance or they can go directly to the courts. The only highly limited exceptions are with respect to those substantive laws that do not afford an analogous right to go to court to other persons who are not congressional employees. So, I agreed to support this compromise. It is a good compromise and a reasonable compromise because it is consistent with the spirit of the proposal I introduced. I congratulate Senator Grassley for his leadership and his willingness to discuss this matter and to listen to those of us who wanted to make some changes. Mr. President, I believe that it is imperative that we should move forthwith to take this important step toward restoring the confidence and the trust of the American people in their Congress. Acting promptly to place the Congress under the same laws by which it expects the rest of society to abide will send a powerful message to the American people that we got the message. We got the message that the reign of an arrogant and imperial Congress is over. By moving expeditiously, we in the Congress can send that clear and unmistakable message to the American people that we are committed to true and honest reform. Finally, Mr. President, I believe that S. 2 has another equally important purpose. Beyond moving to restore the confidence of the American people in their Congress, I believe the enactment of the Congressional Accountability Act will help us to make better laws. If we have to live under the laws we make, we will make better laws. Some say we ought to make a lot less laws, and I totally agree. Others say we ought to repeal one for every one we pass. That sounds like a good idea as well. But learning firsthand what effects the laws that are passed have on those to whom the law applies will give Congress a unique and invaluable way in which to learn by experience what is wrong with those laws. Moreover, living under those laws will give Congress a powerful disincentive. It will think twice before passing laws which it would not want to live under. So I am hopeful, in conclusion, that one spinoff from this excellent piece of legislation will be that we may look at some of these laws that are so onerous on the American people and on many businesses throughout the country and change some of them, as well, when we realize how bad they really are. I thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Iowa for his courtesy, and I yield the floor. Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.