Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. That is not my question.

Mr. THOMAS. But this is Social Security, not the private sector.

Mr. THOMAS. I appreciate the Senator's answers.

Mr. THOMAS. You and me and the gentleman who is giving you all the answers there. He doesn't get Social Security until he reaches 65.

Mr. THOMAS. These people don't have Social Security other than what is here.

Mr. THOMAS. It is the opposite. I understand. I thank the Senator. I would love to see them do whatever they would like. They can do the best they can. But I think a lot of people are anxious, as you look at these other charts--I am sorry I can't tell you who proposed this chart, but it shows over time the contributions would have to go up substantially and the trust fund goes down substantially over a period of time. If that happens, I guess I am just concerned so the taxpayers are not going to be asked to fill that gap.

Mr. THOMAS. But if this happens, you will start getting Social Security benefits at age 60?

Mr. THOMAS. Pardon?

Mr. THOMAS. We are dealing differently with a relatively small segment of folks here than we do with others.

Mr. THOMAS. What is the rationale for combining Social Security and a private annuity program?

Mr. THOMAS. Wouldn't it be simpler over time if you just separated Social Security from a private retirement annuity program? Then you would have the same Social Security benefits as everyone else, and then you could add to it in the private sector and do whatever you chose.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I guess I will be in morning business because I wish to talk about a number of different items, if I may, for 10 minutes.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, what my friend from North Dakota just talked about describes where we are. We are down to the end of this year's activities. We are down to the end of this session. Yet we do not seem to have established for ourselves the priorities collectively that we should handle before we leave. I understand everyone has a little different point of view. Everyone has interests of their own. Everyone has things they have pursued and find most interesting. But the fact is, we have some things that have to be done. We have some things that I think most people would agree are priorities. But we have seemingly not been able to establish how we are going to spend our time. For example, now on the floor is this railroad retirement bill. It is a bill most people would be happy to talk about. It should be talked about. But it doesn't need to be talked about now. There are many items. Senators were already talking about, of course, the security of ships and docks, and so on. It is very important stuff. Is that where we are at the moment? There is no doubt these issues are important, but there are lots of things we need to talk about. We have not finished our appropriations, which should have been done in August. They are still not done. We are having great debates over Defense appropriations, which of course is highly important. We ought to be doing that. We have some conference committee reports now that are available. We are not talking about those. So I have to suggest some of the things that have been brought up here are totally political and have to do more with posturing than they do with doing what we need to do. We need to do appropriations. I don't think anybody resists the idea that we need to do a stimulus bill. We don't have one we can agree on because we haven't been able to get together to do that. We ought to be able to do that. I happen to think we need an energy bill. Again, it is not only a part of the economy but it is also certainly a part of our war on terrorism. As we get involved in the Middle East, we certainly have to take a look at what we do about energy. It seems to me that one of the things we ought to do among ourselves is determine what our priorities are, and go about getting those things finished. The longer we are here, of course, all of these ideas come up for spending. We ought to take a good look at where we are. I happen to be on the Agriculture Committee, as does the Presiding Officer. I would look forward to an Agriculture bill. We don't even know what it costs. It has not been scored. It is a little unusual to be bringing something up that probably costs $90 billion over 10 years and not having it scored to know what it costs when you bring it to the floor. The current farm bill continues until August of 2002. If we did it in January, it probably wouldn't make a great deal of difference to the agricultural community then. I think those are some of the issues which need to be talked about. We spent $20 billion immediately after September 11. We spent an additional $10 billion shortly thereafter. We spent an additional $15 billion, $10 billion of which was guaranteed loans for airport stability. We had a budget that we agreed upon of $6.6 trillion for this year. That now has been increased to $6.86, about a $25 billion expansion of the budget which was requested. We have done that. We have additional spending in line for defense of $18 billion. Education will be up soon, I am sure, with another $4 billion to $5 billion increase. We have to take a look at that. One of the things that is holding up the current bill is the idea of putting on $15 billion more for internal security. The President said we have the money now, and he will let us know when we need more out of this original allocation. I hope we can come to grips with this idea of where we go and make some adjustments. The railroad workers bill is an interesting one. Certainly everybody, including myself, supports railroad workers. This is an interesting one. I also happen to be on the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee has had no hearings on this bill. It is a bill that is interesting. It combines Social Security with private retirement funds. It has to do with moving that money out of the Government. The Government is responsible for this now under the Railroad Retirement Act. There is some great concern that if it moves, as has been suggested--and I don't think anyone knows exactly what the answer is going to be if the benefits are increased and the contributions are reduced over a period of time--railroad workers are in a situation where you have three people drawing retirement for everyone who is working. I think there has to be some assurance that if we do this and let this retirement program change, the taxpayers aren't going to pick up the tab. I would very much like to see this be a private opportunity for the railroads and the workers to do whatever they would like to agree to but not ending up with the taxpayers picking up the tab. This bill adds benefits and reduces contributions. Those are the kinds of questions we have to resolve, at least in my mind. Certainly, all of us are for doing all we can for railroad workers' retirement. But I think there are some real questions that have to be resolved. In terms of the economic stimulus package, we have worked with that for a good long time now. Again, it has come out of the Finance Committee. There are different views as to what a stimulus is. We have talked to many famous economists in the United States, and they are not sure exactly what is the best route. Obviously, we have to do something to help people who are unemployed. I think there is a willingness to do that. On the other hand, what we are seeking to do is provide people with jobs. We do that by assisting business. We do that by accelerated depreciation. I believe we can come up with an answer to that and get that job done in a fairly short time. However, each side puts on conditions. So we have not done that. I urge that we take the responsibility of determining what it is we need to do before we leave in this session and then decide what our second priorities are and put a definite time for next year and move forward with those. But we do not seem to yet be able to set that level of priority. I urge we do that and be sure we give ourselves time to take a look at these bills--whether they be farm bills, whether they be retirement bills--and make sure we understand that they meet the vision of where we want to go. We ought to think through agriculture. Where do we want to be on agriculture in 10 years? What kinds of things can we do in terms of conservation, research, and marketability, and in terms of having some kind of support mechanism for agriculture to keep it healthy and yet let it respond to the market. Those are the things I think we want to accomplish over time. I think we have a great challenge and a short time to do it. I look forward to being a part of that. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. THOMAS. I object.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I have listened this morning to the conversations on the floor. I think it is appropriate that we have had some discussion about what we are going to do in the remaining time before us. I hope we can come to a little more of a cooperative understanding of what our agenda should be in the next 2 weeks. What are the things that are most important? What are the things we ought to have as our priorities? Obviously, we have to finish the appropriations, and we have only sent about half of those to the White House. So that is something we must do. Obviously, there is difficulty in trying to complete the work on the Defense appropriations. It seems to me it is also important that we have a stimulus package. However, having been on the Finance Committee and sat through all the talk about it, we expanded it far beyond where anyone would suggest these were stimulus programs. I suppose you could expect that to happen. We are at the end of a session. We are at a time when, because of the terrorist attacks, emergencies have arisen that must be addressed. But now we find that everyone who has ever had a thought about where we ought to be spending more money wants to do it. I think we have to be a little more thoughtful about where we are. We started out with a budget that we agreed upon. I think it was about $660-some billion. Then that was changed at the request of the President some time ago to $686 billion. In addition to that, of course, we have had another $40 billion, and another $5 billion, and agreed to guarantee another $10 billion. So we have spent a great deal of money. I think we have ought to give some thought as to what our priorities are to be at this point. It is my belief we could come up with a stimulus package that would deal with the needs of unemployment and some of the medical needs there. I think we could do something that is rather limited in terms of accelerated depreciation that would cause businesses to create jobs, which is what we want to do. We do not need to spend $120 billion simply because we have an excuse to spend. So I am hopeful that we can get together on a stimulus package. The majority leader said this morning the Republicans refuse to meet. That is not the case at all. The Republicans are not willing to have the Appropriations Committee be part of that meeting because it is a Finance Committee responsibility. That is where we ought to be; there is no question about that. I hope we can take a little time now to say what our priorities should be. We need a little vision, just over 2 weeks. It ought not to be too difficult to decide what it is that we need to get done and step aside from some of these other questions. We are talking about a farm bill. I am on the Agriculture Committee and we have not even scored it. We don't know how much it will cost. Yet we are here. We want to get it on the floor. We have not had the farm bill before the committee, not even had a chance to look at it, but we were asked to mark it up. That is not the best way to deal with the important issues there. We can deal with them. I am hopeful we will slow down just a moment, decide what it is that is most important for the country that we do in the very little time we have, and not just absolutely think we ought to be spending every dime we can possibly find. That is not necessarily the thing to do at this point. Hopefully, we will be able to do that. I hope we can do at least those two things, the appropriations bills and the stimulus package. These other things ought to have a little more thought. We are going to be back next year, early. We can put a time certain on those and do them at that point. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS. I withhold the request.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. If it would be more appropriate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in recess until 2:15.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, it is interesting to listen to our friends on the other side of the aisle. It is amazing the message we get. The message is: Let's get a bill; we need to do it right away. Everyone agrees with that. We know what needs to be done to get a bill. I happen to be on the committee that is involved, and we know how the bill got to this point. It passed entirely with a partisan vote, all Democrats, no Republicans. Republicans did not have participation in the bill. So this is a bill that is totally partisan. That bill is not going to pass. We need to work on a bill together. There is willingness to do that. Talking about passing a bill without recognizing what needs to be done is amazing to me. It is clear what has to be done. Senators from both sides of the aisle need to join with the administration and, indeed, with the Members of the House to put together a bill which we can pass. This business of continuing to talk about the need and then denying the opportunity to get together is hard to understand. Everybody here wants to pass a bill. There is no question about that. The question is, How do we do it? And that becomes increasingly clear. There are not going to be enough votes to do it without working together. This constant conversation about we need to do this right away is silly. We all want to do something to help the unemployed. We all want to do something for those who need help with health care. We all want to provide more incentives to develop jobs. Talk about an emergency. How much have we spent in the last 2 months? About $55 billion. The President has said: You do not need to spend more money now. When we need more money for terrorism overseas or terrorism in this country, I will ask for it. And we responded when he asked for the money. Colleagues are now beginning to use that technique for passing all kinds of projects they always wanted. They are very questionable as far as being an emergency. We need to come together and bring before the Senate a bill that represents the interests of all participating parties and pass it. We can do that. Until that time comes, the chances are we are not going to be successful in moving a bill along. The substitute, of course, spends about $67 billion in the year 2002: About $21 billion on temporary business tax relief and $46 billion on spending proposals, including Federal payments of individual tax insurance premiums under COBRA, extended unemployment insurance for displaced workers, expanded Federal support for Amtrak, numerous agricultural products, and other unrelated provisions. Secretary O'Neill recently said the proposal is heavy on spending but will have little stimulative effect on the economy. Moreover, some of its provisions would have an adverse effect on employment. An editorial yesterday in the Washington Post made the following observation: The stimulus package that passed through the committee last week includes money for citrus growers and buffalo farmers producing electricity from chicken waste. It includes a tax break in aviation fuel for crop dusters; a wage credit designed to encourage firms to hire welfare recipients was extended to businesses in Lower Manhattan. So we all want to get this bill passed, and I think we have a technique before us where we can do that. We can come together and we can configure a package that does what all of us want, and that is to assist those people who now need assistance and provide stimulus for the economy so we can get jobs and growth back before us and to do it quickly. Those options are available to us as soon as we are willing to recognize what needs to be done to cause that to happen. The President has called upon the Congress, specifically the Senate, to adopt an economic package, including these kinds of things in the outline. Timing: We need to pass it and get it to his desk, the President said, before the end of November. We can do that. Tax cuts: We make sure our tax relief encourages investment, encourages the flow of capital. We need to reform the alternative minimum tax in corporate America so corporate America does not have to get penalized during times of declining earnings. Create jobs: So often I do not think we really look down the road as to what we want to be the outcome. If we can help people, we should, but the real purpose is to create jobs and to create a stronger economy. Worker assistance: The President said we need to spend money on helping workers who lost their jobs as a result of the attacks on September 11. We need to extend and expand unemployment benefits to those workers, said the President. I know we need to expand what they call national emergency grants which will give the Governors the latitude to take Federal monies and apply the money to special worker needs. We need an energy plan that encourages conservation, exploration, and production. That probably brings about a kick to the economy more quickly than most anything else we can do. So these are the issues that have already been talked about, and they are common. We have a bill that is passed by one party without consultation with the other. And we expect to get that passed? It is not going to happen. We can do something, and we can do something with the House if we can come together and put together a plan where there is some involvement, bring it to the Senate to pass it and pass it quickly so we can move forward to accomplish that which all of us want to accomplish. I see the minority leader in the Chamber, and I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Go right ahead. I am not in any hurry and I am desperate to hear the remarks of the Senator.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate the comments of my friend from Nevada. I agree with what he has to say. He certainly describes one of the reasons that we are involved in seeking to find out where those terrorists are, and those countries that harbor them, and doing something about terrorism around this world.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to comment on where I think we are today and where I think we need to go. Certainly I am very proud of Americans since September 11. I think it has been amazing how everyone in this country has come together with a commitment. I am proud of their work and their dedication to find where we are with these terrorists and to do something about it and to get rid of terrorism around the world. As I go home to Wyoming, I am very pleased that even though Wyoming is quite a ways from here, those folks are just as committed, just as involved, and just as interested as the rest of us. I am very pleased about that. When we are challenged and attacked by terrorists, this country demonstrates its commitment to freedom and its commitment to doing away with the things around the world that cause terrorism. I am very proud of this Congress after September 11. Everyone in both parties in the House and the Senate came together to do the things that were necessary, to do the things the President asked of us regardless of party lines, to do the things for defense, and to do the things for New York and Virginia in terms of the need because of what happened, and then to continue to do that. I am very pleased about that. Obviously, in the Senate and the Congress, everyone has different ideas about how we should go forward. Once we get past the emergency kinds of things, we, of course, go back to not having universal agreement on everything that we talked about doing. That is the way it is. That is the way it should be. We are here to represent different views as we have different views on things that should be undertaken. I believe we have a number of things that we ought to accomplish before we leave, and indeed it seems to me that we should. One of the reasons we have done the things we have done is so that we can continue to live a relatively normal life as well as meet our emergencies. I think one of the things that calls for normalcy is for us to leave and go home after Thanksgiving and during Christmastime. I suspect that rather than sine die, we will be leaving at the call of the Chair. I will support that. If it is necessary for us to return, we could do that. But we have a number of things we must do. One of them is certainly appropriations, on which the Presiding Officer has given leadership. Obviously, appropriations are a very important and vital part of what we do in Government. I think we completed 5 of the 13 appropriations bills. We are moving forward. We need to continue to do that. We need to have an economic stimulus package. Our economy, of course, about a year ago began to weaken. Then, of course, with the September 11 tragedy, it took a rather sharp decline. We have to do something about that decline, and we can. I think it is necessary for us to complete the airport safety bill that we have passed in the Senate and now has been passed in the House. We have to come together on some differences that exist. So these are the issues I think we need to complete. Quite frankly, most of the other issues we have before us are not necessarily issues that have to be done prior to the beginning of next year's session, in my opinion. Obviously, not everyone agrees with that opinion. Also, at the end of a session--any session; and I think particularly this one where there are things that have to be passed--we are going to find ourselves with items that anyone has ever wanted to be passed hoping to be attached to a vehicle for passage. Frankly, that is wrong. We ought not to legislate that way. I hope that in the appropriations process we stay within budget. Obviously, we are going to have special spending that is outside the budget. We recognize that. We have authorized that. I think we have spent $55 billion in one of the first shots, and we will probably spend another $75 billion, or more, in this stimulus package. Those are obviously special things that need to be addressed. We have said we will stay within the budget except in times of emergency, and this is a time of emergency. But I hope we do not use this as a reason for expanding our normal spending, for building permanent programs that might only be needed right now. I believe it is quite important to be careful. I believe the economic stimulus package should be defined as to what its purpose is, what we want to have accomplished with it, and that is basically to have some sort of immediate impact on the economy. I have to admit--and I am a member of the committee that deals with this--even though we have talked to some of the most knowledgeable economists in the whole country, not everyone is quite sure what has the greatest impact immediately. But we need to do the best we can to make sure the things we do will have an immediate impact. I hope we do not end up with a Christmas tree. There will be lots of interest in tacking on everything that anyone has ever thought of passing, whether it be long-term taxes or health care programs that will go on for whatever. I hope we will limit that spending basically to the package for which the President has asked. We should do that. It is not a time to put in a program that is attractive but will go on forever after the economic crisis is over. We are going to have to put some dollars in the package. The tax proposals will not do it entirely. We have to put some dollars in there to help extend unemployment insurance for those who need it when that expires, although relatively few have had and will have theirs expire in the next several months. We certainly have to do something about health insurance for those who are unemployed and have lost their health insurance. But I hope we do not develop a whole new Government health insurance program that goes on forever. We ought to use a technique to help people in this fairly short term of what we should do in an emergency. Also, we are dealing, of course, with energy. I do not know whether it will happen--there is considerable difference of view about an energy bill--but I happen to think, in this instance, energy is one of the most important issues we have to deal with; it has been for some time. We have needed an energy policy. Now we have gotten involved in the Middle East; knowing that nearly 60 percent of our oil comes from overseas, we find ourselves more at risk. So energy has become part of this matter of economic development and security. Here again, there seems to be a good deal of resistance over a couple of issues, such as ANWR and so on, which are not the biggest issues in the world but they seem to hold up something that might very well move right along as part of this package. Interestingly enough, there is a good deal of discussion about agriculture and an Agriculture bill. The Agriculture bill that is presently in place does not expire until September of next year. Nevertheless, the House has passed a bill that would last for 10 years, as a matter of fact. I am hopeful we can do something that does not last quite that long so we can have another opportunity in 5 years to look at the issue; it has been our history to reevaluate bills to see how they have worked. There are lots of ideas and very little agreement on the Agriculture bill. I am hopeful, quite frankly, that we do not do it this year. I think we have to have more time to take a look at it. We have eight or nine different titles. We have only dealt with one title in terms of a markup. It would be a very stressed situation to now try to deal with all these different programs. Most of all--and this is not something that is new nor unique to our situation now--I hope, as we look at these issues and we look at the problems, we will try to see if we can get a little forward vision into what we want to have happen over a period of time. Over the last 6 or 8 months, I have had a series of meetings in Wyoming we have called Vision 20/20. We began to try to talk to people in communities about what they would like to see in terms of their families, in terms of their communities, in terms of their State in 10 or 20 years. Then, as they begin to get a vision of what they would like to see, where they would like to be, then it makes it much easier to make the decisions now and to measure whether those decisions, in fact, lead to where they want to go over time. One of the real obvious issues this applies to is agriculture. What do we want agriculture to be? Obviously, all of us who have farmers and ranchers--and I come from an agricultural background--want to make it economically suitable for them to exist, to be a very important part of our economy in Wyoming and other places as well. We hope agriculture is part of a conservation movement where we have trees and fields and where we have planned growth in open spaces. Agriculture can contribute to that greatly. These are the things we want to see over time. I think we want to see an economic safety net for agriculture. On the other hand, certainly we would like to see agriculture responding to the marketplace. That is where all businesses ought to be. We ought to be building more and more markets as we can overseas. We are going to have to have agriculture that fits with today's trade issues. WTO is meeting right now. It is fairly easy to sit down and say: Hey, we have some real problems; we need to do this right now. But then you ask yourself, where will that lead. It is the same thing with energy. Where do we want to be with energy? Obviously, we want to have energy available for us. It should be available, to a large extent, domestically so we are not totally dependent on imports. We ought to have energy that is created in an environmentally sound manner to have the multiple use of public lands, for example, having energy produced there as well as preserving the lands. Those are the kinds of things that I think all of us want to see over time. We would like to have conservation so that we find ways to do the things we want to do in our lives with less energy, if we can. And I suspect we will find new ways over time. I remember being in a meeting in Caspar, WY, years ago where somebody made a point which I have always remembered: We have never run out of a fuel. Before we run out, we always find something else that moves us forward. We started with wood, then coal, then gas. We have nuclear. We have had all these sources of fuel. We will continue to have sources of fuel, I am sure, over time. I know it is difficult--and I certainly am not critical--but I do think it is necessary that we address ourselves to those issues that should have a priority for us before we leave this session of Congress somewhere near our normal time. I think it is up to the leadership and up to the rest of us to do that, and to get those issues on the floor and to come to some agreement--which is not easy, I understand--to deal with them. After that, we can then move on to do other things. Mr. President, thank you for the time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I want to talk a moment about a couple of subjects that I think are current certainly. One of them is the subject of energy. Energy has been with us for a long time. We have been talking about a policy on energy. We have been talking about doing something to strengthen our domestic production so that we become less dependent on imports particularly from the Middle East. We have talked about the need to do something to help our economy, and energy has something to do with it. So it is an issue of security. We are now nearly 60 percent dependent on foreign oil. Oil, of course, causes the movement and transportation not only in our economy but in defense, so it becomes even more important we deal with that issue as we talk about a stimulus for the economy. And we will be coming up with a number of proposals we hope will have an impact on the economy. Energy, of course, probably has one of the greatest impacts on the economy. The idea we could move into doing some development of facilities, we could do some new efforts to produce oil, would all have some impact on jobs and on our economy. We have been talking about it for months now. We have had a number of meetings out in the swamp that were attended and supported by the administration, by the President, by the Secretary of Energy, by the Secretary of Interior, to move forward with something. The House, of course, has already passed an energy bill. We have been supported by groups of seniors, and I think understandably so. When utility rates go up, seniors on fixed incomes are the ones who suffer the most, and that is an experience we have all been through. Certainly, we have had also the support at these various meetings from labor unions, particularly the teamsters who have been there time after time. We have been joined by Native Americans from Alaska who are dealing with that portion of energy. So we have had support from a great many people. Yesterday there was a two-page ad in the Hill newspaper of all the people who are supporting doing something with energy policy. So there is very wide support for it. We have not, however, gotten support from the majority leader to bring it to the floor. We believe that is one of the legislative efforts that should have a high priority before we can finish our work, which I hope we will do relatively soon. So there is much that needs to be done. A policy in energy, of course, has to do with conservation, how we in our homes and in our cars can do more to conserve energy. It has to do with renewables. We need to put an emphasis on renewables so we can strengthen that aspect of production. We certainly need to do more on research so that we can find, for instance, ways to even more cleanly use coal and other kinds of volume resources. We have to talk about production. We have to talk about access to public lands. We can have production. We have shown that in Wyoming one can go into an area and have production without destroying the environment, and we should do it in a very careful way, and indeed we will. So despite the need for both the economic boost and for the defense and security aspect of it, we have not been able to cause the majority to bring this before the Senate. We urge it be done and done quickly. We need to bring this bill forward and deal with it. Perhaps we will deal with the House bill, but we need to bring it up and make some judgments.