Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, today the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 2 p.m. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of the Interior appropriations bill. As a reminder, cloture motions were filed on Friday on S.J. Res. 33 denouncing the offer of clemency to Puerto Rican terrorists and on the Hutchison amendment regarding oil royalties. These cloture votes have been scheduled for 5 p.m. today and may be followed by additional votes on judicial nominations. It is hoped that action on the Interior appropriations bill can be completed by tomorrow and that the Senate can begin consideration of the bankruptcy reform bill. I thank colleagues for their attention.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, as was noted, there are 2 hours of morning business. My associates are going to undertake for the first hour to talk a little bit about the challenges that we face over the next month, 2 months. By the end of this month, of course, we are to have completed the appropriations, and we will be moving forward with that. We will be dealing with the administration and with the President on their completion. We hope that it will not end up in a closing down of Government but, rather, finding some consensus as to how we deal with our budget for next year. We are challenged by different philosophies, of course, as to what that spending ought to be; we are always challenged by a difference of view as to what the priorities are. That is the nature of our body. So, Mr. President, I would like now to yield to my friend, the Senator from Arkansas, for 15 minutes.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Arkansas stated very clearly the strong feeling that I have received from folks in Wyoming. As I went around as well, when I first talked about tax relief, people kind of rolled their eyes. But when you start talking about the specifics of it--estate taxes and marriage penalty taxes-- when you talk about the kinds of things that are there to encourage retirement funding and educational funding, you really get a great deal more interest in it. I think the Senator pointed out clearly the real philosophical difference. If the money is here, it will be spent for increased government and increased programs rather than going back to the people who really own the money. I thank the Senator.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Senator. Certainly, he has been the leader in rural health care, which is very important to my State, as it is for the State of the Presiding Officer. I am pleased to have the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, join us this morning for some comments on our future activities. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to David Stewart, an intern in my office, during the course of morning business.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Iowa 10 minutes.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Senator from Maine, not only because of the good job she does all across the board but particularly on this matter of health care, rural health care. As cochairman of the Rural Health Care Caucus, I am particularly interested in those kinds of things. For example, in Wyoming, home health care is so important and sometimes quite expensive, particularly because of the amount of miles that have to be traveled. But for the patient, and because of the cost, home health care is the right way to go. I now yield to the Senator from Missouri to talk a little more about the future and our plans with respect to taxes.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am very pleased my associates could come over this morning and talk about some of the programs that are before us, to talk about some of the directions we will be taking. I think there is another area, in addition to what has been talked about, that is right before us. We are dealing now with spending. We are now in the process of finishing the appropriations process. Congress must adopt 13 different appropriations bills for future spending of the Government and we are in the process of doing that. We also have some budget limitations that we have placed on ourselves, some caps that we have to honor. We are dealing also with emergency spending. We have talked some now about the surpluses that have been available. The surpluses that are available this year, however, are generally Social Security dollars. But there are $14 billion in the regular budget and those will, of course, be available. Most of those have already been set aside as emergency spending. What we have before us is an opportunity to continue to work and complete this matter of funding the budget for this year. At the same time, we must pass it on to the White House. We must find some agreement, either that or have some continuing resolutions that will put us into the future or, in fact, we are faced with the possibility of the President vetoing the legislation and of having the Government shut down, as happened in the past. I hope this will not be the case. I noticed in the paper the other day the President has indicated he would like nothing better than a bipartisan compromise. Hopefully, that is what will happen. Yet he has suggested ``if only the Republicans could be a little more reasonable.'' I am not sure that is necessarily a part of it. Probably his White House aides are happy about this partisan combat because, as we know, the last time the Government was shut down, the Congress shouldered all the responsibility. I do not believe that ought to be the case, and hopefully it will not be this year. We are looking forward to working in those areas. In terms of Social Security, there are some changes that need to be made. We are talking about saving Social Security. We ought to do that. We are committed to doing that. The method of doing it currently, of course, is to put the Social Security surplus in to replace the publicly held debt. The fact is, it then becomes debt that has to be covered by the taxpayers when the time comes to use it. We also are looking at a change in the Social Security Act which responds to what is happening with Social Security. The demographics are changing. When Social Security started, there were 34 people working for every 1 beneficiary. People paid about $30 a year into the program. Now there are three people working for every beneficiary, and it is moving toward two. They are paying 12.5 percent of up to nearly $80,000 into this fund. The fact is, over a period of time, probably in 20 years, there will not be enough money to continue as we have, so we have to make some changes. The choices are very simple ones basically: We can increase taxes. Nobody really wants to do that. The Social Security tax is the largest tax paid by almost all taxpayers in the lower-income brackets. We can reduce benefits. People are not much interested in that. The third alternative, of course, is to increase the revenue that comes from the moneys that are in the trust fund. We are very anxious to do that. It also gives an opportunity to take that money when it comes in and put it somewhere other than into additional national debt loans and put it into individual accounts that people would have as their own, to be invested in the private sector for a much higher yield. These are some of the things with which we grapple. Certainly, we are going to be working with the administration to see if we can do something in that respect. I do not think there is willingness on this side to trade off tax relief for increased spending. I hope not, and I do not believe we will do that. On the other hand, we can find, I am sure, agreement in the appropriations areas, and we can move forward with that. Mr. President, our time has expired. I see there is a Senator on the other side of the isle, so I yield back my time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for giving leadership on this issue. We have worked together for a very long time in this area. I guess I am a little surprised and, frankly, a little offended that it would be said that people on this side of the aisle are not as careful or do not care as much about public lands as someone else. I brought out this map I used yesterday. You can see where the Federal land holdings are in this country. Out in the West, nearly half of the land in most of our States belongs to the Federal Government, and we have taken care of it for years. I think the Senator's State of Illinois has about 2 percent. Here he is telling us how to manage public lands. I find that very difficult. We are very intent on being the stewards of public lands. I want to tell you a little bit about open space. There has been more and more interest in open space as people move out. We have discovered that the best way to keep it is to provide an opportunity for ranchers to continue to operate. That is how you keep open space. We are trying to do that now. We want fair compensation. This has nothing to do with compensation. Let me start by reading the language that we think works. This is what is in the bill: Grazing permits and leases which expire or are transferred, in this or any fiscal year, shall be renewed under the same terms and conditions as contained in the expiring permit or lease until such time as the Secretary completes the process of renewing permits and leases in compliance with all applicable laws. That is what it says, ``all applicable laws,'' which includes the responsibility of the BLM to do this. Nothing in this language shall be deemed to affect the Secretary's statutory authority or the rights of the permittee or lessee. That is the language--the language that we have studied for several years. We have been through this temporary thing the Senator from Illinois brought forth before, and we are back at it again. We think we have found an answer that would be more long term. Let me cover a few of the things. This year, 5,364 grazing permits are up for renewal; only 2,159 have been renewed. So here we are, almost at the end of September, with people who have leases that, if not studied, will be taken off the land at the end of the month. Section 117 of S. 1292 addresses this problem by allowing the BLM more time to complete the renewal process without causing unwarranted hardship on the rancher or farmer who utilizes the public lands to make a living. Keep in mind, this is not some random thing people do. When the West was settled, we settled in and the homesteads were taken up along the water, the better lands, and these other lands were basically left there. They are simply residual lands that are managed by the BLM. They are very much attached, however, to the water and the other lands to make a ranching economic unit. So it is more than that. Section 117 allows for the renewal of grazing permits under the same terms and conditions of expiring permits pending completion of the renewal process. BLM has to do this, and in the meantime this farmer or rancher is not penalized for something that wasn't his fault. Permits renewed under this provision are not exempt from compliance with existing environmental laws. Permits will be issued under existing environmentally compliant land use plans. That is the way that is. Section 117 allows for a thorough environmental review by the BLM, industry, and the public instead of an abbreviated, cursory environmental analysis, which will probably happen if the Senator has his way. The BLM cannot and will not ignore its environmental obligations due to the threat of litigation, of course. We talked a little bit about the finances of it. One of the interesting things, of course, is that most farmers and ranchers depend on credit. Let me read you something that comes from the Farm Credit Association: It is no secret that providing loans for farmers and ranchers is a risky business. The security offered by section 117 in allowing a full 10-year permit will relieve some of the risks. However, the Senator from Illinois intends to make the practice even more risky by shortening the duration of permits to 1 or 2 years. That is the Farm Credit Association talking about the opportunity to have an effective beef production operation. There is another factor that is underlying all of these things, the Administrative Procedures Act. That allows for these things to continue if the permittee simply sends in a request and does that prior to the time of the exploration. That has been recently dealt with in the court and proved to be an effective tool. The language in this amendment, if it passes, would probably negate that. I think that would be a real problem. So there are a lot of things involved. It sounds kind of simple. You know, we are just going to do it for 2 years and we will get this all resolved. That isn't the way it works, my friends. We have been through this before. We continue to come up each year, and we have found, through the help and leadership of the Senator from New Mexico, a long- term solution that will not change the obligation for environmental protection, will not change the obligation of the BLM, and it, in fact, will take away some of the risk from the farmer or rancher, which has nothing to do with the fact that this has been elongated. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I think we have 30 minutes assigned in morning business. I want to begin to talk about what I think is a very big issue; that is, the appropriations discussions that will take place on the Interior and related agencies which will start after morning business. I would like to yield to my friend, the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. THOMAS. It was my understanding that we had an hour of time and half was ours and half of it was already used.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I take this time to talk about the uniqueness of the public lands of the West. It is very clear there are great differences among the States in terms of land management, the kinds of land ownership that exist, and the delivery of health care. Wyoming is a large State. I think we are the eighth largest State in the United States yet the smallest in population. We have small towns. There are twice as many people in Fairfax County as there are in the State of Wyoming. The point I make is ``one size fits all'' in many areas of operation does not work effectively in delivering services. I think that is especially true when we start talking about the management of resources and the management of lands. This chart shows the Federal land holdings by State. The color brown represents almost all New England States with less than 1 percent of their total land surface held by the Federal Government. Blue represents States with 1 percent to 5 percent, including much of the South and the Midwest. Five to 10 percent are the purple-colored States. In the West, the yellow-colored States have up to 65 percent of the State's surface belonging to the Federal Government. It is a unique proposition. Furthermore, there are States in green that go beyond that. This map shows almost 83 percent of Nevada--actually I think it is probably 87 percent of Nevada's surface--belonging to the Federal Government. The same is true in Alaska. There is a great deal of difference in how we do this. The lands belong to everyone. The economy of the States depends on Federal decisions that are made, including the jobs for everyone who lives there. Local county governments take care of all services transpiring on Federal lands. Let me show you an enlarged map of Wyoming. This map gives you an idea of the amount of land in Wyoming belonging to the Federal Government or public lands. This is an Indian reservation. Purple represents national parks. We are very proud of them. The green represents U.S. forest reserves. The interspersed yellow represents land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Where the railroads went through in the early years are checkerboard lands, with every other section being owned by the Federal Government. There are control and access problems for all of these areas. We depend highly upon the dollars made available through the Interior appropriations. We have had much involvement with the decisions made by the land management agencies in these areas, whether it be BLM or others. I want to emphasize how important it is to talk about some of these important issues. For example, these lands are basic lands. BLM lands were largely residual that remained after the Homestead Act expired. They generally are lands in the plains of our State. The homesteaders came in along the rivers and creeks, taking the most productive lands. The other lands remain managed by the BLM. To remain an agricultural unit it is always necessary to have the productive lands and the other lands for grazing. We use them for multiple use. Everyone in Wyoming wants to use the lands for wildlife, for the preservation of wildlife, hunting, hiking. Indeed, they can be used together. It is sometimes difficult to find agreement. Multiple use, whether for mineral production or not--all the lands yield minerals; mostly oil, trona, soda ash or coal; Wyoming is the largest producer of coal in the country which most people don't realize--is income for the State and the Federal Government with their royalties. We have currently and in this bill we will talk about funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service which manages the Endangered Species Act. This is a very difficult area. Everyone wants to preserve critters, animals, and plants that are endangered. At the same time, there are some questions when we have an animal in some danger. First, the grizzly bears or wolves; now we have the Preble's Meadow jumping mouse listed as endangered. It becomes almost a threat to the private land owners who are restricted from using their lands as they desire because of the potential threat of endangerment. These are the issues we deal with. We deal with PILT payments, payments in lieu of taxes. Fifty percent of the State belongs to the Federal Government. There are no taxes as in private lands. In this bill, there is funding for PILT payments. We will have an amendment to raise it. The counties provide hospital service, the counties provide policing, the counties provide all the services to these lands but have received no revenue as the case would be if they had been private lands. These are the things with which we deal. Much of this supports grazing. Ranchers in Wyoming have permits. They pay so much per animal unit for grazing. We have a problem now because the Forest Service or the BLM has not done a NEPA study for permit renewal. Unfortunately, they have not been able to complete the NEPA studies. Now we are faced with the question: Does the grazing lease expire because there has not been a study? There will be an amendment that says you can go ahead and extend the grazing lease and let the BLM go ahead and make the study; it doesn't preclude the study. The study will still be made, but it allows the grazing to continue because it is no fault of the grazer the study has not been made. The Senator from Arizona talked about forests and forest management. Obviously, in many cases there is some kind of harvesting of mature timber. If it is not harvested and managed in the way you take it out, then it burns. I just came back from spending several days in Yellowstone Park where we had a gigantic fire in the late eighties. It is discouraging to see how long it takes to reforest an area of that kind. We are dealing again in this bill with financing what is called the clean water action plan which has to do with nonpoint source water controls. One hundred eleven ideas, put forth by EPA to do some things like that, frankly, are going to be extremely difficult and will have much to do with the utilization and multiple use of these lands because you have to have the water to do that. We talk about droughts in the East. Frankly, this kind of area does not get as much rainfall in a normal year as we did in a drought. This is 14 inches per year. The water, the runoff, and the irrigation are a very real part of it. We are going to move into this area this afternoon. I am very pleased with what has been done. The Senator from Washington has put together a bill which I think has great merit. We are trying to do some things that will make it more workable in terms of oil royalties, grazing fees, and some of the other things that do become controversial. I urge people to take a look at the situation, even though they do not live here, and try to understand why some of these things need to be handled a little bit differently because of the situation we have in the West. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to talk about this bill. I believe we have used our time, or very close to it. I yield back the time if we have not.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 8, 1999 at 2:00 p.m. to hold a closed full committee briefing.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I have been on and off the floor all day. We have been at this for about 6 hours. I suspect most everything has been said, but we all, of course, haven't said it. I rise in support of what we are attempting--for the idea that we can do the things that are essential for the Federal Government to do and at the same time return substantial amounts of money to the people who own money, the taxpayers. I have been amazed at all the discussion that has gone on. We are talking about a fairly simple thing--tax relief. Yet I hear from the other side of the aisle how damaging that is to the economy. That is hard to imagine, isn't it, that returning money to people who have paid it in is going to damage the economy. We have tax relief based on our best estimate, provided by those who do professional estimating, that we will have a $3 trillion surplus over the next 10 years. Will it happen? Who knows. No one can guarantee it. But that is the way you have to plan any enterprise, by the best estimates you can make. We find ourselves now, of course, paying the highest taxes as a percentage of gross national product of any time since World War II. Surprising, isn't it, in this large of an economy. It certainly means one thing; that is, that the Government continues to grow. I think it is interesting to see the polls. When they ask, what is your highest priority? Do you like Social Security? Do you like Medicare? Do you like tax reduction? Tax reduction generally is the third one. That is not the point. We are setting aside Social Security before we do tax reduction. We are sustaining enough money to take care of Medicare. So that is not the choice. The better poll would be: What do you do after you have taken care of Social Security? What do you do when you have taken care of Medicare? Should you return the money? I think so. I saw somebody use an example of the simplest way to look at it, suggesting that you have three dollar bills in your hands, each representing $1 trillion. You say: I am going to set aside two of these dollars to do something with Social Security because that is where the surplus comes from. I am going to spend part of the third one for Medicare and the other costs that will be there. And about two-thirds of the last one we are going to give back to the people who sent it in because it is an overpayment of taxes. It is a fairly simple thing. We have, of course, in this case, as we do in many, a pretty strong difference of philosophy. We have on that side of the aisle people who prefer more government, more spending, more taxes. That is the philosophy. I understand that. I don't happen to agree with it. Our party, on the other hand, is one that says we ought to slim down the Federal Government; we ought to move more and more government towards the States and the counties, leave more and more money in the hands of the people. That is the philosophy, a difference of philosophy. That is so often the basis of our disagreement on many things. I understand that. It is perfectly legitimate. But if you want more government, that is fine. If you want the Government to spend more money, that is fine. That is a philosophy, one that has, through the years, been on that side of the aisle. It is not really a surprise. People say, of course, how is it going to affect me? Well, it affects us in very real ways: Estate taxes: I have a lot of people who farm and ranch in Wyoming who are very concerned about that. Capital gains taxes: More and more people are investing their money. The capital gains tax needs to be changed. Insurance deductions for health insurance, that people pay their own premiums, to be deducted, that is a reasonable thing to do. The marriage penalty, we have talked about that--a very reasonable thing to do. So we often get lost in the details when we say, as taxpayers, what does this do for us? I think it does a great deal for us. I think we should move forward. I am sorry we don't have agreement with the gentleman at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, but that ought not to keep us from doing what we think is right, and that is the thing we ought to do. I urge that my associates do the right thing.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to endorse the comments of my associates who have spoken in the last few minutes. This is an interesting program. We have been through this before. We went through it in 1996. There were extensive changes made in the farm bill in 1996 that resulted in a number of changes. We have a program that has provided consumers with low, stable prices. It operates at no direct cost to the taxpayers. It helps reduce the Federal deficit and creates 420,000 jobs. The Senator from California was talking about the closing of one plant. I am talking about growers, family farmers in Wyoming. I don't recognize the description by the Senator from Arizona of the people who are involved. That is not the way we do it. A number of things have changed that I think are very important. It was mentioned, when we didn't have a sugar program, the average cost of raw sugar was up to nearly 70 cents. It is now somewhere in the neighborhood of 20. Sugar policy benefits consumers. In developed countries, the average price is 60 cents; the highest is 92. The U.S. price is 41. We are 32 percent below the average consumer price for sugar. It has been pointed out that at the same time raw sugar prices have gone down almost 6 percent, the cost of products such as cereal have gone up 18 percent; ice cream, 18 percent; candy, 20 percent; cookies and cakes, up 25 percent. That is not the reason the cost of goods has gone up. Under the farm bill, there is no minimum price guarantee. They have no recourse loans other than when there is an exception to the imports. Sugar farmers receive no Government payment and have not since the 1970s. Indeed, they do pay a marketing assessment that goes to reduce the deficit, an unusual characteristic. This business of the ``world price'' that has been discussed is clearly a dump price. The average production cost is 18 cents; the average world price is 9 cents. Figure out if that is really the market working. Of course it isn't. It is a dumped price. The farm bill is not the time to discuss the sugar bill. It was extended in 1996 in the farm bill, to be reviewed again in the year 2002. The sugar industry is very happy to reduce the import quotas if the rest of the world does the same thing. We are talking about small producers, not huge money conglomerates. I am a little offended at the idea that soft money is the reason that people support this program. This is a program that has served us well. The time when we are talking about strengthening agriculture is not the time to do this. I urge my associates in the Senate to reject this amendment. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, first of all, I ask unanimous consent that Brady Hayek from my staff be permitted the privilege of the floor during today.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to take 12 minutes of the time allotted, and then the Senator from Montana would like 20 minutes following that time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, this is the last week before we go on recess. We will be gone approximately a month. We will have an opportunity to be home, to talk to our constituents about the issues that are here, to talk about what we have done during this calendar year, and talk about what we have not done for this year as well. We will be back, then, the first part of September. We will have, probably, 2 months to continue and to complete our work for this year. There are 13 appropriations bills that must be passed to keep the Government running. They must be passed by September 30, the end of the fiscal year. This is a very difficult task. We are, hopefully, running on time. We passed eight bills out of the Senate. However, none has yet been sent to the President. So we will have a couple of months to wind up the year's work. I cannot tell you how important it is that we do complete that work. Of course, the Presiding Officer is the key Senator in that regard. He has done a great job. We do not want the President to be able to put us in a position again of closing down the Government and blaming the Congress. I hope what we do is get these bills to him. I think we will do that. I cannot help but mention as we think about this a little bit, I hope in Congress we take a look at a biennial budget, as we have in many States--for instance, my home State of Wyoming. The Congress or the legislature would form a budget for a 2-year period of time, which has advantages, particularly for the agencies, and we would have the other year for oversight, which is equally as important a task for the Congress--to oversee the expenditure of those dollars. So I hope we are able to do that. This has been a tough year. We have had lots of difficulties, starting, of course, with the impeachment process, which was difficult. I don't know that it slowed us up particularly. On the contrary, we did a lot of committee work during the time the impeachment was going on. Nevertheless, it was tough. Then came the Colorado Columbine situation, of course, the tragedy out there at the school and, with that, the great controversy over gun control, which we are likely to see again now after the tragedy in Georgia. Then Kosovo was also an issue, of course, although Congress really was not as involved. It was pretty much the President on his own, committing troops there. Obviously, we were going to support them. So it has been a difficult year. Despite that, it seems to me we have accomplished a great deal. I am a little disappointed that most of the accomplishments have been made without the support of the minority. Our friends on the other side have, in fact, opposed nearly everything that has been done--I think, unfortunately, often more to create an issue than to create a solution. That often is the choice we have; you can cook up something you can take home to talk about in political rhetoric, as opposed to trying to find some solutions. But we have accomplished a great deal. Much of the controversy will continue, I suppose. There are legitimate differences of view when we are on the floor on almost every issue. Generally, the issue is the larger issue of whether or not you want more and more Federal Government, more and more Federal regulation, more and more taxes-- which is basically Senators on that side of the aisle as opposed to this side of the aisle, where we are looking for limited government, where we are looking for less regulation, where we are looking for an opportunity for people to spend more of their own money. So basically, when you get down to it in almost all these issues, if you really pare it away, that is the debate. Legitimate? Yes, indeed, it is legitimate. I happen to be on the side of being more conservative, of thinking we ought to be moving more and more of these decisions back to the States and to the counties rather than deciding everything, one-size-fits-all, at the Federal level. But these are the differences, and they are the basis for most of the things we find in conflict. We have had less cooperation from the administration than I had hoped we would have, from that side of the aisle. I think the President is seeking to change his image so the politics become more important than the movement of the congressional budget. Let's review some of the highlights. The most recent one, of course, is the passage of tax relief, something I think is very legitimate, perfectly logical. We went through great debates about it, of course. One of the keys, naturally, is that you have to talk about reduction of taxes after having done something to save Social Security, having done something to strengthen Medicare. That is part of the program. That is not the choice. We see these polls that are run from time to time. They say: Would you rather have Social Security protected or would you rather have tax relief? That is not the issue. That is one of the things we worked at. All of us are setting aside this surplus that comes from Social Security for the preservation of Social Security. These funds which will be used to reduce taxes and give some tax relief are beyond that. I think one of the best illustrations is the Member who had three dollars--three dollar bills. This is basically the surplus we are looking at in the next 10 years, $3 trillion, each of these. Two of them are being set aside for Social Security. Tax relief constitutes about 75 percent of the third one, with the additional amount of the third one being set aside for spending and for Medicare. The press has not been very helpful, of course, trying to get that understanding. But in any event, I think that is a real movement forward. The thing one also has to keep in mind is, if there is money lying around here, it is going to be spent. It is going to be spent enlarging Federal Government. So if you go back to that original thesis, you go back to the original notion that you would like to move activities back closer to people, you do it that way rather than bringing more and more money here that inevitably will be spent increasing the size of Government. I think we have some hope there. Both Houses have passed some tax relief. We will see if we can find a way to put that together, hopefully this week. Then it will be up to the President to say whether he wants to spend more and more money, wants to spend $1 trillion on 81 new programs, or let the American people have an opportunity to spend some of their own. Education? Our position again has been that the decisions that are basic to elementary and secondary education ought to be made closest to the people. They ought to be made by the States and by the school boards. Sure, we have an obligation to provide some financial help, but the Ed-Flex program that was passed by this Senate allows those decisions to be made more at home. I can tell you, the delivery of education is quite different in Wyoming or different in Alaska, the State of the Presiding Officer, from what it is in New York--and properly so. But to make that work, then, the local people have to have that opportunity. We have done that with Ed-Flex, and we had some other educational programs. I feel fairly strongly about some of the Federal involvement. My wife is a teacher. She teaches special ed and spends almost half of her time on paperwork because of the kinds of Federal programs that are involved. So we are making some movement to change that. The military fulfills what is obviously one of the principal, if not the principal, obligations of the Federal Government, to provide for the safety and protection and defense of this country. Over the last number of years, the administration has increasingly reduced the amount of resources there. At the same time, we had more demands on the military than we had before. They are not able to conduct their mission on the amount of resources that have been available. I was very disappointed it took a congressional committee to press and push and demand from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to really get down to whether they are able to carry out their mission with the resources they have. The answer was no. So we have moved to make some additions to that, in the first step for a very long time. The other thing is, if you are going to have a voluntary force, you have to make it fairly attractive to be in the military, and after having trained people to do technical things like flying airplanes or servicing airplanes, they have to stay in the service and do that. So we need more of that kind of support. Social Security? For a very long time no one would talk about Social Security. It is the third rail of politics--touch it and you are dead. Now, finally, everyone does understand that you have to do something different if, indeed, your purpose is to maintain the benefits that are now going to beneficiaries and to provide an opportunity for young people, who are beginning to work and put their money into the fund, to have some anticipation of having benefits for themselves. We have to make some changes. The sooner those changes are made the less severe they will have to be. The President has been talking about saving Social Security for several years. He has no plan. He has done nothing except talk about it. We now have a plan. There is a bipartisan plan on this floor. There has been a lockbox amendment to preserve Social Security funds. It has been opposed on the other side of the aisle five times, but we are going to move forward on Social Security. VA funding: The administration has for several years requested a flat budget for VA health care but at the same time has expanded the eligibility for people to utilize those facilities. We find, for instance, in my State we have two facilities, but they are underfinanced and are not providing the kinds of services to which veterans are entitled. More money needs to be provided, and we are going to do that. The Republican budget this year had an additional $1.7 billion for veterans' health. It is something that is very important. Patients' Bill of Rights: We passed a Patients' Bill of Rights that did not involve the Federal Government, did not involve lawyers and the courts making the decisions but indeed guaranteed emergency services without having to go through some kind of clearance. It guaranteed, if you felt as if you were not getting the services, an appeal to a physician, not to a lawyer or to a court, and that was passed. Medicare: We moved to doing something with Medicare. A bipartisan commission was set up and they have a reasonable plan for Medicare, but the President asked his folks whom he appointed to serve on that commission to vote against it, so it did not come out as a commission report and as a commission recommendation. We are going to take that, basically, and move forward and do something on Medicare. We are moving toward the end. We have some very difficult issues to deal with, particularly in appropriations. We have to deal with them. We will deal with them. I am hopeful we will also have some kind of a relief valve so that if we get through and cannot come to an agreement with the President that it goes on as it has and will not let that political technique be used again. I hope we find a little less resistance from our friends on the other side in terms of finding solutions to these problems. I also hope--and this is a philosophy, I admit--that as we go forward we continue to understand the greatness of this country. And it is a great country. If you have had a chance to travel about a bit, you find it is the greatest. Each time I have a chance to go somewhere, I come back thanking God this is the place in which I live. But it is a great country not because of the Federal Government. There is a legitimate role for the Federal Government, of course, described, by the way, in the Constitution, but the real strength of this country lies in its communities and in its individuals who have the freedom to make decisions for themselves. They have the freedom to get together and do things that are required to be done in their communities to make them healthy. Admittedly, I come from a State that is unique. Maybe we are the lowest populated State now. We are one of the largest States. The delivery of services is quite different, whether it be airlines, whether it be electricity, whether it be education. We cannot have this one-size-fits-all situation. Again, I am pleased with what we have done. I say to the Presiding Officer that he has had one of the most difficult tasks of leadership in the Appropriations Committee and has done a good job. I hope we will continue to provide an opportunity for us to come together to resolve our problems so that we can continue to have the opportunity to serve, to let communities make some of their decisions, and we will continue to be the greatest country in the world. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I want to visit a little bit a topic that will be coming before the Senate very soon, probably tomorrow, and that is tax relief and the reconciliation bill we will be considering. To me that is one of the most important things before us, not only as the Senate but before us as American people. We ought to spend our time focusing on that issue. I have been a little amazed at the comments that have been made this morning. I only heard part of them, but they said this tax relief will certainly damage the economy. I have never heard of anything like that in my entire life. More money in the hands of Americans will probably strengthen the economy. We heard about Alan Greenspan's comments. The fact is, his complete comments were that he would much rather see tax relief than expending those dollars in larger government, which basically is the alternative. We ought to review again for ourselves and for listeners where we are with respect to the surplus, where we are with respect to the public debt, and with the President's proposal versus tax relief. We all know we worked a very long time to have a balanced budget. For the first time in 25 years, we have a balanced budget, and we want to be sure the majority of the surplus is Social Security money. This is the first time we have done this in a very long time. It is largely the result, of course, of a strong economy and some efforts on the part of this Congress to have a balanced budget amendment, to have some spending caps to hold down spending. What can we expect? According to the Congressional Budget Office which released their midsession review on July 21, the estimates are that the total budget surplus will measure $1.1 trillion to the year 2004, and to the year 2009 nearly $3 trillion in surplus will be coming in. The non-Social Security portion of that surplus will measure almost $300 billion to the year 2004 and nearly $1 trillion to the year 2009. This is the non-Social Security surplus that comes in to our budget. The congressional budget resolution which talks about tax relief will leave the publicly held debt level at $1.6 trillion. The President's, on the other hand, will leave it at $1.8 trillion. With some tax relief, the reduction in publicly held debt under the tax relief program, the reconciliation program we will be talking about the next several days, will reduce the debt more than the President's plan which plans to spend the money. These are the facts. It is interesting; the budget chairman was on the floor yesterday indicating that out of the total amount of money that will be in the surplus, less than 25 percent will be used for tax relief and it will still be $1 trillion. These are the facts, and it seems to me we ought to give them some consideration. Another fact that I believe is important in this time of prosperity, in this time of having a balanced budget and having a surplus, is the American people are paying the highest percentage of gross national product in taxes ever, higher than they did in World War II. Certainly, there is a case to be made for some sort of tax relief. If there are surplus dollars, these dollars ought to go back to the people who paid them. They ought to go back to the American people to spend as they choose. There will be great debates about this, and there have been great debates about this. There are threats by the White House to veto any substaintial tax reductions. Sometimes one begins to wonder, as we address these issues, whether or not it should be what we think is right or whether we have to adjust it to avoid a veto. That is a tough decision. Sometimes we ought to say: All right, if we believe in something, we ought to do what we think is right. If the President chooses to veto it, let him veto it. Otherwise, we compromise less than we think we should. Those are the choices that have to be made. We will enter into this discussion again, as we have in the past, with different philosophies among the Members of this body. Of course, it is perfectly legitimate. The basic philosophy of our friends on the other side is more government and more spending. The basic philosophy of Republicans has been to hold down the size of government and have less government spending. There is more to tax reduction than simply tax relief. It has to do with controlling the size of the Federal Government. If we have surplus money in the budget, you can bet your bottom dollar we are going to have more government and more spending, and to me there is a relationship. Of course, we need to utilize those funds to fulfill what are the legitimate functions of the Federal Government. It is also true that there is a different view of what are the legitimate functions of the Federal Government. I personally believe the Federal Government ought to be as lean as we can keep it. Constitutionally, it says the Federal Government does certain things and all the rest of the things not outlined in the Constitution are left to the States and to the people. I think that is right. I believe the State, the government closest to the people, is the one that can, in fact, provide the kinds of services that are most needed and that fit the needs of the people who live there. I come from a small State. I come from a State of low population. The delivery of almost all the services--whether it be health care, whether it be education, whether it be highways--is different in Wyoming than it is in New York and, indeed, it should be. Therefore, the one-size- fits-all things we tend to do at the Federal Government are not applicable, are not appropriate, and we ought to move as many of those decisions as we can to the States so they can be made closest to the people. We will see that difference of philosophy. There are legitimate arguments. That is exactly why we are here, to talk about which approach best fits the needs of the American people: whether we want more Federal Government, whether we want more spending, whether we want to enable more growth in the Federal Government, having the Government involved in more regulatory functions or, indeed, whether we want to limit the Government to what we believe are the essential elements with which the Federal Government ought to concern itself, or whether we ought to move to encourage and strengthen the States to do that. We have on this side of the aisle, of course, our goals, our agenda. They include preserving Social Security. I am one of the sponsors of our Social Security bill which we believe will provide, over time, the same kinds of benefits for young people who are just beginning to pay and will maintain the benefits for those who are now drawing them. We can do that. We have tried now I think five times to bring to this floor a lockbox amendment to make sure Social Security money is kept aside and is used for that purpose. We hope it will end up with individual accounts where people will have some of their Social Security money put into their own account where they can choose to have it in equities, or they can choose to have it in bonds, or they can choose to have it in a combination of the two. Increased earnings will accrue to their benefit, and, indeed, they will own it. If they are unfortunate enough to pass away before they use it, it becomes part of their estate. Those are the things that are priorities for us. We want to do something with education. We sought to do that this year, to provide Federal funding of education to the States in the forms of grants so those decisions can be made to fit Cody, WY, as well as they do Long Island, NY, but quite differently. We have done some military strengthening. We have done that this year. We want to continue to do that. We have not been able to increase the capacity of the military for a number of years. We need to do that. This is not a peaceful world, as my friends talked about. Those are the choices. We will hear: If you are going to have tax relief, you cannot do these things. That is not true. We will have a considerable amount left over after we do a Social Security set-aside, after we do tax relief, and there will be adequate dollars to do Medicare reform and to do military reform. That is the plan, that is the program, and that is, I believe, what we should be orienting ourselves toward. I hope that over the next several days we will have the opportunity to fully debate this. I think there will be great differences in how you do tax relief. There are a million ways to do it. Frankly, I hope we not only have tax relief but also that we help simplify the tax system rather than make it even more complicated than it is. Therefore, I think those will be the issues we should really address. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. THOMAS. Would it be possible for me to make a unanimous consent request?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate continue in a period of morning business for 90 minutes, equally divided in the usual form.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I assume we are having time to discuss the Senate resolution on rule XVI.