[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 TREASURY, POSTAL SERVICE, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  1995

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. DeCONCINI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
present amendment be laid aside and I yield to the Senator from 
Nebraska for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KERREY. If the chairman will yield, I actually would like to 
speak on the bill.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerrey].
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, first of all, I would like to praise the 
leadership of Senator DeConcini, the Senator from Arizona, the chairman 
of the subcommittee, and I would like, indeed, to speak briefly about a 
program that Senator DeConcini was instrumental in starting. It is one 
of these small programs that very often gets missed.
  I would like to call it to my colleagues' attention because, indeed, 
it works. There are many things in this bill that are worthy, and I 
suspect we will have the opportunity to debate them. Indeed, I suspect 
we will have the opportunity to hear additional amendments being 
offered to attempt to improve it.
  I would like to talk about a very small, a relatively low-cost but a 
very cost-effective program called the Gang Resistance Education and 
Training Program, or the GREAT Program. GREAT is a program that falls 
under the heading of prevention. This is an effort to prevent crime 
rather than to react to it, to respond to it when we see it on the 
streets. It is a true partnership. The money goes to law enforcement 
agencies and the law enforcement agencies then form partnerships with a 
local school.
  For the purpose of perhaps describing this beyond need, it is 
important for me to say this effort, this kind of partnership is 
possible because the money goes to the law enforcement agency. The law 
enforcement agency then approaches the school looking for a partner. As 
a consequence of that kind of approach, we end up with almost no 
administrative costs, very little of the traditional overhead that we 
see when we pump money top down either through law enforcement or 
through our educational institutions.
  In committee, we added $5 million to the administration's request for 
funding for GREAT. The administration eliminated funding, cut some 
funds that would not just benefit Nebraska but benefit other 
communities that are beginning to learn about the benefits of this 
program. The committee restored those funds, and I would like to 
discuss why.
  In Omaha, NE, war is breaking out on the streets this summer. Recent 
shootings, including the murder of an Omaha gang leader last weekend, 
have been linked to an emerging war between rival gangs. As in other 
wars, in this one, young people who have barely glimpsed the lives that 
lie before them, are being cut down in cold blood by other young people 
armed to the teeth with weaponry designed to kill.
  If our people were under attack on the streets of Mogadishu or Seoul 
or Sarajevo, we would not hesitate to reinforce them and to win the 
effort. Indeed, when Moslem terrorists attacked and killed innocent 
Americans in the World Trade Center, our response was immediate and 
forceful. Nothing could stop us.
  The gang war that is warring on the streets of Omaha and other cities 
this summer in the United States is no different, and if it is 
different, it is because this war is worse. Today, instead of fighting 
and dying thousands of miles away from home, our children are dying in 
our own streets. Today the battles are for our neighborhoods and our 
children.
  Today, Mr. President, we are fighting the battle at home. The typical 
problem is that far too many of our children are making very bad 
choices and very bad decisions and suffering severe consequences as a 
result.
  The generals in this battle are people like Officer Dan Hagen of the 
police department in Papillion that was awarded a $5,000 grant to form 
a partnership with the Papillion High School system. Mr. President, 300 
young people went through a 6-week GREAT Program; 300 young people at a 
cost of $15,000 is why I call it not only low cost but cost effective.
  Dan Hagen has made an immeasurable contribution toward keeping kids 
off the streets and away from crime through the GREAT Program. Today 
Officer Hagen and thousands of other law enforcement officials across 
Nebraska and in the Nation, as well, need reinforcements. This bill 
provides some of them. It provides reinforcements in the form of 
continued funding for the GREAT Program, including several successful 
efforts in my own home State. We restored the $5 million in funding in 
committee because we believed deeply that the GREAT Program saves the 
lives of children. But it saves more than lives, Mr. President.
  The modest amount we spend keeping kids away from crime today can 
spare us the expense of punishing them later and spare our economy the 
needless loss of young lives that could be adding to our economy 
instead of detracting from it.
  While I respect very much the fact that the administration must abide 
by tough budget caps imposed by this body at the urging of myself and 
others, we ought not cut that spending which saves us money in the long 
run. We should go further in the coming months. We should make a 
serious commitment of natural resources and a full-scale buildup in the 
war on crime. Specifically in this case, I urge and hope my colleagues 
will support the $40 million authorization that would take to fund 50 
new GREAT initiatives nationwide.
  I support that funding because the GREAT Program works. Whether you 
are a conservative or whether you are a liberal, whether you are a 
Republican or Democrat, I guarantee you that if you saw the results of 
this effort, young people who now see the dangerous consequences of 
making bad choices and the very low cost of administering and operating 
this program that you would say that taxpayers are getting their 
money's worth.
  We do not need to pretend when we talk about crime that small 
programs like this are a cure-all. Each of us knows that crime is a 
much more complex problem than that. But today in Nebraska, we are 
compelled to wonder whether the Omaha youth who are today engaged in 
slaughter might instead be engaged in study in high school, college, or 
trade schools had the GREAT Program been there for them. We are 
compelled to wonder whether they might be contributing to the economy 
and the work force and to families in the home. Tragedy, Mr. President, 
compels us to ask that question. Foresight today may keep us from 
having to ask it again.
  Mr. President, I said it in the subcommittee hearings, but the 
distinguished Senator from Arizona, the chairman of this committee, has 
left a legacy in many, many areas, a legacy that will be remembered, a 
legacy that will be appreciated. This is not only an important legacy, 
but it is a legacy that will be measured in lives and a legacy that 
will be measured in the long-term contribution to the American society.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lieberman). Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Iowa 
[Mr. Grassley].
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise for the purpose of offering an 
amendment, but I would like to say to the distinguished manager, the 
Senator from Arizona, that my amendment is going through just a little 
bit of a rewrite. I would like to take advantage of the opportunity to 
make my opening statement on my amendment, and then I hope to have it 
ready at the end of that period of time for debate and consideration by 
this body.
  Mr. President, this is a bipartisan amendment. My colleagues who are 
joining me in this are Senators Lott, Wallop, Shelby, Burns, Faircloth, 
and Hutchison.
  The amendment that I will be offering shortly will do two very simple 
things: It puts the rights of the American taxpayer before the IRS 
request which is in this bill for 5,000 more agents. Second, this 
amendment says that the Senate will not tolerate increases in the 
budget caps. I call this increase in the budget caps ``cap creep,'' 
just gradually losing control over what little budget discipline we 
have by creeping in numbers.
  This amendment strikes and saves the taxpayers $405 million, and this 
is funding that will be struck from the IRS portion of this bill that 
is before this body. That amount of money that will be saved is the 
amount of money that would be used for the 5,000 agents. That is 2,000 
that would normally go by attrition and then 3,000 additional new 
agents above and beyond what they have now that they want to hire.
  I wish to remind my colleagues that the Senate did discuss this 
during the fiscal year 1995 budget resolution, and we included this in 
the budget resolution but with a very, very important condition. That 
would be that this money would be allowed only on the condition that 
the taxpayer bill of rights II would become law. In sum, the Senate 
said at that time in the debate on the budget resolution, if the IRS 
were to get more agents, the American taxpayers had to have more 
constitutional protection.
  As one of my key cosponsors of the amendment stated, this funding for 
new agents would be available ``if, and only if,'' the taxpayer bill of 
rights II would become law.
  Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The requirement that the 
taxpayer bill of rights II become law as well as some other conditions 
that were in that compromise, these were all dropped in conference on 
the budget resolution. But do you know what? The additional money above 
the caps to hire the 5,000 more agents was not dropped. So a Senator 
that went into that issue--and several of us were involved in those 
discussions; very little of it played out here in the Chamber of the 
Senate, but a compromise was reached. For those Senators who thought, 
well, it might be all right to have the additional agents if the 
taxpayer protections to which they were entitled were not left out in 
the cold, the taxpayer protections never survived the conference as did 
the 5,000 agents with the $405 million above the caps, the budget 
discipline in the 1990 budget law, and so here we are at appropriations 
time to make real for fiscal year 1995 these 5,000 agents.
  The Senate now has the opportunity to remove this stain on its effort 
to protect the taxpayers. By striking this funding, the Senate will 
reaffirm that the taxpayer does come first and that the Senate did not 
abandon the taxpayers' interests.
  I know that many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle were 
supporters of the passage of the original taxpayer bill of rights, and 
I believe that that was in 1988, as I recall. And you are now 
cosponsors of an additional bill providing additional protection for 
the taxpayers. That bill was introduced by Senator Pryor, the main 
sponsor, and myself as prime cosponsor. We have always had a great deal 
of bipartisanship on this effort to get protection for the taxpayers.
  So you were cosponsors of that original taxpayer bill of rights. You 
are interested in the bill that we now have before the Senate to expand 
those rights. As I said, this legislation, the bill of rights, is 
largely due--and maybe I ought to say wholly due--to the tremendous 
work of my colleague from Arkansas, Senator Pryor, who is chairman of 
the Finance subcommittee responsible for the oversight of the IRS. I 
serve with Senator Pryor on that subcommittee, and I am the ranking 
member of that subcommittee.
  There is no question that achieving passage during the previous 
administrations of the taxpayer bill of rights was extremely difficult. 
Unfortunately, we have learned from followup hearings that the IRS has 
often been slow in implementing this legislation. Just as important, we 
learned that there are many further reforms necessary to protect the 
taxpayers. And that is what is in the Pryor-Grassley taxpayer bill of 
rights II. And not all of the needed rights that should be legislated 
are in that bill but most of them are contained in this bill presently 
before the Senate, taxpayer bill of rights II.
  Placing the taxpayers first is an issue to which we should all agree. 
This was not a partisan issue when the first bill of rights was passed, 
and I believe it is not a partisan issue now. The only way that we are 
going to ensure that passage of the taxpayer bill of rights II becomes 
a priority for this administration and for this Congress is if we send 
a very clear signal that protecting the taxpayer is our top priority, 
that is, by legislating further rights for the taxpayer. And, of 
course, this is why, we have a National Taxpayers Union letter in 
support of this amendment. But it is not so much that they are 
concerned about the $405 million or concerned about the 5,000 agents, 
saving that money, as important as it is, but the National Taxpayers 
Union was one of the prime supporters of the taxpayer bill of rights I, 
and they are also very strongly supportive of Senator Pryor's second 
effort, taxpayer bill of rights II, which is before the Senate.
  My colleagues are familiar with the legion of horror stories that we 
hear in our home States about the tender mercies of the IRS. I do not 
think any of us want to go home and tell our constituents that we voted 
for $405 million to hire 5,000 more IRS agents while at the same time 
we received no consideration of the protections we were trying to get 
for the taxpayers in their dealings with the IRS.
  That is point one, that if we are going to fund these agents, as we 
very carefully worked out a compromise in the Senate on the budget 
resolution, then those agents cannot be hired until the taxpayer bill 
of rights II becomes law. More agents on the one hand, more protections 
for the taxpayers then at the same time.
  Now, I would like to then turn to the second issue that this 
amendment addresses; that is, helping to put a stop to cap creep.
  Now, think of the efforts that we have in this budget law that is 
before us. We legislate caps on how much money can be spent. We 
legislate these caps.
  The Appropriations Committee, when it appropriates money, has to have 
all the money in every appropriations bill add up. They cannot add up 
to more than is in that cap in the budget resolution.
  This amendment is only going to strike that funding for the IRS that 
goes above and beyond the cap; above and beyond what every other agency 
of Government has to live within, a predetermined cap. It is 
unacceptable that the Senate would take a position that a small 
percentage of the funding for the IRS should increase budget caps. In 
doing so, we would completely undermine the discipline of these caps 
especially in light of the Exon-Grassley cuts of $13 billion. The 
Senate adopted $26 billion cuts under Exon-Grassley, and then it was 
compromised because the House rubberstamped the President's budget. We 
agreed then in conference to $13 billion of cuts.
  Here again, let me acknowledge that this precedent certainly did not 
start with this administration because we have had previous 
administrations also engaged in this poorly thought out policy of ``cap 
creep.'' To argue that this funding should be allowed to increase the 
caps because it would raise more money than it spends is the thin wedge 
of a disastrous policy that undermines every effort that we make to 
control spending.
  So, when you do this for the IRS, where does this policy end? Why is 
not agency A, agency B, agency X, Y, and Z entitled to the same 
consideration, or why in the case of the IRS, if this is good 
justification, is not the entire IRS off budget? Then when you start 
doing that, why not take Customs Service off budget? Or, why not take 
the National Park Service employees off budget because they take your 
$5 at Yellowstone, and other national parks you enter?
  There is hardly an agency that does not take in some revenue in the 
form of fees or taxes for us that could not claim, if they could just 
keep that and not run it through the appropriations process, that they 
could very effectively spend that to bring in more revenue?
  My colleagues will hear much hankering from opponents of this 
amendment. They will tell you how important it is to have these 
additional agents.
  So let me just say, Mr. President, that if you buy that line, then 
you are falling for the line that always comes before us when we try to 
cut anything--the ``old Washington Monument ploy.'' You will remember 
that is when you cut $1 from some budget, the first thing that is going 
to happen in this town is that the Washington Monument is going to be 
closed down. Well, you know, we have heard that argument time and time 
again. But it just never happens. That Washington Monument is standing 
there tall and straight since it was started in the 1840's and 
completed in the 1880's, and people are entering it and enjoying it. It 
is not closed down.
  This action by the IRS is premeditated conniving at its bureaucratic 
best. You see, the IRS budget is obviously so bare bones that they 
absolutely had to bust the caps by funding these agents. I would like 
to describe this bare-bones budget. It contains about $50 million in 
staff bonuses. It buys over 600 new cars, brand-new cars. It spends 2 
and four/tenths billions--yes, that is billion dollars--for travel, 
office space, and new furniture. All of this, the travel, the office 
space, the new furniture, is obviously sacrosanct.
  Yes, Mr. President, this ploy has the aroma of something that happens 
too often in this town. Bureaucrats in the corridors conniving, and the 
target of this connivance in this instance is the poor, ordinary 
taxpayer out there. The connivance is the arbitrary decision to allow 
the funding of agents to cause a cap creep. If the staff bonuses, or 
the new cars, or the new furniture had been the cause, then no one 
would stand for it. There is no way that the managers of this bill 
could justify going over the cap to buy more furniture, or to have more 
travel, or to have more cars. But we can take more money above the cap, 
and hire more agents, and it is fully justified. But let us not worry 
about the furniture. Let us not worry about the travel. Let us not 
worry about the new cars because, if you had to use that as the 
justification for more money for the IRS, it would never sell here. But 
perhaps it can be sold by hiring 5,000 more agents.
  I bet if you go home to your taxpayers in your respective States, and 
you ask people if they want to spend more money on the IRS, or for more 
agents, or for more furniture, it would be for more furniture. As a 
matter of fact, they would feel it could not be justified under any 
circumstances. But when we go through this ploy that we are going 
through in this bill, the taxpayers are still getting the shaft. Only 
it is a little less obvious. The aroma of this bureaucratic conniving 
is still there.
  I cannot wait to see who among my colleagues will vote for all this, 
and then try to explain it to their constituents. I say to my 
colleagues, if you care about spending restraint, if you support Exon-
Grassley cuts, if you care about the deficit and the debt, you will 
support this bipartisan amendment. Otherwise, we will see more and more 
such gimmicks that negate all of our efforts to control all spending. 
In other words, if we break the dam in this instance, this will not be 
the only water over the dam for the IRS. There will be a lot of other 
departments that are going to justify additional expenditures.
  I think instead that this amendment is an amendment that will clear 
up the smoke and help crack the mirrors. This should be an easy vote 
for anybody who considers themselves a deficit hawk.
  I want to close again by making an appeal to my colleagues to support 
this amendment for the sake of the taxpayers. Because, again, I want to 
emphasize, just in case somebody just started to pay attention to what 
this amendment does, we provided in the budget resolution for these 
additional agents. But they could not be hired. And the money could not 
be spent until the taxpayer bill of rights passed.
  In other words, more agents--it was legitimate to give the taxpayers 
more protection. It went to conference after it went through this body 
fully supported. The conference took out the taxpayers' rights 
provision. No, no protection, no additional protection whatsoever for 
the taxpayers. But the additional 5,000 agents, costing $405 million, 
yes, that is OK. Move on.
  So I think the bottom line is that we have to put the protection of 
the taxpayers first before the desires of the IRS to hire 5,000 more 
agents.
  Mr. President, I will soon yield the floor.


                           Amendment No. 1823

   (Purpose: To limit funding on the Internal Revenue tax compliance 
        initiative in fiscal year 1995, and for other purposes)

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Grassley], for himself, Mr. 
     Shelby, Mr. Lott, Mr. Wallop, Mr. Burns, and Mr. Faircloth, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 1823.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 15, line 17, strike out ``$4,358,180,000'' and 
     insert in lieu thereof ``$3,953,180,000.''
       On page 15, line 19, beginning with ``Provided'' strike out 
     all through the semicolon on line 21 and insert in lieu 
     therof the following: ``Provided, That no funds appropriated 
     under this heading may be used for the enhanced tax 
     compliance initiative for fiscal year 1995 as proposed by the 
     Internal Revenue Service''.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SHELBY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Shelby] is 
recognized.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Grassley 
amendment. I am glad that I had the opportunity to cosponsor it with 
the Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. President, earlier this year, the Senate agreed to spend 
approximately $2.2 billion over 5 years to help the IRS increase tax 
compliance in this country. At that time, Mr. President, it was agreed 
that this new spending would be considered what we call off budget, 
because according to the IRS's own estimates, the new spending would be 
offset by increased revenues generated from improved compliance. As 
part of the compromise that ensured the passage of this amendment in 
the Senate budget resolution, it was agreed that before one dime would 
be spent on putting more IRS agents on the beat, a taxpayers' bill of 
rights would be enacted into law to ensure that taxpayers' rights were 
respected under the new initiative.
  Mr. President, it was the will of the Senate that a taxpayers' bill 
of rights be a prerequisite to this new off-budget spending grant. The 
language in the appropriations bill before us today ignores that will, 
Mr. President. The quid pro quo of taxpayer protections that form the 
basis for Senate approval was stripped out by budget conferees, leaving 
only the grant of $405 million in new spending for fiscal year 1995.
  Mr. President, I believe this is a back-ended way of once again 
putting it to the American taxpayer without any assurance that 
taxpayers will be protected from undertrained or overzealous tax 
collectors.
  While I oppose spending $405 million next year, much less $2.2 
billion over the next 5 years to beef up IRS compliance, without these 
necessary protections in them, I continue to question the need and also 
the effectiveness of new off-budget spending for more tax collectors at 
all.
  Mr. President, we are told that this spending will pay for 5,000 new 
IRS enforcement agents--5,000. According to the IRS, an infusion of 
$405 million a year and an increase in enforcement staff by 5,000 would 
allow the IRS to improve compliance and collect more revenues, more 
taxes.
  Mr. President, the IRS cannot even figure out how much it receives or 
spends every year. In a 1994 GAO report, they stated that they were 
unable to audit 64 percent of the IRS's operating funds because the IRS 
could not account for all of the funds themselves. The IRS cannot even 
account for $4.3 billion they already have, and we now want to give 
them another $405 million for 1995? Do we, Mr. President?
  Whatever happened to the Vice President's plan to reinvent 
Government, or the recently passed Federal Work Force Restructuring 
Act? I remember just last November receiving the Treasury's plan for 
reinventing the IRS. I was under the impression that they were going to 
do more with less--not more or less with more.
  According to their reinvention plan, the IRS was going to reduce the 
size and number of its regional offices from 7 to 5, consolidate its 44 
geographic customer service centers to 23, and cut staff. In fact, the 
IRS was scheduled to see a reduction in the staff of 2,000 people as 
part of the governmentwide initiative to reduce the Federal work force 
that was so talked about.
  Now Congress is going to go back and basically eliminate that staff 
cut and add 3,000 more full-time Federal employees to the Government 
rolls. This is not reinventing Government, Mr. President; this is 
reinventing new ways to increase the size and the cost of the Federal 
Government.
  Mr. President, even more integral to the IRS's reinvention was 
supposed to be the use of technology, like electronic filing and 
telephone collections. What happened there?
  In a plan for reinventing the IRS, an entire page is dedicated to 
describing how existing workers--not new workers--who are displaced by 
these new technologies will be retrained and relocated.
  Why then, with the knowledge that existing workers will already be 
displaced, are we spending more money to hire more of them? Why not 
just retrain existing workers for enforcement positions?
  Mr. President, by their own admission, the IRS has a surplus of 
employees, not a deficit. I thought that reinventing Government was 
about being more efficient with existing resources, not asking for 
5,000 new, full-time Federal employees.
  Mr. President, it is my understanding that the GAO does not support 
spending more on new revenue agents. In fact, they would recommend, I 
believe, just the opposite.
  According to their April 1994 report:

       We do not support an initiative that calls for more revenue 
     agents. We believe the focus of IRS's collection efforts 
     should be just the opposite--more use of the telephone and 
     less reliance on face-to-face contacts.

  More recently, in a letter dated June 20, 1994, a few days ago, 
responding to several questions directed by Senator Grassley, the 
following statement was made with regard to the necessity of new 
revenue agents:

       We do not know the specific amounts of revenue involved, 
     but there are steps IRS could take to generate additional 
     revenues by using existing staff differently and more 
     efficiently.

  And in commenting on past funding for such compliance initiatives, 
GAO noted the following:

       In 1990, for example, IRS received funding for nine 
     compliance initiatives but implemented only two. In 1991, 
     Congress appropriated $191 million for initiatives and IRS 
     used $134 million for that purpose. In 1993 and 1994, 
     Congress authorized initiatives of $43 million and $115 
     million respectively. However, IRS was unable to fully 
     implement the initiatives in either year. IRS now plans to 
     spend only about $17 million on the fiscal year 1994 
     initiatives. We do not know what IRS eventually spent on the 
     fiscal year 1993 initiatives.

  Mr. President, I quote again from GAO:

       We do not know what IRS eventually spent on the fiscal year 
     1993 initiatives, and yet we are going to give them another 
     $405 million for fiscal year 1995.

  Mr. President, spending $405 million in 1995 is not the fiscally 
responsible thing to do.
  Finally, I would like also to note to my colleagues that the 
President, to my understanding, did not include the request for this 
funding into the fiscal 1995 budget. So not only does GAO think it is a 
bad idea, I do not think the President, unless he has changed his mind, 
thought that an increase was necessary either when he submitted his 
budget for 1995.
  Not only is this unnecessary spending, it is inefficient spending. 
Hiring 5,000 new Federal employees to collect taxes is not the answer 
to improving compliance and, Mr. President, it is not the answer to 
reinventing Government.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Senator Grassley in 
this effort.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Mississippi [Mr. Lott].
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Grassley-Shelby 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I think it is important that as we consider this 
amendment to this appropriations bill we examine the history of how we 
got to this point.
  The President's budget proposed hiring 5,000 new IRS agents to 
increase compliance. And the administration proposed paying for it with 
off-budget spending. This proposal was included on the floor when the 
Senate passed the budget resolution. But, it was on the condition that 
the taxpayer bill of rights II become law by 1996.
  The budget conference took the liberty of striking this essential 
protection for the taxpayer. Thus, the conference report allowed for 
off-budget spending of $405 million per year for new agents with no 
offset to pay for this spending and no taxpayer bill of rights II.
  The Treasury-Postal appropriations bill before us now includes this 
off-budget funding for the new IRS agents.
  Most Senators and Members of Congress can cite to you not one, not 
two, but many instances of abuse by IRS agents. Quite often it appears 
to me that this abuse comes from the fact that they do not have enough 
to do. It is not just a question of collecting what is owed. It is how 
you do it. That is why I think the taxpayer bill of rights II is such 
an integral part of this issue. If we are going to have 5,000 more IRS 
agents crawling all over the American taxpayers, the least we can do 
for balance and equity is provide some fundamental rights and 
protection for the taxpayers.
  Let me just cite examples of what is in this taxpayer bill of rights 
II package.
  It would provide for an ombudsman to help people when they feel like 
they are not being treated fairly, when a particular agent perhaps goes 
too far.
  It provides for an interest-free extension period for payment of 
taxes after notice and demand. Part of the biggest problem with people 
who have difficulty with the IRS is not so much what they owe, but what 
they wind up owing. Interest and penalties continue to just stack up 
and make it almost impossible for the taxpayer to ever get to the 
principal. This would extend the interest-free period for payment of 
that tax after notification. It would even have an expansion of 
authority to abate that interest.
  It provides for changes after you have filed a single return. You 
could actually change the filing to a joint return without penalty.
  It deals with collection activities, offers of compromise, 
notification of examination, removal of limits on recovery for civil 
damages, and a myriad of other very important, reasonable, basic 
commonsense provisions. The taxpayer would be protected and the 
Internal Revenue Service may even see an increase in compliance.
  So I am very pleased that Senator Grassley and Senator Shelby have 
offered this amendment. A number of other Senators are cosponsors of 
this proposal to strike the provision in this appropriations bill to 
hire 5,000 new IRS agents. This amendment will reduce the deficit by $2 
billion over a 5-year period.
  Why should the IRS be allowed to do this? There are other Federal 
agencies which perform an invaluable service and they do not receive 
off-budget funding. I think the IRS should not get any special 
treatment. In fact, I want to give you some arguments as to why the IRS 
does not need all these additional agents.
  According to CBO, the IRS has seen the greatest increase in staff in 
the Federal Government over the past 12 years except for the Department 
of Defense. In fiscal year 1982, IRS had 82,857 employees. As of 
January 1, 1994, the Internal Revenue Service has 113,770 employees.
  As you can see, there has been about a 30,000-person increase in the 
number of Federal employees at IRS alone.
  At a time when the Federal Government is shrinking by 252,000 
workers. Why do we need this 5,000-agent increase on top of the 30,000 
that have been added in the previous 10 years?
  I think that better compliance is an appropriate goal, but if that is 
the problem, I believe they should refocus their agents and the funding 
they already have. Instead of going after Methodist ministers about 
whether they are self-employed or not, they should go after real 
offenders.
  I also fear one of the results of 5,000 additional agents is that 
they will target small businesses and small corporations who already 
are struggling just to make ends meet.
  Allowing this money to be spent off budget is a big misstep down a 
very steep and slippery slope of budget gimmickry and exorbitant 
deficits. It will totally undermine the credibility of budget caps 
which are set in law.
  This is an excellent amendment, one that I would urge my colleagues 
to support. It is fiscally sound. It also honors a commitment from the 
budget resolution. We do not need to be increasing the size of Federal 
agencies at this time--especially IRS agents.
  I have not noticed a shortage of agents in Mississippi. Is there a 
State which is clamoring for more IRS agents? I want to remind my 
colleagues that this increase was tied to the passage of the taxpayer 
bill of rights II. There are a lot of punitive actions performed by 
agents which need to be done away with. The taxpayer bill of rights II 
provides an excellent compromise. It works with the taxpayers, to get 
the taxes they owe in a less aggressive and adversarial manner. I do 
not think we would need more IRS agents. We need fewer IRS agents.
  My colleagues are going to give you an argument about good Government 
and paying unto Caesar Caesar's due. This is not the problem. In fact, 
this amendment will be a way that we can help reduce the deficit by $2 
billion over 5 years.
  What would a referendum with taxpayers reveal? Let them vote. I bet 
they would overwhelmingly support the Grassley-Shelby amendment. And 
again I urge my colleagues to do the same and support this fiscally 
responsible amendment. Increasing the Federal work force is going in 
absolutely the wrong direction at the wrong time. Taking it off budget 
and adding the cost to the deficit is bad budget policy, and unsound 
fiscal policy--it is unbelievable.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Arizona, 
Mr. [DeConcini].
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, the Senator from Mississippi is 
correct. There has been a substantial increase in IRS agents over the 
past 12 years, and they have been under the compliance initiatives 
offered by the Bush administration and the Reagan administration.
  So this growth did not occur here in the last 18 months from this 
administration.
  What we have done here, and it is very important that people 
understand, the budget resolution that we passed in this body, and, by 
the way, I have sympathy for not putting these funds off budget, it 
troubles me immensely but that is what this body did. The budget 
resolution provided for an additional $405 million in budget authority 
and outlays, outside the discretionary caps.
  If I had my druthers I would not do that. But that is not what the 
body did, and that is not the law that we are governed by when we are 
subject to the budget process. We are the appropriators, and we come up 
with the money. The money has been authorized by the Budget Committee 
and that was to have a compliance initiative in order to raise 
additional revenues between $9 billion and $10 billion.
  I hope it works. I think there is a good chance that it will. These 
funds were then what they call ``crosswalked'' to the committee. The 
additional IRS compliance funds were provided in the appropriations 
process. That is why we are here. That is why that money is in this 
appropriations bill. The committee bill actually includes an additional 
$426 million for IRS law enforcement with this purpose and this purpose 
alone.
  In addition, the bill includes language stating that the funds cannot 
be used for any other purpose, and that no funds shall be transferred 
from the tax law enforcement account in fiscal year 1995 for other 
purposes.
  Why was that done? That was done to ensure, to satisfy people here, 
that this was not some way to get around the caps for anything other 
than a compliance initiative. I will talk about the need for that in 
just a moment.
  The funds will be used to support 5,000 new agents. But that is not 
how many new agents are actually going to be hired here, and they are 
not all agents. Many of them are collectors, and there is a difference. 
It is a fine distinction. If you are from the IRS, I understand, and 
you knock on the door and say, ``I am here to help you;'' when you tell 
them you are from the IRS, it does not make any difference if you are a 
collector or an agent. The point is, these are not the same employees 
as an agent is, because they do collection and not auditing, which is 
what the agents do.
  Out of this, there are going to be only 2,000 new employees. The 
Senator from Iowa may say that is too many.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. It should be 3,000 new employees.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. No, 2,000 new employees. The rest are going to be 
taken from the IRS rolls that were going to be eliminated through the 
attrition process. They will not be eliminated but they are not all new 
people.
  Why are we doing this? Let us get down to the facts. The Senator from 
Iowa says and the Senator from Mississippi says, ``Gee whiz, the poor 
taxpayer.'' I am interested in seeing that the taxpayer is not 
harassed. I am sick and tired of it. I get those complaints as well as 
anybody else. And I am sure the Senator from Iowa knows the accounts 
receivable inventories, taxes due the Federal Government--the 
Government you and I are here representing, as well as the people here, 
that we are trying to make run more effectively--that tax receivables 
have grown 35 percent just in the last 5 years--in the last 5 years; 1 
year under this administration and 4 years under the past 
administration. I am not blaming anybody; it is just a fact. We are not 
collecting money. People who should be paying their taxes do not pay 
them.
  The accounts receivable are estimated at over $75 billion. What do we 
do about it? We have some options. We could say just collect it and 
take the money out of, I do not know, taxpayer services; take it from 
telephones or knock down the computer so you cannot count or answer 
questions of taxpayers, or do something. We did not.
  What we said: The administration came up with an initiative very 
similar to the initiatives the Bush administration has come up with and 
the Reagan administration has come up with, to go out and get those 
American taxpayers who are not paying.
  If you want to defend the American taxpayer who does not want to pay 
their tax bill, be my guest. But I am sick and tired of it. I pay my 
taxes. You pay your taxes. Most of the people we represent pay their 
taxes. Why should we not go after those who do not?
  So the budget is approved by this body, and in it there is a 
compliance, to go get those taxpayers. The tax gap, in addition to the 
$75 billion estimated--it is estimated to be maybe $127 billion.
  The number of taxpayers failing to pay their liabilities, failing to 
pay their taxes--probably there are some in Iowa. I am sure there are 
some in Arizona and Mississippi. I have to represent them. But I am not 
going to represent them to not pay their taxes, because there are over 
14 million who do not pay their taxes and nobody asks them any 
questions or goes after them.
  I think we should go after them. I wish I was not here, frankly--
because my friends know how I feel, and I have supported the Grassley-
Exon amendments on a number of occasions--I wish I was not here arguing 
for something outside the cap. Because I do not like to see that stuff 
off-budget, this or anything else. But that is not what I have to do. I 
have an obligation here to get an appropriation to do a taxpayers 
compliance and it happens to be already passed by the Budget Act to be 
off-budget or over the caps, outside the caps. So now we have to do it. 
It does not affect the deficit. It will permit the IRS to help close 
that taxpayer gap. It seems to me the Senators who are proposing this 
amendment ought to be for it.
  In addition, it is going to raise between $9 billion and $10 billion. 
Let us say they are off, and it raises $7 or $8 billion. That is still 
a good investment for $2 billion over a 5-year period.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Sasser, in a statement 
just yesterday, said a number of things, and one of them was:

       The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department 
     have certified that they are firmly committed to the 
     principles of privacy, confidentiality, courtesy, and 
     protection of taxpayer rights. To this end the Internal 
     Revenue Service and the Treasury Department have specifically 
     committed to initiate and implement educational programs for 
     any new employees hired as a result of the compliance 
     initiative.

  That is what we told them to do. We did not tell them that they had 
to pass the taxpayer bill of rights. We did not say it was conditioned 
that they pass it. We told them that they had to institute and initiate 
the proper procedures, and now we are told that they have done it. To 
me, what else can you ask? Had the condition been that you must enact 
into law the Pryor taxpayer bill of rights, that would have been 
something else. And I am a cosponsor of that bill, and I support it 
very much. But what the budget resolution said is that you have to 
certify that you are instituting these new initiatives. And I think 
that is what has been done.
  Senator Sasser goes on to say that the Internal Revenue Service 
compliance initiatives will not increase the total of the Federal 
budget deficit over 5 years. I did not just make that up. That comes 
from the GAO. They said, ``We believe that the additional budget 
authorities will not increase the deficit over the 5-year period in 
question.'' That is a quote from the text, from the Policy and 
Administration Office of the GAO. That letter goes on to state, with 
reference to the IRS estimates of revenue:

       The IRS has changed its methodology for estimating the 
     additional revenues to be generated by augmenting its 
     examination function. Thus, we are more confident than in the 
     past about the reliability of the revenue estimates 
     associated with the examination part of the compliance 
     initiative.

  I have had problems in the past. I have been working on this 
committee ever since I have been in the Senate, and I have been 
chairman of it for 9 years now, and I have had a lot of problems with 
this particular issue of promising to raise all this money and not 
being able to get there. So we have asked them over the years, go back 
and look at how much you have raised under these initiatives. They have 
put in a new mechanism of trying to determine this. They can only 
estimate, nobody can guarantee it, but they have lowered that. I 
believe they have come as close as they can.
  In addition, with reference to the use of revenue officers that the 
IRS plans to hire to implement its collection program, the committee 
has included language in the committee report which states: ``The 
Committee has denied the request of $87,908,000 for the hiring of 1,192 
additional revenue officers, and instead instructed the Service to 
redeploy these funds into the hiring of additional call site 
collectors,'' which is different from an IRS agent as to how much you 
have to pay them. The committee took this action as a direct result of 
the GAO recommendations.
  I have to agree. I wish I was not here asking, arguing for $405 
million outside the discretionary caps. That is what we did. And to not 
now go through with the compliance because this body adopted a budget 
that took the money outside the caps is really foolish. We have 
letters, which I will put in the Record and read them only if we want 
to extend this debate--and I appreciate the Senator from Iowa being 
willing to enter into a time agreement so we can get on with things. We 
have letters here from Lloyd Bentsen, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
and the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Mrs. Richardson, 
that all state that they are in compliance with the requirements that 
were in the Budget Act, that they have initiated the proper education 
systems and programs to guarantee to the taxpayer, as best as they can, 
that they will abide by the rules as set out in the taxpayer bill of 
rights.
  As I said, I wish we had passed that taxpayer bill of rights.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I will be glad to yield for a question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona yields.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I said for a question.
  If you would permit me just to say something along the lines of what 
you just said. Their letters may say--and I do not dispute the 
sincerity of Secretary Bentsen, Commissioner Richardson, et cetera, on 
what they will try to do from an educational standpoint on taxpayers' 
rights, what they will try to do from the standpoint of issuing 
regulations on the taxpayer bill of rights, what they can do without 
our passing law.
  But they cannot substitute a pledge that they are going to do this to 
take the place of the agreement that was reached in the Senate on our 
budget resolution when we said that it was conditioned on the passage 
of taxpayer bill of rights 2, not their maybe doing something through 
regulation or their doing something through education that would take 
the place of the passage of taxpayer bill of rights 2. They can do all 
these things good and dandy, but the bottom line of it is, that cannot 
satisfy the agreement that was reached on the floor of the Senate on 
the budget resolution.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. If the Senator will yield, first of all in the bill, 
section 2, under the administrative provisions, it states, and I will 
read it to the Senator, on page 17:

       The Internal Revenue Service shall institute and maintain a 
     training program to ensure that Internal Revenue Service 
     employees are trained in taxpayers' rights in dealing 
     courteously with the taxpayers and in cross-cultural 
     relations.

  So that is part of this law that is before us right here, that says 
they shall do it. That is in the bill.
  We did not adopt the budget resolution that said this is conditioned 
upon passage of the taxpayer bill of rights 1 or 2. That is not what 
the budget resolution said, as I will point out. The budget resolution 
noted the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department, 
according to Senator Sasser, have certified that they are committed to 
the principles of privacy, confidentiality, courtesy, protection of 
taxpayers' rights. And to this end the Internal Revenue Service and the 
Treasury Department have explicitly committed to initiate and implement 
educational programs for any new employees hired as a result of the 
compliance initiative.
  Then at the end of the statement he says some other things about the 
Commissioner.
  But as I point out, we have it here that they have to. We did not say 
that they may institute and maintain training programs. Exactly what 
the Senator wants. If the Senator is here because the taxpayer bill of 
rights has not been passed, I am sympathetic. I wish it was passed. I 
do not want to muck up this bill, but if he offered it here, I would 
vote for it because I support it and we ought to pass it. It is the 
right thing to do.
  But now we are stuck. We passed a budget and now you are saying take 
out the compliance because you have not complied with all the taxpayer 
bill of rights. It does not say we have to comply. It says they have to 
certify that they will institute these and to ensure that they will 
institute, we have told them right here, they shall institute it. So 
they will be breaking the law if they do not do this in section 2.
  I do not know what else we can ask of the agency. I just do not know 
what else we can ask.
  Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator from Missouri [Mr. 
Bond].
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I, too, am a supporter of the taxpayer bill 
of rights, and I have been a cosponsor. I want to see it passed. I 
think it makes a good deal of sense. But as we talk about the budget 
resolution and the provisions in it, I think it is perhaps appropriate 
to point out that there were a couple of provisions in the Senate 
version of the budget resolution.
  One of those provisions has already been addressed, and that is, we 
wanted the Secretary of the Treasury to certify to the chairman that 
the Internal Revenue Service will initiate and implement an educational 
program with respect to taxpayer bill of rights 1 and 2 for any new 
employees hired pursuant to such budget authority or outlays and as the 
chairman, Senator DeConcini, has already pointed out, we have letters 
expressing binding commitments from both Secretary Bentsen and 
Commissioner Richardson. As the chairman has further pointed out, we 
have put binding language about that educational effort into this 
measure.
  With respect to actual passage of the taxpayer bill of rights, the 
Senate budget resolution had contingencies and under it said, No. 1:

       In the case of such budget authority or outlays through any 
     fiscal year after fiscal year 1995--

  After fiscal year 1995

     there has been enacted into law a taxpayer bill of rights 2.

  That applies to future years. It does not apply to 1995.
  My good friend from Iowa, I believe, is a member of the Finance 
Committee. I believe that that measure is within the jurisdiction of 
the Finance Committee. I certainly wish him well in passing it out of 
the Finance Committee, and I will support on the floor the taxpayer 
bill of rights. But the problem is that we are seeing significant 
amounts of revenue not collected.
  This country's tax structure is based on voluntary compliance. We 
expect that most people voluntarily will pay their taxes. We have to 
back that up, though, because current estimates are that we have only 
83 percent voluntary compliance and that figure is going down. Each 
percentage point of compliance is worth between $7 and $10 billion to 
the Treasury. If you took the lower estimate of $7 billion, pushing the 
tax compliance rate to 95 percent would generate $84 billion a year.
  Mr. President, I do not like taxes. I do not know too many people who 
do like taxes, but I would rather collect the taxes that are owed than 
have to come and fight against tax increase proposals increasing the 
rates. I think every taxpayer in this country who is paying taxes would 
agree that the IRS should make every effort to collect the taxes that 
are owed. It certainly makes more sense than raising taxes on those who 
are already complying.
  The Senator from Arizona has already talked about the 83 percent who 
voluntarily comply, and I assume and I hope it means everybody in this 
Chamber. And 83 percent of our constituents nationwide are the ones I 
am concerned about. They are the ones who are bearing the burden 
because 17 percent are not paying their taxes. That is a tax gap of 
$100 to $200 billion. We could reduce the taxes on those who already 
pay if we could get substantial compliance with the tax laws that are 
now on the books.
  A point has been raised about the possibility of raising revenue in 
other areas. Frankly, I would support some initiatives in Customs 
because I think they are missing out on revenue that could be raised. 
But the fact of the matter is that the Internal Revenue Service 
collects 90 percent of the revenues of the Federal Government. If they 
are not doing a good job of pursuing nonpayers, those who do not 
comply, then there is less of an incentive for voluntary compliance, 
and we may see that 83 percent compliance figure erode further.
  If you really are concerned about the 83 percent of the taxpayers, 
you will support the provision in the bill. To support this amendment, 
however well-intentioned, is to say to the 17 percent who skate without 
paying the taxes: ``Good luck; we're going to give you another pass; 
we're not going to step up the compliance efforts to make it more 
likely that we will track you down and bring actions to force you to 
pay.'' To me, this benefits the 17 percent who do not pay at the 
expense of the 83 percent who do pay.
  GAO has been raised here and the GAO letter of June 16, again as 
Chairman DeConcini has pointed out, clearly states that this additional 
budget authority will not increase the budget deficit over the 5-year 
period.
  My colleague from Iowa said we need to stick with the caps. Why do we 
need to stick with the caps? I believe in caps when they are designed 
to keep the deficit down.
  I personally faulted the Director of OMB for not putting this 
proposal in the original budget proposal. I think this should have been 
part of the proposal. It should have been in the caps. But the fact 
that it was not does not mean there is any less good to be achieved by 
collecting money from the people who are not paying their taxes now. 
Somewhere between $100 billion to $200 billion of taxes are not being 
paid. For this revenue-raising measure, adding compliance officers, we 
will get about $9 billion over 5 years.
  That is a better than $4 return for every $1 we spend. This 
initiative should and will reduce the deficit. And it will do so not at 
the expense of the 83 percent who do their taxes but at the expense of 
the 17 percent who are not paying their taxes now.
  While I respect and admire the conservative fiscal responsibility of 
my colleagues from Iowa and Alabama, on this one I am afraid they are 
just plain wrong. This will enable us to lower the deficit, to gain 
more than $4 in revenue for every $1 spent on this compliance 
initiative.
  I hope that my colleagues will support what the Budget Committee did 
and what the subcommittee in the Appropriations Committee has done, and 
that is to provide a compliance initiative so that we will say to the 
taxpayers, the vast majority who did pay, we are going to protect you 
by going after the deadbeats who do not pay their taxes. I hope the 
Senate will reject this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. First of all, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Roth 
be added as a cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. We have heard from the distinguished managers of this 
bill what they consider good-faith attempts by Treasury and the IRS to 
educate agents and to issue regulations that will be a substitute for 
the condition that we had in the budget when it passed the Senate, that 
these agents could not be hired unless we passed taxpayer bill of 
rights 2. I believe that our colleagues probably in their own good mind 
accept the good faith of those efforts. They have letters that say the 
same thing.
  But I would like to have my colleagues understand that I have written 
Secretary Bentsen to get the details of these education and training 
programs and what regulations might be issued, and I have not received 
any response yet, anything definitive on what they are going to do. And 
so as well intended as the provisions of this legislation might be to 
see that this is done, I think that we cannot count on it.
  I think that also the references to the conference report probably 
had that same good intention, but I have not trusted these approaches 
in the past. I have dealt with it under both Republican administrations 
and now under this administration to do what they say they are going to 
do in protecting taxpayers' rights. That is why I was very adamant in 
the compromise that was worked out when the budget first passed the 
Senate that this would be conditioned on the passage of legislation, 
not just on some nebulous sort of promises of education of employees 
and doing some things through regulation.
  This is meant to be a nonpartisan issue. I think it is perfectly 
legitimate for the Senator from Arizona to suggest what happened under 
previous administrations. I just think that the problem we are dealing 
with here is that the IRS is the same IRS, whether you have Republican 
Presidents or you have Democrat Presidents. So this amendment is not in 
any way a criticism of this Democratic administration or President 
Clinton. This is a situation that I would say is institutional, a 
problem that is institutional with which we have to deal.
  Now, I would like to ask Senator DeConcini to consider what he said 
yesterday on this issue in his opening statement on the legislation.
  He had, as he put it, reservations about this initiative as it was 
stated in the bill. He further stated, and I would like to quote, 
``These kinds of funds ought to be dedicated to the modernization of 
the system and making it really functional and available.''
  This compliance initiative in this legislation that my amendment 
would strike, which is striking $405 million and then striking the 
authorization for 5,000 agents, is a misallocation of the taxpayers' 
money and it goes against the principles of reinventing Government.
  This IRS staff increase provision, I think, has been mislabeled, as 
it is a tax law enforcement measure. I think it has to be and can be 
more accurately referred to as the ``heavy-hand-of-the-law measure that 
will increase Government bureaucracy and harassment at taxpayers' 
expense.''
  Now, of course, we want and we need the IRS to collect revenues, and 
nobody including this Senator can justify any amount of money lawfully 
owed the Government going unreported and uncollected. But there are 
other ways to get that job done than the effort to just hire more 
people and appropriate more money for it and even break the budget caps 
to do this. That is bad for the IRS, but it is going to be bad as it 
sets a precedent for other departments to ask for the same 
consideration, because the GAO and others are legitimately making 
arguments that the IRS needs to reprioritize and achieve more 
efficiencies within its current means. Until these are accomplished in 
a maximum way, we should not even be considering more staff increases, 
especially if the President is serious about his so-called reinventing 
Government proposal.
  I thought reinventing Government meant doing more with less staff and 
less bureaucracy. I thought that because that has been expressed by 
Vice President Gore very clearly, and I feel very clearly supported by 
President Clinton in this effort. Since the day after Labor Day last 
year, this administration has been fully into reinventing Government, 
and I have been supportive of that effort. I say in some respects I do 
not think there is going to be the proper followthrough, but at least 
for what they say they are trying to do I say it is the right direction 
and we should help them do what they want to do, only more.
  That applies to the IRS as well. I think the IRS has a long way to go 
before these priorities and these efficiencies are achieved. Just one 
of the misallocations in the resources can be seen in the area of in-
kind payments for farmers.
  Currently, the IRS is going after hundreds of family farmers who pay 
their workers with grain or other commodities. Under the law, very 
clearly these payments are exempt from the FICA taxes, but the IRS, 
which is trying to overturn the law, has been going after these farmers 
for millions of dollars in back taxes, penalties, and interest. Many, 
if not most, of these family farmers are following the law as written, 
but the IRS has found a group of powerless taxpayers of modest means to 
go after. Many of the farmers my office has dealt with do not have the 
money to fight these misguided attacks.
  Why is the IRS going after these low-income family farms when there 
are thousands of international tax cheats out there? That is my 
concern. What is the top priority of the agency? When the IRS is 
misusing resources now, how can we expect such an uncontrollable 
bureaucracy to do better with more funding? In other words, why, if 
they are not careful now with the allocation of those funds should they 
have $405 million more to hire 5,000 more agents?
  Then there is another group that the IRS has been going after. This 
has been referred to already by my distinguished colleague from 
Mississippi. They have been going after Methodist ministers. Can you 
believe that? An attorney for the United Methodist Church testified 
before the House Ways and Means Committee about the IRS targeting and 
harassing a group of Methodist preachers. What have we come to, Mr. 
President? It is no wonder the public is angry.
  Of course, there are hundreds of other individual horror stories as 
documented through congressional hearings and news reports that we do 
not have time to go into. But my point, Mr. President, is that the IRS 
has to first get its priorities straight and needs to implement new and 
effective taxpayer protections before we unleash thousands of more 
agents on a skeptical, if not angry, public.
  A vote for the Grassley-Shelby amendment, an amendment with 
bipartisan support, is a vote to protect taxpayers and force better 
efficiency, and it is a vote against budget gimmickry.
  I hope that my colleagues will put the taxpayers first in supporting 
this amendment.
  No one knows the true overall costs of this IRS staff increase or the 
amount of offsetting revenue that will be raised. This is a main point 
of at least one of the managers of this bill; that we are going to 
bring in all of this money as a result of putting on 5,000 more agents. 
There is no objective evidence that past staff increases have actually 
raised more than they cost, especially when you factor in retirement 
costs. Even if the IRS studies do not prove that these staff increases 
made money or even the IRS studies cannot prove that staff increases 
made money for the Government, the profit that has been made in the 
past was due more to realized efficiencies and reprioritizing than to 
staff increases. Even the IRS admits that.
  The General Accounting Office has also found that ``Past IRS staff 
increases,'' to quote a report, ``were not implemented as Congress 
intended, and the IRS' revenue estimates were unreliable.'' And the GAO 
says that the staff increases will probably increase the deficit in the 
first year and will not increase the deficit in later years only if 
certain conditions are met. These certain conditions are, first, 
whether or not funds are used as intended to increase IRS enforcement 
staffing; second, funds are provided in the fiscal years after 1995 to 
maintain the increased staffing level; and, three, whether the IRS is 
able to successfully hire, to train, and to retain this additional 
staff.
  So we are going to have to spend even more taxpayer dollars in the 
outyears to realize any projected savings, meaning that the total cost 
of this new staffing is unknown but may be way beyond the initial $2 
billion 5-year cost. In addition, the CBO refuses to score the staff 
increases as a revenue raiser.
  CBO does speculate that more money would be raised than the staff 
would cost. But they were unable to factor in what will undoubtedly be 
very expensive retirement costs.
  So that is speculation, and it is a far cry from accomplishing any 
kind of deficit reduction. If my amendment succeeds, we know that we 
will be saving over that 5 years $2 billion. If these staff increases 
pass, we are going to be lucky to break even, let alone make money.
  So true deficit reduction is only certain if our amendment passes. 
The committee provision is at best wishful thinking.
  I notice that my colleague from Illinois is on the floor and wants to 
speak. I will yield momentarily. But based on some discussions that he 
and I privately had, I would like to take advantage of repeating 
something that I said earlier in this debate because he was not on the 
floor at that time.
  There has been some allusion to it by the managers of the bill--that 
that quote was actually from the conference report, or from this 
legislation, as opposed to what was agreed to by the Senator from 
Illinois and myself and several others on the budget resolution when it 
was up in April. That is what we should do if we are going to hire more 
agents: Make sure that we get adequate protection for the taxpayers.
  So some of us agreed that this money could be spent only after the 
taxpayer bill of rights 2 passed. So we went ahead in the budget 
resolution. The money is there as it passed the Senate. But then it 
goes to conference between the House and Senate. The condition that 
this money not be spent until the taxpayer bill of rights 2 passes was 
taken out. There was some nebulous language put in that the IRS would 
do their best to educate their personnel to do some things by 
regulation that would be substituted for the taxpayer bill of rights.
  Those are good measures. But effectively the Treasury Department in 
agreeing to what the Senate agreed to get it through the Senate with 
full knowledge that they would run from that agreement when it passed, 
when it was coming out of conference.
  So we ended up with these nebulous promises of regulations and 
education. And I would hope that my colleague from Illinois would agree 
that we should not now appropriate that money until that original 
agreement was followed because that would have never gotten through 
this body in the first instance without that condition in it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DeCONCINI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I will yield in a moment to the Senator 
from Illinois.
  I want to comment on one remark the Senator from Iowa said. He quoted 
me in a statement that I made yesterday about what I think the IRS 
priorities are. I stand by that statement. I think if I were the 
Commissioner, I would do it differently. If I were the Senate and the 
Congress, I would do it differently. But I am not the Commissioner and 
I do not act as this body. What I do with the ranking Member here is 
that we take what the Budget Committee gives us.
  Now we are appropriating it, and we are doing everything that the 
Senator has asked us to do, and everything that I believe was an 
agreement--I will hear about that in a moment--as to what was supposed 
to be done by the IRS. We are telling them that they shall institute 
all of these procedures that were discussed in the budget, inside the 
budget agreement and outside the budget agreement.
  So we are truly abiding by what I think was the intent of those 
budgeteers when they went to the budget and afterwards. That is why we 
have this provision in the bill.
  I thank the Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I thank Senator DeConcini for his work 
here.
  Let me add that Senator DeConcini's service to this country will be 
missed in the U.S. Senate, for what he is doing on this bill is just 
one of the many illustrations of it.
  The situation is pretty much as my colleague from Iowa described it. 
I introduced the amendment. We had an agreement that we would put on 
Senator Pryor's taxpayer bill of rights 2, and in the process of all of 
this, things got changed.
  My understanding is that Treasury says they are going to implement 
this. I would prefer it in legislative language. If Senator Pryor 
offers it in legislative language, I am going to vote for it. But I 
also believe we ought to get people to comply with the law. And if we 
can spend this amount of money, and according to GAO get a net return 
of $9.2 billion, we ought to do it.

  Second, I think we ought to say--because we talk about the abuses of 
the IRS, and there have been abuses. I think every Member of the Senate 
has had some constituents who come in and have genuine complaints about 
IRS abuses. I was audited maybe 30 years ago and had to go in with 2 or 
3 years--I forget now--of my returns. And, real candidly, I found when 
they saw you were playing it honest, they were helpful, and I ended up, 
one year, paying maybe $186 and another year getting back $230; it was 
kind of a wash. I do not remember whether I ended up getting more or 
paying more money. But I have to say they were very courteous as they 
moved through the process. I think that is the general experience that 
people have.
  There is $125 billion that is not collected each year, but people owe 
it. But I think we owe it to the people who do pay taxes to see that 
the taxes are collected.
  This is not a new thing. In 1990--and the Senator from Colorado can 
correct me if I am wrong--my recollection is that it was not a 
Democratic administration in charge. The 1990 budget agreement included 
an IRS tax compliance initiative which provided additional funding for 
activities that would reasonably be expected to increase revenue 
collections. The administration is considering a similar multiyear IRS 
initiative beginning in 1995 to increase taxpayer compliance further.
  We are doing identically what we did in 1990. The IRS audits only 1 
percent of tax returns. So we are not talking about just a massive 
deluge descending on the taxpayers of this country.
  The report by the committee, shared by Senator DeConcini, has this 
substitute language on the taxpayer bill of rights, and here we should 
give credit to our colleague Senator Pryor, who really has done superb 
work in this.
  It says:

       The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department 
     have certified that they are firmly committed to the 
     principles of privacy, confidentiality, courtesy, and 
     protection of taxpayer rights. To this end, the Internal 
     Revenue Service and the Treasury Department have explicitly 
     committed to initiate and implement education programs for 
     any new employees hired as a result of the compliance 
     initiative made possible by this section.

  Under the old taxpayer bill of rights, 9,000 managers of the IRS got 
20 hours of training so they would be sensitive to taxpayers, and all 
other employees got 6 to 8 hours of training. My guess is that most of 
the complaints we are hearing today are not as frequent as the 
complaints that we had in years past. I cannot vouch for that. Someone 
may come up with a study on this. But it seems to me that if we ask 
good, solid, honest citizens to pay their taxes, we ought to go after 
the people who do not pay their taxes, who cheat. And this is what the 
committee is asking is: Let us collect some of this $125 billion that 
we are not collecting right now. So I am going to oppose the amendment 
offered by my friend from Iowa. I have great respect for him for his 
independence and his tenacity. But I think we owe it to the American 
people to collect this money.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BURNS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana [Mr. Burns], is 
recognized.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Grassley 
amendment, and I guess after being around here for a while and looking 
at how the bureaucracy works at the Federal level, it is not a hard 
judgment call to make.
  There is nothing in this legislation or the increase in funds for 
this bureaucracy to go out and collect taxes. I agree with my friend 
from Illinois that, yes, it should be done, but there is no incentive 
for them to do so. They have demonstrated that over the last 2, 3, 4 
years, since I have been in the U.S. Senate.
  We can talk about 1990. For example, the IRS received funding for 
nine compliance initiatives, but they only implemented two. They would 
probably come back and say, ``We only had people enough to implement 
two.'' But the money was there. There is a lack of initiative or 
incentive to go out and get it done. Whenever you talk about trying to 
save money--and it becomes a mindset or a spending set in Government--I 
am familiar with that because before I came here, I worked at local 
government where the rubber really hits the road, and as far as making 
government work, you are not only the man that makes out the budget, 
but you are also the appropriator. And so you sort of wise up to those 
types of things.
  In 1991, Congress appropriated $191 million for initiatives, and the 
IRS used $134 million for that purpose. We say, ``Look at the money we 
saved.'' But do you know what? Their collections did not go up. The 
activity did not go up. They bought automobiles, and they gave a few 
raises. They said, ``Well, we improved the morale of the IRS.'' Well, I 
will tell you what; we can improve the morale of the whole country, 
spending money like that. But only two initiatives were put in place.
  The IRS was unable to fully implement the initiatives in either year. 
So whenever we take a look at that, we see that we do not give them an 
incentive to go ahead and do the job as they are supposed to do it. I 
imagine that you could create a Gestapo if you said, ``OK, go out and 
collect that $9.2 billion, and we will pay you a commission,'' if you 
want to make the investment in new auditors, or CPA's, or new ways to 
collect taxes across the country.
  I think that would be very hard to do, and I do not think that is the 
kind of Government we really want. I think what we want is an agency 
that will honestly do their jobs, present their budget honestly, and do 
an honest day's work, and provide services not only for the taxpayers 
but also those people who we would like to think like to pay their 
taxes.
  So I support this initiative for the simple reason that I think it 
sends a strong message to the rest of this Federal Government, that, 
yes, you are going to have to do more with less, because the American 
people have told us that that is the way they want it done.
  For that reason, I will support this amendment. I thank my friend 
from Iowa for offering this amendment.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri [Mr. Bond], is 
recognized.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, there are some things in the statement of my 
good friend from Montana with which I agree. In the past, we have 
provided initiatives to the IRS, and they have not carried them out 
because we put in requirements on the IRS, unfunded mandates, like pay 
increases, that we did not provide the funding for.
  That is one of the reasons they have not been able to carry out the 
compliance requests.
  We give them all these new jobs to do with great ideas, and then we 
say, ``By the way, you have to eat this pay increase, and you have to 
take on these additional responsibilities.''
  When this came out of the Budget Committee, it was fenced, and it 
said, ``You have to use this for compliance.''
  My colleagues have raised the questions about what are you going to 
do with these moneys? Accounts receivable have grown 35 percent. That 
is people have not paid their bills. The number of taxpayers failing to 
pay their liability in full has increased from 14 million to 16 
million. They are going to put staff to get quicker assignment and 
accelerated taxpayer contact to get the moneys collected.
  Underreporting is a major problem. They are going to initiate a 
matching report program that will assure that all the documents they 
get in are matched to see if the payments reported by the payors are 
included as revenue by the payees.
  As to nonfilers, there are more than 10 million returns that should 
be filed that are not filed each year. Again, they will use the 
information they get to identify those who receive dividends and who 
are not on the tax rolls.
  Tax fraud: For some in the 17 percent who do not pay, they are guilty 
of criminal tax frauds, and these are the people that really should 
bother us.
  I assume, as I said, that all of us here in the 83 percent who do pay 
the taxes that are owed, when some people are resorting to willful 
criminal fraud to evade their responsibility to pay taxes, that is a 
major blow at all of us who pay our taxes as they are owed.
  There are bankruptcy fraud, motor fuel tax evasion, financial fraud 
involving pensions, and filing fraud.
  These are criminal activities. These are criminal activities that can 
be pursued with the resources that are set in this compliance 
initiative.
  Will this generate $9.2 billion over 5 years? Well, I cannot say for 
sure. I intend to monitor it to see that it does. I believe it is a 
reasonable way to approach it.
  The Senator from Montana served in local government, and he knows 
that you have to have the resources to collect the taxes that are owed.
  I served as Governor of Missouri, and I found that when you had a 
carefully crafted program to increase compliance, you could collect not 
only a lot more money from those who are trying to evade the taxes but 
you had a very healthy impact on those who were debating about whether 
to file and pay voluntarily the taxes they owed.
  I have seen these initiatives can work. I believe that we have the 
commitment from the IRS and the Treasury that they will make them work. 
We have the commitment from the IRS and Treasury that they will provide 
education for the IRS personnel to comply with the taxpayer bill of 
rights as required in the initial budget resolution in the Senate.
  As I said, the budget resolution in the Senate expressed the hope 
that the taxpayer bill of rights II would be passed for the years after 
fiscal year 1995. I look forward to seeing my friend from Iowa bring 
that measure to the floor from the Finance Committee. I will certainly 
support it.
  I believe that it is false economy to fail to provide the $400 
million that over 5 years will bring in $9 billion.
  I urge my colleagues not to support this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Grassley] is 
recognized.


                    Amendment No. 1823, as Modified

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have a modification of my amendment I 
send to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has the right to modify the 
amendment.
  The amendment (No. 1823), as modified, is as follows:

       On page 15, line 17, strike out ``$4,358,180,000'' and 
     insert in lieu thereof ``$3,953,180,000''.
       On page 15, line 19, beginning with ``Provided'' strike out 
     all through the semicolon on line 21 and insert in lieu 
     thereof the following: ``Provided That no funds appropriated 
     under this heading may be used for the enhanced tax 
     compliance initiative for fiscal year 1995 as proposed by the 
     Internal Revenue Service''.
       On page 15, line 24, strike out ``$442,148,000'' and insert 
     in lieu thereof ``$391,448,000'' and strike out ``5,002'' and 
     insert in lieu thereof ``4,495''.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. So I may proceed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I also ask unanimous consent to add Senator Smith as a 
cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, there is just one last point to both 
managers of the bill that I would like to make before we vote, and I 
understand that they desire to have closing statements, and that is OK 
with me.
  First of all, Senator Simon is not here, but this is only to raise a 
question to him. It is not to condemn anything he is saying.
  The General Accounting Office--and he referred to the General 
Accounting Office--has never said that this would raise $9 billion, and 
I would be interested in seeing that figure from the GAO if the Senator 
from Illinois has it.
  The estimates that we have been dealing with here are estimates from 
the IRS itself, and as a practical matter when we are making judgments 
about revenue that will come in from some action we take, we do not 
rely on the General Accounting Office for budget estimates.
  I want to quote from the GAO analysis of the IRS fiscal year budget 
in regard to this specific figure.
  Funding provided for the compliance initiatives in the Senate budget 
resolution is significantly lower than the funding level upon which IRS 
based its staffing and revenue estimates. The budget resolution would 
provide funding of $2.025 billion over 5 years.
  That is what we have in the budget resolution, and that is what they 
are appropriating here.

       The IRS' estimates of 8,136 additional full-time employes 
     (FTEs) and $9.2 billion of additional revenue were based on 
     funding of $2.5 billion over that period. With the decreased 
     funding--

  That would be a decreased funding of about a half billion dollars.

     --IRS will have to revise its estimates.

  That is revise its estimates of that $9 billion that we are told that 
they will get.
  That is GAO's analysis of this proposition we are dealing with here.
  So I think you want to remember that according to GAO, IRS is not 
getting the money that they say they need or the number of employees 
they say they need to get what they want.
  So somehow the managers of this bill are going to have to revise down 
that $9 billion that they are quoting here.
  I yield the floor, and I think I have nothing further to say on this 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum has been suggested. 
The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we are expecting another Senator to come 
over and speak on this amendment. The manager on the other side and I 
hope that we can move to a vote as quickly as we can after that.
  In order to perhaps avoid having to have another amendment tomorrow, 
I would just call attention to the fact that on June 8 I wrote to Mr. 
McClarty at the White House asking him a question about the 
unauthorized use of Government-funded transportation by two members of 
the White House staff.
  I have asked that he review any other incidents regarding use of 
taxpayer-financed transportation by White House staff, and I have asked 
the findings of the review. I have asked if they are conducting an 
overall review of helicopters and other modes of transportation. I have 
asked for copies of the travel log entries of Presidential helicopters 
for each trip with a 200-mile radius of the White House since January 
20, 1993, including information on all nonmilitary personnel who rode 
in the helicopter, et cetera.
  Now, I suppose I could always offer a specific amendment related to 
that commanding that the White House provide it. I would hope that 
maybe it has just been an oversight by Mr. McClarty that they have not 
been able to respond to my request of June 8. But in order perhaps to 
save this body some time, I would again call to the attention of the 
executive branch representatives that I wrote the letter on June 8 and 
I would be most grateful for a response before we finish this bill so 
hopefully we could avoid having to put a specific amendment on the 
floor relating to those matters.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, for the Record, I ask unanimous consent 
to have printed at this time a letter from Mrs. Richardson, the 
Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, dated April 22, 1994; a 
letter from Secretary Bentsen, dated June 21, 1994; and one from 
Secretary Bentsen dated April 22, 1994, all indicating the intentions 
and the initiatives already being taken by the Treasury Department, 
Internal Revenue Service, to comply with the budget resolution.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                       Department of the Treasury,


                                     Internal Revenue Service,

                                   Washington, DC, April 22, 1994.
     Hon. David H. Pryor,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Private Retirement Plans and 
         Oversight of IRS, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I would like to follow up on our 
     conversation yesterday about the language currently contained 
     in Simon-Bond-Pryor IRS compliance initiative amendment to 
     the Senate Budget proposal.
       The Internal Revenue Service fully recognizes the need to 
     protect the rights and privacy of taxpayers and the need to 
     continue to increase the knowledge of our employees about 
     those rights. We will initiate and implement educational 
     programs with respect to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights for any 
     new employees that we hire as a result of the compliance 
     initiative called for in the amendment.
       In fact, many of our training programs already address the 
     Taxpayer Bill of Rights, either directly or indirectly. For 
     example, this year all IRS employees attended Ethics 
     Workshops that teach the tenets of respect for others, 
     treatment with courtesy and decency, and principles of 
     fairness and concern for others. I have enclosed a copy of 
     that material for you. More directly, all new collection and 
     examination employees receive mandatory training on the 
     Taxpayer Bill of Rights and I will forward copies of those 
     materials to you under separate cover.
       I firmly believe that continued reinforcement of the 
     principles of privacy and confidentiality, courtesy, and 
     protection of rights is the right thing to do to ensure the 
     ethical treatment of taxpayers and one of the foundations of 
     voluntary compliance. I also believe this compliance 
     initiative makes good business sense for increasing revenue, 
     enhancing compliance and reducing the deficit. I appreciate 
     your support and efforts on behalf of this initiative and the 
     taxpaying public.
           Sincerely,
                                       Margaret Milner Richardson.
                                  ____



                                   Department of the Treasury,

                                    Washington, DC, June 21, 1994.
     Hon. Dennis DeConcini,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and 
         General Government, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. 
         Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing regarding the Compliance 
     Initiative in the FY 1995 Treasury-Postal Appropriations that 
     would provide an additional 5,000 employees for IRS. I am 
     particularly concerned about statements in a June 20th letter 
     from Senator Grassley and others about that Initiative that 
     was circulated to you and your colleagues. I want to set the 
     record straight.


                     protection of taxpayer rights

       I want to assure you that the Internal Revenue Service 
     fully recognizes the need to protect the rights and privacy 
     of taxpayers and the need to continue to increase the 
     knowledge of its employees about those rights. I wrote to 
     Senator David Pryor on April 22, 1994 and told him that IRS 
     would ensure the protection of taxpayer rights and privacy. I 
     have also spoken to Commissioner Richardson about continuing 
     to reinforce the principles and provisions of the Taxpayer 
     Bill of Rights and know she is committed to a strong training 
     program as stated in her letter of April 22nd to Senator 
     Pryor.


               gao support for the compliance initiative

       Senator Grassley's letter alleges that GAO questions the 
     validity of adding new IRS compliance employees. Quite to the 
     contrary, GAO has stated in a June 16, 1994 letter to 
     Chairman Sasser ``that an increase in enforcement staffing 
     will help generate significant revenues over the long term.''


        the initiative will generate over $9 billion in revenue

       The IRS Compliance Initiative was presented in the Budget 
     within the framework of broader deficit reduction, rather 
     than focusing entirely on spending. It is anticipated that 
     the Compliance Initiative will conservatively yield in excess 
     of $9 billion over 5 years--all of which will be applied to 
     deficit reduction.
       I appreciate your support and efforts on behalf of the 
     Compliance Initiative and effective tax administration.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Lloyd Bentsen.
                                  ____



                                   Department of the Treasury,

                                   Washington, DC, April 22, 1994.
     Hon. David H. Pryor,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Private Retirement Plans and 
         Oversight of IRS, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear David: I have spoken with Commissioner Richardson 
     about continuing to reinforce the principles and provisions 
     of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights through training new IRS 
     employees. I want to add my support to the IRS' efforts to 
     protect the rights and privacy of taxpayers.
       The Internal Revenue Service is committed to initiating and 
     implementing educational programs with respect to the 
     Taxpayer Bill of Rights for any new employee hired as a 
     result of the Simon-Bond-Pryor IRS compliance initiative 
     amendment to the Senate budget proposal. I fully support the 
     training programs that the IRS already has in place and will 
     initiate for all new employees to enhance the ethical 
     treatment of taxpayers and to protect their rights.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Lloyd Bentsen.

  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I am prepared to move ahead now and 
table the amendment, but we are waiting for one other Senator who wants 
to come over.
  I hope the Senate will table this. I have a great respect for the 
Senator from Iowa. He has done a good job here. Often I have been with 
him, particularly on his taxpayer bill of rights. I would like to see 
that, and, frankly, if that were a condition of this $405 million 
compliance, then I would not be here asking for it. But the budget 
agreement did not make it conditional. What the budget agreement did is 
said that it is outside the caps, and it said that the Internal Revenue 
should certify, which they have done. The Budget Committee chairman 
here, who handled all of that negotiation in the budget, indicated that 
they have certified it, they are doing it.
  In addition, as I pointed out, we put in the law that they shall do 
it. I do not know what more we could ask, what more we can do. Is there 
a gamble here? Yes, there is a gamble. The Senator from Missouri 
pointed out so well why the Senator from Montana says we have not been 
able to collect all this money on these initiatives, and that is 
because we here are mucking it around. The pay is the best example, 
asking these agencies to absorb the pay increase. If we go to the 
higher pay level of 2.6, which is not in this bill, if we go to that 
and say, ``Absorb it,'' it is $700 million to come up with. If you are 
Internal Revenue, you take it out of some of these things.
  But what we have said here is, for some of the initiatives, they 
cannot use this money for anything else. And we underscored that 
particularly because of the concern of those Members, such as the 
Senator from Iowa, that maybe this money will not be used for 
compliance, maybe it will be used for salary increases, for travel, for 
new computers.
  It will not be used for anything but the compliance. So if they do 
not spend it, it is not going to be obligated, it is not going to go. 
They have the initiative and the incentive to get the job done here. Of 
course, if they are not to do it, I will not be here to cheer, to be on 
their backs. But I am sure plenty of people will be, because there has 
been a strong commitment made here that this money is going to be spent 
for this purpose and this purpose alone, and the law says it cannot be 
spent for anything else, and we have specifically told the IRS to 
institute the initiatives the budget agreement calls for.
  Mr. President, in a few short minutes I am going to move to table.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I rise today as an original cosponsor of 
the Grassley amendment to the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill.
  I do not think the American people would be too happy to learn that 
this bill would allow the Internal Revenue Service to hire 5,000 more 
employees--at a cost of $405 million a year.
  And to top it off, this cost would not be on-budget.
  I cannot think of a more contradictory message to send to the 
American public--increasing the number of tax collectors in a time when 
the Government is trying to reduce the number of Federal workers.
  According to the information I have seen, the IRS has seen a dramatic 
increase in the number of people it employes over the past decade. In 
fact, the IRS currently has almost 114,000 employees.
  I think that the IRS has enough tax collectors already. In fact, I 
suspect that this agency will use these additional employees in ways 
that go beyond simple compliance.
  I will give you one example. The IRS has been working to reduce the 
number of folks who classify themselves as independent contractors.
  Many small businesses rely on the services of independent 
contractors--folks who provide their services for a fee, but who are 
not on the payrolls of businesses. The IRS, however, would like to see 
these folks classified as employees of these businesses.
  If the IRS is allowed to hire another 5,000 people, I have a feeling 
that they would devote even more time and resources to pursue small 
businesses who use independent contractors in good faith.
  Small business owners do not have the time and resources to defend 
themselves against these kinds of charges--not with all of the other 
requirements that the Government puts on them.
  In addition, if the IRS increases its work force, then the Government 
will have to look elsewhere to meet its goal of reducing the work force 
by 272,000. I suspect that the Department of Defense will take the 
brunt of the cuts. I cannot support that.
  This amendment will strip the $405 million in extra spending from 
this bill. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senator 
Grassley's amendment to remove the $405 million provided in this bill 
for new IRS agents. And I admit, Mr. President, I do so with some 
regret. In the past, I have supported beefing up IRS enforcement.
  Currently, IRS accounts receivable--that is money legitimately owed 
to the United States but not collected--is over $100 billion. That is 
money that could go to education, health care, economic development, or 
to reduce the deficit. But as long as it remains uncollected, it simply 
goes to the enrichment of tax cheats. That's not fair to the honest 
American taxpayers who pay each year for the service our Government 
provides.
  So I would very much like to support the IRS enforcement initiative 
in this bill. I will not, however, because it is presented as off-
budget spending not subject to the spending caps passed last year.
  Mr. President, what sort of message do we send when we cheat on our 
own budget rules to pay for IRS agents to catch people who cheat on 
their taxes? If we support spending money to collect on our huge 
accounts receivable, and I do, we ought to be willing to pay for those 
agents on-budget.
  Congress has no ability to make money disappear by declaring it off-
budget. This $405 million will go into our bottom line. It will add to 
the deficit. It ought to be subject to the spending caps like all other 
discretionary spending.
  Some argue that the off-budget treatment is justified because the 
$405 million goes into agents who will bring money into the 
Government--it is an investment. I am sure that is true, Mr. President, 
but I am also sure that Government investments in immunization, in 
education, in police, and in nutrition programs will save this country 
and this Government money in the long run, and they are not off-budget.
  Mr. President, our new budget rules place tight limits on spending. 
Those limits make us chose between good programs and good Federal 
investments. If we believe a program, like IRS enforcement, is 
important, we make the choice to fund it. We don't--or shouldn't--make 
the choice to bend the budget rules to pay for it.
  So, Mr. President, I will vote for the Grassley amendment, and I urge 
my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment by the 
Senator from Iowa and ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Moseley-Braun). The question is on 
agreeing to the motion to lay on the table the amendment by the Senator 
from Iowa, No. 1823, as modified. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Boren] is 
necessarily absent.
  I further announce that the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd] is 
absent due to illness in the family.
  I also announce that the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] is absent 
attending a funeral.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 155 Leg.]

                                YEAS--54

     Akaka
     Biden
     Bond
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Danforth
     Daschle
     DeConcini
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Gorton
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hatfield
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Metzenbaum
     Mikulski
     Mitchell
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pell
     Pryor
     Riegle
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Sasser
     Simon
     Specter
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wofford

                                NAYS--43

     Baucus
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Brown
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Dole
     Domenici
     Durenberger
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kohl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     Mathews
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Roth
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Stevens
     Thurmond
     Wallop

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Boren
     Dodd
     Reid
  So the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 1823), as 
modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote by 
which the motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. BOND. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. DeCONCINI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I know the Senator from New Hampshire 
is ready to move on his amendment which I believe is going to require a 
vote. We have agreed to accept the amendment of the Senator from 
Delaware. I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to that amendment for 
not more than 7 minutes equally divided, and then we proceed after that 
to the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Delaware is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 1824

(Purpose: Expressing the sense of the Senate that Canadian restrictions 
 on imports of United States chickens should be eliminated and Canada 
should comply with its obligations under the North American Free Trade 
              Agreement and the Uruguay Round Agreements)

  Mr. ROTH. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Roth], for himself and Mr. 
     Pryor, proposes an amendment numbered 1824.

  Mr. ROTH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC.   . SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING CANADA'S RESTRICTIONS 
                   ON IMPORTS OF UNITED STATES CHICKENS.

       (a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:
       (1) The United States chicken industry is a highly 
     competitive and growing industry which employs over 200,000 
     people, has over 25,000 family farms, and has significant 
     production in over 28 States.
       (2) United States exports of chickens grew by 32 percent in 
     volume in 1993 and exports are increasingly important to the 
     continued economic vitality of the chicken industry.
       (3) Canada's chicken supply management system has severely 
     limited the importation of United States chickens to Canada 
     since it was imposed over 15 years ago, and its elimination 
     would lead to between $350,000,000 and $700,000,000 in new 
     exports to Canada and between 7,000 and 14,000 new jobs in 
     the United States.
       (4) Canada's chicken supply management system protects 
     Canadian chicken growers while seriously hurting both United 
     States and Canadian food processors, retailers, and 
     consumers.
       (5) The United States and Canada have a free trade 
     agreement which calls for the elimination of all tariffs and 
     prohibits the imposition of new tariffs on any goods traded 
     bilaterally.
       (6) The goals of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture 
     are to liberalize and expand trade in agriculture and to 
     eliminate distortions to such trade.
       (7) Canada refused to negotiate the issue of elimination of 
     its severe trade restrictions on the importation of United 
     States chickens as part of the North American Free Trade 
     Agreement (hereafter referred to as ``NAFTA'') because the 
     issue was part of the global trade negotiations under the 
     Uruguay Round.
       (8) The Uruguay Round has now concluded and the former and 
     current United States Trade Representative, as well as other 
     key cabinet-level officials, have stated that Canada will be 
     in violation of its NAFTA obligations if it does not 
     eliminate its newly imposed tariffs on chickens.
       (9) The United States chicken industry has waited patiently 
     for access to Canadian markets, which would be the United 
     States largest export market for chickens if it were fully 
     open.
       (10) NAFTA should lead to free and completely open trade 
     for the chicken industry between the United States and 
     Canada, as it will between the United States and Mexico.
       (11) The United States and Canada are currently holding 
     discussions to resolve this and other bilateral agricultural 
     matters.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that--
       (1) the United States should reserve all current and future 
     rights to bring Canada into compliance with its tariff 
     obligations under NAFTA, including the use of bilateral or 
     multilateral dispute settlement proceedings; and
       (2) any agreement that is negotiated between the United 
     States and Canada on chickens should lead to--
       (A) substantial and immediate new market access 
     opportunities for United States chicken exports in excess of 
     the levels that have already been achieved; and
       (B) a commitment from Canada before the effective date of 
     the Uruguay Round Agreements which--
       (i) establishes a timeframe for the elimination of all of 
     Canada's tariffs on chickens; and
       (ii) provides for growth in market access levels for United 
     States chicken exports to Canada during the period such 
     tariffs are being phased out.

  Mr. ROTH. Madam President, this weekend there will be a very 
important meting at the ministerial level between the United States and 
Canada to discuss several bilateral agricultural issues. U.S. Trade 
Representative Mickey Kantor and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy 
will be representing the United States at this meeting, which I 
understand will take place in Chicago. The amendment I am offering, 
which is cosponsored by my distinguished colleague, Senator Pryor, 
expresses the views of the Senate with respect to one of the key issues 
under discussion--Canada's trade restrictions on United States exports 
of chicken.
  Madam President, for over 15 years, Canada has imposed a strict quota 
regime on the importation of poultry under its so-called supply 
management system.
  It has effectively restricted imports of United States chicken to 
well under 10 percent of Canada's domestic production and has prevented 
our competitive chicken and other poultry producers from increasing 
their exports to our largest trading partner. It has been estimated 
that if Canada's market were completely open, United States chicken 
exports would grow to $350 to $700 million per year and would create 
7,000 to 14,000 jobs in the United States. Last year we exported just 
$90 million in chickens.
  Our Nation's chicken industry has been growing rapidly and is a world 
class competitor. A substantial portion of this growth is due to 
exports. In 1993, for example, our chicken exports grew by 32 percent 
in volume. In the Delmarva region, exports doubled last year. Our 
exports would have been much greater if Canada's market weren't so 
protected. The key to continued growth for the United States poultry 
industry is full access to Canada.
  It is expected, in fact, that Canada would become our largest export 
market for chickens, instead of remaining our third largest market, if 
there were open trade between our two countries.
  Madam President, I and many of my colleagues have been urging for 
some time that Canada open its poultry market, most recently in a 
letter to Ambassador Kantor which 20 Senators signed. I urged this as a 
major objective during our bilateral free-trade negotiations with 
Canada and later during the negotiations on the North American Free-
Trade Agreement [NAFTA]. Unfortunately, we made no progress in 
eliminating Canada's quota regime during these talks. We were, however, 
able to agree to the elimination of tariffs on all goods between our 
two countries and to the prohibition of any new imposition of tariffs.
  The recently concluded Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture 
mandates the elimination of all non-tariff barriers by converting them 
into tariffs, which requires Canada to turn its poultry quotas into 
tariffs. This new agreement, combined with Canada's bilateral tariff 
obligations to us under NAFTA, means that free trade in chickens is now 
within our reach.
  I am extremely disturbed that the Canadian Government is refusing to 
recognize this fact and continues to refuse to open its market to us. 
Madam President, I supported both the Canadian Free-Trade Agreement and 
NAFTA, and it is high time for our free-trade agreement to actually 
lead to free trade for our chicken industry.
  As everyone knows, the most basic, fundamental aspect of any free 
trade agreement is the elimination of tariffs.
  The sense-of-the-Senate resolution I am offering underscores all of 
these critical points. It also expresses the views of the Senate with 
respect to what our overall goals should be in the upcoming high-level 
meeting this weekend.
  There are two critical points that our negotiators must not lose 
sight of. First, we should reserve all of our rights, current and 
future, to bring Canada into compliance with its tariff obligations 
under NAFTA. If Canada will not implement its free-trade obligations, 
our only option may be to pursue formal dispute settlement proceedings.
  Second, any agreement that is negotiated to resolve this bilateral 
dispute should accomplish two things: It should create substantial new 
export opportunities for United States chicken producers, and it should 
include a timeframe for phasing out and eliminating all of Canada's 
tariffs on chickens. These tariffs should be phased out as soon as 
possible, and there should be growth in market access levels during the 
transition to free trade.
  We are on solid ground in insisting on our free-trade rights for our 
chicken exporters, and our chicken industry and workers deserve nothing 
less.
  I urge the adoption of this amendment.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, the Senator from North Dakota wanted 
to debate this for 1 minute or 2. I reserved 2 minutes, but I ask 
unanimous consent that the Senator have 3 minutes to respond to this 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan] is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I have not had an opportunity to read 
the amendment, which apparently is going to be accepted. I do not stand 
to object to it. I understand that some are concerned that in the 
discussions with Canada, particularly those now scheduled in Chicago on 
the 27th, in the give and take of the trade that goes on in negotiating 
sessions, one might expect to get certain things for wheat producers 
and give up certain things for other sectors. I understand that 
concern. So I, not having read this, will not object, assuming that the 
purpose on the front page expresses the sense of the resolution.
  But I want to make one thing clear: When our negotiators go to 
Chicago, one of the important issues to be discussed in Chicago is the 
durum wheat and barley issue. We are being flooded with unfairly 
subsidized grain from Canada. An article 28 action has been filed under 
GATT, and also a section 22 complaint.
  We expect the United States Trade Ambassador and the Secretary of 
Agriculture to go to Chicago and sit down and negotiate with Canada. 
But if they cannot negotiate an adequate settlement--and I am talking 
about a settlement that establishes limits on the amount of wheat and 
grain coming in that is unfairly subsidized--then I do not want an 
agreement at all. I do not want a bad agreement; we already have that. 
We were sold out in the negotiations with Canada in the first place. 
Clayton Yeutter, who represents now the same interest he probably 
helped then, was the Trade Ambassador then, and they sold out the 
agricultural interests in the first go around. We are stuck with a 
flood of unfairly subsidized grain, costing us hundreds of thousand of 
dollars of lost revenue.
  If we are going to instruct the Trade Ambassador with respect to 
chickens--and I do not know about chickens, but I know about wheat, 
barley, and durum--I want our Trade Ambassador to understand that when 
you sit down with Canada, we do not want you to accept just any 
agreement, only a good one, one in which we limit the quantity of 
Canadian grain coming in and unfairly competing against American 
producers. If they cannot get that kind of agreement, I want a section 
22 complaint to play itself out, an article 28 filing--which has 
already been done--and I want significant import restrictions on the 
grain flooding across the border from Canada.
  This is not fair trade or free trade. It is not two-way trade that is 
fair to our farmers. We have been literally taken advantage of and, 
frankly, I am sick of it. Over 50 months ago, I held the first hearing 
on this and could not get the time of day at USTR. Finally, we may get 
action on behalf of our grain producers.
  I do not deny the concerns of the Senator from Delaware on behalf of 
another sector. But I want the same message, if we are sending messages 
to USTR. And if there is agreement, it better be a decent agreement on 
behalf of our grain producers to solve the unfair trade. If not, let us 
set up the import restrictions, and do it now and not later.
  I will not object, and I will yield the remainder of my 3 minutes.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I am thankful that the Senator from 
North Dakota has pointed out some different views here, and I am really 
not in a position to dispute either side here.
  The amendment, as I understand it, is not objectionable to the 
Senator from Arizona. I am prepared to take it. I tell the Senator from 
North Dakota that I am going to talk to him about his concern as we go 
to conference, and I will tell the Senator from Delaware that I will 
look at it again. I was not aware of the arguments that were put forth 
here. For purposes of tonight, I am prepared to accept the amendment.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, on this side, I note for the Record that 
Senator Packwood, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, has 
expressed his concern that this is legislation within the jurisdiction 
of the Finance Committee. But there are no other objections to this 
amendment that I know of on this side.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I urge adoption of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 1824) was agreed to.
  Mr. ROTH. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

                           MOTION TO RECOMMIT

  Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I send a motion to the desk and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Smith] moves to 
     recommit H.R. 4539 to the Committee on Appropriations with 
     instructions to report the bill to the Senate, within 3 days 
     (not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session), 
     with an amendment reducing the total appropriation provided 
     therein to a sum not greater than its fiscal year 1994 level.

  Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. SMITH. Madam President, for the benefit of my colleagues, I will 
be no more than 10 minutes or so in my remarks, unless I am engaged by 
some on the other side. Then there should be a recorded vote.
  Former President Reagan used to have an expression where he said: 
``Here we go again.'' And here we go again. We just rejected an 
opportunity to save $405 million on this appropriations bill, taking 
5,000 IRS agents out of the IRS. That was rejected with a vote of 
something like 55-43. So there is not a great deal of optimism that I 
have that my amendment will not meet the same fate. But I believe 
history will judge us in the way we conduct ourselves here, and I think 
history is going to judge the neglect we have provided to the national 
debt and deficits and keep adding to that debt in this country.
  I think history will judge that we were seriously wrong, and that we 
passed a huge debt on to our children, and that is wrong; and that one 
of the ways we can deal with this specifically, when they come to the 
floor of the U.S. Senate, are the appropriations bills.
  I offered an amendment to recommit the legislative appropriations 
bill last week, and it was defeated by a voice vote with very few 
people here to really care one way or the other. That would have saved 
$93 million.

  I just watched Senator Grassley's amendment go down which would have 
saved $405 million. A million here and a million there, as Senator 
Dirksen, from your State of Illinois, used to say, it soon adds up to 
real money. So now it is a trillion here and a trillion there.
  So the bottom line is nobody should be fooled. The U.S. Senate is not 
interested in saving money, in saving taxpayer money, because, if they 
were, it would not be rejecting amendments like this, No. 1, like the 
Grassley amendment; No. 2, they would not be increasing the 
appropriations bills as they come before us on the Senate floor. You 
cannot reduce spending if you increase appropriations bills. That is 
really not all that complicated to understand, but that is what we are 
doing.
  Now, let us look at the one before us. The amount of the bill that is 
sent up here today is $23,573,863,000. The amount enacted in 1994 
fiscal year was $22,538,822,000. Now, where I took math the difference 
is $1,035,041,000. That is how much we are spending over last year's 
bill. That is what is before us today.
  Senator Grassley did try to get $405 million off it, and he failed. 
But we are spending over $1 billion more than we spent last year in 
this appropriation.
  So when you go back tomorrow to your constituents and you tell them 
you want to cut spending and you favor reducing spending of the U.S. 
Government, I hope you are going to also be able to tell them you voted 
for this amendment because it is pretty difficult to justify to say you 
want to cut spending if you are not willing--I am not even asking you 
to cut spending. I am asking you to come in at last year's level. I am 
asking you to cut the increase of $1 billion.
  I said it last week on this floor, and I am going to say it again 
this week and again next week and the following week and every week 
that an appropriation bill comes on the floor of the U.S. Senate that 
has more money than it had last year, because it is wrong.
  We have all kinds of reasons. There is always a reason, all kinds of 
justifications. But these increases are simply unacceptable. They are 
unacceptable when we go out and face our constituents and hear the 
hardships they are having trying to meet their tax requirements every 
day of their lives. And here we are increasing spending. Talk to your 
constituents and they will tell you they want the Government to cut 
spending. They want it to reduce spending.
  But, no, we are not only not reducing it, we cannot even come in at 
last year's level, and that is all I am asking. This is not a cut. It 
is a reduction of the increase.
  The question is, why should we spend more money than we did last 
year? Why? We have a $4.5 trillion national debt. The deficit will run 
at least $170 billion this year.
  Here is our chance to take one paltry billion, one little billion. It 
is a lot of money, but it is really quite little compared to $4.5 
trillion, is it not? The $1 billion increase--and this is very 
important because a lot of people think we just reach up and pull the 
money down off the tree and spend it. After all, this is a $23 billion 
appropriations bill we are talking about here. This $1 billion increase 
in this legislation is borrowed money. I say to my colleagues we 
borrowed this money. We do not have a surplus in the Treasury. There is 
no surplus there. So, we cannot reach up there and take $1 billion and 
say, OK, we are going to add it to the appropriations last year and 
spend it on all these worthwhile causes. No, we are not doing that. We 
are borrowing that billion dollars.
  Now when you borrow $1 billion at roughly 7 percent interest, that is 
an additional $70 million in interest costs alone on this $1 billion, 
not on this bill, this billion, $70 million in interest.
  So, we are spending borrowed dollars, spending borrowed dollars, when 
we ought to be finding ways to offset so we do not have to borrow more 
and pass this debt on to our kids.
  You realize how selfish, how selfish we are, how selfish and 
inconsiderate we are, passing on this kind of monumental debt to our 
kids. That is what we are doing. And everybody stands up here on the 
floor and says this is a great cause. We need to have this money. If we 
do not have this billion-dollar increase, the whole Government is going 
to fold up. My goodness, I am sure the whole Government will just close 
down. We have to have this $1 billion increase. We cannot live without 
it. We could not possibly live on what we had last year.
  Let me tell you something, Madam President. There are millions of 
families out there who are living on what they had last year and 
millions of families out there that are trying to live on less than 
they had last year. I cannot understand why we cannot set an example in 
the U.S. Senate.
  Madam President, the OMB estimates that the Federal Government will 
spend more than $1.5 trillion in the upcoming fiscal year. The 
breakdown is not very complicated. It is easy to figure. Mandatory 
entitlement spending will consume about $775 billion of that. Net 
interest on debt, an item that is difficult to reduce unless you reduce 
spending, will total approximately $213 billion in fiscal year 1995. 
Interest on the debt in fiscal 1995 will be $213 billion. Very soon, 
not too many years, maybe by the end of the decade, interest on the 
debt is going to pass defense spending in the budget of the United 
States of America.
  That is a pretty sad commentary. Defense spending now is roughly $270 
billion, and the lines are coming and they are going to cross, and 
interest is going to go up this way and defense is going to go down 
this way.
  We are going to spend in this overall budget about $18 billion on 
international affairs and, last and by no means least, $270 billion in 
the domestic discretionary category. Total spending is $1.52 trillion, 
with a T; total revenue is $1.4 trillion; the total deficit $171 
billion.
  This takes $1 billion--$1 billion--off of that deficit. Not only does 
it do that, it takes $70 million, $70 million in additional interest 
expense.
  Do you know what this will mean ultimately if we do not stop this 
insanity? Total bankruptcy for the United States of America.
  I have mixed emotions about being here as an observer somewhere out 
in the hills of New Hampshire or perhaps here on the Senate floor and 
watch those who year after year, day after day, month after month, 
continue to increase this spending. I want to hear what they have to 
say to their constituents and to the American people when the country 
goes bankrupt, when we do not have any money in the Social Security 
trust fund or Medicare or Medicaid or for the defense of America. What 
are you going to say then? When are we going to stop it? Our spending 
addiction has got to end sooner rather than later, I hope.
  I know that our spending program is not isolated in this area, to the 
credit of those who are managers of this bill. I realize that. It 
certainly is not their fault that we have a $4.5 trillion national 
debt. However, we have an opportunity to make a small dent in it. But 
instead we are going to increase it.
  The only opportunity we have is to deal with the 13 appropriation 
bills as they come down and to reform entitlements. Those are the only 
two things really we can do, because until we reduce the debt we cannot 
reduce the interest payments on the debt.
  So already, between the legislative branch bill considered last week 
and the bill before the Senate today, Congress is spending $1.1 billion 
more than we did last year, $1 billion, a little over $1 billion today 
and $93 million on Thursday, so about $1.1 billion, a little over. That 
is what we have added. That is what we are adding to the deficit just 
with these two votes.
  It will be interesting, Madam President. I cannot wait to see the 
result. It will be interesting to see how many people step up and say, 
you know, maybe we could afford to take one little paltry billion 
dollars out of a $1.5 trillion budget. It will be interesting to see 
how many votes we get. I predict 30 to 35 max. We will see.
  What signal does this send the American people? I would ask my 
colleagues, what signal does it send the American people when we do 
this time after time after time? If we cannot cut a little, make little 
reductions like this, how do you expect to ever get into entitlement 
reform; how do you ever expect to pay off, let alone begin to pay off, 
how in the world will you ever be able to expect to pay off a $4.5 
trillion national debt? Believe me, the archeologists are going to be 
digging up our graves by the time that is paid off and wondering what 
in the world we did during this era of time.
  When I hold town meetings in New Hampshire to discuss the deficit and 
talk about the need for entitlement reform, you know, frankly, many of 
my constituents, some of them Social Security recipients, some of them 
on Medicare, even Medicaid, say to me,

       We are willing to help. We might be willing to have our 
     entitlements frozen, but I don't want to read about waste. If 
     you are going to take my COLA or cut my COLA or reduce my 
     COLA, I don't want to read about you wasting billions of 
     dollars in some pork project that some particular Senator or 
     Congressman decided that they want to put into some 
     appropriations bill without an authorization. I don't want to 
     read about that. I do not want to read about waste.

  And they are right. They should not. But if they read these reports 
on these appropriations bills, they are going to find bad news in 
there, bad news.
  When are we going to stop?
  I care about my country. I care about my country very much. I am 
really sad to see my colleagues passing time after time after time 
spending increases, not willing to make those tough decisions --this 
one is not all that tough-- tough decisions, not willing to make them 
and passing on this debt.
  The equivalent of this is you are leaving your mortgage payments to 
your children, rather than your home. That is what we are doing. Most 
of us would prefer to leave our home, our assets, not our liabilities 
to our children.
  Why do we in this body, in the Congress of the United States, the 
U.S. Senate, feel that it is right to pass on a debt of $4.5 trillion 
to our children?
  And I wish it stopped there. It does not stop at $4.5 trillion. It is 
growing at approximately $175 billion a year being added on to that 
debt. And that is going to go up even more dramatically after the turn 
of the century to approximately $350 billion a year, all of that money 
being added to the debt to where you get up to the year 2010 or so and 
you are going to be looking at a $6 trillion or $7 trillion national 
debt, maybe higher, at which point we will not be able to recover.
  Take a $10 trillion national debt, for example. Seven percent of that 
is $700 billion a year in interest. That is what that would be when we 
get to that point.
  Now how do we stop it, if we do not cut spending, if we do not 
balance the budget? We already rejected a balanced budget amendment 
here. We have rejected numerous requests for fiscal restraint 
responsibility in here.
  We always say we do not need it. I heard it said on the floor of the 
Senate by many of my colleagues, some who have been here a lot longer 
than I have, ``We do not need a balanced budget amendment. We just have 
to exercise fiscal restraint.''
  I hope those who were making that argument will come out here now and 
say, ``I am going to exercise fiscal restraint. It is time. You are 
right, Senator Smith. I did say that and here is my vote for your 
amendment. We will take that billion.''
  Would it not be nice? I think we would surprise the American people.
  I can say one thing. A lot of my colleagues are going to be surprised 
in November if we do not start exercising fiscal restraint, because 
that is what the American people want. They do not want debt passed on 
to their children.
  You know, I am amazed, I used to serve on a local school board. I 
will tell you, there is no way that the constituents that I represented 
would allow me, as the chairman of that school board, to come out and 
say, ``Folks, we are going to deficit spend. We do not have enough 
money, so we are going to have to borrow red ink and deficit spend.''
  No way. It would not work. They would come to me and they would say--
and they did--``Cut spending somewhere. I don't care where you cut. You 
are the board members. You cut it. But we want the budget balanced.''
  That is what the American people want us to do in this place. But at 
the Federal Government level, we do not do it.
  So let me just say this, Madam President, in conclusion. There is 
always a reason why we should increase spending, and I am sure we will 
probably hear some before the debate is over. But it is not good 
enough.
  This Congress is not accepting the challenge. This is a major 
challenge; this is America at stake, the fiscal responsibility of this 
country.
  If we do not start with one little area of an appropriations bill--I 
am not asking you to cut it by 10 percent, 20 percent, even 1 percent. 
I am asking you to come in at last year's level, spend what you spent 
last year, make due with what you had last year, show the way on one 
appropriations bill. That is all I ask.
  Instead, we have already considered two, when this one is over, and 
each is proposed to spend more money than we did last year.
  So, again, if this amendment is defeated--and I believe that it will 
be --we will have a $1.1 billion increase to our deficit which, in 
turn, will be added to the debt.
  The word austerity does not leap to mind when I think of the U.S. 
Senate, Madam President. I am offering my colleagues a very simple 
choice. There is not anything complicated about it; nothing complicated 
about this one: You want to cut spending? You vote for the Smith 
amendment or the motion to recommit. That is what I am asking. If you 
do not want to cut it, then you do not.
  But let me point out, this is a motion to recommit. It gives the 
committee the full flexibility, the Appropriations Committee. I am not 
going across the board with cuts. I am not singling out any program. I 
am simply asking the committee to come back in where they feel they 
want to do it, wherever they want to do it. They are the experts. They 
are in there. Come back with what we spent last year. That is what this 
motion to recommit does.
  Again, ``cut'' is the wrong word. ``Freeze'' is the right word. So 
you either want to freeze spending or you do not, not cut spending.
  Should Federal spending on the Treasury, Postal Service, and other 
independent agencies be increased from last year's level or should it 
be decreased? Or do we owe the American people at the very minimum our 
vote to hold the line on spending? I think we owe them a vote to hold 
the line on spending, a very minimal line, I might say.
  Madam President, in closing let me just repeat. My motion is to 
recommit the bill to the Appropriations Committee with instructions 
that they report a bill that does not exceed last year's spending 
levels. They have the full flexibility to do it. If they do that, we 
will save $1 billion-plus on this vote alone in the U.S. Senate.
  I yield the floor, Madam President
  Mr. BOND addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Thank you, Madam President.
  My friend from New Hampshire is correct. This bill is indeed $1.116 
billion above the fiscal year 1994 enacted levels. There are increases 
in these appropriations bills. But, I would note that the committee has 
already reduced the President's request by $794 million.
  Now, what may escape the attention of some of my colleagues is the 
fact that mandatory increases which authorizing committees, not the 
Appropriations Committee, have jurisdiction over total $709 million 
above the fiscal year 1994 level.
  My colleague made some comments about dealing with entitlements and 
mandated spending. I look forward to joining him to work on those, 
because anybody who looks at the spiral in spending by the Federal 
Government realizes they come from directed spending programming, not 
programs subject to discretionary appropriations.
  There is another measure in this bill, the $405 million which is 
above the budget request. That was just approved on a 54-43 vote.
  My colleague says that this is additional spending. He is concerned, 
as I am, about the national debt. This $405 million compliance 
initiative over 5 years will raise a net of $7 billion to go to 
reducing the debt. If he is concerned, as I am, about the size of the 
debt and our inability to reduce that debt, then I would assume that he 
must have voted for that compliance initiative. Because when you have 
only 83 percent of the taxes owed actually being paid, those of us who 
are complying voluntarily are carrying the load of the 17 percent who 
are not. And we are seeing voluntary compliance go down because there 
is not sufficient credibility that people who do not comply voluntarily 
will be pursued.

  If you take out the mandatory $709 million above the 1994 level and 
the $405 million that we just approved by a specific vote to lower the 
debt by $7 billion over 5 years, the new funding, discretionary funding 
added on in this bill, would be less than $2 million above the fiscal 
year 1994 level.
  This committee cannot reduce the mandatory accounts. So to take the 
bill back to the 1994 levels, there would have to be an across-the-
board reduction of approximately 10 percent. There are very few 
programs in the bill so most of the money goes for salaries and 
operating expenses of agencies. Reductions would in fact cause 
management problems for all agencies.
  But let me tell you specifically what it would do. I think it is 
probably an inadvertent impact of the motion that my colleague from New 
Hampshire has made, and that would be to cripple the war on drugs and 
crime by making deep cuts in drug-related law enforcement.
  One of the things that we have been able to do in this bill is to 
restore cuts in law enforcement made by the Clinton administration, set 
up by the Office of Management and Budget. These are the additions that 
would be most at risk, were this motion to be adopted. We were able to 
restore 110 Customs agents inspectors; 10 positions for pilots and 
crew; $8.8 million to enhance air operations; $20 million from the drug 
czar forfeiture fund for air and marine operations; 71 positions as 
Secret Service agents for counterfeiting and entitlement fraud 
investigations; 22 positions for ATF agents specializing in enforcement 
activities; 7 positions in Federal law enforcement training efforts; 2 
positions for financial investigations in the FinCen.
  I am very proud to have played a role in restoring these cuts, 
because I believe these positions are vital. The Federal Government 
must continue aggressively and offensively to fight the war on drugs.
  A week or two ago, I met with chiefs of police, prosecutors and 
Federal law enforcement officials to discuss what they believe will and 
will not work fighting crime on the streets. In real life, this group 
represented law enforcement officials with a wide range of experience, 
from the inner city of St. Louis to the most outlying suburb. In this 
meeting the crimefighters all agreed that only with strong support from 
the Federal Government can the drug war be won. Yet the Clinton 
administration proposed to slash the drug czar's office by 84 percent, 
and the State Department's international narcotics matters budget by 32 
percent over the last 2 years. And in this year's budget proposal, the 
administration sought to eliminate drug enforcement grants completely.
  In my State, law enforcement officials urge that there is a need for 
a comprehensive approach to fighting the drug war, a comprehensive 
approach that includes money for treatment but which also makes funding 
for interdiction an integral part in combating drugs.
  Only the Federal Government has the resources and the jurisdictional 
authority to interdict drugs at our borders. It is a vicious, insidious 
horrific chain. If we allow more drugs to leak into the United States, 
then more drugs end up in our neighborhoods, more crimes are committed 
by those using and selling drugs, more crimes are committed to get 
drugs, more crimes are committed under the influence of drugs, and 
tragically, more people become drug addicted and need treatment. We 
need to weaken this chain of crime and devastation at every link--not 
strengthen it by ignoring interdiction or by forcing cuts in this 
appropriations bill that will take money from drug interdiction 
efforts.
  Local authorities depend upon drug enforcement grants to State and 
local governments to fund multijurisdic- tional drug teams, street 
level enforcement teams to shut down neighborhood drug dens, drug crime 
laboratories that share technology and expertise with local officials, 
and treatment for drug offenders. At least one Missouri law enforcement 
official told us the worst thing we could do on drug law enforcement 
was to cut the grant money from the Regional Information Sharing System 
and the Byrne grant money.
  Once again, in my meetings with local law enforcement officials one 
theme continues to surface. The State and local law enforcement 
officials that I met with in southeast Missouri attributed much of the 
alarming rise in crime, both violent and nonviolent, to the 
distribution, use, and addiction to illegal drugs.
  Furthermore, State and local law enforcement officials have stressed 
that, in light of manpower limits and budget constraints on training 
and equipment, it is vital there be Federal law enforcement entities 
with whom they can work cooperatively.
  One officer from a very small town, Marble Hill, MO, told me:

       When we become involved in a major crime or investigation, 
     it is a comfort to know that the federally funded agencies 
     such as DEA, FBI, ATF, Federal Marshals and the National 
     Guard are there for much-needed help and resources. These 
     agencies are very critical in the outcome of having adequate 
     law enforcement here. When their budgets are being cut and 
     decreased, our means and ways of getting outside help and 
     assistance are also cut and decreased.

  Madam President, I cite that as an example of the degree to which 
State and local law enforcement officials depend upon Federal drug 
assistance, Federal drug law enforcement assistance.
  Frankly, to recommit this bill to freeze it would put at risk, 
obviously, not all of those drug enforcement activities, but the 
Customs agency inspectors, the air operations, the drug czar, the 
Secret Service agents, the ATF agents--people who are providing a vital 
link and a vital resource in fighting crime that devastates our States, 
our communities, our neighborhoods.
  We need to get our debt and our deficit under control. Trying to 
nickel and dime law enforcement, which would be the most likely outcome 
of this measure, is not the way to do it. If we are to avoid seeing the 
deficit skyrocket we have to be able to collect the taxes. IRS does 
that. We also need to have the resources to help local law enforcement 
officials combat drug activities in the States and to interdict drugs 
coming in from across our borders.
  Madam President, I hope my colleagues will not support the motion to 
recommit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I do not wish to prolong this much longer, 
but I do want to respond to a couple of points the Senator from 
Missouri made.
  First of all, the motion should be fully understood. I thought I made 
it clear. The motion to recommit does not tell the Senator from 
Missouri or the Senator from Arizona to cut any specific program. It 
does not say where he should cut. You do not have to cut anything. All 
we are asking in the motion is that the Appropriations Committee find 
dollars wherever they see fit to bring the budget in line with what it 
was last year. That is what it says.
  Do not read more into the motion than what it is. I did not say cut 
law enforcement. I did not say cut drug enforcement--not at all. As a 
matter of fact, I agree with the Senator on those points. So I would 
also point out that just on the previous vote we had an opportunity to 
take $405 million of the $1 billion I am looking for from IRS agents. I 
do not know what that has to do with drugs but that is a fact. We 
rejected that. So it is a very weak argument.
  Also, I want to say I have been in the Congress of the United States 
for 10 years--not as long as many of my colleagues--but I have been 
here for 10 years and I heard the argument in every single debate that 
we have on any matter to cut spending. I hear the same argument, over 
and over again. If we would just spend this money, we are going to save 
all this money and we are going to have tremendous savings.
  It would seem to me by now we ought to have a balanced budget, if 
that is the case. If we are going to spend all this money to make 
money, then we ought to have a balanced budget. It is not working that 
way, folks. It is going the reverse.
  In the last 10 years the debt has tripled. It has not gone down, it 
has gone up. So it is not working. Somebody better get the message. 
Spending money to make money is not working, folks. It is time to cut 
spending. That will work; I guarantee you that will work. If you do not 
have it, you cannot spend it.
  My colleague from North Carolina--and I want to close on this point--
spoke on the floor yesterday, and I think a small portion of what he 
said is worth repeating because it goes right to the heart of this 
entire debate, in case somebody missed it.
  Senator Helms said as of Friday on June 17 at the close of business 
the Federal debt, down to the penny, stood at $4,591,908,053,316.92 
That was as of Friday. It is a lot more now. Several days have past.
  But this debt was run up by the Congress of the United States of 
America. You cannot blame anybody else. There is nobody else you can 
blame. You cannot blame any President, Democrat or Republican. You 
cannot blame President Reagan or President Clinton because we 
appropriate every dime. That is exactly the point Senator Helms makes. 
``The U.S. Constitution is quite specific about that,'' Senator Helms 
says, ``as every school boy is supposed to know.''
  Senator Helms goes on to say: ``Most people cannot conceive of a 
billion of anything, let alone a trillion.''
  Let us get some idea what a billion and a trillion means in another 
picture here. This is what Senator Helms says:

       It may provide a bit of perspective to bear in mind that a 
     billion seconds ago, the Cuban missile crisis was going on. A 
     billion minutes ago, not many years had elapsed since the 
     crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

  That sort of puts it in perspective, does it not, that Congress has 
run up a Federal debt of $4.5 trillion? In other words, the Federal 
debt, as I said earlier, stands today at $4,591,908,053,316.92. Those 
words are very accurate and, frankly, they are very indicative of what 
the problem is in this place.
  Again, I heard it just seconds ago from my colleague from Missouri: 
``We have to cut the debt. We have to cut spending.'' But nobody wants 
to do it. Nobody wants to do it. In your household if you cannot make 
ends meet you cut somewhere. If your car breaks down and you want to go 
on vacation, you cancel the vacation. We do not cancel anything around 
here. We just borrow more money, over and over again.
  You would think I was asking for us to cut $25 trillion out of the 
budget or something. I am asking for $1 billion, to come back at last 
year's level. I am not cutting a nickel.
  The other argument that was used was, ``Well, the President's 
budget''--I do not care what the President's budget is. If the 
President's budget is over, we should deal with our own budget. We can 
work the President's budget into our debate, but whatever the President 
sends in is not relevant.
  The question is, What did we spend last year? Are we spending more 
than last year? And the answer is yes, over $1 billion more than last 
year on this one appropriations bill.
  You cannot reduce spending if you do not vote to do it. There is 
nothing complicated about it. So bear in mind, as you evaluate those 
who vote, as the citizens of America evaluate those who vote on this 
amendment, take a look at those votes on this amendment. The next time 
somebody who votes against it says to you out there, ``I support 
cutting spending,'' ask them, ``Where were you on this vote?''
  It is not cutting spending even, it is freezing it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DeCONCINI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, as to the freeze amendment offered by 
the Senator from New Hampshire, first of all let me say, I understand 
where he is coming from because we all talk about cutting the deficit. 
But I think the Senator probably will agree that the biggest problem of 
not cutting the deficit, no matter what we do with budget resolutions--
even when we adopted the President's economic plan that did cut the 
deficit--we cannot really get at the deficit until we do something 
about entitlements.
  The fact, for whoever is listening, if they want to know it, is that 
this bill, as the Senator said, is over $1 billion, slightly--
$1,115,497,000, as I see it, above last year's level.
  Four hundred six million dollars, or $405 million we just voted on. 
We know what that is. It is clear. The Senate said we are not going to 
cut that out because we want to go after those taxpayers who have not 
been paying, and that I think is set behind us.
  So now where is the rest of that increase? The rest of that increase, 
some $708,674,000, is mandatory expenses. That is right, you have it--
entitlements. Things that we cannot cut here. We do not have the 
jurisdiction.
  The Senator's amendment, though it applies across the whole board, is 
not going to reduce the mandatories. And what are these mandatories? 
They are the civil service retirement, something we have to enact by 
law, the money has to go; there is the health and life insurance and 
disability payments, something that we have to enact.
  Having said that, we are in this bill $329,780,000 below the 
President's request. Excuse me, we are $793 million below the 
President's request. So we have made cuts here.
  There are increases over last year, and the mandatories take up the 
bulk of that. Then you add the enhancement which we just voted on, and 
there you have it.
  So what are you going to do? I do not see any amendments to go after 
civil service retirement, but that is what you have to do if you really 
want to cut across the board. And we are just not doing it.
  We cannot reduce these mandatory accounts. Those funds have to be 
paid out, and they are going to come out. So what is left?
  If this amendment is adopted, we go back and what do we cut? The 
Senator from New Hampshire says you do not have to cut the National 
Drug Control Policy special forfeiture fund; you do not have to cut 
Customs; you do not have to cut IRS criminal investigations; you do not 
have to cut the ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; you do not have to 
cut the Secret Service that not only protects the President but does 
fraud cases; you do not have to cut these things. You make up your 
mind.
  I am telling the Senator, we have no choice except to do what the 
Senator from Missouri has indicated. We will cut the drug program. That 
is what is going to get cut here because we cannot cut the mandatory 
programs.
  So the Senator puts us in the worst of positions that we have to go 
and cut Customs, the air interdiction program, the marine interdiction 
program, the effort, and that is already cut over last year by some $24 
million. That is below last year's level. I can go through program by 
program and point out where we made cuts. It gets back to the reason 
that we have increased at all here: because of the compliance 
initiative, and the mandatories.
  To me, this would not be a fair amendment and really enact a freeze, 
because if you do not do entitlements, and you have decided that you 
are going to do the compliance initiative, we are at a freeze. 
Actually, we are below the President's request because we made some 
cuts. But we did not make it in law enforcement, we did not make it in 
the drug interdiction program.
  So I hope at the appropriate time when this Senator moves to table 
this amendment, that the Senate will go on record that we have a freeze 
here, and until there is somebody who wants to stand up and take on the 
entitlements, this is just a game. We are not spending more from the 
standpoint of the discretionary part of this bill.
  We have made cuts, and I can go through them item by item: The 
department office in the Treasury is a $3 million reduction; the U.S. 
Customs, we cut some there in order to get back to some of the law 
enforcement; salaries and expenses, we cut $13 million; Internal 
Revenue, we even made reductions there, trying to get below, because we 
knew we would have this question on the initiative. And we cut $6 
million out of the administration and management account; we cut 
$1,191,000 out of OMB. We asked them to take a bite. In the 
construction account, the President requested $999 million. We cut it.
  Now, the Senator wants to make it real easy; if you are for deficit 
reduction, just vote for this because here it is. Well, I am for 
deficit reduction, and I produced a bill here with the Senator from 
Missouri and the entire Appropriations Committee that does stay within 
the caps, funds the mandatories, and makes a substantial reduction of 
$793 million below what the President requested.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SMITH. I apologize to my friend from Colorado. I will be very 
brief.
  The Senator from Arizona again makes the case that somehow I am 
cutting these programs. I am not asking the Senator to cut those 
programs. I am asking him to look at the area that he has 
responsibility for and make cuts where he sees fit. He saw fit to add 
$405 million after making those cuts for 5,000 more IRS agents.
  So I find the Senator's argument very difficult to comprehend. I mean 
it is nice to go to the town meetings and you can say about the Smith 
amendment, I did not vote for it because it was going to cut crime or 
it was going to cut drug enforcement. The truth of the matter is it 
does not do either. The Senator knows that.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SMITH. Yes.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Where would the Senator cut it then if he were on this 
committee?
  Mr. SMITH. I would take $405 million, I would take half of it from 
the IRS agents.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I appreciate that, and we already voted on that, but 
it was turned down.
  Mr. SMITH. That is correct.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. OK. Now, where else would the Senator cut? Where else 
would the Senator cut it?
  Mr. SMITH. I am directing the Senator----
  Mr. DeCONCINI. That is right, and I am telling the Senator what we 
would have to do to get that additional $708 million. We would have to 
cut law enforcement and the drug interdiction program.
  Mr. SMITH. The point is if the Senate of the United States feels that 
that is what the Senator should do as the chairman of that committee, 
that is what he would be directed to do with this motion to recommit.
  The truth of the matter is the Senate will do that only if they want 
to reduce spending, and I would just say, not to belabor the point, but 
for the Senator to stand in this Chamber and say that somehow we have 
to deal with entitlements if we are going to get a handle on the budget 
deficit and the debt, I totally agree with him. But if we are not 
willing to freeze a $1 billion increase in one appropriations bill, how 
in the world are we going to have the courage to go out and face 
entitlement reform? It is the most ridiculous argument I have ever 
heard. If we are not willing to do that with $1 billion in a freeze, 
how in the world are we going to face up to entitlements? The point is 
nobody faces up to anything. You have to take one step before you walk 
a mile. And nobody wants to take the first step. That is the bottom 
line.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SMITH. Yes, I will yield.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I just want to point out that, if the Senator wants to 
be really constructive here, I would welcome him suggesting where he 
would cut. We already know the $405 million, and we voted that out, so 
that is not going to happen. So where else would he cut out of that 
discretionary area?
  Mr. SMITH. I would say to the Senator----
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Lay out $700 million of cuts, and I daresay the 
Senator will not be able to not cut into the drug program, not cut into 
the drug czar, not cut into the Customs drug program or the commercial 
trade program or not cut into the ATF or the Secret Service.
  I know the bill pretty well. I think the Senator from New Mexico, who 
used to be the ranking member, would agree that it is hard--hard--to 
find that money if you are told to go back and cut $1 billion out of 
those areas and not cut the drug and the crime-related areas.
  Mr. SMITH. I would say to the Senator again, we are not cutting $1 
billion. We are coming in at last year's level. You are increasing last 
year's level $1 billion. We are not cutting anybody. We are cutting 
only because you have increased it with what you have brought up here, 
including $405 million. That is the point that I wish to make. And I 
would say to the Senator, if he votes for and this amendment passes, 
this motion to recommit, I will work with the Senators in areas to cut 
other than drug and law enforcement.
  I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors Senators Brown, Roth, 
and Faircloth.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Smith amendment. I 
have cosponsored this not out of a way of condemning the work of the 
Appropriations Committee or the distinguished subcommittee chairman who 
has brought this measure before us. As a matter of fact, the Senator 
from Arizona has pointed out that this is within the budget guidelines, 
that it is less than what the President asked for. I believe both of 
those statements are accurate, and he is to be commended for having 
made that progress.
  The reality is that our history in the last 15 years is that Congress 
has consistently overspent its own budget, not only the President's 
budget but its own budget. So to have fit this measure within the 
budget as clearly as has been done I think is something that he is to 
be proud of, not ashamed.
  But I rise in support of the amendment out of an additional concern. 
What we spend is not simply a function of what we would like to spend 
in each area but it is a function of what we have. Senator Smith has 
pointed out the awesome size of the national debt. I would draw 
Members' attention to another item.
  Included in the President's budget package that he sent to Congress 
and, frankly, included in President Bush's last budget message, was a 
reference to generational accounting. That generational accounting has 
a very interesting calculation. Included in that is an effort to 
estimate what someone born today would have to pay in the way of taxes 
simply to pay for the programs that are already in existence. This 
assumes not overspending the budget by a penny. It assumes no new 
programs. It assumes that our estimates, economic estimates, are valid. 
I think Members of this body and American citizens will note none of 
those things have happened. In other words, we have in the last 15 
years always overspent our budget. We have always had overly optimistic 
assumptions. At least on the average they have been overly optimistic. 
And you have also seen crises declared which end up overdoing it, and 
we have ended up every year adding new programs.
  But even assuming you add no new programs, the economic estimates are 
sound, and you do not overspend the budget, President Clinton's own 
estimate is that someone born today would pay 82 percent of everything 
they earned in their lifetime in terms of taxes; 82 percent simply for 
the programs that are already on the books.
  That includes local, State, and Federal combined. But part of our 
decision as to not only what we would like to appropriate but our 
ability to appropriate has to include our ability to continue to pay 
these budgets.
  It seems to me the proposal of the Senator from New Hampshire is a 
modest one. He is not talking about cuts. He is talking simply about 
staying within the amount that was appropriated in the prior years. I 
believe we can do it. I have faith in the Appropriations Committee to 
set priorities.
  Is it going to be easy? No. But I think it can and, frankly, Mr. 
President, I think it must be done. If our children are to have a 
future, if we are going to be an economically viable entity in the 
world markets, if we are going to be competitive, the cost of 
Government has to be brought under control.
  It seems to me that Senator Smith has brought to us a valid, workable 
alternative, one that utilizes the good knowledge of the committee to 
set priorities.
  I certainly think the question of the Senator from Arizona as to 
specifically where he would find the funds is an appropriate question, 
a fair question.
  Members may recall that Senator Kerrey and I brought to this floor 
during the budget consideration a proposal that would have specifically 
delineated almost $100 billion of cuts over the next 5 years. We named 
specific programs and specific areas. Frankly, I do not know that the 
fact that it was specific necessarily helped. The history of this 
Congress is that we seem to turn down efforts to cut spending or 
control spending whether they are specific or not.
  Is it fair to ask where you would specifically get the money? Yes, 
absolutely, it is fair. But ultimately we have to wean ourselves from 
ever-increasing deficits. It seems to me that clearly the amendment of 
the Senator from New Hampshire does that. The amendment of the Senator 
from New Hampshire does say at least for 1 year we are not going to 
increase spending in this area. It is the kind of thing that I think 
merits approval.
  Frankly, I think it is the kind of amendment that I hope he and 
others offer on other appropriations bills that come before the Senate. 
We can turn this around, but we can only turn it around if we are 
willing to back a solid, courageous amendment such as the one that has 
been brought forward by the Senator from New Hampshire.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I rise to send an amendment to the 
desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from North Carolina attempting 
to amend the motion to recommit?
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to recommit is the pending 
business. It would take unanimous consent in order to amend it at this 
time.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I withhold for now, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask the Senator if he would withhold 
on that request?
  Mr. DeCONCINI. I do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, might I ask the manager, the proponent 
of the motion to instruct? How much longer do we think we will be 
before there is something decisive on this amendment?
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, there is no more debate on this side that I 
am aware of.
  Mr. DeCONCINI. The answer to the Senator's question is not more than 
3 minutes on this side. We will go to a vote, although we will not have 
a vote until sometime around 7 p.m. We will put it off, and lay aside 
the amendment.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask that I be permitted to proceed for 
5 minutes as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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