[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 29 (Tuesday, February 14, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2617-S2639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MOTION TO REFER

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, on behalf of myself, Senators Bumpers, 
Robb, Murray, Hollings, Moseley-Braun, Exon, and Wellstone, I send a 
motion to the desk to refer House Joint Resolution 1 to the Budget 
Committee with instructions to report back forthwith and ask that it be 
immediately considered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Feingold], for himself, Mr. 
     Bumpers, Mr. Robb, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Hollings, Ms. Moseley-
     Braun, Mr. Exon, and Mr. Wellstone, proposes a motion to 
     refer.

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

       On behalf of myself and Senators Bumpers, Robb, Murray, 
     Hollings, Moseley-Braun, Exon, and Wellstone, I move to refer 
     House Joint Resolution 1 to the Budget Committee with 
     instructions to report back forthwith House Joint Resolution 
     1 in status quo and at the earliest date possible to issue a 
     report, the text of which shall be the following:
       ``The Committee finds that--
       (1) the Congress is considering a proposed amendment to the 
     Constitution to require a balanced budget;
       (2) the Federal budget according to the most recent 
     estimates of the Congressional Budget Office continues to be 
     in deficit in excess of $190 billion;
       (3) continuing annual Federal budget deficits add to the 
     Federal debt which is projected to soon exceed $5 trillion;
       (4) continuing Federal budget deficits and growing Federal 
     debt reduce savings and capital formation;
       (5) continuing Federal budget deficits contribute to a 
     higher level of interest rates than would otherwise occur, 
     raising capital costs and curtailing total investment;
       (6) continuing Federal budget deficits also contribute to 
     significant trade deficits and dependence on foreign capital;
       (7) the Federal debt that results from persistent Federal 
     deficits transfers a potentially crushing burden to future 
     generations, making their living standards lower than they 
     otherwise would have been;
       (8) during the 103rd Congress, the annual Federal deficit 
     declined for two years in a row for the first time in two 
     decades and is projected to decline for a third year in a 
     row;
       (9) the progress in reducing the Federal deficit achieved 
     during the 103rd Congress could be reversed by enacting 
     across-the-board or so-called middle class tax cut measures 
     proposed in the 104th Congress;
       (10) enacting such tax cuts is inconsistent with and 
     contrary to efforts being made to achieve further Federal 
     deficit reduction during the 104th Congress and the goal of 
     achieving a balanced budget; and
       (11) It is the Sense of the Committee that reducing the 
     Federal deficit should be one of the nation's highest 
     priorities, that enacting 
      [[Page S2618]] an across-the-board or so-called middle class 
     tax cut during the 104th Congress would hinder efforts to 
     reduce the Federal deficit and that enacting such tax cuts 
     would be inconsistent with proposals to adopt a 
     Constitutional amendment to balance the budget.''

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, this is a motion to refer House Joint 
Resolution 1 to the Budget Committee with instructions to report back 
forthwith in status quo and require the Budget Committee to issue a 
report at the earliest possible time which would include the text of a 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution and which, Mr. President, I had 
originally intended to offer directly to House Joint Resolution 1 at 
the appropriate time.
  The procedural situation before us makes it difficult to have a 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution considered directly because we are 
considering the language of a possible constitutional amendment.
  The instructions attached to the motion to refer that we have here 
have the effect, however, of allowing us to vote on the substance of 
what would have been a sense-of-the-Senate resolution if a regular 
legislative measure had been pending.
  Mr. President, the language of the instruction is intended to put the 
Senate on record for the first time with respect to the issue of 
whether an across-the-board tax cut or a middle-class tax cut is 
consistent with efforts to balance the Federal budget and reduce the 
Federal deficit. And the motion goes through some of the issues that 
all of us know to be involved in not having a balanced budget, issues 
having to do with the fact that the Federal deficit is still in excess 
of over $190 billion a year despite the efforts we have made in the 
past couple of years.
  The fact is that the Federal debt within the next couple of months 
will, for the first time in our country's history, exceed the 
astonishing figure of $5 trillion. This motion points out that the 
Federal budget deficits and the growing Federal debt have a strong 
tendency to reduce savings and capital formation in this country. We 
also point out that the Federal budget deficits contribute, very 
unfortunately, to a higher level of interest rates than would otherwise 
occur. This raises capital costs. It has the consequence of hurting our 
economy by curtailing the total investment that we have in the economy.
  Add to this, the failure to balance the Federal budget contributes to 
significant trade deficits and dependence on foreign capital. And worst 
of all, the point that is perhaps most often made on this floor having 
to do with the issue of balancing the budget and the balanced budget 
amendment, the failure to deal with the Federal deficit and the Federal 
debt is very likely to leave a potentially crushing burden on future 
generations that would make their living standards lower than they 
otherwise would have been.
  As we have pointed out frequently on this floor, Mr. President, 
during the 103d Congress, the annual Federal deficit actually declined. 
It declined for 2 years in a row for the first time in two decades. And 
now, under the current estimates, it is projected to decline for a 
third straight year in a row. This has not happened for many, many 
decades, I believe as far back as President Truman.
  Our concern in offering this motion is that the progress in reducing 
the Federal deficit achieved during the 103d Congress could be very 
quickly reversed if we do not have the will to say no to either an 
across-the-board tax cut or a middle-class tax cut. If we do not say no 
to these tax cuts--a difficult thing to do politically--the legacy of 
the 104th Congress will not be the passage of a balanced budget 
amendment. The legacy will be dropping the ball and forever making the 
Federal deficit and the Federal debt unsurmountable barriers.
  Quite simply, our motion says that enacting such tax cuts is 
inconsistent with and contrary to efforts being made to achieve further 
deficit reduction during the 104th Congress and that tax cuts are 
clearly, Mr. President, contrary to the goal of achieving a balanced 
budget.
  So, Mr. President, the motion concludes by saying it is the sense of 
the committee--this being the Budget Committee--that reducing the 
Federal deficit should be one of the Nation's highest priorities, and 
that enacting across-the-board or so-called middle-class tax cuts 
during the 104th Congress would hinder efforts to reduce the Federal 
deficit, and that enacting such tax cuts would be inconsistent with 
proposals to adopt a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. So 
that is our intent.
  I believe that this is an opportunity for both sides of the aisle, 
Republican and Democrat, to go on record for the first time on this 
very key issue. And the issue is whether or not the November 8 
elections were really about tax cuts.
  People have a lot of theories about what was intended by the 
electorate in that election. One theory is that people wanted a tax 
cut, that was the driving force, and that is why the President, 
supposedly, offered a middle-class tax cut, and that is why the 
Republican contract offers an even more dramatic and surprisingly large 
tax cut at a time of major Federal deficits.
  I believe, based on my reading of this issue--and I think my 
cosponsors agree--that is not what the electorate meant at all. The 
people of this country were not calling for a tax cut, because they 
know the hard and difficult facts. They know who they are stealing from 
if we do not reduce the Federal deficit. They know that a tax cut today 
means a larger deficit and larger debt for tomorrow for their children 
and grandchildren. And the numbers bear it out very well.
  Mr. President, one of the charts I have here today describes the 
impact of the smaller tax cut proposal, the proposal by the President 
for a $63 billion tax cut over the next 5 years. As the chart shows, if 
we go through with the President's proposal, by fiscal year 2000 the 
deficit would still be hovering at almost $200 billion after we, under 
the leadership of that very same President, finally got the deficit 
below that figure for the first time in many years.
  What this chart suggests is that if we do not enact the President's 
tax cuts, and add to it the interest savings that accrue from not 
making the deficit worse, you net out about a $25 billion difference in 
the fifth year alone. In one year alone, not doing this tax cut could 
mean a $25 billion improvement in our deficit picture. And that is not 
something to sneeze at.
  Put together all those 5 years, again you are talking about just $63 
billion saved, plus all the interest saved.
  What I believe the American people think is that if we have these 
cuts to be made--the President says he has them, he has identified 
them, he has put them on paper, he has put his name to them and taken 
the political heat--what the American people are saying is, ``Good. Do 
those cuts, but use them to bring down the Federal deficit,'' as this 
chart shows we could fairly easily do just using the President's own 
figures.
  Now a second illustration is even more dramatic. It suggests, as I 
certainly would, that compared to the President's proposal, which at 
least pays for all the tax cuts with spending cuts, that there is an 
even more extreme proposal in the Republican Contract With America.
  Over that same time period of 5 years, the Contract With America 
calls not for $63 billion in tax cuts, but the whopping sum of $196 
billion in tax cuts by the year 2000.
  Now, this is from the same folks, largely, who say they are going to 
pass a balanced budget amendment, that they do not need to tell you 
where the money is going to come from, that we do not need a glidepath, 
and that we are going to be able to give out this tax cut and 
everything is going to be just fine. We are going to have a balanced 
budget amendment.
  But if we do what the Contract With America suggests over the next 5 
years, we will not have this type of deficit reduction and we will miss 
a tremendous opportunity to enormously decrease the Federal deficit.
  This second chart shows that in the fiscal year 2000, if we do not do 
the Republican tax cut--which I do not think the American people want 
anyway--that instead of having an almost $200 billion deficit, we could 
finally be making real progress. We could take all those Republican 
cuts and the deficit would be down to $114 billion in fiscal year 2000.
  In other words, we would actually be within reach of our shared goal. 
And 
 [[Page S2619]] that shared goal, whether we are for the balanced 
budget amendment or not, is that, at least by the year 2002, this 
figure would be zero, that we would have a balanced budget.
  How can the Contract With America talk about a balanced budget and a 
balanced budget amendment and then propose a tax cut that takes us just 
in the opposite direction? Two-hundred billion dollars in the wrong 
direction.
  So, Mr. President, I suppose those who support the Republican 
Contract With America's tax cuts are advocates of trickle down 
Reaganomics, if you will. They may argue that by doing these tax cuts 
the economy may do better than doing nothing; somehow the revenues will 
come in and these figures will then be reduced and our estimating will 
be wrong and we will wipe out the deficit that way. I sure hope that is 
true, if we go down that road.
  The way we got into this deficit in the first place was 12 years 
where tax cuts for all folks, including high-income folks, had just the 
opposite result, where the deficit went out of control.
  I suppose those on the other side of the aisle could say that 
President Clinton's proposal for a middle-class tax cut is, in effect, 
trickle up. Give middle-income people some money, they will spend it, 
and the economy will do better and that will bring in the revenues to 
solve our fiscal problems. I hope that is true. I like his idea better 
than the Republican contract.
  But the evidence is just not there that that will be the actual 
impact on our Federal budget. I would suggest just the opposite would 
occur. Putting that money in the economy at this point may actually 
drive up inflation, drive up interest rates, and lead to just the 
opposite conclusion.
  So whether you look at it from the point of view of the Contract With 
America or from the point of view of the President's proposal, which I 
know he offers in good faith, neither proposal is consistent with or 
makes any sense if people in this body are sincere when they talk about 
balancing the Federal budget over the next 7 years. We cannot have it 
both ways.
  And what I am most struck by is that the American people are, of 
course, ahead of us on this, as they so often are. They know better 
than we do. They are ahead of our rhetoric. They are ahead of the tax 
cut.
  In fact, it gets even worse if you look into the outyears. The 10-
year cost of the President's tax cuts is not just $63 billion. The 10-
year cost of the so called middle-class tax cut is $174 billion. That 
is a pretty high figure. Of course, it is not even as high as the 
entire amount of the Republicans' $196 billion for the first 5 years.
  So what is the 10-year impact if we go down the road of the 
Republican contract and their tax cut? Believe it or not, the 
Republican contract and its tax cut call for a $704 billion tax cut 
over the next 10 years, and they are going to balance the budget? Who 
in this country would even begin to believe that that was possible? 
That is the guaranteed route to the worst budget disaster we would ever 
have, and it is hard to believe we could do worse than in the 1980's. 
If we do that one in 10 years, that is exactly where we will be.
  Just in terms of interest costs, the interest we would save in the 
10th year alone by not adopting the Republican contract tax cuts is 
$48.4 billion, just in the 10th year; $50 billion worth of interest. 
That is almost as much as the President's whole 5-year tax-cut plan. 
That is what the Contract With America calls for in the name of the 
balanced budget amendment.
  That is 30 percent more than the Federal Government will spend on 
transportation in fiscal year 1996 and more than we will spend this 
year on all of the Federal judiciary, the entire legislative branch and 
the programs and personnel of the Small Business Administration, the 
General Services Administration, the Commerce Department, the State 
Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior 
Department and the Justice Department combined. That is just the 
interest that we lose and that we have to pay out on just the 10th year 
of the Republican plan that includes as well the notion of a balanced 
budget amendment. Mr. President, this makes no sense on the facts.
  I would like to take a few minutes to point out that although some 
say it is very courageous to stand up here and make this motion to 
refer and, of course, that is nice for me and all the Senators, it does 
not take that much courage to go along with what your constituents are 
telling you to do.
  Since December 15, in my office we have received well over 400 
letters and phone calls on the issue of whether the people of Wisconsin 
want us to do the middle-class tax cut. The figures are surprising 
perhaps to some but they do not surprise me, because I find almost no 
one in my State who wants this tax cut.
  Here are the figures: 356 people who have contacted me say they do 
not want the tax cut. They say they want the money used from the cuts 
on programs to reduce the Federal deficit. Only 73 people contacted us 
to say go ahead with the tax cut. I realize it goes against political 
conventional wisdom, but I guess I would be the first to say that even 
though the November 8 elections were clearly not about people wanting a 
tax cut. I do not think there is any evidence of that, but I do know 
what the November 8 elections were about is that people are tired of 
politics as usual. Even though politicians are taught in politics 101 
or in their first campaign, do not ever go against a tax cut, the 
American people are smashing that conventional wisdom. They are saying 
that they know it is pandering. They are saying that they know we have 
a greater problem, a problem that affects not just them and the bills 
they have today, but a problem that could destroy the future of their 
children and grandchildren.
  That is the experience the other Senators who are cosponsoring this 
have had. They have come up to me, have done the town meetings in their 
States and have said, Senator Feingold, we are hearing the same thing 
you are. People are saying do the cuts, please take the fat out of the 
Federal Government, pare it down, but do not throw away that money on a 
meaningless tax cut that fails to deal with our national budgetary 
problems.
  So I have been pleased with the support in this body. I actually have 
not had a single conversation with any Member of the Senate who says he 
or she is very much for the tax cut. At best, they are ambivalent about 
it. I know in the House there is more support for a tax cut. After all, 
it is part of the Republican contract. There is a certain group looking 
to see what percentage of the items in the contract may pass. Is it 
going to be 100? I do not think so because I do not think term limits 
is going to pass. But some are shooting for 70, 80 percent, some magic 
number. These are numbers in the contract that the other body ought to 
take a look at because I do not think the people want that tax cut.
  That is what one of the Members of the other House discovered when he 
went out and decided to have a town meeting of his own, apparently, 
over the weekend.
  I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Washington Post of 
February 12, entitled ``Many Say They could Skip the Tax Cut,'' be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1995]

                    Many Say They Could Skip Tax Cut

                          (By Dale Russakoff)

       MANVILLE, NJ., Feb. 11.--The House Budget Committee came to 
     this town today to hear how real people feel about the 
     federal budget crisis. After three hours of listening to 
     people of all ages demand less federal spending on defense, 
     welfare, the arts, public broadcasting and congressional 
     salaries, committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) hit the 
     crowd of about 1,000 with a hardball question.
       Who was so concerned about the federal deficit that he or 
     she would forgo tax cuts promised by both Republicans and 
     Democrats until after the budget is balanced?
       The question apparently wasn't hard at all. In the packed 
     meeting hall of a Veterans of Foreign Wars center here in 
     heavily Republican central New Jersey, hands went up 
     everywhere. Kasich then asked how many people wanted their 
     tax cuts up front, before the budget is balanced. Only a few 
     hands went up, and they were booed.
       ``Both parties are offering a political rebate,'' Cole 
     Kleitsch, 33, a property manager who lives in Princeton, NJ., 
     and works for the debt-fighting Conquer Coalition, told the 
     committee, ``The people it [the debt] is going to hurt most--
     the children--are not in this 
      [[Page S2620]] room. That's our posterity and we're supposed 
     to take care of it. So far, we're taking care of our 
     posterior.''
       Despite the overwhelming sentiment for deferring tax cuts, 
     which Kasich said he and the committee also found in three 
     previous field hearings in the Midwest, West and South, the 
     chairman said there are no plans to reconsider the $200 
     billion in tax relief that Republican House candidates 
     promised in their ``Contract With America.''
       ``The number one thing we have to do in this country is 
     keep our word, and keeping our word involves doing the kind 
     of relief that is promised in the contract,'' Kasich said 
     after the hearing. ``It's something of a problem when you 
     have people overwhelmingly saying, `We don't want to do 
     this.' But I think if we start breaking our word, they're 
     just going to say, `Ah, it's just another group of 
     politicians.'''
       ``It's not as clear to the public as it is to us that the 
     way you bring down deficits is to deny the government 
     revenue,'' said Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), a close friend 
     and adviser of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), 
     explaining the determination to press ahead with tax cuts.
       Kasich emphasized that four hearings hardly constitute a 
     scientific example of national sentiment. (Voters told a 
     Washington Post-ABC poll that they favor deficit reduction 
     over tax cuts by a margin of 3 to 2).
       But Kasich said that if the Senate pares down the tax 
     relief the House intends to pass--including a $500 per child 
     tax credit and a capital gains tax cut--sentiments like those 
     expressed at his committee's field hearings might make it 
     easier for House members to go along.
       The hearing drew heavy turnout in this hard-luck community 
     that was the home of Johns-Manville Corp., the asbestos 
     manufacturer bankrupted by an avalanche of lawsuits from 
     victims of asbestos disease. More than 100 people were turned 
     away after the meeting hall filled to capacity.
       An aide to Kasich said this was the first field hearing 
     that appeared to draw ``special interests,'' which he defined 
     as union members and advocates of tuition aid to the poor. A 
     number of anti-GOP banners were displayed outside the hall, 
     including: ``Big Welfare for the Rich and Orphanages for the 
     Poor? No Way!'' Another, with an arrow pointing toward the 
     meeting hall, said: ``The Tooth Fairy?''
       Most speakers proposed cutting the budget in ways that 
     would not affect them directly. Phil Nicklas, who is not a 
     food stamp recipient, told the committee to eliminate the 
     food stamps program, Joel Whittaker said to toss out the 
     Legal Services Corp. and the National Endowment for the
      Arts. Sherry Zowader said every member of Congress should 
     take a 15 percent pay cut.
       But Carol Kasabach, 54, who lives near Trenton, told the 
     committee that she and her husband, who both are employed and 
     successful, would be willing to forgo some of the Social 
     Security benefits due them in order to help reduce the 
     deficit.
       Walker responded that this would turn Social Security into 
     ``just another welfare program'' for those who qualify based 
     on need. Kasabach raised her voice and told Walker: ``This is 
     for the welfare of all of us, and we have a responsibility to 
     each other.''
       The Corporation for Public Broadcasting had as many friends 
     as enemies in the audience. Walker challenged one advocate, 
     Sherry Zowader, to explain why her position did not mean that 
     working families should pay taxes ``to subsidize a $1 billion 
     industry called Big Bird.''
       ``We can all pick out in government what we don't like our 
     money being spent on,'' Zowader said. ``And you have to pay 
     for some things you don't like as well as the things you 
     like. That's democracy.''
       The sentiment against tax cuts was summed up powerfully by 
     Lynn Dill of Colonia, N.J., who told the committee: ``I want 
     the best thing for the country and the children. And if both 
     parties did the right thing, congressmen wouldn't have to 
     worry about getting reelected.''
       This moved Rep. Martin R. Hoke (R-Ohio) to remark: ``We are 
     getting so much wisdom from this testimony, we should require 
     half of all the hearings in Congress be held not in 
     Washington, D.C., but outside.''

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, let me just take a moment on what 
happened when Representative Kasich went out and asked the folks--
apparently he does not pretend it was otherwise--if they were for the 
tax cut. The article says, ``Who was so concerned about the Federal 
deficit that he or she would forego tax cuts promised by both 
Republicans and Democrats until after the budget is balanced?''
  That is what he asked the crowd. How many people out there would give 
up their tax cut so that the budget would be balanced?
  The article says the question apparently was not hard at all, it was 
easy for everyone.

       In the packed meeting hall of the Veterans of Foreign Wars 
     Center here in heavily Republican central New Jersey, hands 
     went up everywhere. Kasich then asked how many people wanted 
     their tax cuts up front before the budget is balanced.

  The newspaper reports only a few hands went up and they were booed.
  So the message is finally reaching the other House that the American 
people are ahead of the politicians, that the American people know that 
this problem cannot be solved if we are going to spend $60 or $200 or 
$700 billion on tax cuts at the same time we are pretending--
pretending--to do something about the problem of the balanced budget 
amendment.
  I am also pleased to say, Mr. President, that the Concord Coalition, 
which has done a fine job of marshaling this issue of the Federal 
deficit, has today endorsed our motion, writing that this is backed by 
the 150,000 members in all 50 States and saying that, of course--of 
course--it is inconsistent for somebody to support the balanced budget 
amendment and at the same time say they want a giant tax cut. No one 
buys that story.
  The same goes for the public opinion polls. On December 20, just 5 
days after the President's speech when everyone assumed that everyone 
was for the tax cut, just 5 days later, a USA Today-CNN/Gallup Poll 
said 70 percent of the American people say that reducing the deficit is 
a higher priority than a tax cut.
  In the Washington Post, an ABC news poll on January 6, 1995, says the 
people favor deficit reduction over tax cuts by a three-to-two margin. 
So in every measure I can find, whether it be a man-on-the-street or 
woman-on-the-street poll, the words of economists, calls to my office, 
the letters to my office, I cannot find a constituency out there in the 
United States of America for this kind of fiscal recklessness.
  But perhaps my favorite indication of this always is a political 
cartoon. I have to say that being a Senator has to be about the best 
job in the world, but if I had the talent, I would also love to be a 
political cartoonist. I do not have the artistic talent nor do I have, 
perhaps, the ability to do this. But this cartoon from our Milwaukee 
Sentinel typifies this whole issue.
  It shows an enormous creature, sort of a Jabba the Hut entitled 
``deficit.'' It just keeps eating and eating. And what it is eating is 
the catering provided by a caterer called ``Tax Cuts R Us, Catering and 
Pandering.''
  Instead of putting this deficit monster on a diet, what this 
institution is on the verge of doing if we do not reverse course is to 
continue to feed this monster to the detriment of everyone today, 
tomorrow, and in the future.
  Mr. President, I think this is an opportunity for us to make a 
bipartisan statement. No matter what else you feel about the balanced 
budget amendment itself, we cannot have it both ways. The cosponsors of 
my amendment include those who oppose the balanced budget amendment, 
such as myself. It includes some who have stated they will vote for the 
balanced budget amendment, and it includes some who have said they are 
undecided.
  What we all agree upon is that it cannot be either a rational or 
honest process if we continue to feed this monster. A balanced budget 
amendment cannot work hand in hand with an irresponsible tax cut that 
is being advocated, the false belief that the November 8 elections had 
anything to do with it.
  So I urge my colleagues to support the motion. I reserve the 
remainder of my time.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I have been authorized by Senator Hatch's 
staff to take 5 minutes of Senator Hatch's time.
  Let me say, I agree with 99 percent of what my colleague from 
Wisconsin has to say. I applaud his leadership on this. A tax cut just 
does not make sense when we have this kind of a deficit.
  I am going to vote against his amendment because I do not want to get 
it mixed up with the balanced budget amendment. But I could not agree 
with him more in terms of the substance. It is not only the things that 
he mentioned.
 The Clinton tax cut is, frankly, more responsible than the Republican 
  tax cut, but they are both wrong.But in terms of equity, it is very 
interesting, for those who have an income of $30,000 or less, even the 
Clinton tax cut gives them only 5\1/2\ percent of the tax cut, while 
those of us who get $100,000 to $200,000 a year--and that is the 
majority of us in the U.S. Congress--some exceed that amount--we 
 [[Page S2621]] get 12.4 percent of the tax cut--a much, much smaller 
number of people get a much bigger chunk of the tax cut.
  A tax cut just does not make sense. My colleague from Wisconsin has 
been leading the effort on this, and I applaud his effort. I assume 
this issue is going to come before the Budget Committee. I am going to 
be with Senator Feingold there. I assume it will be debated in the 
Chamber. I am going to be with Senator Feingold in the Chamber. I do 
not favor having it on this particular constitutional amendment. I 
think we should try to avoid everything that might confuse the 
constitutional amendment. But in terms of principle, he is absolutely 
on target, and I commend him.
  I yield back the remainder of my 5 minutes to Senator Hatch.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois, who 
was one of the very first persons who came up to me after the new year 
and said that, in fact, he was having the same experience in his State. 
Even though Wisconsin and Illinois are very close physically, they are 
certainly not identical States. But he was having the same experience. 
He was going around the State and people were saying do not take these 
cuts that you have identified and use them to do a tax cut. Take those 
opportunities to reduce the Federal deficit. I believe that is the 
conversation we had.
  Mr. SIMON. If I may, if my colleague will yield, the first time I did 
this was at a town meeting somewhere. Someone asked about the tax cut, 
and I said I believe in telling you the truth, and I do not anticipate 
my answer is going to be popular. Frankly, I had not seen the polls. 
And I told them I was opposed to the tax cut; that we ought to be using 
that money to reduce the deficit. And instead of boos, I got cheers 
from the town meeting, and that has been my experience ever since. I 
think that would be the experience of most Members of the Senate when 
they try it out with the people.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I do feel the need to address what the 
Senator just suggested, that it somehow confuses people for the Senate 
to go on record on this issue. How can this be confusing? This motion 
does not delay. I think no one disputes that. It is an automatic 
referral back from the Budget Committee. This is not an effort to slow 
down the balanced budget amendment.
  I have also pointed out to the body that this does not become part of 
the constitutional amendment itself. This does not go out to the States 
for purposes of their ratification process. That would not make a lot 
of sense, since it is up to us here to decide whether we are going to 
have a middle-class tax cut or an across-the-board tax cut, so I do not 
see how this could possibly confuse anyone, that the Senate would 
choose to go on record that we are going to be straight with the 
American people and not kid them that we can afford a tax cut at the 
same time we are passing a balanced budget amendment. I do not 
understand how anyone could be confused by that logic.
  Mr. SIMON. Will my colleague yield on that?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SIMON. I think the reality is if we put this in as a sense of the 
Senate here now, there are some of my colleagues who disagree with the 
Senator and me, in fact probably a majority disagree with the Senator 
and me on this. But even assuming it is a majority on our side, there 
may be some who would vote against the proposition because this sense 
of the Senate is there, and so I think it has the possibility--I am not 
saying it is a probability, but I think it has the possibility of 
losing a vote or two, and I think my colleague from Utah would agree we 
need every vote we can get.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I think this is exactly what is wrong 
with this balanced budget amendment process. We saw this with regard to 
the so-called glidepath amendment, the so-called right to know. In the 
desperate desire to get enough votes to pass the balanced budget 
amendment, we are closing the door on honesty with the American people.
  This body has, unfortunately, refused to lay out that 5- or 7-year 
plan that would tell us where it is going to come from. That is bad 
enough. But when you close off an opportunity to make a clean statement 
that we cannot afford the tax cut and still have a balanced budget 
amendment, then you are even going farther because what you are doing 
with this tax cut is digging an even deeper hole. It is already hard 
enough to lay out exactly how we are going to put together the numbers 
under the current problem. But when you add another $60, $200, $700 
billion, $1 trillion, as you claim to be solving the problem, that is 
where the real obfuscation, the real confusion, the real misleading of 
the American public comes.
  Mr. President, do you know what the American people think when they 
hear about the balanced budget amendment? I believe they think we are 
going to actually balance the budget when we do this. I do not think 
they really all realize that we are setting into motion here something 
that is going to take probably the better part of a decade, and in the 
meantime there will be no legal requirement that we balance the budget.
  So what is a more important and appropriate time than right now, as 
this amendment comes to a vote in the Chamber in the next few days or 
weeks, to tell the American people we understand that cutting taxes 
will make it virtually impossible either to meet the balanced budget 
requirement, if it is enacted, or that the human consequence and the 
pain that will be suffered by people in this country will be enormous 
if we suddenly cut $200 or $700 billion out of our Federal revenues at 
this point, leaving it even more impossible to balance the Federal 
budget in any kind of humane way? And for anyone who thinks this motion 
is either confusing or inappropriate, this is precisely the motion the 
distinguished majority leader used in order to put forward his motion 
on Social Security.
  Now, if this is confusing, why was that not confusing? Presumably we 
would not put anything on the bill if it is an issue of confusion. I 
think the source of confusion is clear. The effort to confuse is from 
those who do not want to tell the truth to the American people, which 
is that the Contract With America goes completely in two directions at 
the same time.
  Several Members on the other side of the aisle have publicly stated, 
in the Finance Committee and also in public statements and in 
statements in the Chamber, that they, too, do not support the tax cuts, 
knowing what it means for the budget.
  So I feel strongly that there is no reason not to pass a simple 
sense-of-the-Senate resolution at this time. It does not go out to the 
States, and it tells the truth. And that is that all these tax cut 
plans are the ultimate demonstration that many supporters of the 
balanced budget amendment are not as dedicated to balancing the budget 
as they pretend.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I appreciate what the distinguished Senator 
is trying to do. I know he feels very sincerely and is very dedicated 
to deficit reduction, as he has said. But the bottom line of this 
motion to refer is that we should protect the largest tax increase in 
history and that we should avoid enacting tax cuts that even the 
President, President Clinton, has called for.
  This is political cheerleading for the action of a single Congress in 
a single piece of legislation and I think it is wholly inappropriate to 
a constitutional debate like this one we are having with regard to the 
balanced budget amendment, because the Constitution sets in place broad 
principles and leaves yearly budgeting priorities to be set by each 
succeeding Congress, as it is each Congress' right and duty to do.
  What I suggest to my friend from Wisconsin is that we can have this 
debate more appropriately when Congress debates the implementing 
legislation contemplated by the amendment. That would be a perfect 
place for him to bring his concerns to the Senate. If the Congress 
chooses to accept the point of view of the distinguished Senator from 
Wisconsin that there should be no further tax cuts, then Congress can 
do so. But in this context I really do not see a reason to vote for 
this motion to refer.
  It is ironic, indeed, for those of us who have been watching this 
debate, to 
 [[Page S2622]] see that those who have criticized proponents of the 
balanced budget amendment for writing fiscal policy into the 
Constitution, as they say--and of course this balanced budget amendment 
does not do that--it is ironic to see them attempt to set tax policy 
during this debate.
  The motion before us serves only two purposes, I think. One, to make 
a political point in praise of the tax hikes of the 103d Congress. And, 
two, to attempt to keep the same level of taxing that we now have to 
ensure there is more money and more spending than Congress might 
otherwise have, if the American people decide that the spending is not 
worth the taxes.
  So I do urge the defeat of this motion and express the hope that we 
can move to final passage of the balanced budget amendment soon, so we 
can finally begin to move this Government to fiscal responsibility. 
Because every day that goes by while we are debating this, another $829 
million is added to the national debt, as is shown on our balanced 
budget debt tracker here.
  The distinguished Senator from Wisconsin is concerned about the 
national debt, wanting to keep the tax increases in place, not wanting 
to allow any tax cuts that might stimulate the economy and get more 
people paying taxes. And every day we have more amendments like this 
the debt is going up $829 million.
  We are now in the 16th day since we started this debate and we have 
been on the floor 12 days of that time, and during that time the 
national debt has increased $13,271,040,000. Actually we are higher 
than that because we are almost into the 17th day. So the debt is going 
up while we fiddle around here in Washington and watch our country burn 
to the ground.
  Let me just make an additional point or two here regarding the time 
spent in previous debates on the balanced budget amendment, because 
some have complained that we are trying to move the process along too 
fast. I have a brief breakdown of previous Senate action on other 
constitutional amendments to balance the budget.
  When I was chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee in the 97th 
Congress, Senator Thurmond and I brought to the floor--it was the first 
time anybody ever brought to the floor of either House of the 
Congress--a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We brought 
that to the floor and the floor action on the resolution took 11 days. 
During that period of 11 days 31 amendments were offered, 24 Democrat 
amendments and 7 Republican amendments. The resolution finally passed 
the Senate by a rollcall vote of 69 yeas to 31 nays.
  It went to the House, of course, and was defeated there. Tip O'Neill 
led the troops over there and he defeated us even though we got 60 
percent of the vote. But it was 11 days of debate on the Senate floor 
at that time, and we had 31 amendments.
  In the 99th Congress we brought it again to the floor. This was in 
1986. Again I was still chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee. We 
had 7 days of debate on the resolution, 13 amendments were offered, 7 
of them were offered by Democrats, 6 by Republicans, and the resolution 
failed by rollcall vote 66 yeas to 34 nays. By one vote that resolution 
failed back in 1986.
  Then again, the third time it was ever brought to the floor of the 
Senate was in 1994, last year, it was designated Senate Joint 
Resolution 41. On that resolution we spent 5 days of floor debate, we 
had one amendment offered that was a Democrat amendment, and the 
resolution failed by four votes, 63 to 37.
  Now, already in this 104th Congress, on House Joint Resolution 1, we 
are in the 12th day of consideration and debate. We have had six 
amendments and three motions, three of them have been Democratic 
amendments with one motion a Democrat motion and three have been 
Republican amendments with one motion--plus this one. So what I am 
saying is that we are moving awfully slow here this year by historical 
standards, and we should get moving on to final passage. But I 
appreciate the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin. I know he is 
sincere. I know he is trying to resolve the deficit problems in his own 
way.
  But really this debate ought to wait until the implementing 
legislation where he may have a better chance of actually passing 
substantive language that may get him where he wants to be, which seems 
to be to stop any kind of tax reduction or tax cut--even ones like the 
President wants--at that more appropriate time.
  I am prepared to yield the remainder of our time but I will be happy 
to yield the floor. I see the Senator wants to speak longer but I am 
prepared to yield back if the Senator will.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, we are not prepared to yield back our 
time. The senior Senator from Arkansas will speak in a minute.
  Let me just say briefly I am somewhat amused at the notion that the 
distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee brings up, the fact 
the deficit is going up every day as we speak, as if somehow it is the 
fault of this debate that the deficit is going up.
  But even under the terms of the balanced budget amendment, the notion 
is there would not be a balanced budget until the year 2002. I ask you, 
what is more damaging to the goal of balancing the Federal budget? 
Debating a subject as to how consistent it is to have tax cuts and 
balance the budget at the same time and debating that for a few days? 
Or to pretend that somehow after we dig this huge hole for the Federal 
deficit again that we will be able to solve it over the course of those 
next 7 years? It does not make sense.
  The notion that we are going to cut off debate on the basic budgetary 
choices that are involved in the context of the balanced budget 
amendment debate does not make any sense to me. I do not think it makes 
any sense to the American people. It would be one thing if we were all 
agreed that we were going to move in the same direction. If everybody 
in both Houses said of course we are going to make sure that everything 
we do brings down the deficit, that would be one thing. But what I and 
Senator Bumpers and others are trying to point out is that this 
particular notion of a tax cut flies in the face of any reasonable 
person's notion of what is supposed to happen here, which is reducing 
the Federal deficit, not increasing it by $200 or $750 billion.
  With that I am happy to yield to the senior Senator from Arkansas, 
who has been a leader on deficit reduction here and has been a great 
help on this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Wisconsin for 
yielding. But more important, I think him for crafting this sense-of-
the-Senate resolution which ought to pass 100-zip.
  I do not know how many votes we have had--maybe 60 votes since we 
came back into session. And I will hand it to the Republicans, they 
know how to stick together. I am speaking of votes occurring not only 
on the balanced budget amendment but everything that has come up since 
we came into session. It has been unanimous on the other side. I think 
on one vote two Republicans defected.
  So it makes you have second thoughts about even standing up here and 
talking what you think is ordinary common sense. But the Senator from 
Wisconsin, with whom I am pleased to join in this amendment, is simply 
saying it is time we quit playing games and start debating the real 
issue, and that is, ``What are we going to do about the deficit?'' The 
balanced budget amendment is probably a done deal. But as far as the 
deficit is concerned, it does not make any difference whether the 
balanced budget amendment passes or not. If it passes or if it fails, 
we are going to be back to square one after we vote on final passage 
because we are going to have to figure out how to actually balance the 
budget.
  You see that chart over there? That is clever. I give the Republicans 
credit for putting that chart up.
 It shows how much the deficit has gone up each day since we started 
debating the balanced budget amendment. I wish we had a chart on this 
side showing how much the deficit would have gone up if we had not 
passed the President's deficit reduction plan in 1993 without a single 
Republican vote. It would be 50 percent higher each day. Our chart 
would show the deficit going up 50 to 75 percent more every day than 
that chart shows. And we reduced the deficit that much without one 
  single Republican vote. [[Page S2623]] So, Madam President, I rise 
today to try to talk common sense. There is a new book out. I was down 
at Wake Forest University today delivering a speech at a convocation. A 
man caught me just as I was leaving. He said, Senator, you must read 
this new book called ``The Death of Common Sense, How It Is Suffocating 
America.'' Well, that is what we are trying to talk about--common 
sense.
  I want you to think about this, Senators. The Republican Contract 
With America is not a contract I signed, but it says we are going to 
pass this balanced budget amendment. And we are going to give the 
American people expanded IRA's to increase savings. And we are going to 
provide an across-the-board tax cut that costs $200 billion over the 
next 5 years and $700 billion over the next 10 years. Then we are going 
to increase defense spending by somewhere between $60 and $80 billion. 
Then we are going to provide a capital gains tax cut, 90 percent of 
which goes to the richest 5 percent of the people in America. We are 
going to do all this and balance the budget in the year 2002. What that 
adds up to, Madam President, is $1.6 trillion that must be cut in the 
next 7 years.
  Everybody here who has been here any time at all knows that is 
absolutely lunacy. That is not going to happen. There are not very many 
people in State hospitals in this country that believe we are going to 
make all those tax cuts, increase defense spending, and balance the 
budget. Yet the Congress bought that same argument 14 years and $3.5 
trillion ago.
  Did you know that if it were not for the interest on the increased 
debt that built up during the 12 years of the Ronald Reagan and George 
Bush Presidencies, we would have a surplus today. Not a deficit--a 
surplus--if we were not paying the interest on that staggering debt we 
accumulated when we bought the same argument we are asked to buy again 
today.
  There is one thing that is really crafty about the Contract With 
America. The middle-class tax cut in the Contract With America is 
supposed to cost $200 billion in the first 5 years. Then, in the next 5 
years, it will cost $500 billion. That is very crafty. But the only 
time you ever hear this Chamber so silent that you can hear the 
termites working is when you ask, ``How are you going to pay for it?'' 
It would make Houdini blush to suggest that this can be done in the 
next 7 years.
  Every Member of Congress, every economist in the country, and every 
citizen of America, knows that this is palpable nonsense. With his 
amendment, the Senator from Wisconsin is saying it is time we start 
actually doing something about the deficit instead of just putting a 
few words in the Constitution.
  Let me say to my colleagues that you do not even have to be 
courageous to vote for this amendment. Look here. Here is a USA Today 
poll; 70 percent of the people of this country say put those spending 
cuts on the deficit. Everybody says, ``Senator you are going to vote 
against the balanced budget amendment. It is very popular.'' I say, 
``You are going to provide middle-class tax cuts and that is very 
unpopular.''
  Let me just read a couple of letters. These are ordinary citizens, 
constituents of mine.

       Dear Senator Bumpers: The truth is, as much as I hate 
     paying taxes, I don't want this tax break. I would much 
     rather see the cuts made as proposed, taxes kept at the 
     current rate, and see some serious reduction in the national 
     debt. This is a price for my future and that of my children 
     that I am willing to pay.

  Madam President, the people of America are way ahead of this crowd.
  Here is another letter from a constituent in Warren, AR:

       Dear Senator Bumpers: I urge you with your vote to cut 
     spending by the Federal Government in every way possible and 
     to not even think about tax reductions or refunds.

  He says that we need to reduce the deficit.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent those two constituent 
letters be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                      Warren, AR, January 5, 1995.
     Sen. Dale Bumpers,
     Dirksen Senate Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Sen. Bumpers: I urge you with your vote to cut 
     spending by the Federal government in every way possible and 
     to not even think about tax reductions or refunds. In my 
     opinion, we need to not only reduce the deficit spending but 
     to eliminate it and start reducing the debt.
       I realize my request is almost impossible to fulfill but 
     there has to be a day of reckoning where the dollar won't be 
     worth two cents if we continue our deficit spending for 
     things the nation can not afford. We have been living in a 
     fairland for too many years.
           Respectfully yours,
     F. Martin Hankins.
                                                                    ____

                                               Siloam Springs, AR.
       Dear Senator Bumpers. I am writing to you in regard to the 
     numerous tax reduction plans for the middle class. I am, I 
     assume, one of those discussed, as the combined annual income 
     of my wife and I fall in the 40-50,000 dollar range.
       The truth is, as much as I hate paying taxes, I don't want 
     this tax break. I would much rather see the cuts made as 
     proposed, taxes kept at the current rate, and see some 
     serious reduction in the national debt. This is a price for 
     my future and that of my children that I am willing to pay.
       I am not alone in my belief. I have talked to a great many 
     people on this issue, and all of them have been of the same 
     voice. We would rather see the money invested in debt 
     reduction than to go out to McDonald's an extra time each 
     month on the tax savings.
       On the issue of budget cuts, I recently returned from my 
     fourth trip from the National Fire Academy. This is a superb 
     organization and would very much like to see it's funding 
     maintained or increased. The U.S. continues to have the 
     highest fire loss in the industrialized world. There is much 
     that needs to be done. But the results produced by the 
     National Fire Academy and the U.S. Fire Administration have 
     made a tremendous difference in training, education and 
     research. I hope that room may be found to allow them to 
     press forth with their plans for the future.
       Thank you for your time, interest and involvement.
                                                    Andy Mitchell.

  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, it just drives me insane, the 
talk about providing $700 billion in tax cuts, then providing another 
Lord knows how much for the Pentagon, and, then say, ``Folks, just as 
soon as we can get these words in the Constitution, we will balance the 
budget in the year 2002.'' What are we doing? We are treating them like 
children who could not possibly understand the nuances, the 
sophistication, the complication of the budget process. ``But they 
understand if you put it in the Constitution. The Constitution is a 
sacred document.''
  We have had 11,000 constitutional amendment proposals since this 
country was founded. Besides the Bill of Rights, those 10 amendments 
adopted together in 1789, the people of this country have amended the 
Constitution 17 times. But people here in Congress have tried to get 
them to amend it over 11,000 times. You know something else. Of the 
11,000, the majority of those amendments have occurred in the last 32 
years. And 35 constitutional amendments have been proposed since we 
came back into session January 3. That is one a day. Jefferson, Jay, 
Adams, Hamilton, the most brilliant congregation of minds ever 
assembled under one roof, gave us this sacred document and we 
trivialize it. Norm Ornstein said the Constitution is the fix of last 
resort. Do you want a figleaf to go home and talk to your constituents 
about instead of actually doing something to reduce the deficit? Term 
limits, put it in the Constitution. Prayer in school, put it in the 
Constitution. The Constitution is not crafted to deal with social 
problems for which there is a legislative fix. You know that virtually 
every one of the 35 constitutional amendments that have been introduced 
this year have been introduced by Republicans, who consider themselves 
conservatives. But you know what, Robert Gowin, a scholar at the 
American Enterprise Institute, a very conservative think tank here, 
says: ``Conservatives revere our institutions and our traditions.'' 
True conservatives. Robert Gowin says, ``True conservatives do not muck 
with the Constitution.'' I could not agree with him more.
  Madam President, what we are talking about is spine, a little 
courage, not a figleaf to hide behind by putting a few words in the 
Constitution and hope that 7 years from now people will have forgotten 
the grandiose and wholly unkept promises.
  The Senator from Wisconsin and I are simply trying to introduce a 
grain of common sense into this debate. The American people deserve it. 
If the President can find $63 billion for a middle-class tax cut, then 
put it on the deficit. If the Republicans can find $200 billion or $700 
billion for tax cuts and 
 [[Page S2624]] increases in defense spending, put it on the deficit.
  Finally, let me reiterate, Madam President, that this is a sense-of-
the-Senate resolution that does not cost you a nickel. You are not 
changing the constitutional amendment that is before us, House Joint 
Resolution 1. You are simply saying, yes, I agree that we need to get 
the show on the road in a serious way and quit talking nonsense.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, first of all, I thank the Senator from 
Arkansas for his wonderful statement of common sense. That is all we 
are trying to do is to be a little bit direct with the American people 
and say that it is wholly impossible to balance the Federal budget at 
the same time you are talking about massive tax cuts.
  In a moment, the distinguished Senator from Minnesota will join with 
us. But let me just say that I think what the Senator was saying at the 
end is important to reiterate. A lot of folks here that are for the 
balanced budget amendment--and maybe some of them do not plan to be 
around here when we have to actually make these hard decisions; maybe 
some will retire; maybe some will be President; maybe some will be term 
limited; maybe they will be kicked out of here by their own vote for 
term limits. But this is an awfully sweet deal for a politician. If you 
vote for a balanced budget amendment, you get to hand out a giant tax 
cut to everybody, and you do not have to say what you are going to cut 
for many years. It is like a hat trick. That is about the best thing a 
politician could have. That is exactly the kind of concern I have here. 
I think many people are very sincere about balancing the Federal 
budget. But if we are not honest about this issue, that you cannot have 
it both ways, you cannot have a tax cut and balance the budget, then we 
are failing our responsibility to be direct with the American people.
  Madam President, I want to note one thing about the debate thus far. 
The hour and a half is coming to an end. I have not heard one single 
Senator say one good thing about the tax cut proposal. Not a single 
Senator has come out and said it is a good idea to cut taxes across the 
board or to have a middle-class tax cut. But I have heard at least four 
Members from the other side of the aisle--the distinguished Senator 
from Vermont, the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, the 
distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, and the distinguished Senator 
from Oregon, chairman of the Finance Committee--all publicly say that 
this might not make sense. They may not well be able to support this 
tax cut.
  Madam President, I guess what I am in search of now is, who is for 
this? Why do we not start building the foundation of a balanced budget 
by pointing out that there is nobody in the U.S. Senate who cares 
enough to come down here and defend the Contract With America's tax cut 
provision. There is not a single Senator that has come out and defended 
the President's notion of a middle-class tax cut. I am reading from 
today's debate that there is not a constituency--certainly not among 
the American public. Maybe the good news here is that we are not even 
going to try to do this. If that is what we get out of this process, I 
will be delighted. I await the day when a Senator comes out here and 
says, First, he is for a tax cut of this magnitude, $200 billion, and 
second, he can show us how to have a balanced budget while he does it.
  I am delighted to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Minnesota.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, if I might, I would like to respond to the 
challenge of the Senator from Wisconsin very briefly before we hear the 
comments of the Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I assume that comes off of their time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It does.
  Mr. KYL. I thank the Senator. I will challenge it in this way, 
without talking about all of the proposals in the Contract With 
America.
  One of the key proposals in the Contract With America is to reverse 
part of the tax increase, the largest tax increase in the history of 
this country, that raised a tax on seniors. As a matter of fact, it 
says that if you are a wealthy senior making a grand sum of $34,000 a 
year, we are going to tax 85 percent of your Social Security. We think 
that is wrong and we think that tax increase should be repealed. That 
is part of the Contract With America.
  What the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin suggests is that 
that tax cut ought to be off the table, that we should not consider any 
part of the Contract With America tax cuts, because it will make it too 
hard to balance the budget. Well, in some respects it does make it 
harder to balance the budget because you have to, in effect, pay for 
the tax cuts and the reductions called for in balancing the budget. But 
there are some of us who think the Federal Government spends far too 
much and we can achieve the savings to accomplish both goals.
  We also believe that it is important as a matter of public policy and 
as a commitment to the seniors of this country to repeal that 
pernicious tax increase that was part of the President's large tax 
increase of 2 years ago--this Social Security tax increase.
  In the last several days, a lot of Members--particularly from the 
other side--were in the body here proposing that we protect seniors by 
taking Social Security off budget. ``We cannot allow the balanced 
budget amendment to hurt seniors,'' they said. But they are willing to 
say that we should not help seniors by repealing this onerous 85-
percent Social Security tax increase. It is a little bit like playing 
the first half of a ball game--of course, the Democratic party was in 
the majority 2 years ago; they had the House, the Senate, and the 
Presidency, so they had the power to ram that tax increase through--and 
then when the second half of the ball game starts and the Republicans 
are in control of the Senate and the House of Representatives and we 
would like to play in the game and repeal that tax increase that the 
President got through and that they supported, they say no, no, we are 
going to call an end to the ball game now. We are not going to play the 
second half. We are going to leave that tax increase in the law so that 
a wealthy senior who makes $34,000 a year--wealthy by that definition, 
of course--is going to be taxed 85 percent on Social Security. We say 
that is not right, that we should repeal that tax and that we can 
repeal that tax at the same time that we are beginning the process of 
balancing the budget. It will take 6 or 7 years, but we will get there 
and we will get there for one reason: Because the balanced budget 
amendment will force us to get there.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, briefly, I appreciate the input of the 
Senator from Arizona. We want to find out what Senators are supporting 
so-called tax cuts, and we are interested to know how in the world it 
is going to be paid for while we go forward with increasing defense 
spending and balancing the Federal budget and all of the things 
provided for in the contract. I think this is exactly what we are 
concerned about. We are concerned that the contract's effect is not to 
balance the budget, but to undo the progress made in the last 2 years.
  The Senator just described one of the elements that led to the 
reduction of the Federal deficit for the first time in many, many 
years. He is on record that he is going to try to repeal it. We do not 
have on record how we are going to pay for that item, or how we are 
then going beyond that. Because the problem with repealing that is you 
have to come up with the money to pay for its repeal, and even then you 
still have not done one single penny of net deficit reduction. You have 
gone in the wrong direction.
  So that is what the debate has to be about. That is what the American 
people are entitled to.
  I now yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Madam President.
  First of all, let me thank the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Feingold], 
for his leadership on this issue. I think, Madam President, the thing 
that I appreciate the most about the Senator from Wisconsin is his 
insistence that we be very straightforward with people and that we 
treat the people that we represent with intelligence and that we lay 
out very honestly and truthfully what the options are.
  Now we can disagree in good faith about what those options are. And I 
understand that full well. But from my perspective, Madam President--
and I 
 [[Page S2625]] have said this a couple of times about these tax cuts--
I really liken this, to use an old Jewish proverb, to trying to dance 
at two weddings at the same time. I just think you cannot talk about 
more deficit reduction and at the same time say you are going to have 
this broad-based tax cut--broad-based; we are not talking about one 
particular proposal, broad-based to the tune of $200 billion since we 
are talking about a balanced budget amendment between 1996 and 2002 and 
then another $500 billion between 1992 and 1997. That is $700 billion 
of tax cuts that is to be made that has to be made up somewhere even 
before we begin to then get back to deficit reduction.
  And so, Madam President, my concern about the direction of all this, 
as I have stated on the floor before, is that when I add up the 
baseline $1 trillion that we know we have to do by way of budget cuts 
to get to this balanced budget by 2002 and then the additional revenue 
that we lose by virtue of the tax cuts, which we have to make up, plus 
the increase in the military budget, we are talking about somewhere in 
the neighborhood of $1.4 trillion.
  So, Madam President, it is interesting. My framework is not that 
deficit reduction is the only public policy goal. That is not what I 
believe. I have always believed there are two deficits. One of them is 
the budget deficit; the other is the investment deficit.
  I will have an amendment on the floor dealing with children and 
education, again, because I think we make a terrible mistake in the 
ways in which we have abandoned children and not invested in children 
in our country. So from the point of view of the Senator from 
Minnesota, who understands, on the one hand, there are certain decisive 
areas of life in our Nation where we need to make the investment and, 
on the other hand, understands that we have to continue on this path of 
deficit reduction, I do not see how in the world some of my colleagues 
can be talking about yet more tax cuts.
  This amendment, which asks the Budget Committee to look at this, 
which essentially challenges all of us to have, I think, some real 
intellectual rigor on this issue, is an extremely important 
contribution.
  Madam President, I have to say one other thing that actually the 
Senator from Wisconsin got me thinking about. The politics of this are 
nifty. It sort of reminds me of 1981 again, where basically what some 
of the leadership in the country said to the people and the Nation was, 
we are going to ask you Americans to make a huge sacrifice. And if you 
make that sacrifice, our country will be much better off--high levels 
of productivity, the deficit will go down, more jobs, all the rest. We 
ask you, will you let us cut your taxes?
  And people said, ``Great.''
  Well, what happened? We cut taxes, dramatically increased the 
Pentagon budget and built up a huge deficit and a huge debt. We cannot 
repeat that mistake again. We have to get real with people. We have to 
make difficult choices.
  I have never been identified as a deficit hawk. I get criticized 
sometimes for not being hawkish enough on this issue, because I keep 
saying we have to invest in children, education, and we have to invest 
in health care as well.
  But I also understand that we cannot make these investments where we 
need to make the investments in our people and our communities and 
continue to reduce the deficit and eventually get to the point where we 
balance the budget--though I think 2002 is a political date--without 
getting real.
  And that is the importance of this amendment. I would think that this 
amendment would command broad-based support among all Senators who have 
said that they consider deficit reduction to be one of their top 
priorities. Broad-based tax cuts of this kind take us in precisely the 
opposite direction, and we know it. That is what the Senator from 
Wisconsin is trying to speak to.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, how much time do we have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has remaining 4 minutes 9 seconds.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you, Madam President.
  I cannot think of any better allies on an issue like this than the 
Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from Minnesota, who I know are in 
this for the long haul. We are in this for the long haul on the 
balanced budget amendment, on the budget resolution, on reconciliation, 
you name it. We are going to continue to raise this issue of the 
irresponsibility of these tax cuts every chance we get with the goal of 
defeating it.
  I think the Senator from Minnesota just made a tremendous point when 
he pointed out what happened in the early 1980's. Naturally, when 
people were told we are going give you a tax cut, it will cause the 
economy to broom and everything will be great, they said, ``That sounds 
pretty good.'' Human nature. Nothing wrong it. It might have worked.
  But the amazing thing now is that in 1995, the American people are 
hearing that same line again, and what I am so impressed by and 
delighted by is that they simply are not being fooled twice. It is not 
going to work this time. Telling the American people, as President 
Reagan did, that he is going to balance the budget and give everybody a 
giant tax cut--he did not do it, the Congresses then did not do it, and 
neither will the 104th Congress, because it cannot be done.
  And so to conclude our argument on this, I would just like to return 
to those people from my State who just laid it on the line and who say 
they are not going to fall for this again, this idea that 2 plus 2 
equal 6 when it comes to balancing the Federal budget.
  A couple from, for example, Eagle River, WI, wrote about the tax cut:

       What I need, and what the country needs, is to have the 
     budget deficit paid off so that 20% of the national budget 
     does not go to raising money lenders into the upper class, 
     and so that in 20 years my children and grandchildren won't 
     have to suffer having their entire taxes go to pay the 
     interest and getting none of the services that government 
     should properly provide.

  Folks from Cornucopia, WI, which is the northernmost point of 
Wisconsin, wrote and said:

       The thing is, I can't figure out why this is happening--
     this race to cut taxes--when the majority of people, 
     according to all I've seen, heard, and read, don't care. We 
     want the deficit cut and we want our money spent more wisely.

  A gentleman from Madison, WI, wrote:

       I would like to pay less taxes. I have a family to feed and 
     a mortgage to pay, but what is even more important to me is 
     the yearly federal deficit and the expanding national debt.

  He says to us here in the Senate:

       Don't try to make me feel good and make some political 
     points by giving me a tax cut that my children will have to 
     pay for. I'm not that stupid. That doesn't impress me. Short-
     term, feel-good tax cuts may look good to the weak-minded 
     voters, but frankly I'm extremely concerned about the 
     national debt that we will be leaving our children to pay off 
     long after you are out of office. Let's do what is right for 
     the kids, (even though they are not voters yet, you 
     politicians!). Let's make the spending cuts, leave the tax 
     rates where they are, pay off the federal debt, and leave 
     this country in a secure financial position that won't leave 
     our children cursing on our graves!

  And finally, Madam President, from Birnamwood, WI:

       Dear Mr. Feingold:
       I am writing about the proposed tax cuts and write-offs 
     being proposed lately. I am all for cutting spending and 
     lowering taxes as my many letters to you prove. But throwing 
     a few crusts of bread to the masses to keep them quiet is not 
     the answer. By all means cut government spending. But use 
     that savings to eliminate the deficit and pay down the debt 
     that threatens to overwhelm us.

  Madam President, in conclusion, the American people are very clear on 
this. Why in the world can we not be clear with them and say that it is 
impossible to push for a balanced budget amendment in good faith and 
still believe we can have the giant tax cuts being proposed, in 
particular, by the Contract With America?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I rise in support of the amendment 
offered by my good friend, the Senator from Wisconsin.
  Madam President, I serve as a member of the Senate Budget Committee, 
and I take that assignment seriously. The budget process starts in that 
committee. The deficit reduction starts there.
  And, Madam President, the tough choices are made there.
  [[Page S2626]] And, because in the last 2 years, we made tough 
choices, the deficit is finally going down.
  This country racked up more debt during the 1980's than we had during 
the previous two centuries. We can never allow this type of explosive 
debt to creep into the budget process again.
  When I was sworn in 2 years ago, I wanted to offer a change in 
thinking, and help to solve the problem of poor fiscal management.
  And, we are solving this problem. We are cutting unnecessary and 
wasteful programs. We are streamlining other projects.
  This year alone, the President has sent us a budget for fiscal year 
1996 that eliminates 130 programs and significantly 270 more.
  And, because our fiscal house is finally being put in order, the 
budget deficit has been reduced for 3 years in a row--that is the first 
time that has happened since Harry Truman was in the White House.
  Madam President, we finally have seen some commonsense, rational 
solutions in budgeting. And, we must continue providing leadership with 
level-headed moderate decisions, even if they are based on tough 
choices.
  That is why I support the Feingold amendment. It is common sense. It 
recognizes that we do not have a lot of money to go around. And, the 
last thing we should be doing when the deficit is finally being reduced 
is to engage in a political bidding war to enact broad-based, across-
the-board tax breaks.
  This would only send our deficit soaring again, just like the 1980's. 
Just like the days when we were told ``you can have it all, and not pay 
for it.'' Just like the time when we racked up the highest amount of 
debt in the history of the world.
  Madam President, let me be clear. Our colleagues should understand 
that a vote for the Feingold amendment is not a vote against tax 
relief. Certain Americans need tax relief. Certain tax laws are 
antiquated and need to be changed. I believe, for example, we need to 
revise our estate and gift tax laws.
  But, we need to go through this with common sense. I have seen many 
of the proposals for tax breaks before us. Who do they really help?
  My friends and neighbors discuss the Federal budget with me all the 
time. And Madam President, they tell me time and again that we should 
reduce the deficit before we discuss broad-based tax breaks.
  Fighting this deficit is too serious for political game-playing. We 
clearly cannot push off on our kids an exploding deficit. Sometimes, 
spending programs are urgent, and, sometimes, tax relief is necessary.
  But, bidding wars to cut taxes for political popularity are not 
urgent and not necessary. As I said, Madam President, these proposals 
might be popular, but they are dangerous.
  And, Madam President, I will start worrying about my own personal 
popularity when I know my kids have a secure economic future.
  This amendment is good common sense. I thank my friend, Senator 
Feingold, for having the courage to bring it before the Senate. And, I 
urge its swift adoption.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the sense-of-
the-Senate resolution advanced by my colleague from Wisconsin.
  The citizens of Montana want deficit spending brought under control. 
They want the budget balanced and they want the job done within a 
specified period of time. The balanced budget amendment achieves that 
result, although, as I have noted on several occasions, not without a 
great deal of pain.
  The resolution before us attempts to establish priorities between 
balancing the budget and a middle-class tax cut.
  I serve on the Finance Committee. Provisions to implement a middle-
class tax cut will come before that committee in the near future. After 
hearings and after due consideration, I and the other members of the 
Finance Committee will determine whether a middle-class tax cut should 
be enacted and what form it should take. After the committee takes 
action, each and every Member of this body will have a chance to 
express their view on the proposed middle-class tax cuts, if in fact, 
the committee forwards such cuts to the full Senate for their 
consideration.
  The working citizens of Montana would benefit from a middle-class tax 
cut. At the same time, they have expressed to me time and again that 
deficit reduction is their primary concern. The issue I and my 
colleagues will face on the Finance Committee is whether we can 
accommodate both a reduction in the deficit and tax cuts for America's 
middle class.
  These priorities are properly decided by the members of the Finance 
Committee after due consideration, not by a sense-of-the-Senate 
resolution.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I think this debate is far more 
appropriate to a debate on the implementing legislation. I hope our 
fellow Senators will vote down this motion to refer. I encourage the 
distinguished Senator, who is very sincere in trying to handle deficit 
matters, to do this on the implementing legislation after the balanced 
budget amendment passes. That is the way to do it, and not at this 
particular time. If the balanced budget amendment does not pass, then 
he has plenty of other vehicles to try and make his points known.
  There are many of us who believe that tax cuts actually increase 
revenues to the Federal Government. That was proven during the 
eighties. Had we not passed all kinds of additional spending programs 
as part of a deal made in order to get the marginal tax rate 
reductions, we would have had an even greater economic expansion. As it 
was, every time President Reagan wanted marginal tax cuts reduced, 
Congress added a bunch of spending programs on the side as part of the 
bills. As a result, we still had more revenues, but we had even greater 
spending increases than revenue increases. Of course, part of those 
increases were defense and national security spending.
  I am not here to assess blame on anybody. All I am saying is that 
many of us believe that tax rate reductions done in the appropriate and 
proper way actually create more opportunities for working people, more 
savings, more investment, more jobs, and more people working, and 
therefore, more people paying into the system.
  So, having said that, I hope that our fellow Senators will realize 
that this is not the time to pass on a status quo tax policy method of 
implementing the balanced budget amendment as embodied in this motion, 
but this is a time to stand up for the balanced budget amendment. Let 
us stay on the beam, let us stay on the ball. Let us stay focused on 
what has to be done.
  Has the distinguished Senator yielded back the remainder of his time? 
I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Madam President, I move to table 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. The question now occurs on agreeing to the 
motion to lay on the table the motion to refer House Joint Resolution 1 
to the Budget Committee with instructions. The yeas and nays have been 
ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 66, nays 32, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 67 Leg.]

                                YEAS--66

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bond
     Bradley
     Brown
     Bryan
     Burns
     Campbell
     Coats
     Cochran
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kempthorne
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
      [[Page S2627]] Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--32

     Akaka
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Chafee
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Levin
     Moseley-Braun
     Murray
     Nunn
     Packwood
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Wellstone

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kassebaum
     Moynihan
       
  So the motion to lay on the table the motion to refer House Joint 
Resolution 1 to the Budget Committee with instructions was agreed to.
                           Amendment No. 241

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order of the Senate, we 
will now resume consideration of amendment No. 241, offered by the 
Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Hollings.
  The Chair recognizes the Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, let me emphasize that this is not 
intended to delay the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. 
In fact, we have agreed to an hour and a half time limit. My amendment 
is drafted so that, if adopted, it will be engrossed separately by the 
States, and therefore voted on separately by the States, so it will not 
kill the balanced budget amendment. In other words we are not trying to 
delay or are confuse.
  Madam President, let me go to the history of this, because I was 
there. In the 1968 race for President, the distinguished former 
Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans, he came to my State and he said: 
Now, you textile leaders, you all have to contribute $35,000 apiece for 
the Presidential race. He raised $350,000.
  I had been in Government 20 years. I had been elected Lieutenant 
Governor, I had been elected Governor, and they were my friends, and 
they never got up $350,000 for this Senator.
  I remember this course of events well. In the Presidential campaign 
of 1968, the Nixon folks went all of the county to the rich and asked 
that they contribute to the campaign. One fellow from Chicago gave $2 
million. There were several others who gave $400,000 and $500,000. 
Following the election, John Connally went to President Nixon and said, 
``Mr. President, there have been some real valued contributors, 
substantial contributors, and they have not even met you or been 
thanked by you.'' They agreed that the President would come down the 
next week to the ranch in Texas for a barbecue. As that week arrived 
and they were turning into the barbecue at the Texas ranch, Dick Tuck, 
the prankster from the Kennedy days, put a Brink's truck by the gate. 
Then they got a picture of it. We were all embarrassed: The public 
thought the Government was up for sale.
  Madam President, it has gotten worse. Back in 1974, in a bipartisan 
fashion--I remember the debate well--we amended the Federal Election 
Campaign Practices Act. With these amendments we said the Government is 
not up for sale. You cannot receive cash. Every dollar must be on top 
of the table, accounted for here at the Secretary of the Senate and the 
Secretary of State back in your home State. You can only get $1,000 
individually, $5,000 by way of a PAC and you will be limited to so much 
per voter. Most importantly, the total expenditures of the campaign 
would be limited. In the State of South Carolina it would be about 
$500,000, half a million dollars. But in the State of California or 
Texas it would be, of course, millions.
  I say it has gotten worse. But let me emphasize, we had a strong vote 
on the Federal Election Campaign Practices Act in 1974 and our good 
friend, the distinguished Senator from New York at that time, Senator 
Jim Buckley--and I speak affectionately because his father contributed 
to my races, William F. Buckley, Sr. --but Jim said: Oh, no, I am going 
to sue the Senate. You can't limit what I spend on my races. You have 
taken away my speech.
  And in a very distorted decision, a contorted decision, the Supreme 
Court agreed. By the Courts decision in Buckley versus Valeo, rather 
than freedom of speech under the first amendment, for individuals and 
people, the Supreme Court gave freedom of speech to the rich. Freedom 
to those with money, rather than to the people. The Court essentially 
took the speech away from the poor.
  For example, if I have $1 million and you have $50,000, I wait until 
the first week of October and then I just offload--spending all my 
money on television, signs, radio, farmer shows, talk shows and 
everything I can possibly think of. And whoever I am running against, 
their friends and family say, ``I wonder why he does not answer.''
  You do not answer because you do not have the money. It takes 
literally millions of dollars now.
  It seems like somehow somewhere there would be some shame in this 
body. I have tried over the last 20 years. You can not offer a joint 
resolution as an amendment to a bill. It seems that in every Congress 
there were always campaign reform bills, but I could not offer my joint 
resolutions to them. Offering joint resolutions to bills is barred by 
the rules.
  These campaign reform bills usually included some form of public 
financing. That always lead to gridlock. It appears we are not going 
the way of public financing. I hope not, with a $4.85 trillion deficit. 
We are not going to find a new mission for the taxpayer--that of 
financing politicians. So we are not going to do that. We have to 
control campaign expenditures. We have to somehow control it. For 
heaven's sake, we have tried, and it has been bipartisan.
  I thank my distinguished colleague from the other side, the 
distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, and the 
others who cosponsored and willingly voted to help in this particular 
cause.
  My amendment does not say what the limits would be. I would 
contemplate going back to what we intended, namely, limiting spending 
to so much per voter in each State; the small States the smaller amount 
of money and the large States the larger amount of money. But now today 
you have to raise $13,200 each and every week of a six year term for 
the average Senator to get reelected--$13,200 a week. He is in 
business, not to legislate, not to debate, not to listen, not to 
discuss, not to hear, but by gosh to track down everybody he can and 
pick their pockets--$13,200 a week.
  I heard the distinguished Senator from California, who was just 
reelected, say with her contributions and with the party contributions, 
it took her $19 million to run. Senator Feinstein would admit that. Her 
opponent, Mr. Huffington, spent almost $30 million.
  This is a disgrace. Do not come in here with this ``ying yow" about, 
yes, it is a good idea, but not on the balanced budget amendment. It is 
just our opportunity. We have had time and time again votes on my 
amendment. We had a vote on this particular matter back in 1988. We got 
52 votes. We brought it up again later in that same year and we got a 
vote of 53 votes, and, on May 27 of 1993 we got 52 votes for a Sense-
of-the-Senate resolution expressing that the Senate should adopt this 
amendment.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous 
consent request?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes. I yield.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my friend.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 30 minutes designated 
to me be designated to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let us be done with the phony charge 
that spending limits are somehow an attack on freedom of speech. This 
is false. If anything the Courts decision is an attach on free speech. 
As Justice Marshall points out in his dissent the Court's decision 
actually limits the speech of those with less money. Justice Marshall 
states, and I quote:

       It would appear to follow that the candidate with the 
     substantial personal fortune at his disposal is off to a 
     significant head start.

  Indeed, Mr. President, Justice Marshall went further when he argued 
that by upholding the limits on contributions but striking down the 
limits on 
 [[Page S2628]] overall spending, the Court put an additional premium 
on a candidate's personal wealth.
  The effect of this decision was discussed before a hearing that we 
held in the Judiciary Committee. We have had several hearings. At one 
of those hearings, back in 1988, the Committee on the Constitutional 
System's Lloyd Cutler appeared, and he said and I quote:

       Along with Senator Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Mr. 
     Douglas Dillon, I am a co-chairman of the Committee on the 
     Constitutional System, a group of 700 present and former 
     legislators, Executive branch officials, political party 
     officials, professors and civic leaders who are interested in 
     analyzing and correcting some of the weaknesses that have 
     developed in our political system.

  Quoting further:

       The courts approved the Presidential Campaign Financing 
     Fund created by the '76 amendments, including the condition 
     it imposed barring any Presidential nominee who accepted the 
     public funds from spending more than a specified limit. 
     However, it remains unconstitutional for Congress to place 
     any limits on expenditures by independent committees or on 
     behalf of a candidate. In recent Presidential elections, 
     these independent expenditures on behalf of one candidate 
     exceeds the amounts of Federal funding he accepted. Moreover, 
     so long as Congress remains deadlocked on proposed 
     legislation for the public financing of congressional 
     campaigns, it is not possible to use the public financing 
     device as a means of limiting congressional campaign 
     expenditures.
       Accordingly, the Committee on the Constitutional System has 
     come to the conclusion that the only effective way to limit 
     the explosive growth of campaign financing is to adopt a 
     constitutional amendment.

  Mr. President, In reality my amendment really restores the freedom of 
speech. If you have money, you have unlimited speech. If you do not 
have money, you have the freedom to shut up, say nothing.
  I can tell you, the last five amendments to the Constitution itself 
dealt with elections and all were ratified by three-fourths of the 
States in an average of 17 months. If we adopt this today the states 
can ratify it and we can enforce limits on campaign expenditures for 
the 1996 elections.
  My amendment, if effect, gets us back to an even playing field where 
everyone has the same freedom, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, 
conservative or liberal or otherwise.
  With respect to incumbency, I think we have learned from the last 
election that--at least we Democrats have learned--it does not pay to 
be an incumbent. I can tell you that right now. There were 10 Senators 
that were here last year that are not here today.
  Right to the point, Mr. President, for 20 years Congress has been 
like a dog chasing its tail. We have tried to correct Buckley versus 
Valeo. We have had, time and time again, debates on all forms of 
campaign reform. Again and again and again, it does not go anywhere. 
When it looks as if it is going somewhere, it is threatened with the 
veto. Here, with this particular approach, there is no veto. The 
amendment would go directly to the States.
  I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the effort by the 
Senator from South Carolina. I think that, at a minimum, we have to 
limit the amount individuals can contribute to their own campaigns. The 
Senator's analysis is very clear that in order to do that, given 
Buckley versus Valeo, we must have a constitutional amendment.
  Mr. President, my own personal view is that the problem that lies at 
the heart of the political process is the money in the political 
process. There is no doubt that this is true. And I believe that while 
the Senator's amendment is necessary, and a constitutional amendment is 
necessary to achieve the end of preventing those with enormous 
resources from buying elections, I do not think it is sufficient. I 
support it because I think it is an important step that plugs up one 
gigantic loophole in this process that allows those with means to buy 
the microphone. When you have a system where only the rich can buy paid 
media in sizable amounts, you directly impede political equality. That 
is what has happened, and this is the only way under our current 
circumstances to change that.
  Mr. President, if we do this amendment and leave all the rest there, 
we still have a major problem: too much money in politics. So I offer, 
in support of the amendment and in addition to the amendment--and a 
very simple idea that our only way to get money out of politics is to 
get money out of politics--two very simple proposals. One, that anybody 
in America, on their Federal income tax form, above their tax 
liability, can designate an additional $200 to go to a political fund. 
In July, or at sometime after the primary election for Federal office 
in a particular State, that fund is divided between Republican, 
Democrat, and/or qualified independent, and the only money that is 
permissible is the money from that fund. And the money in that fund can 
only be contributed from citizens in your State.
  If citizens in a particular State chose to give very little, they 
would be less informed, no doubt in my mind. They would be less 
informed, but they would be in charge. And the system would adjust. 
And, who knows, maybe we would end up with a system in which attack ads 
would go and public discourse would grow. Unless we are prepared to 
cross the path to the side that says the only money available is money 
contributed by citizens in your State--no PAC's, no party conduits, no 
big contributors, and no wealthy individuals able to buy the means and 
the microphone in an election --unless we are prepared to do all of 
that, we are just kidding ourselves. We are going to be arguing around 
the edges about this political reform or that political reform. But 
unless we take, I think, this radical step, we will not end money in 
politics. It is as simple as that.
  So the Senator's effort is not only laudable but central to getting 
control of the democratic process.
  I see the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania is on the floor and 
is going to speak, and he has the opportunity, given what his 
activities are these days on the national scene, to champion 
fundamental campaign finance reform. I hope that we will cross that 
line and say: No individual contributions, no big contributions, no 
PAC's, no party conduits, and no millionaires buying elections. You can 
put up to $200 above your tax liability into a fund several months 
prior to the general election, which is divided among Republicans and 
Democrats and qualified independents, and that is the only money; it is 
only the money from tax returns in your State. If we do not do 
something that radical, we will not have fundamental campaign finance 
reform.
  I salute the Senator for his amendment.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield whatever time necessary to my 
distinguished cosponsor, the Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by the 
distinguished Senator from South Carolina. This is an issue which we 
have raised repeatedly on the floor of the U.S. Senate, because it is a 
direct way to deal with campaign finance reform without having a 
further burden on the Treasury of the United States.
  We have debated campaign finance reform repeatedly in a variety of 
contexts. Most of them come down to a proposition to have Federal 
subsidies for candidates and then to call upon the candidates to 
relinquish their rights under Buckley versus Valeo in order to qualify 
for Federal funding. I have opposed such Federal funding because I 
think it is unwise to further burden the Treasury by having campaigns 
paid for by the U.S. Treasury.
  The necessity for this amendment was created by the decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United States in 1976 in Buckley versus Valeo. 
That particular decision had a very significant impact on this Senator, 
because at that time I was running for the U.S. Senate. Under the 1974 
statute, there was a limited amount a candidate for the Senate could 
spend of his or her own money, based on population.
  When I entered the race in late 1975, for a seat which was then being 
vacated by a very distinguished U.S. Senator, Senator Hugh Scott, the 
Federal law said that, on a population basis, a candidate in a primary 
in Pennsylvania would be limited to $35,000. That was about the limit 
of the means which I had at that time, having been extensively in 
public service as district attorney of Philadelphia and for a 
relatively short period of time in the private practice of law. Halfway 
through that campaign, on January 29, 1976, the 
 [[Page S2629]] Supreme Court of the United States said that the 
limitation on what an individual could spend of his or her own money 
was unconstitutional.
  At that time, I was running against a very distinguished 
Pennsylvanian, the late Senator John Heinz, with whom I served in this 
body for many, many years. Senator Heinz had substantially more 
financial capabilities and, as was appropriate under the law, utilized 
the invalidation of the spending limit at that time.
  It has always seemed to me that Congress ought to have the authority 
to establish a spending limit in Federal elections without regard to 
the first amendment limitation which was applied by the Supreme Court 
in Buckley versus Valeo.
  In approaching this matter, Mr. President, I am very concerned about 
amending the first amendment to the United States Constitution--freedom 
of speech, religion, press, assembly. But the amendment that we are 
talking about really does not go to any of these core first amendment 
values. This is not a matter affecting religion. It is not a matter 
really affecting speech.
  I think it was a very far stretch when the split Court of the U.S. 
Supreme Court said that a campaign expenditure for an individual was a 
matter of freedom of speech. At that time, the Supreme Court did not 
affect the limitation on spending where an individual could contribute 
only $1,000 in the primary and $1,000 in the general, except for 
contributions by PAC's, political action committees.
  At that time, in 1976, my brother had considerably more financial 
means than I did and would have been very much interested in helping 
his younger brother, but the limitation on my brother in that primary 
was for $1,000. It seemed to me then and it seems to me now that if a 
candidate has the right to spend as much of his or her money as he or 
she chooses, then why should not any other citizen have the same right 
under the first amendment to express himself or herself by the 
political contributions.
  So the decision by the Supreme Court in Buckley versus Valeo, I 
submit, was a unusual one and I think not well founded. And within our 
framework of Government we can change that by having this amendment at 
this time.
  I discussed this matter earlier today with my distinguished colleague 
from South Carolina. We talked about the procedural aspect of offering 
legislation to come up through the Judiciary Committee and at this 
time, on this resolution, it is an appropriate field to deal with this 
matter. And as we are dealing with the constitutional amendment for a 
balanced budget, we can deal with the constitutional issue raised in 
Buckley versus Valeo.
  This year, Mr. President, I am undertaking another venture at the 
present time, exploratory travel looking toward the Republican 
nomination for President of the United States. And I am impressed again 
with how important fundraising is and how disproportionate it is to the 
undertaking for a political candidacy.
  My idea about running for elective office, Mr. President, is a matter 
of issues, a matter of tenacity, a matter of integrity, and how you 
conduct a campaign. But money has become the dominant issue in the 
Presidential campaign. And the media focus on it to the virtual 
exclusion of the many issues of substantive matters which are really 
involved in a campaign for the candidacy for the Presidency.
  So I think that the amendment which is now pending will leave it up 
to the Congress of the United States to decide what campaign finance 
limitations should be, authority which we have under the Constitution. 
Under a constitutional provision, the Congress does have the authority 
to deal with this issue. Article 1, section 4, of the Constitution 
specifically vests the authority in Congress to regulate national 
elections.
  Absent the decision in Buckley versus Valeo, we would have that 
authority. Similarly, State legislatures would also have the authority 
to regulate their own campaigns if Buckley versus Valeo were not the 
law of the land.
  In essence, Mr. President, I think that Buckley was wrongly decided. 
I think that it has limited the Congress in regulating the expenditure 
of funds. Money is too important in elections for the House of 
Representatives, for the U.S. Senate, as well as for the Presidency of 
the United States.
  So I hope we will have an affirmative vote. The last time this matter 
came up in a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, it was passed. And if we 
could pass it here today, I think it would be a very, very important 
step forward for reform to eliminate money as a dominant factor in so 
many elections.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from 
Pennsylvania, because he has given a real life example of the 
frustration that we have.
  Let me yield so the other side can respond.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this need not be a lengthy debate. I 
would be more than happy to yield back whatever time I may have left if 
the Senator from South Carolina would like to do the same. We have been 
over this turf before.
  I want to commend the Senator from South Carolina for understanding 
and realizing that all of the campaign finance reform bills we have 
dealt with in recent years have been unconstitutional. So at least the 
Senator from South Carolina understands that the proposals that have 
been kicking around here for the last 5 or 6 years clearly trash the 
first amendment.
  But I would say where I differ with the Senator from South Carolina 
is not in his judgment about the fact that the campaign finance reform 
bills that we have dealt with were unconstitutional --and they clearly 
were--but the Senator now says we ought to amend the first amendment. 
We ought to change the first amendment to the Constitution for the 
first time in 200 years.
  And by suggesting that, Mr. President, my good friend from South 
Carolina has managed to come up with a proposal that even Common Cause 
is against and the Washington Post is against. So we have two entities 
that have been in the forefront of calling for campaign finance reform. 
Common Cause, a leading outside interest group, special interest group, 
advocating a campaign finance reform, says amending the first amendment 
is a bad idea, so they oppose the Hollings proposal. And the Washington 
Post, which has clearly been interested in seeing a campaign finance 
reform bill, also opposes amending the first amendment.
  So Mr. President, I would submit a letter of a few years back by 
Common Cause opposing the Hollings constitutional amendment and ask 
unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                 Common Cause,

                                   Washington, DC, March 23, 1988.
       Dear Senator: The Senate is expected to consider shortly 
     S.J. Res. 21, a proposed amendment to the Constitution to 
     give Congress the power to enact mandatory limits on 
     expenditures in campaigns. Common Cause urges you not to 
     support S.J. Res. 21.
       The fundamental problems caused by the massive growth in 
     spending for congressional elections and by special interest 
     PAC giving demand effective and expeditious solution. The 
     Senate recently came within a handful of votes of achieving 
     this goal. For the first time since the Watergate period, a 
     majority of Senators went on record in support of 
     comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation, including 
     a system of spending limits for Senate races. It took an 
     obstructionist filibuster by a minority of Senators to block 
     the bill from going forward.
       The Senate now stands within striking distance of enacting 
     comprehensive legislation to deal with the urgent problems 
     that confront the congressional campaign finance system. The 
     Senate should not walk away from or delay this effort. But 
     that is what will happen if the Senate chooses to pursue a 
     constitutional amendment, an inherently lengthy and time-
     consuming process.
       S.J. Res. 21, the proposed constitutional amendment, would 
     not establish expenditure limits in campaigns; it would only 
     empower the Congress to do so. Thus even if two-thirds of the 
     Senate and the House should pass S.J. Res. 21 and three-
     quarters of the states were to ratify the amendment, it would 
     then still be necessary for the Senate and the House to pass 
     legislation to establish spending limits in congressional 
     campaigns.
       Yet it is this very issue of whether there should be 
     spending limits in congressional 
      [[Page S2630]] campaigns that has been at the heart of the 
     recent legislative battle in the Senate. Opponents of S. 2, 
     the Senatorial Election Campaign Act, made very clear that 
     their principal objection was the establishment of any 
     spending limits in campaigns.
       So even assuming a constitutional amendment were to be 
     ratified, after years of delay the Senate would find itself 
     right back where it is today--in a battle over whether there 
     should be spending limits in congressional campaigns. In the 
     interim, it is almost certain that nothing would have been 
     done to deal with the scandalous congressional campaign 
     finance system.
       There are other serious questions that need to be 
     considered and addressed by anyone who is presently 
     considering supporting S.J. Res. 21.
       For example, what are the implications if S.J. Res. 21 
     takes away from the federal courts any ability to determine 
     that particular expenditure limits enacted by Congress 
     discriminate against or otherwise violate the constitutional 
     rights of challengers?
       What are the implications, if any, of narrowing by 
     constitutional amendment the First Amendment rights of 
     individuals as interpreted by the Supreme Court?
       We believe that campaign finance reform legislation must 
     continue to be a top priority for the Senate as it has been 
     in the 100th Congress. If legislation is not passed this 
     year, it should be scheduled for early action in the Senate 
     and the House in 1989.
       In conclusion, Common Cause strongly urges the Senate to 
     face up to its institutional responsibilities to reform the 
     disgraceful congressional campaign finance system. The Senate 
     should enact comprehensive legislation to establish a system 
     of campaign spending limits and aggregate PAC limits, instead 
     of pursuing a constitutional amendment that will delay 
     solving this fundamental problem for years and then still 
     leave Congress faced with the need to pass legislation to 
     limit campaign spending.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Fred Wertheimer,
                                                        President.

  Mr. McCONNELL. And also, an editorial in the Washington Post also 
opposing the Hollings constitutional amendment. I ask unanimous consent 
that the editorial be printed in the Record, as well.
  There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 6, 1988]

                            Campaign Spinach

       Sen. Ernest Hollings was not an admirer of S. 2, the sturdy 
     bill his fellow Democrats tried to pass to limit 
     congressional campaign spending by setting up a system of 
     partial public finance. He agreed to vote for cloture, to 
     break a Republican filibuster, only after Majority Leader 
     Robert Byrd agreed to bring up a Hollings constitutional 
     amendment if cloture failed. Mr. Byrd, having lost on S. 2, 
     is now about to do that.
       Right now Congress can't just limit spending and be done 
     with it; the Supreme Court says such legislation would 
     violate the First Amendment. Limits can only be imposed 
     indirectly--for example, as a condition for receipt of public 
     campaign funds. The Hollings amendment would cut through this 
     thick spinach by authorizing Congress to impose limits 
     straightaway. The limits are enticing, but the constitutional 
     amendment is a bad idea. It would be an exception to the free 
     speech clause, and once that clause is breached for one 
     purpose, who is to say how many others may follow? As the 
     American Civil Liberties Union observed in opposing the 
     measure, about the last thing the country needs is ``a second 
     First Amendment.''
       The free speech issue arises in almost any effort to 
     regulate campaigns, the fundamental area of free expression 
     on which all others depend. There has long been the feeling 
     in and out of Congress--which we emphatically share--that 
     congressional campaign spending is out of hand. Congress 
     tried in one of the Watergate reforms to limit both the 
     giving and the spending of campaign funds. The Supreme Court 
     in its Buckley v. Valeo decision in 1976 drew a rather 
     strained distinction between these two sides of the campaign 
     ledger. In a decision that let it keep a foot in both camps--
     civil liberties and reform--it said Congress could limit 
     giving but not spending (except in the context of a system of 
     public finance). In the first case the court found that ``the 
     governmental interest in preventing corruption and the 
     appearance of corruption'' outweighed the free speech 
     considerations, while in the second case it did not.
       Mr. Hollings would simplify the matter, but at considerable 
     cost. His amendment said, in a recent formulation: ``The 
     Congress may enact laws regulating the amounts of 
     contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections 
     to federal offices.'' But that's much too vague, and so are 
     rival amendments that have been proposed. Ask yourself what 
     expenditures of a certain kind in an election year are not 
     ``intended to affect'' the outcome? At a certain point in the 
     process, just about any public utterance is.
       Nor would the Hollings amendment be a political solution to 
     the problem. Congress would still have to vote the limits, 
     and that is what the Senate balked at this time around.
       As Buckley v. Valeo demonstrates, this is a messy area of 
     law. The competing values are important; they require a 
     balancing act. The Hollings amendment, in trying instead to 
     brush the problem aside, is less a solution than a dangerous 
     show. The Senate should vote it down.

  Mr. McCONNELL. So, Mr. President, what the Senator from South 
Carolina is proposing here is that not only the Federal Government but 
State governments, reading from the amendment, ``have the power to set 
reasonable limits on expenditures made in support of or in opposition 
to the nomination or election of any person to Federal office.''
  Now, Mr. President, it should not be a surprise to anyone that the 
American Civil Liberties Union also thinks this is a terrible idea. Not 
only do they think it is a terrible idea with regard to the power that 
would be granted to limit speech of candidates, the provision I just 
made reference to, which said ``in support of or in opposition to the 
nomination or election of any person to Federal office,'' but would 
also give to the Congress the power to do the following.
  And, Mr. President, I read from an opinion of the American Civil 
Liberties Union, which says:
  ``Finally, as an amendment subsequent to the First Amendment, the 
existing understandings about the protection of freedom of the press 
would also be changed''--freedom of the press would also be changed--
``thereby empowering Congress to regulate what newspapers and 
broadcasters can do on behalf of the candidates they endorse or oppose. 
A candidate-centered editorial, as well as op-ed articles or 
commentary, are certainly expenditures in support of or in opposition 
to political candidates. The amendment, as its words make apparent,'' 
says the American Civil Liberties Union, ``would authorize Congress to 
set reasonable limits on the involvement of the media in campaigns when 
not strictly reporting the news. Such a result would be intolerable in 
a society that relishes a free press.''
  So the proposal we have before us, Mr. President, first, amends the 
first amendment for the first time in history. And many people feel 
that is not a good idea; that the first amendment has served us well.
  The second manages to draw the opposition of even the principal 
advocates of campaign finance reform, Common Cause and the Washington 
Post, and, also, Mr. President, even though this issue in the past was 
quite partisan--most Republicans opposing it, most Democrats supporting 
it--the following Senators on the other side of the aisle voted against 
this proposal when it was last offered in May 1993.
  I want to commend those Senators publicly for respecting the first 
amendment, for agreeing--although they like the idea of a campaign 
finance reform bill--with Members that amending the Constitution of the 
United States, amending the first amendment for the first time in 
history, was a terrible idea. Senator Boxer agreed with that 
proposition, Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, Senator Kohl, Senator Leahy, 
Senator Mikulski, Senator Moynihan, Senator Pell, and Senator 
Rockefeller, all, even though I know they basically supported the 
various campaign finance reform bills proposed by those on the other 
side of the aisle, agreed with this Senator and the ACLU and Common 
Cause and the Washington Post that amending the first amendment to the 
U.S. Constitution for the first time in history was a terrible idea.
  So, Mr. President, at the appropriate time I will be making a motion 
to table, and I hope that Senators will certainly agree that no matter 
how they may feel about passing some kind of campaign finance reform 
bill or another--and we certainly have had our differences on that 
issue--no matter how they may feel about that, it is not a good idea to 
amend the Constitution, to amend the first amendment to the 
Constitution for the first time in history.
  Now, with regard to the Buckley case on the question of whether 
spending is speech, the Supreme Court was clear. My recollection was 
that eight out of nine members of the Supreme Court said spending is 
speech. So there is not any question that this is an amendment about 
speech. No matter whether some Senators wish spending were not speech 
or not, the Supreme Court has said that spending is speech. So no 
matter how much some Senators may 
 [[Page S2631]] wish that the Court had not said that, no matter how 
much some Senators wish the Buckley case was decided otherwise, the 
fact of the matter is the Supreme Court has said spending is speech.
  So this amendment, Mr. President, is about amending the first 
amendment to the Constitution for the first time in history. So I hope 
that this will be defeated on a bipartisan basis, because it is really 
quite a terrible idea.
  Mr. President, I will retain the remainder of my time should I need 
it, and I yield the floor at this point.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I enjoyed references to Senators and 
their votes. It is not necessarily Dale Carnegie's approach to winning 
friends and influencing people. I am in the business of trying to 
obtain votes. So I necessarily try my best to resist the record.
  The distinguished Senator from Kentucky made a record and he talks 
about the first time we amended the first amendment. Well, this is the 
first time an amendment would do it.
  Now, the fact of the matter is, on October 19, 1989, 5 years ago or a 
little more, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky voted with the 
majority--it did not get two-thirds--but the distinguished Senator from 
Kentucky voted to amend the first amendment with respect to burning the 
flag of the United States of America.
  I would be delighted to yield. I am looking at this record. If the 
record is incorrect, I would be delighted to yield.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank my friend from South Carolina 
for yielding.
  We have had this same colloquy before. The Senator from South 
Carolina raised this the last time we had this discussion, and the 
Senator from South Carolina, I am sure, recalls my reply. My reply was, 
``If I had to do it over again, I would have voted differently.'' In 
fact, upon reflection, my view is that I am sure the Senator from South 
Carolina, in his history here, has never cast a vote that he regretted, 
but I have not been so fortunate as to never having regretted a vote I 
cast here. The Senator from South Carolina and I had this exchange the 
last time we had this debate, and he, I am sure, recalls that I said 
that I thought I had made a mistake in voting that way on the flag-
burning amendment, and should such an amendment come before Members 
again, I would not so vote again.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the question is not whether it is a 
mistake. The question is whether it is a fact that a majority of the 
U.S. Senate, 51 Senators, duly elected and voting, voted at that 
particular time to amend the first amendment with respect to burning 
the flag of the United States of America.
  There have been other votes to amend the first amendment. Of course, 
we have had a majority vote on this amendment at least three times. The 
truth of the matter is, and the reality is, and the fact is, that the 
Supreme Court in Buckley versus Valeo amended the first amendment.
  I mean, after all, it was a 5-4 decision. If we get down to it we 
know that, yes, it limits spending, it limits speech. Speech is equated 
with spending. For those who have money, they can talk all they want. 
For those who do not, they do not have the freedom of speech. Those who 
do not have the money are limited.
  Of course, the Buckley versus Valeo decision found nothing wrong with 
limiting speech because they said the $1,000 was constitutional for an 
individual contribution; the $5,000 for political action committees was 
also constitutional. So everybody wants to act like we are making some 
kind of history and changing it around.
  When we had the other constitutional amendments affecting elections, 
they refer, of course, to the matter of elections on term limits. That 
is the 22d amendment. The 23d amendment, the electoral votes in 
Presidential elections. The 24th amendment, elimination of the poll tax 
with respect to voting. And the 26th amendment gave 18-year-olds the 
right to speak. Someone could give the same argument that 18-year-olds 
did not have the right to speak under the Constitution in elections. 
But then they were given the freedom of speech at 18 years of age.
  We are dealing with elections and campaign financing. It is totally a 
shame and disgrace. Absolute shame and disgrace. I will never forget 
the feel, politically, that you get in campaigns.
  I think it is very healthy, Mr. President, to go back on to the main 
street and walk up and down both sides and see the same merchants that 
you saw. You asked for their vote. You made certain promises, I guess, 
certain representations. You told them about your beliefs and what you 
stand for. You go out into the rural areas to the farmers. You visited 
around in the hospitals, the doctors, and everything else of that kind.
  That is the way we politic in the small State of South Carolina. Of 
course, it is totally impossible in large New York or large California. 
I am not contending that it is. But right after the last election in 
1992, just a couple of years ago, I went around to each one of the 
counties and we had town meetings, and I made the call.
  My friends kept asking, they say, ``Why are you coming around? You 
just got elected. You got 6 years.'' And I said, ``I couldn't see you 
in the campaign. I didn't have time. I had to go raise money.'' On and 
on and on. It is just like a veritable treadmill you get these campaign 
managers, consultants, and otherwise, they will break that time down 
for you. They will break down when you are going to talk and have your 
early morning for the farmers and when you will have time when the 
students come back to the university campuses and most importantly when 
you will raise money.
  This is all sophisticated. It is all tried. It is understandable and 
it is part of the game. It is very, very, very expensive. To get around 
and really expose yourself, you do not have time to talk to people 
unless you are asking for their money and being nice and making the 
obligatory appearances at debates and certain programs and you try to 
generate free television.
  The distinguished Senator from New Jersey came forward with a nice 
idea, if it could work. I question it. The premise of the distinguished 
Senator from New Jersey is that the people of New Jersey and the people 
of South Carolina are just as interested in the elections as the 
Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from South Carolina. I doubt 
it.
  We just had an election in my State about 10 days ago, a special 
election. Out of some 180,000 voters, only 6,000 cast votes. It was on 
radio; it was on TV. Signs were plastered all over, and everything else 
like that. But we have less participation--and it is getting worse in 
this particular country--less than 50 percent. You get, in Australia 
and other countries, almost 100 percent voting.
  So the recommendation of the distinguished Senator from New Jersey to 
check-off for elections themselves to finance politics, I tell you now, 
that is a tough one, that is a very, very tough one. I can see that 
would have very limited chance to really be heard.
  Eighty percent of your money is expended on television. We have had 
different proposals of free TV. After all, the people of America own 
the airwaves. With the people of America owning these airwaves, it 
seems as if we can allocate some to public office and the attaining of 
public office. Each side would have so much free television. We have 
tried that approach. We have tried financing; we have tried voluntarily 
putting up so much money. We have tried any number of other solutions. 
They have all failed.
  Like I say, it has been a dog chasing its tail because we know that 
none of these particular bills will pass because every one of them runs 
into that unconstitutional decision, Buckley v. Valeo. There is not any 
question that that is a distortion.
  I ask unanimous consent to have a very good article by former 
Congressman Jonathan Bingham, of New York inserted into the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From Annals of the American Academy, July 1986]

  Democracy of Plutocracy? The Case for a Constitutional Amendment To 
                       Overturn Buckley v. Valeo

                         (By Jonathan Bingham)

       Abstract: In the early 1970s the U.S. Congress made a 
     serious effort to stop the abuses 
      [[Page S2632]] of campaign financing by setting limits on 
     contributions and also on campaign spending. In the 1976 case 
     of Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court upheld the regulation 
     of contributions, but invalidated the regulation of campaign 
     spending as a violation of the First Amendment. Since then, 
     lavish campaigns, with their attendant evils, have become an 
     ever more serious problem. Multimillion-dollar campaigns for 
     the Senate, and even for the House of Representatives, have 
     become commonplace. Various statutory solutions to the 
     problem have been proposed, but these will not be adequate 
     unless the Congress--and the states--are permitted to stop 
     the escalation by setting limits. What is needed is a 
     constitutional amendment to reverse the Buckley holding, as 
     proposed by several members of Congress. This would not mean 
     a weakening of the Bill of Rights, since the Buckley ruling 
     was a distortion of the First Amendment. Within reasonable 
     financial limits there is ample opportunity for that 
     ``uninhibited, robust and wide-open'' debate of the issues 
     that the Supreme Court correctly wants to protect.
       ``The First Amendment is not a vehicle for turning this 
     country into a plutocracy,'' says Joseph L. Rauh, the 
     distinguished civil rights lawyer, deploying the ruling in 
     Buckley v. Valeo.\1\ It is the thesis of this article that 
     the Supreme Court in Buckley was wrong in nullifying certain 
     congressional efforts to limit campaign spending and that the 
     decision must not be allowed to stand. While statutory 
     remedies may mitigate the evil of excessive money in politics 
     and are worth pursuing, they will not stop the feverish 
     escalation of campaign spending. They will also have no 
     effect whatever on the spreading phenomenon of very wealthy 
     people's spending millions of dollars of their own money to 
     get elected to Congress and to state office.
     Footnotes at end of article.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       When the Supreme Court held a national income tax 
     unconstitutional, the Sixteenth Amendment reversed that 
     decision. Buckely should be treated the same way.


                               background

       The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 was the first 
     comprehensive effort by the U.S. Congress to regulate the 
     financing of federal election campaigns. In 1974, following 
     the scandals of the Watergate era, the Congress greatly 
     strengthened the 1971 act. As amended, the new law combined 
     far-reaching requirements for disclosure with restrictions on 
     the amount of contributions, expenditures from a candidate's 
     personal funds, total campaign expenditures, and independent 
     expenditures on behalf of identified candidates.
       The report of the House Administration Committee 
     recommending the 1974 legislation to the House explained the 
     underlying philosophy:
       ``The unchecked rise in campaign expenditures, coupled with 
     the absence of limitations on contributions and expenditures, 
     has increased the dependence of candidates on special 
     interest groups and large contributors. Under the present law 
     the impression persists that a candidate can buy an election 
     by simply spending large sums in a campaign. . . .
       ``Such a system is not only unfair to candidates in 
     general, but even more so to the electorate. The electorate 
     is entitled to base its judgment on a straightforward 
     presentation of a candidate's qualifications for public 
     office and his programs for the Nation rather than on a 
     sophisticated advertising program which is encouraged by the 
     infusion of vast amounts of money.
       ``The Committee on House Administration is of the opinion 
     that there is a definite need for effective and comprehensive 
     legislation in this area to restore and strengthen public 
     confidence in the integrity of the political process.''\2\
       The 1974 act included a provision, added pursuant to an 
     amendment offered by then Senator James Buckley, for 
     expedited review of the law's constitutionality. In January 
     1976 the Supreme Court invalidated those portions that 
     imposed limits on campaign spending as violative of the First 
     Amendment's guarantee of free speech.
       In his powerful dissent, Justice White said, ``Without 
     limits on total expenditures, campaign costs will inevitably 
     and endlessly escalate.''\3\ His prediction was promptly 
     borne out. Multimillion-dollar campaigns for the Senate have 
     become the rule, with the 1984 Helms-Hunt race in North 
     Carolina setting astonishing new records. It is no longer 
     unusual for expenditures in contested House campaigns to go 
     over the million-dollar mark; in 1982 one House candidate 
     reportedly spent over $2 million of his own funds.
       In 1982 a number of representatives came to the conclusion 
     that the Buckley ruling should not be allowed to stand and 
     that a constitutional amendment was imperative. In June 
     Congressman Henry Reuss of Wisconsin introduced a resolution 
     calling for an amendment to give Congress the authority to 
     regulate campaign spending in federal elections. In December, 
     with the cosponsorship of Mr. Reuss and 11 others,\4\ I 
     introduced a broader resolution authorizing the states, as 
     well as the Congress, to impose limits on campaign spending. 
     The text of the proposed amendment was:
       ``Section 1. The Congress may enact laws regulating the 
     amounts of contributions and expenditures intended to affect 
     elections to federal office.
       ``Section 2. The several states may enact laws regulating 
     the amounts of contributions and expenditures intended to 
     affect elections to state and local offices.\5\
       In the Ninety-eighth Congress, the same resolution was 
     reintroduced by Mr. Vento and Mr. Donnelly and by Mr. Brown, 
     Democrat of California, and Mr. Rinaldo, Republican of New 
     Jersey. A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate by 
     Senator Stevens, Republican of Alaska. As of the present 
     writing, the resolution has been reintroduced in the Ninety-
     ninth Congress by Mr. Vento.\6\
       No hearings have been held on these proposals, and they 
     have attracted little attention. Even organizations and 
     commentators deeply concerned with the problem of money in 
     politics and runaway campaign spending have focused 
     exclusively on statutory remedies. Common Cause, in spite of 
     my pleading, has declined to add a proposal for a 
     constitutional amendment to its agenda for campaign reform or 
     even to hear arguments in support of the proposal. A 
     constituency for the idea has yet to be developed.


                       the nature of the problem

       This article proceeds on the assumption that escalating 
     campaign costs pose a serious threat to the quality of 
     government in this country. There are those who argue the 
     contrary, but their view of the nature of the problem is 
     narrow. They focus on the facts that the amounts of money 
     involved are not large relative to the gross national product 
     and that the number of votes on Capitol Hill that can be 
     shown to have been affected by campaign contributions is not 
     overwhelming.
       The curse of money in politics, however, is by no means 
     limited to the influencing of votes. There are at least two 
     other problems that are, if anything, even more serious. One 
     is the eroding of the present nonsystem on the public's 
     confidence in our form of democracy. If public office and 
     votes on issues are perceived to be for sale, the harm is 
     done, whether or not the facts justify that conclusion. In 
     Buckley the Supreme Court itself, in sustaining the 
     limitations on the size of political contributions, stressed 
     the importance of avoiding ``the appearance of improper 
     influence'' as ```critical . . . if confidence in the system 
     of representative government is not to be eroded to a 
     disastrous extent.'''\7\ What the Supreme Court failed to 
     recognize was that ```confidence in the system of 
     representative government''' could likewise be ```eroded to a 
     disastrous extent''' by the spectacle of lavish spending, 
     whether the source of the funds is the candidate's own wealth 
     or the result of high-pressure fund-raising from contributors 
     with an ax to grind.
       The other problem is that excellent people are discouraged 
     from running for office, or, once in, are unwilling to 
     continue wrestling with the unpleasant and degrading task of 
     raising huge sums of money year after year. There is no doubt 
     that every two years valuable members of Congress decide to 
     retire because they are fed up with having constantly to beg. 
     For example, former Congressmen Charles Vanik of Ohio and 
     Richard Ottinger of New York, both outstanding legislators, 
     were clearly influenced by such considerations when they 
     decided to retire, Vanik in 1980 and Ottinger in 1984. Vanik 
     said, among other things, ``I feel every contribution carries 
     some sort of lien which is an encumbrance on the legislative 
     process . . . I'm terribly upset by the huge amounts that 
     candidates have to raise.''\8\ Probably an even greater 
     number of men and women who would make stellar legislators 
     are discouraged from competing because they cannot face the 
     prospect of constant fundraising or because they see a 
     wealthy person, who can pay for a lavish campaign, already in 
     the race.
       In ``Politics and Money,'' Elizabeth Drew has well 
     described the poisonous effect of escalating campaign costs 
     on our political system:
       ``Until the problem of money is dealt with, it is 
     unrealistic to expect the political process to improve in any 
     other respect. It is not relevant whether every candidate who 
     spends more than his opponent wins--though in races that are 
     otherwise close, this tends to be the case. What matters is 
     what the chasing of money does to the candidates, and to the 
     victors' subsequent behavior. The candidates' desperation for 
     money and the interests' desire to affect public policy 
     provide a mutual opportunity. The issue is not how much is 
     spent on elections but the way the money is obtained. The 
     point is what raising money, not simply spending it, does to 
     the political process. It is not just that the legislative 
     product is bent or stymied. It is not just that well-armed 
     interests have a head start over the rest of the citizenry--
     or that often it is not even a contest. . . . It is not even 
     relevant which interest happens to be winning. What is 
     relevant is what the whole thing is doing to the democratic 
     process. What is at stake is the idea of representative 
     government, the soul of this country.\9\
       Focusing on the different phenomenon of wealthy candidates' 
     being able to finance their own, often successful, campaigns, 
     the late columnist Joseph Kraft commented that ``affinity 
     between personal riches and public office challenges a 
     fundamental principle of American life.''\10\
           [[Page S2633]] shortcomings of statutory proposals

       In spite of the wide agreement on the seriousness of the 
     problems, there is no agreement on the solution. Many 
     different proposals have been made by legislators, 
     academicians, commentators, and public interest 
     organizations, notably Common Cause.
       One of the most frequently discussed is to follow for 
     congressional elections the pattern adopted for presidential 
     campaigns: a system of public funding, coupled with limits on 
     spending.\11\ Starting in 1955, bills along these lines have 
     been introduced on Capitol Hill, but none has been adopted. 
     Understandably, such proposals are not popular with 
     incumbents, most of whom believe that challengers would gain 
     more from public financing than they would.
       Even assuming that the political obstacles could be 
     overcome and that some sort of public financing for 
     congressional candidates might be adopted, this financing 
     would suffer from serious weaknesses. No system of public 
     financing
      could solve the problem of the very wealthy candidate. Since 
     such candidates do not need public funding, they would not 
     subject themselves to the spending limits. The same 
     difficulty would arise when aggressive candidates, 
     believing they could raise more from private sources, 
     rejected the government funds. This result is to be 
     expected if the level of public funding is set too low, 
     that is, at a level that the constant escalation of 
     campaign costs is in the process of outrunning. According 
     to Congressman Bruce Vento, an author of the proposed 
     constitutional amendment to overturn Buckley, this has 
     tended to happen in Minnesota, where very low levels of 
     public funding are provided to candidates for state 
     office.
       To ameliorate these difficulties, some proponents of public 
     financing suggest that the spending limits that a candidate 
     who takes government funding must accept should be waived for 
     that candidate to the extent an opponent reports expenses in 
     excess of those limits. Unfortunately, in such a case one of 
     the main purposes of public funding would be frustrated and 
     the escalation of campaign spending would continue. The 
     candidate who is not wealthy is left with the fearsome task 
     of quickly having to raise additional hundreds of thousands, 
     or even millions, of dollars.
       Another suggested approach would be to require television 
     stations, as a condition of their licenses, to provide free 
     air time to congressional candidates in segments of not less 
     than, for instance, five minutes. A candidate's acceptance of 
     such time would commit the candidate to the acceptance of 
     spending limits. While such a scheme would be impractical for 
     primary contests--which in many areas are the crucial ones--
     the idea is attractive for general election campaigns in 
     mixed urban-rural states and districts. It would be 
     unworkable, however, in the big metropolitan areas, where the 
     main stations reach into scores of congressional districts 
     and, in some cases, into several states. Not only would 
     broadcasters resist the idea, but the television-viewing 
     public would be furious at being virtually compelled during 
     pre-election weeks to watch a series of talking-head shows 
     featuring all the area's campaigning senators and 
     representatives and their challengers. The offer of such 
     unpopular television time would hardly tempt serious 
     candidates to accept limits on their spending.
       Proponents of free television time, recognizing the limited 
     usefulness of the idea in metropolitan areas, have suggested 
     that candidates could be provided with free mailings instead. 
     While mailings can be pinpointed and are an essential part of 
     urban campaigning, they account for only a fraction of 
     campaign costs, even where television is not widely used; 
     accordingly, the prospect of free mailings would not be 
     likely to win the acceptance of unwelcome campaign limits on 
     total expenses.\12\
       Yet another method of persuading candidates to accept 
     spending limits would be to allow 100 percent tax credits for 
     contributions of up to, say, $100 made to authorized 
     campaigns, that is, those campaigns where the candidate has 
     agreed to abide by certain regulations, including limits on 
     total spending.\13\ It is difficult to predict how effective 
     such a system would be, and a pilot project to find out would 
     not be feasible, since the tax laws cannot be changed for 
     just one area. For candidates who raise most of their funds 
     from contributors in the $50-to-$100 range, the incentive to 
     accept spending limits would be strong, but for those--and 
     they are many--who rely principally on contributors in the 
     $500-to-$1000 range, the incentive would be much weaker. This 
     problem could be partially solved by allowing tax credits for 
     contributions of up to $100 and tax deductions for 
     contributions in excess of $100 up to the permitted limit. 
     Such proposals, of course, amount to a form of public 
     financing and hence would encounter formidable political 
     obstacles, especially at a time when budgetary restraint and 
     tax simplification are considered of top priority.
       Some of the most vocal critics of the present anarchy in 
     campaign financing focus their wrath and legislative efforts 
     on the political action committees (PACs) spawned in great 
     numbers under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974. 
     Although many PACs are truly serving the public interest, 
     others have made it easier for special interests, especially 
     professional and trade associations, to funnel funds into the 
     campaign treasuries of legislators or challengers who will 
     predictably vote for those interests. Restrictions, such as 
     limiting the total amount legislative candidates could accept 
     from PACs, would be salutary\14\ but no legislation aimed 
     primarily at the PAC phenomenon--not even legislation to 
     eliminate PACs altogether--would
      solve the problem so well summarized by Elizabeth Drew. The 
     special interests and favor-seeking individual givers would 
     find other ways of funneling their dollars into politically 
     useful channels, and the harassed members of Congress would 
       have to continue to demean themselves by constant begging.PA
     C regulation and all the other forms of statutory regulation 
     suffer from one fundamental weakness: none of them would 
     affect the multimillion-dollar self-financed campaign. Yet it 
     is this type of campaign that does more than any other to 
     confirm the widely held view that high office in the United 
     States can be bought.
       Short of a constitutional amendment, there is only one kind 
     of proposal, so far as I know, that would curb the superrich 
     candidate, as well as setting limits for others. Lloyd N. 
     Cutler, counsel to the president in the Carter White House, 
     has suggested that the political parties undertake the task 
     of campaign finance regulation.\15\ Theoretically, the 
     parties could withhold endorsement from candidates who refuse 
     to abide by the party-prescribed limits and other 
     regulations. But the chances of this happening seem just 
     about nil. Conceivably a national party convention might 
     establish such regulations for its presidential primaries, 
     but to date most contenders have accepted the limits imposed 
     under the matching system of public funding; John Connally of 
     Texas was the exception in 1980. For congressional races, 
     however, it is not at all clear what body or bodies could 
     make such rules and enforce them. Claimants to such authority 
     would include the national conventions, national committees, 
     congressional party caucuses, various state committees, and, 
     in some cases, county committees. Perhaps our national 
     parties should be more hierarchically structured, but the 
     fact is that they are not.
       On top of all this, the system would work for general 
     election campaigns only if both major parties took parallel 
     action. If by some miracle they did so, the end result might 
     be to encourage third-party and independent candidacies.
       Let me make clear that I am not opposed to any of the 
     proposals briefly summarized earlier. To the extent I had the 
     opportunity to vote for any of the statutory proposals during 
     my years in the House, I did so. Nor am I arguing that a 
     constitutional amendment by itself would solve the problem; 
     it would only be the beginning of a very difficult task. What 
     I am saying is that, short of effective action by the 
     parties, any system to reverse the present lethal trends in 
     campaign financing must have as a basic element the 
     restoration to the Congress of the authority to regulate the 
     process.


                    the merits of the buckley ruling

       The justices of the Supreme Court were all over the lot in 
     the Buckley case, with numerous dissents from the majority 
     opinion. The most significant dissent, in my view, was 
     entered by Justice White, who, alone among the justices, had 
     had extensive experience in federal campaigns. White's 
     position was that the Congress, and not the Court, was the 
     proper body to decide whether the slight interference with 
     First Amendment freedoms in the Federal Election Campaign Act 
     was warranted. Justice White reasoned as follows:
       ``The judgment of Congress was that reasonably effective 
     campaigns could be conducted within the limits established by 
     the Act. . . . In this posture of the case, there is no sound 
     basis for invalidating the expenditure limitations, so long 
     as the purposes they serve are legitimate and sufficiently 
     substantial, which in my view they are. . . . 
       ``. . . expenditure ceilings reinforce the contribution 
     limits and help eradicate the hazard of corruption. . . .
       ``Besides backing up the contribution provisions, . . . 
     expenditure limits have their own potential for preventing 
     the corruption of federal elections themselves.\16\
       Justice White further concluded that
     ``limiting the total that can be spent will ease the 
     candidate's understandable obsession with fundraising, and so 
     free him and his staff to communicate in more places and ways 
     unconnected with the fundraising function.
       ``It is also important to restore and maintain public 
     confidence in federal elections. It is critical to obviate 
     and dispel the impression that federal elections are purely 
     and simply a function of money, that federal offices are 
     bought and sold or that political races are reserved for 
     those who have the facility--and the stomach--for doing 
     whatever it takes to bring together those interests, groups, 
     and individuals that can raise or contribute large fortunes 
     in order to prevail at the polls.\17\''
       Two of the judges of the District of Columbia Circuit 
     Court, which upheld the 1974 act--judges widely respected, 
     especially for their human rights concerns--later wrote law 
     journal articles criticizing in stinging terms the Supreme 
     Court's holding that the spending limits were invalid. For 
     example, the late Judge Harold Leventhal said in the Columbia 
     Law Review:
        [[Page S2634]] ``The central question is: what is the 
     interest underlying regulation of campaign expenses and is it 
     substantial? The critical interest, in my view, is the same 
     as that accepted by the [Supreme] Court in upholding limits 
     on contributions. It is the need to maintain confidence in 
     self-government, and to prevent the erosion of democracy 
     which comes from a popular view of government as responsive 
     only or mainly to special interests.\18\
       ``A court that is concerned with public alienation and 
     distrust of the political process cannot fairly deny to the 
     people the power to tell the legislators to implement this 
     one word principle: Enough!\19\
       Here are excerpts from what Judge J. Skelly Wright had to 
     say in the Yale Law Journal:
       ``The Court told us, in effect, that money is speech.
       ``. . . [This view] accepts without question elaborate mass 
     media campaigns that have made political communications 
     expensive, but at the same time remote, disembodied, 
     occasionally . . . manipulative. Nothing in the First 
     Amendment . . . commits us to the dogma that money is 
     speech.\20\
       ``. . . far from stifling First Amendment values, [the 1974 
     act] actually promotes them . . . In place of unlimited 
     spending, the law encourages all to emphasize less expensive 
     face-to-face communications efforts, exactly the kind of 
     activities that promote real dialogue on the merits and leave 
     much less room for manipulation and avoidance of the 
     issues.\21\''
       The Supreme Court was apparently blind to these 
     considerations. Its treatment was almost entirely 
     doctrinaire. In holding unconstitutional the limits set by 
     Congress on total expenditures for congressional campaigns 
     and on spending by individual candidates, the Court did not 
     claim that the dollar limits set were unreasonably low. In 
     the view taken by the Court, such limits were beyond the 
     power of the Congress to set, no matter how high.
       Only in the case of the $1000 limit set for spending by 
     independent individuals or groups ``relative to a clearly 
     identified candidate'' did the court focus on the level set 
     in the law. The Court said that such a limit ``would appear 
     to exclude all citizens and groups except candidates, 
     political parties and the institutional press from any 
     significant use of the most effective modes of 
     communication.''\22\ In a footnote, the Court noted:
       ``The record indicates, that, as of January 1, 1975, one 
     full-page advertisement in a daily edition of a certain 
     metropolitan newspaper cost $6,971.04--almost seven times the 
     annual limit on expenditures ``relative to'' a particular 
     candidate imposed on the vast majority of individual citizens 
     and associations\23\''
       The Court devoted far more space to arguing the 
     unconstitutionality of this provision than to any of the 
     other limits, presumably because on this point it had the 
     strongest case. Judge Leventhal, too, thought the $1000 
     figure for independent spending was unduly restrictive and 
     might properly have been struck down. As one who supported 
     the 1974 act while in the House. I believe, with the benefit 
     of hindsight, that the imposition of this low limit on 
     independent expenditures was a grave mistake.
       Let us look for a moment at the question of whether 
     reasonable limits on total spending in campaigns and on 
     spending by wealthy candidates really do interfere with the 
     ``unfettered interchange of ideas,'' ``the free discussion of 
     governmental affairs,'' and the ``uninhibited, robust and 
     wide-open'' debate on public issues that the Supreme Court 
     has rightly said the First Amendment is designed to 
     protect.\24\ In Buckley the Supreme Court has answered that 
     question in the affirmative when the limits are imposed by 
     law under Congress's conceded power to regulate federal 
     elections. The Court answered the same question negatively, 
     however, when the limits were imposed as a condition of 
     public financing. In narrow legalistic terms the distinction 
     is perhaps justified, but, in terms of what is desirable or 
     undesirable under our form of government, I submit that the 
     setting of such limits is either desirable or it is not.
       Various of the solutions proposed to deal with the 
     campaign-financing problem, statutory and nonstatutory, raise 
     the same question--for example, the proposal to allow tax 
     credits only for contributions to candidates who have 
     accepted spending limits, and the proposal that political 
     parties should impose limits. All such proposals assume that 
     it is a good public policy to have such limits in place. They 
     simply seek to avoid the inhibition of the Buckley case by 
     arranging for some carrot-type motivation for the observation 
     of limits, instead of the stick-type motivation of compliance 
     with a law.
       I am not, of course, suggesting that those who make these 
     proposals are wrong to do so. What I am suggesting is that 
     they should support the idea of
      undoing the damage done by Buckley by way of a 
     constitutional amendment.
       Summing up the reason for such an amendment, Congressman 
     Henry Reuss said, ``Freedom of speech is a precious thing. 
     But protecting it does not permit someone to shout `fire' in 
     a crowded theater. Equally, freedom of speech must not be 
     stressed so as to compel democracy to commit suicide by 
     allowing money to govern elections.''\25\


           independent expenditures in presidential campaigns

       Until now the system of public financing for presidential 
     campaigns, coupled with limits on private financing, has 
     worked reasonably well. Accordingly, most of the proposals 
     mentioned previously for the amelioration of the campaign-
     financing problem have been concerned with campaigns for the 
     Senate and the House.
       In 1980 and 1984, however, a veritable explosion occurred 
     in the spending for the presidential candidates by allegedly 
     independent committees--spending that is said not to be 
     authorized by, or coordinated with, the campaign committees. 
     In both years, the Republican candidates benefited far more 
     from this type of spending than the Democratic: in 1980, the 
     respective amounts were $12.2 million and $45,000; in 1984, 
     $15.3 million and $621,000.\26\
       This spending violated section 9012(f) of the Presidential 
     Campaign Fund Act, which prohibited independent committees 
     from spending more than $1,000 to further a presidential 
     candidate's election if that candidate had elected to take 
     public financing under the terms of the act. In 1983 various 
     Democratic Party entities and the Federal Election 
     Commission, with Common Cause as a supporting amicus curiae, 
     sued to have section 9012(f) declared constitutional, so as 
     to lay the groundwork for enforcement of the act. These 
     efforts failed. Applying the Buckley precedent, the three-
     judge district court that first heard the case denied the 
     relief sought, and this ruling was affirmed in a 7-to-2 
     decision by the Supreme Court in FEC v. NCPAC in March 
     1985.\27\
       The NCPAC decision clearly strengthens the case for a 
     constitutional amendment to permit Congress to regulate 
     campaign spending. For none of the statutory or party-action 
     remedies summarized earlier would touch this new eruption of 
     the money-in-politics volcano.
       True, even with a constitutional amendment in place, it 
     would still be possible for the National Conservative 
     Political Action Committee or other committees to spend 
     unlimited amounts for media programs on one side of an issue 
     or another, and these would undoubtedly have some impact on 
     presidential--and other--campaigns. However, the straight-out 
     campaigning for an individual or a ticket, which tends to be 
     far more effective than focusing on issues alone, could be 
     brought within reasonable limits.


                             looking ahead

       The obstacles in the way of achieving a reversal of Buckley 
     by constitutional amendment are, of course, formidable. This 
     is especially true today when the House Judiciary Committee 
     is resolutely sitting on other amendments affecting the Bill 
     of Rights and is not disposed to report out any such 
     amendments.
       In addition to the practical political hurdles to be 
     overcome, there are drafting problems to solve. The simple 
     form so far proposed\28\--and quoted previously--needs 
     refinement.
       For example, if an amendment were adopted simply giving to 
     the Congress and the states the authority to ``enact laws 
     regulating the amount of contributions and expenditures 
     intended to affect elections,''\29\ the First Amendment 
     question would not necessarily be answered. The argument 
     could still be made, and not without reason, that such 
     regulatory laws, like other powers of the Congress and the 
     states, must not offend the First Amendment. I asked an 
     expert in constitutional law how this problem might be dealt 
     with, and he said the only sure way would be to add the words 
     ``notwithstanding the First Amendment.'' But such an addition 
     is not a viable solution. The political obstacles in the way 
     of an amendment overturning Buckley in its interpretation of 
     the First Amendment with respect to campaigns spending are 
     grievous enough; to ask the Congress--and the state 
     legislatures--to create a major exception to the First 
     Amendment would assure defeat.
       The answer has to be to find a form of wording that says, 
     in effect, that the First Amendment can properly be 
     interpreted so as to permit reasonable regulation of campaign 
     spending. In my view, it would be sufficient to insert in the 
     proposed amendment,\30\ after ``The Congress,'' the words 
     ``having due regard for the need to facilitate full and
      free discussion and debate. ``Section 1 of the amendment 
     would then read, ``The Congress, having due regard for the 
     need to facilitate full and free discussion and debate, may 
     enact laws regulating the amounts of contributions and 
     expenditures intended to affect elections to federal 
     office.'' Other ways of dealing with this problem could no 
       doubt be devised.Another drafting difficulty arises from 
     the modification in the proposed amendment of the words 
     ``contributions and expenditures'' by ``intended to affect 
     elections.'' This language is appropriate with respect to 
     money raised or spent by candidates and their committees, but 
     it does present a problem in its application to money raised 
     and spent by allegedly independent committees, groups, or 
     individuals. It could hardly be argued that communications 
     referring solely to issues, with no mention of candidates, 
     could, consistent with the First Amendment, be made subject 
     to spending limits, even if they were quite obviously 
     ``intended to affect'' an election. Accordingly, a proper 
     amendment should include language limiting the regulation of 
     ``independent'' expenditures to those relative to ``clearly 
     identified'' candidates, language that would parallel the 
     provisions 
      [[Page S2635]] of the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act, as 
     amended.\31\
       These are essentially technical problems that could be 
     solved with the assistance of experts in constitutional law 
     if the Judiciary Committee of either house should decide to 
     hold hearings on the idea of a constitutional amendment and 
     proceed to draft and report out an appropriate resolution.
       Many of those in and out of Congress who are genuinely 
     concerned with political money brush aside the notion of a 
     constitutional amendment and focus entirely on remedies that 
     seem less drastic. They appear to assume that Congress is 
     more likely to adopt a statutory remedy, such as public 
     financing, than to go for an enabling constitutional 
     amendment that could be tagged as tampering with the Bill of 
     Rights. I disagree with that assumption.
       Incumbents generally resist proposals such as public 
     financing because challengers might be the major 
     beneficiaries, but most incumbents tend to favor the idea of 
     spending limits. The Congress is not by its nature averse to 
     being given greater authority; that would be especially true 
     in this case, where until 1976 the Congress always thought it 
     had such authority. I venture to say that if a carefully 
     drawn constitutional amendment were reported out of one of 
     the Judiciary Committees, it might secure the necessary two-
     thirds majorities in both houses with surprising ease.
       The various state legislatures might well react in similar 
     fashion. A power they thought they had would be restored to 
     them.
       The big difficulty is to get the process started, whether 
     it be for a constitutional amendment or a statutory remedy or 
     both. Here, the villain, I am afraid, is public apathy. 
     Unfortunately, the voters seem to take excessive campaign 
     spending as a given--a phenomenon they can do nothing about--
     and there is no substantial constituency for reform. The 
     House Administration Committee, which in the early 1970's was 
     the spark plug for legislation, has recently shown little 
     interest in pressing for any of the legislative proposals 
     that have been put forward.
       The 1974 act itself emerged as a reaction to the scandals 
     of the Watergate era, and it may well be that major action, 
     whether statutory or constitutional, will not be a practical 
     possibility until a new set of scandals bursts into the open. 
     Meanwhile, the situation will only get worse.


                               footnotes

     \1\Personal communication with Joseph L. Rauh, Mar. 1985; 
     Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
     \2\U.S., Congress, House, Committee on House Administration, 
     Federal Election Campaign Act. Amendments of 1974: Report to 
     Accompany H.R. 16090, 93rd Cong., 2d sess., 1974, H. Rept. 
     93-1239, pp. 3-4.
     \3\424 U.S., p. 264.
     \4\The other representatives were Mrs. Fenwick, Republican of 
     New Jersey; Ms. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland; and Messrs. 
     Bevill, Democrat of Alabama; Donnelly, Democrat of 
     Massachusetts; D'Amours, Democrat of New Hampshire; Edgar, 
     Democrat of Pennsylvania; LaFalce, Democrat of New York; and 
     Wolpe, Democrat of Michigan.
     \5\U.S. Congress, House, Proposing an Amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States Relative to Contributions 
     and Expenditures Intended to Affect Congressional, 
     Presidential and State Elections. 97th Cong., 2d sess., 1982. 
     H.J. Res. 628, p. 2.
     \6\Ibid., 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985. H.J. Res. 88.
     \7\424 U.S., p. 27, quoting CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 
     548, 565 (1973); see also 424 U.S., p. 30.
     \8\Quoted by Congressman Henry Reuss, in U.S., Congress, 
     House, Congressional Record, daily ed., 97th Cong., 2d sess., 
     1982, 128(81): H3900.
     \9\New Yorker, 6 Dec. 1982, pp. 55-56.
     \10\Washington Post, 2 Nov. 1982.
     \11\In the Buckley case the Supreme Court simply assumed that 
     limits on spending were not a violation of free speech when 
     acceptance of such limits was made the condition for 
     receiving public funds, 424 U.S., pp. 85-110. See also 
     Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., ``Should There Be Public Financing 
     of Congressional Campaigns?'' this issue of The Annals of the 
     American Academy of Political and Social Science.
     \12\A variation of the idea of free television and/or mail, 
     proposed by Common Cause and others, would provide for such 
     privileges as a means of answering attacks made on candidates 
     by allegedly independent organizations or individuals. See 
     Fred Wertheimer, ``Campaign Finance Reform: The Unfinished 
     Agenda,'' this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of 
     Political and Social Science.
     \13\See ibid.
     \14\The Obey-Railsback Act, which contained such 
     restrictions, actually passed the House in 1979, but got no 
     further. See ibid.
     \15\See Lloyd N. Cutler, ``Can the Parties Regulate Campaign 
     Financing?'' this issue of The Annals of the American Academy 
     of Political and Social Science.
     \16\424 U.S., pp. 263-64.
     \17\Ibid., p. 265.
     \18\Leventhal, ``Courts and Political Thickets,'' Columbia 
     Law Review, 77:362 (1977).
     \19\Ibid., p. 368.
     \20\Wright, ``Politics and the Constitution: Is Money 
     Speech?'' Yale Law Journal, 85:1005 (1979).
     \21\Ibid., p. 1019.
     \22\424 U.S., pp. 20-21.
     \23\Ibid., p. 21.
     \24\Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484 (1957); Mills v. 
     Alabama, 384 U.S. 214, 218 (1966); New York Times v. 
     Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).
     \25\U.S., Congress, House, Congressional Record, 97th Cong., 
     2d sess., daily ed., 128(81): H3901.
     \26\New York Times, 19 Mar. 1985.
     \27\FEC v. NCPAC, 105 S. Ct. 1459 (1985).
    
    
     \28\U.S., Congress, House, Contributions and Expenditures, 
     H.J. Res. 628.
     \29\Ibid.
     \30\Ibid.
     \31\2 U.S.C.A. Sec. 431(17).
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair.
  The time is about up. I am sorry to have taken more time, but I 
wanted to get into the full measure of this thing. It is a bipartisan 
approach to restore free speech. What Buckley versus Valeo did is take 
away the speech of the poor and give enhanced speech to the rich. You 
know it and I know it. This amendment will put us back to where we were 
when the 1974 act was passed. It will limit spending in campaigns. That 
is what we all want to do. We did it in 1974, we thought, until the 
Buckley versus Valeo decision.
  I thank the distinguished Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 21 minutes and 
51 seconds.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I do not know; maybe we can check with 
the Cloakrooms to see if anybody objects to yielding back time. I do 
not know whether my friend from South Carolina has time left he wants 
to use, but I was going to suggest that I make a few more observations 
and if the Senator from South Carolina is ready to yield back, I would 
yield back as well. But there could be those who are depending on this 
vote occurring at a certain time, so if we could ask the staff to check 
on that, I would appreciate it.
    
    
  Mr. President, the past majority leader, Senator Mitchell, who just 
left the Senate a couple of months ago said on June 26, 1990, ``For 200 
years,'' referring to the first amendment, ``it has protected the 
liberties of generations of Americans. During that time, the Bill of 
Rights has never been changed or amended,'' not once, ever. It stands 
today, word for word, exactly as it did when it was adopted two 
centuries ago.
  Senator George Mitchell went on on the same day:

       Never in 200 years has the first amendment been changed or 
     amended. As a result, never in 200 years has Congress been 
     able to make a law abridging freedom of speech.

  Now, that was Senator George Mitchell, the Democratic majority 
leader, expressing his views about the importance of leaving the first 
amendment unamended, untampered with.
  The current majority leader, Senator Daschle, said on June 21, 1990:

       What chapter will we have ghosted for our autobiographies 
     to explain away our writing a loophole into the free speech 
     clause of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the 
     United States?

  Senator Daschle was, of course, referring to the debate on the flag 
burning amendment, but his point, his point, was about the first 
amendment and freedom of speech.
  Now, the American Civil Liberties Union, which I indicated earlier 
strongly opposes the Hollings proposal, says:

       The proposed constitutional amendment to limit Federal 
     campaign expenditures would amend the free speech guarantee 
     of the first amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court, 
     thereby limiting the amount of political speech that may be 
     engaged in by any candidate or by anyone else [anyone else] 
     seeking to be involved in the political process.

  The ACLU said, Mr. President:

    
    
       It is a highly flawed proposal, one that is 
     constitutionally incapable [incapable] of being fixed and 
     raises--

    
    
  Said the ACLU:

     a number of significant issues. It deserves to be rejected by 
     the Senate.

  Now, Mr. President, I have been quoting from a number of 
organizations that are supposedly on the liberal side of the political 
spectrum. Just to reassure some of my conservative friends, it is also 
the view of conservatives that the Hollings amendment is a bad idea. 
George Will in a June 28, 1993, Newsweek column said this. He was 
really, I would say to my friend from South Carolina, admiring the 
Senator in many ways. This is a quote from Mr. Will's column, which I 
will ask in a moment be inserted in the Record. He said:

       Hollings claims--you have to admire his brass--

  And, boy, we do admire the brass of the Senator from South Carolina. 
He has more brass than anybody else in the Senate, and we do admire 
him. He said:

       Hollings claims--you have to admire his brass--that carving 
     this huge hole in the first amendment would be ``a big boost 
     to free speech.'' But by ``free'' he means ``fair,'' and by 
     ``fair'' he means equal amounts of speech--the permissible 
     amounts to be decided by incumbents in Congress and State 
     legislatures.

  George Will went on. He said:

       Note also the power to limit spending not only ``by'' but 
     even ``in support of, or in opposition to'' candidates.

  That gets back to the point I made earlier about giving Congress the 
power to shut the newspapers up, too.

       [[Page S2636]] The Senators who voted for this included 
     many who three years ago stoutly (and rightly)--

  George Will said.

     Opposed carving out even a small exception to the first 
     amendment protections in order to ban flag burning. But now 
     these incumbents want to empower other incumbents to hack 
     away at the Bill of Rights in order to shrink the permissible 
     amount of political discourse.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the George Will column be 
printed in the Record; also, that the letter to which I have referred 
several times from the American Civil Liberties issue be included in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Newsweek, June 28, 1993]

  So, We Talk Too Much?--The Supreme Court's Two-word Opinion of the 
                Senate's Reform Bill May Be Good Grief!'

                          (By George F. Will)

       Washington's political class and its journalistic echoes 
     are celebrating Senate passage, on a mostly party-line vote, 
     of a ``reform'' that constitutes the boldest attack on 
     freedom of speech since enactment of the Alien and Sedition 
     Acts of 1798. The campaign finance bill would ration 
     political speech. Fortunately, it is so flagrantly 
     unconstitutional that the Supreme Court will fling it back 
     across First Street, N.E., with a two-word opinion: ``Good 
     grief!''
       The reformers begin, as their ilk usually does, with a 
     thumping but unargued certitude: campaigns involve ``too 
     much'' money. (In 1992 congressional races involved a sum 
     equal to 40 percent of what Americans spent on yogurt. Given 
     the government's increasing intrusiveness and capacity to do 
     harm, it is arguable that we spend to little on the 
     dissemination of political discourse.) But reformers eager to 
     limit spending have a problem: mandatory spending limits are 
     unconstitutional. The Supreme Court acknowledges that the 
     First Amendment protects ``the indispensable conditions for 
     meaningful communication,'' which includes spending for the 
     dissemination of speech. The reformers' impossible task is to 
     gin up ``incentives'' powerful enough to coerce candidates 
     into accepting limits that can be labeled ``voluntary.''
       The Senate bill's original incentive was public financing, 
     coupled with various punishments for privately financed 
     candidates who choose not to sell their First Amendment 
     rights for taxpayers' dollars and who exceed the government's 
     stipulated ration of permissible spending/speech. Most 
     taxpayers detest public financing. (``Food stamps for 
     politicians,'' says Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky 
     Republican who will lead the constitutional challenge if 
     anything like this bill becomes law.) So the bill was 
     changed--and made even more grossly unconstitutional. Now it 
     limits public funding to candidates whose opponents spend/
     speak in excess of government limits. The funds for the 
     subsidy are to come from taxing, at the top corporate rate, 
     all contributions to the candidate who has chosen to exercise 
     his free speech rights with private funding. So 35 percent of 
     people's contributions to a privately funded candidate would 
     be expropriated and given to his opponent. This is part of 
     the punishment system designed to produce ``voluntary'' 
     acceptance of spending limits.
       But the Court says the government cannot require people 
     ``to pay a tax for the exercise of that which the First 
     amendment has made a high constitutional privilege.'' The 
     Court says that the ``power to tax the exercise of a right to 
     power to control or suppress the exercise of its enjoyment'' 
     and is ``as potent as the power of censorship.''
       Sen. Fritz Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat, is a 
     passionate advocate of spending limits but at least has the 
     gumption to attack the First Amendment frontally. The Senate 
     bill amounts, he says candidly, to ``coercing people to 
     accept spending limits while pretending it is voluntary.'' 
     Because ``everyone knows what we are doing is 
     unconstitutional,'' he proposes to make coercion 
     constitutional. He would withdraw First Amendment protection 
     from the most important speech--political discourse. And the 
     Senate has adopted (52-43) his resolution urging Congress to 
     send to the states this constitutional amendment: Congress 
     and the states ``shall have power to set reasonable limits on 
     campaign expenditures by, in support of, or in opposition to 
     any candidate in any primary or other election'' for federal, 
     state or local office.
       Hollings claims--you have to admire his brass--that carving 
     this huge hole in the First Amendment would be ``a big boost 
     to free speech.'' But by ``free'' he means ``fair,'' and by 
     ``fair'' he means equal amounts of speech--the permissible 
     amounts to be decided by incumbents in Congress and state 
     legislatures. Note also the power to limit spending not only 
     ``by'' but even ``in support of, or in opposition to'' 
     candidates. The 52 senators who voted for this included many 
     who three years ago stoutly (and rightly) opposed carving out 
     even a small exception to First Amendment protections in 
     order to ban flag-burning. But now these incumbents want to 
     empower incumbents to hack away at the Bill of Rights in 
     order to shrink the permissible amount of political 
     discourse.
       Government micromanagement: The Senate bill would ban or 
     limit spending political action committees. It would require 
     privately funded candidates to say in their broadcast 
     advertisements that ``the candidate has not agreed to 
     voluntary campaign limits.'' (This speech regulation is 
     grossly unconstitutional because it favors a particular point 
     of view, and because the Court has held that the First 
     Amendment protects the freedom to choose ``both what to say 
     and what not to say.'') All this government micromanagement 
     of political speech is supposed to usher in the reign of 
     ``fairness'' (as incumbents define it, of course).
       Incumbents can live happily with spending limits. 
     Incumbents will write the limits, perhaps not altogether 
     altruistically. And spending is the way challengers can 
     combat incumbents' advantages such as name recognition, 
     access to media and franked mail. Besides, the most important 
     and plentiful money spent for political purposes is dispensed 
     entirely by incumbents. It is called the federal budget--$1.5 
     trillion this year and rising. Federal spending (along with 
     myriad regulations and subsidizing activities such as 
     protectionist measures) often is vote-buying.
       It is instructive that when the Senate voted to empower 
     government to ration political speech, and even endorse 
     amending the First Amendment, there was no outcry from 
     journalists. Most of them are liberals and so are disposed to 
     like government regulation of (other people's) lives. 
     Because, journalists know that government rationing of 
     political speech by candidates will enlarge the importance of 
     journalists' unlimited speech.
       The Senate bill's premise is that there is ``too much'' 
     political speech and some is by undesirable elements (PACs), 
     so government control is needed to make the nation's 
     political speech healthier. Our governments cannot balance 
     their budgets or even suppress the gunfire in America's 
     (potholed) streets. It would be seemly if politicians would 
     get on with such basic tasks, rather than with the mischief 
     of making mincemeat of the First Amendment.
                                                                    ____

                               American Civil Liberties Union,

                                     Washington, DC, June 4, 1992.
       Dear Senator:
       The American Civil Liberties strongly opposes S.J. Res. 35, 
     the proposed constitutional amendment to limit federal 
     campaign expenditures. The proposal would amend the free-
     speech guarantee of the First Amendment, as interpreted by 
     the Supreme Court, thereby limiting the amount of political 
     speech that may be engaged in by any candidate or by anyone 
     else seeking to be involved in the political process. It is a 
     highly flawed proposal, one that is constitutionally 
     incapable of being fixed, and raises a number of significant 
     issues. It deserves to be rejected by the Senate.
       First, as many members of the Senate recognized during the 
     debate about the flag-burning amendment proposed a few years 
     ago, it is wrong for the Senate to consider changing the 
     First Amendment, a provision that is a justifiable source of 
     pride for the United States and much admired throughout the 
     world. If Congress could carve out exceptions to the reach of 
     free speech through constitutional amendment, particularly in 
     the important area of political speech, then none of our 
     liberties and freedoms are safe and proposals to give 
     Congress authority over other forms of speech will abound. 
     Moreover, since the Constitution does not grant freedom of 
     speech to the people, but is a reflection of its Framers' 
     natural-rights philosophy--one that recognizes that these 
     rights inhere in the people and are inalienable--it is 
     unlikely that Congress, even by way of constitutional 
     amendment, has the authority to interfere with or restrict 
     those rights. In other words, S.J. Res. 35 may well be an 
     unconstitutional constitutional proposal.
       Second, if the proposed amendment were implemented, it 
     would operate to distort the political process in numerous 
     ways. if implemented evenhandedly, it would operate to the 
     benefit of incumbents who generally have a higher name 
     recognition and thus an ability to do more with lesser 
     funding. And it would operate to the detriment of dark-horse 
     and third-party candidates who start out with fewer 
     contributors and whose only hope of obtaining the visibility 
     necessary to run a serious campaign may come from the backing 
     of a few large contributors or from their own funds. Thus,
     rather than assure fair and free elections, the proposal 
     would likely operate to the benefit of those in power and to 
     the disadvantage of those challenging the political status 
       quo.Additionally, the wording of the proposed amendment 
     would actually permit Congress to set a different limit on 
     incumbents versus challengers, wealthy candidates versus 
     those without vast personal funds to mount a campaign, or 
     candidates from underrepresented groups versus those who are 
     well represented, as long as these were justified on a 
     rational basis. The First Amendment properly prevents the 
     government from making these kinds of distinctions, but S.J. 
     Res. 35 would enable Congress to set these limitations 
     notwithstanding currently existing constitutional 
     understandings. Some of the dangers to the First Amendment 
     are most apparent when S.J. Res. 35 is viewed from that 
     perspective.
       Finally, as an amendment subsequent to the First Amendment, 
     the existing understandings about the protections of freedom 
     of the press would also be changed, thereby empowering 
     Congress to regulate what newspapers and broadcasters can do 
     on behalf of 
      [[Page S2637]] the candidates they endorse or oppose. A 
     candidate-centered editorial, as well as op-ed articles or 
     commentary, are certainly expenditures in support of or in 
     opposition to political candidates. The amendment, as its 
     words make apparent, would authorize Congress to set 
     reasonable limits on the involvement of the media in 
     campaigns when not strictly reporting the news. Such a result 
     would be intolerable in a society that cherishes a free 
     press.
       Last year, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Bill 
     of Rights with speeches, articles, and lessons about the 
     importance of our cherished liberties. This year should not 
     mark the end of that bicentennial legacy by an ill-conceived 
     effort to cut back on freedom of speech and the press. Please 
     reject S.J. Res. 35.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Robert S. Peck,
                                              Legislative Counsel.

  Mr. McCONNELL.  Let me just say again, hopefully in conclusion, if 
both sides are ready to yield back their time--I do not know whether 
they are not, but if they are, I am prepared to, but let me summarize 
again that this proposal has the opposition of Common Cause, the 
opposition of the Washington Post, the opposition of the ACLU, and the 
opposition of George Will. That pretty well covers it, Mr. President. 
It is opposed by people from left to right.
  I hope that the Senate would support the motion to table I will make 
at such time as we conclude the debate.
  So, Mr. President, I would just inquire of my friend from South 
Carolina, do we want to yield back and go ahead or have we heard from 
our Cloakrooms?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I would like to accommodate the distinguished Senator 
from Kentucky. What happens is I have the Senator from Nevada on the 
way.
  Mr. McCONNELL. All right.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. He is on the way.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, then I will just reserve the remainder 
of my time and yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina has 10 minutes 
46 seconds.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I enjoy serving with the distinguished 
Senator from Kentucky. When he was going down the list of the American 
Civil Liberties Union and the Washington Post and all these liberal 
folks, he should not get too enthralled with this particular issue, 
because somebody will pick up that Record, the way they run campaigns 
now, and say he is running around with the ACLU. I could see that 20-
second bite right now.
  I have a good friend. He wanted to contribute to me. He said he could 
get $5,000 from a group, and I said, ``Look, it will take me $50,000 to 
$100,000 to explain that group. I just cannot accept it.''
  You have to look at elections. It is unfortunate, but that is what we 
are talking about. If you get it back down to where you have a limited 
amount in a small State like South Carolina of $1 million, the 
incumbent, I can tell you right now, is at a disadvantage, because I 
have a record of votes, thousands of votes. What I fear as an opponent 
is some nice, young, clean-cut law graduate, married, with two or three 
children and who has never voted on anything. All he has is a picture 
of himself going into church on Sunday. What am I going to argue about?
  I was lucky in my last race. I had a former Congressman as an 
opponent. I survived by the skin of my teeth because they zeroed in 
with lots of money and lots of TV. Money talks. Money talks. If we can 
start limiting that money in these campaigns, we will get it back to 
the people.
  The expenses are just absolutely unheard of. For example, the average 
cost of winning a Senate seat in 1980 was $1.2 million, but by 1984 it 
rose to $2.1 million, and by 1986 it skyrocketed to $3.1 million--this 
is the average--in 1988, to $3.7 million, and last year the average 
seat was $4.1 million.
  This past year Ollie North in Virginia spent $19.8 million. Senator 
Robb spent $5.4 million. Mr. President, $19.8 and $5.4 million--that's 
a total of $25.2 million.
  You can go down the list. I do not really want to make a public 
record because I know the sensitivities of Senators. Frankly, it is 
embarrassing what we all spend. I know my opponent, for example, spent 
just as much as I did and tried to report it differently.
  When are we going to correct this thing? Here is an opportunity to do 
just exactly that. We have a wonderful opportunity. Whatever the 
Senator from Kentucky says I want to consider it, because he and I have 
been on the same side against public financing: The public now 
contributing to politics. You would never get anybody out up here if 
that were the case. That is really where the incumbents can spend all 
their time prissing and preening and actually getting absolutely 
nothing done. In fact, that is the way we are. We are on a treadmill to 
make absolutely sure that nothing gets done.
  How much time do I have left?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina has 2 minutes 
30 seconds.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I reserve the remainder of my time.
  I yield to the distinguished Senator from Utah.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
                      Unanimous-Consent Agreement

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate resumes the joint resolution at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the 
pending business be the Bingaman amendment re: supermajority, and that 
time on that amendment prior to a motion to table be as follows, and 
that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the motion to 
table: 45 minutes under the control of Senator Bingaman, 15 minutes 
under the control of Senator Hatch.
  I further ask that following the conclusion or yielding back of time 
the majority leader or his designee be recognized to make a motion to 
table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. PRYOR. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, will the 
distinguished Senator from Utah please repeat the first part of the 
request for unanimous consent? If he does not mind? I apologize.
  Mr. HATCH. I will be glad to.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes 
the joint resolution at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the pending business be 
the Bingaman amendment re: supermajority, and that time on that 
amendment prior to a motion to table be as follows, and that no second-
degree amendments be in order prior to the motion to table: 45 minutes 
under the control of Senator Bingaman, 15 minutes under the control of 
Senator Hatch.
  I further ask that following the conclusion or yielding back of time 
the majority leader or his designee be recognized to make a motion to 
table.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, would that be presuming that this will be 
the final vote of the evening, on the Hollings amendment?
  Mr. HATCH. This is going to be the final vote.
  Mr. PRYOR. I do not object and I yield the floor and thank the 
Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that 
following the disposition of the Bingaman amendment, Senator Wellstone 
be recognized to make a motion to refer, and the time on that motion be 
limited in the following fashion prior to a motion to table, and that 
no amendments be in order to the motion prior to the tabling motion: 45 
minutes under the control of Senator Wellstone, 15 minutes under the 
control of Senator Hatch.
  I further ask unanimous consent that following the conclusion or 
yielding back of time, the majority leader or his designee be 
recognized to make a motion to table the motion to refer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have been authorized to tell the Senate 
that following the vote on the amendment of the distinguished Senator 
from South Carolina there will be no more rollcall votes this evening. 
But we will have those two rollcall votes first thing in the morning 
starting after the debate at 9:30 and after the second debate at that 
time.
  I am wondering if both sides would be willing to yield their time.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Just in a few minutes.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the testimony of the 
distinguished Lloyd N. Cutler before the Senate Judiciary Committee be 
printed in the Record.

[[Page S2638]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Statement of Lloyd N. Cutler Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 
            Subcommittee on the Constitution, March 17, 1988

       My name is Lloyd N. Cutler. Along with Senator Nancy 
     Kassebaum of Kansas and Mr. Douglas Dillon, I am a Co-
     Chairman of the Committee on the Constitutional System, a 
     group of several hundred present and former legislators, 
     executive branch officials, political party officials, 
     professors and civic leaders who are interested in analyzing 
     and correcting some of the weaknesses that have developed in 
     our political system.
       One of the most glaring weaknesses, of course, is the 
     rapidly escalating cost of political campaigns, and the 
     growing dependence of incumbents and candidates on money from 
     interest groups who expect the recipient to vote in favor of 
     their particular interests. Incumbents and candidates must 
     devote large portions of their time to begging for money; 
     they are often tempted to vote the conflicting interests of 
     their contributors and to create a hodgepodge of conflicting 
     and indefensible policies; and in turn public frustration 
     with these policies process.
       A serious attempt to deal with the campaign financing 
     problem was made in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 
     and the 1976 amendments, which set maximum limits on the 
     amounts of individual contributions and on the aggregate 
     expenditures of candidates and so-called independent 
     committees supporting such candidates. The constitutionality 
     of these provisions was challenged in the famous case of 
     Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, in which I had the honor of 
     sharing the argument in support of the statute with Professor 
     Archibald Cox. While the Supreme Court sustained the 
     constitutionality of the limits on contributions, it struck 
     down the provision limiting expenditures for candidates and 
     independent committees supporting such candidates. It found 
     an inseparable connection between an expenditure limit and 
     the extent of a candidate's or committee's political speech, 
     which did not exist in the case of a limit on the size of 
     each contribution by a non-speaker unaccompanied by any limit 
     on the aggregate amount a candidate could raise. It also 
     found little if any proven connection between corruption and 
     the size of a candidate's aggregate expenditures, as 
     distinguished from the size of individual contributions to a 
     candidate.
       The Court did, however, approve the Presidential Campaign 
     Financing Fund created by the 1976 amendments, including the 
     condition it imposed barring any presidential nominee who 
     accepted the public funds from spending more than a specified 
     limit. However, it remains unconstitutional for Congress to 
     place any limits on expenditures by independent committees on 
     behalf of a candidate. In recent presidential elections these 
     independent expenditures on behalf of one candidate exceeded 
     the amount of federal funding he accepted. Moreover, so long 
     as the Congress remains deadlocked on proposed legislation 
     for the public financing of Congressional campaigns, it is 
     not possible to use the public financing device as a means of 
     limiting Congressional campaign expenditures.
       Accordingly, the Committee on the Constitutional System has 
     come to the conclusion that the only effective way to limit 
     the explosive growth of campaign financing is to adopt a 
     constitutional amendment. The amendment would be a very 
     simple one consisting of only 46 words. It would state merely 
     that ``Congress shall have power to set reasonable limits on 
     campaign expenditures by or in support of any candidate in a 
     primary or general election for federal office. The States 
     shall have the same power with respect to campaign 
     expenditures in elections for state and local offices.''
       Our proposed amendment would enable Congress to set limits 
     not only on direct expenditures by candidates and their own 
     committees, but also on expenditures by so-called independent 
     committees in support of such a candidate. The details of the 
     actual limits would be contained in future legislation and 
     could be changed from time to time as Congress in its 
     judgment sees fit.
       It may of course be argued that the proposed amendment, by 
     authorizing reasonable limits on expenditures, would 
     necessarily set limits on the quantity of speech on behalf of 
     a candidate and that any limits, no matter how ample, is 
     undesirable. But in our view the evidence is overwhelming by 
     now that unlimited campaign expenditures will eventually grow 
     to the point where they consume so much of our political 
     energies and so fracture our political consensus that they 
     will make the political process incapable of governing 
     effectively. Even the Congress has found that unlimited 
     speech can destroy the power to govern; that is why the House 
     of Representatives has imposed time limits on Members' 
     speeches for decades and why the Senate has adopted a rule 
     permitting 60 senators to end a filibuster. One might fairly 
     paraphrase Lord Action's famous aphorism about power by 
     saying, ``All political money corrupts; unlimited political 
     money corrupts absolutely.''
       Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would not be discouraged from 
     taking the amendment route by any feeling that constitutional 
     amendments take too long to get ratified. The fact is that 
     the great majority of amendments submitted by Congress to the 
     states during the last 50 years have been ratified within 
     twenty months after they were submitted. All polls show that 
     the public strongly supports limits on campaign expenditures. 
     The principal delay will be in getting the amendment through 
     Congress. Since that is going to be a difficult task, we 
     ought to start immediately. Unlimited campaign expenditures 
     and the political diseases they cause are going to increase 
     at least as rapidly as new cases of AIDS, and it is high time 
     to start getting serious about the problem.
       Mr. Chairman, on three past occasions we the people have 
     amended the Constitution to correct weaknesses in that 
     rightly revered document as interpreted by the Supreme Court. 
     On at least two of those occasions--the Dred Scott decision 
     and the decision striking down federal income taxes, history 
     has subsequently confirmed that the amendments were essential 
     to our development as a healthy, just and powerful society. A 
     third such challenge is now before us. The time has come to 
     meet it.
       For a fuller discussion of the case for a constitutional 
     amendment, I am attaching an article written shortly before 
     his death by Congressman Jonathan Bingham, my college and law 
     school classmate and, in my view, one of the finest public 
     servants of our times.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in the process of completing the 
thought, to raise the kind of money necessary now in races the average 
Senator must raise over $14,000 a week every week of his or her 6-year 
term. Overall spending in congressional races increased from $403 
million in 1990 to more than $590 million in 1994; a 50 percent 
increase in 4 short years.
  Mr. President, with $50,000-plate dinners, with $11 million evening 
fundraisers, it is going up, up and away. This amendment is not just 
spasmodic or spurious or unstudied. I went to the Parliamentarian, Mr. 
Dove, and asked if it would confuse a constitutional amendment on the 
balanced budget. He said the way I had it written it would be engrossed 
separately and be voted on by the States separately. Thereupon, I 
included language in the first section to make sure that it would not 
cause confusion and that it would be voted on separately. Of course, 
having agreed to the time--and I thank the distinguished Presiding 
Officer--the distinguished Senator from Kentucky having agreed to a 
time limit, I appreciated the time given.
  This certainly was not intended for delay. It is a serious amendment. 
It is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to say what we mean and 
mean what we say by voting in the affirmative for this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator yield the remainder of the 
time?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the remainder of the time.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in conclusion, let me remind everybody 
that on this proposal offered by the distinguished Senator from South 
Carolina, Common Cause, the Washington Post, the ACLU, and George Will 
all think it is a bad idea.
  Mr. President, I rest my case. I hope the motion of the Senator from 
Utah to table will be agreed to.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to table the Hollings amendment, 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. The question is on agreeing to the motion of 
the Senator from Utah to lay on the table the amendment of the Senator 
from South Carolina. On this motion, the yeas and nays have been 
ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] 
and the Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] are necessarily 
absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
North Carolina [Mr. Helms] would vote ``yea.''
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 45, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 68 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     [[Page S2639]] Domenici
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Packwood
     Pressler
     Roth
     Santorum
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--45

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Murray
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Specter
     Wellstone

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Helms
     Kassebaum
     Moynihan
  So, the motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the 
motion was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

                          ____________________