[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 49 (Thursday, March 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4080-S4089]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, Calvin Coolidge may have been a man of few 
words, but the thoughts he expressed when he chose to speak were very 
precise. On the subject of government spending he once very accurately 
observed that, ``Nothing is easier in the world than spending public 
money. It does not appear to belong to anyone.''
  How true those words were because we have seen a Congress spend the 
public's money in a way that has significantly reduced the respect and 
credibility of this institution in a way that has taxpayers across 
America not only scratching their heads in wonder but shaking their 
fists in rage, disturbed over the fact that while they are getting up 
in the morning and fighting traffic and getting to work and putting in 
an honest day's work for what they thought was an honest day's pay, 
they receive their paycheck at the end of the week and bimonthly and 
note the ever-increasing deduction for funds being sent to Washington 
to pay for programs and to pay for expenditures that they do not deem 
in the national interest.
  They are becoming outraged, and they are frustrated. They expressed 
that outrage and frustration this past November. They wanted a change 
in the way that this Congress does business. They have been calling for 
it for years, even decades. Politicians have been going back home and 
promising change. ``Elect me and we will do it differently.'' People 
ask, ``Well, what can you do about it?"
  Many of us were proposing two basic structural changes in the way 
that the Congress does business. One was the balanced budget amendment. 
Despite all of the fine rhetoric, all of the wonderful promises, all of 
the budget bills, the budget deals, the budget reduction packages that 
were debated, voted on, and promised by the Congress, despite all of 
that, Americans continued to see an ever-escalating debt, hundreds of 
billions of dollars annually of deficit spending, and a frightening 
explosion in the national debt.
  In 1980, when I was elected to Congress, one of the very first pieces 
of legislation that we had to vote on was whether or not we would raise 
the national debt ceiling--that is, that level over which we could not 
borrow money--to raise that to $1 trillion. Many of us were deeply 
concerned that we not break the trillion dollar threshold. We had 
campaigned that year in 1980 on fiscal responsibility. We campaigned on 
balancing the budget. We knew that, if we were going to balance the 
budget, we had to stop the flow of red ink. That was our first 
priority. We knew, if we were going to reduce that debt, that we could 
not have any more years of deficit spending.
  So we were concerned about raising that debt limit. Yet, for a whole 
variety of reasons--some of them valid and many of them invalid, but 
all because of a lack of discipline--we not only did not balance the 
budget but we saw the national debt explode; explode from the $1 
trillion level to nearly $5 trillion today, a 500-percent increase. It 
almost is beyond our ability to comprehend how we as a Nation could 
have gone from a $1 trillion debt level to nearly a $5 trillion debt 
level.
  Automatic spending as a way of meeting entitlement obligations 
clearly has played an enormous role in all of this, some necessary 
defense increases, some less than projected revenue estimates, but 
primarily a lack of will on the part of the Congress to curb its 
spending habits and its appetite for spending. I said then and I said 
in the debate a few weeks ago and I still believe that until we enact 
into the Constitution of the United States a requirement that this body 
balance its budget each and every year, we will not solve our debt 
problem. We will not begin to solve our debt problem.
  My greatest disappointment in my years in Congress has been our 
failure by one vote to join the House of Representatives and pass on to 
the States for their consideration and, hopefully, their ratification a 
balanced budget amendment--one vote. We came that close. I think the 
American people instinctively know that, unless the Constitution forces 
us to balance the budget, we will always find an excuse not to. As 
Calvin Coolidge said, how easy it is to spend what appears to be 
someone else's money because it does not appear to belong anywhere.
  We have seen year after year after year Congress saying, ``Well, 
maybe next year, too many pressing priorities this year, too big a 
problem to address all at once, we will do it another time.'' Or, we 
have seen Congress say ``Here is the legislation that will put us on 
the path to a balanced budget, that will bring finally fiscal 
discipline to this body.'' Of course, we have seen every one of those 
efforts fail.
  Now we are looking at the second tool to try to curb congressional 
spending, this appetite for spending, spending, spending, and paying 
for it not by asking the taxpayer to ante up, although we have done 
that, and it has I think had a negative effect on our ability to grow 
and provide opportunities for our young people and job opportunities 
for Americans. But we found a convenient way to pass on the debt to a 
different generation to a time when we are no longer here serving; pass 
it on by floating debt, by incurring debt which future generations will 
have to pay. We are paying it now. We are paying $200-and-some billion 
a year just in interest. It is rapidly approaching $300 billion a 
year--$300 billion which could 
[[Page S4081]] be used either to impose a lesser tax burden on 
Americans, to provide a child tax credit which would give American 
families with children an opportunity to meet some of their financial 
obligations, to put aside money for college or savings, pay the rent, 
pay the mortgage, buy the clothes, or meet their monthly obligations.
 Or it could be used for more appropriate needs that exist in our 
society. But, no, it goes simply to pay interest on the debt, and it 
mounts every year. It is the second largest expenditure in our budget. 
If a few years, it will exceed the entire spending for national 
security, for all our military men in uniform, for all that we provide 
for national defense. Interest. Just paying obligations so that we can 
spend now and somebody can pay for it later.

  So we come to the second tool. The Senate has rejected, 
unfortunately, by one vote, the right of the people, the right of the 
States to determine whether or not they want this fiscal discipline 
imposed constitutionally on the Congress of the United States. We now 
come to the second institutional change, the line-item veto. As my 
colleague, Senator McCain, said, make no mistake about it, this will 
not balance the budget. This is not enough of a tool to do the job. But 
it is an institutional change. It is a structural change in the way 
that we do business, and it can make a difference and it can make a 
substantial difference.
  Senator McCain and I, as he recently has said, have been fighting 
this battle for a number of years. We have alternately introduced it. 
John McCain manages it one time, and I manage it another time--
alternately introducing the line-item veto under different forms--
enhanced rescission we called it. It is a statutory measure designed to 
secure passage with 51 votes instead of two-thirds. It is not a 
constitutional amendment. But we have been offering it in Congress 
after Congress, year after year, always falling short of the necessary 
number of votes to break a filibuster, because those who oppose line-
item veto, those who believe Congress can exercise the will for fiscal 
discipline, those who feel that the power of making those decisions 
should not rest anywhere except in this body have been able to block 
our efforts.
  Senator McCain has been, as is his great talent, a man of 
extraordinary perseverance, extraordinary commitment, extraordinary 
dedication to this issue and many others that he has been involved 
with. He paid me a nice compliment by saying I shored him up at times 
when he was discouraged and we were not making more progress. He has 
picked me up equally as much, and maybe more. Sometime we think, what 
is the use, we are never going to get there, we are never going to 
break the power and the hold on the spending process that currently 
exists with those who see spending, or the control of the process, as 
advantageous, for whatever reason.
  But I want to compliment him for continuing to persevere. He is a man 
of great perseverance. I want to compliment him for pushing through and 
insisting that we go forward. Together we are doing that. And we know 
we have the support of many colleagues and we have the support of a 
vast majority of the American people because they have lost confidence 
in Congress' promises, in Congress' ability to discipline itself. They 
know that we need system changes. They know that we need structural 
changes if we are going to get this accomplished.
  It has become so easy to spend in this body that, every year, about 
$10 billion worth of appropriations are tacked onto an already loaded 
Federal budget for spending that meets no emergency request, is not 
formally authorized by Congress, and that means it has not been 
discussed and debated and examined by the authorizing committees and 
voted on and put forward to our colleagues to examine. Nor has it been 
requested by the President. On the contrary, it is $10 billion that 
serves only to appease or satisfy a particularly parochial special 
interest. As a result, Congress has become so addicted to spending 
other peoples' money, that the last time the Federal budget was 
balanced on a regular basis, Calvin Coolidge was still alive. Political 
scientist James Payne calls this a culture of spending. ``Members of 
Congress,'' says Payne, ``act as if Government money is somehow free.'' 
They distribute it like philanthropists helping worthy supplicants--
except that they are usually lobbyists or special interests, and the 
money goes to a very narrow, very parochial use. In a recent tabulation 
of witnesses who testified at congressional hearings, Mr. Payne found 
that fully 95.7 percent of them came to urge more Government spending. 
Only 0.7 percent spoke against it. I do not know what happened to the 
other 3 or 4 percent. They probably just came to see the monuments and 
watch Congress in session.
  This year, the President sent to Congress a budget that directs the 
Government to spend $1.6 trillion. Every month of that year, the 
Government will spend $134 billion; every week, $31 billion; every day, 
$4.4 billion; every hour, $184 million; $3 million a minute; every 
second of every day, the Federal Government will spend another $50,000 
of someone else's money.
  By the end of 1996, the Federal deficit will have increased by $200 
billion, a figure that will be repeated in 1997, 1998, 1999, and the 
year 2000, after which it will rise even greater. That is a projection 
on which we almost always come in under what the actual figure is. But 
the sad fact is that even if the President could manage to send a 
balanced budget proposal to Congress, it probably would not make any 
difference. Congress would still choose to pad the bill with billions 
of extra dollars of parochial pork.
  In some cases, these projects are tacked on--usually at the last 
minute--to legislation that is too important or too politically risky 
for the President to veto, like Federal disaster assistance when 
California is devastated by floods, when hurricanes devastate south 
Florida, or when the military needs a pay raise, or emergency spending 
is needed to cover deployments or costs that it has incurred, or 
benefits for veterans. These huge bills pass often, literally, in the 
dark of the night. But almost always we find tucked away in the very 
dark recesses of complicated bills, sometimes weeks and months later, 
we find items of appropriations that go for special interests, that go 
for special spending, which causes all of us to ask, how in the world 
did that become part of this bill? How in the world did the Congress 
ever pass something like that? In honesty, many of us say we did not 
even know we passed it. Well, it was part of the HUD-Independent 
Agencies appropriations bill. Well, that was a 1,300-page bill, and 
while we searched through it, we must have found tucked away in there--
sometimes in very obscure language--spending that goes for something 
that the taxpayer finds is absolutely outrageous.
  And every year, this type of spending adds up to billions of dollars 
worth of unnecessary spending that would wilt in a white-hot minute if 
it were forced to weather the glare of public scrutiny. If that item 
was brought to the floor of the Senate and debated solely on that item, 
and if Members were forced to vote yea or nay on that item, it would 
never pass; it would never stand the scrutiny of the light of public 
debate. Members would never risk a vote for an item that brings outrage 
to the American public when they hear about it.
  The list goes on and on, and Senator McCain and I will have the 
opportunity to detail some of that list. It is not our purpose tonight 
to castigate other Members. In one sense, we are all guilty. There is 
probably not a Member of Congress that has not gone to the 
Appropriations Committee and said, ``Do you think there is a way we can 
get this particular appropriated item in the bill? It is important to 
my constituents and it is something that I think is important. Can we 
get it tucked on there? Has it been authorized?'' ``No. You know it is 
going to be tough to get that through the authorization process, and my 
colleagues might not understand.
 But could we just add it to this bill? This bill is going through.''

  There is probably not one of us that does not bear some 
responsibility, some blame, for this.
  What we are saying here is that the system is bad, and the system 
needs to be changed. Some people make a career out of doing this. 
Others do it on occasion. But whether it is a standard operating 
procedure or whether it is just an occasional request, the system 
allows 
[[Page S4082]] it to happen and it is not right and it ought to stop.
  If you happen to occupy an important position here, a position where 
you are influential in terms of appropriating certain funds, it is 
quite easy to add some items. Every year in appropriations bills, we 
find certain Members seem to do quite well, thank you. They happen to 
occupy positions that allow them that opportunity.
  But we are not going to list the items. Americans read about them 
regularly in the newspapers, in the magazines. They hear about them on 
the national news. In fact, one network outlined on a regular nightly 
basis for several weeks--and perhaps it is still going on--how your 
money is spent. And each time they do that, our phones light up the 
next morning, the mail pours in, people stop you back at home and say, 
``How in the world can you take my hard earned dollars and spend it on 
that item?"
  Mr. President, we have a budget process that encourages delay, 
rewards subterfuge, and works to the detriment of the American people. 
But any spending that must be attached or hidden is spending that 
cannot be justified on its merits.
  It is time for us to change the system. It is time for us to shine a 
light in the deep, dark corners of deficit spending. It is time to give 
the President and to give the American people the line-item veto.
  Just as a yellow highlight earmarks and highlights a text, the line-
item veto will give the President the power to highlight Government 
pork by drawing bright lines through the billions of dollars of added 
on Federal waste. No longer will unnecessary expenditures be able to 
hide in the dark details of necessary bills. The line-item veto will 
spotlight their existence and force legislators to defend their merits 
in open debate.
  More importantly, the line-item veto means that pork finally stops at 
somebody's desk. Even if the Congress persists in passing wasteful 
spending measures, the people can still demand that the President line 
out parochial pork barrel projects that increase their tax burden and 
threatens their children's future. The line-item veto is a giant step 
forward in fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. President, today objections raised by the Congress against the 
line-item veto seem to boil down to some fundamental questions. One of 
the questions is: Is the line-item veto the best solution to the 
problem?
  As I said earlier, the best solution would have been a balanced 
budget amendment. Congress failed by one vote in that effort.
  But the next best structural change that can take place would be the 
line-item veto, in this Senator's opinion, because it is clear the 
Congress cannot muster the will to, on a regular basis or even on an 
occasional basis, balance the budget.
  As I said, Calvin Coolidge was still alive the last time we did 
balance the budget. Our record is pretty sorry, despite our promises, 
despite our best efforts.
  The other objection raised is: Is this constitutional? Let me address 
the first one: Is it the best solution?
  Obviously, the best solution would be for the Congress to put the 
interest of the country before its own parochial interests, to follow 
the basic principle, which we attempted to teach our children around 
the kitchen table or sitting in the family room, that every corporation 
in America has to follow, that every home owner has to follow: If you 
keep spending more money than you take in, you are going to get 
yourself in deep trouble.
  How many times have I told my children, how many times have any of us 
told our children, ``Look, you can't spend more than you have. Sure you 
can get a plastic credit card, but the bill comes 30 days later and 
there is interest attached. And the interest is not cheap. It keeps 
adding up. And if you keep mounting that up, you are going to get 
yourself in a real hole.''
  And there are a lot of Americans that have done that.
  Well, we each are given a credit card when we come here. It is called 
our ID. In the House, they actually use it to put it in a machine and 
that records their vote. Here, we vote by voice vote. But this is the 
most expensive credit card in America. It says ``United States 
Senator.'' It allows us to walk in this Chamber and, because we can 
carry this card, we have license to the taxpayers' dollar.
  What we are suggesting here is that that license has been abused. We 
have racked up the points. We have reached the limit and it is time to 
call each of us on that. And it is time to change the system, time to 
put some restrictions on the use of this card. Maybe I should say the 
abuse of this card.
  We have demonstrated an institutional inability to restrain ourselves 
from unnecessary pork barrel spending. And perhaps the line-item veto 
is the only tool we have left.
  Each year, Congress sends the White House massive bills, at most 13 
appropriations bills. All of our spending is pretty much compressed 
into 13 bills.
  Sometimes we send the President one continuing resolution. That 
combines all the bills that we have not passed separately into one bill 
and we have one vote, yes or no. We send this massive bill to the 
President--sometimes it is the entire spending for the entire Federal 
Government--and we say, ``Well, Mr. President, the fiscal year runs out 
on September 30 at midnight. We are going to send you a bill up about 
10 p.m., September 30. That is going to allow you to continue 
Government running until we get around to passing the separate 
appropriations bills.''
  Sometimes we never do. We just operate. In other words, we give him 
authority to continue spending the money that he had last year.
  Send it up there about 10 o'clock and say, ``Mr. President, you have 
about 2 hours--I know the bill is several thousands of pages long--a 
couple hours to look at it. Now you can veto it. You might find some 
things in there you do not like. You can veto it. But, of course, the 
Government will shut down. Nobody will get paid. Everything stops. All 
the checks stop.''
  And the President is held almost in a position of blackmail because 
his only choice is to either accept the whole bill or veto the whole 
bill.
  So the ground rules offered by Congress are very clear. Tie the 
President's hands by leaving him with a take-it-or-leave-it decision 
and obscure in the process all the uncounted billions of dollars of 
unnecessary pork-barrel spending.
  Now this maneuver is very commonplace in the Congress. Because it 
seems that our facility for outrage has been dulled by the repetition 
of the times that we have done this. But I would suggest it is also 
contemptible, for when we hide those excesses behind the shield of 
vital legislation, we do it precisely to avoid making hard choices, to 
mask our actions and to confuse the American taxpayer.
  In other words, we avoid public ridicule by consciously attempting to 
keep citizens from knowing how their money is spent. We hope they do 
not find out.
  We criticize the press sometimes, but sometimes we have to give them 
credit. Sometimes those people sit down and pore through those bills 
and say, ``Wait until you, American taxpayer, hear about this one.'' 
And we pick up the USA Today the next morning and there is the list of 
spending that just defies rationality, particularly at a time of 
burgeoning deficits.
  In his 1985 State of the Union Address, President Reagan very 
effectively demonstrated this point; that is, the point of Congress 
dumping massive legislation on his desk in a take-it-or-leave-it 
proposition. The President slammed down 43 pounds and 3,296 pages of 
Congress' latest omnibus spending bill. He slammed it down on the desk 
of Tip O'Neill. It was the bill that represented $1 trillion worth of 
spending--one bill.
 Not one penny of which he had the power to veto unless he rejected the 
entire bill.

  As my colleague, Senator McCain, has pointed out, Congress' addiction 
to pork barrel politics has reached the point where it is threatening 
even our national security and consuming resources that could be better 
spent on returning it to the taxpayers in the form of tax cuts, on 
deficit reduction, or any one of a legitimate number of worthwhile 
programs that would benefit all Americans--not just the few who happen 
to live in one particular State or one particular district.
  The seriousness of this problem demands a serious response. I 
suggest, as 
[[Page S4083]] Senator McCain suggested, the line-item veto is a 
serious response because it will force this Congress to get serious 
about spending and end business as usual because ``business as usual'' 
is something that this country can no longer afford.
  Mr. President, before the Budget Impoundment and Control Act of 1974, 
Presidents could eliminate or impound political pork by simply refusing 
to spend the appropriated funds. Using this tactic, President Johnson 
in 1967 eliminated 6.7 percent of total Federal spending, which in 
today's terms would amount to about $99 billion.
  A few years later, President Nixon provoked Congress' wrath by 
impounding the money for more than 100 different programs. Typically, 
Congress was outraged, in 1974, it retaliated. Grab the power of 
unlimited political pork by passing legislation that would ``ensure 
congressional budget control.''
  Now, I do not know if that is an oxymoron or not. I guess an oxymoron 
is just 2 years. Maybe this is an oxy-oxymoron. ``Congressional budget 
control,'' it is like airline food and the Postal Service--they just do 
not seem to ring quite right. Congressional budget control. Dare we use 
the term ``ensure" congressional budget control when we have seen the 
national debt increase from $1 to $5 trillion in less than 15 years?
  Under the new law passed in 1974, the President can still propose 
cuts. The Congress said, ``Well, listen, we will not take this power 
away from you completely. You can still propose cuts, but those cuts 
will not take effect,'' Congress said, ``unless both the House and the 
Senate vote to approve those cuts in 45 days.''
  Well, as we can guess, this proved just a little too convenient for 
Congress. In order to kill a Presidential cut, Congress quickly learned 
it does not have to do anything, a skill at which we are very adept at, 
as history will testify.
  So in the years that followed, only 7 percent of the proposed cuts 
that President Ford sent to the Congress were approved. From 1983 to 
1989 we only approved 2 percent of President Reagan's proposed cuts. 
President Bush proposed 47 recisions. We approved one of them. Congress 
got its way.
  But the result was not only more congressional control but more 
congressional spending. From 1969 to 1974, President Nixon kept 
domestic discretionary spending to an annual growth rate of 7.3 
percent. In 1975, the first year the new recision provision went into 
place, that is, if Congress does nothing, the President cannot stop the 
spending, Federal spending, and nondefense discretionary programs grew 
by an unprecedented 26.4 percent. Let me make that point again: When he 
had the power to check congressional spending, congressional spending 
only grew, discretionary spending only grew at 7.3 percent a year.
  The year after Congress took it away, took the President's power away 
to do this, it jumped to 26.4 percent. The wild growth in Federal 
spending can often be traced to a number of causes. One of the reasons 
is crystal clear: The President has had limited authority left to 
prioritize how funds are spent. Congress can no longer be checked by 
the prospects of Presidential impoundment.
  Today what we have is a President with no reliable means to check the 
excesses of Congress, because by simple inaction Congress can 
perpetuate projects that we can no longer afford. Inertia is rewarded 
with scarce funds. Pet projects are shielded by our indecision. 
Predictably, the effect on the deficit has been dramatic.
  Mr. President, I expect that the majority leader will introduce a 
substitute to the bill that Senator McCain and I are introducing. We 
have been working very, very closely with the majority leader in 
crafting a measure which we believe is even more effective than the one 
which we proposed and which, hopefully, can secure additional support.
  I want to commend the majority leader for his efforts in moving 
forward, in designating line-item veto as a top five priority for this 
Congress. Mr. President, S. 4 is the bill that was introduced by the 
majority leader. The one that Senator McCain and I have been working on 
for a number of years, trying to refine the differences, pick up 
additional support.
  We have been working now with the majority leader, the Chairman of 
the Budget Committee, and others in this Congress to write an even 
stronger bill, write an even better bill. We expect that the majority 
leader will be introducing that in a relatively short time--not 
tonight--but early next week.
  Under that legislation, each item in an appropriations bill will be 
enrolled separately. That means it will be defined separately as a bill 
and presented to the President for his signature. In this way, the 
President will be able to pick and choose among funding, supporting 
those he considers worthy, and vetoing others.
  Under this process, Congress will no longer be able to protect its 
excesses by simply wrapping egregious spending in one omnibus bill or 
tacking it in, hoping to hide it from public scrutiny. On the contrary, 
Congress will be forced to put itself on the record, and any conflict 
between the Congress and the President will be publicly aired before 
the American people.
  The reform embodied in this amendment is not radical. It would simply 
restore a balance between the executive and legislative branches to 
what was regular practice for 185 years of American history.
  As I said, since 1989 Senator McCain and I have fought for the line-
item veto as a tool to rein in out-of-control spending. I believe there 
is no surer sign of our commitment to real change than our willingness 
to have this Republican Congress, in one of its first defining acts, to 
give this tool to a Democrat President.
  If President Clinton had the line-item veto, the savings would not be 
miraculous, but they could be substantial. For years, Senator McCain 
and I heard the charges from the opposition. ``Well, you would not do 
this if it were a Democrat sitting in the White House. You would not 
give up that power.'' We said, ``yes, we would.'' We are not giving it 
to a particular person. We are giving it to the office, to the office 
of the Presidency, because we so firmly believe that Congress has 
abused its privilege of deciding and solely determining the power of 
the purse that we believe that the President needs a check, a balance, 
that the President had prior to 1974.
  It is not like we are giving him something new. We are restoring 
something that he already had. We want to give him that authority. 
Whether it is a Republican President or a Democrat President, there 
needs to be a check on the excessive spending habits of Congress.
  Senator McCain has mentioned that the GAO report that says that in 
the mid-1980's we could have saved $70 billion if the President had 
line-item veto. Some will dispute that amount. No one can dispute--no 
one can dispute--that we would have saved money. No one can dispute 
that we would have prevented a great deal of excess wasteful pork-
barrel spending, whatever the amount.
  If it were $70 billion, think what that could have done. We can have 
doubled the personal exemption for families struggling to raise their 
children, to pay the bills. We could have paid for the entire student 
loan program for 5 years. We could have cut the national debt, and 
could have substantially reduced our interest obligations.
  If the President gets this line-item veto authority, we will never 
know the full extent of the savings because what it will do is it will 
send a message to every Member of Congress that the days of pork-barrel 
spending are over.
  The slick little habit that is exercised time and time again of 
attaching an item of spending that everybody knows deep down in their 
heart would never, never withstand the glare of public scrutiny, would 
never withstand the openness of public debate, would never achieve a 
majority of Senators voting for their particular item, that will never 
even get attached to a bill. But they know that the President has line-
item veto authority and their spending item, their special interest 
parochial spending item is lined out and sent back to the Congress and 
that the only way it can be restored is to bring it to the floor and 
override the President's veto. We will never know how much money we 
will save in this process. We will never know how many 
[[Page S4084]] projects, how much special interest parochial spending 
would have been attached and hidden in the appropriations bills or a 
tax bill if the process is changed.
  Mr. President, as I said, one of the other objections to this are the 
constitutional concerns. The majority leader's substitute will restore 
a healthy tension between the legislative and executive branches 
necessary for fiscal discipline. President Truman wrote:

       One important lack in the Presidential veto power, I 
     believe, is authority to veto individual items in 
     appropriations bills. The President must approve the bill in 
     its entirety or refuse to approve it. . . it is a form of 
     legislative blackmail.

  Some will argue that the veto is too high a standard; that it is 
difficult to muster the numbers to override it. To those, I would say, 
that the greater challenge today is to reduce our Nation's debt and 
balance our Nation's books. In this day, it should be a formidable 
challenge to continue to spend our children's and grandchildren's 
money. It is time for a higher standard.
  Others will say that the separate enrollment is inconvenient; the 
President will be forced to examine and sign hundreds of bills instead 
of one; how is the House going to process all this?
  I find it interesting that every President since Ulysses Grant, with 
a couple of exceptions, has asked for a line-item veto. Not one of them 
has complained about the inconvenience of a line-item veto.
  I also will say to my colleagues that modern technology, the 
information age, is upon us, the computer age is here. What used to be 
a tedious task, what used to be a complex process, what used to be a 
question as to the decisionmaking power of an enrollment clerk--that is 
someone who writes up the bills and presents them for final approval to 
the executive branch--what used to be a complex process is now a very 
simple process. Software has been written for computers that can 
process this in a matter of moments. And so to separately line item and 
enroll a large appropriations bill is no longer a difficult process. So 
the objection to the nightmare of the mechanical difficulty has been 
met through the miracle of modern technology.
  As I said, some question the constitutional standard. Article I, 
section 5, says that each House of Congress has unilateral authority to 
make and amend rules governing its procedures. Separate enrollment 
speaks to the question of what constitutes a bill, it does nothing to 
erode the prerogatives of the President as that bill is presented. The 
Constitution grants the Congress sole authority for defining our rules. 
Our procedures for defining and enrolling a bill are ours to determine 
alone.
  There is precedent provided in House rule XLIX, the Gephardt rule. 
Under this rule, the House Clerk is instructed to prepare a joint 
resolution raising the debt ceiling when Congress adopts a concurrent 
budget resolution which exceeds the statutory debt limit. The House is 
deemed to have voted on and passed the resolution on the debt ceiling 
when the vote occurs on the concurrent resolution. Despite the fact 
that a vote is never taken, the House is deemed to have passed it.
  The American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service has 
analyzed separate enrollment legislation and found it constitutional. 
Let me quote from Johnny Killian of the CRS:

       Evident it would appear to be that simply to authorize the 
     President to pick and choose among provisions of the same 
     bill would be to contravene this procedure. In [separate 
     enrollment], however, a different tack is chosen. Separate 
     bills drawn out of a single original bill are forwarded to 
     the President. In this fashion, he may pick and choose. The 
     formal provisions of the presentation clause would seem to be 
     observed by this device.

  Prof. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional scholar, has also observed 
that the measure is constitutional. He recently wrote, and I quote:

       The most promising line-item veto idea by far is . . . that 
     Congress itself begin to treat each appropriation and each 
     tax measure as an individual ``bill'' to be presented 
     separately to the President for his signature or veto. Such a 
     change could be effected simply, and with no real 
     constitutional difficulty, by a temporary alteration in 
     congressional rules regarding the enrolling and presentment 
     of bills.

  He goes on to say:

       Courts construing the rules clause of article I, section 5, 
     have interpreted it in expansive terms, and I have little 
     doubt that the sort of individual presentment envisioned by 
     such a rules change would fall within Congress' broad 
     authority.

  The distinguished Senator from Delaware, Senator Biden, during his 
tenure as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote extensive 
additional views in a committee report on the constitutional line-item 
veto. He wrote about a separate enrollment substitute he offered, and I 
quote:

       Each House of Congress has the power to make and amend the 
     rules governing its internal procedures. And, of course, 
     Congress has complete control over the content of the 
     legislation it passes. Thus, the decisions to initiate the 
     process of separate enrollment, to terminate the process 
     through passage of a subsequent statute, to pass a given 
     appropriations bill, and to establish the sections and 
     paragraphs of that bill, are all fully within Congress' 
     discretion and control.

  He goes on to say:

       A requirement that Congress again pass each separately 
     enrolled item would be only a formal refinement--not a 
     substantive one. It would not prevent power from being 
     shifted from Congress to the President, because under the 
     statutory line-item veto, Congress will retain the full 
     extent of its legislative power. Nor would it serve to shield 
     Congress from the process of separate enrollment, because 
     Congress will retain the discretion to terminate that 
     process.

  Mr. President, the line-item veto will discourage budget waste 
because it will encourage the kind of openness and conflict that 
enforces restraint. The goal is not to hand the Executive dominance in 
the budget process. It is not a return to impoundment. It is a gentle 
and necessary nudge toward an equilibrium of budgetary influence, a 
strengthening of vital checks on the excesses of this Congress.
  The President's veto or ``revisionary'' power, as the Constitution 
defines it, was intended to serve two functions: To protect the 
Presidency from the encroachment of the legislative branch, and to 
prevent the enactment of harmful laws.
  Certainly, any attempt by a President today to line out unnecessary 
spending would meet the second of the Framers' objectives, that of 
preventing the enactment of harmful laws.
  In 1916, a Texas Congressman, who shall go unnamed but will be 
quoted, had this to say:

       There are a half a dozen places in my district where 
     Federal buildings are being erected or have recently been 
     constructed at a cost to the Federal Government far in excess 
     of the actual needs of the communities where they are 
     located. This is mighty bad business for Uncle Sam, and I'll 
     admit it; but the other fellows in Congress have been doing 
     it for a long time and I can't make them quit.
       Now we Democrats are in charge of the House and I'll tell 
     you right now, every time one of those Yankees gets a ham, 
     I'm going to get myself a hog.

  Mr. President, that was colorful language. We do not use that kind of 
language too much around here in 1995. But the principle is the same. 
Everybody else is getting it for their district, so I better get it for 
mine. If that fellow over there can get a ham, I am going to see that I 
get a hog.
  That is not spending in the national interest. That is not 
appropriate spending even if our budget is balanced, but I guarantee 
you it is not appropriate spending when you have an unbalanced budget, 
when needs are being unmet, when the taxpayer is paying a higher burden 
than he should, when the debt is running out of control, when we are 
saddling future generations with a debt obligation which will bury them 
and bury their opportunity to enjoy the same standard of living 
available to each one of us.
  The line-item veto is a measure whose time has come. The American 
people voted for it. The House has passed it. The President wants it. 
And now only the Senate, only the Senate, stands in the way of the 
line-item veto. Let us make sure that the Senate is viewed as the 
world's greatest deliberative body and not the world's greatest 
deliberative obstacle to the line-item veto.
  Mr. President, I contend it is time to pass the line-item veto.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
   [[Page S4085]] Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 
that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the Citizens Against Government Waste have 
sent a letter that says:
                                              Council for Citizens


                                     Against Government Waste,

                                   Washington, DC, March 14, 1995.
       Dear Senator: The 600,000 members of the Council for 
     Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) strongly endorse S. 
     4, the enhanced rescissions bill. S. 4 was introduced by 
     Senator Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS) and Senators John 
     McCain (R-AZ) and Dan Coats (R-IN). This line-item veto truly 
     provides the president with a veto of congressional spending, 
     by requiring a \2/3\ vote to override.
       The House of Representatives heeded the President's call 
     for fiscal soundness and overwhelmingly supported enhanced 
     rescission legislation over ``expedited rescissions.'' Most 
     Americans agree with the House and President Clinton on this 
     issue--give the president the authority to weed out wasteful 
     spending. In addition, CCAGW calls on the Senate to further 
     strengthen S. 4 by extending the line-item veto power over 
     tax and contract authority legislation, also havens for pork.
       The inside-the-beltway crowd says the line-item veto will 
     die in the Senate. It's time to prove them wrong. The defeat 
     of the Balanced Budget Amendment made it painfully obvious 
     that some members of Congress are not ready to give up their 
     ``pork perk.'' However, their victory should be short-lived. 
     Passing S. 4 will strike a blow against wasteful spending and 
     begin the long journey back to sound fiscal policy.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Tom Schatz,
                                                        President.

  I would like to respond to my friends from Citizens Against 
Government Waste. We do intend in the Dole substitute, which will be 
brought up sometime early next week, to provide some power over taxing, 
in the respect that we are attempting to craft language that would 
eliminate the targeted tax benefits in the so-called transition rules 
which have really been egregious violations of the intentions of the 
law. They, like pork-barrel spending, are very anecdotal. An example is 
the person who owned a house on the ninth tee of the Augusta Golf 
Course in Augusta during the Masters tournament who rented it out for a 
week and got some huge tax writeoff.
  The so-called transition rules that are hidden in tax bills, which 
give enormous tax breaks which the American taxpayer really never is 
aware of--certainly not sufficiently aware of--we are going to try to 
address that, I say to my friends at Citizens Against Government Waste. 
We have yet to figure out a way to address the contract authority 
situation, but I suggest, if we had the line-item veto that prevented 
the expansion of entitlements, that took care of targeted tax 
incentives, that took care of the appropriations aspect, we would go a 
very, very long way.
  The National Taxpayers Union writes:
                                     National Taxpayers Union,

                                   Washington, DC, March 16, 1995.
     Hon. John McCain,
     U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator McCain: On behalf of our 300,000 members, 
     National Taxpayers Union (NTU) strongly endorses S. 4, the 
     ``Legislative Line-Item Veto Act,'' which is clearly the best 
     line-item veto bill before the Congress.
       The need for a line-item veto has become more pressing in 
     recent years as Congress has tended to aggregate legislation 
     into mammoth continuing resolutions and omnibus bills. Such a 
     practice greatly reduces the likelihood that the president 
     will use his veto power because of his objections to a 
     relatively small provision in the legislation.
       The all-too-common congressional tactic is to attach 
     parochial, pork-barrel appropriations to must-pass 
     legislation that the president has little choice but to sign. 
     Since many of these provisions are neither the subject of 
     debate nor a separate vote, many Members of Congress do not 
     realize they exist. The legislative line-item veto would 
     allow the president to draw attention to pork-barrel 
     provisions and force their proponents to justify them. 
     Meritorious provisions would be repassed by Congress, while 
     the rest would be eliminated.
       Additionally, the line-item veto would make the president 
     more accountable on the issue of wasteful spending. Many 
     presidents have repeatedly criticized Congress on spending. 
     With line-item-veto authority, the president could no longer 
     blame Congress for loading up spending bills with non-
     essential spending and would have to work actively, rather 
     than rhetorically, to trim wasteful spending.
       Some people warn that the line-item veto will affect the 
     balance of power between the Executive Branch and the 
     Legislative Branch. Our much greater concern, and I believe 
     that of most Americans, is the risk inherent in a record 
     amount of peace-time debt, which endangers our country's 
     financial future. It is far beyond the point where we ought 
     to quibble about whether this is going to slightly enhance 
     the power of the president or Congress. We should recognize, 
     as most people have, that the process has broken down and 
     that our general interest as a nation lies in bringing our 
     financial house to order.
       The president is the only official elected by the nation 
     who exerts direct control over legislation. It is entirely 
     appropriate that the president be given an opportunity to 
     veto items of spending that are not in the national interest. 
     Again, National Taxpayers Union strongly endorses S. 4 and 
     urges your colleagues to support it on the floor of the 
     Senate.
           Sincerely,
                                                    David Keating,
                                         Executive Vice President.

  Mr. President, these two organizations, the Citizens Against 
Government Waste and the National Taxpayers Union, along with the 
Citizens for a Sound Economy, who also strongly support this 
legislation, are three organizations on whom I have relied over the 
years to educate the American people. They have performed a signal 
service. These three organizations have fought against Government waste 
and pork barreling in a dedicated and effective fashion. I believe 
without their help we would not be here today on the floor of the 
Senate, considering this legislation.
  I am grateful for their participation. I am grateful for their 
support. Occasionally it is a bit amusing when we go to the annual 
publication of the ``Pig Book,'' which is published by the Citizens 
Against Government Waste. There are these cute little pigs there, and 
every year they issue a Citizens Against Government Waste--this is the 
``Congressional Pig Book,'' and a State-by-State breakdown of projects.
  It is partially entertaining but sometimes it is also very saddening. 
It is entertaining to see the uses and creativity of some Members and 
their staffs in appropriating funds to certain projects. Again I will 
relate my all time favorite of a couple of years ago, the $2.5 million 
which was spent on studying the effect on the ozone layer of flatulence 
in cows. But there are many others. At the same time, when we view tens 
of millions and sometimes billions of dollars that are wasted in such a 
profligate fashion, then it is no longer amusing. It is very, very 
disturbing.
  I want to emphasize what Mr. Keating said in his letter from the 
National Taxpayers Union, that there will be dire warnings, the tocsin 
will be sounded: You are transferring all this power over to the 
executive branch. You cannot do it. If you do it we are upsetting the 
balance of powers and our Founding Fathers will be spinning in their 
graves, et cetera, et cetera.
  First of all, I do not believe it is true. Second, I have quoted 
extensively from the Federalist Papers as to the intent of our Founding 
Fathers. I think it is appropriate to mention that Thomas Jefferson 
said, in retrospect, long after the Constitution was written, that if 
he had it to do over again he would put in some mechanism that would 
force the Congress and the Nation to balance revenues with 
expenditures.
  There is no doubt whatsoever that the President in most respects had 
the authority from the time that Thomas Jefferson refused to spend 
$50,000 in 1801 to build some gunships, to 1974 when the President, 
President Nixon, unfortunately in my view, in a weakened Presidency, 
used the impoundment powers in such an abusive fashion that the 
Congress rose up and passed the 1974 Budget Impoundment Act.
  From that point on--not since 1787, not since 1802, not since 1905--
since 1974 has been when the deficit has sprung out of control and the 
debt has accumulated at a rate never seen before in the history of this 
country.
  So, as the debate wears on, I ask my colleagues to keep in mind that 
all of the talk about the Greek civilization, the Roman Empire, the 
precedents set in the British parliament, are all very interesting if 
not entertaining expositions of history.
 But I must say, Mr. President, what we are really talking about is 
what has happened with the Federal deficit since 1974.

  Mr. President, I had a chart up here earlier that showed for most of 
this century how both the expenditures and revenues had basically 
matched each 
[[Page S4086]] other with certain changes. With the exception of 
wartime, basically it had been a priority of this Nation to keep our 
financial house in order as every family in America is required to do. 
Something happened. Maybe in the view of some there was just some huge 
change in attitude. Maybe in the view of some it was a coincidence that 
the Budget and Impoundment Act was passed in 1974. I do not believe it 
was a coincidence. I know it is not a coincidence. I know what 
happened--that expenditures began to exceed revenues at an alarming 
rate.
  This habit of tucking projects into appropriations bills became more 
and more rampant. The situation grew out of control because 
fundamentally the executive branch had no choice but to do two things: 
One, veto a bill which would then for all intents and purposes shut 
down the Government, or certain branches of Government, and deprive our 
citizens of much needed benefits and services provided by the 
Government and sort of have a showdown with the Congress. The other 
choice was to send forth a package of rescissions and hope that the 
Congress would act. Two things have happened since the Congress was not 
required to act. One is that Congress has simply not acted. That has 
been more and more the case since President Ford's administration, and 
the other is to take a rescission request on the part of the President 
and then change it all around so that it bears no recognition to the 
original rescission request made by the President.
  So what we have really done is removed a check and balance that was 
fundamentally in place for nearly 200 years. Now what we are seeking to 
do is restore that balance and restore that check so that some fiscal 
sanity is restored.
  Mr. President, I can thumb through this book and find most anything 
in here. Some of them I say are amusing. Electric vehicles--$15 million 
for electric vehicles. That is out of the Defense appropriations bill; 
$15 million. That was last year. I know that electric vehicles are 
probably something of the future. I hope that we will be able to 
develop them. I believe that they are probably important. But I am not 
sure where they fit into our defense requirements when we have 20,000 
men and women in the military on food stamps, when we have not enough 
steaming hours or flying hours or training hours or pay raises for our 
military. But we want to spend $15 million on electric car development 
out of the Defense appropriations bill.
  I can pick out from any page of that several hundred pages of these 
projects. My point is that for many of these projects, if the sponsors 
of these particular lines knew that a President of the United States 
would say, ``Here is the electric car. I do not know if they are needed 
or not, but we sure don't need to take it out of defense because we are 
having to cancel every modernization program and weapons system that we 
have and we do not have enough money to maintain readiness. We are 
having trouble recruiting, and we need to have more money for that. And 
electric cars just is not my priority. So I am line-item vetoing it,'' 
I would suggest to you that the person who put that particular 
appropriation in with the best of intentions would certainly think 
twice before putting it in, especially if it was not deemed a priority 
by the Department of Defense.
  Let me also point out that there are other projects which are worthy 
projects.
  By the way, one just jumps out at me: The shrimp aquaculture, $3.54 
million for shrimp aquaculture. And I am astounded to see that one of 
the States that is getting part of this $3 million is my home State of 
Arizona. We have a lot of wonderful things in Arizona but water is not 
in abundance. I am intensely curious--and I will find out, and put a 
statement for the Record--where the shrimp aquaculture project is in my 
State and how much money we have gotten for it. By the way, this shrimp 
aquaculture $3 million is divided up amongst five different States.
  Again, shrimp aquaculture might be a very vital project for my 
State's economy. I would be surprised to know that. But there are a lot 
of things that I do not know about my State. But if shrimp aquaculture 
is an important part of my State's economy, at least I think I would 
have known about it or been told about it before I had to read it in 
the congressional ``Pig Book.'' So this is the kind of thing that in my 
view would never be inserted in an appropriations bill because it would 
be open to ridicule.
  Frankly, Mr. President, being on the floor of the Senate and if 
somebody said, ``You know. We are spending $3 million or part of $3 
million in your State for shrimp aquaculture, what do you think about 
that?''--I would have to say in all candor I think it may be nice but I 
have not known in my 12 years of representing the State of Arizona, 4 
years in the House and 8 years in U.S. Senate that it was an important 
item. In fact, in all seriousness I would have a great deal of 
difficulty defending it on the floor of the Senate if it were line-item 
vetoed by the President.
  As I say, these items are sometimes amusing. But the reality is I do 
not think those items would creep in. So when we say how much money 
would be saved if we had the line-item veto, frankly we will never 
know. We will never know that. But when I see people like the former 
Governor, now our colleague, John Ashcroft, who was a very well-
respected and regarded Governor of his State, say that he does not 
believe that there would have been fiscal sanity in his State during 
his two terms as Governor had he not had the ability to exercise the 
line-item veto, then I think we should notice that.
  Mr. President, before this debate is over, we will have letters from 
nearly every one of those 43 out of 50 Governors in America that have a 
line-item veto telling us how important a tool it is for them.
  Let me just quote from several we have received already.

       Besides providing greater authority to veto . . . the 
     threat of a veto allows great flexibility in negotiating with 
     the legislature or Congress. The key to a good budget is 
     negotiations between both sides. This device is a mechanism 
     for negotiation.

  That is from a Utah Republican, Governor of the State of Utah.

       I support the line-item veto because it is an executive 
     function to identify budget plans and successful items.

  That is from Hugh Carey, a New York Democratic Governor from 1975 to 
1983.

       Congress' practice of passing enormous spending bills means 
     funding for everything from a Lawrence Welk museum to a study 
     of bovine flatulence.

  I am glad Governor Wilson also found that would be one of his 
favorite slips through Congress.

       The President may be unable to veto a major bill that 
     includes such spending abuses because the majority of the 
     bill is desperately needed. A line-item veto would let the 
     President control the irresponsible spending that Congress 
     cannot. A line-item veto already works at the State level. It 
     not only allows a Governor to veto wasteful spending but it 
     works as a deterrent to wasteful-spending legislators who 
     know it will be vetoed.

  Pete Wilson, Governor of California.
  I find Pete Wilson's statements most interesting because Pete Wilson, 
as opposed to most, has gone from being a Senator to Governor, rather, 
as many in our body, have been former Governors.
  But I think it is also important to point out, whether I happen to 
like it or not, the State of California is by far the largest State in 
America with a population of some 30 million people. If we were looking 
from purely a gross national product standpoint, it would be the fifth-
largest nation in the world--from a gross national product standpoint. 
And the Governor of that State is unequivocally committed to a line-
item veto.
  So I suggest that this Governor of California, Pete Wilson, has also 
had to struggle with a severe recession in his State and has had to 
make some very difficult budgetary decisions. I know for a fact because 
he told me that a line-item veto was a critical arrow in his quiver in 
his ability to be able to bring his State out of a terrible, terrible 
financial recession.
  ``Legislators love to be loved, so they love to spend money. Line-
item veto is essential to enable the executive to hold down spending.'' 
That was William F. Weld, Governor of Massachusetts.
  Mr. President, I happen to remember the days in the late 1980's when 
the Massachusetts miracle, as they called it, crumbled. I remember when 
the State of Massachusetts was in terrible shape, and I also know that 
Governor Weld has gotten well-deserved credit 
[[Page S4087]] for bringing the State of Massachusetts into a situation 
where, again, it has a very healthy economy.
  I think his description is probably a little more blunt than some use 
around here. ``Legislators love to be loved, so they love to spend 
money.'' But, at the same time, I am not going to argue with that 
language, even if I might not use it myself.
  Of course, my favorite of all, obviously, is that of Ronald Reagan 
who said:

       When I was Governor in California, the Governor had the 
     line-item veto, so you could veto parts of a bill, or even 
     part of the spending in a bill. The President can't do that. 
     I think, frankly--of course, I am prejudice--Government would 
     be far better off if the President had the right of line-item 
     veto.

  Speaking of the President, in December 1992, after President Clinton 
was elected, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal and it was 
titled, ``Where We Agree: Clinton and I on Line-Item Veto,'' by Ronald 
Reagan.

       When Bill Clinton called on me the other day, it didn't 
     take us long to find several things we agreed about, such as 
     the line-item veto and trimming the size of Government in 
     some areas. We also agreed on the importance of public-
     private sector dialog and cooperation in the planning of many 
     Government programs.
       Soon after the election, President Bush and President-elect 
     Clinton named the leaders of their transition teams, the 
     teams were formed and the process is moving forward in an 
     orderly and completely civil manner.
       * * * In the course of our meeting, Governor Clinton spoke 
     of his plan to trim the Federal work force through attrition. 
     He wants to begin by downsizing the administrative staff at 
     the White House. And he has invited Congress to do the same 
     with its staff.
       * * * Both Mr. Clinton and I have had experience with the 
     line-item veto as Governors. Our States, along with 41 
     others, allow their Governors to delete individual spending 
     items from the annual budget without having to veto the 
     entire thing. At the Federal level, it could become an 
     important part of the system of checks and balances, as well 
     as a significant tool in the deficit reduction process.
       As President, Bill Clinton may have only a short time in 
     which to get Congress to do his bidding before the new 
     Members are overwhelmed by the impulse to spend more and to 
     dish out pork to please the special interest groups. He 
     should use the ``honeymoon'' period to get the line-item veto 
     from Congress first.

  Mr. President, I am disappointed that President Clinton did not take 
President Reagan's advice. I am doubly disappointed because I remember, 
with great clarity, when President Clinton came to have lunch with the 
Republican Senators shortly after his inauguration, which is the custom 
for in-coming Presidents--to go to lunch with both Republican and 
Democrat Senators at their respective luncheons. I remember with great 
clarity, as President Clinton was speaking--and I still remember what a 
fine job he did that day--he said, ``I am looking forward to working 
with Senator McCain on the line-item veto.'' I must say that I was 
buoyed by that remark of President Clinton's.
  Unfortunately, there never was any followup. Unfortunately, when 
Senator Coats and I took up the line-item veto again some 8 or 9 months 
later and sought to propose it as an amendment, since we were in a 
minority and unable to bring it up as a freestanding bill as we are 
now, I wrote a letter to the President asking for his support for 
Senator Coats' and my effort. The response I got back was disingenuous 
at best. It said that the President would support a line-item veto only 
when it came up as a free-standing bill. He could not provide his 
support if it were proposed as an amendment. Obviously, at that time, 
that was a catch-22 answer because the leadership on that side of the 
aisle, which was the majority, was not about to let the line-item veto 
be brought up. So we were stymied and did not receive the commitment I 
thought I had from the President that day at lunch.
  Now, Mr. President, we are in a different situation. I do not want to 
confuse my remarks to ``Mr. President,'' who is presiding in the 
Chamber--who perhaps should be President some day--with the President 
of the United States. Mr. President, I am speaking of the President of 
the United States when I say now is the opportunity of the President of 
the United States to do what he said in ``putting people first''; but 
he said ``putting people first,'' which was his campaign commitment to 
the American people, which was sent around to every library in America. 
It stated:

       I strongly support the line-item veto because I think it is 
     one of the most powerful weapons we can use in our fight 
     against out of control deficit spending.

  What the President said to me and what the President has said 
publicly and stated on several occasions after the 1994 elections, has 
usually been in the context that ``I want to work with the Congress on 
some issues,'' and he almost invariably states the line-item veto.
  Mr. President, we know what the reality is around here. We know we 
will probably have 54 Republican votes for cloture. The question is, 
Will we have six Democrats? I believe that, at last count, after the 
last crossover, there are now 46 Members on the opposite side of the 
aisle. I am asking the President of the United States to persuade 6 of 
them--not 46, but 6; not 26, not 36, not even 16, but 6.
  So the responsibility, to a large degree, will rest on the President 
of the United States. Governor Clinton, on ``Larry King Live,'' said, 
``we ought to have a line-item veto.'' Candidate Clinton emphasized 
``putting people first'' and line-item veto to eliminate pork barrel 
projects and cut Government waste. He said, ``I will ask Congress to 
give me the line-item veto.''
  Mr. President, I hope that the President of the United States will 
weigh in on this issue not only because of the fact that it would make 
his job a lot easier, because I am convinced that it would, but because 
we must show some sanity and return ourselves to fiscal sanity. And 
there is no way of doing that, in my view, without a line-item veto.
  Let me repeat, Mr. President--and I will say this on many occasions 
in the next few days--we will not balance the budget of the United 
States with a line-item veto alone. You cannot believe that. But the 
budget of the United States cannot be balanced without a line-item 
veto. The Chamber of Commerce sent me a letter, Mr. President, which 
said:

       Dear Senator McCain:
       In the next few days, the Senate will consider legislation 
     granting line-item veto authority to the President. The U.S. 
     Chamber of Commerce--the world's largest business federation, 
     representing 215,000 businesses, 3,000 State and local 
     Chambers of Commerce, 1,200 trade and professional 
     associations, and 72 American Chambers of Commerce abroad--
     strongly urges you to vote YES on S. 4, the legislative line-
     item veto.
       The American business community believes that meaningful 
     long-term deficit reduction can come about only through 
     spending restraint. While a primary weapon in the fight 
     against the deficit is a balanced budget amendment, our 
     arsenal must also include a line-item veto or enhanced 
     rescission authority. Such authority would provide the 
     surgical strike capability necessary to take out specific 
     spending targets.
       S. 4, true enhanced rescission or legislative line-item 
     veto, would provide the President with the ability to reduce 
     or eliminate specific spending proposals. These cuts would 
     become law unless Congress votes to disapprove the 
     rescissions within a limited period. The President may then 
     veto the disapproval, which Congress can subsequently 
     override with a two-thirds majority vote. With such a 
     framework, S. 4 appropriately restores the impoundment 
     prerogative of every President from Jefferson to Nixon.
       The American people have placed fiscal responsibility high 
     on the agenda for the 104th Congress. We now urge you to act 
     accordingly by voting YES on S. 4.
           Sincerely,
                                                  R. Bruce Josten.

  Mr. President, while my colleague from Indiana was talking on the 
floor, I must confess that I did not remain on the floor for all of his 
remarks, which I knew were illuminating and important. I did go in the 
Cloakroom, because previously today, a talk show in my State had asked 
to talk to me about the line-item veto. And the talk show host had 
advertised that I was coming on the show. In the Cloakroom, I spoke on 
the talk show back in the State of Arizona on KFYI. The talk show 
host--an individual I have gotten to know very well--named Bob Mohan, 
informed me that all of the lines had been full since he had mentioned 
the line-item veto, and that his listeners were overwhelmingly in 
support of the line-item veto.
  Mr. President, he also said something else that I thought was 
interesting and should be interesting to at least the Members on my 
side of the aisle.
  He said, ``You know, I am getting a lot of calls and they are saying 
that 
[[Page S4088]] the Senate is dragging their feet and they are not 
really doing anything, and that Republicans are not staying together 
and that Republicans are really not committed to the Contract With 
America. Can you allay some of those fears and concerns that we are 
hearing more and more of in our calls from our listeners?''
  I said to Mr. Mohan, ``Well, I can allay most of those fears. I would 
remind you that it was only one on this side of the aisle, one person 
that voted against the balanced budget amendment. And we decided in our 
Republican caucus that a vote of conscience on the part of any Senator 
was something that we not only would allow but we would respect.''
  But I did agree with him, to the extent that we are perhaps not 
pushing our agenda as hard as we could and as far as we could. At the 
same time, I attempted to explain that the rules of the Senate are far 
different than from that of the other body.
  I guess what I am saying, Mr. President, is that we have a lot at 
stake here, not just those of us who reside on this side of the aisle, 
but I think that Congress has a lot at stake as far as our credibility 
with the American people.
  I believe that most Americans believed, after the November 8 
elections, starting and beginning on November 9, that the Congress of 
the United States would really fulfill the Contract With America. It is 
the first time in this century that I know of where a campaign was run 
on a national basis where there was commitments to do certain things. 
It was called a contract.
  The American people's definition of a contract is an agreement 
between two parties which is binding. And some American citizens today 
are wondering if they, as a result of their votes, fulfilled their end 
of the contract and whether we are fulfilling our end of it.
  Now, I believe we are making great efforts to do so on this side. But 
I would suggest that, after the defeat of the balanced budget 
amendment, it would be very, very important for all of us to recognize 
how serious the line-item veto is. I believe we will revisit the 
balanced budget amendment, Mr. President. I believe we will revisit it 
and I believe we will pass it because I have to believe that, when the 
overwhelming majority of American public opinion favors such a thing, a 
representative body--even one that plays the role of the saucer where 
the coffee is cooled--is going to, sooner or later, respond to the 
popular will.
  Now, the balanced budget amendment is not some mania that swept 
across the country and everyone said, ``Oh, gee, we need a balanced 
budget amendment,'' woke up in the morning and decided that.
  Mr. President, the balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto, 
which I consider the crown jewels of the Contract With America, have 
longstanding, deeply-held support on the part of the American people. 
And as they hear more and more and more excerpts from the ``Pig Book,'' 
they hear more and more times on April 15 that their taxes have gone up 
and up and up, they are now sending more and more of their money to the 
Federal Government in Washington and, in their view, getting less and 
less in return.
  Mr. President, in 1950, a family of four of median income sent $1 out 
of every $20 they earned to Washington, DC, in the form of Federal 
taxes. This April 15, that same median-income family of four will send 
$1 out of every $4 that they earn to the Federal Government in 
Washington. And if nothing changes, if nothing changes and we do not 
enact a single new entitlement program, we do not enact a single 
increase in expenditure, by the turn of the century, that will be $1 
out of every $3 that they are sending to Washington in the form of 
taxes.
  Mr. President, that is an enormous burden on median-income families. 
Then when you add in the State and local taxes, depending on which 
State they reside in, this jumps up to somewhere around 40 to 43 
percent of their earnings go in the form of taxes. And then, bearing 
that heavy burden, they turn around and see their money spent on things 
which really do not bear the scrutiny of anyone. They see that and they 
rebel and they lose confidence in their elected representatives as a 
body.
  And, strangely enough, they even lose confidence and faith in their 
elected representatives as individuals. We saw a strange phenomena in 
1994. It used to always be, how do you feel about Congress? It was very 
low approval ratings, 10, 30 percent, whatever it was. But we saw a 
very great phenomena. Even the approval rating of their own elected 
representatives, Congressmen and Senators, also dropped dramatically.
  And again I want to return though this situation of confidence in 
Government.
  It is fascinating because every nation in the world that has emerged 
from oppression and repression, especially those that emerged from 
behind the Iron Curtain since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet 
Union collapsed, look to the United States as a model for how 
government should be run and how people should be represented and what 
really liberty and freedom are all about.
  The students at Tiananmen Square erected a statue of liberty as their 
symbol of resistance to Communist oppression.
  One of the most interesting experiences of my life was traveling to 
Albania and seeing the empty pedestals that once held the statues of 
their dictator Hoxha, who was one of the most incredible dictators in 
history in Albania, and the words ``Long live Bush'' on the pedestals. 
``Long live Bush.''
  Everywhere I travel in the world, it is the United States that is the 
role model--freedom, democracy, all of the things that have to do with 
the rights of men and women. And yet, here in the United States in 
1994, the place that they all admire, there was a dramatic upheaval. 
And that upheaval was largely bred by dissatisfaction with Government; 
not satisfaction, dissatisfaction and outright anger.
  Now, Mr. President, a lot of that anger was understandably focused on 
the fact that their money was not being well spent. And not only not 
being well spent, it was wasted.
  American families, many of them, over the last 10 to 15 years, 
experienced a real decrease in income. And that has been the case with 
many middle-American families. They have received increases in salary, 
but it has not kept up with inflation, it has not kept up with the 
taxes, it has not kept up with other things, and they find themselves 
running in place. And when that happens to American families, two bad 
things happen. One is, they lose confidence in their children's futures 
and they lose confidence in their Government.
  The most astounding and alarming exit polling data of the 1994 
election was this: for the first time since we have been taking polls, 
a majority of the American people believe that their children will not 
be better off than they are.
  Mr. President, the essence of the American dream was that someone 
comes here from someplace else, they may come to Ellis Island, live in 
a ghetto in New York or Chicago, or some other place, and live under 
the most terrible conditions. But they work and save and they improve 
themselves and their own lives and most importantly provide an 
opportunity for their children. That is what America is all about. 
Story after story after story of poor people who come here penniless 
and they work and sacrifice and their dreams are fulfilled in their 
children. And now, most Americans believe that their children are not 
going to be as well off as they are.
  How does all of this diatribe come back to the line-item veto? It 
means that unless we restore confidence in the American people in their 
Government, we are not going to restore the American dream.
  Is a line-item veto all of that? No, clearly. But if we continue to 
fail to make the reforms that are necessary that will restore that 
confidence, then there will not be a restoration of the American dream.
  Mr. President, I mean it. I mean it.
   I run into my fellow Arizonans every weekend when I am home, and 
they say, ``Why are you doing this? I didn't send you there to do 
that.'' Maybe I, individually, had not done that, but we as a Congress 
have.

  Maybe it is only a few million here. Maybe it is only $15 million for 
the electric car; maybe only $3 million for the aquaculture shrimp 
center, whatever it is; maybe it is only a small 
[[Page S4089]] amount of money when we are talking about a $1.5 
trillion budget.
  To the average citizen, $3 million is a lot of money. To the average 
citizen, $15 million for electric cars is a lot of money. One of the 
things that I find most jading about our experiences here is how we 
throw around big numbers, $100 million here, $1 billion there, $2 
billion there, this for that program. After a while, it kind of loses 
its meaning. It is sort of like being at a crap table in a casino and 
playing only with chips, until you lose all the chips and then figure 
out that it was real money. I must say I have done that, too, Mr. 
President.
  The fact is that the American people expect Congress to exercise 
fiscal sanity. There is a lot at stake here in this debate. There is a 
lot at stake--not because Senator Coats and I have worked for 10 years 
on this issue and obviously we feel very strongly and subjective about 
this issue--but it is important and critical, this issue is, because it 
is important and critical to the American people.
  I hope that we can continue to conduct this debate, when the debate 
begins, on a very high plane. We can go a couple ways in this debate. I 
am not going to impugn anybody's integrity. I am not going to impugn 
anyone's motives. But I will make it perfectly clear what we have done 
since 1974. And what we have done is not a great service to the 
American people. In fact, it is a great disservice.
  I hope that working with the people of the United States, working 
with some like-minded individuals such as Senator Feinstein from 
California who is a cosponsor of this bill, and working together, we 
can persuade a sufficient number of our colleagues to cut off debate, 
in the form of invocation of cloture, and move forward with passage of 
the bill.
  Now, Mr. President, I have talked with the majority leader, who 
obviously controls our activities here on the floor. The majority 
leader does not intend, and I agree with him, to drag out this debate 
for weeks as we did the balanced budget amendment.
  This issue is very well known, Mr. President. It is not really a very 
complex issue. It is not nearly as complex as a number of issues that 
we address in a much shorter period of time on the floor of the Senate. 
The majority leader wants Members to put in long hours and put in a 
very few number of days and get this issue passed and behind us, 
because we do have a very large agenda. We do have a lot of issues that 
the American people expect the Senate to address.
  I hope that we will maintain a high level of debate. I hope that we 
will put in long evenings, if it is necessary to do so. I hope in a 
very relatively short period of time we will be able to resolve this 
issue.
  If we cannot resolve this issue favorably and enact a line-item veto, 
then, obviously, Senator Coats and I will not give up our quest for 
this very, very, very crucial measure. At the same time, it would be 
rather pleasant for both Senator Coats and I to move on to other issues 
which also would command our attention.
  I would like to say I appreciate the patience of the President in the 
chair. I know the hour is late. I want to thank him for that.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  

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