[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 64 (Thursday, April 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5293-S5296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ALLOWING GIFTS AND SPECIAL BENEFITS

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I want to state first of all that, as we 
get to the end of the Republican contract of 100 days, it is time to 
take stock. Everyone is taking stock of what is in the contract, what 
is passed, what has not passed, what is not in the contract.
  The piece I want to discuss today is something that just is not 
included; that is, whether we are going to ban the practice of allowing 
gifts and special benefits from private interests to Members of 
Congress.
  I want to thank my colleague, the Senator from New Jersey, Senator 
Lautenberg, and the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, for 
keeping up this fight during a series of months when in effect it 
appears that the effort to ban the gifts has been ruled out of order. 
It is not part of the contract. So we do not come out here and talk 
about it.
  This came up in the very first week when we addressed something that 
Democrats have supported that was included in the Republican contract--
there have not been many--namely to make sure that Members of Congress 
have to live by the rules that we make for everyone else. It makes 
sense. It passed overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, and a lot of us 
thought--certainly the three Senators behind the gift ban--what a 
perfect opportunity the first week to get rid of this outrageous 
practice.
  So we tried to put it on the bill. We were defeated by almost a pure 
party line vote.
  It is not very surprising in light of the fact that the new majority 
wanted to set the agenda. I understand that. We protested. But I 
certainly did not see it as outrageous given the fact that it was the 
first week and that there would be other opportunities. At that point, 
though, we received something that I think most of us perceived as an 
assurance that the gift ban issue would come up in a timely manner. 
This is not something that needs to be evaluated at length anymore such 
as welfare reform or the whole issue of how to cut the Federal deficit. 
Those are very complicated subjects. This is an easy subject. It is not 
the kind of thing that should wait until later this year or the end of 
session. It is important that the gift ban be enacted now so that the 
negative effect it has on this institution and the perceptions of this 
institution are mitigated now. But that is not what has happened.
  The distinguished majority leader on January 10 said that it was his 
intent to try to move the bill as quickly as he could. He said:

       I am not certain about any date. I am not certain it will 
     be May 31. It could be before, maybe after May 31.

  Some of us hoped at least the end of May would be a good target time 
to solve this problem, certainly by the Memorial Day recess.
  Unfortunately, Mr. President, that is not the position now. We have 
received a list not too long ago of must-do items entitled, ``The must-
do list for Memorial Day Recess, nonexclusive.''
  Among the items listed on there are some very important items: The 
defense supplemental appropriations bill, the line-item veto, which we 
have taken care of in this House, regulatory moratorium bill, which we 
have moved out, product liability, the self-employed health insurance 
extension--we have taken care of that--FEMA supplemental, which we are 
dealing with now, crime bill, budget resolution, telecommunications 
bill, and various other items are listed as likely.
  Nowhere on that list is there any suggestion either that we will be 
taking up the gift ban, or that we are likely to take up the gift ban 
before the Memorial Day recess, so I am beginning to get concerned. The 
majority leader had given us what I thought was a pretty strong 
commitment this bill would be taken up in a reasonable time but we are 
not getting that indication now. And I am beginning to wonder why.
  Mr. President, a lot of things have not surprised me about these 
first 100 days of the Republican contract. That does not mean I like 
them, but they did not surprise me. I am not surprised that the House 
of Representatives, that talked so loudly about deficit reduction, 
yesterday passed a $200 billion step in the wrong direction in the form 
of tax cuts for everyone including some of the very wealthiest people 
in our society. I am not surprised. The Republican contract was voodoo 
mathematics from the beginning. It is about having your cake and eating 
it, too, saying you are for deficit reduction, saying you are for 
balancing the budget and then as fast as you can trying to make sure 
that everybody in the country is happy with you by giving you a tax cut 
that you cannot afford. I am not surprised by that.
  I was not surprised but dismayed that the Republican contract does 
not even mention campaign finance reform. The American people want 
campaign finance reform, but it is very easy on that issue to confuse 
people, to say that if the Democrats write the bill, it is going to 
help out the Democrats; if the Republicans write it, it is going to 
help the Republicans. And it is terribly confusing because it involves 
so many different issues of PAC's and campaign limitations, 
contribution limitations. I think it is a tragedy that it was not a 
part of the contract and before us. But that does not surprise me. I 
would have expected that especially after the effort to kill the 
campaign finance reform bill in this body last year.
  I am not surprised about the complete ignoring of the whole health 
care issue in the Republican contract, which everybody in the Senate 
said was an important issue; everybody said they wanted universal 
coverage somehow and acknowledged the 40 million Americans with no 
health care coverage. Everybody said we have to deal with it somehow, 
but there is no action on it. There is hardly mention of it.
  Again, though, Mr. President, I am not surprised. I saw that one 
coming. Health care became a symbol of something that Government should 
not get involved in at all during the 103d Congress, and I think that 
is a regrettable result.
  What I am surprised by, Mr. President, is that the folks running the 
Republican contract believe that it is just fine to not include the 
gift ban and not take it up in a timely manner. It is not important 
enough apparently to be handled in the first 100 days. I thought it was 
just too obviously inconsistent with the tone and the spirit of the 
Republican contract and the November 8 elections to ignore the fact 
that the gift ban is one of the greatest symbols of the corruption that 
exists in this town. That is what I would have thought. After 
eliminating the free gym, the free health care, the special stationery, 
and all the little perks that certainly should go--and I am glad they 
are gone--I would have thought it was just incredible that either party 
felt safe and secure not trying to get rid of the use of gift giving to 
Members of Congress. It seems like just offering up raw meat to the 
folks who do the ``Prime Time'' television show, begging them to come 
and photograph Members of Congress on tennis trips paid for by special 
interests.
  That is what I would have thought. But that is not the perception. 
That is not the approach. The approach is to stonewall the gift ban 
issue. And why would Members of Congress continue to allow that 
perception to exist? Well, I guess the conclusion I have come to is 
because the giving of gifts to Members of Congress by private 
interests, by special interests--not by the Government--is not any old 
perk given by the Government like the haircuts and 
[[Page S5294]] other things that have been discovered here and, I hope, 
changed. It is something different.
  The practice of gift giving and special interest influence behind 
closed doors is a key link in a chain of influence, Mr. President, a 
circle of influence that operates in this town to create a culture of 
special interest influence. Among the links in this chain are the 
practice of the revolving door--Members of Congress and staff members 
working a while here and then finding a nice job downtown and finding 
out that they can, in effect, trade on their experience here to get a 
job lobbying later on. That is one link.
  Another major link, of course, is the horrible problem of the way our 
campaign financing system works--the news today in the Washington Post 
of the incredible numbers of new contributions coming into the national 
Republican committee now that they are in charge of both Houses. You 
can mention the book deals. You can mention the piece of legislation 
that is before us in the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the so-
called regulatory reform bill.
  Mr. President, in that bill it is seriously proposed and apparently 
is going to be passed that the review of these regulations, when they 
get to the highest level, will not be done by a disinterested group but 
will include a so-called peer review panel that will include the very 
interests that have a financial interest in the outcome of what happens 
with those rules.
  That is a link in this chain. And so is the practice of giving gifts 
and free trips by lobbyists to Members of Congress.
  The gift giving practice is the piece of the chain of special 
influence that has to do with feeding and pampering Members of 
Congress, and it is part of a system that tears the people of this 
country away from the people they thought they elected to represent 
them.
  It is no wonder that the Republican contract does not mention the 
gift ban. It is no accident that the 104th Congress blocked action on 
that issue so far. Is it not interesting, if you listen to the talk 
show hosts, the rather conservative talk show hosts that talk about all 
the perks in Congress, they will talk about the pension problems here 
and the fact that the pension system needs reform, which I agree with, 
they will talk about anything that has to do with a Government perk but 
they seem to not talk about this practice of meals and gifts and 
special benefits, personal benefits to Members of Congress. The only 
time I have ever heard it discussed on one of those shows was on the 
Jim Hightower show. He was interested in pointing out what happened the 
first week of Congress. But basically it is not mentioned.
  I can tell you the failure to mention it is not because it is 
something very difficult to enact or follow. A gift ban works very, 
very well. I have said many times in the Chamber--I guess I will be 
saying it many more times--we have had a law basically banning all 
these kinds of gifts in Wisconsin for 20 years. It has worked extremely 
well. Although we certainly have problems with special interest 
influence in our Government as well, it is a very different culture in 
Wisconsin government because of the Wisconsin gift ban. The type of 
thing that happened that was described in the Washington Post this week 
could not happen.
  In an article in the ``In The Loop'' section a couple of days ago, 
entitled ``Hospitality Sweet,'' a recent fact finding trip was 
described as follows:

       Some House Republicans have come up with a neat way to 
     fulfill their promise of slashing the cost of Congress. When 
     members of the Resources Committee recently held field 
     hearings on endangered species and wetlands in Louisiana, the 
     trip included dinner at Armand's in the French Quarter.
       Who picked up the tab? The not-so-disinterested Louisiana 
     Farm Bureau Federation, Midcontinent Oil and Gas Association, 
     American Sugar Cane League and Louisiana Land and Exploration 
     company.

  And then:

       A week later, it was dinner in San Antonio, sponsored and 
     paid for groups like the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, 
     Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers, San Antonio Farm and Ranch Real 
     Estate Board and Texas Association of Builders.

  Mr. President, there was a rather lame response from one of the staff 
members of the House Members trying to explain why there was no problem 
with this.
  Mr. Johnson said:

       We just consider this to be local hospitality. It's an 
     opportunity for Members to discuss issues with people from 
     Louisiana.* * * We didn't solicit any of these companies. I 
     feel confident if any environmental groups had come forward 
     and offered to have a luncheon or media opportunity we would 
     have tried to accommodate them.
  Mr. President, if they try to accommodate all these meals, they are 
going to have to go to a weight-loss clinic pretty soon.
  In Wisconsin, you cannot do this. If you want to meet with 
constituents and sit down with them at a meal, that is fine, but you 
have to pay your own way. Sometimes the waiter or the waitress is a 
little irritated because they have to write out separate checks. But 
that is the worst thing that happens. You pay your own way. You do not 
do the kind of stuff that was done just recently by the House 
Republicans who said they felt they had to do this in order to 
investigate concerns in their State.
  Mr. President, the problem is not that we cannot enact a gift ban or 
comply with one. It is just too darn simple to get rid of this horrible 
practice.
  Mr. President, let me just be clear. I consider this gift ban issue 
to be very, very important. But I do consider it to be sort of the kid 
brother to the bigger issue, which I consider to be campaign finance 
reform.
  I am not suggesting in any way that getting rid of gift-giving would 
solve the problem of special interests and the problem of lobbying. I 
think the answer there is to limit the amount of money, total amount of 
money, that can be spent, or at least make sure that those who abide by 
the limits get an advantage to make up for the loss of advantages of 
the greater spending.
  I also think you ought to get a majority of your campaign 
contributions from your own home State, something many Republicans have 
proposed. I think that would really dilute and limit the influence of 
special interests and lobbyists in the campaign finance context.
  But this is different. This is about personal enrichment. This is 
about, in effect, having an opportunity to subtly buy the time, the 
precious time, of Members of Congress. This is about creating a feeling 
of personal, not professional, obligation between one individual and 
another, one who happens to be a Member of Congress, one who happens to 
be a lobbyist for a special interest. This is about the opportunity to 
use gift giving and buying dinners and giving trips to achieve undue 
access to Members of Congress.
  It is part of a chain, as I have had said, it is part of a circle of 
influence that I think has broken down the trust between the American 
people and their elected representatives.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from Wisconsin yield for a question?
  Mr. FEINGOLD Yes, I yield for a question.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was listening to the Senator from 
Wisconsin talk about gifts. I had come over to speak about something 
else, but in many respects it relates to the issue of gifts. I thought 
I would ask the Senator a question about it.
  Last evening, the House of Representatives passed a tax cut bill, 
about $190 billion lost in revenue for the Federal Government in the 5-
year period, about $630 billion lost in revenue during the next 10 
years.
  The same people who were the loudest proponents of changing the 
Constitution to require a balanced budget now have taken a bunch of 
polls and have found out if they offered a tax cut, it would be very 
popular. So they pass a tax cut bill.
  It is the wrong way to balance the budget. The first step is to cut 
Federal spending and to use the money to cut the Federal deficit. Then 
we should turn our attention to the Tax Code and try to promote some 
fairness in the Tax Code.
  But I find it interesting looking at the numbers in this bill passed 
by the House last evening. Last night they talked about this being a 
tax cut for families; this is a family-friendly tax cut to kind of help 
out working families. This morning I looked at the numbers. If you 
added it all up together--the child credit, capital gains cuts, 
eliminating the alternative minimum tax for corporations and a whole 
series of other things--and figure out who 
[[Page S5295]] benefits, here is what the numbers show. It shows that 
if you are an American with over $200,000 in income, you get an $11,200 
cut in your tax bill. If you are an American who has an average income 
of less than $30,000, your tax cut under the House bill was a whole 
$124. In other words, if you are earning above $200,000, you can expect 
to get a check in the mail for $11,200. That is a pretty good gift.
  These folks say this is for working families. Well, working families 
that make over $200,000 a year get an $11,200 tax cut--at a time when 
we have debt up to our neck trying to figure out how we try to deal 
with this Federal deficit--and then the working families earning 
$30,000 or less get an $124 tax cut.
  It is the old cake-and-crumbs approach. Give the cake to the very 
rich and the crumbs to the rest and say, ``Everybody benefits.''
  We are told that broad capital gains tax cuts help everybody. That is 
kind of like saying, OK, you take 40,000 people and put them over in 
Camden Yards; fill every seat. And then say, ``I'm going to pass out 
$100 million to these folks.'' And you pass out $1 to 39,999 people and 
to the other person you give all the rest of the money. And then you go 
outside and crow that everybody in that place got some money. Yes, they 
did--but one person got almost all of it and all the rest of them got 
just a little. So you can make the claim that everybody benefits, but 
the fact is one person got most of the benefits.
  So that is the circumstance of the tax cut. At a time when we should 
be dealing with the deficit honestly, we have people taking polls and 
cutting taxes that promote enormously beneficial gifts to the very 
wealthy in this country.
  Has the Senator had a chance to take a look at what happened last 
evening and what I think is essentially gifting to the wealthiest 
Americans in this generous tax cut proposed by the majority party in 
the House?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I am happy to respond to the Senator from North Dakota.
  I did not want to see that headline this morning, but I did. And I 
did have a chance to take a look at it.
  Let me say, first of all, to the Senator from North Dakota that long 
before I had the honor of being elected to this body, I admired the 
Senator from North Dakota when he was in the other body as one of the 
true leaders in the Congress on the issue of tax reform and tax 
fairness. He knows this stuff.
  And so when he speaks about what this is all about, and what the tax 
cut for all Americans supposedly, but especially for wealthy Americans, 
is all about, he knows exactly what he is talking about. He was a key 
force for the positive aspects of the 1986 tax reform, parts of which I 
think are at least an example of when Washington got some things right. 
So I think his comment is very appropriate.
  What I want to say in response, since I know the Senator wants to 
speak at more length about the tax cut, is that there is a common 
thread between the various parts of the contract. There is a connection 
between the fact that the gift ban is not mentioned in the contract and 
campaign finance is not mentioned in the contract, but the tax cuts are 
there for the wealthy, the so-called regulatory reform is included for 
the very interests that probably still do need some regulation. The 
common thread is this:
  If you have a lot of resources and you have a lot of lobbyists here 
in Washington, you are not going to get nicked by the Republican 
contract. You just are not. If you are on welfare, you are going to get 
nicked. If you have a lunch coming to you at school, you are going to 
get nicked. But if you have any kind of serious interest supporting you 
on this Republican contract, you are not going to get nicked.
  It is worse than that. This giant $190 billion piece of legislation 
that the House passed makes a complete farce out of the notion that the 
contract has anything to do with deficit reduction. Everyone knows it.
  I have to say to the Senator from North Dakota and the Chair, I was 
the first Member of Congress--I am proud of this--of 535 Members of 
Congress, I was the first one to say ``No tax cuts.'' I said it the day 
after the November 8 election and I said it the day after the President 
proposed his tax cut. The Los Angeles Times said there was one lone 
voice that thinks this should not happen.
  It is not nice to say, ``I told you so.'' I do not get to say it very 
often. On this one, it feels good to say it; that the people of this 
country know better than the people in this town and the people in this 
town are beginning to wake up, especially in the Senate, that it is a 
total fraud on the American people to say you are for balancing the 
budget and then start handing out $200 billion or $700 billion in tax 
cuts, tax gifts. The sad thing is, it is the repeating gift after gift 
after gift after gift to the same people.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for one additional question?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Yes.
  Mr. DORGAN. The Congress in 1986 changed the tax law. And maybe it 
did not do such a great job. But it really tried to eliminate all the 
artificial things in the tax laws that promoted artificial investments 
and tried to let the marketplace make the decisions about where the 
investments would go.
  Prior to that time, we had a circumstance in this country where you 
could pick out some of the biggest names in American corporate life and 
find out that they made billions of dollars in profits, and what did 
they pay in taxes? Zero. Nothing.
  So in 1986, we put in place an alternative minimum tax that worked, 
and we said, ``You can't make billions of dollars in profits and end up 
paying nothing.'' The folks who work for a living pay taxes. They 
cannot get by without paying taxes. So we constructed an alternative 
minimum tax that worked.
  The legislation they passed last night in the House of 
Representatives says, ``Let's get rid of the alternative minimum tax 
for corporations''--with 2,000 corporations benefiting to the tune of 
washing away $4 billion in revenue annually. The way I calculate it, 
that is about a $2 million a corporation every year. Talk about gifts? 
There is a gift. I bet there was not much debate about that.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, if I may respond briefly, I am very glad 
the Senator mentioned some of the specifics of the 1986 bill, because 
as he was speaking, I realized, in 1986, we had a Republican President 
and, I believe, we still had a majority of Republicans in the Senate. 
Although that bill had flaws, there were changes in accelerated 
depreciation, and limits to the practice of using tax loss farming, 
which was something of great concern to farmers in Wisconsin. There 
were limits on some of the most visible aspects of tax deductions that 
seemed to be unfair.
  What is ironic, Mr. President, is that here we have now, again, the 
majority of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate--as well as the 
other body--and they are doing just the reverse.
  There was a book written about the success of the 1986 bill called 
``Showdown at Gucci Gulch.'' Gucci Gulch, of course, is where all the 
lobbyists were with their Gucci shoes, and it was a Republican, the 
Senator from Oregon, who I believe chaired that famous meeting. Tax 
loopholes were limited. Here we are, again, many years later with just 
the reverse happening: The restoration of some of these special deals 
at a time when the deficit is far worse than it was in 1986.
  So let me simply conclude, Mr. President, by saying what I have told 
my constituents back home regrettably. They say, ``How is it going out 
there in Washington? How is the Republican contract working out? Are 
you cleaning things up?'' And I have to tell them the truth, and the 
truth is that the lobbyists in Washington have never had bigger smiles 
on their faces than they do now. This is the happiest time for 
lobbyists in America in many, many years, because they are running the 
show.
  And as a final example, there was a rather disturbing occurrence in 
front of the Senate Judiciary Committee recently where our staff 
members were told to come to a staff briefing by the Republican 
majority staff on the regulatory reform bill.
  As I understand it, although I have not been here for very long, it 
is normal practice for majority staff folks to brief the minority staff 
on what is going to be proposed by the Chair. But 
[[Page S5296]] they were not briefed really by the majority staff. They 
were briefed by a couple of attorneys. And when they were asked who 
they were they said, ``We're the folks who represent 12 to 15 
corporations that basically wrote this thing.'' Apparently, several 
times, when questions were asked about details of the document, the 
Republican majority staff was even overruled by these attorneys, 
lobbyists from downtown Washington.
  I think that is another symbol, another link in the chain of special 
influence that I am afraid has infected this town more this year than 
at any time in recent history.
  So, Mr. President it is time to pass the gift ban. It is time to 
clean that up on the bipartisan basis that I thought we were going to 
do last time with an overwhelming 93-to-4 vote.
  I am very delighted to yield in order to allow further discussion of 
what I consider to be an even more important issue: The need to let the 
Senate do its job by getting rid of this foolish tax cut at a time when 
all available dollars have to be devoted to eliminating the Federal 
deficit.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the presentation of my 
colleague from Wisconsin. I note the Senator from Arkansas, Senator 
Bumpers, is on the floor, I think intending to speak a bit about the 
tax-cut bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last 
evening.
  Might I ask about the order of the Senate. Are we in morning 
business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. No, the Senate is on the supplemental 
appropriations bill. As the Senator will note from the remarks that we 
have heard before the Senate, it would be in order to ask unanimous 
consent.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business 
for 7 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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