[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 82 (Wednesday, May 17, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6770-S6771]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SPECIAL INTERESTS

  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I wonder if my friend from Texas would 
answer a question if I were to propose a question?
  Mr. GRAMM. I might. I would like to hear it first.
  Mr. PRYOR. Yes.
  I read in the Washington Post this morning about the $5 million 
Republican fundraiser that was held last evening. I want to 
congratulate the Senator from Texas for putting this enormous 
fundraiser together. It may have been the largest of its kind in 
history.
  I wonder if the Senator from Texas would be so kind as to answer this 
question of the Senator from Arkansas: Were there any special interests 
represented at this fundraiser?
  Mr. GRAMM. Let me first respond by saying, I appreciate your 
generosity in suggesting that I might have put on such a grand 
fundraiser. In fact, I am no longer chairman of the Republican 
Senatorial Committee. I did attend. We had a lot of people there from 
all over America.
  Mr. PRYOR. Were there any special interests there at the fundraiser?
  Mr. GRAMM. Clearly, many of them were there. They came to the event. 
Each individual group represents a special interest.
  But let me tell you the difference. What we told them we were going 
to do there is put the Federal Government on a budget. We were not 
promising to give anything away last night. We were promising to stand 
up for the vital interests of this Nation and, remarkably--maybe it is 
not true in your party, but in my party when you stand up and fight for 
America, there are people that are for you.
  I am proud of the fact, as my colleague, I am sure, knows, that in 
the last election cycle, when I was chairman, the average contribution 
to the Democratic Senatorial Committee was 10 times as large as the 
average contribution to the Republican Senatorial Committee because we 
have grassroots support.
  And, given the President's veto, given the President's veto of our 
effort to control spending, I can see why we have grassroots support 
and the Democratic Party does not.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I appreciate my friend from Texas and 
neighbor trying to answer that question.
  I am going to ask him another question.
  Were there grassroots supporters there at this $5 million fundraiser 
last evening?
  Mr. GRAMM. They were from all over America. In fact, I saw a lot of 
them from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. That is right.
  And how much was each ticket for the fundraiser, if I might ask?
  Mr. GRAMM. It varied, depending on whether it was individual money or 
whether it was----
  Mr. PRYOR. Whether it was grassroots or special interest, is that the 
case?
  Mr. GRAMM. No. It varied on whether it came out of your checking 
account or out of the checking account of your company or your 
organization.
  You hold similar events every year, but, because the American people 
no longer support your agenda, your attendance is falling off. Ours is 
rising. But I do not feel sorry for you.
  Mr. PRYOR. Oh, no, do not feel sorry for us yet. You know, we still 
have a few kicks left in the dog here.
  But I would just like to ask my friend from Texas, the special 
interests you referred to that support President Clinton, would you 
please be so kind as to enumerate those special interests?
  Mr. GRAMM. I certainly would.
  The Legal Services Corp., the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 
the broad-based coalition of people who are riding in the wagon as 
opposed to the people who are pulling the wagon in America.
  Our objective is to try to put the Government on a budget, so we can 
let working people keep more of what they earn, so that we can have 
decisions made not by Washington but by American families. 
[[Page S6771]] 
  See, we have this idea that Democrats rejected about 40 years ago, 
and that is families can do a better job of spending their own money 
than you do for them.
  Now that sounds alien in Washington, DC, but in Little Rock, AR, 
people are beginning to think maybe that is the way we ought to do 
things.
  Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator from Arkansas would yield to me?
  Mr. PRYOR. I do not have the floor, actually.
  Mr. GRAMM. I have to go to a hearing on Legal Services, to let them 
know the bad news.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair would say, the hour of 10:30 having 
arrived, morning business was to close.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, seeing no other Senators desiring 
recognition, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from North Dakota 
be allowed to proceed for 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was curious about the question asked by 
my colleague from Arkansas.
  Our colleague, Senator Gramm from Texas, said that at this fundraiser 
they were not giving anybody anything. I assume he forgot, probably, 
that in the vote in the House of Representatives on the Contract With 
America, just to name one little piece of that, they eliminated the 
alternative minimum tax for corporations.
  You remember those stories in the old days about a big corporation 
that earned $3 billion in earned income, net profit, and paid zero in 
Federal income tax. Well, the Federal Government said they wanted to 
correct that, so they set up what was called an alternative minimum 
tax, so you could never zero it out, talking about the real big 
corporations now.
  Well, in the House of Representatives, in the tax bill under the 
contract, they zero it out and they say, ``No more alternative minimum 
tax. You big companies, you make $5 billion, it is all right if you pay 
zero in taxes.'' But at same time they do that, they say, ``But we can 
give those companies''--incidentally, about 2,000 companies--``the 
equivalent of $2 million each in tax breaks. We can afford to do that, 
but we cannot afford to provide student aid, as we used to, so we will 
have to ask kids who are going to go to college who do not have any 
money to pay for it, we will make if harder for kids to go to college 
because we cannot afford investing in kids who go to college, as we 
used to, but we do have the money to provide the equivalent of a $2 
million tax break for each of 2,000 corporations by saying to those 
corporations, You no longer have to worry about a little thing called 
the alternative minimum tax. You can zero it out, if you like.''
  I am guessing the Senator from Texas just forgot about that.
  And there are a dozen more like it, little old things that I am sure 
folks would show up to show their appreciation for, but they are the 
kinds of things that represent priorities--the priorities that say we 
really believe in the big interests here, we really think the big 
interests need a lot more help because if we rain on big interests 
somehow it will all seep down to the little folks that are trying to 
send their kids to college. That is what I think has been forgotten in 
this equation and this discussion between the Senator from Texas and 
the Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  

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