[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15538-S15557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TEMPORARY FEDERAL JUDGESHIPS COMMENCEMENT DATES AMENDMENT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to consideration of S. 1328, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1328) to amend the commencement dates of certain 
     temporary Federal judgeships.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate is taking up 
S. 1328, a bill that amends the commencement dates of certain temporary 
judgeships that were created under section 203(c) of the Judicial 
Improvements Act of 1990 [Public Law 101-650, 104 Stat. 5101].
  The minor adjustment embodied in this bill should improve the 
efficiency of the courts involved. This is not a controversial change, 
but it is a necessary one.
  I am pleased to have Senators Biden, Grassley, Heflin, Specter, 
Simon, DeWine, Feinstein, and Abraham as original cosponsors of this 
bill.
  I also want to thank the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and 
the fine Federal judges, particularly Chief Judge Gilbert of the 
southern district of Illinois, who called to my attention the need for 
this legislative fix--and the need for it to be passed before December 
1, 1995.
  The Judicial Improvements Act of 1990 created the temporary 
judgeships at issue in two steps.
  First, the 1990 act provided that a new district judge would be 
appointed to each of 13 specified districts.
  Second, the act then provided that the first vacancy in the office of 
a district judge that occurred in those districts after December 1, 
1995 would not be filled.
  That two-step arrangement, which is typical in temporary judgeship 
bills, is required in order to ensure that the judge filling a 
temporary judgeship is still a full-fledged, permanent, article III 
judge in accordance with the Constitution.
  Thus, although a new judgeship in a given district has only a 
temporary effect, the individual judge appointed serves on a permanent 
basis in the same manner as any other article III judge.
  It is the time between the appointment of a judge to a temporary 
judgeship and the point at which a vacant permanent judgeship is left 
unfilled that is key. That overlap is what effectively adds another 
judge to the district for a temporary period of time.
  The 1990 act created the temporary judgeships in the following 13 
districts: the northern district of Alabama, the eastern district of 
California, the district of Hawaii, the central district of Illinois, 
the southern district of Illinois, the district of Kansas, the western 
district of Michigan, the eastern district of Missouri, the district of 
Nebraska, the northern district of New York, the northern district of 
Ohio, the eastern district of Pennsylvania, and the eastern district of 
Virginia.
  However, due to delays in the nomination and confirmation of many of 
the judges filling those temporary judgeships, many districts have had 
only a relatively brief period of time in which to take advantage of 
their temporary judgeship.
  In the district of Hawaii and the southern district of Illinois, for 
example, new judges were not confirmed until October 1994. Other 
districts have faced similar delays.
  Those delays mean that many of the temporary judgeships will be 
unable to fulfill congressional intent to alleviate the backlog of 
cases in those districts.
  Many of the districts faced a particularly heavy load of drug 
enforcement and related matters. Those cases will not be absorbed 
adequately if the first judicial vacancy that occurs in those districts 
after December 1, 1995 must go unfilled.
  This bill solves the problem by changing the second part of the 
temporary judgeship calculus.
  The bill provides that the first district judge vacancy occurring 5 
years or more after the confirmation date of the judge appointed to 
fill the temporary judgeship would not be filled.
  In that way, each district would benefit from an extra active judge 
for at least 5 years, regardless of how long the appointment process 
took.
  This will help alleviate the extra burden faced in those districts. 
The only district excluded from this treatment is the western district 
of Michigan. That district requested to be excluded because its needs 
will be met under the current scheme.
  I also note that the judges from the affected districts have 
requested that this bill be enacted before December 1, 1995. After that 
date, some vacant judgeships will be unable to be filled under current 
law.
  That is why this bill has some urgency. And that explains why the 
bill 

[[Page S 15539]]
has not gone to the Judiciary Committee, but was placed directly on the 
calendar.
  I wish to clarify that for the benefit of my colleagues, who may not 
be so familiar with this measure, and who may have wondered why that 
was done.
  As the list of original cosponsors shows, the Judiciary Committee 
supports the substance of this bill. I also note that there was no 
opposition from any Senator on the Judiciary Committee to placing S. 
1328 on the calendar directly.
  I see no reason for a prolonged debate on this noncontroversial 
measure, and I commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who 
have cooperated in moving this measure along.
  I should also note that no one should confuse this bill with the 
Judicial Conference's request to Congress for additional judgeships. No 
one has yet to introduce that bill, and its merits have yet to be 
considered by the Judiciary Committee.
  Finally, although this bill is needed because Congress in 1990 
underestimated the timeframes involved in the confirmation process, the 
need for this bill is in no way a reflection on the speed with which 
Senator Biden, when he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, or I as 
the current chairman, have proceeded with the judicial confirmation 
process.
  This bill would have been necessary regardless of who was chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee. The nomination and confirmation process is a 
deliberate undertaking.
  It has been my aim to have the Judiciary Committee process judicial 
nominees in a manner that is thorough, but also fair and expeditious.
  Since January 1995, 8 circuit judges, 28 district court judges and 2 
judges of the Court of International Trade have been confirmed.
  Of the judicial nominees confirmed this Congress, it has taken only 
70.85 days from the date a judge is nominated to the date he or she is 
confirmed by the full Senate.
  That amounts to a speedier confirmation process in the Senate than 
occurred even when the Democratic Senate was charged with confirming 
Clinton nominees.
  The committee has carried out what is arguably its most important 
task fairly and diligently in this session of Congress.
  The upshot of this is that the courts are currently operating at 
nearly optimal levels. For example, there are only 11 unfilled circuit 
court seats in the Nation out of 179 permanent circuit court 
judgeships.
  Adding both circuit and district court vacancies, there are only 57 
vacancies unfilled out of the 828 judges of the Federal judiciary. This 
means that only 7 percent of all seats on the Federal bench are vacant.
  When pending nominees are excluded, only 33 seats are open--just 5 
percent of all seats.
  While we intend to be very thorough in our consideration of nominees 
for lifetime judicial appointments, we recognize the priority of this 
constitutional mandate on the Senate.
  I wish to thank my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee and in the 
Senate as a whole for their cooperation in the confirmation process, 
and I commend them for their accomplishments in this regard this 
Congress.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield for a 
question?
  Mr. HATCH. I would be happy to.
  Mr. FORD. For a long time, three States have had split judges. The 
State of Kentucky has one, I think Missouri has a good many, and so 
does Oklahoma. The reason I ask the Senator this question is that we 
have the split judge driving from one end of the State to the other, 
and most of the judicial time that is needed in court is spent on the 
road. Until and unless we can have an additional judge, we will still 
have the split judge.
   I think an amendment to eliminate the split judge and add one, even 
though the commission, as the Senator mentioned earlier--we have not 
considered its recommendations. I understand they recommended an 
additional judge to eliminate our split judge. That was withdrawn, and 
we fired off letters asking them to come back.
  I believe this amendment would be germane. And, I intend, after we 
are offered the President's budget to approve and other things on this 
bill, to offer that amendment. I wanted to alert the Senator so he 
understands what I am concerned about.
  Mr. HATCH. I do. Is the Senator intending to offer it on this?
  Mr. FORD. I am hoping to offer it on this bill because this amendment 
is more germane to the bill than some of the other amendments we are 
going to get this afternoon.
  Mr. HATCH. I would like the Senator to withhold. We are looking into 
adding additional judgeships. I believe before long, in the next year, 
we will probably pass a bill to add additional judgeships.
  Mr. FORD. But I say to my good friend, into the next year we will 
have this one particular judge, and she will be driving from Ashland, 
KY, to Paducah, KY, from Louisville to Owensboro, and on the road. We 
have cases that are beginning to pile up, and it is no fault of the 
split judge.
  So it is just very important that I at least get this out for people 
to think about, and I may introduce it. I have it prepared to introduce 
as an amendment to this bill. As I say, it will be more germane to this 
bill than other nonbinding amendments, sense-of-the-Senate resolutions 
that are going to be offered here this afternoon to try to make us walk 
the plank. We voted 99 to 0 on the one that is going to be offered 
next, I think.
  So I just wanted to be sure that the Senator understood why I am 
doing it, and not because of the Senator's position and my respect for 
the Senator.
  Mr. HATCH. I appreciate that. I understand. I hope the Senator will 
withhold because I will certainly give every consideration to this and 
solving it in an expeditious manner.
  Mr. FORD. It will probably be next year before we can get to it.
  Mr. HATCH. Perhaps we may be able to do something before then.
  Mr. FORD. This has been going on for a long time. We have been 
waiting for the commission's report. Then they withdrew that. So I 
waited for that without doing anything. Now I feel I am almost 
compelled for my constituents to be served by the Federal judiciary.
  Mr. HATCH. Let us chat about it. Let us see what we can do.
  Mr. FORD. I thank the Senator. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I simply want to thank my colleague from Utah for moving ahead with 
this bill. We face problems in two districts in Illinois, and this bill 
takes care of their problems, among others. I appreciate the leadership 
of my colleague from Utah on this.
  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.


                           Amendment No. 2943

(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding the President's 
                    revised federal budget proposal)

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

       The Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum) proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2943.

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I object to dispensing with the reading.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Strike all after ``SECTION'', and insert in lieu thereof 
     the following:

       . SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE PRESIDENT'S REVISED 
                   FEDERAL BUDGET.

       (A) Findings.--Congress finds that--
       (1) On May 19, 1995, the United States Senate voted 99-0 to 
     reject the Fiscal Year 1996 budget submitted by President 
     Clinton on February 6, 1995.
       (2) The President on June 13, 1995, after the House of 
     Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions that the 
     Congressional Budget Office said would result in a balanced 
     federal budget in Fiscal Year 2002, revised his budget.
       (3) The President said on June 13, 1995, and on numerous 
     subsequent occasions, that this revised budget would balance 
     the federal budget in Fiscal Year 2005.
       (4) The President's revised budget, like the budget he 
     submitted to Congress on February 6, 1995, took into account 
     surpluses in 

[[Page S 15540]]
     the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust funds in 
     calculating the deficit.
       (5) President Clinton, in his address before a joint 
     session of Congress on February 17, 1993, stated that he was 
     ``using the independent numbers of the Congressional Budget 
     Office'' because ``the Congressional Budget Office was 
     normally more conservative in what was going to happen and 
     closer to right than previous Presidents have been.''
       (6) President Clinton further stated: ``Let's at least 
     argue about the same set of numbers, so the American people 
     will think we're shooting straight with them.''
       (7) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget would achieve savings of $128 
     billion in Medicare through 2002 and $295 billion through 
     2005.
       (8) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget would achieve savings of $54 
     billion in federal Medicaid spending through 2002 and $105 
     billion through 2005.
       (9) The President has proposed savings of $64 billion in 
     ``non-health entitlements by 2002 by reforming welfare, farm 
     and other programs.''
       (10) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget includes proposals that would 
     reduce federal revenues by $97 billion over seven years and 
     $166 billion over ten years.
       (11) These proposed tax reductions are more than offset by 
     the President's proposed Medicare savings.
       (12) The Congressional Budget Office has determined that 
     enactment of the President's proposal would result in 
     deficits in excess of $200 billion in each of fiscal years 
     1997 through 2005.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that Congress shall enact the President's budget as revised 
     on June 13, 1995.

  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I offer this amendment. It is not the identical 
amendment that we voted on previously. The first amendment, sense-of-
the-Senate amendment was on the President's first budget that he 
introduced back in February. This is on the revised Clinton budget that 
purports to balance the budget over the next 10 years. And the reason, 
if I may respond to the senior Senator from Kentucky, that I am 
introducing this is not to vote on the same thing we had before. If the 
President were not running around the country talking about how he has 
a balanced budget over 10 years, there would be no need for us to bring 
this to the Senate floor and have a debate exposing a phony balanced 
budget.
  However, the President continues to go around the country saying, as 
he did on September 30, I have proposed a balanced budget plan that 
reflects our fundamental values. This is September 30, 1995. I am sure 
we can find hundreds of quotes as he has campaigned around the country 
where he has said that this budget comes into balance and reflects his 
values and all these things.
  It may reflect his values. Principal among his values is he does not 
want to balance the budget because this does not balance the budget. It 
may reflect other values in spending more money and all the other 
things that he wants to do, but fundamentally this budget does not 
balance. And so the President's actions are the reason we have decided 
to bring this amendment to the floor and debate this issue. I think we 
need to expose this budget for what it is and have a vote here on the 
Senate floor to determine whether we want to take the course the 
President would like to take us on, which is unbalanced budgets, 
according to the Congressional Budget Office, of $200 billion or more 
for the next 10 years and beyond.
  Let me read you what the Congressional Budget Office estimates the 
Clinton revised budget will result in. In 1996, the Clinton budget will 
produce a $196 billion deficit; in 1997, a $212 billion deficit; in 
1998, a $199 billion deficit; in 1999, a $213 billion deficit; in the 
year 2002, a $220 billion deficit; 2001, a $211 billion deficit; 2002, 
a $210 billion deficit; 2003, a $207 billion deficit, and in 2004 and 
2005, a $209 billion deficit.
  That is not a balanced budget. It is not a balanced budget in 10 
years. It is not going to be a balanced budget in 20 years or 30 years 
or 40 years. It is a phony, and the President should stop running 
around trying to convince and fool the American public into believing 
that he has this grand scheme to balance the budget when in fact it 
does not balance, and to say that our reductions in spending are 
somehow mean spirited and draconian, that we do not have to do these 
things to balance the budget when he knows in fact that is probably the 
only way we are going to balance the budget is to do what we are 
suggesting.
  And so that is why this amendment is here. It is here because the 
President refuses to come to Washington and solve the budget crisis and 
instead decides to run around this country and promote a phony balanced 
budget. We want to bring this phony balanced budget back to where it 
can be seen in the light of day and understand that this does not quite 
wash.
  Now, the Democratic National Committee has the audacity to put on TV 
spots. Let me quote for you this TV spot that they have. ``There are 
beliefs in values that tie Americans together. In Washington these 
values get lost in the tug of war. But what's right matters.''
  I agree; what is right does matter. ``Work, not welfare, is right.'' 
In the budget reconciliation bill that will be in the Chamber tomorrow 
is a welfare reform bill that passed 87 to 12 on this floor. And it 
does require work and has strong bipartisan support. ``Public education 
is right.'' Again, if you look at the budget reconciliation bill, very 
little of it--very little entitlement education spending. The bulk of 
the education spending is in the education appropriations bill, of 
which of the $23 billion that we are going to spend this year, it is a 
reduction of $400 million.
  By the way, we spend in public education in this country $400 
billion. We are talking about a reduction of one-tenth of 1 percent in 
the amount of money we spend on public education. That is hardly a 
draconian cut, one-tenth of 1 percent, in a system that everyone agrees 
could use a lot of belt tightening.
  So we have public education I think pretty well in focus here. 
``Medicare is right.'' I agree; Medicare is right. Medicare deserves to 
be saved. We have the only proposal that is going to be put forward 
that saves Medicare, not just for this generation but future 
generations. And I would also remind you from the resolution's reading 
that the President's balanced budget, which does not balance, reduces 
the growth in Medicare more than his tax cut that is in his own bill. 
The same thing he, by the way, claims we are doing in our bill. So it 
is just a matter of degree, not a matter of direction. We believe that 
Medicare needs to be saved, not just for a year or two but for the 
long-term.
  ``A tax cut for working families is right,'' they say in the ad. 
Well, we have a tax cut for working families. Over 90 percent--listen 
to this--over 90 percent of the tax reductions in the Senate Finance 
Committee bill, the bill that is going to be in the Chamber, over 90 
percent of the benefits go to families under $100,000 in income. Over 
70 percent of the benefits go to families under $75,000 in income. That 
is our proposal. It is a very much middle-income, pro-family tax cut. 
And anyone who would like to claim otherwise is demagoging, not reading 
the specifics of the bill. Read the bill. Read the bill. It is pro 
family, pro growth, pro jobs, and pro balancing the budget.
  Then it continues on. ``There are values behind the President's 
balanced budget plan.'' A TV ad that calls the President's plan, that 
the Congressional Budget Office says is out of balance forever, they 
have a TV ad running now that says the President has a balanced budget 
plan. On national TV. Just out and out lying to the American public.
  Now, you would say, well, maybe the Congressional Budget Office 
numbers are not the numbers we are going use, are not the numbers we 
should use. I would just remind you that the President was the one who 
said we should use the Congressional Budget Office. In his first State 
of the Union Address he came to the Congress, right in a joint session 
over on the House side and he stood up and said the Office of 
Management and Budget numbers have been wrong; they have been rosy; 
they have been exaggerating growth, underestimating inflation and they 
cannot be trusted. The only numbers we should use, so we can all talk 
about the same set of numbers, is the Congressional Budget Office 
numbers.
  That is what he said. He promised. Now, I know it is going to 
probably strike people as absolutely incredible that the President 
would actually go back on one of his promises, but here 

[[Page S 15541]]
we have it again. The President promised to use the Congressional 
Budget Office, promised to use the same set of numbers, promised that 
he would shoot straight with the American public, promised. And then he 
comes forward with a phony balanced budget using trumped-up numbers, 
and the Congressional Budget Office, the one he promised to use, says 
you will have $200 billion-plus deficits for as far as the eye can see. 
And then comes on the air with a TV ad saying that he has a balanced 
budget, lying--the Democratic National Committee lying--to the American 
public that the President has a balanced budget.
  And you want to know who is telling the truth around here. I hear so 
much of the American public saying, well, who do we believe? I can 
understand why they say that. You had so much misinformation out here, 
so many deliberate distortions of what is going on in this Chamber that 
it is no wonder the American public just throws up their hands and says 
who do we believe? That is the strategy: Confuse, obfuscate, muddy the 
waters, do not let anybody know who is really right and who is really 
wrong. Do not tell the truth about what is going on here.

  And here we have this Democratic National Committee television spot 
saying that there are values behind the President's balanced budget, 
values Republicans ignore; Congress should join the President and back 
these values so, instead of a tug of war, we can come together and do 
what is right for our families.
  We are ready to come together. We are here with a balanced budget 
over 7 years. We are here with real changes. We are here with real 
solutions. We are here ready to engage with the President on a real 
budget, not run around and campaign on a phony budget that does not 
balance. I can tell you for those of us who were in the trenches making 
these tough decisions which we know affect millions of peoples' lives, 
it does not help the air of cooperation to have a President demagoging 
this issue so he can get elected in the next election and not be here 
in Washington to solve the problem. Someone should inform the President 
that he was elected to serve as President, not elected so he could run 
for reelection as President, but that his job is here to solve 
problems.
  That is why I offer this amendment. I offer it to bring to light and 
to have a vote on the phony budget, and to see who supports phony 
budgeting around here, who supports trumped up, rosy scenarios, 
exaggerated growth, underestimated interest rates as a way to solve the 
budget. We have had that for years around here, frankly, from both 
administrations, Republican and Democrat, and I think everyone should 
be tired of it.
  We should deal with the real numbers, conservative estimates, that 
get us to a balanced budget in a reasonable set of time, and that is 7 
years. And I am hopeful we can reject this amendment.
  I will just remind everybody that I came up here on the floor Friday, 
Friday morning, and said I would have sitting at the desk, which it has 
been all week long, a copy of this resolution, and encouraged someone 
from the other side to offer it, to stand up and defend the President's 
budget. I said, ``Come to the floor, pick it up, debate it. I will be 
here to debate the President's budget with you if you want to defend 
the President's budget. There is the resolution.''
  It is now the day before reconciliation, the day before the rubber 
hits the road, and no one did. So I decided to pick it up and offer it 
on behalf of the body. I cannot support the President's budget. It is a 
phony budget, but I think we should have a debate about it. I think 
those who want to defend what the President is doing, the posturing 
that he is taking, the politicization of this debate, the demagoging 
that has gone on, should feel free to defend it and show the American 
public what you are really for.
  Let us find out what people in this Chamber are really for. Are we 
for a balanced budget or not?
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.


                Amendment No. 2944 to Amendment No. 2943

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send a perfecting amendment to the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2944 to amendment No. 2943.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the first word and insert, in lieu 
     thereof, the following:
       In the event provisions of the FY 1996 Budget 
     Reconciliation bill are enacted which result in an increase 
     in the number of hungry or medically uninsured children by 
     the end of FY 1996, the Congress shall revisit the provisions 
     of said bill which caused such increase and shall, as soon as 
     practicable thereafter, adopt legislation which would halt 
     any continuation of such increase.

  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I did not realize that we were going to start the 
debate on what we call the reconciliation bill today. But if we are 
going to do so, then I want to have out on the floor what I think are 
an important set of concerns. And by the way, I think, Mr. President, 
they are the concerns of the vast majority of people in this country.
  What this perfecting amendment says in the sense of the Senate is 
that if, in fact, as a result of this bill with the budget cuts, we see 
an increase in the number of hungry or medically uninsured children in 
America by the end of fiscal year 1996, the Congress shall revisit the 
provisions of this bill which caused such an increase and shall adopt 
legislation which would halt the continuation of such an increase.
  I expect to get 100 votes for this amendment, Mr. President. I have 
said many times on the floor of the Senate that it is quite one thing--
I have heard my colleague from North Dakota say it better than I--it is 
quite one thing to talk about deficit reduction and a balanced budget. 
I do not believe there is a Senator that serves in the U.S. Senate, 
Democrat or Republican, who is proud of the decade of the 1980's-plus 
where we built up the debt and the interest on the debt. It is time to 
start paying off that interest on the debt. It is time to put our 
fiscal house in order.
  But, Mr. President, it is quite another question as to whether or not 
we see in this proposed deficit-reduction plan what I would call the 
Minnesota standard of fairness. Too many of the cuts--every day people 
are reading in newspapers, every day people are hearing on the radio, 
every day people are seeing in some of the TV reports that too many of 
these cuts seem to be based on the path of least political resistance.
  Mr. President, too many of us in office love to have our photo op, 
love to have our picture taken next to children. It is a great photo 
opportunity. All of us talk about the importance of children. All of us 
talk about the future and the importance of children. Well, what this 
amendment says--and that is why it is such an important perfecting 
amendment--is that if, in fact, these proposed reductions in the Food 
Stamp Program, the Women, Infants, and Children Program, nutrition 
programs for children and family child-care centers, really, whether it 
be center-based child care or family-based child care, or whether or 
not the cuts in medical assistance--in my State there are over 300,000 
children, many of them in working-poor families that are covered by 
medical assistance--that if these reductions should result in an 
increase in the number of children that are hungry or the number of 
children who now find themselves without health insurance, then we will 
revisit this question, we will revisit the provisions of this bill 
which cause such an increase; and then, after that, we will take such 
practical steps as can be taken that would, in fact, halt the 
continuation of such an increase.
  Mr. President, I came out here on the floor of the Senate at the 
beginning of this Congress and I said to my colleagues, ``I believe 
that what we are going to do this session is we are going to, in the 
name of deficit reduction, take food out of the mouths of hungry 
children.'' I have said that more than once on the floor of the Senate. 
And I had an amendment, it was a sense-of-the-Senate amendment, that 
said the U.S. Senate, that Congress, shall take no action that will 
increase the number of hungry or homeless children. 

[[Page S 15542]]

  Mr. President, I lost. I lost on that amendment on the first two 
votes. And I remember one of my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle--and I have many close friends on the other side of the aisle, 
including the distinguished Senators on the floor, I would say 
especially the distinguished Senator from Utah--but I remember that one 
Senator came out and said, ``The only thing the Senator from Minnesota 
is trying to do is embarrass us.'' And I said, ``You can just prove me 
wrong and vote for this.''
  And then, finally, Mr. President--and I deeply regret that I did 
this--I introduced the amendment again, and it was accepted, and it was 
voice voted. But I am not interested in symbolic politics any longer. 
We are getting into the debate now.
  I probably would not have had this amendment today, but when the 
Senator from Pennsylvania comes out with his amendment, his concerns, 
then it is time for me to come out with my amendment and my concerns.
  Mr. President, these children, they are not the heavy hitters. These 
children, they are not the players. These children, they do not have a 
lot of lobbyists that are out there in the anteroom right now, and they 
have not been here throughout this process.
  But some of my colleagues just want to talk about the balanced budget 
over and over and over again, deficit reduction over and over and over 
again. But how interesting it is that they fail to translate some of 
their proposals into human terms and what its impact on people is going 
to be.
  Mr. President, we have scheduled in this reconciliation bill dramatic 
reductions of investment in children.
  We have scheduled in this reconciliation bill, in this deficit 
reduction bill cuts in the Women, Infants, and Children Program. 
Unbelievable, Mr. President. My God, if there is one thing we ought to 
agree on, it is that every woman expecting a child ought to have an 
adequate diet, and we are not going to invest the resources necessary 
for that?
  Mr. President, the Food Stamp Program certainly has its 
imperfections, and I am all for fixing the problems, but there is a 
difference between fixing problems and, no pun intended, throwing the 
baby out with the bath water. I can tell you that with Richard Nixon's 
leadership, with national standards and dramatic expansion of such a 
program in the early 1970's--and I saw it in the 1960's in the State of 
North Carolina where I lived, we had all too many children with 
distended bellies, too much rickets, scurvy, too many children 
malnourished--we moved forward with a dramatic expansion of the Food 
Stamp Program, and it has been--imperfections and all--one of the most 
important and successful programs in this country because, thank God, 
it reduced hunger and malnutrition among children in America, hunger 
and malnutrition among all of God's children.
  I ask the Chair, where is the voice for low-income children? Where is 
the voice for some of the most vulnerable citizens in this country?
  So if we are going to now, today, debate this budget, it is my 
opportunity to make my case and to make my plea to my colleagues that 
we should go on record, Mr. President, as Senators making it clear that 
if these reductions should increase the number of hungry or medically 
uninsured children by the end of fiscal year 1996, the Congress shall 
revisit the provisions of such a bill that caused such an increase, and 
then we shall adopt legislation which would halt such an increase.
  I met on Saturday with family child care providers. I say to my 
colleague from Iowa, these are small business people. There are some 
14,000 in the State of Minnesota. What did they say to me? They talked 
about the adult and child care feeding program and they said to me, 
``Senator, we don't know what is going to happen with the proposed 
reductions in this program, because for a lot of these kids coming from 
these families, this is the one really good meal they get a day, and we 
can't assume the cost ourselves because we're small business people and 
we don't have any big margin of profit. Senator, who cares about these 
children?''
  But, again, we see reductions in this program.
  We are talking about $180 billion-plus of cuts in medical assistance, 
and I said several weeks ago on the floor of the U.S. Senate when I 
suggested that the Senate Finance Committee not meet because there had 
not been one hearing on the precise proposals that had finally been 
laid out with one expert coming in from anywhere in the country, I 
said, this was a rush to recklessness, and it is.
  It is a rush to recklessness, and what is so tragic about it is that 
the missing piece is the impact on the people back in our States. The 
State of Minnesota, again, has done a great job. You can talk to the 
doctors and the nurses, you can talk to the caregivers, you can talk to 
the people in the Government agencies, you can talk to the people in 
the communities, we have 300,000 children that receive medical 
assistance and now we are going to see draconian cuts in medical 
assistance.
  There is a reason why there has been an increase, and the reason is 
simple: Every year, more and more families lose their employment-based 
health care coverage. Every 30 seconds, a child is born into poverty in 
this country. I keep reciting these statistics over and over again 
because I do not seem to be able to get my colleagues to focus on it. 
Every 30 seconds, a child is born into poverty in this country. Every 2 
minutes a child is born to a woman who has not had prenatal care. Every 
2 minutes, a child is born to a woman and that child is born severely 
low weight, which means that child may not even have a chance in his or 
her life. The statistics go on and on.
  We are now moving toward one quarter of all the citizens in this 
country being poor. So if we are going to have this debate today, I 
offered my perfecting amendment to the amendment of the Senator from 
Pennsylvania to say let us go on record and let us make it clear that 
surely we are not taking any action that is going to reduce more hunger 
or is going to increase the number of children that go without medical 
insurance and, therefore, without adequate medical care.
  Mr. President, while I am speaking and before I forget, I do want to 
also ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. Was 
there a sufficient second?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. It is one 
thing to ask for the yeas and nays. We are not prepared to vote on this 
amendment. So I object.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum 
call be dispensed with and we go forward.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes there was a sufficient 
second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, what we have here, which is why I 
offered this perfecting amendment, is the following equation: On the 
one hand, we have in the State of Minnesota somewhere between $2.5 
billion and $3.5 billion of cuts in medical assistance.
  And what do I hear from citizens in Minnesota, I mean from those who 
are affected? I hear families with children telling me we do not 
believe that our children are any longer going to be able to receive 
adequate medical care. I suggest to you as a former teacher, that if a 
child goes to school--and I have met such children in my State of 
Minnesota, and, Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, there are such 
children in their States as well --with an abscess tooth because that 
child could not afford dental care or because a child goes to school 
and that child has not received adequate health care, that child cannot 
do well in school.
  So, to me it would be unconscionable--it would be unconscionable--to 
essentially dismantle one of the most important safety nets we have for 
children in our country.
  I meet with families, I say to my colleagues, who right now receive 
medical assistance so they can keep their children who are 
developmentally disabled at home. If these proposed cuts in medical 
assistance go through, their fear--

[[Page S 15543]]
Mr. President, may I have order in the Chamber?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, their concern is that what will happen is they will no 
longer have the medical assistance program--it is called TEFRON--in our 
State to enable them to keep their children at home, and they do not 
want their children to be institutionalized.
  Are we going to turn the clock backward? That is why I have this 
amendment. This is not a game. These are people's lives. I want my 
colleagues to go on record that if these proposed reductions mean that 
there will be more children in America that will go hungry or more 
children in America that will go without health care insurance, then we 
will, in fact, in 1996 revisit the provisions and take the corrective 
action to make sure that we do not continue to see this suffering. That 
is what I am asking my colleagues to vote on.
  The medical assistance program is a vitally important program for 
children in America, yet we have these huge reductions slated and 
nobody has bothered to ask these children or their mothers or their 
fathers--many of them come from working poor families--``How is this 
going to affect you and what will you do?'' Nobody has bothered to go 
out there and over and over and over again meet with people in the 
developmental disabilities communities and find out from them, ``How is 
this going to affect you? What are you going to do?''
  I had an amendment on the floor of the Senate to the budget 
resolution that said we ought to consider some of these tax loopholes 
and deductions and tax giveaways.
  A dollar spent by the Government is a dollar spent, regardless of how 
you do it. It can be a direct subsidy or it can be a giveaway to some 
large corporation.
  My amendment said we ought to consider some of this; it was defeated. 
Let me be clear about the why of this amendment on the floor of the 
Senate today.
  The U.S. Senate, when it comes to what we call corporate welfare, 
when it comes to some of the largest tax giveaways to some of the most 
affluent citizens, largest corporations in America, we do not want to 
take any action, do not want to ask them to tighten their belts, and do 
not want them to be part of the sacrifice, but we are willing to cut 
nutrition programs for children in America.
  That is not the goodness of people in this country. But it is pretty 
easy to explain because those children are not out there with their 
lobbyists.
  The Wall Street Journal had a piece yesterday about the mix of money 
and politics. It is unbelievable the amounts of money pouring in from 
all over the country. But those children, they are not the ones that 
get represented in such a politics.
  Today we get a chance to give our assurance to those children that we 
take account of them and we take account of their lives.
  Mr. President, we had a bill out here, appropriations bill that was 
the Pentagon budget. It was $7 billion more than the Pentagon wanted. 
It passed. Many of us were saying, could we not put that money into 
deficit reduction? Could we not at least do a little bit of the 
balancing of the budget? This is all about priorities, all about 
choices. Could we not ask the military contractors to tighten their 
belts?
  My colleague from Iowa has probably done the best work in the Senate 
in pointing out where he thinks there has been some waste here and 
where he thinks there could be most fiscal accountability.
  Mr. President, we were not successful. So we got $7 billion more than 
the Pentagon wants. We got the money for the military contractors. We 
go forward with the weapon systems. We go forward with add-on projects. 
We go forward with this budget. But at the same time, we are going to 
cut nutritional programs for children and medical assistance for 
children in the United States of America.
  Mr. President, the last piece of this, as long as my colleague brings 
out this whole issue of the budget, is we now look at the Treasury 
Department analysis, we now look at pieces that are being written in 
the papers, and we have $245 billion of tax giveaways.
  In the best of all worlds, I would love to vote for it. But it is, I 
have said on the floor before, it is like trying to dance at two 
weddings at the same time. As my colleague from Illinois, Senator 
Simon, would say, if deficit reductions are our No. 1 goal, we will be 
put on a strict diet. The next thing we do is say, but first we will 
give you dessert. It is preposterous.
  What is more preposterous is when in fact you are willing to give 
away $245 billion in breaks, most of it going to the most affluent 
citizens who do not need it, but you are going to cut the Women, 
Infants, and Children Program, nutrition programs for children, and 
medical assistance that has become the most sweeping and important 
safety net program in this country for children in America.
  Mr. President, I just ask my colleagues, where are the priorities? 
Mr. President, I do not intend to filibuster the Senate. I do not 
intend to bring the Senate to a halt. I am quite pleased to go forward.
  Mr. President, let me just conclude because out of respect for my 
colleague from Utah who is managing this bill I will not take up much 
more time. Mr. President, my colleague from Pennsylvania came out here 
on the floor and did what he felt was right. I respect him for that.
  He absolutely should do so. He has his set of concerns. He talks 
about a balanced budget. He talks about deficit reduction.
  I also have a set of concerns. I have a set of concerns about whose 
backs is the budget balancing on? I have a concern about where is the 
standard of fairness? I have a concern about all the reports that are 
coming out talking about the fact that this proportionate number of the 
budget cuts target low-income citizens in America--the poorest of poor 
people, with children unfortunately being disproportionately affected 
by these reductions.
  I have concerns about too many children who live in poverty today. I 
have concerns about what the impact in personal terms of some of these 
reductions in nutrition and health care programs will be on the 
nutritional status and health status of children in Minnesota and all 
across this land.
  Since I think we have had precious little discussion about all of 
this, it seems to me it is time for the Senate to vote.
  I remind my colleagues that I had a very similar kind of an amendment 
on the floor of the Senate. It was defeated twice. The third time it 
was passed by this body. This was an amendment which said ``We go on 
record that we will take no action, that we create more hunger or 
homelessness among children in America.''
  So today we can through our vote provide some assurance to people 
throughout Minnesota and throughout the land that children do come 
first. Children and their mothers and fathers do come first. Families 
do come first. That we will not target the most vulnerable citizens. 
That there will be some standard of fairness. That we will make sure 
that our actions do not increase the number of hungry children, and do 
not increase the number of children who go without health care 
coverage.
  We can do that, Mr. President through this amendment. I will read the 
amendment and then I will make a request. The amendment reads as 
follows:

       In the event provisions of the fiscal year 1996 budget 
     reconciliation bill are enacted which result in an increase 
     in the number of hungry or medically uninsured children by 
     the end of fiscal year 1996, the Congress shall revisit the 
     provisions of said bill which caused such increase and shall, 
     as soon as practicable thereafter, adopt legislation which 
     would halt any continuation of such increase.

  That is very reasonable.
  Mr. President, I am aware that the parliamentary situation is such 
that I will only be able to get a vote on my amendment if I move to 
table my own amendment. I will soon do so and urge my colleagues to 
vote against my motion to table. In that way, the Senate will go on 
record with respect to the provisions of my amendment.
  Mr. President, I do not want to take up more time because we have a 
lot of business but I believe in my heart and soul that there could be 
no more important focus than children in this country, and especially 
vulnerable children. 

[[Page S 15544]]

  Mr. President, I am a father of three children: 30, 26, and 23. I am 
a grandfather, three grandchildren: Ages 4, 1, and 2 weeks. I am not so 
concerned about my children or my grandchildren with this amendment. I 
am concerned about a lot of other children. I am concerned about a lot 
of children who right now in the United States of America live in some 
brutal economic circumstances. I am concerned about a lot of children 
in America who right now are in a very fragile situation. I am 
concerned about a lot of children in America who do not believe that 
they truly will have an opportunity to be all that they can be. I am 
concerned about a lot of children in America who grow up in families 
where there is tremendous tension, where there are parents without 
jobs, where people struggle economically and where there is tremendous 
violence in their lives.
  I have all of those concerns. Mr. President, for that reason, I do 
not want us to take any action that could increase the number of hungry 
children or those that would go without adequate health care.
  I move to table my amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is now on the motion to lay on 
the table amendment No. 2944.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 45, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 497 Leg.]

                                YEAS--53

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--45

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

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Bradley
       
  So the motion to lay on the table the amendment (No. 2944) was agreed 
to.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. HATCH. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                    amendment no. 2943, as modified

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I send a modification to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has a right to modify his 
amendment. The amendment is so modified.
  The amendment, as modified, is as follows:

       At the end of the bill, add the following new paragraph:

     SEC.   . SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE PRESIDENT'S 
                   REVISED FEDERAL BUDGET.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
       (1) On May 19, 1995, the United States Senate voted 99-0 to 
     reject the Fiscal Year 1996 budget submitted by President 
     Clinton on February 6, 1995.
       (2) The President on June 13, 1995, after the House of 
     Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions that the 
     Congressional Budget Office said would result in a balanced 
     federal budget in Fiscal Year 2002, revised his budget.
       (3) The President said on June 13, 1995, and on numerous 
     subsequent occasions, that this revised budget would balance 
     the federal budget in Fiscal Year 2005.
       (4) The President's revised budget, like the budget he 
     submitted to Congress on February 6, 1995, took into account 
     surpluses in the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance 
     (OASDI) trust funds in calculating the deficit.
       (5) President Clinton, in his address before a joint 
     session of Congress on February 17, 1993, stated that he was 
     ``using the independent numbers of the Congressional Budget 
     Office'' because ``the Congressional Budget Office was 
     normally more conservative in what was going to happen and 
     closer to right than previous Presidents have been.''
       (6) President Clinton further stated: ``Let's at least 
     argue about the same set of numbers, so the American people 
     will think we're shooting straight with them.''
       (7) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget would achieve savings of $128 
     billion in Medicare through 2002 and $295 billion through 
     2005.
       (8) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget would achieve savings of $54 
     billion in federal Medicaid spending through 2002 and $105 
     billion through 2005.
       (9) The President has proposed savings of $64 billion in 
     ``non-health entitlements by 2002 by reforming welfare, farm 
     and other programs.''
       (10) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget includes proposals that would 
     reduce federal revenues by $97 billion over seven years and 
     $166 billion over ten years.
       (11) These proposed tax reductions are more than offset by 
     the President's proposed Medicare savings.
       (12) The Congressional Budget Office has determined that 
     enactment of the President's proposal would result in 
     deficits in excess of $200 billion in each of fiscal years 
     1997 through 2005.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that Congress shall enact the President's budget as revised 
     on June 13, 1995.


         Amendment No. 2945 to Amendment No. 2943, as modified

(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate regarding the President's 
                    revised federal budget proposal)

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will please come to order.
  Mr. FORD. Is it appropriate to have the modification read before we 
get the tree filled?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is not required that the modification be 
read.
  Mr. FORD. I understand that. I ask unanimous consent the modification 
be read.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, could we do that after I----
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I want it read before we fill the tree.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator aware that a second-degree 
amendment has been sent to the desk? And the regular order is for the 
clerk to report the amendment.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I withdraw my request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Utah [Mr. Hatch] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2945 to amendment No. 2943, as modified.

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

       In the pending amendment, strike all after the first word 
     and insert in lieu thereof the following:

     SEC.   . SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE PRESIDENT'S 
                   REVISED FEDERAL BUDGET.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
       (1) On May 19, 1995, the United States Senate voted 99-0 to 
     reject the Fiscal Year 1996 budget submitted by President 
     Clinton on February 6, 1995.
       (2) The President on June 13, 1995, after the House of 
     Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions that the 
     Congressional Budget Office said would result in a balanced 
     federal budget in Fiscal Year 2002, revised his budget.
       (3) The President said on June 13, 1995, and on numerous 
     subsequent occasions, that this revised budget would balance 
     the federal budget in Fiscal Year 2005.
       (4) The President's revised budget, like the budget he 
     submitted to Congress on February 6, 1995, took into account 
     surpluses in the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance 
     (OASDI) trust funds in calculating the deficit.
       (5) President Clinton, in his address before a joint 
     session of Congress on February 17, 1993, stated that he was 
     ``using the independent numbers of the Congressional Budget 
     Office'' because ``the Congressional Budget Office was 
     normally more conservative in what was going to happen and 
     closer to right than previous Presidents have been.''

[[Page S 15545]]

       (6) President Clinton further stated: ``Let's at least 
     argue about the same set of numbers, so the American people 
     will think we're shooting straight with them.''
       (7) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget would achieve savings of $128 
     billion in Medicare through 2002 and $295 billion through 
     2005.
       (8) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget would achieve savings of $54 
     billion in federal Medicaid spending through 2002 and $105 
     billion through 2005.
       (9) The President has proposed savings of $64 billion in 
     ``non-health entitlements by 2002 by reforming welfare, farm 
     and other programs.''
       (10) The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 
     President's revised budget includes proposals that would 
     reduce federal revenues by $97 billion over seven years and 
     $166 billion over ten years.
       (11) These proposed tax reductions are more than offset by 
     the President's proposed Medicare savings.
       (12) The Congressional Budget Office has determined that 
     enactment of the President's proposal would result in 
     deficits in excess of $200 billion in each of fiscal years 
     1997 through 2005.
       (13) President Clinton stated on October 17, 1995, that, 
     ``Probably there are people . . . still mad at me at that 
     budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It 
     might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too 
     much, too.
       (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate 
     that Congress shall enact President Clinton's budget as 
     revised on June 13, 1995.

  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, we are now back to the original subject at hand before 
the Wellstone amendment, which is a sense of the Senate which says the 
Senate should adopt the President's second budget, his budget which he 
proclaims balances the budget over a 10-year period of time.
  I wanted to show in graphic terms what the President's balanced 
budget does. The red line is what the Congressional Budget Office says 
are the deficit projections for the President's balanced budget. You 
see over the next 7 years the President's budget, unlike the Republican 
budget here in the Senate that will be up tomorrow. You see the 
difference between what we are debating here today and will be debating 
the rest of the week is a vision, a vision of fiscal responsibility for 
this country. If you are to believe the President, what the President 
wants to do, he does not want to get to a balanced budget in 7 years or 
10 years or any other time after that.
  You can see what the Congressional Budget Office says is the annual 
projected deficit for the President's budget. It is about $200 billion, 
give or take, over the next 7 years. And by the way, this line 
continues out for several years to come. In the reconciliation package 
we are going to debate tomorrow, we take the budget deficit from here 
and take it down to zero--in fact, a slight surplus in the year 2002.
  This right here is the credibility gap, the gap between what the 
President says he wants to do, which is balance the budget, to where 
the President really is in 7 years, which is at a $200 billion plus 
deficit. That is a $200 billion credibility gap that the President is 
trying to pull over on the American public. And somehow or another, a 
$200 billion deficit qualifies as a balanced budget. I do not think in 
anybody's book a $200 billion deficit qualifies as a balanced budget.
  So what we have been having today is a discussion on the President's 
budget and our budget and the differences between the two, and 
hopefully we will have a vote later today on whether we will adopt the 
President's budget, whether this body wants to go in the direction of 
red ink as far as the eye can see, of reductions--remember, the 
President calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions in 
spending, and even with all those reductions in spending he still has 
$200 billion in deficit because he does not do enough. He does not make 
the changes that are necessary to get this budget in order.

  Remember, just 3 years ago the Governor of Arkansas campaigned across 
America about change, change, change, change. How many times have you 
heard during the campaign of 1992 the word ``change''? How many times 
have you heard over the past year the word ``change''? Not very much. 
What you heard is there is too much change, according to the President. 
There is too much disruption. There is too much. ``Oh, we cannot do 
that.'' He has all of a sudden come from being the President of change 
to the President of the status quo. And my fellow colleagues, this is 
the status quo, this is continued deficits for as far as the eye can 
see. That is not change. That is not pro-family. It is not pro-family 
America; it is not pro-growth; it is not pro-anything except pro-
deficits and pro-decline.
  We have an opportunity to reject the status quo here in a few minutes 
and start tomorrow on a fresh, new change in America's future, a 
balanced budget that we will get to later today.
  Mr. KYL. Will the Senator from Pennsylvania yield for a couple of 
questions?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I would be glad to.
  Mr. KYL. The Senator from Pennsylvania is talking about the 
President's budget. Has anybody on the minority side offered the 
President's budget for a vote here?
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Arizona asks a very relevant question, 
because on Friday morning I took the floor and put forth this 
resolution, and laid it on the desk down here and said, ``If anyone on 
the other side wishes to take up the President's budget and argue for 
his budget, it is there. The sense of the Senate to approve the 
President's budget is there, if anybody wants to offer it on the other 
side of the aisle, to defend what the President wants to do, to talk 
about how he gets to balance, what his numbers are he used, what his 
assumptions are he uses, to speak on behalf of the President, to defend 
your President. Who?''
  And I do not know if the Senator from Arizona knows this, but the 
Democratic National Committee is running TV spots all over the country, 
saying, ``There are values, there are values behind the President's 
balanced budget plan.'' Now you have the Democratic National Committee 
running around the country with TV ads proclaiming that this budget is 
a balanced budget, and yet you cannot find one Member of the U.S. 
Senate on the other side of the aisle defending it, to defend what the 
President has done in reaching his balance. I wonder why that is.
  Mr. KYL. Would the Senator from Pennsylvania yield for another 
question.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Of course.
  Mr. KYL. Just so we have this all right now, the Senator from 
Pennsylvania is offering up the President's budget just to see who is 
willing to support it. There has not been a Member of his party willing 
to offer it.
  Mr. SANTORUM. If I could interrupt the Senator from Arizona.
  Not only have they been unwilling to offer it, but during the time we 
have had the opportunity to debate this past Friday and here again 
today, not one Member of the other side of the aisle has even risen to 
defend it, much less offer it, to even question any of the arguments 
that we have put forward on this subject.
  Mr. KYL. Perhaps we can go back in time.
  Did we not vote on the President's budget earlier this year? As I 
recall, the Senate is on record as opposing the first President's 
budget 99-0.
  Could the Senator from Pennsylvania enlighten us further on that?
  Mr. SANTORUM. That is correct. Earlier this year we had the 
opportunity to debate and discuss the President's budget. And I am not 
too sure how many Members on the Democratic side of the aisle defended 
it. I am not too sure very many did. There were admissions that the 
President's budget did not go very far. But I will give the President 
credit for this on his first budget: On his first budget he did not 
claim he balanced the budget. He admitted that he had $250 billion-plus 
deficits as far as the eye can see. He admitted it was a bad budget.
  What he has come back with is a ruse. You know, he and his buddy, 
Rosy, Rosy Scenario, have gotten together to come up with a budget by 
underestimating what the interest rates will be and overestimating 
growth. He and Rosy have figured out a way to balance this budget. 
Well, unfortunately, Rosy does not cut it. We need real reforms. People 
are looking for real changes, the changes that he campaigned on in 1992 
that he is not delivering with these budgets.
  Mr. President, I----
  
[[Page S 15546]]

  Mr. KYL. Excuse me, if the Senator would further yield. We have been 
having a conversation about this. It seems that there is one other 
little problem, that is, in actuality there is a second President's 
budget in the same sense that he offered the budget earlier in the 
year; and the Republicans, through the Budget Committee, and the House 
and the Senate, have actually produced a full budget, funding each of 
the departments of the U.S. Congress, as well as developing all the 
revenues necessary for doing that.
  Actually, is it not the case that what the President is talking about 
now as his balanced budget is really a concept only, that, A, is not a 
full budget, B, will not be offered by anyone in his party, C, does not 
ever get into balance insofar as the Congressional Budget Office 
estimates are concerned, and, therefore, really the only thing that we 
do have to vote on later on this week is the Republican budget combined 
with the other features of what we call the reconciliation bill here?
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Arizona again is exactly correct. What 
the President has trumpeted across this land and the Democratic 
National Committee has begun to run ads suggesting, is that the 
President has a balanced budget. No, he does not. He does not have any 
specifics.
  In fact, the entire package the President submitted back in June of 
this year was some 10 pages, 10 pages of broad outlines as to how you 
would accomplish it; no specifics, no itemized reductions, no specific 
plans on how to reform Medicare, no specific plans on how to reform 
Medicaid, no specific plans on how he is going to adopt his tax cuts, 
no specific plans on how he is going to increase education spending, 
which he says he wants to do. All of it is sort of vague, general 
numbers without the kind of detail that we are forced, and should be 
required, frankly, to produce here in a budget reconciliation package.
  We have come forward with the specifics. And, as you know, when you 
put forward specifics, you have a lot more to shoot at. In fact, I 
think the reconciliation package is a pretty sizable document, a pretty 
voluminous measure. And so I am sure within these documents you have a 
lot to shoot at. When you have 10 or 15 pages of broad generalizations, 
you do not have much to sink your teeth into.
  So the President has been able to run around and talk about a 
balanced budget, which he has never really produced in detail, No. 1, 
and, No. 2, does not balance, and then proceeds to take shots at a very 
well thought out, detailed description by the Republicans in the House 
and the Senate as to how we are going to get to the budget. It is a 
pretty neat place to be. You are sitting there taking potshots at folks 
without having to deliver leadership.
  Unfortunately, we have a President who does not think he has to lead, 
thinks he can sit back here and take potshots at what others trying to 
solve the problem want to do.
  Mr. KYL. Will the Senator yield for another question? I hate to ask 
all these other questions about the President's budget.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I do not see anyone else seeking time.
  Mr. KYL. The President talked about his companion, Rosy, Rosy 
Scenario. I recall when the President first spoke to the Congress, he 
talked very firmly about the need for us to work together, using a 
common set of assumptions. And he pointed out that, of course, that 
common set of assumptions came from using the numbers, the credible 
numbers, the objective, bipartisan numbers of the Congressional Budget 
Office, to analyze how much Government would actually cost and how much 
the revenue would actually be for the various kinds of taxation that we 
have in the country, and that instead of the President using the OMB, 
which is what he accused past administrations of using, and the 
Congress using the CBO, or the Congressional Budget Office, we ought to 
both agree that the CBO had it right. They had it figured out; they 
used the right assumptions; and we ought to use the CBO numbers.
  Now, I would ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, which numbers did the 
President use? And did that have an effect on the assumptions inherent 
in his so-called budget?
  Mr. SANTORUM. As the Senator from Arizona knows very well, the 
President broke his promise. He broke his promise that he made to the 
Congress in 1993 when he came to the joint session of Congress in his 
first speech before the Congress, and he stood up and said that we will 
use a common set of numbers, we will use the Congressional Budget 
Office numbers so we are working with the same numbers, so there are 
not going to be any games on wishing away the problems.
  He offered this budget using OMB numbers, the Office of Management 
and Budget within the White House, not the Congressional Budget Office 
up here on the Hill that we are bound to use.
  The Congressional Budget Office is more conservative. They have more 
pessimistic assumptions. And if you look at the history of budgets and 
the projections of balancing, I am sure there are a lot of folks who 
are listening here who remember Congress after Congress saying, ``We'll 
balance the budget in a few years; we'll get to it; we'll get to it,'' 
and projecting rosy scenarios out of the White House.
  The fact of the matter is, we want to take a conservative approach, 
and if we are wrong, what is the downside if we are wrong? We end up 
with a surplus, such a horrible thing to have. If the Office of 
Management and Budget is wrong and their projections are too rosy, what 
happens? We end up with a pretty good size deficit, that is the 
problem.
  So I suggest it is better to err and be cautious, as we are here in 
the Congressional Budget Office using these numbers, than it is to go 
out and wish away the problem like the President has done.
  Mr. KYL. Will the Senator yield for another question? I was just 
handed this statement and wonder if the Senator is aware of it.
  June O'Neill is the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, and 
she testified in August, and I am quoting now that ``the deficits under 
the President's July budget would probably remain near $200 billion 
through the year 2005.''
  The July budget is the budget the Senator from Pennsylvania is 
talking about and referring to in his chart here.
  So the red line that the Senator from Pennsylvania has demonstrated 
on his chart, compared to the line of zero down below, does that 
represent what June O'Neill, Director of CBO, says is the budget 
deficit remaining near $200 billion through the year 2005 under the 
President's figures?
  Mr. SANTORUM. That is correct, and that is why this amendment is 
here. If the President was not out running around saying that he has a 
balanced budget and he has a budget plan and the Democratic National 
Committee--by the way, this Democratic National Committee spot was not 
3 months ago, 4 months ago, it was this weekend--this weekend. In the 
face of this, in the face of the knowledge that the Congressional 
Budget Office says this plan does not balance, does not deter the 
Democratic National Committee from running around lying to the American 
public that it does balance, and it does not.
  You have the Democratic leader who, after the President introduced 
his second budget that said balanced, when the Congressional Budget 
Office came out and said it did not, the Democratic leader said the 
President should use CBO numbers.
  Now you have the Democratic leader criticizing the President saying, 
``Use the right numbers, don't cook the numbers.'' And yet the 
Democratic National Committee, in the middle of this Titanic struggle 
to balance the budget, is going out there trying to fool the American 
public, suggesting the President has a balanced budget plan.
  Mr. FORD. Will the Senator from Pennsylvania yield for a question?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. FORD. The two Senators over there are just talking to each other. 
I do have a germane amendment, which yours is not, to this bill. I have 
discussed it with the floor manager of the legislation. I would like to 
get on. If you want a vote, let us have a vote. You can even move to 
table your amendment. I just would like to get on to other things, 
because we have been through this rosy scenario, and we are very 
acquainted with ``Rosy'' because you have introduced her to us.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  
[[Page S 15547]]

  Mr. SANTORUM. Rosy is not unique among Democrats and Republicans in 
the White House. She has been a constant partner of Presidents for a 
long time. The unfortunate part is this is the first time that a 
Congress has come forward with a true balanced budget without Rosy, and 
what we are doing is very serious business and what the President----
  Mr. FORD. If the----
  Mr. SANTORUM. Let me finish my statement. When the President is out 
there using Rosy to cover up what is a truly deficient budget that does 
not balance in the face of the tough decisions that this Congress is 
making now, it raises that specter of deceit that has been going on 
with Presidents for a long, long time to a new level. That is why this 
amendment is on the floor.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield again?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I yield for a question.
  Mr. FORD. Did the Senator hear the former chairman of the Budget 
Committee this morning when he said your budget, by CBO figures, was 
$108 billion or $105 billion short in 2002?
  So you are standing up here telling us that you are balancing the 
budget and you have the direct opposite view from that of the former 
chairman of the Budget Committee, and he got his information from CBO.
  Mr. SANTORUM. If I can reclaim my time, I am sure the Senator from 
New Mexico will present the letter from the Congressional Budget Office 
Director which certifies the budget does balance in 7 years. I do not 
know where the Senator from South Carolina got his information.
  Mr. FORD. He did not get it out of his own office, he got it out of 
CBO.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I reclaim my time, and I encourage that we defeat this 
amendment. I will be happy to take an up-or-down vote. If the Senator 
from Kentucky will allow an up-or-down vote, we can do that. If the 
Senator requires me to table, I will be happy to do that.
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. HATCH. If I can make a suggestion, I suggest we have a vote up or 
down on the Senator's amendment. I intend to support him. I think we 
should do that right now.
  I notice the distinguished Senator from Iowa is ready to speak on the 
underlying bill. The distinguished Senator from Kentucky, the minority 
whip, has an amendment he would like to bring up. So I am prepared to 
go to a vote if we can.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment and the 
budget that President Clinton has submitted.
  The President says he supports a balanced budget and that he has 
submitted a balanced budget to the Congress for consideration, but the 
agency he praised as the best authority on budget numbers, the CBO, 
says otherwise. June O'Neill, the Director of CBO, testified in August 
that ``the deficits under the President's July budget would probably 
remain near $200 billion through 2005.''
  So, the President's budget does not balance. Not in 7 years, 8 years, 
9, or 10 years. It doesn't balance.
  The President claims the Congress is cutting Medicare to pay for tax 
cuts for the rich. We all know that's not true either, just as we know 
the President didn't propose to cut Medicare when he proposed tax cuts 
in his revised budget.
  CBO estimates that the President's revised budget would reduce the 
growth in Medicare by $105 billion by 2005. The President's numbers put 
net Medicare savings at $124 billion. So, President Clinton finds 
savings in Medicare as well.
  His budget also proposes tax cuts that would cut the growth of tax 
revenues by $166 billion by 2005. The President's tax cuts are more 
than offset by Medicare spending cuts. Yet we all know that cuts have 
nothing to do with Medicare. Whether we raise taxes, lower taxes or 
leave taxes the same, the fact is that Medicare will go bankrupt unless 
spending growth is slowed and the program is reformed.
  Last week, the President said that he could support a balanced budget 
in 7 years, just as we are proposing. We should vote down this budget 
today and give the President another chance to produce a budget that 
CBO will certify gets us to balance. We want to work with the 
President, but we don't want--and we shouldn't--go back on the promise 
we made to the American people to balance the budget by the year 2002.
  Let us vote down this budget today and consider an alternative that 
keeps the promises we have made. Let us balance the budget and give tax 
relief to hard-working American families.
  Mr. President, I think it is time for us to have a vote, and I simply 
would like to frame what the vote is, in about 30 seconds here.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania has offered the President's budget. We 
are going to be voting later this week on the Republican budget. 
Members will have an opportunity to decide: Do they want a budget that, 
according to June O'Neill, the Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office, shows deficits of $200 billion through the year 2005, or do 
they want a balanced budget offered by the Republicans which will be 
voted on later this week?
  I suggest that we have the vote, that it be up or down, and that we 
defeat the budget that has been offered by the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, since none of the Members of the Democratic Party were 
willing to offer the President's budget.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I also suggest we have this vote up or 
down, and I agree this amendment should be defeated. We should not be 
voting for the President's budget, which has $200 billion in deficits, 
ad infinitum. It is not realistic about getting spending under control, 
and I think, once and for all, that we can vote on this issue.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, one additional comment. The Senator from 
Kentucky and I just had a conversation. I want to give the Senator from 
Kentucky and the Democrats credit for not defending the President's 
budget. He is absolutely right, he is not defending the President's 
budget because the President is not using the right numbers, so I give 
credit to the other side for not standing up and defending this budget. 
I think they are showing character in not doing so. I think, hopefully, 
that is a message that will be sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we do have a bill before us, a very 
important bill. We have been talking about amendments to that bill that 
are unrelated to the underlying bill. I am going to speak about the 
underlying bill. I want to tell people who are watching that this 
sometimes happens in the U.S. Senate; that you get a relatively 
noncontroversial bill before the Senate, and then people want to offer 
amendments. I do not have any fault with either the process, or I do 
not have any fault with the amendment on which we are going to be 
voting. In fact, I cheer what the Senator from Pennsylvania is doing. 
But I do want to state my view on this underlying bill which creates 
and extends some temporary judgeships, and then I also want to make a 
statement on how we arrive at the number of judgeships we ought to have 
and the necessity for a review of that process.
  As far as the underlying bill is concerned, Mr. President, I want to 
clearly state that I support the bill, even though I am going to raise 
some questions about the process, even though I might raise a question 
about one of the judges that is being temporarily extended, the 
creation of which is being temporarily extended.
  I want to state for the record that there is at least one of these 
positions that is being extended, some questions from judges who 
operate in this judicial district as to whether or not it even ought to 
be extended.
  I want to say at the outset that the Sixth Circuit Judicial Council 
has asked that one of the temporary judgeships not be renewed. The 
letter I have from Mr. Wiggins, circuit executive for the sixth 
district, who speaks about the temporary judgeship for the western 
district of Michigan, says at a 

[[Page S 15548]]
meeting of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Council held on May 4, 1994: The 
council approved the request of the western district of Michigan that 
no action be taken to extend the temporary judgeship for the western 
district of Michigan.
  With this bill, we are extending then some judgeships which judges 
themselves have raised questions about whether or not they are needed, 
whether or not they even want them.
  It is, of course, this sort of mindset that has caused me to look 
very closely at the spending habits and the allocation of judges in the 
Federal judiciary.
  Congress has made difficult budget choices, as you know, this year--
in fact, the next 3 days--on what we call the reconciliation process. 
We are going to be voting on these particular tough decisions that we 
have to make to get us to a balanced budget. In that process, we in the 
Congress have downsized our own staffs, the staffs of our committees. 
We have downsized in the executive branch, as well.
  I believe it is time that we look at the downsizing of the Federal 
judiciary. That is why I have begun a series of hearings on the proper 
allocation of Federal judges. As some in this body know, last week I 
chaired a hearing before the Court Subcommittee that I chair on the 
appropriate number of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. 
Circuit.
  That hearing addressed an issue which this body has not considered 
since the 19th century--the process of eliminating judgeships. The last 
time we eliminated a judgeship as a Congress was in 1868 when there 
were 10 members of the Supreme Court temporarily because of what 
President Lincoln wanted to do. It was reduced by one judgeship. That 
is the last time I have been told that is the case.
  Here we are looking at whether or not we need 12 judges on the 
circuit for Washington, DC. The caseload of the Washington, D.C. 
circuit has actually declined slightly over the past few years. The 
number of agency cases in the D.C. circuit is about the same now as it 
was in 1983--that was a year before Congress created a 12th judgeship 
in the D.C. circuit.
  It costs a little under $1 million--$800,000, to be exact--when we 
create and keep filled a circuit court judgeship. By the way, that 
figure, $800,000, comes from the judicial conference. In other words, 
that is the official judiciary's estimate. It is not my estimate.
  The administration claims despite the declining caseload, despite the 
expense to the American taxpayers, that 12th seat must be filled. I am 
not convinced that this is so. Mr. President, $1 million per year, per 
judgeship is a lot. I do not think it should be spent unwisely.
  Mr. President, with respect to the D.C. circuit, the administration 
basically says that the D.C. circuit is too slow in rendering decisions 
and that a 12th judge would speed things up. But this is not 
necessarily so.
  I agree with a large number of well-respected Federal judges who have 
raised serious concerns about the runaway growth of the Federal branch. 
Some judges, including Judge Silberman on the D.C. circuit and Judge 
Wilkinson of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, have raised serious 
objections to an excessively large Federal judiciary. These circuit 
judges have concluded, based on the experience of the ninth circuit, 
that courts of appeal which are too large actually decrease the quality 
of judicial decisionmaking and increase the possibility of a 
conflicting panel decision which must be reconciled through full court 
rehearings.
  At my hearing that I held last week in my subcommittee, Judge 
Silberman testified that 12 judges is just too many for the D.C. 
circuit. In those very brief periods when the D.C. circuit has actually 
had 12 judges--and that was just for a brief period of time, quite 
frankly, Mr. President, between 1984 and now, when it was created, I 
think a period of not more than 18 months--there just was not enough 
work to go around. That is what Judge Silberman said.
  I ask unanimous consent that an article from a newspaper about the 
hearing I recently chaired which appears in the paper be printed in the 
Record at the end of my remarks. Furthermore, I ask unanimous consent 
to have printed the letter I read from the sixth judicial council.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibits 1 and 2.)
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Furthermore, when there are too many judges--and I go 
back to what Judge Silberman is saying and what Judge Wilkinson is 
saying--there are too many opportunities for Federal intervention.
  We should not forget, just as Government regulatory agencies swelled 
in number and size since President Roosevelt and President Johnson set 
America on a path to big Government and Government control of the 
economy, the Federal courts have also increased in size. The size of 
the Federal judiciary is an indicator, in the view of many people, 
including myself, of the degree of unnecessary Federal intervention in 
State and local affairs.
  To some degree, I must admit, this is our fault. Whenever we in the 
Congress try to create a Federal solution to a State and local problem, 
we give the Federal judiciary more work to do. So we have to, of 
course, shoulder some blame for this, and it would not take a lot of 
research that every Senator, including this one, has done some things, 
promoted some legislation to increase the workloads of the Federal 
judiciary.
  Is that right? No, it is not right. It is a fact. We have an 
opportunity now to review some of this. We have a bill before the 
Senate that extends temporary judgeships that were created 5 years ago 
for another short period of time, to get us over a hurdle.
  We are going do that, obviously, but it calls for the consideration 
of how we do this, how often we do it, and whether we do it in too 
willy-nilly of a fashion.
  Like most of my colleagues on this side of the aisle, I do not 
necessarily support Federal solutions to local problems. With the 
Republican victory last November, I am confident that some common sense 
will be restored to the way that we do business up here in Washington.
  Mr. President, all of what I have described is expensive. When we ask 
for more Government, more committees, more employees on the Hill, more 
bureaucrats downtown, and even more judges, it is all very expensive. 
So it is time we in Congress step up to the plate on the issue of the 
Federal judiciary and its size and we make some tough budgetary 
choices.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

             When It Comes to Judges, Many Say Less Is More

                          (By Frank J. Murray)

       The U.S. Senate may be about to abolish an appeals court 
     judgeship because there's not enough work to justify the job.
       This has happened only once before, in 1868, when Congress 
     cut the U.S. Supreme Court from 10 justices to nine.
       But the mood to cut judgeships is growing.
       At issue is whether to cut the 12-judge U.S. Court of 
     Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the nation's second most 
     important court. Three of the nine current Supreme Court 
     justices were elevated from that court.
       Yesterday, Judge Randall R. Rader of the Federal Circuit 
     told The Washington Times that 12-judge appeals court also 
     could be better off if its current vacant slot were 
     abolished.
       ``I think circuit courts work better in smaller numbers. I 
     think that the Federal Circuit would work as well with 11 
     [judges], perhaps more efficiently,'' Judge Rader said.
       In the Eastern District of Louisiana, Chief Judge Morey L. 
     Sear is asking the Senate not to fill two vacancies on the 
     U.S. District Court bench.
       And Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the D.C. Circuit 
     advocates cutting one judge from that court.
       Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and chairman of 
     the Senate Judiciary oversight subcommittee, says he has 
     found support for reducing the number of judges on the D.C. 
     Circuit and elsewhere during soundings of sentiment among 
     appeals judges nationwide.
       Chief Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards, who opposes the 
     reduction, acknowledges that Judge Silberman speaks for a 
     significant faction of the court, although its 11 judges have 
     taken no vote.
       Chief Judge Edwards says any decision not to leave the 
     question to the U.S. Judicial Conference could suggest ``some 
     agenda that has nothing to do with the quality of justice.''
       In opening a committee hearing last week, Mr. Grassley said 
     his choices fall between filling the vacancy and cutting the 
     bench by as many as three positions.
       Each circuit judgeship costs about $800,000 a year, 
     including salaries for a support staff of five. Such 
     judgeships must be eliminated when vacant because the 
     Constitution guarantees incumbent judges the jobs and their 
     salary levels for life.
       ``We think the [D.C. Circuit] seat should be filled,'' says 
     White House spokeswoman 

[[Page S 15549]]
     Ginny Terzano. ``It's not a political issue. It's a question of whether 
     this seat should exist or not, and the administration thinks 
     it should.''
       In separate interviews, Judges Edwards and Silberman says 
     they respect each other's opinions on an issue laden with 
     political overtones.
       ``If the question to me is, are we better off with 12 
     judges--do we serve the public better and do our jobs 
     better?--my answer is yes,'' Judge Edwards says. But he 
     concedes he can't effectively challenge those who rely on a 
     formula allotting the circuit just 9\1/2\ judges because of 
     declining workload.
       ``I can't say there's any magic number and produce that 
     number to prove the point,'' Chief Judge Edwards says. ``I 
     admitted it is a difficult assessment in those terms.'' 
     Although the number of cases accepted for review fell over a 
     10-year period, the backlog of 2,000 is up 70 percent.
       ``I do think the 12 judges is excessive and therefore a 
     diversion of judicial resources,'' Judge Silberman told the 
     Judiciary Committee. He says 11 is the right number and nine 
     is too few.
       The resolution of the dispute could determine whether Mr. 
     Clinton eventually undoes what Ronald Reagan wrought. The 
     D.C. Circuit has five Reagan nominees, two Bush appointees, 
     two Clinton nominees and two Carter appointees--including 
     Chief Judge Edwards. Judge Silberman was appointed by 
     President Reagan.
       ``I am in favor of the abolition of the 12th judgeship no 
     matter who is president or who controls the Senate. We simply 
     do not need a 12th judgeship, and there is a cost in the 
     quality of our decisionmaking,'' Judge Silberman says. He 
     says he expressed this view privately months before Mr. 
     Garland's nomination and wrote a Sept. 26 letter spelling out 
     his position at Mr. Grassley's invitation.
       ``The fact that I am in some measure of disagreement with 
     the chief judge on this issue has not affected my enormous 
     respect and affection for him,'' Judge Silberman says. Says 
     Chief Judge Edwards: ``Everyone else who's testified has 
     supported the 12th judge. I don't care to say anything on 
     that. Our relationship is good. I'll leave it that way.''

                               Exhibit 2

                                             U.S. Court of Appeals


                                        For the Sixth Circuit,

                                      Cincinnati, OH, May 5, 1994.
     Re temporary judgeship in Western District of Michigan.

     David L. Cook,
     Chief, Statistics Division Administrative Office of the U.S. 
         Courts, Federal Judiciary Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Cook: At a meeting of the Sixth Circuit Judicial 
     Council held on May 4, 1994, the Council approved the request 
     of the Western District of Michigan that no action be taken 
     to extend the temporary judgeship for the Western District of 
     Michigan.
           Sincerely,
                                                 James A. Wiggins,
                                                Circuit Executive.

  Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I rise to support the effort that the 
Senator from Pennsylvania has put to the Senate but would encourage my 
colleagues to vote against the resolution.
  The resolution calls for the adoption, as I understand it, of the 
President's budget as submitted June 13 of this year. When the vote is 
called, I hope that my colleagues would vote against the resolution.
  Again, I want to support the effort that the Senator from 
Pennsylvania is making. What he is really giving us is an opportunity 
to discuss--and I suspect maybe some do not want to discuss it--the 
President's budget, because there is the impression that has been 
created that with this proposal that the President made in June, that 
there is an alternative to what Republicans have proposed.
  In the next few days we will be voting on the reconciliation package. 
That, combined with other actions of the Senate--the appropriations 
bill, the passage of the budget resolution earlier this year--will lead 
us to a balanced budget, according to CBO.
  There is a proposal, again, that will come to the floor of the Senate 
tomorrow, and we should have a vote on final passage before we conclude 
our work this week, that will, in fact, over a period of 7 years, 
balance the budget. If my memory is correct, that will be the first 
time that the budget will have been balanced since 1969.
  I again want to take the opportunity here to talk about the 
President's budget, but I cannot help but think that there are times 
maybe for a little levity.
  Over the weekend, through some clandestine activity, we were able to 
come up with an instrument that allows us to understand how the 
President comes to conclusions about certain tax policies.
  This instrument is the key. This is spun, apparently, and where it 
stops is an indication of what the President's policy with respect to 
taxes should be.
  Again, just to quote some of the various options here that the 
President has to pick from, in January 1992 the President said, ``I 
want to make it very clear that this middle-class tax cut is central * 
* *'' to what he is trying to accomplish. Then, in March 1992, just a 
few months later, I am quoting the President again, he says, ``but to 
say that this middle-class tax is the center of anybody's economic 
package is just wrong.''
  Then, on June 8, the President went on to say, ``I would emphasize to 
you that the press and my opponents always made more of the middle-
class tax cut than I did.'' We all are familiar with the President's 
comments with respect to taxes raised in 1993. He has been quoted 
rather extensively, I think, now, over the last week or so, in essence 
admitting that he went too far in raising taxes.
  What is ironic about that, in the same breath he really said it was 
not his fault, that the Congress--the fact that he had to work within 
the Democratic Party--he was forced to raise taxes and he now admits it 
was a mistake and in essence he apologized for having raised those 
taxes.
  Interestingly enough, you could use this instrument for just about 
any policy decisions in the White House that you wanted. You could take 
the issue of budget resolutions. If you go to candidate Clinton in 
1992, I believe he said on the ``Larry King Show'' that he believed 
that a budget could be balanced in a 5-year period.
  Then, the first budget that the President submitted to the Congress 
did not call for a balanced budget at all. That was in 1993, even after 
raising taxes to the point I think many have said was the largest 
single tax increase in the history of the country. Certainly a large 
one. So here we are in the President's first year, presenting to the 
Congress a budget that in fact does not call for balance.
  Then, earlier this year the President proposed to the Congress his 
budget for fiscal year 1996. Interestingly enough, there was no effort 
to balance the budget in that particular proposal. In fact, I think 
this is the one that was voted on. It was voted down 99 to zero. There 
was no support whatsoever in the Senate for the President's first 
proposal this year. That called for balancing the budget in a 10-year 
period. When it was reestimated by CBO, it was indicated we would see 
deficits out, well, forever--of $200 billion-plus per year.
  The President has been quoted, too, as saying he now favors a program 
that would balance the budget in 7 years--at least that was the 
implication. I should be careful about that. That was the implication--
that the President in fact supported the concept of balancing the 
budget in 7 years.
  So I thought it was an interesting find over the weekend to have 
found this instrument that really has turned out to be the key to the 
President's policy decisionmaking process. That has been, I think, very 
helpful.
  Also, since we have the opportunity to talk about the President's 
budget, it has been some time since we have had an opportunity to focus 
on this. The Joint Economic Committee, as the Chair recognizes, held a 
hearing to review the President's supposed balanced budget proposal 
over 10 years. Mind you, over 10 years. He claimed to have balanced the 
budget in 10 years.
  This chart indicates, again according to CBO, what would be necessary 
in order to balance the budget over a 7-year period. We would have to 
reduce Federal expenditures, that is the anticipated Federal 
expenditures, over that 7-year period by $1.257 trillion. In fact, that 
is the proposal that the Republicans have put before the Senate, both 
as a budget resolution and now the combination of appropriations bills 
and reconciliation bill. So we are going to meet this goal.
  The President's proposal does not come anywhere near that. As you 
begin to review--not my analysis of the President's budget, but the 
Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the President's budget--and 
you might be asking yourself why does the Senator keep referring to the 
Congressional Budget Office, known as CBO?
  The reason I do is because I remember, I think as most of the Members 
of the Senate do, that in January 1993, when we were all assembled at a 
joint 

[[Page S 15550]]
session of the Congress to hear the President's State of the Union 
Message, he really challenged the Congress. Maybe that is really not 
the way to say it. I think what he was saying to the Congress is he 
recognized in the past, that previous administrations and previous 
Congresses, frankly, had used smoke and mirrors to put budget 
resolutions together. When things got tough and tough decisions were 
going to have to be made, the Congress somehow or another decided they 
would accept rosier economic assumptions. Because by accepting rosier 
economic assumptions, fewer cuts had to be made.
  This is what the President said, back in January 1993. He said that 
he would use ``the independent numbers of the Congressional Budget 
Office, so we could argue about priorities with the same set of 
numbers. I did this so no one could say I was estimating my way out of 
this difficulty.''
  Guess what, here is another flip-flop. If I had that other chart back 
up maybe we could spin the wheel one more time and see if the President 
would conclude he should respond to this kind of question. The 
President has decided not to use the Congressional Budget Office 
numbers. He has decided to use OMB. As a result of using OMB, guess 
what, they are using rosier economic assumptions--economic assumptions 
about the level of economic growth; economic assumptions about interest 
rates; economic assumptions about inflation and so forth.
  The end result was that the President has, in fact, estimated his way 
out of the problem. This portion of the reduction does in fact come 
about as a result of changing economic assumptions and using lower 
interest rates, assuming there will be lower interest rates in the 
future.
  I say to my colleagues as we have an opportunity to both vote on this 
resolution and on reconciliation, it is obvious. It does not get to 
zero. Over half of the deficit reduction the President has proposed 
comes from estimating his way out of the problem, using higher growth 
numbers, lower interest rates, and so forth. That program just will not 
do it. This is exactly what created the problem we are in today. It is 
because, in the past, every administration and every Congress decided 
to blink.
  All I am saying is you cannot get there with the plan the President 
has proposed and that is why I encourage Members to vote against the 
resolution that is on the floor.
  Sometimes people get lost with charts in this discussion of economics 
and statistics and numbers. If you think about it, in essence what CBO 
has said is that deficits are growing at this rate. This line 
represents the deficits out in the future if we do not do anything. 
Here is what we would have to do--that is this line here represents 
zero. We have to get rid of this gap. We have to fill that gap, rather, 
in order to solve the deficit problem.
  The President has figured he will address the problem with over half 
of that gap being filled by phony economic assumptions. That has 
happened year after year after year. That is why we have seen the debt 
build up year after year.
  Mr. President, I want to address maybe two other areas related to 
this. The first is, what does this mean to individuals? What is 
important about doing this? Clearly one could make the economic 
argument that this is important because it is going to get us to a 
balanced budget. Plenty of other people have made those arguments and I 
have heard my colleagues on the other side of the floor refer to what 
our proposal might do to people in the country.
  I ask them to think about what is going to happen to those 
individuals if we do not do something. Take Medicare, briefly. What if 
we do not act on Medicare? How are they going to answer the people 7 
years from now when there is no money in the trust fund to make those 
benefit payments? What are they going to say to their moms, dads, and 
grandparents? What are they going to say to those individuals who are 
suffering from all types of diseases that come as a result of aging? 
Are they just going to say we did not have the courage back in 1995 to 
solve the problem; we felt it would be better to do whatever Congress 
has done before that? That is, flinch; fuzzy up the issue; change the 
economic assumptions; avoid the tough decisions? That is what they are 
saying.
  Oh, they will not admit that. But that is exactly what they are 
saying. What about those people, those young families in America where 
mom and dad get up at 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning and commute to 
work, and by the time they get back home in the evening it is already 
dark? They feel, and I think accurately so, that the Federal Government 
is sucking money away from them to pay for programs that have been 
proven to fail. It would be another thing if, in fact, programs were 
working. But almost everyone in America today understands that they 
have failed.
  They have failed, and it is fundamentally wrong to say to those hard-
working men and women of this Nation trying to raise their families, 
trying to provide the necessary dollars for education, for food, for 
health care, and so forth, ``Oh, no. We are going to take more of your 
money away from you and we are going to give it to those guys in 
Washington, DC, to continue to spend on programs that have proven to be 
a failure.''
  What about the young couple where the father works all week, in fact 
has two jobs? He comes home for the weekend, and he takes care of the 
children, and his wife works for the weekend to make just a little bit 
more money so they can make ends meet. What about them? What about 
those individuals that we have been taking money away from to transfer 
it to someone else that they feel, frankly, is not worthy of it, 
because they hear the stories about the programs that have failed.
  In fact, that has happened as we have gone from this dream that was 
created in the early 1960's to the nightmare of the programs that have 
been developed over the years, and the poverty that people are living 
in today, and the dependency that people are living in today as a 
result of those programs.
  So I ask my colleagues to think about those men and women who are 
working hard day-in and day-out. What about them? What about their 
future? What about their opportunity? They will not have one--not at 
the level that we have experienced over the years, if we continue the 
kind of Federal spending and the Federal programs that have been going 
on for these last 25 years or so.
  The last point I would make is I think that the decision we are 
making here, the decision to reject the President's alternative which 
does not get us anywhere near a balanced budget and the reconciliation 
package that we will have an opportunity to vote on in just a few days, 
I think the opportunity is much greater than the simple reaching of a 
balanced budget. We have a Nation that for generations and for 
centuries has been dedicated to the principles of freedom, 
independence, justice, democracy, human rights, free markets, free 
enterprise, and capitalism. And I believe that our country is the only 
one in the world today that has the interest or the concern or the 
desire to see that those principles are exported around the world. But 
if we do not get our fiscal house in order, we will not have an 
opportunity to do that. America will not be the center of influence in 
the 21st century, and America will not have the opportunity to expand 
and pursue those ideas around the world.
  So this is much larger than just this simple debate today about 
whether we are going to support the President's plan or whether we are 
going to support our plan. We are talking about America's future.
  The President has failed to provide us with leadership. He has failed 
to provide us with a plan and, therefore, he has failed to provide us 
with an alternative. There is no choice. Reject this resolution that 
has been proposed, and in a few days vote for the reconciliation 
package.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest that we are prepared to vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). Is there further debate?
  Mr. FORD. Is this is on the second degree?
  Mr. HATCH. Have the yeas and nays been ordered?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been ordered on the 
second-degree amendment. 

[[Page S 15551]]

  If there is no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the 
amendment of the Senator from Utah. On this question, the yeas and nays 
have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Kansas [Mrs. Kassebaum] is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] 
and the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn] are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 0, nays 96, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 498 Leg.]

                                NAYS--96

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brown
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Faircloth
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Heflin
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kempthorne
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pressler
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Shelby
     Simon
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner
     Wellstone

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Bradley
     Glenn
     Kassebaum
  So the amendment (No. 2945) was rejected.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was rejected.
  Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Santorum] 
is recognized.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we just witnessed on the Senate floor 
the President's revised balanced budget getting no votes; his plan to 
balance the budget over 10 years getting no votes on the U.S. Senate 
floor, no support on either side of the aisle. Nobody on the other side 
of the aisle, and rightfully so, I might add, defended his balanced 
budget.
  All I suggest to the Democratic National Committee, which is running 
a television ad saying that the President has a balanced budget, that 
it is now, I think, apparent that the President does not have a 
balanced budget and that nobody believes he has a balanced budget. So 
quit running ads on national television saying he does have a balanced 
budget.
  There is no support for phony numbers in the U.S. Senate from either 
side of the aisle, and I commend my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle for standing up and sending a very clear message down 
Pennsylvania Avenue that we are tired of the President running around 
campaigning and not coming back here to work on a serious balanced 
budget resolution and reconciliation.
  We have the opportunity, as a result of the 1994 elections and the 
movements in this House and Senate, to pass a balanced budget. No more 
phony-baloney politics, but real deficit reduction, real balanced 
budgets.
  Mr. President, 0 to 96; 0 to 96, I think that is a pretty clear 
message to the President and his TV commercial that the Democratic 
National Committee has out which says--as they read the text, there is 
an image of the President sitting at his desk working on a balanced 
budget plan. I suggest that the President actually do go to his desk 
and actually do start working on a balanced budget plan and not try to 
pull the wool over the American public's eyes on a budget that does not 
balance, on a plan that does not do what he is claiming it does.
  I am hopeful that the message will be sent to the President and to 
the Democratic National Committee that these kinds of ruses that are 
trying to be pulled on the American public have no place in a serious 
dialog about solving the great fiscal problems of this country.
  I want to commend both sides of the aisle for delivering that message 
loud and clear this afternoon to the President of the United States 
that his budget is phony, his budget does not work; that he needs to 
get serious about balancing this budget; that he needs to come to the 
Hill and sit down and work on a bipartisan basis to solve this problem; 
and that the campaigning has to end and being President and presiding 
has to begin today.
  We are ready to go. We are going to start tomorrow. We are going to 
pass a budget. We are going to pass a reconciliation package, and I 
hope at that time that the President will hear the call, will hear 0 to 
96 on his phony plan and come here and get serious about the business 
at hand.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan] is 
recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, has the Senator from Pennsylvania 
withdrawn the first-degree amendment that he offered?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's first-degree is still pending.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am tempted to offer a second-degree 
amendment. I expected the Senator from Pennsylvania would----
  Mr. SANTORUM. If the Senator from North Dakota will yield for an 
explanation. I intended to withdraw the amendment. The Senator from 
Mississippi wanted to speak briefly, and then I was going to withdraw 
the amendment.
  Mr. DORGAN. Reclaiming my time, I sought recognition expecting that 
you would have withdrawn the amendment, but you did not. I am tempted 
to offer a second-degree amendment, which I was intending to do. But 
let me just make a comment that the Senator from Pennsylvania has a 
knack----
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield for just a second?
  Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. HATCH. I suggest that the Senator from Pennsylvania withdraw his 
amendment and that will solve that problem, and then, of course, 
whatever remarks the distinguished Senator would like to make; is that 
OK?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have the floor. Let me just make my 
statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota has the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Pennsylvania has a knack for winning 
debates that we are not having. This is the third that he has won with 
this amendment offering President Clinton's budget. I did not vote for 
that. The Senator from Pennsylvania is correct that the President did 
not propose a budget that calls for a balanced budget.
  I want to ask the Senator from Pennsylvania a question. The Senator 
from Pennsylvania offered this, I guess, because he wanted to make the 
point that we must have a balanced budget on the floor of the Senate. 
And I think in further of that point, he would say the reconciliation 
bill that he is going to vote for later this week does, in fact, 
provide a balanced budget.
  I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania if he has seen the letter of 
October 20 from the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, and I 
will read to the Senator from Pennsylvania the last sentence of the 
first paragraph. Just to refresh the memory of the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, he will recall that the majority party brought a big 
chart to the floor, and it had one of these giant gold seals on it with 
ribbons and things. It says, ``This certifies that this budget is in 
balance,'' and it was attached to a letter from the Director of the 
Congressional Budget Office.
  I looked at that big gold seal that had been printed up in some 
confetti factory someplace and did not really mean anything but it was 
colorful, I looked at that and said, ``Gee, how can you certify that 
this is in balance?''
  That is a curious thing, because I know that in the year 2002, the 
only way you could have done that would have been to have taken the 
Social Security trust funds and use them and then claim they were in 
balance. Of course, that would not be an honest 

[[Page S 15552]]
way to use the Social Security trust funds.
  So I wrote to the Director of the Congressional Budget Office the 
next day, October 19, and said, ``Could you tell me, if you don't use 
the Social Security trust funds, what is the budget balance in the year 
2002?''
  She wrote a letter back on the 19th of October and then a second 
letter correcting an error in the letter of the 19th. The second letter 
is the 20th and it says: ``Excluding an estimated off-budget surplus of 
$115 billion in 2002 from the calculation, the CBO would project an on-
budget deficit of $105 billion in 2002.''
  Is the Senator from Pennsylvania familiar with this letter that says 
the CBO would project an on-budget deficit of $105 billion in 2002?
  The Senator from Pennsylvania was critical, I think properly so, of 
the budget that he submitted in his amendment. Would he also be 
critical of a proposal brought to the floor of the Senate that contains 
a deficit of $105 billion in the year 2002, or is this the one he is 
prepared to vote for?
  I will be happy to yield for a question or for a response without 
yielding my right to the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we have a certification from the 
Congressional Budget Office that says that the budget comes into 
balance by the year 2002.
  The Senator from North Dakota is under the false assumption because 
we have trust funds they are not part of the Federal Government. They 
are part of the Federal Government like the highway trust fund is, like 
the aviation trust fund is. Just like we have a number of trust funds 
in this budget.
  To suggest that they are not part of the Federal Government and 
should not be considered just does not look at reality. The reality is 
this is all part of the Federal Government. The Social Security 
Administration is a Federal Agency run by the Federal Government. To 
suggest somehow they should not be included in a Federal budget, I 
think, flies in the face of fact.
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me ask an additional question because the Senator is 
attempting to respond to my original questioning saying this is 
income--income to the Federal Government.
  Let me ask the Senator to put himself in a business seat, running a 
business, and someone says, ``How can you possibly take the trust funds 
from our pension program and use them as income on your operating 
statement? That is dishonest.''
  The Senator would say, ``Well, what do you mean dishonest? That is 
part of my income.''
  Do you think the Senator would stay in his desk very long or would 
they haul you to the penitentiary?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I suggest no one is taking that money and using it 
without replacing it with an interest-bearing note required by law. 
There is no raiding of any pension fund going on here.
  To suggest otherwise is a deliberate attempt to scare people, when, 
in fact, the Senator from North Dakota knows very well that money is 
only as secure as the solvency of this Government.
  Mr. DORGAN. I think we are getting close to an answer----
  Mr. SANTORUM. We are trying to get this Government solvent to pay 
back----
  Mr. DORGAN. I think we are getting close to an answer, which is 
interesting because my theory is that there are some who think double-
entry bookkeeping or double-entry accounting means you can use the same 
money twice. I think that is what we are seeing.
  I think the Senator has said, well, it is not that we have taken the 
money out of the trust fund. There still exists an asset in the trust 
fund. If there still exists an asset in the trust fund, it cannot be 
over here. It is over here in the trust fund or it is over here in the 
budget as income.
  Now, if it is over here in the budget as income, it is not in the 
trust fund. If it says, the Senator from Pennsylvania says it is in the 
trust fund, then you have a problem. Then you have to tear up that 
little gold certificate you brought to the floor that says you have a 
balanced budget, because your own Director of the CBO, June O'Neil, 
says, sorry, pal, $105 billion deficit in the year 2002.
  The question is, where is it? It cannot be in two places. Is it over 
in the trust fund or is it used as revenue over here in your operating 
budget? Which, I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, is it? Where does 
it exist?
  Mr. SANTORUM. It is, as the Senator from North Dakota knows very 
well, what we are looking at as accounting practices to determine what 
the overall assets and liabilities are for Government; what you are 
doing is trying to play games.
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is not responding to my question.
  I am asking you, is it in the trust fund or used as income over the 
operating revenue side? It cannot be in both places.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The money is a credit toward the trust fund. That trust 
fund surplus, like the aviation fund surplus, like the highway trust 
fund surplus, is part of the overall budget and is used for accounting 
purposes--for accounting purposes--to offset other deficiencies in 
other areas of the budget, for accounting purposes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Now I understand.
  Now, you propose that it is a credit in the trust fund. It is a 
credit. Now, what that means is that the trust fund is owed money you 
have used somewhere else.
  That is why, you see, this does not add up. The only reason I am 
doing this, you brought to the floor something that says the 
administration's budget is a fraud because it does not propose to 
balance the budget. I agree with you. It did not balance the budget. I 
agree.
  I am asking if the Director of your CBO writes a letter to us and 
says, if you do not use the Social Security trust fund--and believe me, 
you cannot do that because it is not the right way--you have a $105 
billion deficit in the year 2002.
  Why is that important? It is important because you say you will 
trigger a tax cut in balancing the budget and come up with a letter 
dated 10/18 saying, guess what? We have gold paper and a new ribbon and 
a letter saying we balance the budget.
  Then I asked the question, if you balance the budget according to the 
law as written by Senator Hollings--incidentally, that says you cannot 
use the trust fund. What do you have? Could you have a balanced budget? 
The answer is no, I am sorry, you have a $105 billion deficit in the 
year 2002.
  I only do this to point out the contradiction of what you have just 
done. You do not have a balanced budget, either.
  What I want to see us do is find a way that all of us could sift 
through all of this and figure out what represents wise choices. Where 
do you cut spending, where do you find revenue, where do you invest, 
where do you put together the pieces of this puzzle that really address 
the fiscal policy problem that we have?
  This amendment we just had was not a tough vote for me because I have 
said before I do not support what President Clinton sent to us. But 
last night I offered an opportunity to vote on a simple proposition: At 
least restrict or limit the tax cut to those people whose earnings or 
income is less than a quarter of a million dollars a year.
  Do you know what you save by that restriction? If you say the tax cut 
only goes to those with incomes of $250,000 a year or less, you save 
$50 billion by limiting the tax cut, over 7 years--$50 billion.
  Now, I said, use that to reduce the cut we will make in Medicare. It 
is kind of an interesting juxtaposition. A lot of people in this 
country are doing very well, some making $1 million a year, some $10 
million a year. God bless them. But frankly, they do not need a tax 
cut.
  We are going to very low-income people and saying, guess what? News 
for you--increase your cuts and reduce your health care.
  It is all about choices, which the Senator was alluding to on the 
requirement to vote for this amendment. I have no objection.
  My only point is the argument made in favor of offering this, that 
the budget was not in balance as offered by the President, is exactly 
the same position you find yourself in, certified by the Director of 
the Congressional Budget Office. Is that not kind of a contradiction?
  I am happy to yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Where does the Senator from North Dakota come up 

[[Page S 15553]]
  with a $50 billion figure for those making over $250,000? I would love 
to see the estimate.
  Mr. DORGAN. It is a reckoning by the Department of Treasury. Over 7 
years, the amount of the tax break that will go to those earning over a 
quarter million dollars a year, over the 7-year period, totals about 
$50 billion.
  Mr. SANTORUM. If the Senator will yield, the Senator from New Mexico 
and the Senator from Delaware have on numerous occasions come to the 
floor and discussed the tax cut and suggested that 90 percent of the 
benefits of the tax cut go to people under $100,000.
  If that is correct, that means only $23 billion, roughly, $24 
billion, roughly, goes to people over $100,000. I do not know how you 
come up with a figure of $50 billion for those over $250,000.
  Mr. DORGAN. There is room for plenty of surprises on the floor of the 
Senate, but there is no room for surprise as significant as the one you 
have just offered or you say is offered by the Senator from Delaware, 
that 90 percent of this tax cut is going to go to people whose incomes 
are below $100,000.
  That is not just a surprise, that is so far from the truth that it 
hardly warrants a response.
  Mr. SANTORUM. That is why we will have debate tomorrow.
  Mr. DORGAN. We are going to, but we will find going through the 
details of this that not only does it not hit the bull's eye, the arrow 
does not hit the target. It is not anywhere near it.
  The fact is, about half of this tax cut in the aggregate, added all 
up, about half of it--this comes from the Office of Treasury, the U.S. 
Treasury Department--about half of that goes to persons whose incomes, 
families whose incomes are over $100,000 a year.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield?
  Is the Office of the Treasury the official estimator of the tax 
provisions in the U.S. Congress?
  Mr. DORGAN. I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, it is difficult 
for us to get estimates on a very timely basis out of the Joint Tax 
Committee.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Joint Tax Committee is the official estimator?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes, and I am happy to give information from them except 
I would not get it the way your side has done it. What happened, you 
give us a bunch of tables and tell us the impact of the tax but do not 
count the change in the earned income tax credit, by the way. Do not 
count that. Then give us the table and tell us what we are doing.
  So they get the tables, and I say, what is this? These are not 
tables. They do not mean anything. They are not accurate.
  So the information I have received from the Department of the 
Treasury shows that about half of the tax breaks will go to families 
with incomes over $100,000. That is a debate we will have later.
  I guarantee you this: There is not any way, there is not any way that 
we will find that 90 percent of the tax breaks go to families under 
$100,000. That will not happen.
  I will also say, the Joint Tax Committee has said the GOP plan 
increases taxes on about 51 percent of the Americans, if you consider 
the earned-income tax credit changes. So that is the other side of this 
debate. We will have a long and tortured debate in the days ahead.
  The Senator from Utah and Senator from Delaware, I think, are seeing 
their patience worn thin by this. But I did just want to respond to the 
proposition that the President's budget was not in balance. He is 
correct about that. But my point is, your budget is not in balance 
either. It is a fair piece out of balance.
  I will not offer my second amendment. I should say to my friend, 
however, I am very tempted because my second-degree amendment would 
just ask us to vote on the same proposition we voted on last night 
except to say, ``Would you agree at least then to limit the earnings to 
those below a half a million dollars? If you will not agree to $100,000 
or $250,000, would you agree at least to limit the tax cut to those 
whose income is under a half a million dollars? And I am sorely tempted 
to offer that as second-degree amendment, but I will not do that 
because I know the Senator intends to withdraw his amendment.
  Mr. HATCH. I know this is an important debate, and I do not want to 
interject myself, but I want to move this bill.
  Mr. DORGAN. I yield the floor.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, there were so many things that were said in 
the exchange a few moments ago between the Senator from North Dakota 
and the Senator from Pennsylvania that I want to comment on that and I 
hardly know where to begin. But I cannot leave many of those statements 
on the Record without some comment.
  The Democratic National Committee continues to run a spot that says 
this about the President's budget:

       These are the values behind the President's balanced budget 
     plan, values Republicans ignore.

  He continues to talk about the fact that he has a balanced budget. We 
all know that is not true.
  With regard to Social Security, I should note, by the way, that the 
President's budget treats Social Security the same way that the budget 
we are going to vote on later on this week treats that matter. The 
President does not have a balanced budget in 10 years, 9 years, or 8 
years, for that matter. Now the Senate has spoken I think more than 
once, but also in the vote we just had, 96 to zero, repudiating the 
President's budget.
  That having been done, I think it is time for us to really get 
serious about doing this job and balancing the budget. It is not easy. 
It is never easy. But we have a historic opportunity this time to 
actually make the commitment to balance the budget in 7 years.
  I thought some of the President's comments during the past week had 
been positive, and what he had to say about tax increases. He said, you 
know, that he probably raised them too much. And he himself got around 
to saying yes, we can probably balance a budget in 7 years. Now there 
has been a lot of give and take on that. But we are getting closer 
together I thought.
  But my question here this afternoon is when is the President going to 
get serious about talking to the Congress and working with the Congress 
in getting this job done? Everybody says we are going to have to come 
to some accommodation. Everybody says we need a balanced budget. What I 
want to know is when is that going to happen? I do not see any movement 
in that direction from the President, or from his representatives. It 
is just not occurring. The communication is just not occurring.
  So the Congress has an obligation to go forward and fulfill the 
commitment that we made in our budget resolution earlier this year. 
That is what we are going to do in the next 2 or 2\1/2\ days. We are 
going to pass a reconciliation bill that keeps our commitments to a 
balanced budget in 7 years, that does reform Medicare. And I want to 
emphasize on Medicare once again that our Medicare reforms would allow 
for Medicare spending to increase 6 percent over that 7-year period, 6 
percent each year which is double what inflation will allow. So we are 
going to have a significant increase every year over the previous year 
of what can be spent for Medicare. We are going to have genuine reform 
that saves and preserves the program. We are going to have Medicaid 
reform, and we are going to have tax cuts.
  I know that it is a very easy thing to do, I guess, here on the floor 
of the Senate--to attack the tax cut, as the Senator from North Dakota 
did a while ago. But when you go down the list and start asking 
Senators which one of these tax cuts do you oppose, then their attitude 
changes. Who among us does not want to get rid of the marriage penalty? 
For 20 years--at least 10 years--I have been hearing that we need to 
get rid of this marriage penalty that penalizes people where they have 
to pay more taxes when they get married. Maybe that goes to upper 
income, lower, or middle income. But the question is, is the marriage 
penalty wrong? The answer is that it absolutely is. We ought to 
eliminate it.
  On spousal IRA's, who among us wants to argue that a spouse working 
in a home should not be able to have an IRA like everybody else? That 
spouse is prohibited. That is what is in this bill. We want to 
encourage savings. IRA's, Individual Retirement Accounts, will do that.
  Capital gains tax rate cuts will provide growth in the economy and 
create jobs.
  Here is an interesting tidbit that is ignored around here. Even in 
spite of 

[[Page S 15554]]
this very small $245 billion tax cut, revenue to the Federal Government 
will go up $3.3 trillion over the next 7 years. We are not exactly 
starving the Federal Government for revenue. That is $3.3 trillion on 
top of all the revenue that is already coming into the Federal 
Government.
  So to allow some of the people that are working and paying the taxes 
to keep a little bit of their tax money for families with children, to 
be able to get a little tax credit to help them pay for the needs of 
their children makes good sense to me.
  With regard to the balanced budget and the so-called cuts, or the 
controlling of spending that we are doing in our budget resolution, I 
point out once again that in spite of the controls on spending which we 
include, spending will still go up $2.6 trillion over the next 7 years; 
not exactly putting the Federal Government on a diet when it still will 
go up $2.6 trillion. The truth of the matter is we probably should be 
cutting spending a lot more, but we have an orderly, planned package. 
This is a fair package, a balanced package in the cuts and controls in 
spending, and also in the tax cuts.
  I continue to hear also some remarks that maybe we ought to let the 
Treasury decide what the tax numbers are, or the Joint Commission on 
Taxation. You know, I think it ought to be the Congressional Budget 
Office, not the Office of Management and Budget. And the President said 
on February 17, 1993, that the Congressional Budget Office was normally 
more conservative, and what was going to happen was closer to right 
than previous Presidents have been.
  We should use the Congressional Budget Office. We should not use 
smoke and mirrors this time in getting to a balanced budget. We should 
not use rosy economic assumptions. We should not assume that medical 
inflation is coming down dramatically and use that to try to cover up 
what the truth is about the budget deficit numbers. We ought to go 
ahead and face up to the tough votes on cutting and controlling 
spending.
  Also, it is continued to be suggested that, well, maybe we should 
change the Consumer Price Index.
  Look, anything we do to change those numbers is just going to allow 
us to find a way to duck the tough choices of controlling spending and 
allowing the people who pay the taxes to keep a little of their revenue 
to look after their own families and make their own decisions.
  I am glad we put the decision to rest. The President's budget did not 
really exist in the first place. We just had a vote of 96 to nothing to 
say we are not going to consider that. And so now let us move on to 
tomorrow and Thursday and taking up, considering a real budget 
resolution and reconciliation package that will provide a true balance 
over the next 7 years.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. I move the bill.
  Mr. LOTT. What is the pending business, Mr. President?


                    Amendment No. 2946, as Modified

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). There is no specific order to 
moving the bill. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, at this time. The Senator from Utah has the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, could I yield to the distinguished Senator 
from Kentucky?
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I would like to have the floor in my own 
right. I do not think the Senator from Pennsylvania has withdrawn his 
amendment yet. There is a pending amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Right.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I withdraw my amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn.
  The amendment (No. 2943), as modified, was withdrawn.


                           Amendment No. 2946

   (Purpose: To provide for the appointment of 1 additional Federal 
  district judge for the western district of Kentucky, and for other 
                               purposes)

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

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Ford], proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2946.

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

       At the end of the bill add the following new section:

     SEC. 2. ADDITIONAL FEDERAL DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE WESTERN 
                   DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY.

       (a) In General.--The President shall appoint, by and with 
     the advice and consent of the Senate, 1 additional district 
     judge for the western district of Kentucky.
       (b) Eastern District.--The district judgeship for the 
     eastern and western districts of Kentucky (as in effect 
     before the date of the enactment of this Act) shall be a 
     district judgeship for the eastern district of Kentucky only, 
     and the incumbent of such judgeship shall hold his office 
     under section 133 of title 28, United States Code, as amended 
     by this section.
       (c) Tables.--In order that the table contained in section 
     133 of title 28, United States Code, shall reflect the change 
     in the total number of permanent district judgeships 
     authorized under this section, such table is amended by 
     amending the item relating to Kentucky to read as follows:

``Kentucky:
    ``Eastern........................................................5 
    ``Western......................................................5''.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an amendment to 
correct a longstanding problem in my State of Kentucky. There is an old 
expression that goes, ``justice delayed is justice denied.'' Well many 
in Kentucky are being denied justice and if it were not for an 
extremely hardworking and dedicated judiciary, many more would feel the 
same.
  The situation is nothing short of critical. For several reasons 
Kentucky is in a unique situation. It has what is known as a ``swing'' 
judgeship. That means a judge is shared between two districts. In this 
case it is the eastern and western districts. Being largely a rural 
State, the communities that hold court are usually a long way from each 
other and the only means of travel is by car over bad roads that wind 
through the mountains.
  This situation is far more troubling than many of my colleagues from 
other areas of the country may realize. Long trips by judges after 
hours or before court take up a significant amount of time--time a 
judge would normally spend hearing cases. In fact, without the 
difficult travel requirements, I probably would not be troubling the 
Senate with this amendment. Unfortunately, I must--the problem is just 
too great.
  Juries also travel great distances. This results in jurors who would 
rather deliberate late into the evening--sometimes into the early 
morning--in order to avoid travel home and back for additional days of 
deliberations. This poses still further hardships on the judges who are 
then forced to stay up late and then travel to court in the next 
jurisdiction the very next day.
  Furthermore, new gun control legislation has dramatically affected 
cases in Kentucky. Many times a more routine drug bust or other arrest 
turns into a time consuming and difficult case because of the presence 
of the firearm. The practical effect of this has been a large increase 
in long cases that tie up the judges, keeping them from getting to 
other matters on their dockets. Civil cases in many instances have been 
held to a stand still.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to speak in support of the 
effort by my senior colleague to relieve the burdensome situation 
within the Federal judiciary in Kentucky. I commend him for his 
leadership on this issue.
  We have two districts in Kentucky's Federal court. And we have one 
judge who splits her time between the eastern and western districts. In 
order to fulfill her responsibilities, she often logs hundreds of miles 
each week. She has two principle offices and must attend administrative 
meetings for both districts. This is an inefficient use of her time and 
represents valuable time away from managing her caseload. And, this 
situation is no reflection on the current judge who occupies this 
position. These are the identical circumstances that existed with the 
prior occupant of this position.
  I realize it may not be feasible to create a single additional 
Federal judge at this particular time. I am aware of the complicated 
balancing act that must 

[[Page S 15555]]
occur any time the number of Federal judges is evaluated.
  Nevertheless, I join with my senior colleague in drawing the Senate's 
attention to our particular circumstances in Kentucky. When the Senate 
Judiciary Committee considers additional Federal judges, I hope the 
members of the committee look at the swing judge in Kentucky. And, I 
urge the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to examine this 
unique situation.
  I thank Senator Ford for his leadership on this issue.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I am not going to take any additional time 
on this because I know the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is 
itching to get away from here, and I do not blame him. It was about 3 
hours ago, I think. But what I have is a split judgeship, one in the 
eastern part of Kentucky, one in the west. The youngest judge is 
assigned to the east and the west. So we have some going to the 
mountains and some going to the flatlands of west Kentucky, and this 
one judge spends 5 and 6 hours on the road. If the jury is out until 2 
o'clock in the morning, then makes their judgment, comes in, the judge 
is back in the car and has to drive another 5 or 6 hours. It is 
absolutely a horrendous situation.
  Mine is not the only State. Missouri has split judges, Oklahoma has 
split judges. But we just have one. And when you traverse the State 
from Pikeville in the far east to Paducah in the far west, it is some 
600 miles. So it gets to be a tremendous burden.
  What I am asking in this amendment is to allow Kentucky to have an 
additional judge. That additional judge, then, would mean that we would 
have a full-time judge in eastern Kentucky and not divided with the 
west. We would also, then, have a full-time judge in the west. And we 
would see that the court docket was reduced tremendously.
  Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will yield, we understand the Senator's 
problem and we are concerned about it. As of right now, there is a real 
question as to whether we can justify another judge in that State. But 
I am willing to talk with the Senator and try to work this out, if we 
can, over the immediate future and see if there is some possible way we 
can solve it. If there is not, we will be straight up with the Senator 
and let him know, but I am willing to try to see what we can do.
  We would like to pass this bill because it is a temporary judgeship 
bill that, really, nobody has any objections to, and that literally 
will solve a lot of very important problems for the courts. We would 
like to do it without amendment if we can.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I understand what the distinguished Senator 
from Utah is saying. But, if I did not bring notice----
  Mr. HATCH. I understand.
  Mr. FORD. To this body and to the Judiciary Committee, through this 
method, which is the only one I have, then I think I would be remiss in 
representing my State.
  Mr. HATCH. We understand.
  Mr. FORD. There is a lot more to dispensing justice than the number 
of cases. What we are doing now is, the youngest judge, a female judge, 
is on the road day and night. And that is justice delayed. She is 
absolutely working her heart out, getting a driver, dictating, writing 
while she is on the road, trying to accommodate the lawyers in the 
cases and the courts in which she is assigned.
  So it is fine for you to say you will work with me. The commission 
sent a report, in which it gave us an extra judge in Kentucky, which 
would have solved our problem. I understand the commission withdrew 
their suggested increases. Now we are in limbo and I do not know where 
we are.
  I will not accept ``we will try sometime in the future, next year.'' 
I would like to try sooner than that, if I could. Because the judge is 
being overworked by travel, by court cases.
  We have an excellent judiciary in Kentucky. They are working hard to 
eliminate the burden of cases. But, under the circumstances, we are not 
able to do that and it is not the number of cases per judge that 
creates the problem for us.
  Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will yield, I do not think Kentucky could 
have better advocates than the two Senators that currently represent 
Kentucky. I understand the issue. All I can say is, in good faith, we 
will try to work with the Senator and try to resolve it. But I would 
like to not have to go to a vote on this amendment, because I would 
have to oppose it under these circumstances and I would prefer not to 
do that if we can somehow or other find our way clear to working out 
this problem.
  As far as I am concerned, the Senator is a leader in this body. I 
have every desire to try to accommodate him if we can.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I will, in just a moment, withdraw it. It is 
not very often I come before my colleagues and ask for something other 
than what I think is----
  Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield before he withdraws?
  Mr. FORD. I will be glad to.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Kentucky makes a 
very valid point. I, for one, think there is justification for Kentucky 
having another judgeship.
  Frankly, one of the things the Senator from Utah and I talked about 
earlier in the process--not today, but in the year--was this notion of 
whether or not we need an additional judgeship bill, period, 
nationwide. And the answer is we do.
  Mr. HATCH. Yes, we do.
  Mr. BIDEN. So we do need additional judges, in my view.
  I am not referencing any particular Senator when I say this. And I 
mean this literally: Not referencing any particular Senator. But we are 
getting into the field, the time and space, where it is going to be 
hard to get judges moving through here at all.
  As some will remember, when President Bush was in his last year, last 
days in the Presidency, I, along with the Senator from Utah--we pushed 
through literally another 17 or 18 judges in the last 4 or 5 days of 
the session. I hope that spirit exists here.
  But in fairness, both President Bush and President Clinton suffered 
from the same problem. They took too darned long in getting a lot of 
their nominees up here for us. But we are where we are now. I cannot 
speak and do not intend to speak for the Senator from Utah. I expect 
that had things moved more quickly we may have been in a position to be 
pushing the judgeship bill overall. My guess is that the political 
reality would be that we are not likely to get that done until the next 
election settles, whether or not we will get it done.
  That is a long way of saying I think on the merits the Senator from 
Kentucky is correct about the need in Kentucky. I would add in addition 
to that that the Senators from several other States are in very 
difficult shape. For example, in the southern district of Florida, they 
could use a handful more judges just to get their docket up and running 
to be able to handle civil cases because they have so many criminal 
cases; in southern California, in Texas, in New York. So there are a 
lot of places we need extra judges.
  I compliment the Senator from Kentucky for making the case for his 
State. The whole purpose of my speaking these 5 minutes or so is to 
make the point for the Record. On the record, for the Record, the 
Senator from Kentucky has a case. I believe he is correct. I will tell 
him I will do all I can immediately to try to get him an additional 
judge. But he knows the system as well as I do, and, quite frankly, 
better than anyone that I know. I would not want him to bet the 
mortgage on--he probably does not have a mortgage anymore--but I would 
not want him to bet the farm or the house on us getting this done very 
quickly. But I support him, and I think he is substantively correct.
  Mr. FORD. I thank my friend from Delaware, and I also thank my friend 
from Utah.
  Mr. President, I am reluctant to do this but I understand where we 
are coming from. We will revisit this question, and if we do not vote, 
if I do not get it the first time, it may be the second time and it may 
be the third time. I am going to be persistent.
  So, therefore, Mr. President, I withdraw my amendment.
  So, the amendment (No. 2946) was withdrawn.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for that.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today the Senate will consider legislation 
to extend the temporary judgeships created 

[[Page S 15556]]
by the 1990 Federal Judgeship Act from 5 years or more from the date of 
enactment of the act to 5 years or more from the confirmation date of 
the judge named to fill the temporary judgeship created in that act.
  Of the 13 temporary Federal judgeships created by the 1990 act, only 
Michigan will be exempt from today's extension. This is because the 
Michigan Western District judges do not want to preserve this seat 
because they don't believe it can be justified by their caseload. I ask 
unanimous consent to insert in the Record the attached Grand Rapids 
Press article on this subject.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Grand Rapids Press, Oct. 14, 1995]

       In Strange Move, Judges Say They Don't Want New Colleague

                          (By Arn Shackelford)

       West Michigan federal judges have shocked members of the 
     area's Republican delegation by maintaining they don't need 
     any more judges.
       The judges last month wrote to U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, 
     R-Michigan, requesting that the federal Western District of 
     Michigan be excluded from a bill that likely would bring 
     another federal jurist to the area.
       ``We were surprised to hear they were saying no,'' said Lee 
     Liberman Otis, Abraham's chief judicial counsel. ``It's very 
     unusual for people in the federal government--or anywhere 
     else--to say, `We don't need extra people to help us with our 
     work.' ''
       The bill, which is sponsored by U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-
     Utah, and likely will be passed this year, would extend the 
     Federal Judgeship Act of 1990. The act, under which U.S. 
     District Judge Gordon Quist was appointed, created 
     ``temporary'' judgeship for five years, or through December.
       Quist's judgeship doesn't evaporate that month, but if one 
     of the district's five active judges takes senior status, 
     retires or dies before that time, that vacancy would not be 
     filled by a new judge.
       Under the Hatch bill, the period during which another judge 
     could be appointed will be extended to five years from 
     whenever temporary judges were sworn in. That would be Aug. 
     28, 1997, in Quist's case.
       ``But the judges in this district decided we did not need 
     to have the position renewed,'' said U.S. District Chief 
     Judge Richard A. Enslen. ``We think we can get along with 
     four judges and four magistrates.''
       The federal Western District of Michigan--which includes 
     all counties in the western half of the state and the entire 
     Upper Peninsula--now has five active judges, four magistrates 
     and two senior judges.
       The active judges, who carry a load of about 225 civil 
     cases and 50 criminal cases, include Robert Holmes Bell, 
     Enslen, Benjamin F. Gibson, David McKeague and Quist. The 
     magistrates, who handle most arraignments, misdemeanor cases 
     and motions are Hugh W. Brenneman Jr., Joseph G. Scoville, 
     both based in Grand Rapids; Doyle A. Rowland in Kalamazoo; 
     and Timothy P. Greeley in Marquette.
       But the senior judges, Douglas W. Hillman and Wendell A. 
     Miles, also are hard at work in the district and handle at 
     least a quarter of the civil cases the others do.
       Federal judges, who are paid $133,600 annually, can take 
     senior status when they reach 65 and have enough years of 
     service to total 80. Even though they continue on full salary 
     until they die, they can leave the bench as soon as they move 
     to the new status.
       Neither Hillman nor Miles has chosen to do so. And Gibson, 
     who announced earlier this year that he will take senior 
     status next August, said that he, too, will continue to work 
     on cases in this district.
       ``One of the reasons we're in good shape is because we do 
     have the two senior judges still working,'' Enslen said. 
     ``That's a good deal for taxpayers. The best bargain in 
     America is a (federal) judge who reaches retirement age and 
     doesn't walk away.''
       As once was the case, lawsuits aren't piled up waiting to 
     be heard for long periods in this district, the judges say. 
     In addition to help from the senior judges, fewer cases are 
     being filed now than in the past, and the court also reduced 
     some of what was a backlog by implementing ``differential 
     case management.'' That process assigns lawsuits to different 
     time tracks, limits what attorneys may do, and moves cases 
     along quickly.
       Still, if West Michigan isn't excluded from the Hatch bill, 
     a new judge could be appointed to fill the vacancy Gibson's 
     move to senior status will create. And if Enslen decided to 
     move to senior status before August 1997, the district would 
     be slated for two new judges.
       Otis, who said West Michigan likely would be excluded from 
     the bill, said the district was the only one to make such a 
     request.
       ``Most of the other areas are saying, `Yes; we want this 
     extended,' '' she said. ``This is very good of your judges. 
     They could use their extra time playing golf.''

  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I am delighted to support S. 1328. I just 
want to address one aspect of this legislation: why the bill does not 
extend the temporary district judgeship in western Michigan.
  That judgeship is not being extended because the judges of the 
western district contacted the offices of members of the Judiciary 
Committee, including mine, and requested that it not be extended. I 
will admit that I was surprised to receive this request. It is, I 
believe, the only request I have received on behalf of any government 
entity to give it fewer resources. Indeed, I was so surprised I thought 
I should see if there was some hidden agenda behind it.
  Remarkably enough, however, there proved to be none. Rather, the 
judges in the western district were simply saying the following:
  ``We believe the government should be run for the benefit of the 
governed. We are volunteering to work longer hours and take fewer 
vacations with no gain to ourselves in order to live up to that 
obligation. We also appreciate the efforts of our senior judges, who in 
many cases are continuing to carry very full dockets despite being 
under no obligation to do so.''
  ``For these reasons, we do not need this judgeship. Not filling it 
will thereby save the taxpayers millions of dollars. To be sure, given 
the size of the deficit, that will not make that much of a dent. But we 
believe it is our responsibility to do our part in reducing the size of 
the government, and the burden it places on taxpaying American 
citizens.''
  While there is much talk of shared sacrifice, there are not very many 
offers to take on a greater share of it. I simply want to express my 
thanks, and the thanks of my fellow Michiganders, to the western 
district judges, for making this unusual request, to which my 
colleagues and I are glad to accede.
  Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of S. 1328, a 
bill to amend the commencement dates of temporary judgeships that were 
created under section 203(c) of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990.
  This legislation created 13 temporary judgeships in districts 
throughout the United States, one of which is in the northern district 
of Alabama, and the act provided that the first vacancy in the office 
of a district judge in those 13 districts occurring after December l, 
l995 would not be filled.
  The reason this legislation is necessary is because delays occurred 
in the nominations and confirmations of the 13 judgeships created by 
the 1990 act. Thus, many districts have had a relatively short time in 
which to utilize the services of these temporary judgeships. For 
instance, in the northern district of Alabama, our new judge, the 
Honorable Sharon Lovelace Blackburn, was not confirmed until May 28, 
l991. She has served with remarkable distinction and is a very hard 
working and dedicated U.S. district judge.
  What is important to remember, as we seek to pass this legislation, 
is that the delays in filling these temporary judgeships frustrates the 
intent of Congress back in 1990 to reduce the backlog of cases pending 
in these 13 districts.
  The bill before this body today provides that the first district 
judge vacancy occurring 5 or more years after the confirmation date of 
the judge appointed to fill the temporary judgeship will not be filled. 
Thus, each of these 13 districts, with the exception of the western 
district of Michigan which requested to be excluded from coverage under 
this bill, will benefit from an extra judge for a minimum of 5 years 
regardless of how long the judge's confirmation took. I urge my 
colleagues' support for S. 1328.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as far as I am concerned the bill is ready 
for a vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill is before the Senate and open to 
amendment. If there be no amendment to be proposed, the question is on 
the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading was read the 
third time, and passed as follows:

                                S. 1328

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. COMMENCEMENT DATE OF TEMPORARY JUDGESHIPS.

       Section 203(c) of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990 
     (Public Law 101-650; 104 Stat. 5101; 28 U.S.C. 133 note) is 
     amended by striking out the last sentence and inserting in 
     lieu thereof ``The first vacancy in the office of district 
     judge in each of the judicial 

[[Page S 15557]]
     districts named in this subsection, except the western district of 
     Michigan, occurring 5 years or more after the confirmation 
     date of the judge named to fill a temporary judgeship created 
     by this Act, shall not be filled. The first vacancy in the 
     office of district judge in the western district of Michigan, 
     occurring after December 1, 1995, shall not be filled.''.

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the 
bill was passed.
  Mr. BIDEN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I want to announce 
that there will be no further votes tonight.

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