[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15559-S15563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PROMISES MADE SHOULD BE PROMISES KEPT

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I rise to report to the entire U.S. 
Senate and, in fact, I am talking to my colleagues--hopefully, 
everybody is listening, probably not--about just how low, frankly, some 
are willing to stoop.
  As we all know, we will soon see a gigantic budget bill with the 
impossible name of ``reconciliation'' on the floor. Under the special 
rules, the Senate will have very little time to discuss, let alone try 
to alter, this mammoth Government bill. That is why I stand here today. 
I want to take the time to shine a piercing light on one of the 
darkest, most hidden and most underhanded parts of the mammoth budget 
bill about to land on everybody's desk.
  Using that familiar label of tax relief, the provision is an attempt 
to line the pockets of a select group of companies, some of which I 
shall name in a few moments, at the expense of something as critical as 
health benefits for the most vulnerable, the oldest, the weakest, and 
the most deserving group 

[[Page S 15560]]
of Americans you could find: Our coal miners, retired, old.
  It is a provision based, in my judgment, upon greed. It is a 
provision stuck quietly into the package--it is, in fact, the second to 
last part of the finance package--in a back room before it surfaced in 
the open just last week. It was stuck in by the majority leader.
  It is a provision that has brought a shudder into the hearts and 
minds of 92,000 very old, sometimes very sick, retired miners, their 
widows, and their orphans. Mr. President, almost 30,000 of them live in 
West Virginia. Obviously, I would tend to care about that a lot. On the 
other hand, 8,000 live in Virginia; 6,500 in Ohio; 20,000 in 
Pennsylvania; 12,000 in Kentucky; close to 2,000 in Indiana; and, in 
fact, they are in every State in this country, with the exception of 
Hawaii, and also in the District of Columbia.
  Mr. President, these are 92,000 people who were promised by employers 
for decades--it was not an open question, it was a done deal--promised 
by their employers that they could count on health care when they made 
their last exit from the mines, when their lungs had sacrificed enough 
and they could not go on, they simply could not; when they had been 
underground digging out the fuel that made this country the world's 
most powerful economic engine, when they got too old, too sick or even 
lost a spouse or a parent to the dangerous work of, particularly 
underground, coal mining, when they could hope for some rest finally in 
their retirement years, 92,000 of these people are still living across 
this country and still have a right to believe in the principle that 
promises made should be promises kept.
  Instead, with no hearings, with no visible authorship, no 
announcement, a special favor for the companies--a small group of which 
will get the majority of the benefits of this provision, and I will 
name them in a few moments--this special deal for these companies which 
want to break their promises--was slipped into the reconciliation bill.
  It is the most extraordinary and duplicitous act I can remember in 
the 10 years I have been in the Senate.
  A favor that gets these companies off the hook, a favor that risks 
the collapse of the fund that ensures the promised health care benefits 
to the retirees in my State and in virtually every other State--
literally every other State but Hawaii--in America.
  This provision is outrageous. It is shameful. It is another example 
of what we read about in the Wall Street Journal today. I assume and 
hope there will be more of this. It is an article on Members of the 
Senate who are getting special breaks, and it lists a bunch of Senators 
and the deals they cut for special friends or special interests--
however you want to phrase it. It is not very elegant, however one 
phrases it.
  Mr. President, even though average Americans did not get their say in 
what would happen to their Medicaid benefits or their student loans or 
to the tax credit that rewards working over welfare, a select group of 
companies with lobbyists wall to wall sure got their say in this 
package.
  A bill allegedly meant to balance the budget is tipping the scales of 
fairness and justice when it comes to health care for 92,000 very old 
retirees.
  I strongly appeal to my Republican colleagues. I ask them to stop 
this corporate payoff before more damage is done to people who have 
done nothing in their life to deserve it.
  It is obvious that the hope is to keep this cruel little provision 
under wraps, stick it on page 166 of a Finance Committee document. Hide 
it in the bill about to come to the floor. Do not talk about it, do not 
acknowledge who is responsible for this giveaway to companies.
  I am here to talk about it. I will not stop talking about it for as 
long as it hangs around. I am not going to let the U.S. Senate become a 
bazaar again for greedy interests, and in particular in the case of 
retired old coal miners.
  If one has not seen them, if one does not know them, one does not 
understand the emotion involved in this. They cannot hire lobbyists. 
They cannot prevail in a fight like this, unless they have a majority 
of us on their side.
  What exactly does the provision do? It hands over the money that is 
keeping the miners' health trust fund solvent to a select group of 
companies that cannot bear keeping their promise to their own retirees 
to whom they promised health benefits, with whom there was an 
agreement. It is one more reminder that special interests count a whole 
lot more in this particular Congress--not the working people who toiled 
in the mine, miles underground in crawl spaces, crouched in the icy 
water until their backs ached and their lungs spoiled, as they dug to 
provide the power for our Nation's growth and prosperity.
  Those workers--fathers, friends, brothers, and uncles--do not count 
when they are stacked up against the interests of big corporations who 
want to wriggle out of any responsibility for their own retirees to 
whom they have made this commitment of health benefits so long as they 
shall live.
  I want to share just a little bit of history with the Senate. Almost 
50 years ago, Madam President, the President of the United States, 
Harry S. Truman--this is important, because it gives it context--ended 
a national coal strike by seizing the coal mines. That action 
established an unprecedented relationship between the Federal 
Government, miners, and operators in the coal industry. In that 1946 
strike right after the Second World War, health care was a central 
issue. It is not hard to understand why. Pensions are important, health 
care is everything--both for miners and for their families. Back then, 
people died of mining illnesses and injuries in staggering numbers. 
There were no safety precautions. That did not take place until we 
passed the 1969 Coal Safety Act. All to dig out coal for the rest of 
the country to grow on and become what it is today which is, of course, 
a great, incredible, America.
  Since that 1946 strike, coal miners have traded--sacrificed--other 
benefits like pensions to preserve the decent health care benefits 
which they depend on because illness and injury are so intertwined with 
the nature of coal mining.
  This leads up to the health program under attack in the 
reconciliation bill about to come to the floor. In the 1950's, a grand 
compact involving the President and others was reached between labor 
and management in the coal industry--an extraordinary sort of event.
  In return for health and pension security, it was decided, labor 
agreed to mechanize the coal mines, thereby throwing out of work within 
a few years 400,000 people in the Appalachians. But in return for the 
mechanization was the promise of lifetime pensions and health benefits. 
It was a good deal all around.
  Much later on the health care promised to retirees faced jeopardy, 
and because of the impending crisis--this is much later on--I, as a 
Member of the Senate, worked night and day for months and months on end 
to find a way to shore up the health fund and extend its solvency.
  I cared passionately about working this out. That led to the passage 
of the 1992 Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act, simply known as 
the Coal Act.
  Coal miners helped to create the might of modern industrial America. 
Nobody would dispute that. They fueled our progress. In 1992, when we 
passed the Coal Act, unanimously, without a vote, and through 
bipartisan negotiations, in a solution which was suggested by President 
Bush and his White House, and the law, of course, was signed by 
President Bush, we told those miners that their tremendous 
contributions and sacrifices mattered, and the promises made to them 
would be kept.
  Action had to be taken. That became clear in the late 1980's. That is 
because the dwindling base of contributors resulting from bankruptcies 
and the failure of some companies to keep paying into the fund, just 
walking away from their responsibilities, put the miners' health trust 
fund in jeopardy.
  When a strike broke out in 1989, then-Secretary of Labor Elizabeth 
Dole appointed a mediator to assist in a settlement. When the 
settlement was reached, she announced the appointment of a commission 
to recommend a long-term solution to the health crisis in this fund. 
That commission became known as the Dole Commission.
  Secretary Dole explained that during negotiations of the settlement 
of this strike which involved at that time one 

[[Page S 15561]]
single company, ``It became clear,'' she said in the unanimous report, 
``to all parties involved that the issue of health care benefits for 
retirees affects the entire industry.''
  She went on to say, ``A comprehensive industrywide solution is 
desperately needed.''
  Secretary Dole's Coal Commission submitted its final report in 
November of 1990. The Commission observed that health benefits are an 
emotional subject in the coal industry, not only because coal miners 
have been promised and guaranteed health care benefits for life, but 
also because coal miners in their labor contracts have traded lower 
pensions over the years for better health care benefits.
  In fact, in the solution that we reached in 1992, the miners 
contributed something like $210 million from their pension funds to the 
solution to protect their health benefits.
  Something else that the Coal Commission said:

       Retired coal miners have legitimate expectations of health 
     care benefits for life. That was the promise they received 
     during their working lives. That is how they planned their 
     retirement years. That commitment should be honored.

  Close quote, the Dole Commission.
  The Dole commission also considered the fairest way to ensure that 
the health fund did not collapse. The base upon which it was funded was 
getting more narrow. Therefore, there had to be a broader solution. 
They recommended that companies that employed miners--current 
signatories, so to speak, and former signatories alike--share the costs 
of providing benefits to miners whose employers went out of business. 
And, in the words of the Dole commission, the best way to finance the 
health benefits promised miners was the ``imposition of a statutory 
obligation to contribute on current and past signatories, mechanisms to 
prevent future dumping of retiree health obligations.''
  (Ms. SNOWE assumed the chair.)
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. It was hard. And at that time we ran up against, to 
be quite honest, Madam President, President Bush's so-called ``read my 
lips'' problem. What the Dole commission was talking about was a tax on 
coal companies. The President said, ``This is not acceptable.'' So he 
came in with the solution that became the Coal Act, upon which 
everything is based today and which is being undermined in the 
reconciliation bill about to come before us.
  Collective bargaining cannot work when companies are not around to 
bargain with because they are bankrupt, perhaps, or have walked away 
from their responsibilities, sometimes through legal loopholes which 
created dozens of conflicting court decisions. Moreover, the orphaned 
retirees whose last employers were gone faced the prospect that when 
the collective bargaining agreement expired in 1993, no one would have 
been responsible for their health care. And that was the fact. The 
Bituminous Coal Operators Association was going to just cease to exist, 
and there would be nobody to pay for any of the health benefits. 
Whereas this small group, 25 percent of the coal industry, was paying 
for 100 percent of the retirees of all coal companies, and that 
patently was not fair.
  So, the Miners Health Program, with the shrinking funding base and 
spiraling costs, made continuation of the old program unworkable, hence 
the task Congress and the administration faced in 1992, when we did 
pass, unanimously, the Coal Act. That was the best that we could do to 
assign responsibility for funding the health program, recognizing that 
there was not then nor is there now any perfect solution.
  So, in 1992, Congress met its national responsibility to protect 
miners' health benefits. I was proud to offer that legislation--again, 
the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act, or the Coal Act. It was 
attached to the Energy Policy Act of 1992. I worked on that legislation 
with an outstanding group of Members whose invaluable contributions 
were essential to securing passage of the act, my esteemed colleagues 
Senator Byrd, Senator Ford, and Senator Specter. Senator Wallop was 
absolutely crucial. The Senator from Wyoming at that time was 
absolutely crucial in the passage of that act, and others from the 
Finance Committee and the Energy Committee. The Coal Act would not have 
become law without their work and without strong bipartisan 
cooperation, which is what has me so perplexed now.
  We did our work, and miners' benefits were saved and that makes me 
proud. Now those miners, today, on average are 73 years old. Most 
worked in the mines for 20, 30, or 40 years or more. People have no 
idea what that means unless they have been around coal mining. Every 
day they rode a rail car a mile underground, stooped in crawl spaces 4-
feet high with ice water up to their knees, and made their mines 
productive and made their employers rich, for the most part. For them, 
the legacy of that work is black lung.
  People say they can get by on black lung. Black lung is a totally 
different subject, and only about 4 percent of miners are granted black 
lung, even though I firmly believe that anybody who has been in the 
mines for 8, 9, or 10 years, by definition has black lung. They have 
black lung, asthma, cancer, back pain, chronic respiratory disease. 
Their health benefits remain a matter of life and death to them, Madam 
President. The most serious of subjects in the most dangerous 
profession. And now, in this new amazing Congress, a sneak attack has 
been made on the health care security that was finally restored in 1992 
for miners and their widows and orphans. And, Madam President, it is 
not a secret attack any longer.
  The companies that would profit, which would get 60 percent of the 
benefit of all of this, have been hiding behind little coal companies 
so as to make it look like little coal companies were going to take all 
the hurt. The ones who are going to get 60 percent or more of the 
benefits of the finance provision are Allied Signal, North American 
Coal, LTV, Pittston, A.T. Massey, and Berwind Coal Co. Those six have 
manipulated, through dozens, scores of lawyers, to the point where they 
could put into the reconciliation bill something that will yield them a 
$33 million windfall.
  The provision in this bill is a gift for these big companies looking 
for a way to walk away from their promise made to these miners nearly 
50 years ago. These companies have spent millions to unravel the Coal 
Act, to renege on their promises. So far they have not succeeded in 
robbing miners of a single day of health coverage, but they have not 
stopped trying. I thought this was all put to bed, it was all history. 
As I said, people did not want to do it in the Finance Committee. I do 
not think any Republican members in the Finance Committee really wanted 
to do it. It was just put in there. I think it was put in there by the 
majority leader, and their patrons slipped just what they were asking 
for in the reconciliation bill approved by the Finance Committee and 
now part of the package about to come to the floor.
  The day after the Finance Committee reported out their handiwork that 
demolishes the health security of over 92,000 miners and their widows 
for the sake of a few of the biggest and most profitable companies in 
this country--I will not give you their profit levels, but they are 
extraordinary--I went back to West Virginia. I would say to my esteemed 
colleague from Minnesota, I am almost finished. I went back to tell 
miners and their wives what happened.
  The miners I met with were tight-lipped. This was this past weekend. 
They were tight-lipped, as miners tend to be under all circumstances, 
especially older miners who have seen it all--strikes, cave-ins, 
shutdowns, layoffs. They have learned to accept a lot in life.
  I remember, once I had a friend who fought in the Second World War in 
the Battle of the Bulge. He and I served in the Peace Corps together 
and I tried to get him to talk about it. He would not talk about it. He 
would not talk about it. Miners tend to be like that.
  They have seen their coworkers killed, mangled, dismembered. They 
have lost limbs, they have lost their breath, but they have kept their 
faith and they have kept their health care benefits, but they do not 
have a lot to pass on to their families.
  Until the Senate Finance Committee action, you know, then they had 
their health cards and knew their health 

[[Page S 15562]]
benefits were going to be safe and secure. I had to tell them about a 
document that appeared on Monday, that was debated by the Finance 
Committee on a Wednesday, that was approved by its Republican members 
on Thursday, full of tax breaks for every conceivable special interest. 
But on page 165 and 166--those are the pages I care about--the very end 
of the package containing the Cracker Jack prize for all of the 
companies that want to renege on their promise to their retirees.
  One miner, who worked for decades in the mines, told me starkly, he 
said, ``I am worried to death.'' He said, ``Now it seems like the 
company is the one running the whole show.''
  He is right.
  ``They want to do away with us when we were the ones who worked and 
built everything else.''
  He is right.
  Bude Jarvis, one of the miners, asked me, ``What's going to happen to 
me if I lose my benefits?'' And he answered his own question, ``They'll 
probably just put me in the grave before my time.''
  Another miner, worried about his diabetic wife--diabetes is common--
he said, ``If I had to buy her medicine, I don't know what would 
happen. I could not afford to.''
  Today retired miners' health benefits pay for prescription drugs. 
That is one of the beauties. They are on Medicare but Medicare does not 
pay for any of that stuff.
  These are people who will have taken a dozen different kinds of pills 
by lunch because of their ailments. So when it comes right down to it, 
this provision is about one thing. Old coal miners and their widows 
being ground up in the legislative process like hamburger while the 
lobbyists cut them up.
  All the jockeying, the lobbying, the lawyering, and the loophole 
making behind this provision, who pays, who does not, who profits, by 
how much--it is so much legal mumbo jumbo to a retired miner. He does 
not get into those things, nor does his widow.
  When a retired coal miner who has worked for half a century 
underground in the most dangerous profession in the world by far--by 
far, Madam President--cannot count on the health care that he was 
promised decades ago by this Federal Government, and by the companies 
that richly profited from his labors, then we have made the word of 
this body worthless--worthless--and will have made contracts worthless. 
If the Senate and society do not say that the contract that guaranteed 
miners--guaranteed miners and their widows--benefits is worth keeping, 
then how can we trust any contract? A contract is not anything to an 
average American if he needs a bevy of lawyers to make it count. That 
is supposed to be a problem in countries which are struggling to work 
their way out of dictatorships and Communist economies. A contract is 
not worth anything if it is only good until some special interest with 
political connections can take away what you were promised while 
elected representatives, including perhaps your own, turn their backs.
  Promises made should be promises kept, whether you are a coal miner, 
or a teacher, or a computer technician, or a nurse, or a politician, or 
a plumber. Promises made should be promises kept.
  The Senate still has a chance to reject this giveaway to select 
companies trying to profit at the expense of 92,000 retirees, widows, 
and their orphans. They are dying at the rate of 6,000 a year. Ninety-
two thousand are dying. When we passed the bill, there were 120,000. 
Now it is 92,000. They are dying.
  We know the budget reconciliation bill will pass with virtually every 
Republican vote. I hope I am wrong on that. We know that the process is 
stacked so that the bill cannot be filibustered. But my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle can stand up for the people in their own 
States and the principle of keeping promises.
  And I close with this. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
who heard the call of Secretary Dole's Coal Commission for a fair 
solution and helped me pass the bill to rescue the health fund can heed 
that call once more. To anyone who says America's crisis is about 
values, this is the chance to turn those words into deeds. This 
provision that mocks the basic value of keeping promises and attacks 
the health care of 92,000 retirees should go, Madam President. It 
should go. And, if it does not, those of us on the other side, in West 
Virginia and across the country, will not give up. We will not, and we 
cannot, as I am sure the Presiding Officer understands, be still.
  I thank the Presiding Officer. I thank my distinguished colleague 
from Minnesota who must think that I took considerable advantage.
  Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Thank you very much, Madam President.
  Madam President, we are beginning a truly historic week. With a vote 
approaching on budget reconciliation, Congress is ready to set this 
Nation on course toward a balanced budget. We are also ready to offer 
working-class Americans relief from a Federal tax burden that is 
crushing them and their families.
  The legislation we will approve this week is nothing short of 
revolutionary. The desperate attempts of my colleagues across the aisle 
to discredit the revolution are nothing short of pitiful.
  For several weeks now, we have had to listen to baseless statements 
made on the floor of this Senate about the budget reconciliation 
package, the kind of statements that in Minnesota we call fish stories.
  Now, I hate to waste a lot of time in answering such ridiculous 
charges, but in Washington, things that get repeated three times 
somehow become fact, especially in the minds of the liberal press, who 
will carry these charges as fact.
  My colleague, the junior Senator from California, was on the floor 
last Friday, getting in the last words before the weekend, and claimed 
Speaker Gingrich had made a deal with people making over $350,000 a 
year to give them a huge tax break but they had to settle for $5,500 
back instead.
  The good Senator should first of all be held accountable for making 
such a ridiculous, baseless charge.
  ``Where's the beef?'' Where is the proof to back up such outlandish 
accusations?
  What she failed to say is that the Republican tax relief plan has 
been scored with nearly 75 percent of our $245 billion in tax cuts 
going to working-class families with incomes under $75,000.
  So why would she pick out the figure of 350,000? The answer is class 
warfare. It is an old trick our opponents have perfected in 1995: if 
you are not right, try divide and conquer. Scare people into believing 
things that are not true, or at best half-truths.
  The good Senator from California also spoke about Medicare and 
trustees' report warning the Medicare Program would be bankrupt by 
2002.
  She was right when she said nearly every year, the Medicare trustees 
issue a report naming a date when the system faces default.
  But again, she failed to mention that this year, the trustees urged 
Congress to act quickly to save the system and stave off bankruptcy--to 
lessen the impact it will have on the hard-working families who pay the 
taxes to support it. And besides, that is no excuse to do nothing.
  My colleague said the Medicare system has been faced with the same 
problem many times, that Democrats have made some tough decisions, but 
have extended the life of Medicare each time.
  But again, she did not tell the American people that the seven times 
the Democrats faced those ``tough'' questions, their answer was to 
raise taxes on working Americans.
  Seven times they raised taxes in the last 30 years to keep the 
program going. Doubling, tripling, quadrupling your withholding taxes * 
* * and then doubling it again and again. Rather than finding a way to 
save Medicare, improve it, and hold down the costs, they would advocate 
a tax increase.
  That new tax, of course, would have to amount to $388 billion over 
the next 7 years, $388 billion in new payroll taxes--to feed this huge 
Government machine * * * a machine we cannot control now * * * a 
bureaucracy that is so out of control there is no efficiency, only 
billions in waste, fraud, and abuse.
  But hey, it is only the taxpayers' money, not mine. Put it on the 
taxpayers' credit card, they say.
  Funny, the Democrats never seem to have a problem in raising taxes, 
taking money from you and me * * * but ask 

[[Page S 15563]]
them to support a tax cut, and they will rush to the floor in a flood 
of protest. They just cannot stand the pain of not being able to give 
away more of your dollars. They want to raise your taxes so they can be 
compassionate and give it away.
  But Mr. President, that is not compassion. That behavior is greedy 
and power grabbing.
  For over 40 years, the Democrats have been inviting people to dinner, 
and using the American taxpayer as the credit card to pay for it.
  I also heard the Democrats say they have the resolve to balance the 
budget, but would do it in a ``more reasonable'' way, with ``more 
compassion.''
  The last 40 years, however, tell us how they would do it: Raise 
taxes, give away more money, raise taxes, give away more money.
  Again, watch out for that word ``compassion''--it means they want 
more of your hard-earned dollars so they can spend it.
  The President says he has the resolve to balance the budget, but he 
does not have a balanced budget to offer.
  The outlines he has put on the table have never come close to 
balancing the budget. They leave $200 billion-a-year-plus deficits as 
far as the eye can see.
  And what about the so-called balanced budget plan the senior Senator 
from North Dakota has proposed, the one my Democrat colleagues say is 
the answer.
  Again, their answer is always more taxes, and my colleague's budget 
is no different.
  I have a chart here just to compare 1993, 1994, and 1995--the 
Democrat budget and answer, and the Republican budget and answer. You 
can see in each year--1993, a $251 billion tax increase by President 
Clinton, the largest in history; Democrats in 1994 continue more taxes; 
in 1995, under the plan of the Senator from North Dakota, he would want 
to raise taxes another $228 billion rather than giving back $245 
billion in tax cuts.
  His budget would supposedly balance without inflicting pain on 
millions of Americans, unless, of course, you include those who get up 
and go to work every day, the taxpayers of this country. There 
apparently is no pain in working longer hours to pay more in taxes.
  The budget offered by the Senator from North Dakota would pick your 
pockets to the tune of over $500 billion-plus, in additional taxes over 
the next 7 years. Imagine, rather than supporting a tax cut of $245 
billion, their plan would be to raise another $228 billion from 
American taxpayers.
  If the growth of the Federal budget is not reduced and spending 
continues to increase, you need more dollars to feed the spending fire, 
and that is where you, the taxpayers, come in again.
  The Republicans have a plan that will balance the budget--eliminate 
the deficit--by the year 2002.
  Now, they say our plan will cost students more to go to school, cost 
families more for everything from food to clothing to shelter, the 
elderly will pay more for Medicare, nursing homes, et cetera.
  But let me ask you a simple question: if we cannot afford it as 
individuals, as families, as a society, how can we afford for the 
Government to do it for us?
  The money has to come from somewhere.
  The Government creates no wealth--it only reallocates it, 
redistributes it. If we do not have the money to pay the bills that 
need to be paid, how can we afford the taxes Washington wants in order 
to do it for us--to be compassionate?
  The Senate Democrats do not hold a monopoly on compassion. Liberal or 
conservative, Republican or Democrat, I think most of us came to this 
Chamber out of deep compassion for our fellow Americans.
  We want nothing more than for every American to have the opportunity 
to be successful, no matter what that means to each individual. As 
Edward Deming, the Father of the Japanese industrial revolution would 
say. We need a ``Win-win'' solution. We do not want losers in society, 
or those left out. We want winners. We are all better off with more 
winners.
  But somehow, according to the senior Senator from California, if you 
make $350,000 a year, you do not deserve it, because you have somehow 
gotten it illegally or unfairly.
  Or if nothing else, it is just not right that you have it.
  And if you do, the Government should step in and take it away--
whatever amount it deems ``fair''--and give it to those the Government 
thinks deserve it.
  There are individuals in this country that need our help and we are 
spending nearly $1.6 trillion this year to try and meet those needs the 
best we can, without destroying the very fabric of our society--our 
families and our job creators--to do it.
  But the rhetoric that spending is being reduced so the money can be 
funneled into huge tax cuts for the wealthy is a sham.
  The whole argument is being presented in this manner to drive your 
attention from the facts to the fiction, the shell game, the con man, 
the snake oil salesman, the Democratic opposition.
  President Clinton himself is guilty of this budgetary double-speak.
  The President raised taxes in 1993 by $251 billion.
  Of course, we all know that last week, he told a crowd of fat cat 
contributors at a $1,000 a plate fundraiser he knew they were mad and 
he admitted he raised taxes too much, but said it was the Republicans' 
fault because they would not help him stop the Democrats from spending 
more money.
  He had to raise taxes, he said. But the next day, back in Washington, 
he blamed that statement on being tired, reiterating his point that 
``no Democrat in his right mind would ever propose cutting taxes, or 
saying they had raised them enough.''
  They do not want the taxpayers to keep more of their own money. They 
do not trust you to spend it wisely.
  Who knows, you might ``waste it'' on food, clothing, shelter, a 
vacation, or by saving it for your child's education.
  ``Send it to Washington and we'll be compassionate with your hard-
earned money,'' they say. ``Let us take care of you.''
  The kind of care offered by the Democrats is suffocating the American 
people.
  To stop the suffocation, we are ready to cut their taxes, and I need 
to remind my colleagues across the aisle that tax relief is not 
dessert.
  Congress has been eating the taxpayers' dessert for the past 40 
years. And the American people have been left only gruel to eat.
  Finally, when the opponents of change resort to class warfare, when 
they resort to statements like, ``champagne bottles are being chilled 
in penthouses all across the country--except in those where someone has 
a conscience,'' well, that is nothing but the desperate cry of a dying 
liberal agenda.
  I cannot afford champagne, but that is OK because I do not like it 
anyway. When I get back to Minnesota this weekend, I am going to put 
some beer in the cooler.
  And like millions of Americans across this country, we are going to 
celebrate a small victory over this powerful Government machine, 
because the people know they will be able to keep $245 billion of their 
own money, to spend the way they want, rather than giving it to those 
who claim to be compassionate.
  And we are going to say this is only the first in a long line of 
victories to come.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes' time has expired.
  Mr. GRAMS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. KERRY. Madam President, what is the legislative status at this 
point?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business.
  Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Statements are limited to 10 minutes.
  Mr. KERRY. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for 
such time as I might consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there any objection? The Chair hears none, 
and it is so ordered.

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