[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 40 (Thursday, March 21, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S2716]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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      CORPORATE SUBSIDY REVIEW, REFORM AND TERMINATION COMMISSION

 Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, last year, I introduced bipartisan 
legislation to establish a Corporate Subsidy Review, Reform, and 
Termination Commission.
  The proposed eight-member panel, styled after the military base 
closing commission would review Federal programs as well as provisions 
of the U.S. Tax Code to identify those that unduly subsidize specific 
profit-making companies, select industries, or segments of an industry 
in a manner that is unfair or anticompetitive and has no compelling 
public benefit. The Commission would recommend to Congress specific 
reforms and or termination of such subsidies, and Congress would 
consider the package under limited procedures spelled out in the 
legislation.
  The establishment of such a Commission, though an inferior 
alternative to Congress taking action directly, has become necessary 
because Congress does not appear willing or able to eliminate or 
significantly reform corporate subsidies.
  In these times of budget austerity, we are asking millions of 
Americans--from families who receive food stamps to our men and women 
in uniform--to sacrifice in order to stop the Nation's fiscal bleeding. 
As a matter of simple fairness, we have a moral obligation to ensure 
that corporate interests share the burden.
  The Cato and Progressive Policy Institutes, have identified 125 
Federal programs that subsidize industry to the tune of $85 billion 
every year, and PPI found an additional $30 billion in tax loopholes to 
powerful industries.
  Mr. President, I want to make clear, I am sure there are a number of 
programs which could be classified as a corporate subsidy which may 
serve a public interest. And, every Senator in this Chamber, including 
this Senator, have supported at one time or another a variety of these 
programs.
  So, no one is pure or innocent on the question of corporate 
subsidies. But, blame is not the issue, that's only an oft-used 
diversion. The issue is what is required of us today to reduce the debt 
that grown larger every day, eating up a greater percentage of the 
budget in debt service and submerging the prospects of our children as 
they are required to spend an evergrowing portion of their life to pay 
our bills.
  Under such circumstances, we are compelled to take a harder, more 
judicious, look at corporate subsidies and eliminate those that are not 
justified and do not have a compelling public interest.
  As the Public Policy Institute observed,

       The President and Congress can break the current impasse 
     and substantially reduce both spending and projected deficits 
     * * * if they are willing to eliminate or reform scores of 
     special spending programs and tax provisions narrowly 
     targeted to subsidize influential industries.

  Let me conclude, Mr. President, by acknowledging that I do not really 
like the idea of commissions. In some instances reasonable and well-
intentioned people may disagree on what is pork as opposed to a 
necessary and vital program. But in many instances we know what can and 
should be eliminated. The reality, however, is that Members will simply 
not gore their own ox, unless others are forced to do the same. As with 
military base closures--the mentality is--we either all go together or 
we do not go at all. Perhaps that is the only fair way to do it.
  An independent corporate pork commission with privileged and 
expedited procedures to ensure congressional action would help us even 
better define what is an unnecessary and unwarranted corporate subsidy, 
and it will help us depoliticize the process, guarantee that the pain 
is shared, and might be the only realistic means of achieving the 
meaningful reform that the public and our dire fiscal circumstances 
demand.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to refine a commission 
and congressional consideration process that is fair, targeted, and 
appropriate.

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