[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3424-S3425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE AGENDAS

  Mr. DORGAN. Let me, Mr. President, just take a moment to describe 
what happened yesterday since the Senate went into recess and I was 
unable to speak about it.
  There are stories in the press today which say that the majority 
leader pulled the bill on immigration and said that some were trying to 
hold the immigration bill hostage in the Senate yesterday.
  That is not the case at all. It is simply not accurate. It is true 
that amendments were offered to the immigration bill. My amendment was 
offered yesterday that deals with a Social Security issue, but I 
indicated to the person managing the bill I would be willing to accept 
a 20- or 30-minute time agreement on my amendment. It was not a 
circumstance where my amendment was going to hold up the bill. There 
would have been a minimum wage amendment, but Senator Kennedy indicated 
he was willing to accept a time agreement of perhaps an hour, perhaps a 
half-hour, on that minimum wage amendment. So no one could accurately 
describe that as holding any kind of a bill hostage.
  I want to describe the circumstance we were in yesterday and why I 
had to offer the Social Security amendment. The majority leader has 
announced in the Senate that he intends to seek reconsideration of the 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. He has the right to do 
that, and when he does it, as I understand the procedure, there will be 
no debate and no opportunity for an amendment. That is the procedure 
under which he will seek reconsideration.
  As a result of that, those of us who care about an issue that is 
related to the constitutional amendment to balance the budget, namely 
the issue of using Social Security trust funds as part of the revenue 
to balance the budget, wanted to offer a sense-of-the-Senate resolution 
saying any constitutional amendment to balance the budget that is 
brought to the Senate floor should create a firewall between the Social 
Security trust funds and the operating revenues of the Federal 
Government.
  Now, why is that important? Because if you do not do that, we will 
have nearly $700 billion of Social Security trust funds misused. They 
were supposed to have been collected to be saved for the baby boom 
generation when they retire. But instead, they will be used as revenues 
on the revenue side of the budget to show a lower budget deficit.
  Some of us feel that is wrong. I know that yesterday it was charged, 
well, this is just politics. It is not just politics. It is an 
enormously important question that this Senate must address. So far it 
has addressed it in the wrong way.

  The minimum wage, which was also scheduled to be offered as an 
amendment by Senator Kennedy and some others, is an issue they have 
worked on for over a year. There was not any intention to hold the bill 
up but simply to say on behalf of those folks out there working on a 
minimum wage who have for 6 years not received any kind of an increase 
at all, they have been frozen for 6 years and have lost a half a dollar 
of their wage to inflation in terms of purchasing power, we will try to 
give you a slight increase in the minimum wage.
  That is what the fight was about. It was not a fight to try to hold 
up the bill.
  Now, the majority leader came to the floor and, apparently with great 
frustration, said, well, this Social Security amendment and others have 
nothing to do with the underlying bill.
  The majority leader understands how the Senate works. He has been 
here for a long, long time. He came to the floor when we had family and 
medical leave in this Chamber and offered a gays in the military 
amendment that had nothing to do with the bill. It was because he 
wanted to offer his amendment dealing with gays in the military. It was 
completely extraneous. It was nonrelevant. But he did it because he 
felt it was important to do.
  On the immigration bill yesterday, the only opportunity, it seemed to 
us, to be able to register on this issue of the misuse of the Social 
Security funds in a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, the 
only opportunity we would have had before the majority leader would 
bring up the vote on the constitutional amendment to balance the budget 
was to offer it before he did it, and so we used the first vehicle that 
came along.
  It is not an attempt to frustrate the immigration bill. Much in the 
immigration bill I support, as do many of my colleagues. The 
immigration bill will pass the Senate, in my judgment, if the majority 
leader brings it back to the floor. But he is not going to be in a 
circumstance where he comes to the floor of the Senate and says: Here 
is our agenda, and you vote on our amendments and our agenda when we 
want to vote; and with respect to the things you care about, we are 
sorry but they do not count; they are irrelevant.
  It is not the way the Senate works. And so we are not trying to hold 
up any piece of legislation. We very much want the Senate to register 
itself on a couple of important issues.
  With respect to whether these issues are just politics, as a couple 
of people have suggested, I guess if we get to the point when we are 
talking about a minimum wage for millions of Americans who have not had 
an adjustment in the minimum wage for 6 years, if we get to the point 
where we say, well, that is just politics if we want to talk about the 
minimum wage, they have changed the definition of politics. If it is 
just politics when we want to talk about $700 billion of Social 
Security trust funds being misused to show a lower budget deficit, then 
they have changed

[[Page S3425]]

the definition of politics. That is not politics, in my judgment. It is 
what we ought to be discussing in the Senate.
  My hope is that when we finish the antiterrorism bill, which I think 
will be moved out of the Senate with a yes vote, we will turn to the 
immigration bill, and we will deal with these amendments.
  The fact is these amendments are not going to go away. I heard the 
majority leader and others say, well, those who offer these amendments 
simply want to cover their vote against the constitutional amendment.
  We had two votes on the constitutional amendments last year. I voted 
for one, which was the right one, which did not misuse the Social 
Security trust funds, and I voted against the one that did misuse the 
Social Security trust funds. You cannot take money from workers' 
paychecks and say to them we promise this is dedicated for only one 
purpose; it goes into a trust fund; it is going to be saved for Social 
Security when we need it when the baby boomers retire, and then say, 
oh, by the way, we have changed our mind; the $71 billion this year 
that we collect above what we need for Social Security, we are going to 
use that to balance the Federal budget.

  This is not a trust fund. The fund ought not to have the word 
``trust'' in it if you are going to use it for other purposes, and it 
is not politics for us to start talking about some honesty in budgeting 
and protecting the Social Security trust funds for the days when this 
country is going to need them when the baby boomers retire.
  There are plenty of issues we need to deal with in the Senate, and if 
every time we come to the floor of the Senate and talk about issues of 
substance, whether it is the Social Security trust funds or a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget or for that matter the 
minimum wage, it is alleged somehow it is totally political, then I 
guess all of the activities of the Senate will be political this year. 
But some of us happen to think some of these issues ought to be dealt 
with, and those who think they will avoid votes in the coming months 
should understand we will come to the floor again and again and again, 
and it is not to play games. It is because it is serious business when 
you are talking about $700 billion in the Social Security trust funds, 
and it is also serious business when you are talking about folks who 
have worked on minimum wages for 6 years and have had no adjustment 
relative to inflation.
  So, Mr. President, I understand we have the antiterrorism bill that 
will be coming to the floor this morning. I hope we make good progress 
on it. I think there is a consent agreement of some sort with respect 
to amendments. That bill ought to get out of the Senate soon. I will 
likely vote for it. Then I hope we can turn to immigration and deal 
with some of these issues.
  I have watched what has happened in the Senate now for some long 
time, and I do not want people coming to the floor of the Senate and 
saying, well, we offer all of our amendments, any amendment, any time 
we want on any bill we want, but if you offer an amendment on minimum 
wage here, somehow you are playing politics.
  That is not the way the Senate works. If one side is able to use 
legislation to advance the policies they want to advance, then the 
other side is going to do the same thing, and it ought not be a 
surprise to anybody. I just do not like to see stories in which we are 
told that somehow somebody yesterday was holding an immigration bill 
hostage. Both amendments that were to be offered to the immigration 
bill would have been subject to, and the authors of both amendments had 
said that they would agree to, very short time agreements. Nobody was 
holding anything hostage. People ought to know that.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I make a point of order a 
quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________