[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4987-S4988]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I watched yesterday. We had, I think, six 
of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle come to the floor. We 
have seen six or seven of them virtually every day come to the floor of 
the Senate and describe to us what is wrong with the President's agenda 
and what is right about their agenda.
  Yesterday, specifically, the discussion was about the proposed 
reduction in the gasoline tax of 4.3 cents a gallon. The point was 
repeatedly made that the gasoline tax was increased in 1993 in order to 
accommodate more Federal spending. That, of course, is not the case. 
The gas tax increase of 4.3 cents a gallon was a result of it being 
included in a very large package of spending cuts and, yes, some tax 
increases, in order to reduce the Federal budget deficit. It is worth 
noting that since that time, the Federal budget deficit has been 
reduced by 50 percent on a unified budget basis.
  Last week, on Thursday, we faced the spectacle at that point of 
having a proposal brought to the floor of the Senate to reduce the 
gasoline taxes by 4.3 cents a gallon and to pay for it with kind of a 
Byzantine scheme of telecommunications spectrum sales beginning in 
1998, and some other things that the Office of Management and Budget 
said would increase the Federal deficit by $1.7 billion next year. In 
other words, a proposal was brought to the floor of the Senate that 
said, ``Let's reduce the gasoline taxes by 4.3 cents a gallon.''
  The experts say there is no guarantee that the consumers will see the 
benefit of that, or that it will be passed through for a reduced pump 
price to the consumers. However, we would then see a $1.7 billion 
increase in Federal deficit in the next year as a result of it.
  In the very next breath, we are told that there is something wrong 
with

[[Page S4988]]

others in the Chamber who do not support a balanced budget. I do not 
know who those others are, but somehow those who bring a proposal to 
the floor to increase the Federal budget deficit, even as they repeal 
the 4.3-cent gasoline tax, are accusing others of not supporting a 
balanced budget. It is an interesting paradox in political dialogue.
  I thought it would be useful today, just for a couple of minutes, to 
talk about some of these proposals more generally. Those who bring the 
proposed cut in the gas tax to the floor of the Senate, I suspect, 
think it is very popular, and it may be popular for someone to bring a 
bill to the floor to say, ``Let's repeal all taxes. Let's have no one 
any longer be a taxpayer. Let's get rid of all taxpayers.'' But, of 
course, we provide for the common defense. That costs some money. We 
build roads in this country. We provide for schools. We hire police and 
firefighters. We do all the things necessary to govern.
  Then we have people come and say, ``Today is tax freedom day; it is 
the day beyond which no one ever has to support government again,'' 
suggesting, somehow, that the taxes that have been paid earlier in the 
year to invest in Social Security, Medicare, a police department, a 
fire department, or a Defense Department or the Centers for Disease 
Control, somehow none of that mattered, and all of that was squandered 
and wasted.
  I guess I do not understand some of the logic. But the same people 
will bring to the floor apparently next week a proposal for a $40 to 
$60 billion national defense plan, a new iteration of star wars. These 
same people who propose a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution 
that, by the way, would raid the Social Security trust fund, now say, 
``Let's embark on a new program called national missile defense.'' They 
say, ``On the little issues, we insist that the Pentagon does not know 
what it ought to spend. We demand that the generals and admirals spend 
$12 billion more than they ask for. We insist they buy planes they do 
not ask for, they buy trucks they do not need, they buy submarines they 
do not want. We insist they buy all of that because generals and 
admirals do not know how much they want to spend. We in Congress know 
better,'' and then insist they spend $12 billion more than the Pentagon 
has asked for.

  On top of that, we insist on a new, expensive, gold-plated star wars 
program now named ``national missile defense.'' Oh, it is not star 
wars, they say. Oh, yes, it is. The bill suggests that we build space-
based lasers. Of course it is star wars. Will it cost a lot of money? 
You bet your life it will cost a lot of money--$40 to $60 billion. The 
tragedy is this: There is relatively little likelihood of a rogue 
nation getting hold of an ICBM missile in order to put a nuclear tip on 
the top of it and threaten the United States. There is so little 
likelihood of that. There is so great a likelihood of some terrorist 
nation, some rogue nation, some band of independent terrorists getting 
a nuclear device and putting it in the trunk of a rusty Yugo and 
parking it on a New York City dock, or a glass vial that big with the 
deadliest biological agents known to mankind to threaten a major 
metropolitan area, or, yes, even a rental truck with a fertilizer bomb.
  We understand about terrorism and about the threat to this country. 
The threat is not a rogue nation having a sophisticated 
intercontinental ballistic missile. It is the threat of terrorists with 
deadly biological agents and suitcase bombs, including suitcase nuclear 
devices that will threaten this country. Yet, we are told a national 
missile defense star wars program is what this country needs.
  My colleague this morning said the issue is paychecks, the issue is 
paychecks and jobs. I agree with that. There is no social program in 
this country that has the value of a good job that pays well. That is 
one of the reasons I would like to do a number of things. I would like 
to straighten out our trade mess in this country. Our trade deficit is 
unforgivable. We ought not have a $30 billion trade deficit with China 
and then have them, when they need to buy airplanes, tell us, ``You 
either make them in China or we will not buy them from you.'' We ought 
not have a recurring $60 billion annual trade deficit, a $30 billion 
combined trade deficit with Mexico and Canada. Jobs leave America.
  The second point is we ought to have the courage in this Chamber to 
shut off the tax incentive that exists in our tax laws telling firms, 
``Move your jobs overseas and we will give you a tax break.'' I am 
still waiting for one person to stand up and say, ``I support that 
provision,'' but we cannot get it repealed.
  We have a tax incentive to move jobs overseas. Finally, another step 
of paycheck and jobs issues is the minimum wage. Yes, we care about the 
minimum wage. The fact is, a whole lot of folks in this country work 
for minimum wage and have now been, for 5 years, at the bottom rung of 
the economic ladder without a 1-cent increase.
  The last time the minimum wage was increased, on April 1, 1991, the 
stock market was at 2881. It is now almost double that. The minimum 
wage has not moved a cent. But CEO's at the top of the economic ladder 
got a 23-percent increase in their compensation last year--an average 
of $11,000-a-day compensation for the CEO's at the top of the ladder. 
But it is $8,800 a year, full-time minimum wage, for the folks at the 
bottom. They have not had an adjustment for 5 years.
  I say to some, if you do not believe in the minimum wage, bring a 
bill to the floor to try to repeal it. If you believe there ought to be 
a minimum wage, then you ought to believe in an adjustment at some 
point. The question is how much and when. Let us discuss that.
  If I might, in the last minute, read again a letter I received last 
week from a young woman who has four children, has had a tough life. 
She has had setbacks almost every minute, every time they turn around, 
it seems. Their trailer house burns and they lose everything, or there 
are operations or medical problems with the four children. She, in a 
four-page letter, says:

       How can we make it like this. I wish somebody in an 
     official capacity could be the one to tell my boys they can't 
     play baseball this summer because I can't afford the $25 fee 
     for each of them, let alone the money for bats and gloves 
     they would need. We don't spend our money on alcohol or 
     drugs. We don't go out on the town. Our lives revolve around 
     trying to make ends meet. Our dream of owning a home is long 
     gone. We are better off, I know, than a lot of others who 
     have to live on the street, but how far are we from that? One 
     check maybe?
       We are in that forgotten group of people called the working 
     poor, the people that fall through the cracks of Government. 
     We want to have something to show for working hard every day 
     instead of slipping further in the hole. We are suffocating, 
     and the future looks dim for us. I beg you shamelessly, for 
     the sake of my children, to please help us find a glimmer of 
     hope to help us dig our way out of this hopelessly grim 
     situation.

  This is from a woman and her husband who work at the minimum wage, 
are unskilled, and have suffered setback after setback and cannot find 
a way at the bottom to pull themselves up. They, for 5 years, have had 
their wages frozen because there has not been a one-penny adjustment in 
the minimum wage. During that time, the stock market has doubled. CEO's 
are doing great. They got a 23-percent increase last year alone.
  The folks at the bottom deserve some kind of adjustment. They are the 
voiceless that we ought to give a voice to. They are the hopeless that 
we ought to offer hope to, as we work in the U.S. Senate, and say we 
care about you and we are going to try to do something to offer some 
help to those on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. I hope we can 
do that together in a bipartisan way in this Chamber in the coming 
weeks.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Chair recognizes 
the Senator from Missouri to speak for up to 5 minutes.

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