[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5002-S5003]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               PREVENTING A VOTE ON REPEAL OF THE GAS TAX

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, in connection with the debate, which I 
suspect will soon be superseded by debate on a budget agreement, a few 
points are still very, very much in order.
  No. 1, there is a concerted effort here on the floor of the Senate to 
prevent a vote on a reduction in the gas tax, a reduction triggered by 
the rapid runup in the price of a commodity of vital importance to 
every American. But I think often overlooked in this debate is the fact 
that this is not just any run-of-the-mill gas or motor vehicle fuel 
tax.
  This tax, imposed about 3 years ago at the time of President 
Clinton's first budget, represented an unprecedented change in the use 
of motor vehicle fuel tax. Always previously here in the Congress--and 
for all practical purposes almost always in our States--motor vehicle 
fuel taxes were used for transportation purposes, generally for the 
construction and maintenance of highways, but more frequently in the 
recent past for mass transit systems, whether bus related or on fixed 
rails.
  As such, motor vehicle fuel taxes were usually less objected to by 
the vast majority of people than was the case with many others taxes 
because they could see what they were getting for their money, because 
one paid in proportion to one's use of those very transportation 
facilities.
  President Clinton, however, flouted that convention in 1993 and 
determined that this gas tax was to be used for various social 
purposes. As the junior Senator from Missouri so eloquently put it a 
couple of days ago, the net result was that people who must use their 
automobiles to get back and forth to work were paying a tax to pay 
welfare to people who were not working at all and, in some cases, had 
no intention of doing so.
  So, Mr. President, the concentration on the removal of this tax is 
not only based on the proposition that the American people are too 
heavily taxed as it is but on the fact that this one is peculiarly 
unfair and peculiarly unprecedented. Nevertheless, the vote was taken a 
couple of hours ago on this floor. Once again there was an eloquent 
statement on the part of the President's party that they would not 
allow this repeal to come to a vote.
  The second element of that filibuster is directed at the TEAM Act, an 
act absolutely essential to validate the new sense of cooperation which 
is gaining wider and wider acceptance in labor-management relations 
across the United States and, indeed, is necessary if we are to meet 
the competitive pressures of the present economic world. Close to 90 
percent of American workers in the private sector are not unionized and 
have chosen not to be. Yet, they are prohibited from entering into 
voluntary relationships with their employers to discuss matters of 
common interest, of morale, of productivity, of the very future of 
their jobs by a recent ruling of the Supreme Court enforced by the 
National Labor Relations Board.
  A TEAM Act to encourage that cooperation will be of great importance 
in enhancing American competitiveness and in making many American 
workplaces happier and more interesting places for the vast majority of 
Americans to spend their working hours.
  Because of their distaste for each of these proposals, 
the President's party, ironically enough, they are filibustering an 
increase in the minimum wage, a proposition made out to be of urgent 
and vital importance, more important than anything else before this 
body. Their actions speak louder than their words in this connection. 
They are not willing to let the majority of this body make a judgment 
on a gas tax repeal and on the TEAM Act while at the same time 
increasing the minimum wage if those issues are joined together, 
though, of course, it was originally their idea to join the minimum 
wage to an immigration bill to which it had no relationship whatsoever.

  Finally, of course, Mr. President, underlying all of this bill is a 
modest, House-passed piece of legislation to provide overdue and just 
relief to those wrongfully fired from the White House Travel Office 2 
years ago and, in one case, prosecuted for actions determined not to 
have been remotely criminal by a jury.
  So three significant matters are now being filibustered by the 
President's

[[Page S5003]]

party in order to protect the President from the embarrassing situation 
that, in order to get three pieces of legislation which he has said he 
would sign, he would also have to take one vehemently opposed by the 
chiefs of organized labor but supported by the overwhelming majority of 
American men and women who are a part of these labor-management teams 
at the present time.
  Mr. President, my advice to the majority leader is to continue on his 
course of action, that it is appropriate to say that we should look at 
a larger world and the relationships on these pieces of legislation, 
that we should not say to the President we will not ask you to do 
anything embarrassing, we will simply send legislation to you that you 
have already fully endorsed both publicly and privately and anything 
that might be a bit controversial we will allow it to be killed by 
filibusters in the U.S. Senate. No, Mr. President, their pairing is an 
appropriate pairing.
  I hope we will continue until we and, not at all incidentally, the 
American people succeed in getting the relief to which they are 
overwhelmingly entitled.
  Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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