[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 21, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S122-S126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATE REPUBLICAN AGENDA
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I think we have the opportunity here today
to get off to a good start, a fast start. It is one about which we have
communicated with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We
have increased the number of bills that we officially introduce at the
start of the
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session from what has in the past been only 5 to 10, and therefore the
Republicans will today introduce our first numbered 10 bills as well as
Senate Joint Resolution 1, which will be the constitutional amendment
for a balanced budget. And then the Democratic leader, on behalf of the
Democrats, will introduce their first 10 bills, and then others can
come in and offer bills as they see fit. The principal sponsors will
come to the floor this afternoon in the hour we have designated to
offer the bills and to make comments. Frankly, I see some overlap
between our list of 10 bills and the Democrats' list of 10 bills. I
think that is positive.
So we want to go ahead and get started with this. We are going to
move forward aggressively wherever we can to handle the President's
nominations to his Cabinet. We hope to confirm within the next 2 days
his first two nominees, to be Secretary of State and Secretary of
Defense. We hope in the 2 weeks after that to move right along with
other nominees. So we are trying hard to work with the administration
and set up an atmosphere that will allow us this year to pass some good
legislation for the best interests of the American people, but the
President, we think, deserves his Cabinet in place so that he can have
people there to work with us.
One of the glories of the Senate is that it runs as much by tradition
and custom as it does by written rules, and so one of those customs we
are carrying out today is introducing these first few bills that will
lay out our agenda for the rest of the year.
So it is my honor to present to the Senate and to the Nation 11 major
pieces of legislation, 10 bills and 1 resolution, that we will offer
today. Each of them can stand on its own as an important initiative
dealing with matters that touch the lives of most Americans. Together,
however, they form a blueprint for the visionary changes our country
needs. I might even call them the user's manual for a better, safer and
more prosperous America. These bills represent the consensus of the 55
Republican Members of the Senate.
We did have a unique opportunity to sit together for 12 hours the
week before last to talk through what we want to do in this session of
Congress and what specific bills we wanted to take up. It does not mean
that every Republican Senator subscribes to every part of this package.
To the contrary, it is likely that every Republican Senator, this one
included, will disagree with some provision or another in one bill or
another. But as befits the party of the open door, we have had quite a
lot of give-and-take in putting this package together, and, as always,
our individual Members make their own decisions about what they will
endorse. But each of these bills commands overwhelming support on the
Republican side of the aisle, and I want to commend not just the lead
sponsors of these bills but all the Senators and staff who worked
together over the past few weeks to reach the agreement and get these
bills actually drafted and ready for presentation. I am going to leave
it to the primary sponsors and others who have worked on the various
pieces of legislation to give the details. So I am going to summarize
in this time that I have today what is in this platform.
Pride of place goes to Senate Joint Resolution 1, as I already
pointed out, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution which will
be introduced today by Senator Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and by Senator Craig of Idaho.
This one, obviously, needs no explaining. There may be still,
somewhere in the hinterlands of America, a citizen who does not
understand why a balanced budget amendment is desperately needed, but I
doubt it. The American people keenly realize the problems caused by
excessive Federal spending, and everywhere I have gone, every poll that
I have seen indicates the American people support this initiative
overwhelmingly.
I have tried to understand the arguments against a constitutional
amendment for a balanced budget, but to no avail, quite frankly. We
have not had a balanced budget in the Federal Government in 28 years,
and it will probably be at least 4 more years before we get one, if
then. I have watched good men and women, including Presidents, make
commitments and actually have plans to get to a balanced budget, but it
has not worked.
This year, I think we have an opportunity to work with the President
to come to a balanced budget agreement. We will see his budget plan
February 6. I hope he will show leadership and courage and will address
some of the issues that need to be addressed that, frankly, he was not
willing to deal with last year. But it was an election year, and,
hopefully, he will approach it differently this time.
But even if we come together on a plan to get a balanced budget by
2002, I still have my doubts about whether it will actually happen if
we do not have the leverage guarantee of a constitutional amendment.
Remember, when we pass this constitutional amendment, it then does not
go to the President for his signature, it goes to the State
legislatures, to the people for their ratification.
Recent news accounts seem to indicate the administration will fight
this amendment and will do it aggressively. I understand they may have
some questions or objections. I expect them to make those, and we will
listen to them. But this fight is not about politics, it is about the
future of our children and grandchildren. It is about the burden of
debt we are leaving them with, which is a cruel legacy. It is about
right and wrong, and this time around, I am betting that right is going
to prevail.
Because of the importance we attach to education, one of the first
bills we will introduce today will deal with this area. Just like the
constitutional amendment for a balanced budget is important to us
because of what we think it means to our children's future in holding
down inflation and holding down interest rates and stopping the
continuous increase in the interest we pay on the national debt that
will lead to making it more difficult for our children and
grandchildren to have home mortgages and student loans and car loans,
we think that education, also, is a very high priority and also an
investment in the future of our country.
If we have a strong educational system, if we deal with the
illiteracy problems, if we deal with the needs of children with special
needs, it will contribute to a better America, better educated
children, will lead to more production, better jobs, more jobs, more
trade, more development in technology.
So Republicans are placing a high priority this year on education
with S. 1. The first numbered bill will be the Safe and Affordable
Schools Act. It will be introduced by Senator Paul Coverdell of
Georgia, and it is a comprehensive agenda for dramatic change. It will
help not only parents--and that is where it begins, in the home with
the parents--but also the States and the local communities to give
their children a better education.
It focuses, especially, on children attending unsafe schools, to give
their families consumer rights and choice in education. In this regard,
it builds on the good work that was done in the 104th Congress by the
distinguished Senator from Indiana, Senator Coats, who is now presiding
in the Chamber. He has done a lot of great work in behalf of
youngsters, and that work is confirmed in this piece of legislation.
In higher education, S. 1 establishes what we call the Bob Dole
Investment Accounts to help parents set aside the resources on their
own needed for their children's tuition.
Toward the same goal, it makes the interest on student loans tax
deductible, and it gives favorable tax treatment to State prepaid
tuition plans, to education aid provided by an employer to encourage
more employers to provide that assistance to their workers which would
benefit their children, and to student work-study awards.
S. 1 will fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Act, IDEA, as
it is quite often referred to, by authorizing an additional $10 billion
over the next 7 years. This is not something easily done, but it is
something we promised children with these special needs and we promised
the States we would do, and we have not done it.
In this legislation, we are making that commitment to fulfill that
obligation. That will come as good news not only to the families with
special-needs children, it will also mean a lot to the Governors and
State legislatures which have been shouldering this Federal mandate
without the funds to back it up.
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I want to mention especially the good work that has been done by
Senator Gregg of New Hampshire and Senator Frist of Tennessee on this
difficult but very important matter.
Finally, S. 1 sets up a block grant for States to promote adult
education and combat illiteracy. This has been long a priority with
Senator Jeffords, our chairman of the Labor and Human Resources
Committee, and I am especially pleased it will be included in this
package.
As I said earlier today at a press conference, we have been talking
about trying to deal with adult education and illiteracy problems for
10 years, but we have done very little about it. This is the place
where the Federal Government can be helpful in helping to fill a void
that maybe the States cannot do on their own.
The next bill we will introduce today is S. 2, which will be
introduced by Senator Roth. It is the Family Tax Relief Act. It
contains key provisions from the tax relief legislation of the last
Congress that was vetoed by President Clinton. Senator Roth has long
worked in this area. He is the chairman of the Finance Committee. He
knows his subject backward and forward, and he knows we need a fairer
Tax Code. He also knows we need to give some incentives for growth in
the economy, to create more jobs, to have a stronger economy.
I still maintain that when the economy is only growing at 2 percent
or 2.3 percent, that is a very weak growth, and we should have it more
in the range of 3 to 3.5. We think this bill will help do that.
It will offset the President's 1993 tax increases by reducing taxes
over the next 5 years. Fully 80 percent of that relief, some $130
billion of it, or more, will go to working families, and those are the
ones to whom we think the help really should go, and most of it will go
to middle-income people.
In keeping with our Republican commitment to strengthen families, the
bill does create a $500-per-child tax credit for children under the age
of 18. The President would like to lower that age, I understand, maybe
even to 13, but if you are really trying to help families with children
where they have the greatest needs, I really think it is in that
bracket--14, 15. So that is how we would start it off. It would apply
to some 44 million youngsters.
The bill would raise the contribution limit for the spousal IRA from
its current $250 to $2,000, and it would allow for tax and penalty-free
withdrawal from an IRA for the cost of higher education, for small
business startups and for long-term unemployment.
What better way to encourage people to look after themselves and
address the needs of education and startups of businesses and
unemployment than to encourage them to have an IRA with the tax
benefits that go with it?
S. 2 would also lower the antifamily inheritance tax--I call it the
death tax--which is now at confiscatory levels. When you have an estate
tax that is 44 percent, or even as high as 55 percent, obviously, that
is unfair.
Once again, it is hurting small businesses and farmers, as well as
individuals, who work all their lives to build up a little nest egg for
their children, and now many of them are selling those businesses,
because they know if they don't, when they do pass on, they will have
over half of what they worked for all their lives taken from their
children.
Finally, this bill aims to boost savings, investments and job
creation by allowing a 50-percent deduction for investment earnings on
assets held more than 3 years and would let people who sell their homes
at a loss deduct that as a capital loss.
The next bill is S. 3, the Omnibus Crime Control Act, again being
introduced by Senator Hatch. He has done work on this for a long time,
including this last year. It is a comprehensive package of tough-minded
steps to fight illegal drugs, terrorism and child pornography.
It continues the Republican effort to reform our prison system, to
end abuses therein, both by felons and by Federal judges. In so many
instances now, felons in prisons are tying up the courts with petty,
very trivial allegations that take up time and cost a lot of money. We
want to try to reform that area and to save some of that lost time and
effort.
We aim to restore public confidence in our courts by a series of
reforms that will, at last, tilt the scales of justice in favor of
innocent victims of crime. This bill reauthorizes major components of
the Violence Against Women Act.
The next bill is S. 4, the Family Friendly Workplace Act, to be
introduced by Senator Ashcroft would extend to all workers the same
options for flextime and comp time that employees of the Federal
Government have enjoyed for decades. These opportunities would be 100
percent voluntary and a matter of choice for the men and women of
today's work force.
Most of those workers have to juggle the demands of their jobs and
the pressures of family life. Virtually all of them, especially those
with small children, want more time with their families. S. 4 will help
them arrange it while keeping a full paycheck.
A landmark of bipartisanship in the last Congress was built to reform
the Nation's antiquated laws concerning liability. Unfortunately,
despite the best efforts of Senator Gorton and Senator Rockefeller and
others in forging a compromise, that product liability reform
legislation again fell victim to the President's veto pen.
We owe it to the American people to try again. We need legal reform.
The American people want it. They expect it. They want broad legal
reform. But at a very minimum, we should do it in this product
liability area where so much good work has already been done.
This bill, S. 5, will also be introduced by Senator Ashcroft, who is
now chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction. It gives us another
chance to overhaul an unfair and inefficient liability system for the
benefit of American consumers and workers.
We will, in the bill S. 6, again reintroduce the Partial-Birth
Abortion Ban Act. This, too, was vetoed by President Clinton last year.
But the times have changed, and as the old song says, ``If times are
changing, then maybe the results can be different.'' After the election
of 1996, the Senate has changed, too.
We are hopeful this time around we will do away with this practice
that I think has shamed the conscience of the Nation. I commend Senator
Santorum, the bill's lead sponsor, and Senator Smith for their
dedication to this cause.
We will schedule this bill on the floor of the Senate for an early
vote. I am sure the House will follow suit. We will send it again to
the President. Hopefully, this time he will sign it.
S. 7 is the National Missile Defense Act. I am pleased to be
introducing this legislation. Building on the work that has been done
by Senator Dole, Senator Kyl, Senator Thurmond, and others in the last
Congress, it represents our commitment to the American people to secure
for them, for their homes, their neighborhoods and, in fact, the
country, the maximum possible protection against missile attack.
In the aftermath of the high-tech gulf war of 1990, many, perhaps
most, Americans think that the Nation is already sheltered by
sophisticated weapons systems like the one that protected Israel
against the Iraqi scud missiles.
Don't we wish. But sadly, and potentially tragically, the truth is
that in an era of international terrorism, the United States remains
vulnerable to missile blackmail. So S. 7 will put our Nation back on
the path toward security and toward lasting peace through unquestioned
strength.
We have concerns about the environment. One of the bills that we will
bring up again this year that we worked on--and we got it through the
Senate after a filibuster, but it wound up getting 63 votes--was a bill
that would bring to a conclusion the decision about where to have a
nuclear waste site in America. We will move on that quickly.
But S. 8 is the Superfund Cleanup Acceleration Act. It offers a more
efficient, commonsense approach to solving some of the Nation's worst
environmental problems involving toxic waste. We have sites all over
the country, hundreds of them. And yet almost--well, I will not say
almost none, but very few have actually been cleaned up, I think maybe
as few as 37. Yet, we have spent millions, probably a billion or more
dollars. We are not getting our money's worth. This legislation is
directed at doing that.
Senator Smith and Senator Chafee will introduce this legislation. It
would
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end the costly litigation that has paralyzed the cleanup effort. That
is what has happened. There has been nothing but a lot of litigation
and no real cleaning up where we needed it. And that has diverted
basically all the resources of the program.
S. 8 returns to the original vision of the Superfund program--the
protection of human health and the environment through realistic
cleanup standards; economic redevelopment of affected sites; and fair
treatment of individuals, small business and municipalities.
S. 9 is the Paycheck Protection Act, introduced by the assistant
majority leader, Senator Nickles, who is here. He will introduce this
legislation later on. It forbids corporations and labor unions to take
money from their stockholders and employees or members for political
purposes without that person's expressed consent. You will note it is
applicable to the corporations, to management and to the workers, so
that there is protection against this type of intimidation and, in
fact, the practice of taking money from dues-paying members and using
it for purely political purposes.
I think it is a matter of simple justice. No one should be compelled
by any organization to pay for someone else's campaigning or lobbying.
Right here this is where true campaign reform starts.
Finally, S. 10, the Violent Juvenile Offenders Act is a companion
bill to Senator Hatch's S. 3 and is the result of not only his efforts
but those of Senator Domenici, Senator Ashcroft, and Senator Thompson.
It rests on the principle that violent juveniles must be held
personally accountable for their actions.
There has been a rising increase in juvenile crime in America. We all
know the stories of very young people with automatic weapons going down
the street, shooting innocent people sitting on their porches. We know
that many of them wind up not being tried as criminals because of their
age. It is a delicate balance. But we cannot ignore the problem, and we
must be, I think, stronger in how we deal with these juvenile
offenders.
This bill would assure that violence and repeat juvenile offenders
are treated as adults. It targets violent youth gangs, toughens
penalties for violent and drug crimes, and fosters the kind of crime
prevention and juvenile rehabilitation that have proven records of
success.
I heard on the radio this very morning, when I was getting ready to
come to the Senate, that local officials of the District of Columbia
are calling out for help in dealing with gangs in this city, because
just last week a young man, young boy, on his way home from school,
maybe 16 years old, was accosted by a couple gang members. They wound
up dragging him into the woods where they shot him, killed him. He was
not involved in the dispute, but he wound up losing his life. This
person on the radio was saying, do whatever is necessary. Bring in the
National Guard if you have to, but we have to break up these gangs in
our Nation's Capital.
Mr. President, these 10 bills, along with the balanced budget
constitutional amendment, form a very ambitious agenda. It will take
time to accomplish. I do not think we should put a time limit on them
and say we must do them by the end of February or the end of March in
each instance. We should do them as soon as we can, but we should make
sure everybody has a chance to review them, make their case for or
against them. Let us have full debate, but let us get it done and let
us do it right. There will be adjustments and accommodations along the
way, but we are trying to get started in a very positive way and offer
bills we think are important for the quality of life and the future of
our country.
The goal of the Senate Republicans is very clear, I think, and
unchanging in this effort. It is to free the energy and genius of the
American people so that they can achieve a better quality of life. The
legislation we are introducing today we believe will allow them to do
that--for themselves, their families and their communities--in a
society that will be more secure, more prosperous and more caring.
Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from Oklahoma.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, how much time remains of the majority
leader's time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seven minutes 35 seconds is remaining under
the majority leader's time.
Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I would be glad to yield the remainder of
that time to Senator Nickles if he would like to go ahead and begin his
comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate and compliment the
majority leader of the Senate for his statement today, but also for his
work with all of the 55 Republican Senators to put together this list.
This is a list which we have spent some time on. When I say ``we,'' I
am talking about all 55 Republican Senators, who had some input on this
list. That is a little unusual. We have not done that before. We came
up with 10 bills. In the past, our tradition has been to introduce
five. We came up with 10.
I might mention later today, or in the next few days or weeks, we had
several other bills people wanted to have in this list. But this list
represents a consensus of an overwhelming number of Republicans, that
these are positive things we can do, should do, and that we should pass
this year.
Mr. President, let me just comment and take a second to compliment
President Clinton on his inaugural address yesterday. President Clinton
made two or three comments that I would like to refer to.
He said Government is not the problem, it is not the solution; the
American people are the solution. I think you will find that we
Republicans really do believe the American people are the solution. We
have a lot of ideas for saving Medicare, saving Social Security, a lot
of different things where we really want to involve the American
people. I compliment the President on that. He said that Government
should live within its means.
The first item that Majority Leader Lott mentioned was a
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. We have overwhelming
support among our colleagues for passage of a constitutional amendment
to balance the budget. We are equally serious about passing legislation
to implement a balanced budget. We want that to happen. Unfortunately,
President Clinton vetoed that in the last Congress. We want to work
with the President. He said in the inaugural address that we should
live within our means. We are going to try and make that happen. We
look forward to working with this administration to make that happen.
The President also said we should put petty politics and extreme
partisanship aside. He is right. This Congress, this political year,
maybe in the last year or two, has become too partisan and maybe too
extreme in working with the administration. It has been too partisan.
It has been too extreme. We need to put that aside.
So I welcome the President's comments. I look forward to working with
President Clinton in this administration to implement many of the
things he talked about. A lot of things we have in this agenda are
targeted toward doing exactly that.
The constitutional amendment to balance the budget has overwhelming
support among the membership, and rightfully so. We should live within
our means. Almost all the States have provisions in their constitution
saying they will not spend more than they take in. We should follow
that guidance.
President Clinton, during the campaign, said he was in favor of tax
relief. S. 2, the second bill we have in our list, does provide for
family tax relief. Even during the campaign, President Clinton talked
of a $500-per-child tax credit. That is the foundation of our tax bill.
Senator Lott mentioned 80 percent of the tax bill we have introduced as
the leadership package. We passed that last year, but again President
Clinton vetoed it. He said in the campaign that he was in favor of it.
We want to pass it this year and we want it to become law. We are not
interested in passing legislation for legislation's sake or for
political points' sake. President Clinton is not running again. We want
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these bills to become law because they will have a positive, real
impact on American lives.
We define the child tax credit as children up to age 18. President
Clinton's proposal limited it to kids under 12. We think it should
include at least kids up to 18. I told some people that my kids range
up to age 26. We might have an amendment to make it age 26. The bill we
introduced takes it to age 18.
We provide estate tax relief. There is a small business advisory
council that advises the President and those of us in Congress and they
always have an estate tax relief on their list. Why? Because if you
have a taxable estate right now above $600,000, Uncle Sam starts taking
big bites. If your estate goes up to a million above that, Uncle Sam
wants 35 percent of it. If you have an estate of 3 million, say your
business is as a farmer or a rancher or a businessman, if it is 3
million above the $600,000 deduction, Uncle Sam says, ``We want 55
percent of anything above that amount.'' Instead of protecting
property, it is confiscating property. We want to reduce that,
especially for small business and especially for family-owned
operations. That is in our package, as well.
We have capital gains relief because we think we tax transactions too
much. We actually tax transactions more than almost any of our other
industrial competitors. We need to reduce the taxes on transactions. If
we do so, we will have more transactions and the Government will make
more money, not less money. That is in our package. We can do better
with the economy.
I think we put together a good package, one that is family friendly.
We have a provision that Senator Lott alluded to called the Family
Friendly Workplace Act--Senator Ashcroft has worked hard on it--giving
families the option that if they work a few extra hours one week, we
think they can take off for their kids the next week. Why have good
Government come in saying, ``We mandate you have time off for PTA.''
Why not let the families and employees make that decision? So we do
that. We provide much greater flexibility for families, employers and
employees in this bill. It is all on a voluntary basis, where they can
work a few more hours one week and take time off for whatever they
desire the following week. You do not need Government's blessing to do
it. They allow for compensatory time. Instead of taking time-and-a-half
if they have to work an hour or two above 40 hours, if they want they
can bank some time and take time-and-a-half off. If they worked 44
hours, under present law they would be entitled to 6 hours of overtime
pay. If they want to keep it that way, they have the right to do so. If
they would like to have 6 hours off and maybe have a day off or maybe
work some other kind of combination or schedule that meets their
family's needs and desires, maybe for a vacation day, maybe for more
time off, maybe for time to visit their kids' athletic events, they
have the right to do so without having the Federal Government enumerate
that this is what you have to offer by law, and not be paid for that
time. We give them, through flextime and through the comp time, the
ability to have the flexibility in their schedules to meet their
family's needs, all of which are different. All of our families are
different. All of our families have more time demands that are at
variance. This gives them that flexibility, and probably would be the
most family friendly thing we can do.
We provide for a balanced budget package which will say the
Government will live within its means. We are not going to spend more
than we take in. Interest rates will come down. Homes will be more
affordable. When we talk of family tax credits, if you have three kids
under the age of 18, that is $1,500 more you get to spend as you
desire. Maybe it is for education, maybe it is for food on the table,
maybe it is for a home. You make that decision, because we decided it
is your money, not Government's money.
Then the flextime proposal, where we are basically saying that
families can make the decisions. You have the flexibility in your
schedules to work out what is mutually beneficial with you and your
employer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. NICKLES. I see the minority leader is not here, and I ask
unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. NICKLES. We also have an additional provision called the Paycheck
Protection Act. It is fundamentally prodemocracy. It says no person
should be compelled to contribute to a political organization without
their consent. That person may be a stockholder. No one should be
compelled, as a condition of employment, to contribute to a political
group or organization, whether that be a PAC, whether it be a union
organization or what. No one should be compelled. That is what this
bill says. No one will be compelled to contribute to a political
organization or entity or candidate against their will. They would have
to sign a written authorization form before they would have
contributions taken out.
Mr. President, I compliment Senator Lott and all my colleagues for
their work in putting this list together. I look forward to working
with the minority leader and others on the other side of the aisle. I
know they have their agenda list. I look forward to hearing what that
is, and I look forward to working with them to see if we can have
several items beneficial not for Congress but for the American people.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time is reserved
for the minority leader for up to 30 minutes.
Mr. DASCHLE. Let me begin by thanking the Senator from Oklahoma for
the tone of his comments. I did not have the opportunity to hear them
all, but in keeping with the expressions of the majority leader and
others who have indicated a desire to find ways with which to create
greater harmony and greater opportunity for the country through
increased bipartisanship, I appreciate very much his comments today.
____________________