[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 42 (Friday, April 3, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3191-S3192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ACTIONS OF THE SENATE

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, since there is no other Senator seeking 
recognition at this time, I wish to further comment on the action of 
the Senate over the past few days, particularly with regard to the 
budget resolution that passed last night. Because of the lateness of 
the hour and the fact that we had had 24 votes during the day on 
Thursday, we did not really have an opportunity

[[Page S3192]]

to give proper accolades when we completed that work.
  I say again how much I appreciate the leadership of Senator Domenici, 
the chairman of the Budget Committee. As always, he exhibited real 
leadership. He knows more about budget substance, about the numbers, 
and about the points of order than all the rest of us combined 
probably. He did a great job of getting the bill through in, I believe, 
record time at least in recent history, certainly since I have been in 
the Senate since 1988. So I thought that was a 
tremendous accomplishment. He did get good cooperation from Senator 
Lautenberg, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, and he worked 
on both sides of the aisle to hold down some of the amendments that 
really did not need to be offered, either sense of the Senate or could 
be offered at another time.

  It was really a tremendous accomplishment to get it completed from a 
process standpoint, but also the substance deserves more attention than 
we were able to give it late last night. It is a historic budget 
because it does for the first time since, I believe, 1969 get us to an 
actual balanced budget and to a surplus, hopefully, in this year and 
over the next few years, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars of 
surplus, which is something we have not experienced in a long, long 
time. So it is balanced. It will lead to surpluses. It provides tax 
cuts, and we hope to have even more tax cuts agreed to in the 
conference report beyond what was actually included in this budget 
resolution.
  It does take steps to further protect and preserve and allows us to 
look at reforming Social Security so it will be there not only for our 
parents but for ourselves and our children well into the next century 
by setting aside a surplus for Social Security.
  I think that is a very positive step. I think we need to think very 
carefully about how we go beyond not just setting aside some money but 
how we really deal with the future needs of Social Security. It also, 
after repeated attacks, continues to say that any tobacco settlement 
that we may reach will go into Medicare, where it is needed, because 
over the next 8 to 10 years that program will again begin to have 
problems.
  So the combination was a really good budget resolution. It goes to 
conference now, as I noted. We will have a good conference. I hope, as 
we discussed yesterday, that we can actually come up with more tax cuts 
than we have earmarked in this budget resolution. But I remind my 
colleagues we can always come up with more than what is provided in the 
budget if we can find offsets, and we should look for them. We should 
look for places where there is spending not necessary or that is 
duplicative or can be better used by allowing people to keep their own 
money.
  I do think we should make a special effort this year to begin the 
process of eliminating the marriage penalty tax. How in the world in 
America can we defend the fact that young couples, when they get 
married, pay more taxes even though they make no more income. The 
average tax increase for a married couple over what they pay before 
they are married is $1,400. You talk about fairness in the Tax Code. 
That is one provision that must be changed, and we will work together 
in a bipartisan way to see if we can eliminate the marriage penalty tax 
this year.
  I also thank the Senate for a lot of good work in other areas over 
the past couple weeks. We did reach agreement on how to consider the 
Coverdell A+ education bill. It will be a very fair process. We will 
have 15 or so amendments that will be offered dealing with education 
only, not extraneous matters that we argued about for over 2 weeks. It 
will deal with education from both sides of the aisle. Some of them may 
be accepted, some of them may be second degreed, but I think we will 
have a great education discussion when we return on April 20, and 
hopefully we can complete that bill by April 22.
  We do hope to take up the NATO enlargement bill later on that week, 
but I want to make sure that every Senator is comfortable with how that 
is done, make sure that we have enough time to debate that very 
important matter fully, but reach a conclusion within, hopefully, 3 
days or so--probably by the 26th or 27th of April.
  The Finance Committee took a very positive step forward earlier this 
week with regard to IRS reform. The House did a good job last year 
getting it started, but we found where there are other real abuses by 
IRS. We had a unanimous bipartisan vote to report the IRS reform bill 
out of the Finance Committee, so that bill will be coming to the floor, 
probably around the first week in May--May 4, something of that nature. 
It does deal with abuses of such things like the innocent spouse, where 
an innocent spouse, even though he or she may be divorced, is now being 
held responsible for half or all of the debts of their spouse or former 
spouse in a very unfair way. It does provide for some restrictions on 
the excesses of penalties and interest. Many of us know instances, now, 
where people have found that they owe more in penalties and interest on 
taxes than they originally owed. So this bill will begin to cut that 
back and get it under control. I think the taxpayers will be very proud 
of that.
  Finally, I think we should take note of the vote that occurred in the 
Senate Commerce Committee on a tobacco settlement package. It still has 
a long way to go, but that vote was 19 to 1, and was reported out. Most 
people thought it would never get beyond the committee, that it 
probably would never even be considered. But it was considered, and I 
think that was a move that will lead us to an opportunity in late May 
to take up that very important legislation to deal with teenage 
smoking, to try to deal with the Medicare problems that are caused by 
the health effects of smoking.
  I commend Senator McCain and Senator Hollings, all those on both 
sides of the Commerce Committee for their leadership there.
  So, as is typical of the Senate, after a lot of work behind the 
scenes, there was a burst of activity this week, and I think it has put 
us in a position to complete a lot of good bills when we return the 
latter part of April.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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