[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 13, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3615-S3628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2000
Motion to Appoint Conferees
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move that the Chair be authorized to
appoint conferees on the part of the Senate with respect to the budget
resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 1 hour equally divided on the motion.
Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you, Mr. President. I understand Senator Reid has
some motions to instruct. I do not think they will be in order unless
we yield back the time that has just been announced.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to Senator Lautenberg that the
situation now is that the motion I made to appoint conferees is
pending. There is 1 hour on it. I am prepared to yield back time on
that if the Senator from New Jersey is, and then he can proceed to his
first motion.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. We are OK with that.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield back the half hour we have.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. And I yield back the time we have on our side.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, may I ask the distinguished Senator from
New Jersey, and the Senate would probably like to know, what he has by
way of motions on his side. How many does he think he is going to have
this afternoon?
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Since the chairman of the committee asked how many I
think, I am free to give an answer. I think there are four, but my
guess is that we have to wait to see if there are going to be any more
or not.
Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry. Is it not correct, now that the
time has been yielded back on the motion to appoint conferees, each
motion to instruct carries 30 minutes equally divided and that is all
the time available at this point?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Unless and until that is yielded back, another motion
is not in order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Are second-degree amendments to those motions in order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes; second-degree amendments are in order,
and they have 20 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Equally divided?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I think we will have one that has to do
with praising our men in the military which we will attach to this at
some point. Substantively, unless Senator Lautenberg proposes something
that prompts a second-degree amendment of some type or prompts us to
make an amendment, we do not have any contemplated at this time.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. It is hard for me to imagine there is anything here--
--
Mr. DOMENICI. We can accept them; right?
Mr. LAUTENBERG. We will have to kind of slug our way through and see
how it goes. I appreciate the introduction that the distinguished
chairman of the Budget Committee presented. We are going to offer our
motions on instructing conferees.
Mr. President, are we now in a position to go ahead and offer those?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes; the Senator is correct.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Just to recount, there is a half hour equally divided
on the motions themselves?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Motion To Instruct Conferees
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I send to the desk a motion to
instruct the conferees on H. Con. Res. 68, the Concurrent Resolution on
the Budget for Fiscal Year 2000.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the motion be dispensed with.
Mr. DOMENICI. I reserve the right to object. Is it very lengthy?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator reserves the right to object.
[[Page S3616]]
Mr. DOMENICI. I object, and let's read it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Lautenberg] moves to
instruct conferees on H. Con. Res. 68, the Concurrent
Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2000, to include in
the conference report provisions that would reserve all
Social Security surpluses only for Social Security, and not
for other programs (including other retirement programs) or
tax cuts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Thank you, Mr. President.
The motion is very simple. It instructs the conferees who are going
to be reviewing the budget resolution to include in the conference
report provisions that will reserve all Social Security surpluses for
Social Security and for Social Security only--not other programs,
including other retirement programs, as has been suggested, and not for
tax cuts.
For years, Democrats have been arguing that our top fiscal priority
should be to save Social Security first, and we feel very strongly
about that. It is, after all, our party's creation that kicked off
Social Security, and we have spent decades since then protecting the
program from attack.
In our view, Social Security represents a sacred trust between the
Government and the people. It is a trust that should not and must not
be violated.
Nearly 44 million Americans now benefit from Social Security, and
many of them depend heavily on the program for their survival. For 66
percent of the elderly, Social Security provides half their income.
Without Social Security, the poverty rate among the elderly would be 48
percent; roughly 15 million more Americans would be living in poverty
than do now. For single, divorced, or widowed elderly women, the
poverty rate without Social Security would be 60 percent--60 percent
for elderly women.
Unfortunately, Mr. President, under current projections, Social
Security is adequately financed only until 2034. At that time, just
when millions of baby boomers will be retired and struggling to get by,
Social Security may be unable to pay the full benefits to which these
Americans are entitled.
We need to act promptly to address this problem. President Clinton
has proposed policies which would extend Social Security significantly
to the year 2059. Unfortunately, the majority has rejected those
policies, and in their place nothing has been proposed. Thus, the
budget resolution approved by the Senate included nothing to extend
Social Security's solvency by even a single day.
Having said that, while the Senate resolution did nothing to actually
help Social Security, it at least seemed to do no harm. The resolution
was based on the premise that, at a minimum, Congress should not spend
Social Security surpluses on anything else. That would not extend
solvency at all, but at least it would not make matters worse.
Unfortunately, we now understand that the Republican leadership has
backed off from even this modest commitment. Instead, they reportedly--
and we have not really seen the details--have agreed to include in the
final version of the budget resolution a provision that could pose a
direct and serious threat to Social Security.
Although we have not seen any final language, this provision
apparently calls for using Social Security not just for Social Security
but for other programs as well. Apparently, the provision would allow
Social Security taxes to be diverted to other things that have some
connection to retirement security. That could be a catchword. It could
mean a new privatized Medicare system. Perhaps it could include civil
service or military retirement programs. More likely, I am afraid it
could also mean tax cuts for the wealthy that are claimed to somehow
affect retirement.
I was stunned when I heard about this provision, and I think it is
remarkable that the Republican leadership would even consider using
Social Security surpluses for anything other than Social Security.
After all, how many times during the debate on the budget did we hear
about the Republicans' commitment to preserving Social Security
surpluses? That was supposed to be a centerpiece of their whole
resolution. But now it appears that when the Republican leadership met
behind closed doors, their commitment was overwhelmed with other
concerns.
This reversal is especially stunning in light of Republican
criticisms about double counting, and now the GOP seems to want to use
Social Security surpluses for all sorts of other programs. That sounds
like double counting to me, Mr. President. After all, you cannot use a
dollar twice. If you use it as a Social Security dollar for Medicaid or
tax cuts, that is one less dollar available to pay Social Security
benefits.
So we ought to stand up for a simple proposition; that is, to use
Social Security surpluses for Social Security. That is the message of
this motion to instruct. It is an effort to reverse yesterday's
decision and to get the entire Senate on record in support of saving
Social Security surpluses for Social Security, and exclusively for
Social Security.
I know my friends on the other side of the aisle will establish some
type of elaborate lockbox that will protect Social Security. But given
the agreement that developed yesterday, it makes one wonder: What will
Social Security surpluses be locked up for? Will they be locked up for
tax cuts? For other retirement programs? For some new type of program
that is given the label ``Social Security''? Or will they be locked up
to pay guaranteed Social Security benefits, as they are supposed to be?
I think Social Security taxes should be used for Social Security
benefits, not for other types of spending or tax cuts that somehow or
other can be called retirement security. So I strongly urge the
Republican leadership to reverse the decision that was reached last
night. Social Security surpluses should be used for Social Security--
and I drum the point home--and only Social Security, not other
programs, not tax cuts. If we are serious about that principle, let's
really make a commitment to it. Let's not endorse open-ended language
like retirement security that could encourage future abuses.
I hope and urge that my colleagues will support this motion to
instruct to reverse a commitment to language that permits an open-ended
use of that money under the umbrella of ``retirement security.''
I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from New Mexico is
recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time do we have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has now 14 minutes 55 seconds. The
Senator from New Jersey has 7 minutes 47 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me just make a couple points for
everyone. First, I think everybody here understands that when you go to
conference, you go to conference with the House. You do not go to
conference with yourself. If that were the case, we would rule supreme
and there would be no need to go to conference, and whatever the House
thought about any of these measures would be totally irrelevant. I
think everybody understands that isn't the case. We have to go to
conference with them.
Secondly, I would like to make two points about what we do in our
budget and what the President did so everybody will understand.
Senator Lautenberg talks about the Republican budget and the lockbox
that we contemplate and speculates that he does not know what it might
be used for. Let me tell everybody so they will understand. For
starters, in the first 10 years the Republican budget, and that which
will be locked in to be spent as we determine in conference, is $300
billion--you got it, $300 billion--more than the President proposes to
set aside for safekeeping for the Social Security trust account.
Why is that the case? Because we say, put 100 percent of the
accumulated surplus that belongs in the trust fund in the trust fund.
For all the rhetoric about who is saving what, we put $300 billion more
in there than the President, because the President concocted a 15-year
payout for this trust fund. We have never even had a budget that
contemplates 15 years. In fact, the President, when he goes beyond 5,
he does
[[Page S3617]]
not even have the programs enumerated in his budget, but he is telling
us all, wait 15 years, and we will put enough money in that trust fund
that is supposed to be there for some security. We said, put it in now
as it accrues year by year--not 62 percent of it; 100 percent.
In addition, for those who are wondering what we are doing about
Social Security and what the President does about it, let me remind
you, we do not spend one nickel of Social Security, of their money, for
any new program. The President of the United States, in his budget,
decided that it was not important to save Social Security by keeping
their money. He had contemplated spending out of the Social Security
trust fund $158 billion. Let me repeat, we now have a motion by the
other side of the aisle, our good Democratic friends, challenging what
we are doing, when the President of the United States spent $158
billion, in the first 5 years, out of the Social Security trust fund
without any apologies--just said, ``Spend it.'' We say, ``Don't spend
it. Keep it in the trust fund, and put it in a statutorily created
lockbox that will be tied to debt limits so it can never be spent.''
Having said that, it is really ironic that the other side of the
aisle claims the President is doing so much for Social Security, and
they would like to join on his coattails, so much for Medicare, and
they would like to join on his coattails, and the facts are what I have
just told you. The facts are what I have just told you.
Fellow Senators, you do not have to be worried about whether that
Social Security trust fund is going to be used for tax cuts, because we
cannot direct that any of that money be used for tax cuts. In fact, go
read the resolution. It says tax cuts are to come from a mandated
reconciliation pot of money that is called on-budget surplus.
Mr. President, forget all the jargon. It means that tax cuts, if any,
come out of surpluses that have nothing to do with the Social Security
trust fund, by definition. So tax cuts are going to accrue over a
decade, and they will come out of surpluses, not the surplus that is
accumulated in the Social Security trust fund.
Having said that, once again, the amendment is calculated to play
politics, and I see no reason why we should not accept the instruction.
So if the distinguished Senator would like us to accept it, we can get
on with our business and we can accept it right now. If he would like a
vote on it, we will tell all our people to vote 100 percent for it
because, remember, we have to go to conference with the House, and we
will do our very best, but we will be glad to accept it.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from California is
recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
I am very happy that the chairman of the Budget Committee is going to
agree to Senator Lautenberg's language, because there is some confusion
here, if you read the press reports today. That wouldn't be the first
time there would be some confusion. But what it says here is that
``[t]he final budget resolution will also contain language allowing the
entire $1.8 trillion Social Security surplus over the next 10 years to
be used for retirement security. . . .'' It could include Medicare, it
says.
Here is the nub of the argument that we had in the Budget Committee,
of which I am proud to be a member. The Democrats on the committee
wanted to see 15 percent of the surplus dedicated to Medicare and 62
percent for Social Security. We had a very good debate, I thought, in
the committee about that. And my colleague from New Mexico made the
point very clearly that Social Security would be put in a lockbox and
would be used only for that. And we really did not get anywhere on the
Medicare debate because we did not set aside anything from the surplus.
Yes, there is money in there for Medicare at the current level, but
there is nothing additional out of the surplus. We wanted to see 62
percent of the surplus for Social Security, 15 percent for Medicare.
Now we read that that 62 percent would be used for Medicare, in other
words, stealing that money from Social Security. I am very glad that my
colleague from New Mexico is going to accept this language. It will
clarify it. I assume that this report is incorrect and that this
language will not appear.
I also hope that this newspaper is wrong when it reports that the
Dodd-Jeffords language on child care was stripped from the resolution.
This was a 59-vote majority in this body, quite bipartisan, to do
something about child care.
So I am very pleased that we are going to have agreement on this. I
hope when we look at the budget language--and, hopefully, I will be
there looking at it with my colleagues--that we will not see such
language in the resolution.
I thank you very much and yield back my time to Senator Lautenberg.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
California. She is a valuable member of the Budget Committee and works
hard in making sure that the commitments we develop are to be met.
I remind my good friend from New Mexico that we are pleased to have
his support, that the vagary that develops as a result of this new
language ``retirement security'' is kind of a red flag. It tells us
that there is something else. Knowing the distinguished chairman of the
Budget Committee as I do, when he says he is going to do this, I know
that he is going to do it. I know when he goes to conference again that
he is going to make sure that this is held. I am comforted by that
notion, as are millions of Americans who are one day to get Social
Security as part of their retirement program.
This is kind of a happy day. I hope that all of the Republicans will
support this, as will the Senator from New Mexico, chairman of the
Budget Committee. I do not see how they can resist.
With that, Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from New
Mexico whether he is ready to yield back time?
Mr. DOMENICI. Shall we accept the amendment, or does the Senator want
to have a vote?
Mr. LAUTENBERG. I would like a roll call.
Mr. DOMENICI. I am just wondering if we can't stack a few votes.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. That wouldn't be a problem. The question is in terms
of whether we have our other amendments.
Mr. DOMENICI. If we don't, we will put in a quorum call. How much
time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has 9 minutes 49
seconds, and the Senator from New Jersey has 4 minutes 15 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. I will yield down to 4\1/2\, and then we can both yield
back the remainder.
Let me say, first of all, I heard that the Senator from California
had recently been to my State. Incidentally, I was quite surprised. I
walked into the airport in New Mexico, our international airport. I ran
into the Senator and asked her if she was coming all the way to New
Mexico to try to defeat the budget that we prepared. She told me, ``No.
I am here for other purposes.'' I was kind of glad of that, and I
surely didn't want New Mexicans to listen to her about the budget when
I worked so hard to try to get them to listen to me. She did not quite
do that, because I looked around to see how much she got and it was
pretty Democratic, what she did, with a big D.
Anyhow, let me suggest, Senator, that you should be careful when you
use these percentages. You say that what we want, speaking for you, we
wanted 62 percent that the President wanted to set aside, and then we
wanted 15 percent for Medicare. The budget is a big document, big
numbers, but I just added those two up, and that is 77 percent.
Mrs. BOXER. That is right, of the surplus.
Mr. DOMENICI. Frankly, we have 100 percent in the first 10 years. So
the 15 percent that would have gone to Medicare under the proposal in
the committee, added to the percent that the President saved of the
Social Security trust fund, is the astronomical percentage of 77
percent of the Social Security trust fund. Guess what we did in our
[[Page S3618]]
budget resolution. One hundred. Let's do that one. What is the
difference there? Twenty-three percent additional accumulated surplus
in the first 10 years is in the lockbox as we prescribed in our budget.
Having said that, I relinquish the remainder of my time, if the Senator
will relinquish his.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support the Lautenberg motion,
which would instruct the budget conferees to reserve all Social
Security surpluses for Social Security, and for no other purpose. This
is what Senate Republicans promised to do in the budget debate just
last month. Now, just three weeks later, we are hearing disturbing
reports that they are poised to renege on their pledge. The Republican
conferees are contemplating a new raid on Social Security. In a move
which would reflect a new level of cynicism, the Republican leadership
is cutting a trap door in their so-called ``Social Security lock-box.''
Those dollars were raised by payroll taxes expressly dedicated to
financing Social Security benefits. However, the Republicans now want
to allow that money to be used for any type of ``retirement security''
plan. I hope such reports are wrong. But I fear they might be accurate.
This would open the door to risky schemes that use the Social
Security surplus to finance private retirement accounts at the expense
of Social Security's guaranteed benefits. Such a privatization plan
could actually make Social Security's financial picture far worse than
it is today, necessitating deep benefit cuts. A genuine ``lock-box''
would prevent any such diversion of funds, but not the Republican
version. A genuine ``lock-box'' would guarantee that all those dollars
would be in the Trust Fund when needed to pay benefits to future
recipients. The ``lock-box'' in this budget apparently does not.
It is bad enough that the budget passed by Senate Republicans three
weeks ago did not provide even one additional dollar to pay Social
Security benefits to future retirees, that it did not extend the life
of the Social Security Trust Fund by one more day. To our Republican
colleagues, I say: ``If you are unwilling to strengthen Social
Security, at least do not weaken it. Do not divert dollars which belong
to the Social Security Trust Fund for other purposes. Every dollar in
that Trust Fund is needed to pay future Social Security benefits.''
The Republican ``retirement security'' scheme could be nothing more
than tax cuts to subsidize private accounts disproportionately
benefiting their wealthy friends. Placing Social Security on a firm
financial footing should be our highest budget priority, not further
enriching the already wealthy. Two-thirds of our senior citizens depend
upon Social Security retirement benefits for more than 50 percent of
their annual income. Without it, half the Nation's elderly would fall
below the poverty line.
It appears that the Republicans may be planning to take these Social
Security dollars and to use them instead to finance more tax cuts in
the guise of ``retirement security.'' If this occurs, there will be no
debt reduction. There will be no strengthening of the Social Security
Trust Fund to meet the demands of the baby boomers' retirement. Every
one of those payroll tax dollars belongs to Social Security, and should
be used solely to strengthen the Trust Fund. If our Republican
colleagues have no ulterior motive, the wording of the Budget
Resolution should state that principle unambiguously. When instead we
see language as vague and open-ended as ``retirement security,''
suspicions are understandably raised. If this gaping trap door is not
eliminated, the American people will know that the Republican ``lock-
box'' is nothing more than a cynical magician's trick. The millions of
senior citizens who depend on Social Security will know that the
Republican majority has abandoned them once more.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. I am happy to yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask for the yeas and nays on the Lautenberg motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask that we not proceed to the vote
but, rather, that we have a quorum call now and see if the
distinguished Senator can muster up another amendment on his side, and
we will just wait for awhile and see.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, before the quorum call is begun, I
agree with the Senator's mission here; that is, perhaps we can stack
several votes together, but we will work on that during the quorum
call.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand that it is in order to send
a motion to instruct conferees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. Under the time
agreement, the motions to instruct have 30 minutes equally divided.
Motion To Instruct Conferees
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send a motion to instruct on behalf of
myself and Senator Daschle and others.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] moves to
instruct conferees on H. Con. Res. 68, the concurrent
resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2000, to include
in the conference report provisions that would:
(1) allow targeted tax relief for low-and middle-income
working families; and
(2) reserve a sufficient portion of projected non-Social
Security surpluses to extend significantly the solvency of
the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and modernize and
strengthen the program, before--
(A) using budget surpluses to pay for tax breaks that would
give most of their benefits to the wealthiest Americans, or
(B) enacting new spending above the levels in the Senate-
passed version of the budget resolution, unless it is offset
in accordance with the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
Mr. President, I want to take a moment to review the motion to
instruct very quickly for the benefit of the Members so they have a
keen awareness and understanding of exactly what this motion is to the
conferees. This motion is to instruct the conferees to include in the
conference report the provisions that would allow the targeted tax
relief for low- and middle-income working families which has been
presented here during the course of the debate on the budget; and, two,
to preserve a sufficient portion of the projected non-Social Security
surplus to extend significantly the solvency of the Medicare hospital
insurance trust fund and modernize and strengthen the program. We are
effectively asking that there be the allocation of resources to extend
the solvency of the Medicare program.
I think the percentage that we had identified earlier during the
course of the debate on the budget was 15 percent. What we have
indicated here is that it would be important to extend the solvency of
the trust fund before using any of the budget surplus to pay for the
tax breaks which would give most of the benefits to the wealthiest
Americans by enacting new spending above the levels in the Senate-
passed version of the budget resolution.
Effectively what this instruction is, Mr. President, is very easy to
understand. It says given the size and the significance of the budget
surplus that we want to have the sufficient allocations of resources
for the protection of Medicare. In an earlier instruction on this
particular measure, we included an instruction to have sufficient
funding set aside for the solvency of the Medicare trust fund before we
provide any tax cuts or tax breaks for the American people. That is
basically and fundamentally the issue.
We in this body make choices and make decisions. This is certainly
one of the most important ones that we will make, not only for just
this year, but for future years. We are saying, given the kinds of
resources that we have available, that we are going to do two things
with regard to this instruction; that is, to set aside sufficient
resources for the solvency of the Medicare program, and be serious
about taking the steps to ensure that there will be the changes in the
Medicare program that are responding to the particular needs of the
Medicare program.
[[Page S3619]]
Certainly there are a number of ideas about how we can strengthen the
Medicare program. I think one of the most important is the addition of
a prescription drug proposal. The President of the United States, in
his speech to the American people on the State of the Union, indicated
that one of his high priorities with the restructuring of the Medicare
system would be for a program to meet the prescription drug needs of
the elderly people in this country.
We want to make sure that we are going to have sufficiency in terms
of the savings of the projected surpluses, and that then we will have
an opportunity in the remainder of this Congress for the Congress to
work its will on the floor of the Senate. I hope that one of the first
areas of priority would be in the area of prescription drugs.
As has been pointed out on many different occasions, when the
Medicare issue was debated in 1964 it lost narrowly here in the Senate
in the spring of that year. It became a primary issue in the 1964
election. There was an extraordinary resonance across the country about
the importance of Medicare. There were 18 Members of the Senate that
voted one way in 1964 and another way in 1965. They had heard the
voices of the elderly people in this country in support of the Medicare
program. When we adopted the Medicare program we did not include
prescription drugs for one very basic and fundamental reason, and that
is because about 95 percent of the private programs at that time did
not include prescription drugs. Now they do. The need is out there.
We will have an opportunity to do it, and it will be
greatly strengthened with this kind of an instruction to the conferees.
If we are able to set aside the kind of surplus that was included in
the President's recommendations and included in this instruction, then
we will know that we will have a sound Medicare system. The Medicare
program will have greater solvency, and we will be able to deal with
alterations and changes in the Medicare system. And, hopefully, we will
be able to address the prescription drug issue.
This issue is so basic and so fundamental that it is really the
question of a priority. Do we think having broad kinds of tax cuts for
the American people is preferable to ensuring the financial security
and solvency of the Medicare system? That is the issue that is
incorporated in this particular instruction. It is as basic and
fundamental as that. Do you believe that with the scarce but sufficient
resources that are in the various surpluses that we are going to say
let's put a priority on Social Security and Medicare? This instruction
says we are going to give the priority to Medicare. And many of us who
are supporting this also give high priority when we are going to have
that financial security to make sure there is going to be a
prescription drug provision.
I see my friend and colleague. I would be glad to yield for a
question.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for
yielding for a couple of questions.
First, I thank him for his motion to instruct conferees. As a member
of the Budget Committee, I can tell you that the Democrats on that
committee fought very, very hard to get the committee to set aside
enough funds from the overall surplus that we have to meet the needs of
Medicare. And many of us brought out points that the Senator from
Massachusetts has brought out before. I just want to ask him a couple
of questions.
Does the Senator not agree that Medicare is really the twin pillar of
Social Security for our people? In other words, you save Social
Security, but if you do not save Medicare, then our seniors will have
to spend their Social Security income to pay for their health care.
Doesn't the Senator feel that this is the twin pillar of the senior
citizens' safety net?
Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator has made an excellent point and one which I
agree with completely. If you look at a profile of who the Social
Security recipient is, it is a person that is living alone, $12,000 in
income, a woman 76 years of age who has at least one chronic disease
and is paying some 19 percent of her income in out-of-pocket health
care costs. That is 19 percent out of $12,000--paying that percent of
her income out of pocket for health care. If the Senator understands
the amount that is being paid out of pocket by even those today that
are getting Medicare, it is just about what it was at the time of the
enactment of Medicare.
So for those that say, well, we really do not have to have this
instruction, we are going to be able to consider the Commission's
recommendations, that will effectively require $688 billion over the
next additional 12 years to get the kind of economic stability that
would be included in our particular instruction. And that is only going
to be able to be achieved with higher copays, or higher premiums, or
higher deductibles. It is going to come out of the pocket or the
pocketbook of that senior citizen. I don't understand how we can do
that.
Mrs. BOXER. I have one more question that goes to the heart of the
Senator's point. What the Republicans are saying is we can reform our
way. We don't think we need additional resources. They proposed tax
breaks for the wealthiest people in America instead of saving Medicare.
What you do is very clearly say, yes, we will support targeted tax
relief for low- and middle-class families, but we want to save Medicare
before we give back funds to the wealthiest among us, those at the
very, very top tier.
The question I wanted to pose to my friend is this: As I look at
Medicare and the numbers we have in the Budget Committee, I want to ask
my friend if he agrees with these numbers. We are told that the
Medicare program provides health care to 39 million Americans today,
but by 2032 the number of Medicare beneficiaries will double to 78
million as the baby boomers retire. So the question for the Senator is
basically this: We are looking at a program that is very important, and
we are looking at some good news. We are living longer. This is good.
We all work toward that. We want to live longer. We want to have a good
quality of life. But can we just say we can reform our way out of this
problem, or do we have to commit some of the surplus to Medicare?
Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is correct in terms of the size of the
Medicare population and correct in terms of allocating these additional
resources for Medicare. Let's understand that the amount that we are
talking about effectively is money that is being paid in by working
families. Those are resources that are being paid in by those working
families. All we are saying is that we believe those working families'
interests should be protected with the previous instruction on Social
Security and this instruction on Medicare before we provide tax breaks
for individuals who are not participants in paying into the system like
the workers have been in terms of the Medicare system and Social
Security.
I withhold the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I apologize to Senator Kennedy for not
being here. I assume it is fair to say that I probably heard his
argument as we put the budget through. It is similar to the one he made
before. That doesn't mean I shouldn't have been here. But I just
couldn't. When the time is up, let me ask if we could get a unanimous
consent on stacked votes.
Mr. President, I would like to talk just for a moment about the
Republican budget as it pertains to a blueprint for our country's
future. When I have used up about 6 minutes of my 15, will the Chair
advise me? I appreciate that.
First of all, let me say to those who are listening that we have a
situation that is pretty unique in our country, and it is a situation
that we ought to look at very carefully to see what the public policy
ought to be and what would be best for America's future.
The American taxpayer has received a bonanza in new taxes. As a
matter of fact, there is now going to be over the next decade a huge
surplus. ``surplus'' means the taxes collected exceed the expenditures.
That is a surplus. We were used to living in a deficit. ``Deficit''
means the expenditures, the program costs, are more than the taxes that
come in.
For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is a sustained
recovery; low interest rates, partially attributable to good, sound,
budget policies; high productivity, because we have added new machines
and equipment to
[[Page S3620]]
the production of service organizations and what they sell to the
American people, we have more money coming in than we are going to
spend. Over the decade, it is going to be a very large amount of money.
Where we depart from the Democrats who have been arguing on the
floor--not all Democrats--the principal position on our side is that we
think we don't need some of that big surplus paid in by the taxpayer,
which means they are paying more than we need to run the Government
year by year; we think a portion of that should go back to the taxpayer
by way of tax changes that will help our taxpayers and will help the
economy continue to grow and produce jobs and be a strong economy.
We say there are three very important things to take care of, one of
which is to give back some taxes to the American people, who are paying
in more than they expected in terms of our Government. There are some
who say we shouldn't do that or the budget resolution ought to state
exactly how we are going to change those tax laws.
Frankly, in the Congress we do things a little differently. There is
a committee that will determine our tax reductions and our tax changes.
All we can do is say we are making some money available for doing that.
What we do is take all of the Social Security surplus--not 62 percent
of it as does the President, but 100 percent of it--and we say that
accumulation, that surplus, is set aside and cannot be used for tax
cuts. Under our budget resolution, it is to be used for Social Security
reform to pay for any additional costs. We think that is very exciting,
and we think that is better than what the President has in mind. It is
100 percent of that surplus.
There is a Medicare program which is very important to seniors. We
have done three things in this budget regarding Medicare. One, the
President cut $20 billion more out of Medicare during the next decade,
and we said cut nothing, don't cut any more by way of expenditures out
of the Medicare trust fund--$19 billion over 10 years. In addition, our
budget plan increases Medicare spending by $200 billion over 10 years,
an average of $20 billion a year. Then, starting in the sixth year of
this budget, there is an additional $100 billion that does not go to
tax cuts, does not go to the Social Security fund, that could be used
by Medicare if Medicare needed it. In fact, we believe this is a very,
very, ambitious program to make sure Medicare is taken care of.
I remind everyone that a strong, powerful economy is one of the best
tools to keep Medicare strong. Just a few weeks ago, the trustees in
charge said, because things have been going so well, we have increased
the life of the Medicare fund from the year 2008 to 2015. We have added
between 7 and 8 years by keeping the economy going with a lot of
employment and people paying into the Medicare system.
We believe this budget is good policy for America. We think it is
just as important to talk on the floor of the Senate about who pays all
these taxes as what programs we ought to spend the money on. We don't
want to just discuss how we can spend the money; we want to discuss the
taxpayers.
We are saying it is time to fix the Tax Code and make it more fair
for married couples, put some other reductions in and return some of
those tax dollars to the American people, because we are worried about
taxpayers; they deserve our concern.
At the same time, we have adequately provided for Medicare and
adequately provided for an assured Social Security; that when the
changes are made, and only then, will this trust fund money be used for
Social Security.
We are involved in an air war over in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and we are
going to need more money for that war. Everybody understands we are
going to do that when we are asked. We will have it. It will change how
much can go for taxes and how much can be held in reserve. It will
change some of that, but actually that is a very high priority.
I say to Senators and my fellow Americans that in our regular budget
we provided for some very significant increases in defense and some
significant increases in education. If you add that up, it is a pretty
good package. We will go to conference with the House. I don't know
what we can get out of them, but we will get a good budget. It will be
very much like the one we produced.
Having said that, I reserve the remainder of my time and hope the
distinguished Senator from Massachusetts might yield back some of his
time at some point.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 4 minutes
16 seconds.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will use that remaining time so we can
move along, then ask for the yeas and nays in accordance with the
leadership proposal, and vote.
Mr. President, according to the trustees' report on the Medicare
trust fund, this particular measure will add some 7 years to the
Medicare trust fund. Now it will be--instead of 2008, in the most
recent figures it is 2015. With 15 percent, as we talk about, a
substantial increase, it will provide the stability and solvency of the
trust fund to the year 2027. That is what this amendment does.
If we do not take this action, then, if we look over a 25-year
period, it is going to mean benefit cuts of 11 percent in 25 years, 25
percent in 50 years, and 31 percent in 75 years, to make up for the
shortfall.
It seems to me, given the special circumstances, we ought to protect
Social Security and protect Medicare. We still have resources, even
after that, for individual accounts, as the President suggested--close
to $500 billion for individual accounts, for savings and for investment
for individuals--and we also have resources that will be available for
a tax cut.
But let us say, with regard to Medicare, we are going to provide
these additional resources and we are going to commit them to our
Medicare system and then in this Congress we are going to get about the
possibility of making the alterations or changes in our Medicare
system, primarily in the area of enhancing prescription drugs, and also
other changes that will strengthen the Medicare system even further.
This is a sound, prudent investment.
Finally, the greatest percentage of the surplus was paid in by
working families. Working families often become dependent primarily on
Social Security and Medicare as they age. Some of them get some
pensions from companies they have worked for. But if you look over what
is happening, even in terms of the pensions, they are gradually being
cut back. They are gradually being reduced every single year. Medicare
and Social Security are the rocks on which our elderly and seniors
really depend. We have an opportunity to go on record on that measure
here today with this amendment, and I hope the Senate will accept it.
Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise to support this motion to instruct
the conferees to set aside some of the on-budget surplus for Medicare.
The Budget Resolution approved by this body in March made the correct
decision with regard to Social Security by devoting the off-budget, or
Social Security, surplus to paying down the publicly held debt. That
was the right thing to do, especially if we are not going to come to
closure on a true Social Security reform plan that brings down future
liabilities.
While the direction on Social security was the correct course,
failure to hold some of the on-budget surplus to deal with Medicare
takes us down the wrong fiscal path. Medicare's financial problems are
not only more acute than Social Security's but also much more difficult
to solve. The fact of the matter is that even under the reform plan
considered in the Medicare Commission, solvency would not be
significantly extended.
Given these facts, it seems to me that the smarter fiscal policy over
the long-term would be to leave some of the on-budget surplus to
address Medicare. Using it all for a tax cut significantly reduces our
flexibility to prepare for the retirement of the Baby Boom generation
and the demands on Social Security, Medicare, and our overall budget
that will result from the doubling of beneficiaries eligible for these
programs.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this motion to
instruct if they are serious about acting in a fiscally responsible way
to shore up Social Security and Medicare.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
[[Page S3621]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 1 minute 20
seconds.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Unanimous-Consent Agreement
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I propound the
following unanimous consent request, and it has been cleared on both
sides. It has nothing to do with the amendment that is pending.
I ask unanimous consent the pending motion and any motions or
amendments regarding the appointment of conferees to the budget
resolution be stacked to occur in the order in which they were offered
at the conclusion or yielding back of time on the motions. I further
ask that there be 2 minutes before each vote for the explanation and
the votes in the sequence after the first vote be limited to 10
minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. Were the yeas and nays included, Mr. President?
Reserving the right to object--I do not intend to --will the Senator
ask it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays at this time for all of
those amendments?
Mr. DOMENICI. No, Senator; we want to wait until the time has
expired.
You want to get the yeas and nays now?
Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, please.
Mr. DOMENICI. We can still amend. You could not, but we could.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request? Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand the distinguished Senator
from Massachusetts has 1 minute.
Mr. KENNEDY. I will be glad to yield it back.
Mr. DOMENICI. If he yields his back, I am going to yield mine back.
Mr. KENNEDY. I yield mine back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Amendment No. 252 To The Kennedy Motion To Instruct Conferees
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, at the end of the Kennedy motion add the
following: Include in the conference report, No. 1, amendment No. 176,
offered by Senators Roth and Breaux, regarding Medicare reform; and
section 209 of the Senate-passed resolution to the budget offered by
Senators Snowe and Wyden, regarding the use of on-budget surpluses for
prescription drug benefits.
I send the amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici] proposes an
amendment numbered 252 to the Kennedy motion to instruct the
conferees.
The amendment follows:
At the end add the following in the conference report:
(1) Amendment No. 176, offered in the Senate by Senators
Roth and Breaux, regarding Medicare reform; and
(2) Section 209 of the Senate-passed resolution, offered in
the Budget Committee by Senators Snowe and Wyden, regarding
the use of on-budget surpluses for a prescription drug
benefit.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 20 minutes equally divided on the
amendment.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me explain to Senator Kennedy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. We will make a copy of that amendment and distribute
it.
What we are going to do with this amendment is simply add to the end
of the Kennedy amendment two provisions that were voted on by the
Senate during the debate, just as most of his instruction was already
voted on. These two sections are essentially as follows: No. 1, the
Roth, Breaux, and others amendment regarding a bipartisan proposal on
Medicare; and, No. 2, an amendment offered by the Budget Committee in
behalf of the distinguished Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe, which
essentially said that any additional on-budget surplus, non-Social
Security money, that existed beyond the tax cut--which is, as I
understand, about $102 billion starting 5 years from now--could be
available for prescription drugs.
Essentially, what we will then do is we will get a request for the
yeas and nays on our amendment. I understand, pursuant to the unanimous
consent, when it gets called up in order, we will get an additional 2
minutes, 1 minute per side, to explain it.
So, essentially I am just asking we add to the end of yours, two
proposals that have already been adopted by the Senate: One, the Roth-
Breaux et al. on the bipartisan Medicare proposal; and, second, the
Budget Committee portion, which was Senator Snowe's amendment, which
said any excess surplus beyond the tax cut and Social Security could be
used for prescription drugs.
So we will vote on ours first and see what happens to yours.
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator to Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Senator obviously is entitled to
conform with the Senate rules. But we are as well. So we will continue
to go along on this merry chase until we have an opportunity to vote on
this measure. We are glad to spend whatever time debating Medicare that
the chairman of the committee wants.
You can load this up as the rules permit, but the rules also permit
us finally to get a rollcall, and we are going to take full advantage
of the rules to make sure we do. I will just let the membership
understand that now.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wonder if the distinguished Senator
from New Jersey could tell us, were there any other instructions?
Mr. LAUTENBERG. We have potentially two more. The Senator from
Connecticut is going to be offering a motion to instruct, and there may
be a question about another, which we will find out about in just a few
minutes.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, how does this proceed?
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask Senator Kennedy if he will yield
back time on my amendment. I yield back mine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Massachusetts willing to
yield back time?
Mr. KENNEDY. Are you talking about the second-degree amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes; it is the first-degree amendment to your
motion.
Mr. KENNEDY. No, not at this time, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. KENNEDY. 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.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Unanimous Consent Agreement
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, with reference to the issue that is
before us, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to votes in order
to the motion to appoint conferees, the Domenici amendment No. 252,
which I have just described, be considered a separate motion to
instruct and the vote occur on, or in relation to, the Domenici motion,
to be followed, pursuant to the consent agreement, by a vote in
relation to the Kennedy motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Having said that, with reference to mine, I yield back
any time I have.
Mr. KENNEDY. I yield back the time.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator very much.
Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
Mr. DODD. May I inquire of the chairman, I can offer a motion?
Mr. DOMENICI. Yes, indeed.
Motion To Instruct Conferees
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk and ask for its
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
[[Page S3622]]
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dodd] moves to instruct
conferees on H. Con. Res. 68, the Concurrent Resolution on
the Budget for Fiscal Year 2000, to include in the conference
report the Dodd-Jeffords amendment No. 160, as modified,
which passed the Senate on March 25 by 57-40.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, first, how much time is allowed on this?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty minutes equally divided, 15 minutes per
side. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
Mr. DODD. I thank the President.
Let me begin these brief remarks by once again commending my dear
friend from New Mexico, the chairman of the committee. We use the word
``friend'' around here to describe each other with great frequency. On
numerous occasions, we actually mean it, and this is one of those
instances. He is one of my best friends in the Senate. So it is with a
degree of reluctance I rise to offer this motion because this is in
regard to an amendment that was passed by a pretty good vote, Mr.
President, 57-40, during the consideration of the budget resolution.
Occasionally, there are matters that are bipartisan on these budget
resolutions. I argue strongly this is one of them. Child care is an
issue that does not have an ideological parent, does not have a
partisan parent, if you will. This is an issue of which I believe
people all across the country appreciate the importance.
The average cost of child care is $4,000 to $10,000 per child. Even
families that have decent incomes and have two or three children can
appreciate the cost of child care. One can imagine then, when talking
about working families who are struggling to keep food on the table,
how important this kind of a proposal is for them.
The amendment that was adopted expands an existing program--it does
not create a new program. It was almost a decade ago that my friend
from Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch, and I offered the child care block
grant, which was adopted. President Bush, to his credit, supported and
accepted the block grant proposal.
For almost 10 years now we have had this child care block grant. And
it's only drawback is that it doesn't have enough funding to reach all
eligible children--only one in ten can currently receive assistance. So
Senator Jeffords and I offered, along with 55 other Members of this
body--12 members of the majority and 45 members of the minority--a
proposal that would increase the child care development block grant by
$5 billion over 5 years, about $1 billion a year. It amounts to little
more than $12 billion over 10 years. We pay for that by reducing the
$780 billion proposed tax cut by the same amount.
We also said in this amendment that it is our preference, if there is
a tax cut proposal, that we also do a child care tax cut for all
working parents as well as for stay-at-home parents.
Why do we need to add money to the block grant? When we passed the
welfare reform package a few years ago to move people from welfare to
work, all across the country States took what little money they had for
child care and provided it to the welfare recipient as they came off
welfare and went to work.
But tragically, what has happened in Idaho, Connecticut, and many
other places is, the family that was not on welfare, that was on the
margin and working, now loses child care assistance. It is a great
irony in a way.
So what Senator Jeffords, Senator Chafee, Senator Collins, Senator
Snowe, Senator Abraham, Senator Frist, Senator Hatch, Senator DeWine,
Senator Roberts, Senator Campbell, Senator Specter, Senator Warner and
I, and others, are asking here in this budget resolution is that we
ought to try to do something about this.
The people who need this are working people with young children. They
need the kind of help this block grant can provide. Some people have
mistakenly said, ``Well, I don't like this program because it says that
a parent couldn't choose a church-based child-care program.'' That is
not true. This money can go to church-based programs, neighborhoods,
families. It is not restricted as to the kind of child care setting
that a family can choose to use.
This is a good bipartisan proposal. It is with a great degree of
reluctance that I offer this motion to instruct. But the reason I have
to do it--and, again, I have such great affection for my colleague from
New Mexico; and he can straighten me out on this if he cares to; in
fact, I wish he would--but I am reading now from this report--the
``Daily Report for Executives''. ``U.S. Budget, Domenici and Kasich
agree on final budget.'' This is dated April 13, Tuesday, today. It
says, my friend:
Domenici and Kasich also said they had stricken from the
final budget plan a Senate-passed amendment sponsored by
[yours truly] Sens. Christopher Dodd [of Connecticut] and
James Jeffords [of Vermont] that would have reduced the size
of the tax cut by $10 billion [over 10 years] and made that
money available to a child care program.
``What they're going to do is they're going to have some
language in there that's going to say that out of the $780
billion tax [cut] some consideration ought to be given to
families that have child care needs,'' Kasich said of the
language in the final budget that will replace the Dodd-
Jeffords amendment.
``And we'll drop all add-ons like Dodd-Jeffords,'' Domenici
added.
Kasich [then] said they had no intention of creating a new
child care entitlement--
This is not new. It is a 10-year program. I am just adding resources
to it; no question about that--
but suggested that the final budget will recommend that the
child care-related tax [cut] relief be looked at by the tax-
writing committees ``because there are needs out there.''
I appreciate the last phrase, ``because there are needs.''
The problem, of course, with just tax writing is that if you pay
taxes, you may get the benefit of it. But if you are down at that
$20,000-a-year level--this is not a great mystery to anybody--the idea
you are going to get a tax break at that income level that can meet the
cost of child care is just a fantasy.
So we want to increase the block grant by $12 billion over 10 years
nationwide to help these families. I think this body, regardless of
which side of the aisle we sit on, ought to be able to find room in our
hearts and our budget for this, if we care about these working
families.
We understand the pressures, the tremendous pressures, on these
families. I was at a child-care center at the Justice Department
yesterday here in Washington. It is a magnificent child-care center. As
you can well imagine, they have done a good job down there. But that
good care costs.
I spoke to a woman who is a lawyer with the Justice Department and
has children at the center. Her husband is a public interest lawyer.
They have three children in that child-care center, twins and a young
child. It cost them $26,000 a year--$26,000 a year. And they are happy
just to have a place. The waiting list is a mile long, which is another
problem we face here and why I offer this motion.
All over the country we see this scenario replicated--in the State of
California the waiting list is some 200,000 children. In Texas and
Florida, there are similar lists.
So, Mr. President, again, I would love to hear the members of the
Budget Committee say, ``Listen, you know, we didn't like this amendment
terribly, but we did have a strong bipartisan vote''--that is a pretty
strong vote, almost 60-40 here on this amendment; it was sponsored in a
bipartisan fashion; it was passed in a bipartisan fashion--``while we
weren't enthusiastic about this initially, this is one we are going to
take.'' If that is the case, then I do not want to have our colleagues
have to vote twice on something here. I do not like doing that. But
when I read here that I am dropped, I am history, I am being kind of
written off, then you do not leave me much choice but to defend myself.
I am forced to defend it for the families out there who got excited
about the fact that in this budget resolution we had made a place, for
the first time in years, to provide some assistance.
So I plead with my colleagues here to not oppose this, in fact even
accept this instruction, if you will, and let's see if we can't
convince some of those recalcitrant voices who do not want to embrace
the idea that this Congress could do something about working families
and their children.
With that, Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time does Senator Dodd have?
[[Page S3623]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Dodd has 4 minutes 49 seconds
remaining.
Mr. DOMENICI. I say to Senator Dodd, let me just put in perspective
what we are going through here this afternoon.
I am a mild-mannered guy.
Mr. DODD. Yes, you are.
Mr. DOMENICI. That does not mean I do not get excited about things.
Look, everything we are talking about here on the floor we just voted
on. You either won or you lost. You happen to have won. Senator Kennedy
has a proposal. That already was voted on. He lost. Let's see, what
else do we have? Oh, Senator Lautenberg has an instruction. We already
voted on that.
It is interesting. I would just put in perspective for the Senators
and for those listening, normally--I have been here for a while; I have
wrapped up a lot of budget resolutions--we appoint the conferees. That
is what we are doing here, this little administrative job of appointing
conferees. We normally do it at the same time we pass those
resolutions. So if we finish at 10 o'clock at night, by 10:15 this is
gone, they have been appointed. Nobody moves to instruct the conferees,
because they just voted on it; they already got their instructions
through their votes.
We made a mistake. We made a mistake. We should never have seen the
press last night. We were not obligated to tell the press we had a
meeting. We like to keep them informed. But now, because of everything
they said about what we discussed, Senators are saying, ``Well, maybe
they are not going to do in that conference what the Senate said we
should do, so we are coming to the floor and reproposing the whole
thing,'' bringing the issues all back up, even if they lost on them or
even, in Senator Dodd's case, where he won on them, and we are going to
have to vote again.
Actually, everybody should understand, an instruction to the
conferees, through the process we are doing this afternoon, is nice. It
is a wonderful thing. You should be very pleased if you win. But the
House isn't bound by it. That is just the simple truth of it. The
conference is not between Senators asking for a second vote which will
make their will the law; they are asking that we do something with the
House to make them go with us. I am not promising that I can do that.
If you win here on the floor, I am not promising that I can do that. As
a matter of fact, some Senators think I can, that if we are to vote
again on Dodd-Jeffords, I should just go over there and I will win
that.
Well, it isn't quite that easy. I do a little better here on the
floor sometimes with all these Senators from both sides than I do
sometimes in those conferences. I am not going to offer a second-
degree. We all understand the issue. If you want to vote, we will have
a vote.
I guess I could tell you for myself, I understood very clearly who
voted. There were some Republicans who voted with you. I didn't happen
to be one. But I am not going to be able to carry any more water with
any more assurance or any more power in the water that I carry because
we vote again this afternoon than to go to that conference and wrap it
up and say, Senator Dodd and Senator Jeffords won--not that they won
this instruction. That would be there. So if you want to save some
time, you might just urge me to do it better than the news reports, and
I tell you I am going to try. I tell you that if we can't do that, I am
going to find some way in the tax instructions to see if we can't do
something significant in the area of child care through the Tax Code.
But if you would like a vote, that may be an easier way.
I say, though, there is a reason that we do not need to vote in
additional money for this program. I will tell you what it is. I do not
know the ultimate number, but I understand that almost all the States
have a very large surplus in the TANF program, the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families program. That is the successor to the welfare
program, Mr. President. When we sent them the money, we sent them a
block of money predicated upon a significant caseload and estimates
about how much it would be reduced.
It turns out that almost every State has a very large surplus there.
What they plan to do with it, not every State but a very large number
of them, is to use it for this program. As a matter of fact, I
understand the regulations have been approved just yesterday which will
authorize the States to use their TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, excesses for the block grant program, which we would still be
funding for child care. So essentially I think we are going to have an
expanded child care program. I do not think we need to do this, but I
do not go to conference based on that. That is just an explanation to
the Senate as to why a number of Senators did not think we needed to
vote for that when it first appeared and won.
Now I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. DODD. Before my colleague does that, again, I appreciate my
colleague from New Mexico, the chairman, has a difficult job. Having
served on the Budget Committee for many years with the chairman of the
committee, I have a great admiration for his ability and the difficult
job he has. I appreciate as well the fact that this is a somewhat
unique procedure, although we have used it in the past. It is not
uncommon for it to be done. I hope my colleague appreciates, that when
I pick up and read that my amendment has been pushed out, before the
conference has even met, that it makes it kind of hard on me and hard
on those of us who supported that amendment.
So, yes, this is taking advantage of a unique situation here, but
maybe, just maybe if we go into that conference--and I know the
chairman does not agree with this amendment, but I know he has
historically respected the will of the Senate even when he disagrees
with it, which is the mark of a good chairman, in my view, and he goes
on and says, look, ladies and gentlemen here, not only this crowd in
the Senate, over my objection voted for this once, they did it twice.
The bipartisan Senate cares about this and thinks it is an important
priority. To that extent, it may have some value.
Mr. President, whatever time I have remaining, I see my colleague
from Vermont.
Mr. DOMENICI. I just want to say, whatever time Senator Jeffords
needs, a few minutes, we will make sure he gets them. I would like to
tell you, since you indicated that you and I have worked together on a
lot of things, do you know what you could do for me that would be the
best thing going? Not to have so many votes on budget resolutions. What
is happening, we spend so much time voting on them that Senators are
wondering what this whole process is all about. This year probably 50
percent of the votes, maybe 60 are all on the budget resolution and the
four or five today. My job is getting more difficult because of that.
Pretty soon Senators will be saying maybe it is not worth all this
trouble.
How much time do you need?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Five minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Do you have any left?
Mr. DODD. I don't know if I do or not.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut has 2 minutes 50
seconds remaining.
Mr. DOMENICI. You yield your 2, and I yield him 3.
Mr. DODD. Absolutely.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rushed over here in hopes of getting
to the floor on time, and I appreciate very much the opportunity to
speak on this very important issue.
I have worked with the Senator from Connecticut for years on child
care. Every time we think we have a victory, it somehow disappears. Yet
the need for quality child care does not disappear. The need continues
to increase. We must take advantage of the information we have learned
and recognize that the early years of life are so incredibly important
in a child's development. The first 3 to 5 years are critical. At this
point, we do little or nothing for this age group and these are the
most important years of your life in many respects. Fortunately, few
babies get totally ignored during that period. But this is the period
in time which the brain develops most rapidly. It is the one which can
be most damaged by the lack of adequate child care.
I will be introducing on Thursday and I thought it was going to be
the filler for what we did on the budget bill. We were all ready to go,
and now we are back to ground zero on this
[[Page S3624]]
issue. Well, I am going to introduce the bill on Thursday in hopes that
this issue does not go away and that it will continue to be heard
before the conference. We must continue to try to do what must be done
for the children of this country.
In addition, we have to look at businesses and do something to give
them the incentives to have their own child care. We have to make sure
that we take care of the most critical thing and to make sure that we
deliver quality child care and learn how to maximize the period of time
in a child's life which is so critically important.
I want to do everything I can, and I am sure the Senator from
Connecticut joins with me in saying we are not going to let this issue
go away. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this country is in a
position to allow our children to maximize their opportunities in
school by having the best child care possible.
This is an incredibly important issue. I know that the Senator from
New Mexico is with us in the sense that he understands the essential
aspects of maximizing opportunities during the most critical period in
a child's life. In the past, the Senator has been supportive of us, and
I hope he continues to do so. At this point, I will close and say, I am
going to plow forward. I know we will work with the Senator from
Connecticut and we are not going to let this issue go away.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, does the Senator yield back his time?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Yes, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, that means we have one proposal left, as
I understand it.
I yield the floor.
Motion To Instruct Conferees
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan, moves to
instruct conferees on H. Con. Res. 68, the concurrent
resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2000, to include in
the conference report provisions that would provide
additional funding for income assistance for family farmers
above the level provided in the Senate-passed resolution.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are dealing with the budget and the
naming of conferees, and a number of priorities have been discussed
here on the floor of the Senate. That is what a budget is, establishing
priorities. I offer this motion to instruct, and it is very simple. The
Senator from New Mexico said he would like to take this, and if he
does, I will not ask for a recorded vote.
In this motion, I move to instruct the conferees on H. Con. Res. 68,
the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2000, to
include in the conference report provisions that would provide
additional funding for income assistance for family farmers above the
level provided in the Senate-passed resolution.
Why am I asking for favorable consideration on this motion?
Yesterday, I read on the Senate floor a letter from a North Dakota
woman that I want to read today. Her name is Susan Jorgenson. She wrote
in her letter, describing the plight of family farmers, something that
I think everybody listening to this debate should digest. Susan
Jorgenson has lost her husband. He died last August. She said he had
diabetes, but she said:
. . .what I really feel caused his death was trying to make
a living as a family farmer.
She said:
I had an auction last week to sell the [farm] machinery so
I can pay off some of the debt that [we] incurred after 26
years of farming. I have a 17-year-old son who would not help
me prepare for the auction and did not get out of bed the day
of the [auction] sale because he was so heartbroken that he
could not continue [to farm] this land [that he loved].
She said this of her husband:
He chose to farm rather than to live in Phoenix where he
had a job with Motorola [early on] because he wanted to raise
his children in a place with clean air, no crime, and good
schools. He worked very hard, physically and emotionally, to
make this farm work and its failure was . . . no fault of his
own.
That is what this farm wife says about her deceased husband.
What is happening on the family farm? Everybody is making money but
them. They raise the crop and give it to a railroad; the railroad makes
a record profit hauling it. They raise steer and sell them to the
slaughter house; the slaughter house makes a profit and the farmer goes
belly up. They raise grain and put it into a cereal manufacturing
plant, and they then take that wheat or rice and puff it and send it to
a grocery store as puffed wheat or rice. The company that added the
puff makes a mint and the farmer goes broke. Everything that touches
what the farmer raises makes record profits, and the farmers are going
broke in record numbers.
We have a serious emergency on family farms. Here is a headline
concerning prairie dogs. Some groups have now decided --including in
the Government--that we have a big problem, that we have to save
prairie dogs. I don't know if these folks have driven around my part of
the country much, but we have lots and lots of prairie dogs. We don't
need a Federal program to ensure that we are going to have them in our
future. Prairie dogs will take care of themselves, thank you.
What we lack are family farmers. Every day in every way, every week,
every month, and every single year, we lose more and more family
farmers. Now, we have farmers raising wheat and selling it for
Depression-era prices in constant dollars. How would you like to be
receiving wages that are Depression-era wages right now in constant
dollars?
How about a minimum wage for family farmers? We debate minimum wage
here on the floor of the Senate and I always vote for it. I think the
folks at the bottom end of the ladder need to be given the chance to
raise themselves up a bit.
What about an opportunity to provide a fair price for farmers? Wheat
prices and grain prices have collapsed. Cattle prices and pork prices
have collapsed. Farmers are having auction sales and 17-year-old boys
won't get out of bed because they are so heartsick about losing their
farms.
We are told by people around here: Well, that's just the way the
market system works. That is not a system that works at all. The system
says to those who gas the tractor in the spring, plow the ground, plant
the seed, and harvest the crop that their work has no value but the
giant agrifactories that make a fortune with it have value. I am saying
that this Congress must do something about that. This Congress must
decide that family farmers matter in this country's future.
I have watched the chairman of the Budget Committee fight for things
that matter to him. I have watched him fight for the National Labs and
so many other things that are so important to him and there is no more
tenacious of a fighter in the Senate than the Senator from New Mexico
about the things that matter to him. I feel the same way about family
farmers. That is what matters to me. I am not saying that [farming]
doesn't matter to him or anybody else. I am not making a judgment about
that. I am just saying that we have a full-blown emergency in rural
America.
I held up a chart yesterday that showed the counties in this country
which are losing population, which have lost over 15 percent of their
population in the last 15 years. What you have is a huge red swath in
the middle of America being depopulated--the middle part of our
country.
We need a farm program that works. And when we see auction sale
posters from wall to wall in small towns, and small town businesses
boarded up--so many auction sales that they have to call retired
auctioneers out of retirement to handle the sales--we ought to
understand that this counts for something in this country and that we
need to develop a public policy that says we are going to try to do
something to stop the flow of family farmers who are leaving the land
and discovering that their hopes and dreams have come to an end.
Every single month, we add a ``New York City'' in population to this
Earth. Every month, a new ``New York City'' is added in population to
this Earth. Yet, farmers are told that the food they
[[Page S3625]]
produce has no value. The market system says it has no value. That is
not logical. Over half of the people on this Earth go to bed with an
ache in their belly because they don't have enough to eat.
I have mentioned time and again--and I will do it again--that in
Sudan people talk about old women climbing trees to gather leaves to
eat because there is nothing to eat. Ask yourselves about the people in
refugee camps today and what their needs are. It is food. Somehow this
system of ours, in a Byzantine way, says that those who produce the
food ought not to get full value for it, but those who make it into
cereal, those who haul it, those who add value somehow should achieve
record profits. There is something wrong with that system.
I hope this Senate will go on record saying that we need to do more
and better. My personal feeling is that we need to take the caps off
the loan rates. The farm bill--which I didn't vote for because I didn't
think it was a good bill--was saying we will take away with the fine
print what we promised to give you in the large print. We promised a
loan rate, and we promised that that loan rate would produce $3.25 in
wheat, but in the small print it was limited to about $2.58.
Let's take away that provision that limits the amount of support and
help farmers during this period of collapsed prices and see if we can
give them the opportunity to have a decent income when prices collapse.
If we don't build a bridge across those valleys, nobody will do it. We
will be left with a country full of giant agrifactories farming from
California to Maine. We will get the food all right, but it will be
more expensive, and nobody will be living in rural America. We will
have lost something very important--family farmers, small towns, main
street businesses, and a very special and unique part of this country's
character that comes from that part of America.
So I am offering this motion to instruct conferees to ask that money
be added above the Senate level for income support for family farmers.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first, I greatly appreciate the kind
remarks of my good friend, and I say to him that on some of the issues
he cares about, such as agriculture and the problems of the family
farm, he has as much tenacity as anybody around here. I compliment him
for that.
We are going to accept his motion because it says we ought to try to
do better in conference than we did here, and everybody understands
that we will do that. If the Senate accepts this, we will try to do
that. However, in defense of the budget resolution, I will make two big
points that are very important.
The budget resolution increased the mandatory spending, the spending
for agriculture, $6 billion over what it would have been but for the
change we have made--$2 billion in each year, more or less, in this
budget resolution.
At first we decided we would do $4 billion at the behest of some
Senators from the middle of the heartland of the agriculture country.
They asked for more. We put $2 billion more in. That has been done. Why
do I say that? Because the President of the United States, who has his
agriculture Secretary traveling all over the United States in
agriculture country talking about the needs of the family farm and the
needs of the farmers, did not put one penny of increase for agriculture
in their budget. I don't know whether they expected that we would come
along because we have Senators who really pushed this and we would put
the money in.
But I believe for a President of the United States in the midst of an
agriculture disaster, more or less, to leave it up to Senators to have
to put more money in for agriculture--but you can count on it. They
won't be remiss in going out there and talking to the farmer about what
they did. They should put up their hand, like this, and say they did
zero. At least we put $6 billion new money in for which the
distinguished Senator has thanked the Budget Committee when we put it
in. And so did his colleague from his State. He thanked the committee.
You put in $6 billion. Nobody did at the White House. There was
nothing.
So it isn't as if we are not concerned and as if we did nothing. As a
matter of fact, we have been spending a very healthy amount of money
for agriculture. And we are going through some cyclical problems in
agriculture, with parts of the worldwide economy not in very good
shape. And they used to buy a lot of our agricultural products. We know
that. We are getting better at producing more with less acreage, and
there seems to be no limit to that. We get better all the time. In
other words, the farmer is producing prolifically in the United States,
be it the family farmer or the corporate farm. We are producing large
amounts.
Having said that, I don't know ultimately how we resolve this issue,
but for now we are going to conference with this proposal saying we
ought to do more, if we can. And, frankly, I appreciate the Senator
bringing it to all our attention.
It will be accepted now, if he doesn't mind.
I yield any time I have.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Conrad, wanted to
speak for at least 5 minutes. I understand he is on his way. I hope we
can wait for just a moment. It appears he could use the remaining 5
minutes of my time.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that I be vested back with any
time that I had remaining. I thought we would finish. That is why I
yielded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you very much. I yield the floor.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take a minute to say that I
understand the point the Senator from New Mexico made. I appreciate the
additional $6 billion that was added over the 5 years. My point is, it
is far short of what we need in terms of income support. It is the case
that the administration budget did not do nearly what it needed to do.
But there comes a time at some point when the urgency of the situation
in rural America really requires us to say this isn't about us or them
anymore; it is about what we are going to do together to respond to a
real problem of significant consequence to this country. We will simply
not have family farmers left unless we together, Republicans and
Democrats in Congress, recognize that we have a farm bill that says
when market prices collapse, it's response is too bad. That can't be
the farm bill response.
When market prices collapse, if we want to save family farmers, we
have to build a bridge across those valleys. Only the largest corporate
farms will survive a collapse in market prices. They are big enough and
strong enough to survive. Family farmers can't and won't. So if we care
about having people live out on the land, if we care about the special
quality family farms and small towns give this country, then we must
reconnect and provide some kind of basic safety net for family farmers.
Again, I see all these headlines about prairie dogs. They are going
to save the prairie dog. God bless the prairie dog. There sure are
plenty of them in my State. We don't need a special effort to save
prairie dogs. We need to save family farmers. That is the message, and
that is the urgency, in my judgment, for a public policy debate here in
Congress and the establishment of the correct priorities in this budget
to say to family farmers, ``You matter.'' Some say we need a national
missile defense system. Yes, that might be the priority for some. But I
happen to think we need a farm program that works for family farmers.
In the absence of it, we are going to see wholesale bankruptcies and
more and more auction sales, and this country will have lost something
that is very important to its character and its economy.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me say to the Senators who are not
here but are listening to what is going to be going on on the floor,
that in about 6 or 7 minutes, I hope not much longer than that, we are
going to start voting. There is already a consent agreement to vote on
everything. All votes are stacked this afternoon. That means we will
have about five or six votes. After the first one, they will be 10
minutes, with both sides having 2 minutes to explain each proposal, and
on each instruction 1 minute on the side. So we ought to be starting by
4:15, and perhaps in an hour we will be finished.
[[Page S3626]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). Who yields time?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from
North Dakota, Senator Conrad.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Dorgan, for
offering this motion, and for bringing to the attention of our
colleagues in the Senate the disastrous circumstances we face in
American agriculture.
I represent North Dakota. I can tell you that in agriculture in our
State we are on the brink of a depression. We are the victims of a
triple whammy of bad prices, bad weather, and bad policy. Bad prices
are the lowest prices for farm commodities in 52 years. The bad policy
is the last farm bill that was passed, and some of our trade policy
that has left America vulnerable to a very intense effort by our
competitors. Mr. President, our chief competitors--the Europeans--are
spending 10 times as much to support their farmers as we are spending
to support ours. We are, in essence, saying to our farmers, you go out
and compete against the French farmer and the German farmer, and, while
you are at it, take on the French Government and the German Government
as well. That is not a fair fight.
In addition to the bad prices and the bad policy, we are also stuck
with bad weather. We have had 5 years of overly wet conditions in North
Dakota. The result has been the development of a disease called scab.
That is a fungus. It has dramatically reduced production. There are
parts of North Dakota that saw their production reduced 40 percent.
So you put all of this together, what do you have? You have an
economic calamity, a disaster of its own, with the lowest prices in 52
years and production reduced because of bad weather, and because of an
outbreak of disease that is unprecedented in this century, and couple
that with the bad policy of a bad farm bill that has been put in place
that makes no note of what happens to farm prices but that cuts each
and every year the support that is given to American agricultural
producers at the exact time our competitors are dramatically increasing
what they are doing for their producers.
Mr. President, Members of the Senate, this is an emergency. It is a
disaster. It is stunning in its proportion. I just completed a series
of meetings across the State of North Dakota. Everywhere I went,
producers took me aside and said unless something is done and done
quickly, we are faced with a calamity of losing tens of thousands of
family farmers across the heartland of America.
I hope very much that our colleagues will support this motion that
instructs the conferees to provide additional funding for agricultural
policy reform. It is critically needed. It must be done. The
consequences could not be more serious. A failure to act will lead to
the unraveling of the farm safety net in this country and will mean we
will lose literally tens of thousands of farm families this year. We
are not talking about sometime in the distant future. We are talking
about right now. We are talking about an economic calamity.
Again, I hope my colleagues will support this motion. I yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I don't believe I need to respond. I gave my response
to the principal sponsor. We have agreed to accept the instruction.
I yield back any time I might have and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, perhaps we could engage in a
parliamentary discussion regarding order. If I am correct, the first
vote would be on the Lautenberg Social Security motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. There is 1 minute on each side to discuss the motion.
The second vote will be on the Domenici motion. We will explain that
when the time comes. Then we will vote on the Kennedy Medicare tax
breaks motion. Then we will vote on the motion of Senator Dodd.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, for all Senators who might be listening,
the first motion to instruct is Senator Lautenberg's on Social
Security. This is essentially consistent with the budget resolution
that we voted for on our side of the aisle. I ask every Senator to vote
for it.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Vote on Lautenberg Motion to Instruct
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have 1 minute and the Senator from New
Jersey has 1 minute. Have the yeas and nays been requested?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senators should be on notice we will start this vote in
2 minutes.
This motion to instruct says to the conferees, adopt the language
regarding the Social Security trust fund that is in the budget
resolution which passed the Senate with every Republican and one
Democrat supporting it. Since it is consistent with the budget
resolution, and I still have to go to conference with the House under
all circumstances, I recommend on our side, at least, that everybody
vote for it.
I yield back any time remaining.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this motion is pretty simple. It
instructs the conferees on the budget resolution to include in the
conference report provisions that would reserve all Social Security
surpluses for Social Security, and only Social Security--no other
programs, including other retirement programs, and not for tax cuts.
I hope when the conference is held that the distinguished chairman of
the Senate Budget Committee will be there to say, ``Here is a vote that
is potentially 100-0 or 95-5. This is serious.''
It is not part of a scheme to go into conference and say, ``Sorry, we
are dropping it.'' We don't want it dropped. I know that the
distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee doesn't really want it
dropped.
We can differ about the approach, but all of us will make a single
statement: If Social Security has a surplus, we want it there for the
people who are going to retire when their time comes. It is as simple
as that.
I am pleased to have the support of the chairman of the Budget
Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the motion. The yeas and
nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner)
is necessarily absent.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Moynihan) is
necessarily absent due to surgery.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New
York (Mr. Moynihan) would vote ``Aye.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 98, nays 0, as follows:
[Roll No. 82 Leg.]
YEAS--98
Abraham
Akaka
Allard
Ashcroft
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Bryan
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Chafee
Cleland
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gorton
Graham
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Helms
Hollings
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
[[Page S3627]]
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nickles
Reed
Reid
Robb
Roberts
Rockefeller
Roth
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Torricelli
Voinovich
Wellstone
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Moynihan
Warner
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, if you would get everyone's attention, I
will tell everybody where we are going.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. We have three remaining votes. There is 1 minute in
between each one. Then we are finished.
I say while many of the Senators are here, I am sorry that we have to
vote over again on the same issues we voted on 2 weeks ago, but
essentially most of the motions are revoting on what we already voted
on. Had we appointed conferees the very night we did this budget
resolution, there would not have been any time to have motions to
instruct the conferees. So I am trying to hurry through, but I cannot
do any better.
Vote On Domenici Motion To Instruct
What is up now is the Domenici motion to instruct. It reaffirms the
Senate position on the Roth-Breaux amendment calling for Medicare
reform. That really extends solvency.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, can we have order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will be in order. Will those having
conversations in the well cease their conversations. We are not going
to be able to proceed until the conversations cease or those having
them go somewhere else.
The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, let me just finish quickly.
The Domenici instruction takes into consideration the Breaux-Thomas
bipartisan plan which includes prescription drugs as part of the
reform. And this instruction includes that we adopt the Snowe-Wyden
provision which allows budget surpluses not currently allocated to the
Social Security trust fund, because it is not needed there for taxes,
that those surpluses may be used for major Medicare reform.
I hope we will adopt this motion. It will be followed by a Kennedy
motion that I will speak to later.
I yield back any time I might have.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. My friend and colleague, as we could expect, explained
correctly what this motion effectively does. If you vote in favor of
the motion, effectively you are saying you are not going to use any of
the surpluses of the Federal budget for the Medicare system, No. 1,
because that is the recommendation of the Commission. And secondly,
before we get overly excited about a reserve fund on the prescription
drugs, just read page 90 of the report and you will see that the trust
fund is not utilized until there is significant extension of solvency
for Social Security. That is defined as 9 or 12 years. That comes to
either premium increases or cost benefits of some $686 billion. So it
is never going to go into effect.
I am all for having an existing fund. But this isn't it. It is right
here on page 90, the requirements for the fund.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. KENNEDY. And it says it will not go into effect unless there is
significant solvency from 9 to 12 years. That is what the trustees say,
$686 billion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the Domenici
motion to instruct the conferees. The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Moynihan) is
absent due to surgery.
I further announce that if present and voting, the Senator from New
York (Mr. Moynihan) would vote ``no.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Smith of Oregon). Are there any other
Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 57, nays 42, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 83 Leg.]
YEAS--57
Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Cochran
Collins
Coverdell
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kerrey
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner
NAYS--42
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Bryan
Byrd
Cleland
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Torricelli
Wellstone
Wyden
NOT VOTING--1
Moynihan
The motion was agreed to.
Vote on Kennedy Motion to Instruct
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, there are now 2 minutes evenly divided
on the Kennedy motion to instruct.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this motion is very simple. It says to
devote a portion of the surplus--not all of it, just some of it--to
saving Medicare before using it for a tax cut or new spending. This
policy is supported by Alan Greenspan and by 100 leading economists
because it makes economic sense and because it makes sense for
Medicare.
My friend across the aisle has talked at length about how much he and
his party care about Medicare, but that budget resolution does not
devote one thin dime of new resources to Medicare beyond those required
by law. This vote is a test: Tax cuts versus Medicare. That is the
issue.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senate rejected an amendment on this
by a vote of 56-43 just a few days ago. It is the identical issue.
Senator Kennedy would have us believe that the President's approach
to putting 15 percent of the surplus into IOUs in the Medicare trust
fund will help Medicare become solvent. He also suggests, Mr.
President, that leading economists support the President's IOU; that
is, we will pay for it later. They support that. They support it
because we are not spending the money. But we already save $400 billion
more than the President and we would apply it to the national debt,
which is what the economists thought was good. Our budget is better
than this in that regard and it does not put IOUs into a fund, which in
this case is a postdated check that somebody will pay for later on--our
kids and grandkids.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 17 seconds.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the IOU is a payroll tax. This is the
full faith and credit of the United States. That is what we are talking
about. It is
[[Page S3628]]
very clear what this issue is. Let's make sure we have solvency in the
Medicare system before tax cuts.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to table the Kennedy motion, and
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Moynihan) is
absent due to surgery.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New
York (Mr. Moynihan) would vote ``no.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 84 Leg.]
YEAS--54
Abraham
Allard
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Cochran
Collins
Coverdell
Craig
Crapo
DeWine
Domenici
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Helms
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Roberts
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Warner
NAYS--45
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Byrd
Cleland
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Harkin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Specter
Torricelli
Wellstone
Wyden
NOT VOTING--1
Moynihan
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I move to table the motion, and I move
to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Vote On Dodd Motion To Instruct
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, on behalf of my colleague from Vermont,
myself and many others who supported this 2 weeks by a vote of 57-40 I
want to express my gratitude to my Republican colleagues for supporting
that amendment that day. Unfortunately, the House conferees, or
potential conferees, have indicated they intend to drop this amendment
which would add over 5 years $5 billion to the existing child care and
development block grant, despite the fact that this was a bipartisan
amendment supported by a bipartisan coalition of Members here in the
Senate.
I would not be asking for this vote except I think it is important we
send a clear message out of this Chamber that we care about working
families who need child care assistance.
With the few seconds remaining, I yield to the Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on this side of the
aisle to vote in favor of this motion. It will keep the issue alive.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the Senate voted by a vote of 57 to 40
to approve this amendment when we had the budget resolution. We are
going to go to conference and try to work it out. I am not asking
anyone to vote against it. In terms of the chairman's position, vote
however you wish. I don't think there is a total Republican position
because 15 Republicans voted for it last time.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DODD. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The
yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. REID, I announce that the Senator from New York (Mr. Moynihan) is
absent due to surgery.
I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from New
York (Mr. Moynihan), would vote ``aye.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 66, nays 33, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 85 Leg.]
YEAS--66
Abraham
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Byrd
Campbell
Chafee
Cleland
Collins
Conrad
Coverdell
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Edwards
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hollings
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lugar
McCain
Mikulski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Robb
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Smith (OR)
Snowe
Specter
Torricelli
Voinovich
Warner
Wellstone
Wyden
NAYS--33
Allard
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Cochran
Craig
Crapo
Enzi
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Gregg
Hagel
Helms
Inhofe
Kyl
Lott
Mack
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Roth
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
NOT VOTING--1
Moynihan
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the
motion was agreed to.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the underlying
motion to authorize the Chair to appoint conferees.
The motion was agreed to, and the Presiding Officer (Mr. Smith of
Oregon) appointed Mr. Domenici, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Nickles, Mr. Gramm,
Mr. Gorton, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Conrad, Mrs. Boxer and Mrs. Murray
conferees on the part of the Senate.
Mr. VOINOVICH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
____________________