[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24810-24813]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       LOW-POWER FM RADIO SERVICE

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, there is a great example of the influence 
of special interests, which I am told has been inserted into the 
Commerce-State-Justice, the Judiciary, and related agencies 
appropriations conference report, without a debate on this floor, 
without a vote on this floor.
  Mr. President, I understand that legislation restricting low-power FM 
services has been added behind closed doors to that appropriations 
bill. The addition of this rider illustrates, once again, how the 
special interests of a few are allowed to dominate the voices of the 
many in the backdoor dealings of the appropriations process.
  Low-power FM radio service 
provides community-based organizations, churches, and other nonprofit 
groups with a new, affordable opportunity to reach out to the public, 
helping to promote a greater awareness within our communities, about 
our communities. As such, low-power FM is supported by the U.S. 
Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, Consumers' Union 
and many religious organizations, including but not limited to, the 
U.S. Catholic Conference and the United Church of Christ. These 
institutions support low-power FM because they see what low-power FM's 
opponents also know to be true--that these stations will make more 
programming available to the public, and provide outlets for news and 
perspectives not currently featured on local radio stations.
  But, the special interests forces opposed to low-power FM--most 
notably the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public 
Radio have mounted a vigorous behind-the-scenes campaign against this 
service.
  Let me repeat--and my dear friend from Nebraska joined me in this 
effort. Together, we tried to stop the National Association of 
Broadcasters and National Public Radio. Simply put, they have won 
again.
  I believe the Senator from Nebraska will agree with me there is no 
way they could have carried that vote on the floor of this Senate. 
There is no way they could have deprived all of these communities, all 
of these small business people, all of these religious organizations, 
all of these minority groups--but they stuck it into an appropriations 
bill, a piece of legislation that never had a single bit of debate and 
would never have passed through the Commerce Committee, of which I am 
the chairman, if it had been put to a vote.
  Earlier this year, Senator Kerry and I introduced the Low Power FM 
Radio Act of 2000, which would have struck a fair balance between 
allowing low-power radio stations to go forward while at the same time 
protecting existing full-power stations from actual interference. Under 
our bill, low-power stations causing interference would be required to 
stop causing interference--or be shut down--but noninterfering low-
power FM stations would be allowed to operate without further delay. 
The opponents of low-power FM did not support this bill because they 
want low-power FM to be dead rather than functional.
  Congress should not permit the appropriations process to circumvent 
the normal legislative process.
  Mr. President, low-power FM is an opportunity for minorities, 
churches and others to have a new voice in radio broadcasting. In the 
Commerce Committee, we constantly lament the fact that minorities, 
community-based organizations, and religious organizations do not have 
adequate opportunities to communicate their views. Moreover, over the 
years, I have often heard many Members of both the Committee and this 
Senate lament the enormous consolidation that has occurred in the 
telecommunications sector as a whole and the radio industry 
specifically. Here, we had a chance to simply get

[[Page 24811]]

out of the way, and allow noninterfering low-power radio stations to go 
forward to help combat these concerns. Instead, we allowed special 
interests to hide their competitive fears behind the smokescreen of 
hypothetical interference to severely wound--if not kill--this service 
in the dead of night.
  Mr. President, speaking for my side of the aisle, we are the party of 
Abraham Lincoln. We constantly endorse the importance of religious 
speech to American culture. How can we possibly stifle an opportunity 
for minority and religious organizations to communicate more 
effectively with their local communities? By permitting special 
interests to stifle these voices we are truly compromising the most 
fundamental principles of our party and our Nation.
  I stand before these community-based organizations, these religious 
organizations, these people throughout these small communities all over 
America and say: I apologize. I apologize to you for this action--
behind closed doors--that we are going to deprive you of a voice, of a 
very small FM radio station. And I will tell you who did it. The 
National Public Radio and the National Association of Broadcasters--the 
same organization that got $70 billion worth of free spectrum of public 
taxpayer-owned property. And, by the way, they are not giving back 
their analog spectrum, which is the subject for another speech. I say 
to the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Public 
Radio, shame on you.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized for up to 
30 minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I listened somewhat tentatively to the 
comments made by my friend from Arizona. He talked about ending the 
partisan gridlock. If you want to end the partisan gridlock, take a 
look at the tax bill that just came over. This package was never 
considered in the Finance Committee, never considered on the Senate 
floor. No Democrats were ever invited to any of the meetings to work it 
out. There was no consultation with any Democrat. No paper was ever 
shared with any Democrat in putting it together. It was stuffed into an 
unrelated conference report. It was sent over here for a vote. And the 
Republicans have said to the Democrats: Take it or leave it, but you 
have no part in drafting it, debating it, or anything else.
  I would say, if you want to end the partisan gridlock, Republicans 
should start working in a bipartisan fashion around here to fashion.
  I hear George Bush out there. He is saying he wants to come to 
Washington and end this gridlock. I say to Governor Bush: Pick up the 
phone and call Senator Lott. Pick up the phone and call Speaker 
Hastert. Tell them to quit playing these kinds of games, these partisan 
games around here, where we get a tax bill on the Senate floor, in the 
closing days of this year, that we have had absolutely no part in--
absolutely none whatsoever.
  Mr. KERREY. I would just like to ask the Senator a question. If the 
Senator wouldn't mind yielding, I think we can do this almost as a 
colloquy.
  Mr. HARKIN. Yes, I would be glad to.
  Mr. KERREY. The Senator from Iowa has been around here a couple years 
longer than I have. I wonder if the Senator would agree with me. My 
experience is that all 100 people in this Senate--every single one of 
them--are trying to do the best job they can. They have different 
points of views. The Republicans bring certain things to the arguments 
sometimes that Democrats don't bring, and Democrats bring things that 
Republicans don't bring from time to time.
  Mr. HARKIN. True.
  Mr. KERREY. I wonder if the Senator would agree with that.
  Mr. HARKIN. That is true. That is the way the legislative process 
works. I am not always right. You are not always right. Republicans are 
not always right. But if we work together in that kind of a spirit, it 
can be worked out. That is the way it should be done.
  Mr. KERREY. I wonder if the Senator from Iowa would yield for a 
second question.
  Mr. HARKIN. Sure.
  Mr. KERREY. I heard the Governor of Texas say he does not like the 
Vice President's tax cut proposal because it is targeted. Doesn't it 
seem that the tax cut proposal that is being brought to us--though it 
might be hard for my friends on the other side of the aisle to state 
that they are saying the Vice President is right--is not an across-the-
board tax cut, this is a targeted tax cut? Will my friend from Iowa 
agree they seem to be saying we should have a targeted tax cut?
  Mr. HARKIN. I agree on targeted tax cuts, but I would appreciate the 
Senator expanding on his point.
  Mr. KERREY. Well, their bill does not have across-the-board tax cuts. 
There has been a debate going on between the Vice President and the 
Governor of Texas as to whether or not there should be an across-the-
board tax cut of $1.6 trillion that the Governor of Texas wants to do, 
on top of $1.1 trillion of payroll tax cuts, and hundreds of billions 
of dollars of spending as well.
  I said the other day, it reminds me of voodoo economics II. I do not 
think he would be proposing this, which is essentially the failed 
policies of the past. We tried that once before. President Bush, in 
1990, broke from the failed policies of that.
  I heard the Senator from Arizona earlier talk about the budget caps 
that were in the 1990 budget agreement. That started us on the road of 
eliminating our deficits. But he has an across-the-board tax cut. He is 
criticizing the Vice President for targeting tax cuts, and it seems our 
friends on the other side of the aisle are saying the Vice President is 
right, we should have a targeted tax cut.
  I wonder if my friend from Iowa has also experienced, when you are 
having discussions, there are some things Democrats bring to the 
argument, bring to the discussion. I wonder, as I look at this tax 
bill, if any of the people, the Republicans who are part of this thing, 
ever asked the question: Now that we are going to target tax cuts, is 
it fair? Are we being fair here? Are we targeting it to the right group 
of people?
  It seems to me, as I look at least at the early analysis, that that 
question couldn't have been asked.
  Mr. HARKIN. Would the Senator enlighten us a little further?
  Mr. KERREY. I don't know. I am certain we will have a chance to look 
at the precise numbers that CBO and others have done. As I look at the 
numbers right now, it seems our friends on the other side of the aisle, 
having put this together without Democrats there --if the American 
people wonder what they lost by not having Democrats there, it doesn't 
look as if anybody was there to say: Is this fair?
  What they have said is, we are going to target $4 billion a year of 
tax cuts to Americans who make more than $319,000 a year. A lot of my 
friends make more than $319,000 a year, but $4 billion total out of 
what appears to be about $6 or $7 billion a year seems to be a pretty 
big targeted tax cut for people over $300,000 a year. For Members of 
Congress on up, we are a little over $130,000. It is $670 million of 
targeted tax cuts to that group. But for the group of Americans under 
$40,000 a year, they get about $50 or $60 million total.
  I don't know. I guess many of my colleagues felt the same sort of 
movement of their hearts when they read the stories of the sailors who 
lost their lives on the U.S.S. Cole. We had a chance to read the 
biographies. It was a very moving thing to think about their lives. I 
noted that not a single one of those individuals were college 
graduates. They were all high school graduates. They were all enlisted, 
save one who was an ensign, just became an ensign after 12 years of 
enlistment. If you read their stories, their moms and dads are waiters; 
their moms and dads are nurses; their moms and dads are schoolteachers; 
their moms and dads are making less than $40,000 a year. That is a 
majority of the country. Those are the folks who are running our Little 
League baseball groups. Those are the people who are volunteering at 
church.

[[Page 24812]]

  If you decide the Vice President is right--we should not have an 
across-the-board tax cut; we ought to have a targeted tax cut--it seems 
to me that we ought to be trying to target it to those folks who are 
having trouble sending their kids to college, having trouble paying 
health care, having trouble doing all sorts of other things as well. It 
seems to me what was missing as they put this thing together was some 
Democrat raising their hand and saying: Is this fair?
  I wonder if the Senator from Iowa would agree with that sort of quick 
analysis.
  Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate the Senator from Nebraska bringing that out 
because obviously this is a targeted tax cut. As the Senator just said, 
they have targeted it to the wrong people: not the kind of people and 
the families whose sons and daughters lost their lives in the Persian 
Gulf recently, not those, but to those with the highest incomes.
  I know the Senator had the aggregate figures, but he mentioned the 
fact that most of these families make less than $40,000 a year. Under 
the Republicans' targeted tax cut, if you are a family making $24,000 
to $39,300 a year, if you are in that group where average Americans 
are, you get $94 a year in a tax cut. If, however, you are making more 
than $319,000 a year, on average, you get 4,158 bucks a year in a tax 
cut from their targeted tax cut.
  So the Senator is right. They have targeted it to those who make more 
than $319,000 a year. And the Senator is right, you have to ask the 
question: What is fair about this?
  Mr. KERREY. I am very sympathetic to the large amount of taxes that 
higher income Americans are paying. They have been contributing a 
substantial amount to deficit reduction since President Bush signed 
into law an increase in their taxes in 1990 and President Clinton 
essentially continued that in 1993. And the Republican Congress, to 
their eternal credit, continued it in 1997. We have been generating a 
lot, and I am grateful for the income. Indeed, I understand why a group 
of men and women putting together this tax bill would be more 
sympathetic to people making over $130,000 a year. That is most of us. 
In fact, indeed, it is all of us. We tend to hang out with people who 
make more than $130,000 a year, and we complain about our taxes, too. I 
understand why we are sympathetic.
  It seems to me what was missing in all of this, what I find to be 
very difficult to support, now that we have decided the Vice President 
is correct; we should have a targeted tax cut rather than across the 
board, I don't think it passes the fairness test. As a consequence, the 
American people are going to end up, if this becomes law--and the 
President has indicated he is going to veto it, thank goodness, because 
if it did become law, they would end up having a very difficult time 
saying, well, yes, it cut taxes in a targeted way, as the Vice 
President is suggesting, but it doesn't seem to be a fair proposal.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator is right. It does not pass the fairness test 
at all. I might ask the Senator one other question. We know that there 
are a lot of people in this country who lack health insurance. As I 
understand it, in this tax bill, there is a provision that is supposed 
to expand coverage. But the way it is drafted, $18,000 in tax benefits 
are provided for each estimated person who will gain health insurance 
coverage. I ask the Senator, does this sound like fiscal conservatism?
  Mr. KERREY. It seems nobody was in the room to say: Hey, that doesn't 
seem to be fair. If you look at the average household--Nebraska and 
Iowa are pretty close to being the same --the average household in 
Nebraska pays more payroll taxes than they pay income taxes. Income 
credits very often don't affect them at all. One of the great paradoxes 
of allowing people to deduct health insurance is the higher your 
income, the more subsidy you get. We have an awful lot of people in 
Nebraska who don't have health insurance as a consequence of where they 
work. And when they go out and try to buy this health insurance, they 
don't get as much subsidy as somebody who has a higher income. As a 
consequence, they are not buying it. As a consequence, we now know it 
is fact that you are going to be less healthy if you don't have health 
insurance. My friend from Iowa is exactly right again. It doesn't pass 
the fairness test.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator points out that most people pay payroll 
taxes. Especially in the income brackets where they are lacking health 
insurance, they are paying more in payroll taxes than they are income 
taxes. That is why you are only getting 600,000 more people with health 
insurance at a cost of $18,000 in tax incentives per person per year. 
What a giveaway.
  Does the Senator agree that for those income groups that lack a lot 
of health insurance coverage--and that is low-income people who are 
working for minimum wage or maybe above minimum wage, or working for 
small businesses that can't afford to give them health insurance 
coverage in our small towns and communities --would it not be better or 
cheaper, fairer to expand the Medicaid program or the CHIP program to 
cover the kids?
  Mr. KERREY. Absolutely. It would be fairer to provide full 
deductibility for the self-employed. The Senator from Iowa and I both 
represent a lot of self-employed families, many of whom are farmers, 
and they are increasingly going into town to get the jobs just to get 
health insurance. Absolutely, it would be more fair.
  I find most Americans want to do things in a fair way. They want us 
to tell them the truth about the facts. If they see the facts, they see 
the struggle that is going on.
  Again, I wonder if anybody who was sitting in this room putting this 
tax bill together said, hey, did you see the story that says that now a 
majority of households in America have both mom and dad working? Did 
you see the story in the newspaper that said of the 270 American 
corporations surveyed, 70 percent paid less than the 35 percent 
effective tax rate, and a large number of them didn't pay any taxes at 
all because they are using stock options to reduce the cost of their 
taxes?
  Did you read the story about Americans with higher incomes saying 
they don't want to pay any taxes so they will park their accounts down 
in the Bahamas and get a credit card or a debit card? Did anybody in 
this room say that is not fair? Maybe we should say to these folks who 
are down there running their accounts in the Bahamas: The next time you 
have a fire in your house or need the police force, or need the Navy, 
why don't you get the Bahamian Navy or the Bahamian police force or the 
Bahamian firefighters to help you out?
  I mean, did anybody in this room say, with all the evidence around, 
this isn't fair? I have to say to my friend from Iowa, it just doesn't 
pass the fairness test. I think Americans want our laws to be fair. 
They want us to write fair laws and regulations. They want us to look 
at society and say it needs to be the land of opportunity for 
everybody. There are very few Americans who would not like a tax cut. 
If we are going to target them, as Vice President Gore has been saying, 
and the Republicans are going to say, we agree, the Vice President is 
right; we ought to have a targeted tax credit, it seems we ought to try 
to apply some standard or test of fairness as we do it.
  Mr. HARKIN. I really appreciate the Senator's remarks.
  What the Republicans have done is they have given us this tax package 
without involving any Democrat. So you are right, none of us was in the 
room to ever ask the question, Is this fair? They have now dropped this 
on us. What they have done, really, is sort of given lie to their whole 
campaign theme with Governor Bush, and that is that you need a tax 
cut--to just shotgun it out there--and they have given us a targeted 
tax cut. I am grateful to the Senator for pointing that out.
  Mr. KERREY. I have one last question. I find myself saying it doesn't 
hurt me. I wasn't in the room. It didn't hurt me at all. As a matter of 
fact, because my income is over $130,000, those folks making the 
decision in that room helped me out. I guess I should sneak over and 
thank them for giving me a big tax cut. The people who get hurt are not 
Members of Congress who weren't in the room; they are Americans who 
either don't get the targeted

[[Page 24813]]

benefit or who do get it and say, oh, my gosh, if you are going to do a 
tax cut, for gosh sakes, help the people who really need it. I think 
most Americans want our tax laws and the rest of the laws to be as fair 
as we possibly can make them.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator is right.
  Again, I will just add on top of that, the other unfairness part of 
this bill is that they didn't what they should have to really expand 
health insurance coverage in a meaningful way to low-income people. I 
am talking about people who are working, not people who are on Medicaid 
and getting coverage. I am talking about low-income people above the 
poverty line and modest income people who are working hard, making 
$20,000 a year; they may have a couple kids. They are not in this bill.
  Mr. KERREY. I am sure my friend knows this, but one of the problems 
is this: Let's say you have a mom and dad both on minimum wage. That 
means they are probably making a $14,000 or $15,000 gross salary--maybe 
a bit more, maybe $16,000 or $17,000. I can't remember, but I think it 
is $8,000 that the minimum wage will produce. Say both are working 40 
hours a week and generating $18,000 to $20,000 a year. FICA is taking a 
lot of taxes from them to pay the health insurance of a lot of other 
people. I have a claim on their income. Every Member of Congress who 
will get a big tax cut has a claim on their income to pay our health 
insurance.
  Did anybody in that room putting the tax proposal together say, hey, 
I don't think that is fair? Well, that is why you need Democrats in the 
room. That is why God created Democrats. We sit in the room and say, Is 
that fair? Sometimes we do it to a fault. That is why we need 
Republicans to push back and say, Can we afford it? Some of us have 
Republican and Democrat in us and go back and forth all the time. This 
isn't fair. As the Senator said, I represent low-income working 
families without health insurance subsidizing my health insurance. I 
have a claim on their income. They have no claim on mine, and I am 
getting a big tax cut. I just say to my friend, does that seem fair to 
you?
  Mr. HARKIN. This is not fair.
  After listening to the Senator, it raises another question in my 
mind. Sometimes it seems that Republicans don't believe there is 
anybody in this country who makes $20,000 or $30,000 a year. Maybe they 
think this is a myth. Sometimes it seems like they don't exist for 
them.
  Mr. KERREY. I think they do understand it. I think they do, but the 
problem, it seems to me, is you have to step back from time to time and 
look at the work you are doing, and you have to apply other values, 
other standards, to it.
  I just don't, in this case, look at this proposal--and I am not able 
to reach the conclusion that I am going to target a tax cut, as the 
Vice President has been calling for, that somebody was in that room 
saying, gee, we have to make sure it is fair. It just didn't get there.
  I appreciate very much the Senator answering the questions I have 
asked of him. I look forward, in fact, to a time when we have our 
friends on the other side of the aisle engaging in this dialog.
  Maybe there is an answer here. Maybe somebody was asking the question 
over and over: Is this fair? I watched with great interest as the Texas 
Governor talked about compassionate conservatism. I wonder if my friend 
noticed that some of his Republican friends were saying: Hey, knock 
that compassion stuff off. You are sounding too much like a Democrat 
there, let alone acting compassionately. If you use that word too much, 
you might not get enough people to come out and vote for you.
  I understand and appreciate when my friends on the other side come 
and say: You want to make it fair, but we have to afford it. God bless 
them. Senator McCain earlier was talking about it. God bless Senator 
McCain for bringing that up. We have to pay attention to the need to 
keep the economy growing.
  Mr. HARKIN. Sometimes they ask can we afford it. I ask: can we afford 
to add 600,000 additional individuals under their bill by giving a tax 
incentive for health insurance that costs $18,000 per person per year 
that gains coverage, how can we afford that? Can we afford it when 
there are so many ways that far more people could acquire health 
insurance with a far smaller incentive, but one that was properly 
designed for the purpose.
  Mr. KERREY. It does seem a little pricey.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Nebraska. We are going to have 
the debate tomorrow. We will be talking more tomorrow on the tax bill.

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