[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6354-6366]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of S. Con. Res. 23, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 23) setting forth the 
     congressional budget for the United States Government for 
     fiscal year 2004 and including the appropriate budgetary 
     levels for fiscal year 2003 and for fiscal years 2005 through 
     2013.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask 
unanimous consent that the time be charged equally.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 264

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today to offer the first amendment 
to the budget resolution pending before us. I believe this is a 
critically important amendment as our Nation is on the brink of war.
  After the President's speech of last night, I don't know what could 
be more clear than we are on the eve of conflict. The budget before us, 
submitted by the President, the budget that came out of the Budget 
Committee, contains no provision for that conflict. There is no money 
for conflict. There is no money for reconstruction. There is no money 
for occupation. There is no money.
  Some have said, well, they have looked at the history and found that 
in the past wars were not budgeted for until operations have begun. I 
suggest operations have begun. We have nearly a quarter of a million 
troops poised on the border with Iraq. We have hundreds of thousands of 
reservists who have been called up. We have five carrier battle groups 
in the area. Operations have begun. We have special forces in Iraq at 
this moment. We are conducting air operations over Iraq at this moment. 
Who can assert that operations have not begun?
  In the past, the Second World War, the First World War, Uncle Sam 
delivered a message to the American people: It takes taxes and bonds. 
And the message was that it takes common sacrifice to defend this 
Nation. But that is not what this budget says. This budget says, let's 
have a $1.5 trillion tax cut that goes primarily to the wealthiest 
among us before there has been any assessment of war cost or occupation 
cost or reconstruction cost or humanitarian aid cost. That strikes many 
of us as unwise. Many of us believe we ought to take a moment and do a 
calculation of what this war is likely to cost before we engage in new 
spending initiatives or before we launch a whole other round of 
significant tax cuts, given the fact we are already in deep and record 
deficit.
  The deficit under the chairman's mark for this year, excluding Social 
Security, will be over $500 billion in a $2.2 trillion budget. That is 
a massive budget deficit by any calculation. As I have indicated, it 
includes no money for potential war cost, none.
  The amendment I am offering says this: The Senate may not consider 
legislation that would increase the deficit until the President submits 
to Congress a detailed report on the overall estimated costs of the 
war. This measure would be enforced with a 60-vote point of order. In 
other words, if there were more than 60 votes in the Senate to add to 
the deficit, we would be able to do that.
  There are two exceptions. We could add the spending for legislation 
relating to national or homeland security. That just represents common 
sense. We certainly don't want to limit our ability to respond to any 
threat. So we would have an exception from the 60-

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vote point of order in adding to the deficit for expenditures for 
national defense or homeland security.
  The second exception would be an economic recovery and job creation 
package which does not increase the deficit over the time period 2005 
to 2013.
  In other words, we would be saying the following: We are going to 
have a 60-vote point of order against any measure that increases the 
deficit with the exception of additional spending for national defense 
or homeland security and with the additional exception of a stimulus 
package for this economy that does not add to the deficit in the years 
2005 to 2013. The stimulus package could add to the deficit in 2003 and 
2004 but not beyond.
  I hope my colleagues will think carefully about what this amendment 
will do and what is in the budget before us.
  In the Senate Republican plan, there is no money for any part of the 
conflict. We learn from news reports that there will be a supplemental 
sent up to us by the White House for between $60 and $95 billion. That 
means the deficit in 2003 will approach $600 billion when we exclude 
Social Security, truly a massive deficit.
  It has been asserted that we don't know the cost of conflict. That is 
true. That is understandable. The one thing we know, though, is that 
the cost of conflict is not zero. That is the number that is in this 
budget. That is what the President has sent us as a budget, that there 
is no cost. That defies common sense. We know there is cost.
  We know there are substantial costs. Here are some of them. We are 
reading in the press that the defense supplemental, the war 
supplemental the President may send us will be in the range of $60 to 
$95 billion. I read in the paper this morning that it may be $80 
billion.
  Humanitarian aid, we know we are going to be responsible for 
refugees, perhaps millions of people requiring feeding, requiring 
shelter, dispossessed by the conflict. Those estimates, on a 
conservative side, are $1 billion.
  Reconstruction of Iraq, not included in the budget, there is a 
various range of estimates; $30 billion over 10 years, a conservative 
estimate.
  The occupation of Iraq, there is no provision in the budget. 
Estimates run from $17 to $46 billion a year.
  Aid to allies--Israel, Jordan, Egypt--not provided for in the budget, 
estimates of the cost run from $6 to $17 billion. We have not listed 
Turkey here. We negotiated an agreement with Turkey for some $6 
billion. There are discussions with Russia, multiple billions of 
dollars in terms of a package for them.
  And the war on terrorism in 2004, no additional provision--estimates 
that that could cost $19 billion. None of it is included in this 
budget.
  Does that make any sense when we all know that the conflict is about 
to start and that we have already experienced substantial costs just 
moving our forces into position to launch this attack? Many of us don't 
think so.
  Congress Daily reported on March 14 the following:

       Vice President Cheney met with Senate Majority Leader Frist 
     Thursday to discuss, among other things, the timing of a 
     spending request on military action in Iraq. It is not 
     expected that such a request would come until after the House 
     and Senate complete floor action on the budget resolution, a 
     key aide said.

  That report went on to say:

       Having a supplemental that could total somewhere between 
     $65 billion and $95 billion come up while the tax cuts in the 
     budget resolution are being debated could threaten the 
     Republicans' economic agenda. House leaders have also said 
     they want the supplemental war request delayed as long as 
     possible to provide breathing room between the tax cuts and 
     war spending.

  I hope this is not true. I hope very much that we are not engaged in 
a cynical attempt to hide costs from people so that we make the tax 
cuts more palatable. If that is true, that is very disturbing. We ought 
to have all the cards on the table. We ought to be telling the American 
people the truth as completely and as fully as we can know it. And the 
truth is, this war is going to cost a lot of money. It ought to be 
included in our calculations to the best of our information.
  We know from previous conflicts that initial war cost estimates are 
often low. Go back to the Civil War. The estimates were it was going to 
cost $200 million. The actual cost was $3.2 billion, a 1,500-percent 
increase over initial estimates.
  World War II: Initial estimates were that it would cost about $112 
billion. It wound up costing over $195 billion, a 75-percent increase. 
Vietnam: Initial estimates were $12.3 billion. It wound up costing $111 
billion, an 800-percent increase over the initial estimates.
  We can all hope that will not be the case here, and I do not in any 
way suggest we ought to budget for those kinds of dramatic increases 
over what the initial estimates are. But at the very least we ought to 
be budgeting for what the estimates are.
  The President spoke last night. He spoke clearly. He spoke directly. 
He gave Saddam Hussein and his cadre 48 hours to get out of Iraq. The 
reports are this morning that Saddam Hussein and his group are not 
going to leave Iraq. There are already indications the President may 
address the Nation tomorrow. We are discussing and debating the budget 
resolution now. We ought to include our best estimates for this 
conflict in what we are doing now.
  I go back to the amendment I am offering. It says we should have a 
60-vote point of order against anything that adds to the deficit with 
two exceptions: one, additional costs associated with national defense 
and homeland security, and, two, additional tax cuts as part of a 
stimulus package that would be effective this year and next. Those 
would be the two exceptions--commonsense exceptions. Other than that, 
we should create a hurdle to additional new spending or additional tax 
cuts when we do not know the cost of this conflict.
  When we look back at previous conflicts, this is what we see. This 
has been the response of Congress and the administration in every 
conflict America has experienced. The Revolutionary War: Excise and 
property taxes were enacted to pay for it; War of 1812: Excise and 
sales taxes were enacted to pay for it; Mexican-American War: There 
were no Federal taxes during this period; the Civil War: Excise, 
inheritance and income taxes were enacted to pay for it; the Spanish-
American War: Excise and inheritance taxes were raised and war bonds 
were sold to pay for it; World War I: Income, estate, and corporate 
taxes were raised to pay for it; World War II: A major expansion of 
corporate, excise, and income taxes, and war bonds were sold to pay for 
it; Korea: Income taxes were raised to pay for the war; Vietnam: 
Business and income taxes were cut in the early stages, and in the 
midstages they were increased to pay for the war; in the Persian Gulf, 
the 1990 income tax increase was passed; and in this war, instead of 
paying for it, the President is saying: Let's have a $1.9 trillion tax 
cut. That is the cost of the tax cut and the associated interest costs, 
even though we are already in deep deficit--in fact, in record deficit.
  We are asking our troops to perhaps make the ultimate sacrifice. We 
are asking them to be prepared to risk their lives. It seems to me we 
ought to be asking the rest of the American people to sacrifice as well 
for this conflict. We certainly at the least should not be having a 
massive tax cut when we are already in deep deficit and have no idea 
what the war costs are. We may need every dollar to do what is needed 
to prevail in this conflict and respond to the terrorist threat that is 
expanded by it.
  This morning we awoke to a recommendation from Mr. Ridge, the head of 
the Department of Homeland Security, to move up the threat level as a 
result of potential war with Iraq. Intelligence services are telling us 
it is a virtual certainty that there will be a terrorist attack against 
the United States in this timeframe. We ought not to be adding to the 
deficit except for national defense, homeland security, and a stimulus 
package. Anything beyond that is risky at a time when we are on the 
brink of war.
  I hope my colleagues will think about this amendment. It requires a 
60-vote point of order. That means if there is some other contingency 
other than national defense, other than

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homeland security, other than a need for a stimulus package, we could 
do it, but it would take a supermajority to add to the deficit when we 
do not know the cost of the war.
  I hope colleagues will think very carefully about this amendment 
before we vote on it. My amendment is at the desk, and I call it up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Conrad], for himself and 
     Mr. Kennedy, proposes an amendment numbered 264.

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To prevent further deficit increases, except for national and 
  homeland security and short-term effects of measures providing for 
 economic recovery, until the President submits to Congress a detailed 
          estimate of the full cost of the conflict with Iraq)

       At the end of subtitle A of title II, insert the following:

     ``SEC. ___. PROTECTING RESOURCES REQUIRED FOR NATIONAL 
                   SECURITY AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY.

       ``(a) Point of Order.--It shall not be in order in the 
     Senate to consider any bill, joint resolution, motion, 
     amendment, or conference report that would increase the 
     deficit in any fiscal year, other than one economic growth 
     and jobs creation measure providing significant economic 
     stimulus in 2003 and 2004 which does not increase the deficit 
     over the time period of fiscal years 2005 through 2013 and 
     spending measures related to national or homeland security, 
     until the President submits to the Congress a detailed report 
     on:
       ``(1) the costs of the initial phase of the conflict, 
     maintaining troops in the region, and reconstruction and 
     rebuilding of Iraq; and
       ``(2) how all of these costs fit within the budget plan as 
     a whole.
       ``(b) Waiver and Appeal.--This section may be waived or 
     suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote of three-
     fifths of the members, duly chosen and sworn. An affirmative 
     vote of three-fifths of the Members or the Senate, duly 
     chosen and sworn, shall be required in the Senate to sustain 
     an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order 
     raised under this section.''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of the amendment. I 
commend the Senator for bringing this matter to the attention of the 
Senate and I hope the country because I think the vote on this 
amendment is going to say a great deal about what this country is 
about.
  I was listening very carefully to the Senator's comments that we 
should not provide, outside of meeting our responsibilities at home and 
our defense responsibilities and a temporary stimulus, a tax cut until 
we are going to pay for the war in Iraq, pay for the occupation in 
Iraq, and also pay for the return of the troops from Iraq.
  I was with the Senator over these past weeks when we had a series of 
briefings. We were told in those briefings that we could not make an 
estimate to the Budget Committee because we did not know exactly how 
many other countries were going to be joining with us, what the extent 
of their armed forces would be, who those countries might be, and what 
the size of their military would be.
  So because it was going to be difficult to make assumptions, on the 
basis of that fact, they were not going to make a submission to the 
Budget Committee. I think the Senator from North Dakota has reminded 
us, and the President certainly reminded us last night, that we are in 
effect going it alone. It is going to be the United States that is 
going to be assuming most of the costs. As I understand the Senator, it 
is not only a question of the finances, but it is also the message that 
we are sending to these American servicemen and women, who over the 
period of the next 36 to 48 hours will be risking their lives for their 
country, all at the same time that the Senate of the United States is 
going to be acting to give a tax break for wealthy individuals in this 
country.
  If we think that is a message of fairness, if we think that is 
backing up our troops in Iraq, I miss it completely. On the one hand, 
Americans are losing their lives and at the very same moment this 
Senate is giving a tax break to wealthy individuals. What is it about 
this Senate that they would consider this?
  I commend the Senator from North Dakota for reminding us of the 
history of this Nation. Never in the history of the Nation, have we had 
a tax cut for wealthy individuals, or for any individuals during 
wartime. As the Senator pointed out, we have a shared responsibility to 
come together as a Nation and engage in some form of sacrifice. I still 
remember the selling of bonds that took place during World War II. We 
were trying to get all Americans to contribute by buying the bonds for 
America, with everyone doing their bit. But, oh, no, not in this 
budget. We are, on the one hand, sending our servicemen and women 
overseas to risk their lives, and at the same time we are prepared to 
give one of the largest tax breaks in the history of this country.
  We should not commit the country to large new permanent tax breaks 
until the full cost of the Iraq conflict is known.
  We all know that the long term costs of the war in Iraq and its 
aftermath will be substantial. Independent estimates show the cost of 
the war between $50 and $150 billion. The Senator has outlined some of 
the areas of concern in terms of cost already. As I understand it, it 
costs about $9 to $13 billion to send the military over there. I hope 
the Senator will correct me with these figures if I am wrong. We know 
it is going to cost about $5 or $7 billion to bring them back. The best 
estimate is about $17 billion for every 75,000 troops. We had General 
Shinseki say our presence in the region might have to be several 
hundred thousand troops. Most of the military leaders, including 
General Nash who served in the gulf during the previous war, thought 
the same number of troops were needed to pacify a country as they go in 
at the same time of the invasion, at least for the first several 
months. If we are talking about $17 billion for 70,000, and we have 
General Shinseki talking about several hundred thousand, say 200,000, 
that is three times that amount. We are already up to almost $60 
billion.
  We have seen the estimates of rebuilding the oil industry at $5 to $7 
billion, if it is not destroyed. We have seen that bringing 
communications infrastructure up to 100 percent, would be another $15 
billion. We have seen the cost of bringing the electricity to 100 
percent estimated at $15 billion. We are talking about tens of billions 
of dollars, and this is not even getting into the payments to the 
various civil servants we are going to have to make once the current 
Iraqi Government is gone, to get them to continue performing their 
functions after the war.
  We assume all of these responsibilities under the Geneva Convention 
the day troops go across the border. Yet we do not have any kind of 
effort by this administration to work with the Budget Committee to try 
to work out a process of paying for these matters. I say to the 
chairman of the committee, we now have 175,000 guardsman and reservists 
who are serving. In many of these situations, the private insurance 
that they have for their families is not retained when they are 
activated. We ought to be making sure that at the very least, we are 
going to meet the health insurance costs for families of the 175,000 
reservists and National Guard who are being called up and are serving.
  Yet do we have that kind of coverage included in this budget? Has the 
administration said we ought to care for our service men and women in 
this budget who are facing this threat? They have not. I do not 
understand, and the American people don't understand why we are in this 
rush to pass this budget that is constructed to give major kinds of tax 
reductions for wealthy individuals without allocating the necessary 
resources to go to war. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. We are 
talking about tens of billions of dollars. Not one dollar has been set 
aside in the budget which Senate Republicans have brought to the floor 
for what everyone knows will be an expense in the tens or hundreds of 
billions of dollars.
  The American people ought to be informed about this. We have had a 
great

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many hearings around this body about the war, but those are classified 
and those are secret. Why can we not come out in the open and let the 
American people know exactly what this is going to mean in terms of the 
costs of the conflict? Why not include them in on this? Why exclude 
them from any of the information in terms of the costs of this 
conflict? We know the President has refused to submit a cost estimate 
to Congress because the overall cost will be so enormous and he is 
obviously afraid of ``sticker shock'' when he discloses the facts to 
the American people. The President does not want to tell Congress what 
this war will cost until his proposal for $1.3 trillion in new tax cuts 
for the very wealthy is locked in. He is afraid that if Congress knew 
the real costs of a war in Iraq, that Congress might do something 
sensible--such as reducing the size of the tax cut to help pay for the 
war.
  The way to have it done would have been to have worked with the 
Budget Committee and outlined what would be responsible recommendations 
and what would have been a responsible position to balance the costs we 
are going to face in the future, and defer any kind of tax reductions 
or breaks until we were able to get the job done.
  Finally, as we are sending our servicemen and women overseas to 
engage in battle, I share the belief that we should be building a 
better America here at home for when they return. They deserve, when 
they come home, to have a nation that has a sound economy. Our economy 
is flat now. We have a responsibility to take the steps now to make 
sure that when these service men and women come home, after they have 
been risking their lives, they are going to have a sound economy for 
their future. They ought to be able to come home and know that their 
younger brothers and sisters are going to go to good schools, get a 
good education, have an opportunity to continue their education in 
college, and not face an education system that has been virtually 
abandoned in this country.
  When they come home, they ought to know there is going to be the 
chance of being able to have affordable health insurance policies and 
not see that their parents are increasingly being put at financial risk 
because of the increasing costs of health insurance or the increasing 
costs of prescription drugs.
  We need a budget that will strengthen America. This is not that 
budget.
  The idea that we are not going to use our resources to educate future 
generations, we are not going to help families out with spiraling 
health insurance premiums, we are not going to help them out with 
prescription drugs; no, no, we are not going to do that. Instead, we 
are going to give a tax break for the wealthiest individuals at a time 
when our brave men and women in uniform are risking their lives in 
Iraq. This budget is not the right budget during a time of such high 
national purpose for America.
  The American people understand fairness. In the face of all the 
anxieties they have been facing here at home, they understand fairness. 
They understand, that when the sons and daughters of working families 
are going to risk their lives that it is absolutely unfair at that very 
moment to provide tax breaks for the most wealthy individuals in this 
country and fail to invest in America.
  While Senator Conrad is here, we will introduce a little later in the 
day, legislation regarding health insurance coverage for our Reservists 
and National Guardsmen and women, but I would like to have a chance to 
review with the Senator and other Members what the particular challenge 
is for these servicemen and servicewomen. If you think it is worthy of 
your support I ask that you support the legislation.
  I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his strong leadership on 
this budget resolution and for presenting this amendment before the 
Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I join the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts in congratulating our leader on the Budget Committee, the 
Senator from North Dakota, for his ongoing leadership and the 
priorities he set forth. They are so important. He made them so clear 
on behalf of the American people. I cannot think of a more important 
amendment than the amendment of Senator Conrad at this time and on this 
day. I hope we will unanimously support this amendment. I hope we would 
not have to have a vote, that we could do this by voice vote today.
  This amendment says exactly what we ought to be doing at this moment 
in time in our history. The amendment says, other than funding defense 
and homeland security and stimulating jobs and the economy, we are 
going to stop; we are going to wait on the rest of the budget; we are 
going to wait on additional spending. Certainly there are critical 
areas we care about. We are going to wait on any kind of a tax cut 
until we can pay for this war, until we know what the bill is. We know, 
if we do not do that, exactly how we are going to pay for it. We are 
going to pay for it by continuing to go into massive debt, depleting 
the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. That is how we are going 
to pay for it if we do not agree to this amendment.
  This is absolutely critical. I think certainly the people in Michigan 
look at us in wonderment that we would be bringing up the budget 
resolution for the coming year, in which are the values and priorities 
of the American people, and we would not have any money set aside for a 
war in which we are about to engage.
  How would an American family do that? If you were putting together 
your budget and you had a huge expense coming up in a couple of days, 
you wouldn't just ignore it. You wouldn't ignore it unless you just 
planned on putting it on a credit card, maybe. That is essentially what 
we are doing, is paying for the war through a taxpayers' credit card. 
That is not good enough and it is also not necessary. It is not 
necessary to do this outside the budget. This should be brought 
forward. We should at least put aside a reserve fund. We know at this 
point we cannot say exactly what it will cost. We certainly do not know 
what the reconstruction will cost. We do not know how long after the 
war we will be involved with Iraq, rebuilding Iraq. But we do know it 
is more than zero. We know that. We know it is more than zero.
  We have a pretty good idea you could start somewhere in the $80 
billion to $100 billion range and not be too high. So this says: Let's 
wait on other things. Let's wait and let's make sure we are covering 
the costs of a war that our President last night indicated most likely 
we are about to begin.
  We also believe part of that is making sure we have dollars for those 
who are fighting on the front lines here at home. We all care deeply 
and stand united supporting our troops overseas. We know in this 
resolution we clearly indicate defense should be our top priority at 
this time, to make sure both our reservists and National Guard and 
their families are receiving what they need in terms of health care, 
and certainly recognizing their sacrifice, leaving their fulltime jobs 
and going to serve all of us at this time of conflict.
  We have another group and that is the group that is serving us on the 
front lines at home. That is the group that answers the 9-1-1 call, the 
emergency medical personnel, the sheriff, the fire department. These 
are the people who have to respond. We, in fact, know the likelihood. 
Certainly there is increased risk right now they will have to respond.
  So part of what we are saying is defense abroad but also defense in 
our hometowns needs to be the top priority. We need to pay for that, 
too. We are not yet doing that. We are seeing promises to other 
countries for their help in this effort, yet no willingness to provide 
assistance for those who are helping us on the front lines in our own 
hometowns.
  Again, it just doesn't make any common sense. What we are saying 
through this amendment is we need to stop until we make it clear what 
the costs are for the war. We will focus on defense, homeland defense, 
and making sure we are stimulating jobs in the economy so in fact we 
are having a strong economy for our families and those fighting for us 
who will be coming home, so they will have that strong

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economy and jobs. But it is not the priority now to say that, among all 
the things we could be doing, we are going to give another round of tax 
cuts to those who make millions of dollars a year.
  We look at shared sacrifice and we are being told we all have to 
sacrifice. I read an article not long ago about our Senate Republican 
leader going in front of a group of veterans. But while he certainly 
indicated supporting the veterans, he said: Veterans are going to have 
to sacrifice.
  I would suggest veterans have already sacrificed and, in fact, we are 
creating war veterans whom we will be asking to sacrifice. But where is 
the sacrifice? Where is the sacrifice for those here at home who make 
millions of dollars a year, who already have one home, two homes, three 
homes, several cars, and are doing well? We welcome that. We would like 
that for every American. We certainly want an economy where every 
American can work hard and do well and move up the income scale.
  But what happens when we say to people, those making $13,000 a year, 
serving us in the Army versus somebody at home whose life is not on the 
line or someone who is not a police officer or a firefighter or EMT 
worker, what do we say when we are saying we cannot fund homeland 
security, we cannot make sure you have health care that you need to 
protect your families if you are in the National Guard or Reserves? We 
are not going to budget for this war, but we are going to say that if 
you are blessed and doing well and are at the very top of the income 
earnings of America, earning millions of dollars a year, then we are 
going to put you ahead of everybody else; and we are going to say that 
you ought to be able to get a tax cut, even though it means we cannot 
pay for the war, that we have to go back into debt, even though it 
means we have massive debt that is eventually going to raise interest 
rates and make it harder for people to buy houses and cars and send 
their kids to college; even though it puts us in a situation where we 
cannot provide prescription drug help for our seniors, we cannot fully 
pay our share of the public school bill through the Leave No Child 
Behind; even though we have to leave veterans standing in line for 
months to see a doctor at the VA; even though there are all kinds of 
other issues where we are saying to people that you have to sacrifice 
right now. Children have to sacrifice, seniors have to sacrifice, 
veterans have to sacrifice, our families and small businesses that are 
not getting help with their health care bills have to sacrifice; but a 
few folks at the top do not. And they are not asking for that, either.
  When I talk to folks who are doing very well at home, they say, we 
can wait. It is alright. We are not asking for this. We want to make 
sure our kids are safe at home, that hometown security is taken care 
of, the school systems are strong, and our troops have what they need 
overseas. They want to make sure that, in fact, those things are in 
place, which relate to our safety and security, and the economy, and 
the other issues that are very important for Americans, very important 
to keep us strong.
  This amendment is incredibly important. It basically says stop. Our 
President says in less than 48 hours we are going to be at war, 
assuming Saddam Hussein does not leave the country. We believe we have 
an obligation and a responsibility to pay for that war, to make sure 
our troops have what they need, to make sure people on the front lines 
in our communities at home have what they need so we are safe first. We 
need to do that first. Then we can talk about tax cuts and how to 
structure it so the majority of Americans benefit.
  We can talk about the important issues of health care and education 
and the environment and other critical needs in the country; but we 
need to stop now and focus first on the safety and security issues of 
our country and making sure our economy is strong with a stimulus so 
there are jobs. We need to start there, as any other family when you 
have to set priorities. Let's start with the bottom line priorities, 
given where we are now. Let's make sure we can pay for it, not be 
adding to the debt, and then we can debate other important issues that 
we all care about.
  Again, I commend Senator Conrad for his leadership and for this very 
important amendment. I hope all of us can come together and show unity 
on this floor and send a message across the country that at this time 
we are going to put our safety and security first, and we are going to 
make sure we are not putting it on a credit card--we are paying for 
it--and that we are going to make sure our troops and front line people 
at home have what they need before other decisions are made about this 
budget.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan for her 
remarks and for her leadership on the Budget Committee. She has been 
somebody who is dedicated to fiscal responsibility, and also addressing 
the priorities of the American people. Whether it is improved education 
for our children, or expanded health care, she has been a champion of 
all of that.
  I say to my colleagues, last night we had a discussion about a number 
of the issues facing us in this budget. As we discuss our current 
fiscal circumstance, I wish to remind people where we are, compared to 
where we thought we were going to be. This is critically important to 
understanding the choices before us.
  Two years ago we were told by the administration that we would have 
$5.6 trillion in surpluses over the next decade. The Congressional 
Budget Office produced this chart that showed the possible range of 
outcomes from a worst-case scenario to the best-case scenario with 
respect to budget deficits and possible budget surpluses. The center 
point of that range was the $5.6 trillion of surpluses over the next 
decade. In other words, they said you can have a wide variance of 
outcomes. You could actually have deficits, or you could have even 
larger surpluses than the $5.6 trillion that was the most likely 
outcome that they projected, as did the administration.
  At the time, the President was proposing a very large tax cut and he 
said we can have it all. He said we can have a large tax cut, major 
defense buildup, more money for education, more money for health care. 
He said we could have a maximum paydown of the debt and protect Social 
Security--the Social Security trust fund surpluses. We could stop the 
raid.
  Well, after the Congressional Budget Office showed us this range of 
possible outcomes, I tried to alert our colleagues that betting that we 
could have it all was probably a risky bet, and it would perhaps be a 
wiser course not to count on any 10-year forecast coming true, and that 
we had to take account of the possible downside risk as well as the 
upside potential.
  The will of this body was to charge ahead and bet that all those 
surpluses would come true. Now we know that was a bad bet; it was a 
risky bet. When we go back and actually do a line that shows where we 
actually are compared to the projections, we see we are below the 
bottom. Not only are we not at the midpoint of the possible range of 
outcomes with respect to the surplus, we are below the bottom. The 
result of that, of course, is deficits are exploding.
  Under the chairman's mark, we are going to have a deficit this year--
not counting Social Security. If we treat Social Security like a trust 
fund, as the law requires, we will have a deficit this year of $503 
billion. That is before any war costs. There are no war costs in that 
calculation. If the war cost is $100 billion, as many estimate in the 
first year, the deficit this year will be $600 billion.
  We have never had a deficit of more than $290 billion in our entire 
national history; $600 billion in 1 year would be staggering.
  It is a fundamental reason I am offering the amendment before us. The 
amendment says you cannot add to the deficit unless you can get a 
supermajority vote in the Senate. You have to get 60 votes or more to 
add to the deficit, with two exceptions. We would

[[Page 6359]]

not have that requirement for additional expenditures for national 
defense or homeland security. We would not have that supermajority 
requirement for a stimulus package to give lift to the economy this 
year and next when we are forecasting economic weakness.
  If this does not concern our colleagues about the direction of the 
fiscal condition of our country, I don't know what it will take to make 
them concerned. Not only do we see enormous deficits now, but we see it 
throughout the rest of the entire decade. Again, that is without any 
war costs. That is without any fix to the alternative minimum tax which 
now affects 2 million Americans and will affect 35 million Americans by 
the end of this decade.
  On top of that, under the chairman's mark, under his budget proposal, 
we see they will be taking $2.7 trillion of Social Security surpluses 
over the next decade and using those to pay for the tax cut and other 
expenditures. This is incredibly unwise. The baby boom generation is 
about to retire. The leading end starts to retire in 2008. When that 
happens, the cost to the Federal Government of Medicare and Social 
Security will increase dramatically because the number of people who 
are eligible increases dramatically.
  Instead of using this money for tax cuts and other expenditures, we 
should be using it to pay down the debt or to prepay the liability we 
all know is to come. Instead, the money is being spent. It is being 
used to fund tax cuts. It is being used to fund other expenditures. 
These taking of Social Security surplus funds and using it for other 
purposes will create an extraordinarily difficult set of choices for a 
future Congress and a future President.
  In many ways what I have already said understates the problem. In 
talking about deficits, we do not talk about the debt. Yesterday, I 
talked about the publicly held debt. That is the debt held by the 
public in this country. The President told us 2 years ago we would be 
virtually debt free by 2008 if his plan were adopted. We now know 
instead of being debt free, we will have over $5 trillion of debt by 
2008. That is the tip of the iceberg because that is the publicly held 
debt. That does not count the debt to the trust funds because we are 
taking the Social Security surpluses, using them for other purposes. 
That is also debt. That is also debt that has to be paid back.
  If we look at that debt under the chairman's mark, we can see it will 
equal $12 trillion by the end of this budget period by 2013. In 2002, 
the gross debt was just over $6 trillion. In that period of time, we 
will be doubling the debt, doubling the debt right on the brink of the 
retirement of the baby boom generation.
  That is why in the President's own review of his budget, he provided 
this chart. It is the long-term outlook for the country. What it shows 
is we are in the sweet spot now. Even though we are running record 
deficits, a deficit that may approach $600 billion this year, these are 
the good times, according to the President. This is what happens, he 
says, if we adopt his spending and tax cut proposals. It is just like 
falling off a cliff into an ocean of red ink. That is what will happen.
  Right at the time the costs of Government explodes with the cost of 
the baby boom generation, the cost of the President's tax cut explodes. 
What it does is create deficits that are totally unsustainable. It will 
mean massive debt, massive tax increases, massive benefit cuts. That 
will be the only way out of this ocean of red ink.
  This chart should alert everyone as to where we are headed. It shows 
the size of the Medicare trust fund surpluses in blue that ultimately 
become deficits, the size of the Social Security trust fund surpluses 
are in green, and it shows the size of the President's tax cuts in red. 
Right now there is a fairly rough balance between the surpluses of 
Social Security and Medicare and the size of the President's tax cuts, 
both those enacted and those proposed.
  But look what happens when the trust funds go cash negative in 2016 
and 2017. At the very time they go cash negative, the cost of the 
President's tax cuts explode, driving us into deep deficits, deep debt, 
deficits that will reach over $1 trillion a year. No one is going to 
loan us that kind of money. That is not going to work. These are 
deficits that are absolutely unsustainable.
  The head of the Congressional Budget Office, who was put in place by 
our friends on the other side of the aisle, told us last year if we go 
in this direction, it will mean massive debt; it will mean 
unprecedented tax increases, tax increases of 50 percent; and it will 
mean massive benefit cuts. I hope someone is listening. It is as though 
deficits are not a concern anymore. They better be because it is going 
to have real effects on real people, and they are going to be dramatic 
effects. They are going to be harshly negative. We are not paying 
attention to what we all know is coming. This is not a projection. 
Those baby boomers have been born. They are alive today. They are 
eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Those costs are going to 
explode as they retire.
  Unlike the 1980s, some of my colleagues say: Gee, in the 1980s we had 
big deficits and it all worked out--we had time to get well, then. We 
had time between those massive deficits and the retirement of the baby 
boom generation. This time, there is no time to get well. The baby 
boomers are going to retire.
  That is why the amendment I am offering is important. It says you 
have to have at least 60 votes to increase the deficit, except for 
expenditures for national defense and homeland security and except for 
tax cuts that are part of a package to stimulate the economy to get it 
growing again in 2003 and 2004. Other than that, you have to have a 
supermajority to add to the deficit.
  This is a consequential debate. At some time, the history of the 
fiscal affairs of our country will be written and looked back at this 
time and people will be held accountable for the choices they made. I 
hope they are wise choices.
  I see my colleague from Iowa is present, and I understand he has 
remarks. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Dakota yield time 
to the Senator from Iowa?
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
Iowa.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for 
yielding. I will speak on the situation in Iraq. I find it almost 
surreal that we are here debating the budget--it is important, 
obviously, for what will happen to the future of our country--but I 
note that at least the British House of Commons just today committed a 
whole day of debate on Iraq. Then they will vote on a resolution. It 
looks as though Prime Minister Blair will win the resolution in the 
House of Commons, but at least they are having a debate. We would think 
that would be happening here in the Senate, that we would have at least 
1 day of debate about whether or not our President is doing the right 
thing.
  I watched the President last night, and it looks as if his mind is 
made up. In fact, I think it has been made up for a long time. I was 
disheartened to learn that the United Nations is withdrawing its 
inspectors. They have been making some progress, but they are now being 
pulled out.
  Last October, I was one of 77 Senators who supported the 
congressional resolution on Iraq. The resolution, in the version that 
we passed, supported diplomatic efforts to enforce the Security Council 
resolutions. And if all peaceful means failed, it authorized the use of 
force so we could defend the national security of the U.S. and enforce 
Security Council resolutions.
  At the time, I said that going to war should be the last resort. It 
was clear then--and it is clear now--that Saddam Hussein is a brutal 
dictator, and that weapons of mass destruction in his hands are a grave 
danger to the international community. But I said then--and say now--
there is a right way and a wrong way to confront him and disarm him.
  In voting for the resolution, I say to my fellow Iowans and to my 
fellow Senators, I was clear I was not voting for immediate war with 
Iraq. I wanted

[[Page 6360]]

to provide maximum leverage for the President to persuade the Security 
Council to approve a tough, new resolution for inspections and 
disarmament.
  Since October, this approach has had some success. The Security 
Council passed a strong resolution, and inspectors went back into Iraq 
for the first time since 1998. Faced with a united world, Iraq has 
generally let the inspections take place. After some resistance, Iraq 
has begun to allow some overflights and interviews with scientists. And 
they are destroying their al-Samoud missiles, as the U.N. demanded.
  Now clearly, there are huge gaps in Iraq's cooperation. They have 
stonewalled in providing required information on their former chemical 
and biological weapons. And, as Secretary Powell described to the 
Security Council, they appear to have tried to deceive U.N. inspectors. 
But as far as we know, the disarmament of Iraq had begun. It certainly 
has not been completed and verified. But the process was underway and 
should have been allowed adequate time to bear fruit. Yet now war is 
going to start.
  Back in October, the President, perhaps reluctantly, agreed to work 
through the United Nations in seeking disarmament of Iraq through 
peaceful means. I now have to wonder if President Bush really meant it. 
Almost from the day inspections began, the administration has been 
proclaiming their end.
  Back in January, the President gave ``a matter of weeks, not 
months.'' But from the start, the inspectors themselves have said it 
would take months or years for them to complete their work.
  And I regret to say that we have not been helping the inspectors 
adequately. As I said after Secretary Powell's presentation to the 
U.N., rather than complaining about truck convoys weeks after the fact, 
we should help the U.N. stop and inspect them with real-time 
intelligence. But according to a CBS News report from February 21, U.N. 
inspectors said our intelligence--U.S. intelligence--has just led them 
``to one dead end after another.'' These U.N. inspectors called the 
intelligence we gave them ``garbage after garbage after garbage.''
  The administration has not even been clear on what we want from Iraq. 
The resolution I voted for referred to enforcing Security Council 
resolutions. Now, while there are a lot of those, the key one demanded 
disarmament of Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons 
programs, and of their long-range missiles.
  After hundreds of inspections, the U.N. has found no evidence of 
ongoing programs for weapons of mass destruction. They did find that 
some missiles go a few miles over the limit. Iraq declared those, and 
is now destroying them. Nobody is saying that Saddam Hussein's 
obsessive pursuit of these weapons is suddenly over, but we sure do not 
have much evidence there to justify an invasion and full scale war.
  So the administration tries to bring in September 11 and the fear 
that Hussein will give his weapons of mass destruction--assuming he has 
some--to terrorist groups. But no one has ever shown that Iraq had any 
involvement in the September 11 attacks. And even U.S. and British 
intelligence officials describe evidence of Hussein's links to al-Qaida 
as weak.
  A recent Washington Post graphic showed 20 key terrorist organizers. 
They were from Saudi Arabia and Egypt and several other countries, but 
not one was from Iraq.
  So now the administration talks about fostering democracy throughout 
the Middle East. That is a noble goal. But it is hard to grow democracy 
out of the barrel of a gun. It seems more likely that a U.S. invasion 
and occupation of Iraq will lead to more extremism and terrorism in 
that region.
  In any case, our goal was supposed to be enforcing U.N. Security 
Council resolutions and defending U.S. national security. The 
resolutions are about disarmament in Iraq, not about rebuilding 
governments in that region.
  Further, the administration has been throwing out allegations about 
Iraq without bothering to back them up. First, they claimed Iraq has 
been trying to buy uranium, based on documents that turned out to be 
forgeries. They pointed to a British intelligence dossier that turned 
out to be copied from academic papers several years old. They talked 
about close ties to al-Qaida based on an alleged facility in an area of 
Iraq that Hussein does not control and on one visit to an Iraqi 
hospital.
  The Vice President, on Sunday, claimed that Iraq has ``reconstituted 
nuclear weapons,'' a bizarre claim, but the U.N. has found no evidence 
that Iraq ever had nuclear weapons to reconstitute or that they now 
have an active program to make them. But after the Vice President said 
that, he turned around and then said something else. I am reading here 
from the Washington Post of this morning, Tuesday: ``Bush Clings To 
Dubious Allegations About Iraq.''

       In his appearance Sunday, on NBC's ``Meet The Press,'' the 
     vice president argued that ``we believe he has, in fact, 
     reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' But Cheney contradicted that 
     assertion moments later, saying it was ``only a matter of 
     time before he acquires nuclear weapons.'' Both assertions 
     were contradicted earlier by Mohamed ElBaradei, director 
     general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who 
     reported that ``there is no indication of resumed nuclear 
     activities.''
       Earlier this month, ElBaradei said information about Iraqi 
     efforts to buy uranium were based on fabricated documents. 
     Further investigation has found that top CIA officials had 
     significant doubts about the veracity of the evidence, 
     linking Iraq to efforts to purchase uranium for nuclear 
     weapons from Niger, but the information ended up as fact in 
     Bush's State of the Union address.

  Well, on and on and on it goes.
  After I listened to the President last night, and after going through 
all the false assertions that they have made--what the Vice President 
said on national television on Sunday, without a shred of evidence--
reminds me of two ships called the Maddox and the Turner Joy, that 
supposedly in the late summer of 1964 were attacked in the Gulf of 
Tonkin.
  I ask Senators, go back and read the Senate debate on the Gulf of 
Tonkin resolution in August 1964--our two ships attacked in the open 
ocean, attacked by vessels from North Vietnam. That led to a drumbeat 
to pass the Tonkin Gulf resolution, which gave the President the 
authority to engage in full scale war in Vietnam.
  What did we learn later? We learned later that there never was such 
an incident. Neither the Maddox nor the Turner Joy was ever attacked. 
This was all fabrication, all total fabrication.
  But I ask, what elected official, what appointed official in the 
Johnson administration or later in the Nixon administration was ever 
held to account for that? Yet 50,000 lives later, we recognize what led 
us into Vietnam.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 10 minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. Can I ask for another 5 or 7 minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. Another 5, if that is OK. We have another speaker who is 
scheduled in that slot.
  Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate that.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, if I could interrupt the Senator and ask 
the time be charged to the resolution, and the other time that has been 
allotted to the Senator from Iowa be charged to the resolution rather 
than the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that option.
  Mr. HARKIN. So, Mr. President, we almost have before us another 
Maddox and Turner Joy: a claim that Iraq has reconstituted nuclear 
weapons, but the evidence is not there.
  The President himself said, last October:

       Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of 
     hundreds of miles--far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, 
     Turkey and other nations--in a region where more than 135,000 
     American civilians and service members live and work.

  Those are the President's words.
  But:

       Inspectors have found that the al-Samoud 2 missiles can 
     travel much less than 200 miles--not far enough to hit the 
     targets Bush named.

  The constant beating on the drums of war, along with the shifting 
goals--last night for the first time I heard that it is not just 
Hussein who has to leave but also his sons; the goal was regime

[[Page 6361]]

change, then it was disarmament, and now it is regime change and a 
family thing, to get the family out--the dubious allegations, the lack 
of support for inspections, make it look as though this administration 
has been set on war from the beginning and has just been casting about 
looking for support for their war all along.
  Is war justified? I have absolute confidence in the men and women of 
our Armed Forces. Faced with war, they will win, and will do so with 
courage, discipline, and skill. But even with our overwhelming 
strength, even assured of victory, war is a terrible prospect. 
Thousands of innocent people will die. Iraq will be left in chaos. We 
will be left to occupy a country most likely for years, left with the 
responsibility on our taxpayers of rebuilding it.
  America has always been reluctant to engage in war. And this will be 
the first war ever in which we have invaded where there has not been an 
imminent threat.
  I believe there are at least four tests that must be met before we go 
to war. First, we must face an imminent threat. That has not been 
shown. Could Saddam be a threat down the line sometime? Perhaps. But we 
could contain him with inspections, and not just a handful but 500 or 
1,000 inspectors--there is no limit on how many inspectors we could 
have; we could put in 1,000 inspectors. Would that cost more money? 
Sure. A lot less than a war.
  So we must face an imminent threat, and that has not been shown.
  Secondly, war should be the last resort, not the first. Even if a 
threat is demonstrated, we should launch a war only after we have 
exhausted all reasonable alternatives, as we required in the resolution 
last fall. In this case, we clearly have not.
  Third, we must have substantial support among our allies and work 
with the United Nations. The agreements Saddam Hussein has violated are 
with the U.N. He didn't make those agreements with the United States, 
he made them with the United Nations. So since it is not a bilateral 
problem, it is a multilateral problem, we should be working through the 
United Nations. There is no doubt we can win a war against Iraq on our 
own--no doubt about that--but we are going to need the other nations to 
help rebuild Iraq after the war.
  Finally, before we go to war, the fourth thing we need is a full 
debate in the Congress. Thus, I applaud Senator Byrd and Senator 
Kennedy for their resolutions to move the debate forward. But now the 
clock has run out. I can't for the life of me understand, why the 
British House of Commons can have a full day of debate today on whether 
or not to pass a resolution to go to war, but the U.S. Congress can't.
  I think back to our own Revolution which gave us the power. It is in 
the Constitution of the United States that only Congress has the power 
to declare war. And there can be no mistake about it. This is not an 
intervention. This is not military police activity. This is not 
defending ourselves against an imminent threat. This is an invasion and 
a full-scale war against a country.
  I believe the Congress, and only the Congress, has the right to do 
that, and we have not even had the debate. It is time we have the 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
  Mr. CONRAD. Does the Senator from New York seek time?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Yes, I ask for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. I yield 5 minutes off the resolution to the Senator from 
New York.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague from North Dakota for offering this 
amendment which is timely and important.
  What is this budget? Why do we have a Budget Act? Why do we have a 
budget resolution? It is to set priorities. If we didn't have to set 
priorities, we could have as many tax cuts as we wanted and as much 
spending as we wanted and as big a deficit as we wanted, and the 
country would be in chaos.
  The Budget Act is a disciplining process that says: Everyone wants a 
whole lot of good things in America, but we have to set priorities. And 
we say this as we are in the shadow of war.
  I have spoken on this and issued a statement last night, and I will 
be speaking more later. I pray for our soldiers and hope and pray that 
Saddam sees the light and abdicates. But if he doesn't, we will back 
our soldiers and do everything we can. That is a priority that we have 
to set and will set. But we have other priorities.
  The Senator from North Dakota has wisely said, before we set those 
other priorities, we ought to figure out what the war and the ensuing 
peace will cost. I, for one, believe tax cuts are appropriate to 
stimulate the economy. The amendment wisely allows that. But it says 
before we go into a long train of large tax cuts--it doesn't say don't 
do them--let's figure out as best we can what the costs of the war are. 
Are the costs of the war going to crowd out funding for Medicare and 
Social Security? Are the costs of the war going to crowd out money for 
education or money for transportation? They may. We just ought to know 
it before we do it. Then, if we do have a crowding out, do people 
prefer, say, Medicare or tax cuts? Do they prefer education or tax 
cuts? Do they prefer transportation money or tax cuts? That is what a 
budget resolution is all about.
  To proceed with a budget resolution that is going to offer massive 
tax cuts without knowing the cost of the war would drive any accountant 
crazy. Last year we were all saying, accountants have to get a whole 
lot better. Any accountant in his first year of taking an accounting 
course in college would say: If you have a huge cost coming up--a cost 
we all support, the cost of the war--don't do other types of things, 
whether it be spending or cuts, before you know what that cost is.
  My colleague has put together a great amendment. In fact, if you are 
a fiscal conservative, above all you should support the amendment. I 
don't care what your ideology is, this is a fiscally conservative 
amendment. It says, get your ducks in order; figure out what your costs 
are before you engage in a massive program of tax expenditure.
  It leaves room for a stimulus which we all need and will support. But 
it simply says, figure out your priorities because if we don't and we 
do a budget resolution and we don't know what the costs of the war are 
going to be, one of two things will happen: We will have a deficit that 
goes way beyond what anyone imagined and it will wreck our economy, or 
other kinds of spending needs will be crowded out--spending for 
education, spending for transportation, spending for Medicare and 
Social Security. All we are saying is: Figure out the priorities.
  It is virtually reckless to do a budget resolution until we know what 
the costs are. I say this as somebody who is not opposed to spending 
money on a war. But at the same time we have war, to have massive tax 
cuts and not know what the other consequences will be for our deficit 
and spending, as I said before, would drive any student in the first 
year of Accounting 101 absolutely crazy.
  I thank my colleague from North Dakota for putting together a 
fiscally conservative and responsible amendment, for restoring some 
order to make sure that the Budget Act, which says, let's not be kids 
in a candy store and just pick everything without knowing the 
consequences--that is what the Budget Act says--to make sure it has 
some real teeth and real meaning.
  I thank my colleague from North Dakota for offering the amendment. I 
hope we will have bipartisan support for it because it is only fair and 
right.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Enzi). The Democratic leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I will use my leader time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from New York for 
his eloquence and his comments. Also,

[[Page 6362]]

I commend the distinguished ranking member on the Budget Committee for 
the leadership he has shown in offering this amendment today. I am very 
grateful to him for the work he has invested into this amendment. I am 
very hopeful our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will see its 
wisdom.
  Our Nation is living through some grave and difficult days. We face 
the continuing threat of terror and the developing danger of nuclear 
proliferation from both North Korea and Iran. At the same time, the 
American economy is stagnating, the Federal deficit is exploding. More 
and more Americans are losing hope that they will ever find a job.
  Overshadowing all of this, we stand on the cusp of war with Iraq. We 
need to be awake to this moment in history. In generations past, our 
country stared straight into the eyes of every threat and did what it 
took to overcome danger. The hallmark of American history has been the 
willingness of our leaders and our citizens to sacrifice today for the 
liberty, security, and prosperity of our children and our children's 
children tomorrow.
  President Bush said in his State of the Union Address:

       We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass 
     along our problems to other Congresses, to other Presidents, 
     to other generations.

  We could not agree more.
  Now is not a time to pass reckless tax breaks that will saddle our 
Nation with debilitating debt for generations to come, while doing 
nothing to energize our economy today. Our Nation needs to be united in 
the face of the many threats before us. But I fear the President's tax 
break plan not only divides us against one another today, it pits the 
political whims of the moment against the economic security and 
prosperity of the future.
  Therefore, I am asking Democrats and Republicans to come together to 
support this amendment, which has been called the ``patriotic pause,'' 
because it states clearly that, except for national security, except 
for defense, except for a genuine and very small fiscally responsible 
economic stimulus plan, this Congress will approve no new tax breaks or 
new spending until the cost of war in Iraq and the rebuilding effort 
that will follow are determined.
  Under this amendment, we will provide every necessary resource to 
support our troops and protect our homeland. We will also do what it 
takes to re-ignite our economy. But this amendment acknowledges that we 
have an obligation to keep our commitments to America's children, 
families, and seniors. If we enact the Republican budget plan with the 
$1.5 trillion in new tax breaks, primarily for those at the very top, 
we would see deficits and debt for as far as the eye can see. And the 
cost of these new tax breaks explodes in the future, sucking up 
resources needed to keep our commitments to Social Security and 
Medicare.
  This past weekend, I met with a group of seniors to discuss the 
issues most important to them. Concerned about the uncertain future of 
Social Security and Medicare, one gentlemen said to me:

       Five years ago, I was part of the ``greatest generation.'' 
     Now someone is trying to declare war on me.

  This Congress must honor the patriotism of our parents and 
grandparents by living up to our obligations to them. We must 
demonstrate our own love of country by living up to the highest 
traditions of our history.
  The ``patriotic pause'' gives us that chance. It will demonstrate to 
our citizens and to history itself that we are awake to the demands of 
this moment, and it will preserve the resources and trust necessary to 
meet whatever challenges our shared future holds.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. I see my colleague from North Dakota is seeking time. How 
much time does the Senator wish?
  Mr. DORGAN. Fifteen minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. On this amendment, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 7 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Senator Conrad has offered an amendment that is simple, 
devastatingly simple, and right.
  I talk often about going to a very small school, probably not the 
smallest school that anyone in the Senate attended, but it must be 
close. My entire high school, four grades, was 40 kids, and the senior 
class in my high school was 9. I kid that I was in the top 5 somewhere 
in a high school class of 9. We did not have Ph.D.s teaching math. I 
didn't need a Ph.D. to tell me how to add 1 and 1; 1 and 1 always 
equals 2--except in Washington, DC, during a budget debate.
  Let me talk about what is happening with respect to fiscal policy in 
this country. This is a chart that shows what is happening with respect 
to Federal surpluses and deficits. We were in the go-go 1990s, 
turbocharged 1990s; our economy was building, creating new jobs and 
producing tax revenues, and we began to have surpluses.
  We had people say: We have surpluses as far as the eye can see; let's 
provide very large tax cuts. President Bush was the leader of that $1.7 
trillion effort. Some said we ought to be a little more conservative, 
if something happens. But the President got his way, we had a very 
large tax cut, and guess what. We then had a recession.
  The attacks of September 11, the war on terrorism, the largest 
corporate scandals in history, the bursting of the tech bubble, 
pancaking of the stock market, and guess what happened. We went from 
black ink to red ink quickly, with a devastating decline into huge, 
crippling Federal budget deficits. That is where we are. That is where 
we are headed.
  What is the answer? The President says, let's have more tax cuts. In 
my hometown, as they say, when you were in the hole, you did not order 
more shovels, you just stopped digging. This is a circumstance where we 
have to sober up as a country and evaluate how do we deal with these 
hemorrhaging Federal budget deficits in the long term. We do it, as the 
Senator from my home State says with this amendment, by deciding to 
wait for additional tax cuts and additional spending: Let's have a 
pause at the moment, put a lid on it all; no big tax cuts, no big 
spending increases. He allows in his amendment the opportunity and the 
need to deal with defense and homeland security, he allows the need in 
the first 2 years to deal with a stimulus plan, if necessary, but he 
says, beyond that, let's have a pause.
  On the eve of potential military action in Iraq, we hope and pray it 
is quick and decisive with minimum loss of lives, but we know as it 
happens, it will cost a great deal of money, and we are going to be 
prepared to respond to that. We will provide the resources necessary to 
support the brave men and women who fight for this country. But we 
ought to ask the question on the eve of military action, should we pass 
a budget resolution that says, by the way, what we propose at the 
moment, as is the case with President Bush's budget and the budget that 
came out of the Budget Committee, let's have very large tax cuts, let's 
have the huge costs of war and reconstruction and the consequence of 
that, and let's attach to that additional tax cuts?
  Maybe it is only in this town that there is some sort of escape from 
reality, but in my little hometown if you talk about budgets and 
responsibility and, yes, patriotism, it seems to me we have to add up 
what our needs are, what we have to do as a country, how much revenue 
we have to do it with, and try to come to some reconciliation of that. 
But that is not the case in Washington, DC.
  Let me say this about tax cuts. Tax cuts represent the easiest 
political lifting in American politics; no question about it. If you 
want the easiest lift in the Senate, boast about all the tax cuts you 
support. I would love to say I support all the tax cuts and I believe 
we all ought to have a zero tax rate, but that is not the fact. The 
fact is we build roads, we educate our kids, we provide for our common 
defense, we do all of these things together, and someone has to pay for 
that. I would love to

[[Page 6363]]

say let's have giant tax cuts that go on forever. But it is not the 
responsible thing to do, especially on the eve of a war.
  The amendment offered by my colleague, Senator Conrad, is simple. He 
says let's take a pause for a moment. The budget resolution that comes 
to the floor out of the Budget Committee says: Let's decide to have 
very large tax cuts, make the previous tax cuts permanent, and on top 
of that, have additional large tax cuts. And, oh, by the way, we will 
increase defense, increase homeland security, and shrink domestic 
discretionary spending, including education, health care, and all the 
other issues.
  It seems to me things that go around come around, and we already have 
a construct of this. David Stockman wrote a book about it. That was in 
1981. They said, we can double defense spending and have very large tax 
cuts and it will add up. It didn't. Someone asked President Reagan 
about his plan, and there was a parody about that. He said: Well, what 
this new economic plan is, you take an apple, and you cut it in half, 
and then you have three glasses, put half an apple in one glass, half 
an apple in the second glass, and half an apple in the third glass. 
They said: How do you get three halves from one apple? And he said: 
See, you don't understand our theory.
  I think I do understand the theory. There are only two halves of the 
apple, but this budget resolution provides the kind of theory and 
gimmickry that will head us down a road to hemorrhaging deficits that 
will cripple this country. It will devastate our ability to restart 
this economic engine of ours.
  The people who watch us here in the Congress, watch what we do, they 
need to see we are serious about trying to put this fiscal house in 
order.
  I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield 3 additional minutes to the Senator 
from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Those who watch this process need to understand we are 
serious about what we are doing here, that what we do will lead to some 
kind of economic stability in the future. They count on it, that we are 
not going to spend money we don't have. We are not going to burden our 
kids with debt. We are going to try to have some means to pay for that 
which we do and, yes, that includes paying for the costs of military 
action and supporting our troops.
  I support this Conrad amendment because I think it puts national 
security and economic security first. I support this amendment because 
I support the troops, and I support this amendment because I support 
efforts to increase homeland security in this country. I support this 
amendment because I believe our economy needs a boost. All of those, in 
my judgment, will be the fruits of this amendment.
  I regret that we have the budget resolution on the floor that came 
from the Budget Committee. It has completely taken a vacation from 
reality. There is no way it adds up. You can explain it until you are 
blue in the face, it doesn't add up, and it is not going to lead to a 
better and brighter economic future.
  I want a fiscal policy, as does my colleague, I believe, a fiscal 
policy that expands this country's economy. First, we need to jump-
start it and then we need to try to find ways to give people confidence 
to expand it.
  Our economy is all about confidence. When people are confident in the 
future, they do things that manifest that confidence: buy a house, buy 
a car, take a trip. They do the things that expand the economy. When 
they are not confident about the future, they do exactly the opposite 
and the economy contracts. They defer the purchase, don't take the 
trip. The economy contracts.
  I want people to take a look at what the Senate does, what my 
colleague has done with this amendment, and say this gives us some 
confidence about the future. There are people who are serious about 
making sure this adds up, about making the right investments, 
establishing the right priorities for this country. That is what this 
amendment does.
  In my judgment, if you decide you are with the Budget Committee 
resolution that came to the floor of the Senate, what you are saying is 
we believe we should have long-term, growing, inescapable Federal 
deficits and we don't care much about it.
  I will tell you what, if you don't care much about it in the Senate, 
there are many who will. They will pay for it with their jobs. They 
will pay for it with lost opportunity. They will pay for it with weaker 
schools. They will pay for it with less homeland security. That is a 
guarantee.
  On the positive side, let me say this amendment is a giant step in 
the right direction and I hope my colleagues will support it. I commend 
Senator Conrad for the amendment that he calls The Patriotic Pause 
amendment. It says: Let's stop. Let's take a look. Let's listen to what 
is happening around here and let's make a sound judgment about where 
this country ought to head and what its priorities are.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCAIN. I ask that I be yielded time under consideration of the 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as Senators begin debate on the budget, I 
want to briefly discuss why, at this time, I cannot in good conscience 
vote in favor of tax cuts, irrespective of their size or to which 
segment of the population they are targeted, nor can I support any 
substantial spending increases that are not related to improving our 
Nation's defense from the obvious and serious threats facing us today.
  Let me stress, however, that I am, like my colleagues, concerned with 
the weakened state of our economy, and I do not dismiss lightly 
arguments in support of stimulating our economy with tax cuts. I know 
the negligible growth in our economy today has left many Americans 
without work, their investments and saving diminished, with lower 
standards of living, and that their elected representatives are 
expected to do something to help alleviate their suffering. I may have 
concerns that some parts of the administration's proposed tax cuts 
would not provide the near term stimulus necessary to strengthen our 
obviously anemic economic recovery. However, I am certainly willing--
even inclined--to consider tax cuts that would provide a more immediate 
stimulus, such as, for instance, a reduction in payroll taxes. But not 
at this time.
  The United States is currently engaged in a global war against 
terrorism, and will, in all likelihood, soon commence a necessary war 
to disarm Iraq by destroying the regime of Saddam Hussein. The costs of 
these enterprises are not known with any degree of certainty at this 
time. Nor are the costs we will incur after what I believe, what I 
fervently hope, will be a brief, successful war in Iraq, as we seek to 
establish the foundations for a peaceful, stable and democratizing 
Iraq. The administration has not provided the Congress with a realistic 
estimate of how much this worthwhile endeavor will cost the U.S. 
Treasury. I don't fault them for that. The costs are simply not 
knowable at this time.
  I believe the war in Iraq can be concluded successfully in a 
relatively brief time. But it is surely possible that the conflict 
won't meet our best estimates for its probable duration. It might take 
longer than we hope or it may exceed our hopes. As any responsible war 
planner will tell you, it is always wise to expect the unexpected in 
war. Few battle plans have realized in their execution the planners' 
every assumption.
  Moreover, we do not know at this time how great will be the costs of 
meeting our responsibilities in a post war Iraq or with how many other 
countries that burden will be shared. The answer to those questions 
will depend, more than anything else, on how quickly and how thoroughly 
this military action succeeds.
  Also, if terrorist organizations use our action in Iraq as the 
occasion and the excuse to initiate new attacks against Americans, at 
home and abroad, that too will put new pressures on our treasury. What 
is already clear

[[Page 6364]]

to me is that we will need to spend substantially more on our national 
defense--in the long term--that is currently envisioned, according to 
recent reports, in the budgets being marked up by the House and Senate 
budget committees. How much more will depend, of course, on the war's 
costs. But it will also depend on challenges from the continued threat 
from al-Qaida and other associated terrorist groups, and from the 
aggressive actions by states hostile to the United States and our 
allies, which are intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction, such 
as North Korea.
  In addition, the costs of our security at home are great, and certain 
to increase over the next few years. Our war against al-Qaida has been 
significantly successful. The President and his administration deserve 
great credit for that. But the enemy in our global war against 
terrorism is not yet vanquished. Speaking as a border state senator, 
with the challenges to better protect our borders so evident to 
Arizonans, I am acutely aware of how much more needs to be done to 
secure our homeland.
  Even without assuming the costs of these various contingencies, 
particularly the war in Iraq and the responsibilities we will have in 
that country following the cessation of hostilities, the increase in 
the Federal budget deficit envisioned over the next 10 years ought to 
concern greatly every member of Congress. In the first 5 months of 
fiscal year 2003, the United States Government has already run up a 
$195 billion deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 
even without the President's tax cuts and without further increases in 
spending for the remainder of the fiscal year, the total budget deficit 
for 2003 will reach $246 billion. If we add the projected costs this 
year of the President's tax cuts the deficit would reach $287 billion. 
Most alarming, are the deficit projections for the next 10 years, 
incorporating the President's proposed tax cuts, released by CBO last 
week: $1.8 trillion. That's a pretty staggering sum, and it does not 
include any of the costs of our imminent actions in Iraq.
  We should be concerned about deficits. They limit economic expansion 
by reducing the amount of national savings available for investment. 
This raises both interest rates and interest payments on the national 
debt. Deficits constrain our ability to respond effectively to 
unanticipated fiscal events. If we do not reduce them, projected long 
term deficits will reach dangerous levels, lowering the national income 
and standards of living for future American generations.
  That said, I would still be open, at some point, to proposals to 
stimulate the economy with tax cuts. But not now. We should take a 
pause in our efforts to increase spending on nondefense needs and to 
reduce taxes.
  However, I will not support the amendment by my friend from North 
Dakota to create a 60-vote budget point of order against any 
legislation that contains tax cuts or spending increases that would 
increase the deficit until the President submits to Congress a detailed 
report on the costs of our operations in Iraq. The way to address 
legitimate concerns with this budget resolution is not by creating new, 
complicated points of order, containing numerous exceptions and subject 
to very discretionary judgments about what is significant economic 
stimulus, and what is an adequately detailed report on the costs of war 
and reconstruction in Iraq. The Senate should speak directly to these 
concerns now, and vote for or against tax cuts and nondefense spending 
increases in this budget resolution. Should continued negligible 
economic growth require the stimulus offered by tax cuts later in this 
Congress, after, for lack of a better metaphor, the dust has settled 
somewhat in our operations in Iraq, and Congress and the administration 
have a better understanding of the costs of war and peace incurred by 
the United States, Senators can consider changes to fiscal policy at 
that time.
  However, while I don't foreclose future consideration of a tax cut to 
stimulate the economy, no one can be expected to make an informed 
decision on fiscal policy at this time with so many uncertain 
contingencies possibly on the horizon, and with the near, mid- and 
long-term costs of defending this country unknown and presently 
unknowable. Let us wait until we have succeeded in Iraq, and until we 
have some idea of what percentage of the costs of the aftermath of 
those hostilities we will have to bear. The best thing that can be done 
for the economy today is to win the war in Iraq quickly, completely, 
and to attract the coalition of partners necessary to help us meet our 
postwar objectives in that country. That is a far more necessary, and 
responsible stimulus to our economy at this time. And it is far sounder 
statesmanship than cutting taxes in the dark, or running up spending, 
without due regard to our primary responsibility to the American 
people: their physical security.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am wondering----
  Mr. CONRAD. How much time does the Senator seek?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Five minutes.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes off the resolution to 
the Senator from Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                      Nomination of Miguel Estrada

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in just a few moments we will be voting 
on Mr. Estrada's nomination for the district court. I wish to take a 
few moments of the Senate's time to talk about a very important matter, 
and a matter which is really the basis of the dispute in the Senate. 
That is about the materials that have been requested by members of the 
Judiciary Committee which have been denied to the members of the 
Judiciary Committee.
  Thanks in large part to the majority leader's suggestion of a serious 
constitutional debate, we have all learned some important history 
lessons.
  We have learned in detail about the deliberate decision of the 
Founders to give the Senate a major and independent role in the 
selection of Federal judges at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, 
and to prevent the judiciary from becoming a pawn of the President.
  We have been reminded that the founders made a very specific decision 
to create the Senate as a constraining force on the President, to 
resist sudden or drastic changes in the direction of the Nation and to 
prevent Presidential overreaching.
  We have all reread the key provision of the Constitution in which the 
Founders instructed that the Senate exercise its specific powers in 
accordance with rules of its own making. We have learned that until 
1949, the first 162 years of our country, those rules provided no way 
at all to end Senate debate on a nomination by the President. In 1949, 
our rules established the possibility of a cutoff of our prized freedom 
of speech on the Senate floor--but only when a two-thirds majority 
consensus supported imposing that restraint on the minority.
  Despite the hypocritical cries of ``majority rule governs'' from 
those who would have us abdicate our central constitutional role, we 
all recognize that the President who has caused this controversy over 
judicial nominations would not be our President today if majority rule 
applied to the Presidential elections.
  It is clear that the administration has not met its burden of 
demonstrating the suitability of this nominee. The nomination process 
is not a game of hide and seek, in which the White House selects only 
the positive information about a nominee to give the Senate and 
withholds the rest, in the hope that the Senate will not find it. The 
process is not complete until the administration shares with the Senate 
all of the available information, so that the Senate can exercise its 
advice and consent power deciding for itself, under its own rules, what 
is relevant and what is not, what is dispositive and what is not.
  The members of the President's party do not serve him well, nor do 
they serve their own interests well, nor do they fulfill their 
obligations to the Senate, if they allow the White House

[[Page 6365]]

to short-circuit the process by selectively withholding information. 
And the fact that some of that information may be confidential, or 
sensitive, or classified, or embarrassing does not end the matter. It 
merely starts a process within the administration of deciding whether 
the nomination of a particular person for a particular position at a 
particular time is important enough to the President to justify the 
release of that information.
  In some cases it may be possible to block out particular items in 
documents without destroying their utility. In some cases it may be 
appropriate to allow receipt and discussion of particular documents in 
closed committee session without immediate release to the public. In 
some cases, it may be necessary to provide classified documents to 
committees with the facilities to handle it properly and with staff who 
are cleared to review it. Once the Senate has the information on any of 
these grounds, we can decide whether the information is relevant, what 
weight to place on it, and whether further investigation or questioning 
is required.
  The argument for withholding documents in close cases is not a very 
strong one--it does not rise to the level of proprietary business 
information or intelligence methods, for example. And as many of us on 
the committee have pointed out to the White House, there are many 
instances in recent history where the Justice Department has provided 
such materials to us.
  One of the best examples of such a case was the Richard Kleindienst 
confirmation proceeding. In that case, as here, members of the 
Committee requested extensive litigation materials from the Justice 
Department. Unlike the present case, the Chairman, although he 
disagreed with those Senators on the merits of the nomination, agreed 
that they were entitled to make their requests, and certified the 
requests as Committee requests to which the Department would have to 
respond. The Department in fact provided the Judiciary Committee with 
extremely sensitive deliberative litigation documents from various 
offices at Justice. They revealed the Department's strategies and 
thought processes on the appeal and settlement of a major set of 
antitrust cases.
  Moreover, the Solicitor General himself, the eminent former Dean of 
Harvard Law School, Erwin Griswold, appeared before the committee and 
answered questions of Senators on both sides of the aisle on the 
content of the recommendations made to him by attorneys in the 
Department and by him to the Acting Attorney General and Antitrust 
division, including his own and others' opinions on the strengths and 
weaknesses of various litigating positions. Like every Solicitor 
General, he asserted the right of the Department to withhold 
deliberative documents. But at the same time he and the Department in 
fact disclosed and discussed those deliberations in the Senate, 
sometimes in unrestricted form and sometimes under restrictions.
  Why did they do so? In the Department's own words, they could release 
any such information whenever they determined that there was a 
``compelling public interest'' in doing so. And for some reason they 
concluded that there was such a public interest in getting Mr. 
Kleindienst--already confirmed as the Deputy Attorney General--
confirmed to fill the vacancy in the position of Attorney General for 
the one year left in Richard Nixon's first term. I note that Justice 
did refuse to provide certain materials which the nominee offered to 
avow under oath would have no relevance to the facts at issue. After 
extensive additional hearings, the nominee was confirmed, but later 
resigned when documents eventually released in the Watergate and other 
proceedings showed that he had not been truthful in his testimony to 
the committee. He pleaded guilty to a subsequent criminal charge of 
``failing to testify fully and accurately'' to the Senate.
  That case demonstrates that the Department could and did as a matter 
of discretion release extremely sensitive litigation documents and 
information from the Solicitor General's office, including the 
testimony of the Solicitor General himself, merely to accomplish the 
confirmation of a cabinet member for a short-term appointment to a post 
which did not really need to be filled. Clearly then the Department has 
full power to release sensitive documents when they are requested in 
the context of a nomination for a lifetime appointment to the nation's 
``second highest court.''
  In this case a substantial portion of the committee have concluded 
that the White House has not met its burden of going forward. The 
nominee's record does not contain the usual body of judicial decisions 
or legal publications which demonstrate the way he addresses important 
legal questions. On the contrary, as the hearing record demonstrates, 
members had serious questions about the nominee's suitability, 
questions for which the nominee's answers ranged from evasive to 
inconsistent. But the committee did not have the full record. It did 
not have what may be the best evidence of the nominee's approach to 
current legal issues of great import, the writings of the nominee 
himself, writings composed by the nominee in the Solicitor General's 
office in circumstances which even his supporters concede were likely 
to show him at his most candid.
  It is perfectly reasonable and logical for Senators to conclude that 
the Executive's refusal to provide that complete record is based on 
either or both of two rationales: Either the White House fears that 
Senate access to the documents--even without automatic public access--
would confirm the unsuitability of the nominee, or the White House does 
not think there is a ``compelling public interest'' in completing Mr. 
Estrada's nomination process.
  In either event, the ball is in the executive branch's court: If they 
think there is a compelling public interest in moving ahead with this 
nomination, they can and should turn over the materials. If they do not 
think there is a compelling public interest in proceeding with this 
nomination, they can continue to refuse to provide the materials. But 
if that is their decision, then they should cease their imposition on 
our time and especially our Republican colleagues' patience, forgo the 
Rovian hopes of short-term political gain from ``Groundhog Day'' 
repetitions of useless cloture votes, and just pull the nomination.
  Mr. President, this nominee has been sent to the Senate of the United 
States. We had a very good debate the other day about the shared 
responsibility between the President and the Senate in naming 
individuals to the courts with lifetime appointments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, could I have 1 minute more?
  I yield myself 1 more minute.
  We had a very good debate on that issue. The fact is, this 
administration has seen all of those papers. On that basis, they have 
nominated him. But they have refused to let us see them and expect us 
to be a rubberstamp. It is wrong. I hope we will continue to reserve 
our judgment on this nominee until we get that information.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have a vote at 
noon; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the floor leader, the chairman of our 
committee, is not in the Chamber at the moment, so I will not propound 
a unanimous consent request. But I would ask for his staff to consider 
that we permit another amendment.
  I see the Senator is in the Chamber now.
  I say to the chairman, I was just saying that we have this vote. Then 
it would be my hope that, at some point soon thereafter, we could have 
a vote on my amendment. I am told we need a window until 3 o'clock for 
votes. Maybe we could have an opportunity to offer additional 
amendments in that interim period and stack votes at 3 o'clock, if

[[Page 6366]]

we are limited in our ability to vote until then.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will be happy to work with my 
colleague. Because I have been running back and forth to a lot of 
meetings, I have not had a chance yet to even address the Senator's 
amendment that is pending, so I wish to do that.
  Are we still working through the lunch break?
  Mr. CONRAD. Yes. The intention was to do that. We would have the vote 
at noon. If the vote is done at around 12:30, that is why I am raising 
the question now of being able to offer another amendment, so we could 
use that time productively.

                          ____________________