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But for 98 percent of the American families listening to those shows, guess what, you were not protected or improved in any way by those tax cuts. They go to the top 2 percent of the American people. Those are the ones, the biggest wage earners in America, who will benefit.
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Of course, at the Democratic Convention, you will hear us talk about issues that this Congress has refused to even consider--the prescription drug benefit, an increase in the minimum wage, and gun safety legislation. Think about that. Of course, if you turn on the television in the morning or pick up a newspaper, you hear of another incident of a child shooting up a school. And you think to yourself: What is America coming to that this can happen, in what is supposed to be one of the safest places in our country, that kids can take guns to school?
We were paralyzed a year ago--a little over a year ago now--at the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. To think that 12 kids could be killed, and so many others terrorized by those who would come upon these weapons and take them to school and open fire.
Every mother and father, and every schoolteacher and
administrator, and many students across America said: What are we going to do to protect ourselves? They turned to Congress because we are representing these people and their families and said: Can you do something?
We came up with gun safety legislation. Let me tell you what it proposed. It wouldn't end gun violence in America, but it was an effort to try to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children. We said: If you are going to buy a gun from a gun dealer in America, we are going to check on who you are. We want to know something about your background. It is the Brady law. We stopped a half a million people from buying guns who should not have bought them because they were too young, they had a criminal history or a history of mental illness. That law has worked.
But the same people could have turned around and gone to a gun show at the local armory and bought the same guns without any background check. Those are the guns that we are finding more and more popping up in high schools and schools across America, guns purchased at gun shows, by those who were ineligible or questionable. They turn around and sell them. Kids get their hands on them. So we enacted legislation that said: We will do a background check at gun shows, too, to try to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children and those who would misuse them.
That bill passed. It was a tie vote, 49-49, when Vice President GORE came and cast the tiebreaking vote. That was over a year ago. Nothing has happened to that bill since. It went over to the House of Representatives, and the gun lobby ripped it to shreds. They sent it to a conference committee, where it has been sitting moribund for literally a year, while gun violence continues in America and claims the lives of 12 or 13 of our children every single day.
One of the other provisions in that bill came from Senator KOHL of Wisconsin. He said: When you sell a handgun in America, it should have a child safety device or a trigger lock on it so kids can't get their hands on them and hurt themselves or their playmates or their classmates. That was part of the bill that we passed out of here. That was stopped by the gun lobby, as well.
When you think about it, many parents who decide not to have a firearm in their homes because they have small children never know, when their son or daughter goes to play next door, what the circumstances might be--whether those same kids are going to be vulnerable to some child finding a gun in a drawer or up on a shelf, play with it, and kill their playmate. You read about it almost every single day.
So this commonsense idea that we will have child safety devices or trigger locks on handguns in America was in the bill we sent over to the House. It was stopped cold--stopped dead in its tracks--by the gun lobby. They said: We have just gone too far. It is just too radical a suggestion that we would sell child safety devices with handguns.
The third provision was from the Senator from California, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, who said: It is against the law to manufacturer and sell high-capacity ammo clips in the United States, but there is a loophole. You can import them from overseas. And it is pretty simple to do.
She put into law the provision that you won't be able to buy high-capacity ammo clips that hold up to 100 cartridges and bullets. You have to ask yourself: What sportsman or hunter needs 100 cartridges or bullets? I believe if you need a high-capacity ammo clip and a semiassault weapon to go and shoot a deer, perhaps you ought to stick to fishing.
In many instances in America, the people who are buying these high-capacity ammo clips are turning around and using them for these gang banger activities and drive-by shootings that you read about, sadly, here in Washington, DC, and Chicago and cities across America.
That was the third provision in the gun safety bill. That was the third provision that the National Rifle Association said was unacceptable: We cannot restrict the right of American hunters and sportsmen to have high-capacity ammo clips that hold over 100 cartridges.
To my way of thinking, common sense requires us to say to people who want to exercise their right to legally and safely use a firearm that they, too, have to face some restriction on their activity. Those who have visited Washington, DC, as tourists may have gone through an airport and through a metal detector. It is an inconvenience we accept because we want to be safe when we get on that airplane. To ask that those who own firearms face similar inconveniences is not unreasonable, unless you happen to be the National Rifle Association. They think it is unreasonable to impose any restrictions whatsoever.
As a result, sadly, every morning in America, when you pick up the paper, you see instances where children are being killed, instances where kids are taking guns to school, instances where with some foresight and some political courage, this Congress might have been able to do something. We have not.
This has been a do-nothing-for-the-people Congress, as Vice President GORE has said. It has failed to take into consideration what the average working family in this country expects of us, not only to balance the books but to balance our priorities, to make sure the people who prosper because of our judgments and our decisions and our legislative leadership are the families across America.
I think also of the uninsured in this country. To think that in this time of prosperity in America, after the longest run of economic progress in the history of the United States, at a time when we are envisioning surpluses that have never been seen in our history, that we still live in a country with 40 million people who are uninsured. I offered an amendment to my friends in the Senate that said we ought to give a tax credit to small businesses to help pay for health insurance for their employees. These are the businesses that pay the highest health insurance premiums to protect the family who owns the business as well as their employees. These are the employees working for small businesses who make the lowest incomes. Not surprisingly, they turn out to be the largest source of uninsured people in this country, those workers and their children.
What I propose, as part of our tax package on the Democratic side, is to say to small businesses: We will give you a helping hand. We will give you a tax credit so that you can offer health insurance to your employees. It strikes me as one of the basics we should consider.
Just a few years ago, we initiated a nationwide plan to help the States pay for covering the children of working parents with health insurance . It is called the CHIP program. It is working well in my State of Illinois and across the Nation. Congress is trying to plug the holes of 40 million uninsured people in America.
We had a hearing the other day that would have broken many hearts. The mothers and fathers of very disabled children came to tell us about their plight. They depend on SSI, a program under Social Security and Medicaid, to provide for kids who are profoundly retarded or disabled. They find, sadly, they earn too much money. We heard from a woman who talked about a situation where her State came to her and said: You can no longer provide for your child with your income; you just don't have enough money. We want you to turn your child over to be a ward of the State.
Imagine, in America, in the country in which we live, parents who are struggling to raise disabled children
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ward of the State. That was what she faced. Her health insurance did not cover her needs.
Then there was a sergeant in the Air Force who came to see us with his lovely little 9-year-old daughter, Lauren, who has some serious medical difficulties. This is a man who has given most of his adult life to his country in the Air Force. He was recently given a promotion to E-6, where he would make $200 more a month. With that $200 more a month, he was disqualified from receiving Medicaid and SSI. He said it would cost him over $500 a month to take care of his little daughter. So as he gets a tiny increase in pay of $200 a month, he sees that $500 of medical bills fall on his shoulders.
These are people in America without health insurance . These are people who I think about when I think about the surplus that we are experiencing. What are we going to do with this to extend health insurance coverage to more and more Americans so it is no longer a question that parents ask their emancipated kids, as I have asked my daughter, Jennifer: Do you have health insurance now? She is a student who works from time to time, does her very best, but I worry about it as a father. I shouldn't have to. No one should have to in this country. Health insurance ought to be a given in America--not the fanciest and most expensive policy but a basic policy.
Is Congress debating that? Is Congress even thinking about it? Is Congress sensitive to it? No. We are debating tax breaks for people making over $300,000 a year. That is our priority. The priority is not the parents of the handicapped children, the children of America who are uninsured, the 40 million uninsured Americans in general. That is where we lost sight of the true reality of the challenges facing American families.
The choices on the floor of the Senate are clear, and the choices for the American people in the election will be clear in terms of the values that should be represented when we decide who will benefit from the surplus we have generated and the strong economy of the last 8 years.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, in the year-and-a-half that I have been in the Senate, I have taken several opportunities to come to the floor to talk about the need to reduce our national debt.
Every chance I get, I remind my colleagues that we cannot let the excitement of having a record-high surplus allow us to lose sight of the fact that we must keep spending in check, and use our Social Security surplus and on-budget surplus dollars to pay down our $5.7 trillion national debt.
I can't help but wonder why the media is quick to report that we have such tremendous surpluses, but is virtually silent when it comes to reporting that we have such a huge national debt.
I think the people need to know that we have a national debt that is costing us $224 billion in interest payments a year, and that translates into $600 million per day just to pay the interest. Out of every federal dollar that is spent this year, 13 cents will go to pay the interest on the national debt. In comparison, 16 cents will go for national defense; 18 cents will go for non-defense discretionary spending; and 53 cents will go for entitlement spending. Right now, we spend more federal tax dollars on debt interest than we do on the entire Medicare program.
This debt didn't accumulate overnight. In fact, it took decades of misguided fiscal policies on the part of the Congress and the Executive Branch to get this way. But, fortunately, we have an opportunity, with our strong economy and low unemployment, to make some headway on paying down our debt.
Nearly every family in America or every business owner in America, when they come into some extra money, would use that surplus money to pay off their loans, their credit cards, etc.--whatever debt they had accumulated.
And that's precisely what the U.S. government should do.
I don't think our Nation is any different from our families. If we have some extra money, we ought to get rid of the debt we are carrying on our back.
As my colleagues know, because of the expanding economy, CBO's April surplus estimates showed that we had attained a $26 billion on-budget surplus in fiscal year 2000.
And I would like to remind my colleagues that $22 billion of that $26 billion surplus was from payroll tax overpayments to the Medicare Trust Fund.
However, of that $26 billion surplus amount, the fiscal year 2001 budget resolution assumed we would spend $14 billion of it.
That left $12 billion, which I felt should be used for debt reduction, and so I sought to find a legislative remedy to have those funds allocated solely for the purpose of debt reduction.
On June 15th, by a vote of 95-3, the Senate passed an amendment to the Transportation Appropriations bill that Senator ALLARD and I sponsored, directing the remaining $12 billion on-budget surplus to be used for debt reduction. It was a tremendous victory, but, recognizably short-lived.
Over the last two months, Congress has spent $13.8 billion in an ``emergency'' supplemental appropriations package that was included as part of the Military Construction Appropriations Conference Report, and an additional $5.5 billion has been allocated for payments for another ``ag bailout'' bill with the passage of the Crop Insurance Reform package.
Thus, nearly all but $4 billion of the $26 billion surplus has been spent, including just about all of the $22 billion in overpayments to the Medicare Trust Fund--money that we in Congress have been talking about ``lock-boxing'' to prevent it from being spent in just such a manner.
With all this added spending, I would like to remind my colleagues that we are significantly raising discretionary spending this year--a habit Congress seems reluctant to break. For example, in fiscal year 1998, Congress spent $555 billion on discretionary spending. In fiscal year 1999 we increased discretionary spending to $575 billion--a 4% increase over that one year.
In fiscal year 2000, if you factor in the emergency supplemental appropriations we approved two weeks ago, discretionary spending will be $618 billion. Compared to last year's $575 billion, if my figures are right, that is a 7.5% increase so far in discretionary spending.
How many people in this country can say that they received a 7.5% pay increase from last year?
This is outrageous, and all the more reason we can't allow spending to grow any further in FY 2000.
When given the opportunity to spend more or bring down our national debt, Congress has to learn to make the tough choices--the fiscally prudent choices.
Fortunately, we will have another opportunity to curb spending and make a dent in our national debt.
Today, we have received the expected news from CBO that our fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus has grown to $84 billion--$60 billion more than was projected in January.
With such a large amount of on-budget surplus dollars at stake, I fear that, again, the temptation will be enormous to spend these dollars--and with even greater zeal than before. We must ignore the allure of spending these surpluses, and remember that the best thing we could do with these funds is use them to pay down the debt.
For those of my colleagues who support tax cu ts, I would like to remind them that the only thing that we can do with these FY 2000 surplus funds this year is use them to increase spending or pay down the national debt. That's it. They cannot be used for tax cu ts because the fiscal year is almost over.
I have recently read an excellent paper written by Peter B. Sperry, who is the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, regarding our obligation to use our surplus dollars to pay down our national debt.
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I believe each of my colleagues should read this compelling article, and I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the article be printed in the RECORD following my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit I.)
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I agree with the conclusion that Mr. Sperry reaches in his paper, and that is, Congress needs to enact legislation that will automatically take the $60 billion windfall we just received for fiscal year 2000 and use it to pay down the debt.
The bill that Mr. Sperry says that Congress needs to pass is H.R. 4601, the Debt Reduction Reconciliation Act of 2000. Fortunately, on June 20th, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4601, by a vote of 419-5. An overwhelming majority--just think of it.
I have reviewed this bill, and I believe H.R. 4601 is our last hope to pass meaningful debt-reduction legislation this year. That is why I asked that this bill be held at the desk and put on the Senate's calendar, instead of being sent to Committee. We must consider this legislation now, and we need to let the American people know that Congress is serious about reducing the national debt and not merely paying lip-service towards that goal.
In particular, the bill establishes an off-budget account at the U.S. Treasury that would be called the Public Debt Reduction Payment Account. Any funds that are over the amount specified in CBO's January surplus estimate of $24 billion would be transferred to the Account, where they would be automatically used to reduce the debt. Thus, $60 billion in on-budget surplus funds for FY 2000 would be directed towards debt reduction.
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