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   I doubt very much that we would want to vote no to any of those. Yet we cannot possibly have all of them at once. The Postal Service cannot possibly handle the accounting, the delivery, the sale of all those stamps. They have urged us very strongly not to be authorizing and mandating the issuance of those stamps.

   So I hope that when the bill comes before us, which I hope will be any time, we will reauthorize the breast cancer research stamp. Again, even though I voted against it, for the reasons I have given here this afternoon, nonetheless I think, given the fact that the stamps have been printed and that effort is already underway, and the huge number of people who have already been involved in promoting the sale, and the women and men from around this country who have gone out of their way to use that stamp are in

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   At the same time, I hope that the rest of the McHugh bill will be adopted by us so that we can put into place criteria which will make it a lot easier for us to have a sensible system for the issuance of semipostals.

   Mr. President, on a matter that relates directly to this bill, because it is a Treasury bill, I want to just spend a few minutes talking about the issue of the budget surplus, and the response of the Congress to that budget surplus. I want to use, as my text, and then intersperse some comments into it, a memorandum that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jacob Lew, wrote on the effect of congressional legislative action on the budget surplus. This is what the OMB Director wrote:

   This memo is in response to your request that OMB assess the effect of legislative action on the budget surplus. Over the past six months, Congress has passed nine major tax cuts resulting in a cost of $712 billion over ten years. Draining this sum from the United States Treasury reduces the amount of debt reduction we can accomplish, thereby increasing debt service costs by $201 billion over ten years. Therefore, the Congressional tax cuts passed to date will draw a total of $913 billion from the projected surplus.

   In addition, the Congressional majority has stated clearly that its tax cuts to date represent only a ``down payment'' in a long series of tax cuts it intends to realize. While there has been little specificity about the size and nature of the entire program, the full range of action taken by the 106th Congress, both last year and this, provides an indication of the total impact of the Congressional tax cut proposals on the surplus.

   In the first session of the 106th Congress, the majority passed one large measure, which included a variety of tax cuts totaling $792 billion. Excluding certain individual tax cuts which passed this year as well as last year (such as elimination of the estate tax and the marriage penalty), the cost of tax cuts passed last year amounts to $737 billion, and the additional debt service amounts to $148 billion for a total of $885 billion.

   Jacob Lew goes on as follows:

   The bill-by-bill approach to tax cuts in the absence of an overall framework masks the full impact and risks of the cumulative cost.

   I will repeat that because that is the heart of the matter.

   The bill-by-bill approach to tax cuts in the absence of an overall framework masks the full impact and the risks of the cumulative cost. In the absence of more specific indications about the content and number of future tax cuts the congressional majority has stated it plans to produce, we have used the total costs associated with tax cuts from the 106th Congress as an illustration of Republican plans. If their plans remain consistent with the past activity, the full cost of this program would be:

   --tax cuts of $1.44 trillion

   --additional debt service of $349 billion

   --for a total of $1.796 trillion.

   The effect of such tax cuts would be to completely eliminate the projected non-Social Security/Medicare budget surplus at the end of ten years. Even by the more optimistic projections the entire surplus would be drained. The most recent CBO projections issued earlier this week estimate a ten-year non-Social Security/Medicare surplus of $1.8 trillion. OMB's recent projections estimate a ten-year non-Social Security/Medicare surplus of $1.5 trillion. In either case, because the costs of the tax cuts match or exceed the projected budget surplus, there would be no funds available for any of the nation's other pressing needs, including our proposals to establish a new voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit, pay an additional $150 billion in debt reduction to pay down the debt by 2012, expand health coverage to more families, provide targeted tax cuts that help America's working families with the cost of college education, long-term care, child care and other needs, or extend the life of Social Security and Medicare.

   Those are the options we are going to be faced with in the next few months, whether or not we want to take this projected surplus of either $1.5 trillion or $1.8 trillion--we are only talking about the non-Social Security, non-Medicare surplus--whether we want to take that surplus, which the CBO estimates is $1.8 trillion and the OMB estimates is $1.5 trillion, and use that almost exclusively or exclusively for the tax cuts which have been proposed, or whether we want to use a significant part of that surplus to pay down the national debt faster, to establish a new voluntary prescription drug benefit, to expand health coverage, to expand opportunity for college education, and to extend the life of Social Security and Medicare.

   I want to put in the RECORD in a moment the list of the pending tax cuts in the 106th Congress which Jack Lew makes reference to, the $934 billion, approximately, in the 10-year cost. These are bills which have been passed by one body or another or one committee or another in one body: Marriage Penalty Conference Committee, $293 billion; Social Security tier 2 repeal , $117 billion; estate tax in the House $105 billion; the Patients' Bill of Rights in the House, $69 billion; the communications excise tax , $55 billion; the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, $7 billion; then the subtraction for provisions in multiple bills and so forth. Then you have to add the interest costs of these tax cuts. That comes out to be about $900 billion.

   I ask unanimous consent to print this list in the RECORD.

   There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

             

PENDING TAX CUTS IN THE 106TH CONGRESS
[10-year cost, in billions of dollars]

Tax Legislation (Body Passed):
Marriage Penalty (Conf. Cmte.)	293
Minimum Wage (House)	123
Social Security Tier II Repeal (W&M Cmte.)	117
Estate Tax (House)	105
Patient's Bill of Rights (House)	69
Communications Excise Tax (Finance Cmte.)	55
Pension Expansions (House)	52
Education Savings (Senate)	21
Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2000 (House)	7
Trade Act (Enacted)	4
Subtraction for Provisions in Multiple Bills (Estimate)	99
Interest Cost of Tax Cuts (Estimate)	187
Total, Pending Tax Legislation	934
Plus New Markets/Renewal Communities	20

   Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, there are problems with each of the major tax bills. I may spend a moment on each of those problems. On the estate tax bill, it has problems. There is an alternative which is a better alternative, which would help more people. For those relatively few people who do pay an estate tax , the alternative Democratic plan would provide immediate relief--100 percent relief to people who have less than $8 million per couple for family farms and small businesses; total and immediate relief for those people in the alternative plan.

   The bill which has been adopted has a major problem in that it favors upper income individuals, the wealthiest among us, and most of its benefits go to those people rather than the people who need this the most, which are individuals and married couples who have estates that might be, in the case of a family farm or small business, $8 million or less. But there is a bigger problem, whether we are talking about repeal of the estate tax or the marriage penalty tax . And there--regarding the marriage penalty, we have an alternative as well which would benefit a larger number of low and moderate income people with a greater benefit instead of a group of people who are at the upper end of the income level. The major problem I have with these tax bills is that when you put them all together, what it means is that we would not be able to apply this surplus to reduction of the national debt.

   I am out there, as all of us are, in our home States. I talk to people and ask people in all the meetings I have: What do you primarily want us to spend the surplus on? Do you want tax cuts--putting aside for the moment whether they benefit upper income folks or benefit working families, put aside that issue for the moment; that is a major issue--do you basically want us to take this $1.8 trillion and pay down the national debt? Or do you want that to go in tax cuts?

   Overwhelmingly, repeatedly, I hear back from people, they want us to pay down the national debt. Whether we are talking about younger people, middle-age people, older people, they all come to the same conclusion: No. 1, we can't be sure the surplus will be that large so don't spend it all on anything, be it tax cuts or other programs. Spend most of it on protecting the future economy of the United States. Spend most of it on that $6 trillion debt that has been rung up--to reduce the amount of that debt, to try to assure that the economy, which we now have humming, will stay humming; that an economy which we finally have at a

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   I believe that is what the American people overwhelmingly want us to do. We can argue, and we should, and we can debate, and we should, which estate tax proposal is a better estate tax proposal. That is a legitimate debate. We obviously have an alternative to the one that was adopted which is targeted to the people who need it the most, people who have farms and small businesses and estates worth up to $8 million, people who are still paying an estate tax even though it might mean in some cases that they could lose that family farm. Our alternative provides total relief to those families and immediate relief to those families, unlike the one that was passed by the Republican majority which gives most of its cuts to the people who need it the least, people who are in the higher brackets, higher asset levels, and phases it in and then only does it partially.

   We should, and we do, debate those issues: Which alternative plans on the estate tax or on the marriage penalty tax provide the fairest kind of tax relief to the people who need it the most. But the underlying issue, which is one I hope we will keep in mind, is whether or not we want to commit this projected surplus of almost $2 trillion in 10 years to any of these proposals to the extent that we have.

   Be it tax cuts or be it efforts to improve education or health care or what have you, it is my hope and belief that the greatest contribution we can make to our children and to their children is to protect this economy, to try to keep an economy, which is now doing so well, healthy in future years, as it has been in the past few years. That means we need to protect that surplus, not spend it; not use it for tax cuts on the assumption that there is going to be $1.8 trillion or $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, because there is too much uncertainty in that, because our people sense--and correctly--that we do not know for certain that that budget surplus will in fact be there.

   There has been recent public opinion polling which seems to me illuminating on this subject. When people are asked whether or not they want to protect Social Security and Medicare and pay down the debt, or whether or not they think passing a tax cut is the better way to go, 75 percent believe protecting Social Security and paying down the debt is the most important priority we have right now. Only 23 percent favor passing tax cuts as an alternative. When asked the question of whether or not the trillion-dollar tax cut package that was passed last year, without a penny for Medicare, and whether or not the tax cuts that are being added this year to the same amount, still without a penny for Medicare, is the better way to go, 63 percent say no, 32 percent say yes.

   So the public senses that with the surplus we have, the proportion we project, the best thing we can do to protect our economy and the best thing we can do with that projected surplus is in fact to pay down the debt, protect Medicare, and to target our efforts on some of the needs we have as a country, rather than to provide for the kind of tax cuts that we have seen the Republicans enact.

   What I have said about the estate tax is also true relative to the marriage penalty bill. We have two alternatives--the one that passed, but we also have an alternative that did not pass, which provides targeted, comprehensive relief and is fiscally more responsible because it leaves more for debt reduction and, therefore, overall is a better value for the American taxpayer. The alternative completely eliminates the penalty in all of its forms, not just in a few, as the marriage tax penalty legislation we passed does. The Democratic alternative eliminates it for couples earning up to $100,000, which is 80 percent of all married couples, and it costs $29 billion per year when fully phased in.

   The plan that was adopted, the Republican plan, confers 40 percent of its benefits on taxpayers who currently suffer a penalty. In other words, only 40 percent of the benefits of the Republican plan go to taxpayers who currently actually suffer a penalty. The rest of the people who get a benefit in the Republican plan either don't suffer a penalty--indeed they received a bonus when they got married--or are left untouched one way or another. And the Republican plan addresses only 3 of the 65 instances of the penalty in the Tax Code, whereas the Democratic alternative plan addresses every place in the Tax Code where the marriage penalty exists. And the Republican plan costs $40 billion when fully phased in as compared to $29 billion per year for the alternative Democratic plan.

   So, again, it seems to me it is a pretty clear choice that we have: Do we want a plan that is targeted to people who earn under $100,000, that confers benefits on people who are truly penalized when they are married, in terms of the taxes they pay, and a plan that does so at a cost significantly less than in the Republican plan that was adopted? Or do we want to adopt the more costly plan, most of the benefits of which go to people who are in the upper income brackets, and then do not address totally the problem that exists for those people who do suffer a tax penalty upon marriage?

   The same thing is true with the overall tax cut that has been proposed. We have basically two alternatives that have been set

   forth to the American people, not yet put in the legislative form, but which have been proposed by Governor Bush and Vice President GORE. According to the Citizens For Tax Justice, the distribution of benefits of the Bush plan basically provides that 10 percent of the taxpayers get 60 percent--the upper 10 percent, the top 10 percent of taxpayers, get 60 percent of the benefits; the bottom 60 percent of the taxpayers get 12 percent of the benefits. That is the tax plan that has been proposed by Governor Bush.

   It would reduce revenues by $460 billion over the first 5 fiscal years, and by $1.3 trillion over 9 fiscal years, plus an additional $265 billion in associated interest costs. That is an extraordinarily expensive plan. We haven't seen that yet in legislative form, and I am not sure we will. Nonetheless, the American people are again going to be presented with very different approaches as to how we should use the surplus.

   Some people say, ``Senator, that is our money you are talking about; what is wrong with the tax cut?'' My answer is that it is our money, your money. It is also our economy. It is also our Social Security program. It is also our Medicare program. It is also our education program. It is our health care program.

   So the argument that this money belongs to the people of the United States is clearly true. I think it is undeniable. I can't imagine anybody suggesting that anything in the Treasury is anything but the property of the people of the United States. But the other half of that, which is too often left out, is that the economy, which is now healthy, belongs to the people of the United States. They have made it possible, through their work, for us to have a strong economy. Keeping that economy healthy is also the job of this Congress, as well as the job of the people of the United States.

   The Social Security system, which has made such a difference for so many that the poverty rate among seniors is now 5 percent, compared to the poverty rate among children, which is 20 percent, mainly because of the existence of Social Security--that program belongs to the people of the United States. Protecting that program is also our responsibility. So to say that, yes, the surplus belongs to the people is true. But the Medicare program, Social Security program, health care program, education program also belong to the people of the United States.

   I yield the floor.

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