A bill to amend section 16131 of title 10, United States Code, to increase rates of educational assistance under the program of educational assistance for members of the Selected Reserve.

Absolutely.

Madam President, I have a housekeeping chore. I would like to submit to the clerk a modification to my amendment and ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified.

No modification is needed, I am told. Thank you.

Madam President, Social Security is not only hard to solve, it is also hard to get before the Senate. So I apologize for the confusion.

I understand the concern of my colleague from North Dakota. But having a bit of time to talk about Social Security I think is very appropriate.

The budget resolution process is a roadmap to make sure we can understand what we are doing as the year progresses in terms of spending and taxes and what provisions to take up and when. I applaud both the Senator from North Dakota and the Senator from Oklahoma for working together to try to make this as painless on the body as possible. But this amendment, hopefully, can be accepted in some form, either voted on or accepted by the body.

If you are going to have a roadmap for America this year or any other year, it is time we start putting Social Security on that roadmap. Social Security is a system that Democrats and Republicans embrace as being vital to the Nation. It is a system that working Americans pay into every year. Millions of Americans receive a substantial part, if not all, of their retirement income from Social Security, after years of paying into the system.

This amendment is part of this roadmap for America that we are talking about. It lays out some findings and some facts that are not Republican spin, not Democratic spin, but come from the Social Security trustees themselves, the people in charge of telling us, in managing the program--``us'' being the House and the Senate--the state of affairs with Social Security.

We are on the verge of a war. Only God knows what will happen here shortly. But it is my belief, unless there is some major miracle, we will be involved in hostilities with young men and women in harm's way protecting our freedom. I know one thing every Member of the body can agree on is that these young men and women deserve our support and our prayers if ordered into battle. And they will get that support and those prayers in a bipartisan way because what they are doing is very noble, in my opinion, trying to preserve our freedom and bringing about more stability in the Mideast.

We can argue about the nuances of the diplomacy and lack thereof in some people's opinion that got us to being on the brink of war, but once hostilities begin, I am sure everybody will come together and say a prayer for our troops and support our President the best they can.

That same dynamic needs to exist with Social Security, because there is a big, gaping hole in America's domestic agenda. You can talk about the size of the tax cuts, whether we should have one, whether it should be $750 billion or $350 billion or 30 cents or $2 trillion. Whatever opinion you have, I respect, and I have my own about that; and that is a point of debate.

One thing we need to understand and come together on quickly, in my opinion, is certain facts surrounding Social Security.

In 75 years--I know that seems forever. But my predecessor, Senator Thurmond, turned 100 a few months ago. He is going to be a first-time grandfather. Our State's former junior Senator, now senior Senator, is 81. So in South Carolina, 75 years is not long in politics. It seems forever, but it is not, really.

In 75 years, our trustees, the people in charge of the Social Security trust fund, tell us we will be $25.3 trillion short of the money necessary to pay benefits. I want to repeat that. I know there are a lot of important votes to come on ANWR and tax cuts, and this roadmap is about this year; and we are trying get through this day to make sure we can get on with the business of the Senate. And that is the way politics is, probably to a fault sometimes: getting through this day, getting through this amendment, so we can get on with the next event of the next day. We are in the middle of an international crisis, and our hope is we can get through the coming days as quickly as possible and resolve it.

Time is not on our side in solving Social Security structural problems. You could say: Well, 75 years is a long time. But between now and 75 years from now, for the obligations of the trust fund, and the money to pay those obligations, there will be a $25 trillion gap. And I ask, simply, the following question: Where does the money come from?

People want to know how much the war is going to cost--and the occupation. The truth is, it is going to be billions of dollars over several years. As we try to find out where the money comes from to get us through this day and this year, I hope we will start focusing on, in a bipartisan fashion, where does the money come from to keep Social Security solvent?

Seventy-five years from now, if nothing changes--if all we do is run ads against each other and belittle opportunities to fix it in a partisan way; if the Democratic and the Republican parties stay on track, based on the last campaign cycle, of trying to use the Social Security issue as a way to capture power for the moment--then we are going to allow one of the best programs in the history of the Nation not only to become insolvent but create a financial crisis in this country that we have not experienced, ever.

Another date I would like to point out: In 2042, which seems forever, but it is not, a problem occurs with Social Security. Seventy-five years from now, the unfunded liability in obligation will be $25.3 trillion. But before you get to that point in time, the next major event, according to the trustee report released yesterday, is 2042.

What happens in 2042? In 2042, the amount of money available to pay benefits will be such that benefits will be reduced for the average recipient by 28 percent. I want to say that again. If we do nothing different, if we just collect the same amount of money, and get the same growth rates, in 2042 you are going to reduce benefits for everybody on Social Security by 28 percent. The other option is, according to the trustees, raise payroll taxes of the workforce in existence then by 50 percent. These are two very dramatic and unacceptable options, in my opinion.

Now, in 2042, I doubt if I will be here. But if the history of my State stands the test of time, I will be here because I will turn 100 in 2055. If I can do what my predecessor has done, which I very seriously doubt, I will have another term left. I doubt if that will happen in my case, but somebody is going to be here in 2042 from South Carolina and every other State represented here today.

My hope is that during my time in the Senate, I can join with my colleagues of like mind on both sides of the aisle to make life a little better for the American public, the taxpayer, and those who will be doing the job we are engaged in today a little better than the trustees tell us of what is going to happen in 2042.

I would like to recognize certain Members of this body: Senator Gregg, Senator Breaux, and many others, Senator Moynihan, a former Member of the Senate, who have brought ideas to the table, have worked in a bipartisan manner, along with President Bush. I compliment President Clinton for putting the issue of Social Security on the table. I didn't particularly like his solution to better growth rates, but he acknowledged that growth rates were a problem. So there is the foundation being laid in the last couple years to do something constructive.

I compliment everybody in this body who has been part of that process. As a Member of the House for four terms, I tried to be a constructive Member dealing with Social Security over there.

The temptation to achieve political power is great when the Senate and the House are so closely divided. Every issue is looked upon as the issue that can get you back in the majority or the issue that may cost you the majority. My concern is that if we have that approach to reforming and solving Social Security--I know the Senator from North Dakota who is managing the minority side of the bill is a fine Member who loves his country as much as I do--if we keep this partisan atmosphere going that has existed in the past and has been bipartisan in the demagoguery, we will run into a problem. So in 2042, I would like us to avoid what is coming our way. The only way to do is to start now.

Another date the Social Security trustees tell us is a very important date is 2018. I have gone from 75 years now to 2042 to 2018. What happens in 2018? In 2018, for the first time in the history of the program, we will pay more in benefits than we collect in taxes. What is going on here? There are a lot of young folks working in the Senate-- pages, interns. We are really talking about their future more than anything else.

In 2018, we pay out more in benefits than we collect in taxes. What is wrong with Social Security? Why is it mounting up this unfunded obligation? Why are we beginning to pay more in benefits than we collect in taxes? Why do we have to cut benefits in 2042, and why are we $25 trillion short in the money to pay everybody 75 years from now?

Well, it is not a Republican or a Democratic problem in terms of politics. It is just the way the country has changed. I was born in 1955. In 1950, a few years before I was born, there were 16.5 workers to every retiree. According to the trustees, in 1950, there were 16.5 people working paying Social Security taxes for every retiree. Today there are 3.3 workers to every retiree. Twenty years from now, there are going to be two workers for every retiree. That is not a Republican problem. It is not a Democratic caused problem. That is not because we can't get along up here. That is because the ratios have changed. There is no reason to believe they will go back the other way.

My father and mother are deceased now, but I think in my mother's family there were nine members of her family, and my father had eight. I am not married. I don't have any kids. My sister has one. I sort of reflect what is going on in the world. I hope to help solve the problem later down the road. If I do what Senator Thurmond has done, 23 years from now, I would have my first child. I doubt if that will happen, either.

But as we kind of mark these points in time and make it personal, the problem is that the demographic changes in America have put Social Security at risk. It is nobody's fault, but it is everyone's problem. You cannot keep the program solvent when the ratio has gone from 16.5 workers to 1 in 1950 to 20 years from now being 2 to 1. There is just not enough money coming into the system.

Now, when you talk about Social Security spending and what to do and the idea that we are spending Social Security surpluses to run the Government,

you get everybody upset. And they should be. I came to the House in 1995. One of the first things we tried to do was isolate Social Security money surpluses and make sure we did not use the Social Security dollars paid into the system to run the Government. That has been a practice that has been going on for 30 or 40 years. Both parties have engaged in that practice.

Every year we collect more in Social Security taxes than we pay in benefits. That extra money is called surplus. We have borrowed that extra cash, given the trust fund IOUs that have to be redeemed in the future. That has allowed us to grow this Government without a direct tax on people.

That is a bad practice. It is not good government. It is not good business. For several years we have been able to avoid doing that in a bipartisan way.

You remember in the last debate there was the lockbox. Let's put everything related to Social Security in this lockbox. In my last campaign for the Senate, I constantly heard it: If you just left Social Security money alone and you didn't take it out to run the Government, if you kept it in a lockbox and left it alone, most of these problems would go away.

That is not true. As much as you would like to believe that, that is not true. If you took every penny collected from Social Security and you dedicated it totally to the trust fund and totally to the benefits to be paid, you are still $25 trillion short in 75 years. It still runs out of money in 2042. The problem is that two workers paying into the system will not be able to support the massive number of baby boomers coming into the system.

Having said that, I would like to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do a better job of protecting Social Security. I don't believe there is any party that has been in power for the last 40 years that could look the American public in the eye and say that they have not been guilty of using the surpluses in some fashion for other than Social Security.

In September of last year, I wrote a letter to the Social Security Administration asking 17 questions. Here is one of the questions I asked: Some have proposed a Social Security lockbox; would a lockbox, by itself, extend the solvency of Social Security beyond the year Social Security is expected to become insolvent? In a nutshell they said, the implementation of a Social Security lockbox would not alter this commitment and thus would have no direct effect on the future solvency of Social Security.

Having said that, I do believe we should isolate Social Security dollars and dedicate those dollars to the payment of Social Security trust fund obligations. That is just good government. But please do not tell your constituents back home that will fix this problem because it most certainly will not.

After having heard my rendition, there is probably not much good news you have heard yet. The good news: there is a way, in my opinion, to make up the $25 trillion shortfall over 75 years, to change the fact that you will have to reduce benefits by 2042 by 28 percent--that is all the money you will have to pay benefits by then--and to even change the dynamic of paying more out in benefits than you collect in taxes by 2018.

The good news--just like everything else in Washington, there is a bad news/good news part of what I am about to say--is that the growth rates for Social Security, the amount of return you get on your FICA tax dollars or Social Security tax dollars taken out of your paycheck for younger workers, people born in the 1980s, it is less than 2 percent. If you happen to be a minority in this country, born in the 1980s, it is less than 1 percent.

Let me say that again. This is not Lindsey Graham saying that. The Social Security trustees have reported back to me in this letter.

I ask unanimous consent to print the letter in the Record.

They have laid out the rates of return for people born after 1980.

As I have told you, they are less than 2 percent. Over time, they go down because the problem, over time, gets worse. As you pay into the system as a young worker, the obligations of the system get greater, and there really will be no rate of return. As a matter of fact, by 2042, not only does your money not work for you, it is not enough to pay benefits to people who are already in the system.

Here is the good news. If we could, in a bipartisan fashion, work together, I am confident we could construct a program for younger workers--voluntary in nature--that would allow them to take part of the money they pay into Social Security, invest it in a different system-- equity and nonequity, depending on what they want to do--that will dramatically outpace a 1.8 percent return.

Here is what I suggest to you as reality. If you had a business and you wanted to sell an annuity to young people in America, and you laid out the program of that annuity and it mirrored Social Security, nobody in the country would invest in it simply because they can get a better rate of return leaving it in a checking account.

Now, everything about Social Security is not total retirement. There is a component of Social Security that pays for people who have been disabled and injured. That aspect of the program is extremely important also.

But to have a better business view of Social Security is necessary. If we could achieve better growth rates--and the trustees tell us that if you achieve better growth rates, every dollar in additional growth, every time the fund beats that 1.8 or 1.6 rate of return, that extra dollar allows benefits to be paid without raising taxes.

We are going to argue about the tax cut and how to stimulate the economy. I remember in my last campaign, when I presented this idea, the ad was that ``Lindsey Graham is going to take your Social Security tax dollars and put them in Enron stock.'' Well, I didn't wake up one day and think investing in Enron with Social Security was a good idea. That is not what this program is designed to do.

There is bipartisan support for personal accounts, allowing individual Americans the opportunity, if they choose, to invest in plans to get better growth rates. There are visitors here from all over the country, most likely, and I welcome them here. One thing about being a Member of the Senate, or the House, or a Federal employee in any fashion, is that you have the opportunity, if you choose, to invest in the Thrift Savings Plan. It is a pretty good deal. I, as a Senator, can invest up to about $10,000 of my salary into a thrift plan. It is a Government-sponsored plan, administered by the private sector, where I can choose between three or four different investment options, based on the risk I want to take. There are stock funds, mutual funds, bond/ stock funds, Treasury notes, which I can choose based on the risk I want to take.

All of these funds are supported by the Government in the sense that we are going to stand behind them and not let them collapse. It is even better than that. The Government puts in 50 cents on the dollar up to the $10,000 I put in, and they do the same for every Federal employee.

I suggest something like that should exist for the average working person in this country because under the current tax system, the average American will pay more in Social Security taxes than in any other form of tax, because this comes out of our paycheck--6.5 percent--no matter what our income is, up to a certain level.

For middle- and low-income workers struggling to get by, 6.5 percent--I think that is the correct number--comes out of your paycheck to go into the Social Security trust fund. For younger workers, we are taking that money from you. We are giving you no options to invest it. We are controlling it for you, and you are going to get that 2 percent--eventually less than 1 percent--over time.

I think that is wrong for the people paying taxes. But here is the big crime of it all: That system locks in failure for Social Security. Some Senate, somehow, someday--if we don't do something relatively soon--is going to be dealing with a trust fund that is $25 trillion short of the money necessary to pay the obligation, and it is going to be dealing with a trust fund from which somebody gets a letter one day saying: That check you got last month will be reduced by 28 percent, and I am sorry we don't have the money to pay you.

I don't know who will be occupying this seat then--I doubt if it will be me--but I would like to take some of that burden off their shoulders and off the working families and the working people in this country, in terms of taking their money and getting a better rate of return for it.

So the hope and purpose of this amendment is to put into the record this year, 2003, let it be said--if there is a record that stands the test of time, let it be said that in 2003 the Senate will soon adopt facts that I think are irrefutable, nonpartisan in nature, that lay out the future of Social Security solvency in a very honest, dramatic, and chilling way.

I congratulate my colleagues who are willing to accept this amendment as part of the roadmap for the budget this year. The facts are real. They are not going to go away unless we make things happen differently.

One thing I remember from President Clinton--and it was a good line-- is that

the definition of insanity is doing an event the same way and expecting different results. So I think it is insane politically for us to keep this system in place expecting different results to fall out of the sky. They will not fall out of the sky.

Our freedom is about to be strengthened because some young man and woman chose to volunteer to serve their country and risk their life for our freedom. You can debate all you would like whether this is an appropriate thing to do. But they have taken on that sacrifice, and they will accept the order, if given, to go forward. That model is the model that has kept us free for over 200 years--average, everyday Americans who are willing to do their part, willing to risk their sons and daughters, their own lives, to make sure the next generation can have the blessings of liberty that we have enjoyed.

There was an interview I heard today of a family with twin sons serving in the same Marine unit, both of them ready to go tomorrow, if that is the day chosen. The mom and the dad were very worried but bursting with pride about the fact that both of their sons have chosen to serve in the Marine Corps and both of them are on the tip of the spear. What they were trying to tell the commentator was that they are proud of them because they are willing to serve their country and protect their way of life. The parents mentioned the fact that their hope is that life will be better for their kids than it was for them, and that truly is the American dream. That is what keeps us all going, trying to make sure that we pass on to the next generation a future with a possibility, with hard work, to be better than the one we have experienced.

I can say with all the confidence in the world that if we don't act soon, and act decisively, and if we are not willing to sacrifice politically and make some structural reforms to Social Security, we are committing political malpractice, and the future of Social Security is dismal and the ability to maintain the system is going to be unbelievably costly, and you can wind up with a Social Security pension plan and the military, and no money to do anything else. That is what awaits us as a nation.

But I am just as confident that we will rise to the occasion, and I cannot see how right now--it is beyond my ability as a political person to see how all this is going to come together. I am telling you that, based on faith, I know it will. The problems facing our troops--there are so many scenarios that face them in the aftermath of Iraq. There are thousands of different scenarios of ``what if that'' and ``what if that.'' I can only tell you I have the same faith that at the end of the day we will be successful and at the end of the day the sacrifices will be made.

Unfortunately, some people, most likely, will lose their lives or be injured. We are going to get through this thing at the end of the day stronger rather than weaker. We are doing the right thing.

I have faith in our troops and in our President that the dictator, Saddam Hussein, will be gone soon. I have faith that this body, starting this year--I hope it is this year--will come together to address the looming problems that face Social Security. This amendment lays out those problems. It puts it as part of the road map for this year's budget and, at the end, it encourages all to work together with the President to come up with solutions to avoid raising taxes and cutting benefits. It is a small step that will hopefully get us to the right place one day.

I am standing on the shoulders of people who have gone before me who have addressed problems of Social Security, such as Senator Moynihan and other Senators in this body from both parties. I do not know how long I will be here. Only the Good Lord and the voters know that. I can tell my colleagues one thing for certain: While I am here--I consider it to be an honor to be here--I want to do as many constructive activities for my country as possible. I think one of the best things I can do is to come up with an approach my colleagues from the other side can buy into, which means a give and take, to put in place a plan that begins to turn around the dynamics that are facing Social Security.

The good news is if we work together, if we start now, we can beat this problem, we can solve this problem. The bad news is if we continue to do what we have done for the past decade, we are going to pass on to the next generation of political leaders and taxpayers a dismal picture. I would argue that would be the first time in the history of the country that political leaders passed on a country that was diminished, not enhanced. I am confident we will not be the first ones to make that mistake.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I compliment the Senator. I thought that was a fairly eloquent rendition of where we find ourselves. But I would like to add to it and respond to my good friend, really, the senior Senator from South Carolina. If anyone has earned that title, Senator Hollings has. He is the senior Senator from South Carolina.

But there is a difference between what the Senator from North Dakota and the senior Senator from South Carolina were saying that I think is important.

The purpose in my offering this sense-of-the-Senate amendment is to take facts that have been reported by the Social Security Administration and make them part of this year's roadmap when we decide what to do to get through the budget process this year and to remind the Senate and get the Senate to focus on the short- and long-term problems our Nation faces.

``Poppycock.'' I don't know what it means, but it is often used by my good friend from South Carolina, the senior Senator. It sounds good. Everything he says is intriguing to me, just by his speaking style. But I do want to respond to the gist of what he was saying. The sham and the fraud which I think has been going on, which has been going on for years, is to suggest there is an easy solution. It is to suggest if you just left Social Security alone, didn't use it for tax cuts or didn't use it for spending, everything would be OK. My senior Senator doesn't want to talk about 2042. I do. The reason I want to talk about 2018 and 2042 is I believe the reason I am here today is to pass on to the next generation a country very sound and very fit. If we do not address the problem of having two workers for every retiree, versus 16.5 when I was born, then we are going to fail and commit political malpractice.

I think it is political malpractice to suggest that if you just let Social Security alone, the problem will go away. Here is what the Social Security trustees said about that solution:

The implementation of a Social Security lockbox would not

alter this commitment and thus would have no direct effect on

the future solvency of Social Security.

As to the Senator from North Dakota, he is telling us, telling me, that now is not the time to cut taxes because of a variety of reasons, and one would be it will put pressure on the Social Security trust fund beyond the pressure that exists today.

People on my side would say that additional spending in the past, when the Democrats were in control, took money out of Social Security to put pressure on the trust fund.

The point is, the current income stream, diverted or not, is not going to save Social Security. We are going to have a $25 trillion shortfall in 75 years. And it does compound on itself. That is the point. The Senator from North Dakota is right. Every day, literally, that we ignore the problem of Social Security, it gets worse by billions. The unfunded liability has grown dramatically as we have been talking, and nobody is going to fix it except people such as us.

Here is why I will support the tax cut. One thing that is for sure, there are two Senators from South Carolina and we are going to cancel each other's vote a lot on taxes. He has his reasons and I have mine. The reason I will vote to cut your taxes is to stimulate the economy.

Where does Social Security money come from? What is the source of Social Security dollars? It is payroll taxes.

Well, who pays payroll taxes? People working.

How do you get a job? Somebody hires you.

How do they pay you? They make a profit.

The economy needs infusion, in my opinion. But I respect the Senator from North Dakota tremendously because he is saying let's put no pressure on Social Security, let's not have a tax cut. I respectfully disagree. I believe a tax cut will help stimulate the economy, making the economy and payroll taxes stronger, not weaker. But I respect him tremendously because he has bought into the big picture. We disagree about what to do today. We may disagree about spending plans tomorrow. But the Senator from North Dakota has bought into the big picture. He understands what faces our Nation.

As we argue about how to fix problems each year with the trust fund, I encourage him to work with me and others to come up with an overall solution that will hit the problem head on. This is a cancer that needs to be treated--and not with a Band-Aid. The problem we are facing as a Nation is we would not have enough money coming into the system, if it was all dedicated, to come close to paying benefits. In 2042--I will mention that date again--28 percent reduction in benefits; 2018, you pay more benefits in taxes. Every day we talk about it, it gets worse.

Having said that, I do believe the Senator from North Dakota and myself

will be able to work on a compromise that reflects accurately the facts facing the trust fund, the problem the Nation faces, and we will disagree about this year's budget and how to have a tax cut or not. But I do wish to work with him in the future because I believe he has got it. I believe he understands it.

With that, I will yield 10 minutes to my colleague, Senator Craig, from Idaho.

If the Senator would like additional time----

Mr. President, if I may, to put a couple things in perspective as we close out the discussion on the amendment, No. 1, I have been able to reach accommodation with the Senator from North Dakota about the language of the amendment. I am willing to accept his changes. I think they are reasonable and helpful.

I encourage my colleagues, we can have disagreements about how to best protect the Social Security trust fund. We can have a debate that we should not cut taxes, that we should make sure that we do nothing in terms of spending or tax cuts that jeopardizes the dollars coming in. That is a legitimate, healthy debate. I believe the best way to protect the trust fund is to create additional jobs and grow the economy so we will have more payroll taxes coming in to shore up the trust fund.

The focus of the amendment is to clarify in this roadmap the status of Social Security, not based on what a Republican thinks or what a Democrat thinks. And here is the summary of that status.

No matter what happens with the current amount of money coming into the system, if it is all protected, or some of it is bled off, if every dollar were to be collected that is going to be paid, it is $25 trillion short to pay bills in the next 75 years. And in 2042, you would have to cut 28 percent of the benefit package or increase taxes by 50 percent. In 2018, you would pay more in benefits than you collect in taxes. Why is that? The amount of money to be dedicated to this system, if it is all left alone, is nowhere near the amount of money to pay the benefits. It is no one's fault. It is not Senator Hollings' fault, and it is not my fault. The problem is we went from 16.5 workers paying into the system in 1950 to 20 years from now having two to one. There are just not enough people paying taxes to take care of the baby boomers.

One thing I am trying to make crystal clear is, there is no easy fix. The demagoguery must stop now. Those who say a tax cut this year or a spending plan next year is the problem with Social Security are missing the boat and engaging in conduct that is going to prevent us from ever finding a solution that works.

My belief is that you grow the economy to help Social Security. The belief of the Senator from North Dakota is that you don't do anything to jeopardize the trust fund this year through a tax cut. I respect that. I just disagree.

I hope if there is a vote in any fashion on this amendment, that my colleagues would allow the product that the Senator from North Dakota and I have come up with to be part of the record because it is vitally important that the Senate incorporate information from the Social Security trustees that tells us exactly the future of Social Security and its status so that there will be something we can agree on and we can start working toward a solution sooner rather than later. If we can't agree on the basis, if we can't put into the budget resolution what the Social Security trustees are telling us about the status of the fund in 2018 and 2042 and the structural problems, if we can't do that because somebody wants to make a point about the tax cuts for political advantage, how in the world are we ever going to solve this problem?

I hope the Senate will overcome the temptation to kind of punch and counterpunch on the debate about taxes or any other debate and put in the record the real facts about Social Security, a record that has been established between myself and the Senator from North Dakota. It would be a great day, a small step forward to finally come to grips with the problems that Social Security faces.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I believe an effort is being made between my office and Senator Hollings' to work something out we can all live with. I ask him to take that into consideration. There are negotiations going on as we speak.

No, I do not object.

Mr. President, simply put, a couple things: My senior Senator seems to suggest we did something in the 1980s that has made Social Security sound. Social Security has surpluses today, but every day that goes by, those surpluses are not enough to pay the bills that are due and yet to come. Here is what the Social Security Administration told us yesterday: There are 3.3 workers to every retiree in 2002. Twenty years

from now, it goes 2 to 1. They told us yesterday that without structural reform--I emphasize again, structural reform does not include leaving Social Security current dollars alone. If you leave every dollar owed to Social Security alone and do nothing else, it still runs out of money in 2042. It is $25 trillion short in 2075. That is not the problem. People who say that are not being forthright about the problem.

Having said that, I join my colleague from South Carolina and the Senator from North Dakota to try to make sure we preserve Social Security, keep it strong and healthy until we can find a structural reform. He has made an argument that cutting taxes reduces the family's income. The point is that payroll taxes are the income for Social Security. We are in a depressed economy right now.

We are trying--at least I am trying--to take some dollars and invest them back into the families and businesses of America, to create additional jobs, to strengthen the revenue flow, and to protect the revenue flow of Social Security.

My friend from North Dakota doesn't believe it will work. I totally respect him. But it is very difficult to be lectured to by some of my friends on the other side of the aisle about needing to be good stewards with taxpayer dollars. I came to Congress in 1994. When I came here, there were deficits as far as the eye could see. We had not balanced the budget in 30 years. We were able to balance the budget and cut taxes twice. Now, because of war, recession, and other problems, we have a debt. The debt, compared to the gross domestic product, is very small as compared to years past. But it is still a debt, and it is a real problem, and we need to work together to solve that debt, and we will.

I am asking my colleagues today, whatever you think about the tax cut, or other proposals that my party may present today or tomorrow, please do not prevent us from having in the Record for the country to see the true state of affairs with Social Security. My amendment doesn't fix the problem; it identifies it. I have been able to work with the Senator from North Dakota to put it into the Record. Today could be a good day--a day that the Senate agrees on the outyear problems of Social Security and begins to define it in a nonpartisan way or today could be the same old politics, where the political moment prevents us from talking honestly and openly about the looming problem of Social Security.

I am hopeful this will be a different day because, if not, we have lost the opportunity to do something constructive to fix Social Security. I appreciate the Senator from North Dakota working with me. I hope I can reach an agreement with my senior Senator from South Carolina to define the problem in honest terms, without anybody putting their spin on it, because the wording comes from the Social Security Administration. If I fail, I deeply regret the fact that I was not able to achieve this small first step. I am hopeful that, working together, we can achieve this small first step. That is all I know to say.

This is a great exercise in what this country faces. I am trying to use the Social Security trustees' report to define the problem. I don't want the demagoguery of the moment to keep us from doing that, because the country loses in the debate of the moment. There are honest differences. Let's do something constructive and define the problem in the terms given by the Social Security trustees.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

After having reviewed the documents, I am willing to agree to the modifications as offered by my senior Senator and the modification offered by the Senator from North Dakota. I am willing to do that. I think it is a good first step.

Which Senator is going to ask a question?

Of course.

The Senator knows I don't have a notebook full here. I wanted to make sure. One thing I learned, as a Senator, from Senator Byrd is if you want to make a speech, don't agree to the shortest amount of time because, sure enough, you never get what you wanted to say said. I said an hour. I probably will use an hour.

I thank the distinguished minority floor leader.

Mr. President, fellow Senators, and more importantly, fellow Americans who might be watching, I am going to have one of my aides turn this chart for a moment. You are going to be able to read the print very easily. It says:

If ANWR was the size of this chart, the total footprint of

any development there would be smaller than the box below.

You see the people running the television here in the Senate have to be very careful because if they are not, you will not even see it. ANWR is as big as this chart. We have done it to scale, all of that blue.

Now, regardless of what is said about what you are going to do to ANWR, let me submit to you that you are going to do it on this little piece, I say to the chairman. Look at this. Can you see it? Maybe I can show the chairman of the Budget Committee. Do you see that little piece there? I don't think you can even see it, that little piece. That is where ANWR is going to have a footprint to produce oil for America.

Can you imagine we are here arguing about whether or not we ought to take this tiny little piece? Here it is. Let me show it to you again. Do you see this, Mr. Chairman? I don't think you can see it from there. That is the size of the footprint. And the whole chart is the size of

Do you need any assistance to see it?

You don't have to answer. As a matter of fact, I am very hopeful that everybody can see it, because you saw beautiful polar bears, you saw fantastic growth everybody is proud of. But can anyone believe that little, tiny footprint is going to affect polar bears in the ANWR wilderness? Can you believe that much property, used to drill oil for America's future, is going to have an impact on America's economic future?

I submit, if the issue had not already been framed, and if, as a matter of fact, Senators had not already been convinced, if they truly started right here on the floor--let's discuss America; let's discuss the amount of oil we have to use each day; let's discuss our future; and now let's take a look at ANWR. If we had not received messages in the mail, if we had not received requests for contributions from those who support keeping ANWR exactly like it is, and not letting us have any of the resources that belong to America--if none of that occurred, we were here in a closed session, all 100 Senators, and those who wanted to say ``no drilling'' got a day, and I got an hour, they could talk all they wanted, and I would put this chart up and say, ``Are you kidding? You don't even want America to take a look at that?''

Now, having said that, it has been said on a number of occasions on the floor there isn't enough oil in ANWR to amount to anything. A few years ago, when I was sitting around and heard somebody say, ``America doesn't need this oil,'' I said to myself, ``Who are we kidding? How arrogant about our future are we? We don't need the oil that could be produced from Alaska because it isn't very much oil?''

Well, I started, over the weekend, asking, How much oil is it? How much oil is it in a way that maybe Americans would understand? And I decided we could take a little trip. We could take a trip through America and look at where we are producing oil today, and as we came upon a State that was producing oil, we would decide whether we needed that oil. After all, we are so strong and so arrogant about our economic future that there is a lot of oil America might have we must not need.

Guess what happened. The very first State I came upon was Texas. Texas. As I rode across America and stopped in various States, I stopped in Texas. And what did I find? I went to their Department of Minerals and Resources, and I looked, and I said: Could you help me? I am trying to find out where oil is produced in America and whether we need it or not. And what in the world did I find? ANWR has more oil than Texas. So I surmise we do not need the oil from Texas either. I surmise Texas oil does not amount to that much, because, after all, for comparison purposes, the total reserves in the State of Texas are 5.2 billion barrels. That is data for the year 2000. Let's repeat that. The reserves in the State of Texas for the year 2000 are 5.2 billion barrels.

According to the Energy Information Administration, upon which we as policymakers are basing our decisions, ANWR's oil reserves would range from a low--a low--of 5.7 billion barrels to a high of 16 billion barrels.

Let's repeat it. The reserves in the State of Texas, because that is where I started that sojourn--I would have ended up, had I not found that out in Texas--we did not have to go any further--I would have gone over to New Mexico and found their reserves, and then I would have gone to Oklahoma. But just stopping at Texas, you find the reserves in the State of Texas are estimated to be 5.2 billion barrels. And according to the experts advising the policymakers, the present Congress, and people of America, the reserves for ANWR--from that little, tiny dot-- are 5.7 billion barrels for the low estimate, and 16 billion barrels for the high estimate.

I see the distinguished Senator from Alaska in the Chamber. That means, I say to the Senator, if I read it right, that the reserves in your State, just in ANWR, if one uses the most conservative estimates, are equivalent to or more than the State of Texas. And if you use just a middle point, a 50-percent expectancy in terms of reserve estimates, I imagine if you do that, the yield is twice the State of Texas. Twice the State of Texas. If you like this Senator's estimate, it will be twice the State of Texas, it will not be the 5.2 billion barrels because that is the lowest estimate.

Now, I would like, once and for all, whatever has been said in this Senate--with the charts up there about us not needing this, that it is only a speck of the world's production of oil--I would like to submit, we need the production from the State of Texas, and we need an equivalent to the production from the State of Texas which would come from ANWR. America, as rich as we are, as powerful as we are, as willing as we are to say, ``We just don't need this. We will buy it from the world. We just don't need American oil. We don't even need as much as Texas produces''--right--``Just forget about it; we will buy it''--we will buy it, all right. And then, as war looms, the case for Arctic oil gets better and better and better.

As we look at America's future, we hear people get on the floor and say: Don't worry about producing more oil; we will just conserve more. Well, we will have an Energy bill here on the floor about when we come back from the April recess. I welcome Senators to come to the floor and tell us how in the world in the future we are not going to have to continue to import huge quantities of oil.

Now, somebody can get up and say: We only want half the automobiles we are driving today 4 years from now and 5 years from now. That is ridiculous. Or: We are going to use hydrogen cars. Of course, we are going to use a few of them each year, and in 20 years we are going to use a bunch of them. What do we do in the meantime?

They will say: Let's use electric cars. We will use them, but how many? Everybody understands the oil consumption is not going to come down dramatically during the next decade to 20 years. And what are we going to be doing? We are going to be depending upon the world for that period of time, and well beyond that, to buy it from the world.

It seems to me that a secondary issue--maybe a primary issue--we are debating in the Senate is jobs for Americans. I regret to tell you that for those who oppose that little tiny piece of this budget resolution called ANWR, they are opposing the biggest job producer this whole bill has in mind. I am more certain that if ANWR is permitted to be developed, when the time comes that it is producing, it will produce more jobs for America than this bill with all its tax provisions and

at the same time will produce oil for Americans. This is the estimate given by the experts of the American jobs, high-paying jobs. We are not even including in this the fact that American companies will own it. Americans will be part of the rig operators. Americans will be producing the pipelines.

Here is the estimate of employment that would flow from ANWR. You could vote against all the tax relief if ANWR was coming on board next month. That can't happen because it is a few years away. Here are the jobs: 575,000 full-blown American jobs for American men and women and American executives, and they have to be high paying. For any State that would like to look: for Colorado, there is estimated employment of 8,000; New Jersey, 17,000; California, 63,000 jobs if ANWR comes on. I suppose in the course of things, 63,000 jobs doesn't mean that much for a big State such as California.

Incidentally, if I would have followed that little trip through America to see where the oil was produced and I would have passed right on by Texas, and passed right on by New Mexico, and passed right on by Arizona and a little pinch of Nevada, and ended up in California, and gone to their mineral extraction department and said, how much oil do you produce? guess what I would have found. I would have found that the production in California of crude oil for America is about equivalent to what will be produced from ANWR when it is producing oil for Americans. Think of that.

People look at California and say: Boy, if we didn't have that production from California, where would we be? Isn't that interesting? If we had ANWR on board and producing and we took our little trip through America and ended up in Alaska and somebody would have said to us, well, that is producing about the same as Texas and California, let's just not produce it anymore, what do you think would happen? Do you think anybody would vote for that? I mean, it would be such a ridiculous proposition that we don't need it, even though it is about the equivalent of California and about the same as Texas, that clearly this issue to this Senator reaches the point where you can hardly understand what we are doing on the floor of the Senate with as close a vote as you can possibly get on this issue.

To the two or three Senators who still might have enough courage, enough concern, enough freedom to say I am going to do what is best, I submit that they ought to vote to keep ANWR, keep that marvelous huge wilderness that President Eisenhower is cited as having been instrumental in creating, keep it, and use this tiny piece here to produce oil for generations to come.

There is an excellent review and outlook in the Wall Street Journal this morning called ``Drilling for Votes.'' That is probably what they assume their editorial is doing, it is drilling for votes. It outlines the issues before us. It is rather succinct. It covers what I have just discussed, the insignificance of the probable damage to ANWR. I have tried to depict it in terms of jobs. It discusses that with words. They are wordsmiths, and they have done it in a very exciting, excellent, and forthright manner. They discuss jobs, which I just did. They also discuss what the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee discussed for just a few moments as to what is the nature of this tiny piece of geography that is part of ANWR. It is not the beautiful parts of this that have been shown in pictures here on the floor. It is discussed in this editorial in words as to what it is. It says:

This oil would come from a tiny piece of land that is

nowhere near the ``pristine'' mountains shown in the Sierra

Club ads. Exploration would be on Alaska's coastal plain, a

sliver of tundra that [the Secretary of the Interior] has

described aptly as ``flat, white nothingness.''

The editorial continues:

Far from pristine, it is the home of the town of Kaktovik,

with its people, cars, boats and airplane hangars. The actual

drilling footprint would be about 2,000 acres, the size of

Washington's Dulles Airport.

I ask unanimous consent that the entirety of this editorial be printed in the Record.

One remaining issue is: How do you drill for oil today, and how did you drill for it 25 years ago or even 30 years ago, when some of the wells were drilled in California--maybe hundreds of the wells were drilled in California and hundreds, maybe thousands of the wells in Texas were drilled? Has America made any strides in changing the way we drill for oil in 15, 20, 25 years?

I can tell you, some of the most dynamic, intelligent engineers in the world have spent years finding out how to drill holes in Mother Earth. As a matter of fact, the expertise in drilling did not just come over these years from people interested in drilling for oil wells. We have had an interest in drilling for many reasons.

Would you believe that the great laboratories of America--Los Alamos, Sandia, Livermore--have had a genuine, abiding piece of their research directed at, how do you drill holes into Mother Earth?

One time, they were experimenting in one of the laboratories in drilling

thousands of feet underground to see if they could tap into the geothermal heat pockets. They learned all kinds of things about drilling. Then they had to drill holes as part of the nuclear weapons activities in the deserts of Nevada. Millions of dollars were put into, how do you do it so you don't waste time, so you don't produce a whole bunch of environmental degradation? Couple that with the resources of the energy companies, which wasn't soft; it was pretty big. It was pretty hot stuff. You put it together, and you have the most profound, innovative ways to drill for oil you could ever imagine.

Let me just suggest, if oil is about 400 yards over there and you found it--about four football fields away--and you don't want to touch that ground, you can start here, where I am standing, and you can drill over there in what is called slant drilling. It is done with such precision today that it can take place for yards and yards and yards from the actual point under the earth where you attempt to strike the liquid mineral, or the natural gas. That is what will be used if you are worried about how will you use this tiny piece, the size of Dulles, to go into the hinterland without touching anything.

That is the answer. You will go in when it is frozen, you will do your drilling activity, and when it starts to thaw, you get out and wait until it freezes again, you come back and, frankly, you won't know anything has happened--except that underground you will be moving ahead full speed to make America have more of the oil that is ours, that we own, that we will use for our future.

I have a little picture up here from Science Times. It was covered in the Times. It is called ``Hunting For Oil: New Precision, Less Pollution.''

I am sure those who have circulated millions and millions of letters and the hundreds of TV ads saying we are going to ruin ANWR--if we take a tiny piece of that property, the size of Dulles, which I have just shown you on the map, and we drill, they are assuming you are going to spoil the earth as you do when you are producing with the conventional drilling of wells.

This is a pictorial of the chronology and the evolution of how you go about drilling today.

Using the latest drilling techniques, oil drilling sites

like those in the Alpine Fields of Alaska's North Slope are

using cutting edge technology in the hope of reducing

environmental damage.

To reduce the damage, recent advances are lessening the

industrial impact on the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

They proceed to show you an Alpine Field, Alaska. They show you what is happening. Let me move over here because I described it in not too good a manner a while ago when I said the oil was 400 yards away, four football fields. You could drill from here.

Let's look at this diagram. You see, here is the platform that might be the size of Dulles. Here is the drilling. Here is the oil underground. And you see, way far away, the oil is underground, and it is going to be drilled and come up, and everything is going to be done on this platform. The same here. Here is a giant reservoir underground. It is many yards from where you have set out to manage and control the destiny of the tundra. There you are with this dramatic picture of how, just like a curved straw, you put it underground and maneuver it, and the ``milk shake'' is way over there, and your little child wants the milk shake, and they sit over here in their bedroom where they are feeling ill, and they just gobble it up from way down in the kitchen, where you don't even have to move the Mix Master that made the ice cream for them. You don't have to take it up to the bedroom. This describes the actual drilling that is taking place.

I told you a while ago that I was going to give you just a shirt- sleeve example, where four football fields over there is where you thought the oil was. I used an example that is way too small. As a matter of fact, 4 miles--not 400 yards, but 4 miles--away is this oil from this drill. It is not yards, not football fields, but miles. How many? Four. Now, you tell me that those who are telling America this will damage this tundra, damage this wilderness, are scurrying to the American people and telling them: Did you know you can set a piece of that aside and 4 miles away you can take oil out of the ground? Pretty fantastic.

As a matter of fact, I am using 4, because my staff told me 4. They have evidence from the science that it is 4. I don't see any reason it could not be more than 4. I don't see why it cannot be 6. In fact, if people want to know, we could go ask the experts how far away it can be. It can be plenty far away.

So no hard feelings. Everybody makes their case. I have been here a long time. I try to make mine. But I guarantee you, this one has me worried. If the Senate cannot say, 1, we need oil; 2, we need American oil; 3, if we have got American oil and we can take it out of the ground, we ought to properly assess the risk, we ought not to just say no. We just established we need it. It should be American, if possible. So, third, we ought to properly assess the risk.

The risk is not properly assessed by saying it is under ANWR, therefore no oil. That is not a risk assessment. That is an arbitrary decision--that in one swath negates the first two propositions of significance and reality. We need oil, and we need American oil.

It is too bad that we do hear in America--and people are fair minded--we should not be using so much oil. I hear that. I am prepared to confront that on the floor of the Senate because, when the energy bill comes up, some people are going to say we are not a very good country because, after all, we use a third of the energy of the world. Who do we think we are? Do you know what I say? I say we need it for our standard of living, but we don't deny it to the other people in the world. We will help them produce more. We will help them produce clean electricity so they can grow. But I am not prepared to say, since we need it for our standard of living--just because we use a disproportionate amount--abandon the oil in Alaska. What does that have to do with it? What does that have to do with whether we are using oil?

Mr. President, the other thing I think Senators and the people of this country ought to look at is, what is oil? It is easy to say we don't need oil, why should we buy so much oil? But oil is our everyday life.

Fellow Americans, do you want to live without cars? Sure, you do. Can you? No, you cannot. I will repeat, would you like to live without cars? Most Americans would say, of course, I love cars, I like them. If you want to say I wish I didn't, I wish I didn't have a car, I ask you, how would you make a living?

Equally important, where would you live? There are two freedoms that are not covered anywhere in the sacred documents of our country that have evolved, and they are about as American as the proverbial apple pie. They are: The freedom to own a house anywhere one can afford it; the yearning to have a house that is your own. We are not going to change that until America is no longer America. The second freedom is to own an automobile or two so you can go where you want when you want.

I respect the fact that Americans say: This is our life. But I regret to tell my fellow Americans, without oil or if oil becomes so ungodly high priced, both of those freedoms will be in jeopardy. There is no question, both of those freedoms will be in jeopardy because we have built our life around those freedoms being reasonably priced. If we make them unreasonably priced and create anger among the American people, and if, in fact, part of the reason the oil is so highly priced is because you did not want to use your own oil because you did not want to touch that little piece of property in ANWR, I surmise people will not think you have a very good excuse. I for one would say you do not have any excuse at all.

I want to recap--and I apologize to the Senate if I have spoken too long and if I have made any misstatements. I do not think I have, but if I have, I will try to correct them.

In summary, it is almost impossible to prove that ANWR will be damaged to any noticeable degree if we produce the oil that is under the footprint the U.S. Government would like to lease so we can determine whether oil is there and how much. It is almost impossible to prove damage.

I am prepared, although this debate will not go on much longer, to take any instrument, any study, any report anybody wants to bring to the floor to

the contrary and debate it. If they want to use the Academy of Sciences study that has just reviewed the Prudhoe area, let's debate it. One may find a few sentences in there that are cautionary, but they will find tremendous amounts of information saying those who claim Prudhoe Bay has been significantly damaging are in error, and it produced that other part, Prudhoe, which passed this Senate by one vote and has produced oil for America without which we would really be in trouble. We can debate that issue.

This is so small in comparison to the size of this wilderness, an area in the wilderness for which we are very grateful to whomever structures the underground oil reserves that they put it in this part of ANWR such that the drilling will occur in the area as I have described it: not mountainous and beautiful and full of flowers, but level and barren and frozen in a gigantic piece that looks like part of New Mexico that turned white and froze.

The next is we are not strong enough to throw away this much of our own patrimony. I do not know where I got the word except it is so important to own your own resources that in Spanish-speaking countries, such as Mexico, they call the oil of Mexico ``El patrimonio del estado de Mexico,'' the patrimony of the state. That is how important oil is. This is our patrimony. It belongs to us. For those who say we should not drill in ANWR because somebody went there and said, We just should not touch this wilderness, to me is absolutely ignoring the reality of America's future.

Every other issue I can think of--new technology which will cause a minimalization of environmental degradation, jobs in the future, and every other issue one can think of--is on the side of the last two or three votes deciding to get this done, not for me, but I have nine grandchildren. I hope they can still drive a car and own a house wherever they would like and work hard and give us ample time to make the transition toward other technologies that will make our lives like they are today rather than lock this up for no good reason.

I close by saying the patrimony of Americans.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, at this point, I will yield to four people in sequence: Senator Bingaman, 10 minutes; Senator Durbin, 5 minutes; Senator Murray, 5 minutes; Senator Stabenow 5 minutes. That will be the total of our speakers and then we will be happy to yield an equivalent amount of time to the other side, if that will be acceptable. These Senators would like to give their short statements and then go back to their committees.

Twenty-five minutes.

As I understand it, I control 41 minutes of time. Is that correct? Instead of just standing here and speaking myself about this amendment, I have suggested we allow it to go in this sequence and then back to my colleagues on the other side, just for the sake of my colleagues' schedule.

Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to a real leader on this issue, Senator Bingaman, the top Democrat on the Energy Committee.

Will the Senator yield his remaining time for a question?

I wonder if the Senator had seen this chart which shows by the year 2030 how much energy is yielded by these various factors. This would be how much energy we would get from the Arctic Refuge production, 2.38 billion barrels of oil. If we just put better tires on our cars, it would result in better fuel economy, we would save more energy.

If we just closed the SUV loophole, meaning we got those SUVs up to the same mileage as cars, we would save 10 billion barrels. And, by the way, if we did fuel economy, as my friend suggested, up to 35 miles per gallon, which is very modest, look at what it would save: 18 billion barrels. Here is what the Arctic gets us, and we destroy a region that looks like this, instead of going this way.

Mr. President, I am going to take 1 extra minute off the bill, if I might, to simply send to the desk a letter from Jimmy Carter, former President Jimmy Carter. Last night it was implied by several colleagues--I have their words actually--I will not go through them now--that President Carter supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Just to quote from a little bit of his letter, he says:

We can have the untouched sublime wilderness. Or we can

have oil field development. But we cannot have both.

Opening the coastal plain for oil exploration and

development would be, despite all the much-vaunted

technological promises, severely damaging to wildlife and the

ecosystem. And it is inherently fatal to the wilderness

qualities of this matchless example of America's natural

heritage.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

I now yield 5 minutes to Senator Patty Murray who has also been a tremendous voice for the environment here in the Senate.

Will the Senator yield her remaining time?

I say to my friend, I appreciate her raising the issue of the safety here because in the Prudhoe Bay oil field and the Trans- Alaska we have seen an average 423 spills annually on the North Slope since 1996, and that is according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Over 1.7 million gallons of 40 different substances, from acid to waste oil, have been spilled during routine operations from 1996 to 2002. There were 2,958 spills, commonly diesel, crude oil, and hydraulic oil.

My friend is right. Maybe years ago they would have been worse spills, but the fact is there are terrible spills now.

I see that my colleague's time is up. I thank the Senator for participating.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to Senator Stabenow from Michigan.

Mr. President, I ask we take 10 minutes off our side of the resolution.

Mr. President I will speak a couple of minutes about the general budget, and then turn to the ANWR Alaska refuge amendment that is pending that I hope will prevail in a vote in a few years.

I ask unanimous consent Senators Corzine and Clinton be added as cosponsors to my ANWR amendment.

Mr. President, I will talk about this budget overall because I listened to my colleague talk about it in a way that, frankly, is stunning because I remember when Republicans wanted a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Now they are embracing a budget that has deficits as far as the eye can see. If you like deficits as far as the eye can see, you will love this budget and you should vote for it because that is what you are getting.

I will after I am finished, as I listened to my friend talk for quite a few moments.

If you embrace the idea that deficits are a good thing for the country, red ink is a good thing for this country, you will love this budget; go ahead and vote for it and that is fine and we will talk about it when we go home.

If you like the idea that we should ignore an enormous cost that is staring us in the face as our beautiful men and women are standing on the brink of war, if you think this budget should ignore those costs, then you should vote for this budget because this is an Alice-in- Wonderland-type of budget.

The whole country is focused on what is about to happen--but not in this budget. I have seen comments made by friends of mine from the other body on the other side of the aisle that said hurry up and get this through before we have to deal with the costs of the war.

When I hear Senator Frist say let's push this through fast, that, in my opinion, ties the knot here. The other side wants to get this done very quickly even though it has no costs for the war. The first person who said the war will cost between $100 billion and $200 billion was Larry Lindsey, and as we know, he was shown the door.

Vote for this budget if you think we should ignore the costs of the war. Vote for this budget if you love deficits. If you like breaking promises to our children on No Child Left Behind, cutting afterschool programs and the like, vote for this budget because that is what you are doing.

The President posed for pictures with Senator Kennedy and Congressman Miller--No Child Left Behind--and then he fails to fund it.

He is going to kick 50,000 California kids out of afterschool programs, unless we fix it. All through the country, he is going to kick 500,000 to 700,000 kids out of afterschool programs, including kids in New Hampshire and all over our great Nation.

Our kids deserve more than that. If you like the fact that No Child Left Behind is not funded fully, vote for the budget. If you want to cut environmental enforcement, vote for the budget. If you want to fund the highways and transit at a lower level than what we need, vote for the budget.

Especially vote for the budget if you want to give tax breaks to people who earn more than $1 million a year because they will get back $87,000 a year. Definitely vote for this budget if your heart bleeds for those folks who make more than $1 million a year because that is the centerpiece of this budget.

I hope we can change it. We are going to try to change it. We have a few brave souls on the other side of the aisle who agree with us. I don't know how it will turn out. But when I hear people talk about why our country is in so much economic trouble, it started 2 years ago. We lost 2 million jobs because we abandoned fiscal responsibility, we abandoned investment in job-producing investments, we abandoned the principles that led us to the greatest economic recovery in generations. But if you don't want to go back to those good days and stick with these bad days, vote for this budget.

On my time that is remaining, I want to say how excited I am that we actually may pass the Alaska wildlife amendment.

What we have here on this chart is a very simple visual of what we will save from various scenarios on imported oil. I had, yesterday, the percentages.

We see that while ANWR would reduce our reliance on imported oil by 2 percent, if we just did better tires on our cars, which would lead to better fuel economy, we could save 4.3 percent of imported oil. If we closed the SUV loophole and just had the SUVs get the same mileage as cars, we would save 16 percent on the amount of oil we have to import. If we increased our fuel economy by 13--to 35 miles per gallon--which the automobile people say is absolutely possible; we would reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 43 percent.

The alternative is this reduction of dependence on foreign oil by 2 percent. By the way, this wouldn't happen for 8 or 10 years. For everybody who says it is going to happen sooner, that is not what the proof is. The science tells us it will take 8 to 10 years to get it up and running.

This is the alternative, drilling in this God-given area.

I will give the remainder of my time to Senator Conrad. We are talking about a place that looks like this. Yes, in the winter it is icy. Yes, in the winter there is not much--it doesn't look as beautiful as this, but I don't look as good as I looked when I was young, so that happens sometimes. But the bottom line is, it is a beautiful place.

Here are some other beautiful pictures. We will show you some of the wildlife that we have, this beautiful bird which is the whimbrel--quite beautiful. It is my chart bird, I call it. That is a beautiful example of what we are trying to save.

I will yield the remainder of my time on the resolution to Senator Conrad and hope my colleagues on both sides will support the amendment.

I have been to Alaska and I am going back. I haven't been to the 1002 area, but my chief environmental legislative aide took my place on a trip that, unfortunately, I had to cancel 6 months ago, and just said it was absolutely exquisite.

As my friend knows, we have hundreds of wildlife refuges. I have been to a few. I haven't been to them all. But this is God's gift and whether--

Yes, I stated that clearly in the debate. The last time I was asked this question, people said these photos were----

Mr. President, I ask to take 5 minutes off the resolution to respond to the Senator from New Mexico. I believe I might pause here for a unanimous consent request. Mr. President, I ask Senator Nickles, is that correct? Does the Senator wish that I wait while he propounds a unanimous consent request?

As long as it does not come off my time. I would like to reserve the 5 minutes off the resolution.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

I want to make sure I have my 5 minutes to respond to the hour-long speech of the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico spoke with tremendous conviction about why he wants to drill in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. He said he had no hard feelings for those people who felt differently, but he said a number of things that deserve to be rebutted, and I am going to do that.

I certainly believe that whether one has an area that looks like this--and my colleagues said this is not a photograph of the area that would be drilled, but they are completely incorrect. This has been mapped. We have exactly where this is on the back of the photograph. It is right in the heart of the refuge. We had this picture last year, which then-Senator Frank Murkowski said was not taken in the refuge area. We had the head of Fish and Wildlife in Alaska phone in, irate, and essentially

say, yes, this is exactly where they want to drill, where the caribou are roaming.

So let's get that right. I am not going to stand up in front of pictures that do not apply to make my case. That is ridiculous. I would not do that. That is wrong. It is not a fair way to debate. I want to debate on the merit.

I also have never, ever said in this debate--and I spoke last night, as well as this morning--that people on the other side are doing this because they get campaign contributions from oil and gas companies and other economic interests. I will not do that. I have more respect than that. But, of course, my colleague from New Mexico says the only reason we are fighting for this is that we get contributions from a few environmental organizations. Hogwash. I would like to line up the campaign contributions of the environmental organizations versus the campaign contributions of big oil and gas companies.

Let's just cut it out. The Senate should be above that. I speak from my heart when I say there is an inconsistency with setting aside this beautiful acreage and then saying, oh, well, now we need to drill.

I received a call this morning from former Representative John Seiberling. Last night, his picture was held up by Senator Stevens. Senator Stevens said there was a deal cut in 1980 to allow oil drilling. Obviously, I was not in that meeting. The fact is I came to the Congress in 1982, so I missed that by 2 years.

Representative Seiberling phoned us this morning. He was the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Lands. He was in that picture, and he said there was no deal to open the Alaska Wildlife Reserve to exploration. So I want to state that for the record, just as last night I talked about the letter from President Jimmy Carter who said he is totally opposed to this drilling, even though he, too, was referred to as being part of this so-called deal.

I also want to show a footprint of the New Jersey Turnpike. Now, my colleagues are going to say: Well, Senator Boxer, what does that have to do with anything? The fact is, this is the same size footprint that the opposition is saying would be the footprint of the oil field that would be allowed in this refuge.

I say to my friends, the way Senator Domenici posed it, he had a great big chart and a little dot. Well, what goes on when you drill for oil is not a little dot. That is so obvious; it is kind of silly. If we even take the footprint that they talk about, the 2,000 acres, that is the footprint the size of the New Jersey Turnpike, and I say to anyone who has some common sense, no one would say that what happens on the New Jersey Turnpike does not have an impact on the surrounding community.

I also say to my friend, because he opposes me in a lot of areas-- this is my friend from New Mexico. I served on the Budget Committee for years. I have tremendous respect for him, but we disagree. I, with just as much fervor as he, will say to my colleagues today I want them to look at the footprint for offshore oil drilling off the coast of California. It will look really small if the whole coastline is taken into account, but my people in California know it is destructive. How do we know that? We have seen it. We have seen what happens when oil spills. We know that no matter what technology is promised, accidents occur. We have certainly experienced that in Alaska given what has happened in the past from spills, and I put that in the Record before.

We know the USGS analysis says that oil in the refuge is scattered in many different areas. It would require multiple fields across the Coastal Plain, 250 miles of roads, 100 miles of pipeline.

Madam President, I ask for 3 additional minutes off the resolution.

I would like 3 additional minutes, if I could, off the resolution, or I could take it off the amendment; it is immaterial.

I will take the time from the amendment.

That will leave 1 minute, and I will reserve that.

I say to my friend from North Dakota, the Senator from New Mexico had an hour speech and I believe I need to rebut it. We know from USGS we are talking 250 miles of roads, 100 miles of pipeline, airfields, gravel pits, power lines, waste facilities, and other structures. We are talking about this, not coming from the side of those who believe this pristine area ought to be left alone, but from the USGS survey.

John Seiberling says no deal was cut in 1980; Senator Stevens sees it a different way. People can take away different meanings. But I mention that in the Record. When we hear President Carter's name as being part of a deal, and he writes a letter and says he does not want to see drilling here, we ought to set the record straight.

This is a fair debate. But it ought to be based on the facts as the people who were in the room saw it. Senator Stevens laid out how he felt. John Seiberling phoned and left his phone number. I am sure if Senator Stevens would like to chat with him, that would be fine with him.

I am happy to answer on your time. May I answer on your time?

I am sorry, I have 60 seconds left to rebut an hour-long tirade by someone on the other side who said the reason we are preserving the Arctic is because we received campaign contributions.

I print in the Record the facts, a letter from Jimmy Carter who opposes drilling in this area. He talks about it very eloquently.

John Seiberling, then-chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Lands and National Parks, was in the picture that my friend from Alaska held up last night, and has said absolutely there was no deal cut to drill in this area. It is important we set that record straight.

I correct that. He was not in the picture, but in the meetings that led to the picture. He was the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Lands.

Lastly, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of a very important document put together by the Alaska Wilderness League. In it there are comments of the National Research Counsel on the cumulative environmental effects of oil and gas activities on Alaska's North Slope. We keep hearing there is no problem, no problem at all, but there are newspaper reports that say the local people who live up there claim there is a problem with the caribou herds. They are going elsewhere, away from the drilling.

Madam President, it is very important everyone vote. This is a close vote. I don't think this should be in a budget resolution. It is very obvious what the proponents of drilling want to do. They want to get this into

reconciliation so those who have deep, strong feelings will not be able to talk at length about it, to stop it. I hope we stop it today.

I reserve 1 minute for closing debate.

I yield myself 5 minutes.

I ask the Senator from Alaska, is it OK upon my completion of 5 minutes that Senator Feingold address the Senate for 5 minutes, and then we would turn it back to the time of the Senator from Alaska? Is that all right with the Senator?

Madam President, let's be clear. Ninety-five percent of Alaska's North Slope is open for drilling. That is a fact. We are talking about the last 5 percent. The debate is whether that should be opened as well.

Clearly, this is going to be a very close vote. I have great respect for the Senators from Alaska, but I would welcome it if they wanted to help preserve the environment in my State.

As far as jobs are concerned, there was a report done by the Joint Economic Committee on March 14, 2002. They issued a report that said there would be 65,000 jobs nationwide by 2020, an employment gain of less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. workforce, and CRS--that is the Congressional Research Service--Report No. R.S. 21030, October 1, 2001, said under the most likely scenario, full development in the Arctic would result in 60,000 jobs.

I am not one to say 60,000 jobs are no jobs--that is a lot of jobs-- but the more than 2 million jobs we have seen go down the drain in the last 2 years, that is a bigger debate.

I also want to make the point that for those of us in California who defend and protect our coastline from oil companies every day of the week, we made a choice. Yes, we know there would be jobs developed there, but it would destroy that coastline and have the potential for horrific accidents and problems because we have experienced those.

So I say to my friends from Alaska, I hope they will understand the people in this country who support keeping this 5 percent of the North Slope in its pristine environment are doing so because we think it is good for the soul of this country, and we believe there are more jobs to be created through other means.

The reason I have this photograph--and it was challenged not by my colleagues from Alaska at all but by others--this is clearly in the development area--and also by Secretary Norton, who is quoted in the newspaper as saying the image of flat white nothingness is what one sees the majority of the year. This is the reason I felt compelled--and I was glad to see my colleague from Alaska say she agrees, it is magnificent, and I wish every Member could have the chance to take a look at this beautiful book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land. It is a photographic journey by this incredible photographer through all the seasons. Some of the most beautiful scenes are in the winter. I know my colleagues cannot see this, but it shows the birds and the snow and all the rest. It is quite beautiful.

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe Secretary Norton looks at this and comes away with another point of view, and I respect that. I just do not happen to agree with it.

In April--I think it is April 10--there will be an exhibit opened at the Smithsonian on the Mall which will show these photographs, and more. So I hope people will take a chance to look at it, because it is quite breathtaking to see.

I want to reiterate that I printed in the Record last night a letter from the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council. They have asked me to make a point of this letter they have written, in which they say:

We urge you to reject . . . any other proposals to

authorize oil exploration and development of the birthplace

and nursery of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, the coastal plain

and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

They talk about they support the Gwich'ins to seek permanent protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I know the Gwich'in people are here. I also know there are other tribal people here as well, and I say that I have met with them many times and have been touched and moved with their testimony. They are very proud the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council that represents 187 tribes is with them, and they asked me specifically to put this letter into the Record.

Let me finish by saying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a beautiful Web site and they say on it:

The Arctic refuge is among the most complete, pristine and

undisturbed ecosystems on Earth . . . a combination of

habitats, climate and geography unmatched by any other

northern conservation area.

This is a quote from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is very clearly the point of view of most people, and I hope that we would honor this God-given treasure today and vote to strip this language from the bill and take a stand in favor of keeping this area pristine.

I look forward to the remarks of Senator Feingold.

Madam President, I am finding the source for the comment I made that Senator Stevens took issue with that the 5 percent of the North Slope was available for drilling. That comment was made by the Interior Secretary to the Senate in the committee. That statement was made in 1995. I am putting my hands on the exact words.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut who has been a real leader in this fight, Senator Joe Lieberman.

Parliamentary inquiry: Could you tell me how much time remains on the Senator from Alaska's side and how much on my side?

I ask the Senator, what is your preference? Senator Chafee would like to speak, but if you would like to take some time?

I was just asking my colleague if he preferred Senator Domenici to go since he just spoke.

I yield 5 minutes for Senator Chafee. I want to say he is a leader on this issue, and he is one of six Republicans who signed a letter saying don't deal with this issue in the context of a budget resolution. I look forward to hearing his 5 minutes.

I had not calculated it. Twenty minutes.

I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank the chairman. As a new Member of the Senate, I bring to this body, as do many of my colleagues, experience having served in what we like to refer to as the ``other body,'' the House of Representatives. Prior to that service, I worked in what we sometimes refer to as the ``real world'' in manufacturing, having been trained as a mechanical engineer.

Engineers often try to develop solutions to problems by arguing from first principles, and that means simply that you work from the most basic understanding of a problem you wish to address. Once you come to terms with the central element of that problem, you are far better able to craft a meaningful and effective solution.

What the astute listener might ask is: What does this have to do with the Federal budget? And to that I reply, if you really want to put together an effective budget and a meaningful budget that will serve us well, we need to remind ourselves exactly what this budget resolution is for.

As we listen to much of the budget debate, one might understand or come to assume that the budget resolution establishes funding levels for every conceivable Federal program, every line item in the budget; that it rewrote the Tax Code; that it modernized Medicare, all in and of itself without even having the benefit of the President's signature. Of course, this is not the case, even though the rhetoric we hear might suggest otherwise.

So what is the budget resolution? It is simply a blueprint. It is a vision the Congress puts forward of where we imagine our budget priorities should be this year and in future years. We try to set priorities for taxes and for spending, try to estimate what we are going to collect into the Federal coffers, and try to set priorities for modernizing programs like Medicare or Social Security. Above all, it reflects a set of priorities.

For example, listening to the debate this morning, one might get the impression it actually authorizes oil exploration in northern Alaska. That is simply not the case. What the budget resolution as written would do is allow the Senate Energy Committee to write legislation that would then be debated on the Senate floor. It would still have to pass the Senate to allow exploration or production in northern Alaska to take place. The budget simply provides the mechanism allowing that legislation to be written and then later brought to the floor.

Our goal in this debate should be to reflect the right set of priorities in our country. To be sure, this is a $2 trillion budget we are talking about. If I or any of my colleagues were writing a $2 trillion budget, I am sure someone somewhere would find something in that $2 trillion budget they might disagree with, and I understand that. Any Member of the Senate, any citizen of our country, can find something in our Federal budget they are not comfortable with, that they do not like, that they would disagree with, a program they would change. But if we want to do the work of the American people in the Senate, we need to put together that budget blueprint. We need to set those priorities, and I would hope those priorities would be consistent.

As we listen to the debate over the next few days, unfortunately we will hear a lot that is not consistent. We will hear individuals talk about their concern for the Federal deficit, and then they will step forward and vote for an amendment that raises domestic spending and increases the deficit. We will hear individuals raise concerns about the cost of military action at this historic time. But after raising concerns about those costs, those individuals will then step forward and vote for amendments that raise domestic spending.

We will hear Members raise concerns about economic growth, and then instead of stepping forward to propose or support a package that lays the foundation for future economic growth, what will they do? They will step forward and they will vote to raise domestic spending. There is a pattern, to be sure.

We are in challenging and difficult times, and we have work in front of us that will require us to make difficult choices and to set the right priorities for our country.

Why do we need this budget in the first place? We need this budget, as I suggested before, to enable us to get our work done. I talked about the budget allowing the Energy Committee to come forward with legislation crafting a comprehensive energy policy that might include exploration in northern Alaska. The budget will also set an overall limit on discretionary spending. This year, I think the goal put forward in the budget resolution is approximately $784 billion. But we need to set that goal, that cap, that target, so the other spending committees, the

Appropriations Committee in particular, can then move the spending bills forward.

This is not insignificant. Last year, we failed to pass a budget in the Senate and we paid for it. We paid for it because as a result we could not get the work of the country done. We ended up completing that work, not in September, October, November, or December of last year, but in January of this year. That is simply wrong. That is why we need a budget. The budget lays the foundation for critical legislation, and not just a comprehensive energy bill. If we want to modernize Medicare, pass a prescription drug benefit for retirees in this country, we are going to need a budget resolution. If we want to pass an economic growth package that helps lay the foundation for job creation in America, we are going to need a budget resolution.

The Senate may well appear chaotic under any circumstances, but without a budget we are even more so. I do think it is important to note the minority in this case has not offered any comprehensive alternative to the budget. We will hear debate and criticism of the pending resolution that is before this body, but no comprehensive alternative. This is similar to last year when the minority, then in the majority, failed to offer and pass a comprehensive budget. As a result, not only were we completing last year's business this past January, but we were unable to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare and other work before the Senate was delayed. The budget resolution is critical to being able to get our work done in Congress.

What is in the budget resolution that is before us? What are the priorities we have laid out that have been put together by the hard work of the chairman of the Budget Committee and the members of the Budget Committee? Given the challenge of these times, I think it is a very strong package. The overall spending level, $784 billion, represents a growth in discretionary spending of a little bit less than 4.5 percent.

There is a basic principle at work, and that is we should not be expanding the size and scope of the Federal Government. We should not be increasing domestic spending any faster than an average family budget is increasing.

On the defense side, we all know the challenges we face, the priorities we need to set in defense spending. Defense spending has increased approximately 3.8 percent. Homeland security, where we need to make investments in new technology and new ways of identifying threats to this country, has been increased over 25 percent in order to help first responders--police and firefighters--around the country.

As with defense and homeland security, we have to set priorities throughout the budget. If the Federal spending level is increasing by 4 or 4.5 percent, not every program can receive a 10 or 20 percent increase. Priorities need to be set.

On veterans health care, we step forward to provide an increase of $1 billion in this budget; on education, a 4.5 percent increase, including $1 billion for special education, which is an enormous unfunded Federal mandate on cities and towns around the country. In science, space, and technology research, the budget provides for an additional 5.5 percent over last year. Setting priorities in important areas; that is what putting together a good budget is all about.

This budget will allow us to modernize Medicare, to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, something that is essential if we are going to deliver on our commitment to a modernized health care system for our retirees.

As we have heard and will continue to hear over the next couple of days, this budget allows for an economic growth package to help get our economy moving, to help create incentives to entrepreneurs and risk takers across the country to create new economic opportunity and to create new jobs.

I think it is the right set of priorities. I think it makes sense to put together a package that focuses on economic growth. I think it is the right thing to do to make sure we are not expanding the size and scope of the Federal Government any faster than the average family might be expanding its budget.

To be sure, we will hear people argue about the level of spending and we will have amendments to increase Federal spending in a number of areas. The fact of the matter is, we would hear those arguments and have that debate no matter what the spending level in this budget resolution was. If it was at $794 billion, we would have similar amendments to increase Federal spending. If it was at $800 billion, $810 billion, or $820 billion, we would have the same amendments to expand the size and scope of the Federal Government, because some legislators find it more difficult than others to set priorities and to control the size and scope of that spending. Now more than ever we need to set priorities.

We have heard and will continue to hear a lot of discussion in this budget debate about the deficit. It needs to be addressed. We cannot ignore it. In order to do the right thing regarding the deficit, we have to understand why it is there. Why do we have a deficit?

I just talked about spending growth. Growth in spending, expansion of the size and scope of the Federal Government, that alone is responsible for 25 percent of the deficit we have projected for the coming fiscal year and over the coming 10 years.

We had surpluses after a long period of expansion that began in the early 1980s, with a sharp brief interruption in 1991. Revenues increased year after year. We had record revenue growth because we had strong economic growth. That enabled us to balance the budget. Coupled with control of growth in spending, we were able to balance the budget. Some say the surpluses then just provided incentives to ramp up the spending level again. As we have seen over the last 5 or 6 years, the growth in discretionary spending has been at near historic levels.

At the same time, we had unprecedented defense and homeland security needs that had to be dealt with in the wake of September 11. With the recent economic downturn, we have seen unemployment costs increase once again. So new spending has been responsible for about 25 percent of the deficit. An even larger portion, almost half of the deficit, has been caused by the slowdown in the economy and the drop in revenues. This is unfortunate, but we all understand we are in slow economic times.

The result has not been created by tax cuts. Despite the rhetoric, the Tax Relief Act signed into law in 2001 was responsible for less than 25 percent of the deficit we will see in the coming year. It was the slowdown in the economy, cutting Federal revenues by over $150 billion over the last year, that resulted in 50 percent of the deficit we see today. That is why it is important we include in this resolution an allowance for an economic growth package. The economy has slowed down.

We need to understand why it slowed down. It is not because of inflation. It has not been because of a slowdown in consumer spending. American consumer spending has been surprisingly robust over the last 18 months. It has not been a credit squeeze like we had in 1991. This economic slowdown has been driven by and led by a slowdown in business investment. Businesses are reluctant to go out and spend additional capital on improvements to plants and equipment, on improvements of productivity and expansion of their facilities. We know of the slowdown in technology investment. That has led this slowdown in the economy.

If we want to do something about it--and I think we all care about the economic growth in this country--if we want to do something, we have to address the reason for the slowdown, to address the sharp downturn in business investment. That is what the economic package of the President has put forward and what this budget resolution attempts to do.

We have other options. We could do nothing. At the end of the day, if you watch the votes carefully, you will see that there are a number of Members of this body who would just as soon do nothing. They do not support an economic growth package. They will argue they do not want to increase the deficit. That means do nothing, do not spend any additional money, do not put together an economic growth package. I do not think with the economy as slow as it is, the American people want us to say we are going to do nothing to try to get job creation back on track.

We could spend more money and there will be a series of amendments to

this budget resolution to do just that. Some will be offered by those who decry the short-term deficit, or the deficit that we have had over the last year. But they will offer amendments to spend more money and ultimately increase the deficit. The idea that we could spend ourselves out of a recession is ridiculous. It is absurd on its face.

We have extended unemployment insurance. That was the right thing to do and it is an important thing to do. But in and of itself, spending more on unemployment insurance will not rekindle economic growth. We need to recognize that in order to create incentives for entrepreneurs and risk takers to spur job creation, we need to look at the Tax Code. That is where the growth package comes forward.

Is it a big package? Relatively speaking, not at all. It represents less than 2.5 percent of our Nation's revenue collections over the next 10 years. But it is focused on making the Tax Code more fair: by getting rid of the double taxation on dividends; by giving small businesses incentives to invest in plants, equipment and the modest increases I spoke of; and by tripling the amount small businesses could expense over time. It tries to deal with the economic slowdown by recognizing the first principles of why the economy has slowed down in the first place.

This budget sets forward a realistic, reasonable and common-sense limit on Federal spending. It sets priorities even within those areas for veterans health care, special education, science and technology, homeland security, and our national defense. It allows us to modernize Medicare and add an important prescription drug benefit. It also sets forward principles for an economic growth package we all know is needed in America.

It is a strong resolution. With all due respect to the chairman of the Budget Committee, it is probably not a perfect resolution. I served for 6 years on the Budget Committee in the House, and I am the first to admit there is no such thing. But it is a strong set of priorities for America. It reflects common sense when you look at the economic realities, the budget realities and the national security realities we have.

America was built on a foundation that rests on individual liberty. From that very first principle comes our country's commitment to property rights, to free markets, and to open trade. As we conclude this debate on the budget in the coming days, I hope our budget resolution will reflect the importance of these ideas; that it will include provisions necessary to strengthen our economy, but that it will balance the needs of our Government with the rights of individuals. These are not just fanciful ideas, but are bedrock principles that enabled America to build the strongest economy the world has ever known. They make us strong today and will keep us strong tomorrow.

Although I am just beginning my service in the Senate, I hope it will be marked by a consistent and enduring commitment to these ideas. I can think of no better way to serve my State and my country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

I am happy to do so.

We are now in a situation where we have had very extended debate on ANWR. At some point, we have to draw it to a close.

That will be fine, if we take it from the amendment.

Madam President, I know the Senator from South Carolina has a sense-of-the-Senate amendment. Let me just say I regret that because we have done our level best to stop the practice of offering sense-of-the-Senate amendments on the budget resolution. We have established a point of order against them to try to discourage sense- of-the-Senate amendments. And we have been so far, until this moment, successful on both sides. I just say to my colleagues, if we start down this path, we will be right back to where we were in the past. We are going to be right back to vote-arama. We are going to be right back to a circumstance in which, when all time has expired, we are going to face 30 or 40 or 50 votes and nobody is going to have a chance to explain them. We are going to have Senators, hour after hour after hour, marching down into the well of the Senate to cast votes on issues they have not even had a chance to debate or had a chance to discuss.

I regret very much the sense-of-the-Senate amendment has been put in this queue. I say to my colleagues on the other side, if we start down this path, the same thing is going to happen over here.

Let me say, it is not the fault of the Senator from South Carolina. He has offered an amendment in good faith. We respect that Senator. But the point is a larger question of how we proceed on a budget resolution. Both sides have worked very hard to prevent vote-arama.

We are right now rushing toward that result. I hope everybody thinks very carefully now about the decisions we are making because we are going to reap the whirlwind.

Let me just say this to my colleagues. There is an alternative. The Senator from South Carolina has gotten in the queue. I hope we can work out an agreement on his amendment. I understand staffs on both sides are working on that. If we do not draw the line here, it is Katie bar the door. And we should all understand that.

No. 2, I hope after the Senator from South Carolina has a reasonable time to discuss his amendment, hopefully during that period our staffs can work together and we can reach an accommodation and agreement so the amendment of the Senator can be adopted without a vote. I urge that course on my colleagues on the other side.

Next, that we then move to a debate on another amendment with the ability to come back and finish off on ANWR before the vote that is now scheduled at 3 o'clock. I just hope we all think very carefully, now, in these minutes, before we head down this path, of where it leads. At the same time, on both sides, we discussed trying to reach an agreement on a set number of amendments, those to be debated and those to be in vote-arama.

On our side we are calling a caucus to discuss that very question. I hope the other side--I have already talked to Senator Nickles about it--will give it close consideration as well, so we avoid this spectacle of vote-arama. But right now colleagues should understand we are headed for the vote-arama of all time, and it will not reflect well on the body, and it probably will not lead to the best results.

With that, I yield the floor and, again, hope my colleagues consider these options.

Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina addressed the Chair.

I would certainly be open to that. I would want the opinion of the manager and chairman of the committee.

We have no objection on this side.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his statement. I will take a few moments later to respond. Hopefully, we can get an agreement on the contents of the Senator's amendment. In the meantime, the Senator from Washington has been patiently waiting. I yield her 10 minutes or whatever time she uses.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her excellent presentation on this amendment and hope that we can proceed with more substantive amendments as soon as possible and that we can have a healthy debate and then vote on these matters so the body has a chance to indicate their priorities.

I know there are other Senators wishing to discuss matters. I notice the very able senior Senator from South Carolina is in the Chamber. How much time is the Senator seeking?

Yes, it is controlled time.

I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina.

Would the Senator like additional time?

I yield an additional 10 minutes to the Senator.

Mr. President, the manager has the right of recognition.

I hope we have an understanding from the Chair that the managers have the first right of recognition here or we will have a real problem.

The Senators from South Carolina, in describing the problem, are correct. The problem with Social Security is severe. The Social Security trust fund is currently running surpluses. But we all know it is then going to turn to cash deficits. Those are going to become very large cash deficits. This is like falling off the cliff. This is the Social Security Administration's outlook for the Social Security trust fund.

Why is that? Very simply, the baby boom generation will start to retire. They are alive today. They are eligible for Social Security. When they start drawing Social Security, there will be 77 million, about double the number eligible now. When that occurs, we will have a very serious problem on our hands.

The Senator from South Carolina who offers the amendment has correctly described the problem, but he is not dealing with the budget resolution before the Senate. It exacerbates the problem severely.

This chart shows the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The green bar is the Social Security trust fund; the red bars are the President's tax cuts, both enacted and proposed. One can see very clearly as the Social Security trust fund is running surpluses, the size of the President's tax cut proposals are growing. At the very time the Social Security trust fund turns cash negative, the cost of the President's tax cuts explode.

The result of this is a totally unsustainable plunge into deficits and debt. That is the fundamental problem

with the budget resolution before the Senate; it is the fundamental problem with the President's budget before the Senate.

The budget before the Senate takes out of the Social Security trust fund nearly all of the surpluses over the next 10 years. Social Security will run surpluses over the next 10 years of $2.718 trillion. The mark before us by the chairman takes $2.718 billion of those surpluses and uses it for other purposes, uses it to fund tax cuts, uses it to fund other expenditures.

The Senator from South Carolina said that is not an appropriate way to proceed. I agree. I hope he will consider opposing the budget resolution on that basis.

However, the Senator from South Carolina is also correct to say even if we do not do this, even if we do not raid the Social Security trust fund surplus, we still have a problem. This is a necessary step to stop this raid, but it is not sufficient. It is necessary because if instead of taking these funds and using it for other purposes we were to use that money to pay down debt or to prepay the liability, we would be in a less severe circumstance going forward.

The Senator from South Carolina, who offered the amendment, has referenced a $25 trillion shortfall in Social Security; that is, if you take each year and accumulate it over time. The net present value of those gaps between income and outgo for Social Security is not $25 trillion. The net present value is $3.5 trillion. Yet the President is proposing a tax cut with interest costs of $1.96 trillion, even though we are already in deficit.

Both Senators from South Carolina have revealed the flaw in this budget. We have record deficits now. The President proposes cutting taxes almost $2 trillion with the interest costs included. The result is we are taking virtually every penny--under the President's budget, every penny of the Social Security surplus over the decade, right on the eve of the retirement of the baby boom generation. I remind my colleagues, what earthly sense does this make? At the very time the cost of the Government explodes with the retirement of the baby boom generation, the costs of the President's tax cuts explode, driving us deep, deep into deficits and debt.

I hope this budget resolution falls on the basis that it puts us in a circumstance of ever mounting deficits and debt right at the time the baby boom generation retires.

If there has ever been an illogical, irrational, dangerous budget, this is it. To me, this is it. We are about to make fateful decisions we are going to be living with for a long time. Nobody should be under any illusion about where this is headed. This is headed right off the cliff.

We can either together find some way to restrain both our spending impulses and our tax-cutting impulses or we can wage what we have waged so far, which is a rush to deficits and debt.

It will be a sad day when we wake up from this hangover and from this binge of tax cutting and spending that can only lead one place, and that is to shredding of Social Security and Medicare and most of the rest of Government as we know it.

We have worked with the Senator from South Carolina to try to reach an agreement. I don't know if those modifications have been agreed to. If they have, we are prepared to accept them.

I think Senator Craig is perhaps waiting to speak on this matter so I withhold going further. Perhaps the Senator from South Carolina would like to speak further. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I must say, when I hear the suggestion that cutting taxes now won't affect Social Security in the future, that is no economics that I understand.

Just so we all understand how it works, all the revenue of the Federal Government goes in a pot. All the expenditures come out of that pot. That is the way it works. When you take revenue away from that revenue stream and you already can't pay your bills, guess what. You can't pay your bills in an even more serious way. Any family's economics would tell them that if you are not able to pay your bills now and you go out and cut your income more, you have more bills you can't pay. That is what our friends on the other side are trying to convince people of. I don't think that is going to work.

This is the hard reality of the budget before us. There is over $2.7 trillion of Social Security surplus available in the next 10 years. I believe we ought to take that money and either pay down debt or prepay the liability. That would strengthen Social Security.

The other side has offered a budget that takes virtually every penny of those Social Security surpluses and uses them to pay for tax cuts or other expenditures. That does not help Social Security. That hurts Social Security. That makes the shortfall more serious going forward because we have not taken the resources, those trust fund surpluses, and used it to either pay down debt or prepay the liability.

The other side tries to posture that one side wants to do nothing; the other side wants to do something about economic growth. No. No, I don't believe their program improves economic growth. Why not? Because the tax cuts are not paid for by reducing spending. The tax cuts are paid for by borrowing. You can't borrow your way to prosperity.

Here is the work of the macroeconomic advisers. These are people under contract to the White House and under contract to the Congressional Budget Office to tell us what the effect of various fiscal policies are on economic growth. Do you know what they tell us? If we enact the President's plan, it will actually hurt long-term economic growth. It will hurt economic growth. Why? Because of increased deficits and debt that put a weight on the economy. What is that weight? When you run deficits and debt, that reduces the pool of societal savings, that reduces the money available for investment. That hurts economic growth. That is exactly what the folks who have analyzed this have concluded.

Is the Senator from South Carolina seeking time?

Mr. President, has the Senator from South Carolina now seen the modification suggested by the senior Senator from South Carolina? Is the Senator from South Carolina, at this point, willing to accept the modifications we previously discussed, as well as the modification of the senior Senator from South Carolina?

I appreciate that and I think that would be a good outcome. I will soon seek unanimous consent to accept the amendment as modified, and then we will be able to proceed. As you know, at 2 o'clock, we have to turn our attention back to the ANWR discussion.

Yes, without losing my right to the floor. We are up against the 2 o'clock time limit.

Would the Senator from South Carolina, including his modification, accept that?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we accept the amendment of the Senator from South Carolina, as modified.

Yes, we are prepared to yield back.

Parliamentary inquiry: Are we now in the circumstance that we are back on the debate on ANWR for 1 hour preceding the vote at 3 o'clock?

Time is equally divided during that time?

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.