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Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], for himself, Mr. Simon, Mr. Wellstone, and Ms. Moseley-Braun, proposes an amendment numbered 2115.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment is as follows:

At the appropriate place in the bill, add the following new section:

(A) Strike Section 201(a) through 201(b)(1)(B) of H. Con. Res. 67, as passed by both Houses of Congress and insert in lieu thereof the following:

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(1) with respect to fiscal year 1996, for the discretionary category $485,074,000,000 in new budget authority and $531,768,000,000 in outlays;

(2) with respect to fiscal year 1997, for the discretionary category $482,430,000,000 in new budget authority and $520,295,000,000 in outlays;

(3) with respect to fiscal year 1998, for the discretionary category $490,692,000,000 in new budget authority and $512,632,000,000 in outlays;

(4) with respect to fiscal year 1999, for the discretionary category $482,207,000,000 in new budget authority and $510,482,000,000 in outlays;

(5) with respect to fiscal year 2000, for the discretionary category $489,379,000,000 in new budget authority and $514,234,000,000 in outlays;

(6) with respect to fiscal year 2001, for the discretionary category $496,601,000,000 in new budget authority and $516,403,000,000 in outlays;

(7) with respect to fiscal year 2002, for the discretionary category $498,837,000,000 in new budget authority and $515,075,000,000 in outlays;

as adjusted for changes in concepts and definitions and emergency appropriations.

(b) Point of Order in the Senate:

(1) In General: Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall not be in order in the Senate to consider--

(A) any concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, or 2002 (or amendment, motion, or conference report on such a resolution) that provides discretionary spending in excess of the discretionary spending limit f or such fiscal year; or

(B) Within 30 days of the date of enactment of this Act, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees shall meet to consider the reallocation of the fiscal year 1996 suballocations made pursuant to section 602(b) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I know this psychologically is a terrible way to open a debate, but I have no delusions about the possibility of winning on this amendment. Given the makeup of the Senate right now, it is going to be several years before an ame ndment like this will take root, but it will take root when the American people focus not only on their misery but what caused it.

Everybody here is aware of the fact that we treat defense as not only the highest priority but everything else is secondary to it.

Not to be trite, but the truth of the matter is that we, like so many civilizations, from the Israelites on, may very well find that the strength of this Nation is not all in planes, tanks, and guns. How we treat our people, the kind of health care they g et, the kind of education they get, the kind of environment they live in, those things determine what a powerful nation is, too. It usually takes me about an hour or two after I read the Washington Post in the morning to get enthused sufficiently enough t o come to work. This morning it was especially depressing.

Here were three front page stories: House votes to prohibit States from paying for an abortion in cases of rape or incest. Mr. President, to me, that is a form of barbarism, to say that a child who may be pregnant by her father, or the most innocent house wife who is raped, if she has the money, no problem. If she is poor, she will birth that child. You remember the beatitude, `Blessed are those who are persecuted.' If that is not a form of persecution, I do not know what is.

The second story was: Senate votes to abrogate antiballistic missile treaty. That is not entirely true, but figuratively and, down the road, literally it is true. We will decide the interpretation of the treaty; we will decide whether it is abrogated or n ot, and if the Russians happen to disagree, so be it. The language of the bill itself said the Senate, not the President, will decide whether the ABM Treaty is in our interest or not. We will decide whether we want to live by it or not. And that s olemn document that we put our names on in 1972 will be for naught. Who else wants to sign a treaty with us knowing that that is the way we treat our treaties? We simply cannot give up on the cold war. We just love it too much. Dr. Strangelove. Another be atitude is, `Blessed are the peacemakers.' Not too many people are blessed in this body.

The third story was: House cuts $9 billion in education, health care, and food for the poor. `Blessed are the poor,' unless one of them happens to get pregnant at the age of 17. What do we do in the Senate? We add $7 billion more than the Secretary of Def ense and our chiefs of staff want. Can you imagine that? We are adding $7 billion more than our defense authorization asked for.

It was depressing. And as I read those three stories, I pondered on what else. Medicare? No firewalls around Medicare, health care for the elderly; there are no firewalls there. We are going to cut $270 billion over the next 7 years. We are going to give the States block grants on Medicaid and AFDC, not necessarily because we think it is more efficient, but because we are going to cut back on Medicaid. All that is health care for the poorest of the poor.

We are going to cut PBS, which is one of the few things that provide a little enrichment for our children. `Sesame Street' and Big Bird, adios. `All Things Considered,' which every Member of the Senate listens to going to and from work on NPR, adios. No c ommercials. We need to privatize this so we can get some commercials on PBS and NPR. I want to see, right in the middle of the Civil War series, a bunch of youngsters running down the beach with a Budweiser in their hands. That is what I call cultural enr ichment.

And the arts--how I wish that guy Mapplethorpe had never received a grant. You see, he does not have anything to do with the repertory theater in my State. But we will be lucky to make it in my State with our symphony without some help from the National E ndowment.

Food stamps. We did not develop food stamp programs willy-nilly. We did it because we made a conscious decision that we did not want anybody in this country to go hungry. Everybody acts as though it was some sort of a Communist conspiracy that should have never been put in place. We are going to cut that. If you do not happen to have a PAC or a $1,000 check, you are not getting anything out of this crowd.

Eliminate affirmative action. I have heard so many anecdotes on affirmative action that make my blood boil, and some of them are true. It has been an abused program. But do not say that the time has come when we have a level playing field when 14 percent of the black males in this country are unemployed, and 40 percent of the black teenagers are unemployed, compared to about 5 percent white.

You know, if we were to eliminate this famous tax cut I hear so much about--that is what the Medicare cut is, $270 billion; and $250 billion of that--virtually all--is for a tax cut, 70 percent of which goes to people who make over $100,000 a year. When I was a young practicing lawyer, I yearned for the day when I would make $100,000 a year. So now I am going to get a nice healthy tax cut. Every Senator gets $133,000 or $135,000 a year, a big fat pension, a health care plan second to none, and we are goin g to get a tax cut when 50 percent of the people in this country over 65 cannot sleep at night because they are in abject terror of getting sick and not being able to pay their bills.

If we just cut Medicare by half that amount and eliminate the tax cut and spend the other $135 billion on education and things that make us a great nation, we can still balance the budget in the year 2002 and do what we know we ought to do.