April 6, 2001 Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the majority leader and the Democratic leader for their kind comments. It has been terrific working with them. I also want to highlight the work of the chairman of the committee who has done a very fair-handed job of managing the Budget Committee. We thank him for his fairness, and we appreciate very much the working relationship we have established throughout the year. I think our committee was one of the first to reach agreement in this power-sharing arrangement. And certainly here on the floor, Senator Domenici worked in such a constructive and gracious way. We appreciate it very much. If I might talk, for just a moment, on the reasons I voted in opposition to this budget resolution after these long hours of work. I would sum it up in the following ways. No. 1, I wanted to do more debt reduction than we ultimately did here. I wanted to reserve 70 percent of the forecasted surpluses for debt reduction. Unfortunately, we fell well short of that. So my first concern with what we passed is there is not sufficient debt reduction. My second concern is that after a detailed analysis of all the amendments that have passed, we are into the Medicare trust funds in the years 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2007, to the tune of $54 billion. As I enunciated when I laid down a budget alternative, I do not think we should use any of the trust funds of Social Security or Medicare for any year. So that would be the second reason I voted in opposition. The third reason was that the tax cut we are left with of $1.2 trillion over the 10 years is simply too large to accommodate the kind of additional debt paydown that I believe is in the best interest of the country. Instead of paying down the publicly held debt to about $500 billion, this budget resolution pays down the publicly held debt to about $1.1 trillion. So I would have liked to have seen us pay down the publicly held debt by another $600 billion. Finally, Mr. President, in the option that I offered our colleagues, we reserved $800 billion to strengthen Social Security for the long term. This budget will fall far short of that at about $160 billion that is available to strengthen Social Security for the long term. So for those reasons, I voted in opposition. In saying that, I do want to indicate that we improved this budget substantially. From what we started with--from what we started with; not from my plan, but from what we started with--we reduced the tax cut, we increased the amount of publicly held debt paydown, and we reserved additional resources for improving education, for a prescription drug benefit, for our national defense, and for agriculture. So those were important improvements. I just would have liked to have seen us do somewhat better. I would have liked to have seen us put more of an emphasis on debt reduction. But we will have other opportunities to make those points and other opportunities to vote on those priorities. I conclude by thanking all of our colleagues for their patience and their graciousness during this period. I also want to take this moment to thank the staffs who worked so hard during this period because these have been long nights and difficult days. I want to start with Mary Naylor, my staff director on the Senate Budget Committee, who did a superb job under difficult circumstances; and Jim Horney, who is also a top staffer, the deputy staff director for the Senate Budget Committee; Sue Nelson, who produced chart after chart that showed us where we stood at every juncture so we knew precisely where we were, which I think helped us make wise decisions; Lisa Konwinski, our counsel, who Lisa drafted amendment after amendment, not only for me but for our colleagues, and did a superb job; Sarah Kuehl, who has primary responsibility in the Social Security area; Steve Bailey, our tax counsel; Dakota Rudesill, who handles national security issues and national defense; Scott Carlson and Tim Galvin, who handle agriculture for the committee; Shelley Amdur, who is our education specialist; Jim Esquea and Bonnie Galvin; Chad Stone, our economist; Rock Cheung, who helped produce those charts, and I think helped us be more successful than we would have otherwise been; and certainly Karin Kullman, who joined the staff to help us do outreach to groups who were interested in the budget; and, finally, my terrific press team, Stu Nagurka and Steve Posner, who had their hands full. Goodness knows, I appreciate the work all of you have done. I appreciate very much the long hours you have put in and your real dedication. You have made me proud. I think you have helped us improve the budget for our country. I thank the staff on the other side, especially the staff director for Senator Domenici, Bill Hoagland, who is a class act. He deserves all of our thanks for the professionalism with which he conducts himself. Mr. President, again, I thank everyone who has made this an interesting first experience for me in my position on the Budget Committee. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.