H. Con. Res.178—37
(6) 12- to 17-year-olds who use marijuana are 85 percent
more likely to graduate to cocaine than those who abstain
from marijuana;
(7) juveniles who reach 21 without ever having used drugs
almost never try them later in life;
(8) the latest results from the Drug Abuse Warning Net-
work show that marijuana-related episodes jumped 39 percent
and are running at 155 percent above the 1990 level, and
that methamphetamine cases have risen 256 percent over the
1991 level;
(9) between February 1993 and February 1995 the retail
price of a gram of cocaine fell from $172 to $137, and that
of a gram of heroin also fell from $2,032 to $1,278;
(10) it has been reported that the Department of Justice,
through the United States Attorney for the Southern District
of California, has adopted a policy of allowing certain foreign
drug smugglers to avoid prosecution altogether by being
released to Mexico;
(11) it has been reported that in the past year approxi-
mately 2,300 suspected narcotics traffickers were taken into
custody for bringing illegal drugs across the border, but approxi-
mately one in four were returned to their country of origin
without being prosecuted;
(12) it has been reported that the United States Customs
Service is operating under guidelines limiting any prosecution
in marijuana cases to cases involving 125 pounds of marijuana
or more;
(13) it has been reported that suspects possessing as much
as 32 pounds of methamphetamine and 37,000 Quaalude tablets
were not prosecuted but were, instead, allowed to return to
their countries of origin after their drugs and vehicles were
confiscated;
(14) it has been reported that after a seizure of 158 pounds
of cocaine, one defendant was cited and released because there
was no room at the Federal jail and charges against her were
dropped;
(15) it has been reported that some smugglers have been
caught two or more times—even in the same week—yet still
were not prosecuted;
(16) the number of defendants prosecuted for violations
of the Federal drug laws has dropped from 25,033 in 1992
to 22,926 in 1995;
(17) this Congress has increased the funding of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons by 11.7 percent over the 1995 appropriations
level; and
(18) this Congress has increased the funding of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service by 23.5 percent over
the 1995 appropriations level.
(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) the function totals and aggregates underlying this reso-
lution assume that the Attorney General should promptly inves-
tigate this matter and report, within 30 days, to the Chair
of the Senate and House Committees on the Judiciary; and
(2) the Attorney General should ensure that cases involving
the smuggling of drugs into the United States are vigorously
prosecuted.
H. Con. Res.178—38
SEC. 419. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON CORPORATE SUBSIDIES.
It is the sense of Congress that the functional levels and aggre-
gates in this budget resolution assume that—
(1) the Federal budget contains tens of billions of dollars
in payments, benefits, and programs that primarily assist
profit-making enterprises and industries rather than provide
a clear and compelling public interest;
(2) corporate subsidies can provide unfair competitive
advantages to certain industries and industry segments;
(3) at a time when millions of Americans are being asked
to sacrifice in order to balance the budget, the corporate sector
should bear its share of the burden; and
(4) Federal payments, benefits, and programs which
predominantly benefit a particular industry or segment of an
industry, rather than provide a clear and compelling public
benefit, should be reformed or terminated in order to provide
additional tax relief, deficit reduction, or to achieve the savings
necessary to meet this resolution’s instructions and levels.
SEC. 420. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING WELFARE REFORM.
(a) Congress finds that—
(1) this resolution assumes substantial savings from wel-
fare reform;
(2) children born out of wedlock are five times more likely
to be poor and about ten times more likely to be extremely
poor and therefore are more likely to receive welfare benefits
than children from two-parent families; and
(3) high rates of out-of-wedlock births are associated with
a host of other social pathologies; for example, children of
single mothers are twice as likely to drop out of high school;
boys whose fathers are absent are more likely to engage in
criminal activities; and girls in single-parent families are three
times more likely to have children out of wedlock themselves.
(b) It is the sense of Congress that any comprehensive legisla-
tion sent to the President that balances the budget by a certain
date and that includes welfare reform provisions and that is agreed
to by Congress and the President shall also contain to the maximum
extent possible a strategy for reducing the rate of out-of-wedlock
births and encouraging family formation.
SEC. 421. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON FCC SPECTRUM AUCTIONS.
It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) the Congressional Budget Office has scored revenue
expected to be raised from the auction of Federal Communica-
tions Commission licenses for various services;
(2) for budget scoring purposes, Congress has assumed
that such auctions would occur in a prompt and expeditious
manner and that revenue raised by such auctions would flow
to the Federal treasury;
(3) this resolution assumes that the revenue to be raised
from auctions totals billions of dollars;
(4) this resolution makes assumptions that services would
be auctioned where the Federal Communications Commission
has not yet conducted auctions for such services, such as Local
Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS), licenses for paging
services, final broadband PCS licenses, narrow band PCS
licenses, licenses for unserved cellular, and Digital Audio Radio
H. Con. Res.178—39
(DARS), and other subscription services, revenue from which
has been assumed in Congressional budgetary calculations and
in determining the level of the deficit; and
(5) the Commission’s service rules can dramatically affect
license values and auction revenues and therefore the Commis-
sion should act expeditiously and without further delay to con-
duct auctions of licenses in a manner that maximizes revenue,
increases efficiency, and enhances competition.
SEC. 422. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON EMERGENCIES.
(a) FINDINGS.—The House of Representatives finds that:
(1) The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 exempted from
the discretionary spending limits and the Pay-As-You-Go
requirements for entitlement and tax legislation funding
requirements that are designated by Congress and the Presi-
dent as an emergency.
(2) Congress and the President have increasingly misused
the emergency designation by—
(A) designating as emergencies funding requirements
that are predictable and do not pose a threat to life, prop-
erty, or national security,
(B) designating emergencies with the sole purpose of
circumventing statutory and congressional spending limita-
tions, and
(C) adding to emergency legislation controversial items
that would not otherwise withstand public scrutiny.
(b) SENSE OF THE HOUSE.—It is the sense of the House of
Representatives that in order to balance the Federal budget Con-
gress should consider alternative approaches to budgeting for emer-
gencies, including codifying the definition of an emergency,
establishing contingency funds to pay for emergencies, and fully
offsetting the costs of emergencies with rescissions of spending
authority that would have been obligated but for the rescission.
SEC. 423. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON FUNDING TO ASSIST YOUTH AT
RISK.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Senate finds that—
(1) there is an increasing prevalence of violence and drug
use among this country’s youth;
(2) in recognizing the magnitude of this problem, the Fed-
eral Government must continue to maximize efforts in address-
ing the increasing prevalence of violence and drug use among
this country’s youth, with necessary adherence to budget guide-
lines and proven program effectiveness;
(3) the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that
between 1985 and 1994, juvenile arrests for violent crime
increased by 75 percent nationwide;
(4) the United States Attorney General reports that 20
years ago, fewer than half our cities reported gang activity
and now, a generation later, reasonable estimates indicate that
there are more than 500,000 gang members in more than
16,000 gangs on the streets of our cities resulting in more
than 580,000 gang-related crimes in 1993;
(5) the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention reports that in 1994, law enforcement
agencies made over 2,700,000 arrests of persons under age
18, with juveniles accounting for 19 percent of all violent crime
arrests across the country;
H. Con. Res.178—40
(6) the Congressional Task Force on National Drug Policy
recently set forth a series of recommendations for strengthening
the criminal justice and law enforcement effort, including
domestic prevention efforts reinforcing the idea that prevention
begins at home;
(7) the Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that
between 1991 and 1995, marijuana use among 8th, 10th, and
12th graders has increased and is continuing to spiral upward;
and
(8) the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention reports that
in 1993, substance abuse played a role in over 70 percent
of rapes, over 60 percent of incidents of child abuse, and almost
60 percent of murders nationwide.
(b) SENSE OF THE SENATE.—It is the sense of the Senate that
the function totals and aggregates underlying this concurrent reso-
lution on the budget assume that—
(1) sufficient funding should be provided to programs of
proven program effectiveness which assist youth at risk to
reduce illegal drug use and the incidence of youth crime and
violence;
(2) priority should be given to determine ‘‘what works’’
through scientifically recognized, independent evaluations of
existing programs to maximize the Federal investment and
efforts should be made to reform those programs of no proven
benefit;
(3) efforts should be made to ensure coordination and elimi-
nate duplication among federally supported at-risk youth pro-
grams; and
(4) special efforts should be made to increase successful
interdiction of the flow of illegal drugs into the United States
and into communities nationwide.
SEC. 424. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON LONG-TERM TRENDS IN BUDGET
ESTIMATES.
It is the sense of the Senate that—
(1) the report accompanying a concurrent resolution on
the budget should include an analysis, prepared after consulta-
tion with the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, of
the concurrent resolution’s impact on likely budgetary trends
during the next 30 fiscal years; and
(2) the President should include in his budget each year,
an analysis of the budget’s impact on revenues and outlays
for entitlements for the period of 30 fiscal years, and that
the President should also include likely budgetary trends during
the next 30 fiscal years, and that the President should also
include generational accounting information each year in the
President’s budget.
SEC. 425. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON REPEAL OF THE GAS TAX.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Senate finds that—
(1) the President originally proposed a $72,000,000,000
energy excise tax (the so-called BTU tax) as part of the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA 93) which included
a new tax on transportation fuels;
(2) in response to opposition in the Senate to the BTU
tax, the President and Congress adopted instead a new 4.3
cents per gallon transportation fuels tax as part of OBRA