[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 25, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                  SECOND SESSION OF THE 103D CONGRESS

  Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, today marks the beginning of the 2d 
session of the 103d Congress. The agenda before us is ambitious. But 
the workload that needs attention is large.
  We should be prepared to act promptly on disaster relief aid for 
southern California. The enormous damage inflicted by the earthquake 
has disrupted the life of one of the Nation's great cities and 
threatens economic revival in the region.
  Our economy has also been dealt a short but sharp blow by the 
recordbreaking freeze that immobilized much of the Midwest and East 
this month.
  Conditions abroad require our attention and action. Reform in Russia, 
the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine and ratification of START 
II are all important to the ultimate security of the Nation, and we 
cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from them. President Clinton's 
successful trip to  Europe and Russia laid a basis on which we must be 
prepared to act.

  The world has changed, and even though our principal work is here at 
home, we cannot afford to ignore those changes and what they mean for 
us.
  I spent a good deal of the recess traveling in my State, talking to 
Maine's citizens about their hopes and fears for the new year. Their 
concerns--job security, economic growth, health care, crime, education, 
the environment--all are reflected in this year's legislative agenda.
  The hopes and dreams my constituents shared with me are not 
unreachable or unreasonable. They want to earn a decent living and 
enjoy a measure of job security. They want to feel safe on their own 
city streets. They want neighborhoods safe enough to play in and 
schools where children can learn without fear. They want the security 
of knowing that if a family member needs health care, it will be there.
  These are minimal needs in a civilized society. The Congress has a 
role in addressing those concerns. I am determined we will do so this 
year.
  Last session, we took the first steps to rebuild the economy and put 
the deficit on a downward path. There is evidence that the $500 billion 
deficit reduction package we approved last August is working.
  Before we acted, the deficit forecast for 1995 was in the range of 
$300 billion. Today, with the budget plan in place, giving us stronger 
growth, lower inflation, and low interest rates, the deficit forecast 
has been credibly cut by more than $100 billion, to an anticipated $180 
billion. That is a huge saving in borrowing costs that have hindered 
economic growth for too many years.
  Interest rates are the lowest in a generation, with mortgage rates 
averaging under 7 percent. Low rates have allowed million of Americans 
to buy homes--I note that the purchase of homes, existing homes, set a 
record in 1993, the highest ever in our Nation's history--and given 
millions of others more disposable income from refinancing their 
mortgages at lower rates. Retailers enjoyed a solid holiday season. 
Economists predict that fourth-quarter economic performance could be as 
high as 6 percent, the best in a very long time. Overall 1993 economic 
growth was in the range of 3 percent, the strongest showing in the 
Western industrialized world.
  Housing starts are at their highest level in 4 years. Consumer price 
inflation ran at 2.7 percent last year, the lowest since the collapse 
of world oil prices in 1986, and the first time in more than 30 years 
that inflation was below 3 percent for 2 consecutive years.
  After 4 years of virtually no growth, the rate of job creation in the 
last 12 months has been impressive. Almost 2 million new jobs were 
created last year. Unemployment, which was at 7.3 percent a year ago, 
is now at 6.4 percent. That is still too high, but the underlying 
direction downward is sound. Productivity has risen, which means 
American workers are again laying the groundwork for higher living 
standards. Most important, a year of solid economic growth and strong 
job creation has reversed public attitudes. Americans are more 
confident of their economy and of themselves. Consumer confidence is up 
and the economy is beginning a strong recovery.
  These are all positive signs, but they do not mean our work is done. 
We have to continue to focus on balancing the services Americans expect 
with a declining deficit. That is needed to keep the economy robust. We 
must continue to look for ways Government can do what people demand 
more efficiently and more productively.
  The productivity gain that is already showing up reflects the effects 
of investment in modernized equipment and structural efficiencies in 
the workplace. We should work to promote those gains to keep American 
workers and businesses more competitive. An important step we can take 
is to pass the National Competitiveness Act early this session. This 
legislation will broaden the base for modernizing our manufacturing 
capability. Its purpose is to help the United States regain world 
leadership in developing, deploying, and using advanced manufacturing 
technology.
  Another significant step for sound economic growth is in the solid 
progress made in world trade. Passage of NAFTA last year and agreement 
on GATT this year puts us on the threshold of an expanded world trading 
economy, from which American businesses, workers, and consumers will 
all benefit.
  We will take up the implementing legislation for the GATT agreement. 
GATT will reduce nontariff barriers to trade and gradually lower 
tariffs on a reciprocal basis. It will expand the potential market for 
American made goods without abandoning safeguards against unfair 
foreign trade practices. Americans have always prospered from expanded 
trade, and the combination of NAFTA and GATT creates an opportunity for 
renewed economic growth and expansion into the next century.
  A strong economy gives us the opportunity to move effectively on 
long-delayed but essential reforms. The most important will be health 
care reform.
  Health care costs now affect one-seventh of our economy. No other 
advanced nation spends as much of its resources, private and public, on 
health care. But despite our enormous investment, our citizens do not 
have health care security. The taxpayers of many other countries have 
that security--they do not have to fear losing coverage when they have 
an illness. Their career choices are not dictated by health insurance 
considerations. In many instances, they have better health outcomes, in 
terms of life expectancies, infant mortality rates, and other broad 
measures of well being.
  At its best, American health care cannot be matched. It is the best 
in the world; the highest quality health care that is available 
anywhere. But too many Americans do not have access to that high 
quality care. Too many get virtually no care. We have to correct that 
and I believe we can. I will do everything in my power to see that we 
do.
  Health care reform must guarantee all Americans access to high 
quality, affordable health care. It must restrain rising health care 
costs that are sending Americans, both as individuals and as a nation, 
deeper into debt. We have to reform the system to preserve its best 
features and correct its failings. I believe that can be done.
  After more than a decade of negative reports on our schools and 
piecemeal reforms, we are going to respond to the demand of parents 
that the schools provide the education and the basic skills our 
children need.
  One of the first bills we will take up this year is Goals 2000, an 
effort to provide nationally what many individual schools and 
communities have learned locally: That reforms can work, American 
children can and do learn eagerly, and Americans will support schools 
when they are effective.
  No child graduating from high school into the workplace should be 
without the skills to compete for a decent job. No child moving to 
higher education should have to face remedial courses in basic skills 
such as reading and comprehension. Goals 2000 is the first practical 
step in bringing reforms into the educational mainstream.
  Children are our No. 1 resource. We have to invest in their education 
now to reap the benefits of a well-trained, competitive workforce in 
the future.
  We must also make a beginning on ending the waste of human resources 
represented in our welfare system. President Clinton is committed to 
ending welfare as we know it.
  We have to take measures to move welfare recipients into the 
workforce so they can become productive, self-supporting members of the 
community, so their families can grow up in an environment of work and 
security, where people daily earn and renew the self-respect that comes 
from work and effort.
  We can restore and preserve the original purpose of welfare: A safety 
net for those suffering misfortune, the loss of a breadwinner or 
serious illness or disability. But we must end welfare as a way of 
life.
  We have to provide individuals the support and assistance they need 
to move into the workforce, to replace a system which today provides 
strong disincentives to leaving welfare. That will not be easy and it 
will not be cheap. But in the long term, it is the most cost-effective 
answer and it is the only answer for the children now trapped in the 
system.
  Americans expect and have a right to expect that their homes and 
neighborhoods will be safe. Violence has reached unprecedented and 
unacceptable levels when American children are 15 times more at risk of 
death from shooting than the children of Northern Ireland--let me 
repeat that: American children are now more than 15 times at risk from 
shooting than are the children of Northern Ireland; that is 
unacceptable--when 50,000 elementary and middle school children were 
shot to death between 1979 and 1991, when homicide is the third leading 
cause of death for minors.
  Even in rural Maine, which has been spared the worst of the crime 
epidemic, people are frightened of random violence.
  The Senate has passed its major crime package and we are going to 
work with the House to move it to conference and passage as quickly as 
possible. Our cities and neighborhoods need the police presence that 
the bill will fund. Our corrections personnel need the drug treatment 
funding to end the revolving prison door of arresting and releasing 
addicts without end.
  All Americans should know that those who abide by the law, who play 
by the rules, are the focus of public safety. We have to give the 
people trying to make a decent life in the midst of crime a better 
chance.
  Americans expect safety from violence, but they also expect to live 
in a clean, safe environment. The reports of massive drinking water 
threats in the Midwest and in the Nation's Capital recently have 
highlighted the importance of a safe environment.
  This year we will take up the reauthorizations of the Safe Drinking 
Water Act, the Clean Water Act, and Superfund. These are all important 
parts of the whole which protect fundamental health and well-being in 
our communities.
  Americans want government to respect and respond to their needs, not 
to the needs of narrow special interest groups. The most important step 
we can take in that respect is to complete action on campaign finance 
reform legislation. American voters should feel their volunteer work 
and their votes count as much as the wealth of special interests. I 
hope we will finally be able to act on campaign finance reform this 
year.
  We have a lot of work to do. I expect the session to be a tough one. 
It is going to demand hard work, many hours and a willingness to look 
beyond partisan advantage for solutions that will work best for all 
Americans--not for Democratic or Republican solutions, but for 
solutions that work for all Americans. Our first session was very 
productive: Family leave, national service, solid deficit reduction, 
motor voter legislation, the Brady bill. I hope we will, this year, 
build on that success.
  If we can, this Congress could, in the end, do more to improve the 
lives of American families than any in the last quarter century.

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