[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 116 (Wednesday, August 17, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      CRIME BILL CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I wish to thank the minority leader 
for his comments about crime and also about health care as well. He is 
right on in those comments.
  Today, Republicans renew their call for a bipartisan crime bill. 
Simply employing a bare knuckles strategy to turn a few votes in the 
House will not produce a tough bill, nor will it win passage of this 
bill. If President Clinton wants to pass a true crime bill, then 
Republicans will deliver the necessary votes, provided our suggested 
improvements are incorporated. And they have just been outlined by the 
distinguished Republican leader.
  Ramming the crime bill through the House with a coalition of social 
liberals and big spenders will surely threaten the bill's passage in 
this body. The Senate will not accept the crime bill in its pork 
feeding frenzy. Comprehensive changes must be made.
  The Republican leadership has produced a list of changes for the 
President's consideration. I must concede that every change I would 
prefer is not on this list. There are literally dozens of Senate tough-
on-crime provisions that were dropped or substantially weakened by the 
conference committee. However, we want to undertake a serious effort to 
reach a bipartisan compromise on the crime bill, and this list of 
changes is our bottom line.
  Should the administration refuse to work in a bipartisan manner but 
still manage through arm twisting and obfuscation to squeeze the crime 
bill conference report through the House, we then will take up our 
concerns on the floor of the Senate. We will then offer a budget point 
of order because of the wasteful spending in the bill, and I believe 
that we will prevail with bipartisan support. Then we will offer a 
tough compromise package, a balanced proposal which adequately funds 
prison construction and restores the Senate's tough-on-crime 
provisions.
  I hope we do not have to reach that point. I hope we can work 
together.
  Incidentally, some of our colleagues on the other side, including our 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, have suggested that our criticism 
of this wasteful spending in this bill is relatively recent. This is 
certainly not the case. I took the floor on May 19 of this year to 
criticize the wasteful spending in the House-passed crime bill. That 
was only a few weeks after the House passed the measure.
  So I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks on May 19 be 
printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. HATCH. In those remarks, I criticized virtually every one of 
these big spending, pork barrel, boondoggling aspects which have been 
adopted in that conference report, plucked right out of the pork barrel 
filled House crime bill.
  We simply have to face the fact that the fight against crime does not 
permit the hiding of billions of dollars in pork barrel spending 
boondoggles under the guise that they are trying to do something about 
crime.
  Mr. President, this is an important issue. I would like to see a 
bipartisan issue. I would like to see us march together and do what we 
should do. Frankly, the Senate-passed crime bill passed 94 to 4, and 
that included the antigun provisions, which shows that that is not the 
sole, or even the most significant reason, why the fight over the crime 
bill right now. The significant reasons involve the pork barrel, 
boondoggle spending of the social liberals in both bodies who literally 
want to continue their spending practices and bring the rejected 
financial stimulus package back into law hidden in the crime bill, as 
though they are doing something against crime.
  So, Mr. President, I appreciate the distinguished Republican leader's 
comments today, and I back him 100 percent, and the leader over in the 
House, Newt Gingrich. I appreciate his meetings at the White House 
yesterday and his offer to the President to have Republicans help 
resolve these problems. If we do not have a bipartisan bill, I do not 
think we are going to accomplish very much against crime in the ensuing 
number of months and years.
  I thank the Chair. I yield back whatever time I have.

                               Exhibit 1

       Mr. Hatch. Mr. President, what drives the emotion of the 
     distinguished Senator from Florida and his counterpart on the 
     Democrat side of the floor is that people out there are tired 
     of the average sentence time served in the States being 40 
     percent. And they are specifically tired of it when it comes 
     to violent criminals. When a murderer gets a sentence of 15 
     years on the average, and serves less than 7, the average 
     murderer in this country, it does not take many brains to 
     realize that there has to be something done to keep these 
     people off the street.
       When the average rapist gets sentenced to 8 years in prison 
     and serves less than 2, a rapist--our daughters are at risk--
     it is not hard to understand why some of us would like to see 
     those sentences, at least 85 percent, carried out. That is 
     what the truth in sentencing is. Whether it should be 
     triggered by the regional prison concept or some other 
     concept, it is almost irrelevant to me. But we want to get 
     the violent criminals, and lock them up and throw away the 
     key for at least 85 percent of that time that they are 
     sentenced. If they use a gun, then they ought to get it 
     doubled.
       That is the way to stop the unwise, the unlawful, and the 
     dirty, rotten use of guns in this society, not some 
     ridiculous, idiotic, 5-day waiting period that has caused 
     almost everybody to go out and buy their guns now--the 
     typical liberal solution to things. ``Let us have a 5-day 
     waiting period. That is going to solve all of our problems.'' 
     All that has done is increased gun sales like 300 percent 
     across this country because people could not wait to go out 
     and get their guns now that they are going to have to wait 5 
     days.
       These liberal solutions have never worked. Of course, now 
     they have Brady II. Brady I was supposed to do everything for 
     us. It has not done a doggone thing. In fact, it is going to 
     undermine law enforcement in this country.
       Now they want an assault weapon ban. They are going to ban 
     19 weapons. But they have defined them in such a way that 
     over 100 will be banned, but they are going to exclude, 
     exempt, 650 that have basically the same firing mechanism as 
     these so-called 19--to take away the rights of American 
     citizens, as defined in the second amendment to keep and bear 
     arms, which is certainly more than a militia right as defined 
     by some today. That is the national guard right. That is not 
     what the Founding Fathers meant. That is not what they meant 
     when they wrote that amendment. The militia was every 
     American citizen who felt inclined to support our country.
       So we can moan and groan about truth in sentencing all we 
     want. But that is what the American people want. They want 
     the violent criminals put away.
       I happen to agree with the distinguished Senator from North 
     Dakota that we should not be spending all of our expensive 
     jail time for those who are not violent people. I happen to 
     agree with the Senator from Delaware that boot camps may be a 
     solution for people like that. We should not make prison a 
     very nice time for people. Unfortunately, our do-gooders on 
     the liberal side of the equation want to make sure that 
     everybody is treated beautifully in prison. Frankly, I think 
     it is time to get tough on these people.
       I have another part of this I would like to spend a few 
     minutes on.
       Mr. President, the two Houses of Congress are soon going to 
     go to a conference on the crime bill. I regret to report that 
     the crime bill passed by the other body contains several 
     billion dollars in ill-defined social programs--I might say 
     ill-defined 1960's Great-Society-style social spending 
     programs in the guise of anticrime legislation.
       As such, these wasteful social spending boondoggles will 
     rob the people of Utah and every other State of scarce 
     resources which would be aimed at fighting crime, building 
     prisons, hiring local, State, and Federal law enforcement 
     officials and officers, and similar law enforcement measures.
       Take, for example, the Local Partnership Act contained in 
     the House bill. This program will give local governments $2 
     billion for fiscal years 1995 and 1996 to use for four 
     purposes: education to prevent crime, substance abuse 
     treatment to prevent crime, coordination of Federal crime 
     prevention programs and, job programs to prevent crime. There 
     are no other standards in the House bill. That is it--those 
     four broad-based standards. We just have these four general 
     purposes.
       In plain English, this is just Federal money for local 
     government social programs with the crime label put on them 
     for cosmetic purposes. By slapping the phrase ``to prevent 
     crime'' on these purpose clauses, this provides the cover to 
     hijack $2 billion of precious crime fighting resources for 
     anything at all that localities will label ``education to 
     prevent crime,'' or for drug treatment, or for more 
     Government jobs programs.
       The $2 billion would be much better spent in really 
     fighting crime by spending it on prisons, law enforcement 
     officers, and equipment.
       Let me take another example of wasteful social spending in 
     the House bill, the Model Intensive Grant Program. This 
     program allows the Attorney General virtually total 
     discretion to spend $1.5 billion over 5 years in grants for 
     up to 15 chronic high-intensive crime areas to develop 
     comprehensive crime prevention programs. This money 
     apparently can be spent on anything that can arguably be said 
     to attribute to reducing chronic violent crime.
       The House bill says this includes but is not limited to 
     youth programs, ``deterioration or lack of public facilities, 
     inadequate public services such as public transportation,'' 
     substance abuse treatment facilities, employment services 
     offices, and police services, equipment, or facilities.
       I believe in spending wisely on crime prevention, although 
     most of that funding should not come from the crime bill, 
     where we should focus very heavily on enforcement.
       But this open-ended Model Intensive Grant Program allows 
     spending on just about anything that can be remotely 
     described as crime prevention, however tenuously, including 
     public transportation. We are supposed to be sending the 
     President an anticrime bill. Let the Department of 
     Transportation offer some of its existing funds for 
     transportation services for preventive crime. Let us not take 
     it out of our crime bill.
       Mr. President, you can bet that conferees from the other 
     side of the aisle will propose inadequate funding for new 
     prisons in the crime bill. We will undoubtedly need to spend 
     more on prisons. We need to spend more on prisons for two 
     interrelated reasons. We can talk about ensuring that 
     children do not go astray, and we should be concerned about 
     that. But we have many vicious criminals right now who are 
     not serving enough of their sentences. And speaking of crime 
     prevention, one of the best things we can do to prevent crime 
     right now is to take violent criminals off the streets for 
     long periods of time so that they cannot commit anymore 
     crimes.
       Another social spending program in the House bill is $525 
     million for a Youth Employment and Skills Crime Prevention 
     Program which funnels cash to State and local governments for 
     job training and make-work programs.
       This is a duplication of the programs I have just 
     mentioned, except this one is run by the Department of Labor. 
     Despite the fact that there are already over 150 Federal job 
     training programs at a cost of over $20 billion a year, the 
     Attorney General announced this week that the administration 
     supports this program and has asked that Congress increase 
     the program to $1 billion.
       Frankly, the best crime prevention program is one that 
     ensures swift apprehension and certain and lengthy 
     incarceration for violent criminals. The more than $4 billion 
     in these three boondoggle programs in the bill the other body 
     sent belong in prison construction and other measures.
       These social spending programs are neither tough nor smart 
     on the fight against crime. We can and must spend our moneys 
     more wisely, and in the process we have to move to truth in 
     sentencing.
       I want to point out a little bit about just how these 
     programs work. This lists seven Federal departments who 
     sponsor 266 programs which serve delinquent and at-risk 
     youth--266. These are already existing programs. This is 
     Federal departments on this side and the number of programs 
     each department has.
       The Department of Education has 31 programs already in 
     existence without the crime bill. The Department of Health 
     and Human Services has 92 programs already in existence. We 
     are doing a lot in this area without the crime bill. The 
     Department of Housing and Urban Development has 3 programs; 
     Department of Interior, 9 programs; Department of Justice, 
     117 programs; Department of Labor has 8; Department of 
     Transportation, 6, for a total of 266 Federal programs for 
     at-risk youth.
       Yet, we would add $4 billion more. In other words, every 
     time you try to do something about crime, those on the 
     liberal side of the equation load the bill up with more 
     social spending programs that are not working anyway, rather 
     than do the things that have to be done against violent crime 
     in our society.
       So I repeat this. The GAO recently reported to Senator 
     Dodd, who heads our Family and Children Subcommittee on the 
     Labor Committee, that there are 7 Federal departments 
     fostering 266 prevention programs which currently serve 
     delinquent or at-risk youth. Like I say, of these 266 
     programs, 31 are run by the Department of Education, 92 by 
     HHS, and 117 by the Justice Department.
       GAO found that there already exists a massive Federal 
     effort on behalf of troubled youth,'' which spends over $3 
     billion a year. GAO went on to report that:

       Taken together, the scope and number of multiagency 
     programs show that the Government is responsive to the needs 
     of these young people * * *. It is apparent from the Federal 
     activities and response that the needs of delinquent youth 
     are being taken quite seriously.

     That is in the GAO report, Federal Agency Juvenile 
     Delinquency Development Statements, August 1992.
       Despite the findings of the GAO, the House crime bill 
     throws even more money at State and local government under 
     the prevention label, while failing to acknowledge our 
     ongoing efforts. Listening to the House bill supporters, one 
     would assume the Federal Government has done nothing in the 
     area of crime prevention.
       They load up the House bill with almost $10 billion of 
     prevention. I believe there are some legitimate areas where 
     we can do something about prevention, but I have to tell you 
     right now that we are doing plenty without loading up this 
     crime bill with more than we need. We need the prisons; we 
     need the police; we need to get tough on crime; we need the 
     mandatory minimum sentences; we need the beefing up of 
     Quantico, of our DEA, of our FBI, of our Justice Department 
     prosecutors, rather than cutting back on them. We need tough 
     antirural crime initiatives, antigang initiatives, violence-
     against-women initiatives, the scams on the senior citizens, 
     against telemarketing fraud. All of that in this bill would 
     make a difference against crime in our society.
       Mr. President, I have to say that we have a lot of problems 
     in going to conference on this crime bill, not the least of 
     which is the gun ban and, of course, not the least of which 
     is this racial justice act, which would virtually outlaw all 
     implementations of all death penalties in our society today, 
     and would cost the American taxpayers billions, if not 
     trillions of unnecessary dollars, as the whole capital 
     punishment system would come to a screeching halt and be 
     embroiled in all kinds of litigation, all kinds of 
     statistical analysis, all kinds of social welfare work, to 
     the point that people will throw their hands up in the air 
     and say we really cannot get tough on criminals, especially 
     those who commit willful, violent, heinous murders against 
     the public.
       Mr. President, I wanted to make a couple of these points 
     during this debate today, because I have to go back to the 
     truth-in-sentencing provisions. If we do not get tough on the 
     violent criminals, we are not going to make headway in this 
     society. All of the prevention programs in the world are not 
     going to help us.
       With that, I yield the floor.

  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time for morning business will shortly 
expire.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I ask that this Senator be able to proceed for 5 minutes 
as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

  

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