[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 137 (Tuesday, September 27, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      THE REPUBLICANS ARE STALLING

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I am very disappointed that a large 
majority of my Republican colleagues have decided that, outside of 
routine business, they really do not want to continue the work of this 
Congress. They want to stall and run the legislative clock down. They 
would rather talk on and on, even all through the night if that is 
necessary, to kill legislation that I believe is important to the 
American people.
  Madam President, here is a sample of the legislation, or just some of 
it, that is ready to go: The Superfund reauthorization, which is needed 
to clean up toxic waste sites all over this Nation and in California. 
We have an inordinate number of those because we have had so many 
military bases and defense contractors there. The Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act, which is a desperately needed investment in 
educational reforms, teacher training in math and science, computers, 
software, and safe schools. Housing legislation to reform public 
housing and reduce the crime that plagues public housing. Campaign 
finance reform, so we can put a cap on the obscene amount of money that 
is spent sometimes to buy a Senate seat. A gift ban for Members of 
Congress. The California Desert Protection Act, which has come such a 
long way due to the efforts of my colleague, the senior Senator from 
California, Senator Feinstein. As for health care reform, we know now 
that it is dead. Senator Mitchell quoted one of our Republican 
colleagues, saying something to the effect of: Well, now that we have 
killed health care, we just have to make sure that our fingerprints are 
not on it.
  Even when several members of their own party support working on a 
health care compromise so that insurance companies cannot walk out on 
us when we get sick, and so that many more of us can get health 
insurance, the vast majority of Republicans say they will not vote to 
stop the endless talking. They each have great health care, Madam 
President, because they are here in this Congress. They have a health 
care card, but they want to talk on and talk on, so that we cannot get 
the same kind of insurance to the people of America that we have for 
ourselves. I think that is outrageous.
  Madam President, the filibuster has a new best friend: The Republican 
Party. They embrace the filibuster. They love the filibuster. They use 
it lovingly. They are proud to put on these filibusters, and they say 
so themselves. The filibuster party is the GOP.
  In the past 2 years, filibuster tactics have been used 60 times. Let 
me repeat that: In the past 2 years, filibuster tactics have been used 
60 times. It was used only 9 times in the entire decade of the 1980's. 
By the way, during that period of time, the Republicans had control of 
this Senate, so we Democrats understood that you had to get things done 
no matter which party was in control. We did not stop legislation. I 
hope the American people will hear that. Filibuster tactics were used 
60 times in the last 2 years, compared to only 9 times in the entire 
decade of the 1980's.
  Madam President, we were not sent here to listen to the sound of our 
own voices into the night, while problems go unsolved. We were sent 
here to work on the real problems of real people, and to hammer out 
solutions. When we hammer out these solutions, I do not get everything 
I want. The Senator from Illinois does not get everything she wants. No 
Senator gets everything he or she wants. But we are sent here to hammer 
out solutions, not to talk on and on and on and on and on, endlessly 
throughout the night. I do not think one needs a degree in political 
science to understand the game plan here. There is an election coming 
up, and our Republican friends want no more progress.
  Hopefully, we will get a trade treaty. That has been years in the 
making. We also will probably get--and I hope we do--the appropriations 
bills. If we do not, there will be utter chaos. I do not think the 
Republicans want to be responsible for that. But they really hope to 
stop our progress and, by doing so, I believe they hope to divert 
attention from what has already been achieved. Part of the diversion is 
their new contract with the American people: Vote for them and guess 
what they will give you? A higher military budget and tax cuts for the 
wealthy. Sounds like ``deja vu all over again,'' as Yogi Berra once 
said. I think a baseball analogy is appropriate here. There is no 
baseball this year, and the Republicans want no more legislation this 
year.
  It is the trickle-down theory they want, back to the future. Tax 
breaks for the rich, spend more on the military, and pray the deficits 
take care of themselves. We tried that, and what happened? The largest 
deficits in history, deficits that went from $50 billion when Carter 
left office to almost $300 billion when Bush left office.
  So under the Republican administration, the debt piled up, while they 
spent more and more on the military and gave tax cuts to the wealthy. 
Twelve years of bright red ink that weakened America in the world.
  Madam President, do you remember when President Bush got sick when he 
had dinner with the Japanese? It is no wonder. I felt for him. We all 
had a feeling of weakness and dizziness then, as the industrialized 
world took advantage of our weak trade policy and berated us for our 
deficits and for not being productive. Back to the future with that? I 
hope not. Back to the future with zero job creation? That is what we 
had under the Bush administration. I hope we do not go back to the 
future there. Back to the future with history making small business 
failures? I hope not. Back to the future with S&L's going broke? I hope 
not. Back to the future with doctors gagged at family-planning clinics? 
I hope not. Back to the future with education, the environment, health 
research, and anticrime legislation being treated as stepchildren? I 
hope not.
  But that is what the Republicans want, and they are trying to divert 
attention from the accomplishments of this Congress and this 
administration, and I hope the American people will cut through the 
mean-spirited politics and get the facts.
  I know it is hard to cut through the meanness and get to the facts. 
Good news does not seem to get through these days. It reminds me of a 
story about President Clinton that is going around that I think is very 
instructive about how hard it is to get good news out.
  President Clinton is by himself on a boat in the middle of a lake, 
and he spots a child drowning--this is the story--and without thinking 
anything about his own safety or anything else, he leaps off the boat. 
He walks on water and rescues this little child and brings her back, 
walking on water all the way. The next day the newspaper says: 
President Clinton cannot swim.
  You get my point. It is hard to get good news out. What is the good 
news? Let me give it to you in numbers and in facts. The highest job 
growth since 1970: 226,000 jobs created every month, since this 
administration took over.
  The best economic growth since the Kennedy administration in the 
sixties. The deficit is the lowest as a percentage of GNP since 1979. 
It is the first time since the Truman administration in the 1940's and 
early 1950's that the deficit has gone down 3 years in a row.
  The inflation rate. Except for 1986, when oil prices collapsed, 
inflation is now the lowest since the Kennedy administration. We have 
had the highest growth in income since the Nixon administration and the 
highest industrial production since the Johnson administration in the 
1960's; the highest business investment and productivity since the Ford 
administration in the mid-1970's; the lowest Federal work force since 
the Kennedy administration.
  Let me repeat that: Under the Democrats, economic growth is way up, 
and we have the lowest Federal work force since the Kennedy 
administration. No wonder the Republicans do not want the people to cut 
through and see the facts.
  My State of California has been lagging, and it has been a matter of 
deep concern to me. I have talked to this administration and to my 
colleagues about California constantly. But last week, the UCLA 
Business Forecasting Project said that 111,000 net new jobs will be 
created in California this year. Finally, Madam President, we are not 
losing jobs; we are gaining jobs. This is an independent study group 
that says 111,000 net jobs will be created in California this year. We 
have to do better, but we are beginning to see it turn around.
  This administration's economic strategy, which has been supported by 
the Senate on a very partisan basis, is working. Priorities are: Trade 
promotion, high-technology investment, education and job training, 
defense conversion, the information superhighway, timely disaster 
relief. Madam President, you have had the terrible floods, and we have 
the terrible fires and earthquakes, and this administration, unlike 
others, has acted fast and they are helping us rebuild.
  A thousand more border patrol agents and hundreds of millions of 
dollars to reimburse my State for criminal costs associated with the 
incarceration of undocumented immigrants. It is coming together. It is 
not perfect, but let us not go back to the future.
  This so-called contract put out by Newt Gingrich and the Republicans 
is described this way in an opinion printed by USA Today. The writer, 
who was a speech writer for President Bush, says the contract was put 
together ``the way a TV network assembles a situation comedy.''
  He said, ``The GOP has conducted vast amounts of market research, 
figured out which ideas please citizens and which don't--and gathered 
the winners together under the auspices of a contract.''
  This writer says: ``The result is hash for wonks--10 pieces of 
legislation with no fewer than 48 separate and often technical parts.''
  So I urge the people of this country to cut through the filibuster 
and promises and so-called contracts and look at where we were 
economically and where we are today. I urge the people of this country 
to consider the consequences of the election in November.
  If the Republicans take control of the Senate, they will do 
everything in their power to enact the policies of the past. They said 
it. Higher military budget. Do you know we spend five times more than 
every potential enemy on the military budget? Hear that again--and I 
include Russia in the list of potential enemies, even though they are 
really friends now. Keep them in the list because we want to be sure it 
is true. We spend 500 percent more than all of our potential enemies 
put together, and the Republicans want us to go back to those days.
  I remember those days of $7,500 coffee pots, $400 hammers, $900 
wrenches. That is what we had in the runaway days of the military 
budget. We need a lean, mean defense that is tough, strong, and works. 
That is what we need. And we need to invest in the domestic side of the 
budget. That is what we have begun, and we are seeing results.
  The Republicans voted against the crime bill. They did not like it 
because they said there was prevention in it, and they called that 
pork. I call that baloney. The prevention in that bill was recommended 
by police chiefs, sheriffs, and prosecutors.
  I held violence roundtables all over the country, and they are the 
ones who said: You know, Senator, once they get in prison, it is too 
late. Help us out. Yes, we want more prisons. Yes, we want more law 
enforcement. But we need prevention, and so a small part of the bill 
went toward that.
  But the Republicans do not like it. They are even trying to do away 
with that by adding an amendment to one of appropriations bills.
  So Americans, I hope you will engage, listen, and judge for 
yourselves. Ask yourselves if we have made progress on the deficit, 
jobs, crime, and new priorities.
  I hope you will decide not to go back to the future. None of us is 
perfect. No President has ever been perfect. No Senator has ever been 
perfect. We can talk about our imperfections all day and all night. We 
could make it real personal. But there is more at stake. We have to 
come together, Republicans, Democrats, with all our imperfections and 
work for this country. I am very optimistic about the future. But I 
will tell you. We did not come here to filibuster. We came here to 
work. We have a can-do spirit in this country. This is a government of, 
by, and for the people which should reflect a can-do attitude, not a 
no-can do, yak, yak, yak through the night, stop the progress. We are 
in this U.S. Senate. We are not in election campaign. We are on this 
floor. We are supposed to do the work for the people. The operative 
word is ``work.''
  I hope we will stop these filibusters and get down to work.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont asked for recognition 
and then we will go to the Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I want to commend the Senator from 
California for what she said. With gridlock and filibusters, the Senate 
is really voting maybe. We are not elected and do not get paid salaries 
to vote maybe. We are elected to vote yes or no. Filibusters by 
Senators is not what the American people want. She is right.
  Madam President, I know the Senator from Arizona was seeking 
recognition. I appreciate his courtesy in letting me go forward.

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