[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 146 (Saturday, October 8, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me just say that this is an 
opportunity for me, even though we will be back in session in December, 
to say that you have just seen a dramatic demonstration of why we are 
going to miss Senator Mitchell as our majority leader so badly. He has 
acquitted himself, in the 6 years he has been in this position, in an 
exemplary way. I was proud of him because I am a Democrat. But I was 
also proud of him because he always, unfailingly, represented the U.S. 
Senate in a most dignified and fair-minded way.

  I have heard Senator Dole, the Republican leader in the Senate, say 
many times that, though he and Senator Mitchell have had many 
differences, he had never found Senator Mitchell to be anything but 
manifestly fair in his dealings with the Republicans in this body. The 
past few weeks, particularly the past 3 weeks, have been unprecedented 
in my 20 years in the U.S. Senate. This is the end of my 10th Congress, 
my 20th session, and I have never witnessed anything like the virtual 
hysteria that has gone on here, to try to kill good legislation.
  Yesterday the President held a press conference. I thought it was 
easily the most brilliant press conference certainly he has ever held. 
But, more important, as I watched him answer very difficult questions--
some designed to trap him, some designed to make him answer in a way 
that he would not want to answer--without exception he faced each 
question with honesty, a great deal of intelligence and 
straightforwardness. And even his demeanor was exemplary.
  He was gracious to the Republicans, saying not only had he worked 
with them on health care reform, and cataloged all of the things the 
majority leader just said, but he also said: ``I still look forward to 
working with the Republicans next year.''
  And as I watched that, Mr. President, I thought, how long has it been 
since you have seen a President respond as intelligently and with as 
much information and knowledge at his fingertips to justify his 
answers, how long has it been since you have seen a President stand on 
his two legs and demonstrate the kind of knowledge and understanding of 
the problems of this country in as articulate a manner as Bill Clinton 
did yesterday? Not since Jack Kennedy and maybe not since Franklin 
Roosevelt.
  So what is it that is so offensive about him to the American people 
that keeps his approval rating so low? There are probably as many 
answers as there are people you might ask. But when you look back at 
the past 2 years and you think about all of his accomplishments you 
have to be impressed. For instance, we passed the Family and Medical 
Leave Act for people so they can stay home with a sick child or a dying 
parent and not be fired. Almost 30 years ago when I had my own law 
practice in South Franklin County, AR, my daughter developed what we 
thought was a terminal illness. Fortunately, we happened to have a 
pediatrician with enough sense to get us to the best neurosurgeon in 
the world at Boston Children's Hospital.
  On numerous occasions Betty and I spoke about the fact that when I 
went back home, after 6 weeks in Boston with my daughter, I did not 
have to worry about whether somebody had fired me while I was gone 
because I was my own boss. I just went back into my office and started 
practicing law again.
  I asked Betty a number of times, ``What do the poor people do?'' 
First of all, most of them could not buy an airplane ticket to Boston, 
let alone pay a hotel bill and a mammoth hospital and doctor bill.
  How many people in America would be lucky enough to get their 
daughter to Boston in the hands of the best neurosurgeon in the world? 
Very, very few and certainly very few country lawyers in towns of 1,000 
people from Arkansas.
  But most of them would find themselves without a job when they got 
home because they worked for somebody else. And so the Family and 
Medical Leave Act provides some comfort, some peace of mind for people. 
I am proud to have strongly supported it.
  And student loans. We reformed the student loan program so more and 
more children can go to college, and we passed the national service 
bill so they can have an easier time paying off those loans. I am a 
product of the GI bill. I went to the University of Arkansas and 
Northwestern University Law School and the taxpayers paid every dime of 
it. My brother got out of the Army the same year I got out of the 
Marine Corps. He went to the University of Arkansas, and Harvard Law 
School, and the taxpayers picked up every dime of it. He feels terribly 
put upon about the deficit reduction bill we passed last year because 
he is fairly well to do. He probably paid more in taxes last year than 
he probably thought he would make when he got out of law school.

  So was it good for the people to improve student loans and improve 
the educational quality of this Nation and give people a chance to 
educate their children as Bill Clinton has done? The answer is in the 
question. In addition the President has tried to make certain that 
every child in America--not just 50 percent--but every child in America 
gets Head Start--a people program--and an apprentice program to try to 
ease the transition from school into jobs, oftentimes for children, 
youngsters who are not going to college. Does anybody want to repeal 
that, to give people the skill to hold down a job when they get out of 
school? In addition, we have removed 87,000 employees from the Federal 
payroll to try to reduce the size of Government in the past year. Mr. 
President, did you know that the Government is as small right now as it 
was when Jack Kennedy was President? How many people across America do 
you think would believe that? There are now 87,000 fewer employees than 
when Bill Clinton was inaugurated. I do not want to be pejorative about 
this, but in the first 4 years of Ronald Reagan's administration, who 
came to town to cut Government, there were 125,000 additional employees 
in the Defense Department alone. President Clinton has fulfilled a 
promise that we would reduce the size of Government, who would want to 
undo that?
  And the President has created 4 million jobs in his first two years. 
However, we still have more to do. One of the reasons the people of the 
country are in such a foul mood is not because they are not working but 
because they are not making very much money. I daresay that 50 to 70 
percent of the people of this country wake up every morning worried 
about their house payment, their car payment, the education of their 
children, their health care, and they do not make enough money to quit 
worrying. Bill Clinton said during the campaign, and he said it again 
yesterday, that is our No. 1 problem.
  Finally, Mr. President, last August we passed, what is, by far, the 
biggest deficit reduction package in the history of this country. There 
are only two ways to reduce the deficit, both of them very unpopular: 
one is to raise taxes. That is what gets us labeled ``tax-and-spend 
Democrats.'' Oh, I wish I could come up with all those little slogans 
to use on the Republicans.

  The second option is to cut spending. We did both; $250 billion in 
new taxes, most of which were on the richest 1.2 percent of the people 
in this Nation and $250 billion in spending cuts. Most people would not 
believe this, but spending cuts are almost as unpopular as taxes 
because you hurt somebody every time you cut spending.
  It was projected at the time we passed it that the deficit the next 5 
years would be $500 billion less than it would have been if we did 
nothing. Oh, how many times did I hear those specious arguments about 
how ``you're not balancing the budget, you're going to raise taxes $250 
billion, cut spending $250 billion and you're not going to balance the 
budget.''
  Well, nobody ever said we would balance the budget. But we said the 
deficit would be $500 billion less than it would otherwise have been. 
All of the Republicans are running ads against the people on this side 
who voted for the defict reduction package--they are saying, ``he or 
she cast the deciding vote,'' because it was a 50-50 tie.'' Think about 
the cynicism, the dishonesty of that. All 50 people over here could not 
have possibly cast the deciding vote.
  But I have said many times, I would not wait for my opponent to bring 
that argument up. I would bring it up first. I would bring it up 
because it is the most courageous, significant thing that has happened 
since I have been in the U.S. Senate--20 years.
  How much Republican help did we get to reduce the deficit which, 
during the Reagan years, was the only subject suitable for debate in 
this body? Not one; not one Republican. And now, Mr. President, instead 
of reducing the deficit by $500 billion less than it would otherwise 
have been, because the economy has been performing so well, it will be 
reduced by $700 billion.
  The deficit that 18 months ago was projected to be $310 billion, at 
the end of 1993 was $255 billion--$55 billion less than projected.
  The deficit projected to be $305 billion on September 30, 1994, will 
probably end up being almost $100 billion less than the projection 
before we passed that bill.
  And so what happens? Three hundred people running for Congress on the 
Republican side gather on the steps of the Capitol and announce 
``Voodoo II: We are going to raise defense spending, cut taxes for the 
rich, and balance the budget.'' How are you going to do it? Well, we 
are going to pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
  Now, is that not beautiful? You think of that. You think of the 
cynicism of that promise of $1 trillion in tax cuts and they cannot 
tell you anything except they are going to put something in the 
Constitution which would not take effect for 7 or 8 years.
  I voted for the deficit-reduction package and I consider it one of 
the bravest, most courageous, significant things I have ever done, or 
that the Congress has ever done.
  When it comes to foreign policy, the majority leader has already said 
all that needs to be said about Haiti. You can only conclude that our 
friends on the other side of the aisle are gloomy about the fact that 
that operation has gone much better than even I or he anticipated.
  The other day I asked a fairly sophisticated reporter in this town: 
Why is it you do not like President Clinton? Well, it is his foreign 
policy. Well, what is it about his foreign policy you do not like? 
``Well, I am not sure,'' the reporter responded.
  While our successes were numerous, we also had some failures, which 
will be redressed next year. We did not do welfare reform which 
everybody in the country is anxiously awaiting. We did not do health 
care, and the majority leader has said all that needs to be said on 
that subject. We did not do campaign finance reform because the 
Republicans prevented the bill from going to conference.
  The majority leader very appropriately pointed out that anybody who 
would not want to contribute to campaigns would not have to. It is a 
voluntary checkoff on your tax return if you want it. I would be happy 
to check mine off because I think that nothing is ever going to save 
this democracy except campaign finance reform. The money chase is 
unconscionable. It is humiliating. I personally detest it. I hate it 
worse than anything about this profession, having to go out with your 
hat in your hand and a tin cup pleading for alms so you can enjoy 
public service.

  We may be the only Nation on Earth, Mr. President, that finances 
campaigns with anything other than public funds. Yet somehow or other 
there are enough people who like the advantages that incumbents have, 
that they are willing to continue to vote against reform.
  Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to discuss two really 
significant failures which I have personally been involved with and 
that have gotten very little attention around here and which the press 
just sort of mentions in passing, occasionally. One is mining law 
reform.
  Listen to this. Since the 1872 mining law was passed, we have sold 
off over 3 million acres of public lands to the mining companies--a 
chunk of land bigger than the State of Connecticut--for anywhere from 
$2.50 an acre to $5 an acre. The mining companies, as of this date, 
have removed $230 billion worth of gold, silver, palladium, platinum, 
and other hard-rock minerals and have not paid the Federal Government 
out of that $230 billion one cent in royalties.
  We could not change this 122-year-old law because of entrenched 
interests. I have fought this battle now for 6 years, and we have 
failed yet again. There is not one Senator in this body who does not 
know, to an absolute certainty, if this were presented to the American 
people they would be absolutely repelled by the idea. It is repugnant 
in the extreme to believe that we continue to allow this to continue.
  Just this year, the Secretary of the Interior was required by the 
court to hand Barrick Resources, a Canadian company, 2,000 acres of 
land for $10,000, under which lies $11 billion worth of gold, and the 
United States Government will not get one red cent out of it.
  That is not all. They have, over the past 122 years, left one 
environmental disaster after another. More than 50 mining sites that 
have been abandoned are on the Superfund national priority list and 
will cost the taxpayers of America billions and billions of dollars to 
clean up--and we cannot change the law.
  In addition, Mr. President, I have worked for 16 years to reform the 
way we contract with concessionaires in the national parks. They have 
given these contracts out as though they were handing them down to 
their children in their wills.
  In 1992, the concessionaires in this country took in about $500 
million, and paid the Federal Government in exchange about 3 percent--
roughly $15 million out of their proceeds of $500 million.

  Finally, after 16 years, we got the bill reported out of the Energy 
Committee this year, thanks to a really new breed Senator, Robert 
Bennett from Utah, one of the finest Senators to join this body in a 
long time, and who joined me in the committee and said, of course, we 
need to do this. And then we got 90 votes in the Senate.
  However, we were prevented from considering the House-Senate 
compromise because one or two Senators put a hold on the bill: ``If you 
bring it up, I will filibuster it.'' That is what a hold is.
  Everybody knows that we do not have time for filibusters around here 
in the last few days of the session, so the majority leader could not 
bring the bill up because we could not afford the time. One Senator 
called the Cloakroom and says: ``Put a hold on Mr. Bumpers' concessions 
bill''; and it is dead--dead, dead, dead--and the taxpayers have been 
swindled once again.
  I do not know who the majority leader will be next year, but I say 
one thing: Be he Democrat or Republican, there is nothing, other than 
campaign finance reform that needs doing worse than repealing the rule 
that allows one Senator to bring this place to its knees during the 
last 3 weeks of a session. Forty, fifty bills out of my Subcommittee on 
Public Lands, dead because of one or two Senators. That is some 
democracy around here.
  Mr. President, I saw in the paper this morning that the unemployment 
rate dropped to 5.9 percent. Under the old method of keeping it when 
Bill Clinton first became President, it would be about 5.4 percent. But 
even so, that is the lowest unemployment rate in 4 years. The defcit is 
dropping like a rock. Inflation is about as low as it ever gets. The 
economy is purring along at about 3\1/2\ to 4 percent. But the 
President's approval rating is low. It is the most contradictory thing 
I have every witnessed. As a percentage of the gross naitonal product, 
the deficit is exactly half what it was January 1, 1993--half as a 
percentage of the gross domestic product.
  Mr. President, in this day of communications where television reaches 
into every home in America, all the talk show hosts make money and get 
more money in advertising if they can get a bigger viewing audience. 
The way you get a bigger viewing audience is to keep everyone sitting 
on the edge of their seat telling all the dire and terrible things 
going on in Congress.

  Elections have become so cynical. I watched a debate the other night. 
I thought it was absolutely brilliant. One of the candidates said he 
was opposed to big government. I wanted to say, ``Who do you know that 
favors big government?'' He is against deficit spending. But he is not 
for getting the deficit down with taxes or any spending cuts that he 
was willing to mention. I think of all of those things about how 
cynical government is. I said in 1992, if you take Ted Kennedy and 
liberal out of my opponemt's vocabulary, he would have been tongue-
tied.
  ``I am opposed to big government,'' they say. ``He is a tax and-spend 
liberal,'' they say. And the National Rifle Association says he has 
voted to take your guns away. You bet. You bet. I voted to outlaw those 
AK-47's and Uzis and all the other assault weapons that ought never to 
be in the hands of anybody except the police and the military.
  So the assault weapons ban, banning the sale of 19 automatic, 
military weapons that are used to shoot up McDonald's that virtually 
every lunatic that goes on a shooting spree uses, and the National 
Rifle Association wants them in the hands of every jail escapee and 
lunatic who can walk into a gun shop and plunk down the money for one.
  So the National Rifle Association, because virtually every Democrat 
supported the crime bill that would bar the sale of those lethal 
weapons, is supporting virtually every Republican who is running for 
the U.S. Senate. You think about 230 million weapons loose in this 
country; 65 million of them handguns.
  Elections have become electronic events carefully calculated to fool 
51 percent or more of the people on 1 day every 2 years. I used to do a 
speech about how you could never get a politician or a public servant 
to tell you the truth until he is out of office. I wonder what it would 
have been like if Ike Eisenhower had delivered his military industrial 
complex speech at his inaugural instead of his going-away party. There 
is a Senator who is quoted quite often now. He is not here anymore. He 
talks about things that would have never been talked about on the floor 
of the Senate.
  I remember when David Jones, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, did his exit interview. He said, ``You expect me to design a 
force structure to protect the United States when all I can do is 
referee interservice rivalries. You give the  Navy $1 billion, and you 
have to give the Army $1 billion. If you give the Army $1 billion, you 
have to give the Air Force $1 billion.'' He said, ``That is all I do, 
is referee the handing out of the money. There is very little time left 
to decide what for.''

  The people say they want term limits. I am on the other side of that 
issue. It is very popular across the country, and I presume eventually 
it could happen. I do not have a dog in the fight, really. I will be 
pushing up daisies before that happens. But I can tell you it is a 
wrong approach. People grow more cynical. So that only 50 percent of 
the people bother to vote, and we have become more uncivil as a Nation. 
And we are more uncivil in this body. I have only been here 20 years. 
But the personal assaults on one side of this body to the other side, 
and personal insults, have grown exponentially in the past 8 or 9 
years.
  Mr. President, let me just conclude by saying I am deeply concerned 
and very apprehensive about the survival of our democracy but not 
fatalistic. The parents of this country have a right to believe that 
the Members of this body care about their children. My father and 
mother told me a hundred times, ``We want you boys to have a better 
life than we had.'' And why would not they? They had worked so hard to 
feed and clothe and house us. My father talked about education every 
day and how important it was that we get an education. Today parents do 
not believe their children are going to have a better life than they 
had. They think it is going to be worse. That is one of the reasons 
they are upset.
  If you read the Washington Post yesterday, you saw one of the 
reasons, probably the biggest reason, the people are so upset in this 
Nation; that is, the poor indeed are getting poorer and the rich are 
getting richer. In the past year, the medium family income has gone 
down almost $2,000 while for the top 5 percent of the people of this 
country incomes have gone up 5 percent.
  We children were everything to our parents. My father wanted me to go 
into politics. When I ran for Governor and was elected, I wanted my 
children, two sons and a daughter, to go into politics. I believed when 
I went into politics that public service was the noblest of all 
professions.
  Somebody called in to debate the other night and said, ``Why would 
you spend millions and millions of dollars for a job that pays $135,000 
a year?'' The answer to that is I wish I did not have to do it. I wish 
that none of us had to do it. But until we change this system, you have 
no choice. And one of the things the Campaign Finance bill would have 
done would be to level the playing field between people who have to go 
out and raise money for people however they can and run against 
somebody who is willing to spend $10 million or $20 million of their 
own money. That goes on on both sides of the aisle.

  I suspect that at least 50 Members of this body right now are 
millionaires, and many of them multimillionaires. And that is hardly a 
microcosm of America. Let me add that some of the very wealthy Members 
of this body, in my opinion, are the very best Senators. But I am just 
simply saying the system ought not to permit anybody to buy a seat in 
Congress--the House or the Senate.
  So I do not encourage my children to go into politics. It is not the 
same. The media is unrelenting. They make it difficult and sometimes 
impossible to enjoy your work here as a public servant. One of the 
biggest worries I have is, as some of the best Senators exit this body 
this year, as they are doing--some of the very best, such as Senator 
Mitchell, are leaving and I do not know who will replace them. I am 
afraid that the best and brightest in this country are going to shun 
politics for all of the obvious reasons. It just is not worth it.
  Well, Mr. President, I talked longer than I intended to, and I am 
afraid I repeated too much of what the majority leader said. Despite 
some of the more ominous things I said, I am still bullish on America. 
Throughout our history the pendulum has swung back and forth, and it 
has always come back, whether it went way to the left or way to the 
right. Our job is to make sure the pendulum never swings too far in 
either direction. Our job is to make sure that every American has a 
chance, as the majority leader said in a speech downtown the other 
night.
  Is it not ironic, Mr. President, that at a time when people all over 
the world are scratching and clawing and swimming and getting into 
styrofoam rafts to go out on the ocean to get to the United States, we 
are trashing our own Nation as never before?
  So I have at least 4 years left on this term, Mr. President. I will 
do my very best to continue addressing all of these things I have 
talked about, to fulfill the promise of America, the promise that every 
man, woman, and child in this country has a right to expect.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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