[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S22-S24]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                PROPER AND LEGITIMATE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, we have all just 
undergone an election process, a great debate that has occurred in this 
country, culminating in the elections on November 8, which saw those of 
us who are Democrats lose the majority both in this body as well as in 
the other body.
  I think a great part of that debate was over the proper and 
legitimate role of Government as it affects the individual lives of the 
citizens of this country.
  Many traditional Democrats--not all, but many--have taken the view 
that the proper role of Government is to try to solve everybody's 
problem all of the time, and that necessarily meant that many of those 
suggestions were coming from Washington as to what those solutions 
should be. Many, not all, Republicans took the view that the role of 
Government was to get out of the way and that Government really had no 
role in helping people solve their problems, but that it was more of a 
survival of the fittest type of attitude that should be the predominant 
one by which we govern ourselves.
  I think both of those roles are not what the American people were 
talking about when they went to the polls on November 8. Many self-
styled new Democrats take the view that the legitimate and proper role 
of Government is to help equip people to solve their own problems. 
Government's role is not to solve their problems, nor is Government's 
role to get out of the way and let the survival of the fittest be the 
rule of the day. But, rather, the proper role of Government is to try 
to help and equip people to be able to solve their own problems. That 
is a viewpoint that I think is proper and one that I share.
  In keeping with that perspective of what Government's role is, I have 
joined with Democratic leader Daschle and Senator Kennedy, of 
Massachusetts, in introducing legislation, which is S. 6, which is 
entitled the Working Americans Opportunity Act.
  I think it is legislation which all Members should carefully consider 
because it takes as its premise that the role of Government is to help 
people solve their own problems, to help them equip themselves to meet 
the needs and the problems they are facing.
  We all know that in today's society the average American worker has 
to change jobs several times in a lifetime. We all know that a great 
deal of the insecurity that Americans have in their daily lives is 
because they do not know whether the job they are in today will be 
there tomorrow. They do not know whether they will have the training 
and the skills to go out and seek a new job, perhaps in a new area, 
perhaps in a new profession, because they have not been properly 
trained.
  S. 6, the Working Americans Opportunity Act, provides the types of 
training, the types of opportunities that American workers need in 
order to equip themselves to meet the challenges of the future. 
President Clinton has in his proposal for a middle-class bill of rights 
a similar proposal. The President has said many times that what you 
earn is tied to what you learn in this country, and that is a very true 
statement.
  [[Page S23]] Our legislation will try to help Americans learn more so 
that in their lives they can earn more. What we do with this 
legislation is to build on the old GI bill with which so many Americans 
are familiar, where returning servicemen after World War II were given 
an opportunity to select a college, an institution they would like to 
attend, and the Government helped them equip themselves by giving them 
the money which allowed them to select where they wanted to go to 
college, and also to select what courses they would take.
  The Government did not make that decision. The Government in 
Washington, after World War II, did not tell young Americans where they 
had to go to college. It did not tell them, when they got there, what 
courses they had to take. It did not tell them in what they had to 
major. The Government at that time had faith in the individual American 
citizen to make that decision on their own because Government at that 
time felt the individual would make the right decision; they would take 
the courses they felt they were best able to do well in; they would go 
to the college they felt best suited their particular need.
  There was no bureaucracy or no Government in Washington that made 
that decision. That is one of the reasons why the GI bill was such a 
good piece of legislation and why thousands and thousands of Americans 
today have lived a better life, because someone had the intelligence 
back in the 1940's to offer legislation which made that type of career 
education possible for hundreds of millions of Americans.
  What we have offered today is building on that concept. It will give 
to Americans who have been dislocated because of a plant closing or 
because they have been fired, they have been laid off, vouchers to 
allow individuals to select the type of training they want, at the 
place they want, the type of program they want, they feel best suited 
they can handle, and then enroll and better themselves so they can earn 
more in later life.
  Mr. President and my colleagues, we have hundreds of programs in the 
Federal bureaucracy. We have agencies all over the place that have job 
training programs where bureaucrats in Washington are deciding for an 
individual in my State of Louisiana what is the best course they can 
take or where they should go to school. This legislation says the 
individual should have the ability to make that decision; that our role 
in Government is to give that person a voucher and let them decide 
where they want to go and what courses they want to take. I think this 
concept is one of which the President is supportive, one of which I 
think many of our Republican colleagues will be supportive because it 
eliminates the bureaucratic, governmental decision maker in Washington 
and allows the decision to be made back at the local level by the 
person who is going to benefit from that decision in the first place--
the individual who is going to benefit from these vouchers.
  I would point out that this concept of putting the workers in charge 
of their own fate rather than having their fate decided in Washington 
is going to accomplish a couple of things. No. 1, it would really I 
think for the first time allow the workers to take charge of their 
career, let them decide what they want to do instead of having that 
decision made in Washington.
  Second, I think allowing that individual to decide where they want to 
go and what school they would like to attend for the training they are 
seeking is going to provide competition among private and public 
institutions for that individual's interest, to compete for that 
individual's business. I think that competition will provide better 
services. Right now there is not a great deal of competition among 
training institutions because the Government makes the decision where 
these individuals have to go. There is no competition. This legislation 
would create competition among these schools to compete for those 
individuals coming to their institutions, and I think they would 
provide a better product.
  Third, competition would provide accountability for performance. 
Dissatisfied customers could vote with their feet, taking their 
business to more effective providers.
  And fourth, bureaucracies that run the current program would 
certainly be reduced. I am told by I think the General Accounting 
Office that we have literally hundreds of departments and agencies in 
Washington that run job training programs. We already spend literally 
billions of dollars in Washington on job training programs right now. 
Our legislation says we should not be spending any more money. It is a 
question of spending it more wisely.
  Our legislation takes money from existing bureaucratic programs in 
Washington and uses the dollars to create vouchers to give to 
individuals to let them make the decision as to where they can best get 
their best education and the best retraining to compete in today's 
modern world. The global economy that we are now talking about creates 
a lot of opportunities for Americans, but it also has created a lot of 
problems for Americans because many jobs people are involved in today 
are not going to be here tomorrow because of the changing global 
competition and environment.
  This Congress just in the last year passed a North American Free 
Trade Agreement. We passed a GATT agreement. That is going to make 
global competition more and more and create more opportunities for 
American workers and for American businesses. But we cannot do it if 
our workers are not trained. We cannot do it if our workers are still 
educated to work in jobs that are not the jobs of the future, that are 
not the jobs in a global environment with global competition.
  I think this legislation for the first time will say that we are 
going to recognize that individuals, citizens back home have the 
ability to make the decisions for themselves. But Government does have 
a role. It is not survival of the fittest. It is not just throwing 
everybody out there and saying some will survive and some will perish, 
but it is saying Government's role will be to help people make the best 
decisions for their lives.
  So I would suggest the legislation we have introduced today, the 
Working Americans Opportunity Act, is in keeping with that theory, that 
there is a legitimate role for Government to help equip our citizens to 
make their own decisions and to help them solve their problems.
  That is the role of Government I think most Americans share. I think 
it was one of the clear messages of the last election. I think all of 
us have to take heed of those results, Republicans and Democrats alike. 
This legislation is a major step in that direction, and I urge my 
colleagues to consider joining with us in supporting this legislation 
as it has been introduced.
  Mr. President, I now yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I rise today to lend enthusiastic support to 
S. 9, which I think is probably one of the most important, if not far-
reaching, measures that have been introduced today, along with very 
many other important measures.
  S. 9 addresses the matter of the constitutional amendment to balance 
the budget. I have long been a supporter of that, and my name has been 
mentioned by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I was very 
pleased to join as a cosponsor of the bill of the Democratic leader to 
focus attention on this matter.
  I also happen to be the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, and 
the Budget Committee, with all of its other very important 
responsibilities, is going to play a very key, a very decisive role in 
the constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
  I rise today though to say while I voted for it before and I am going 
to vote for it again, I am going to be plowing a straight furrow down 
the road on this whole matter to explain to the Senate and to the House 
and to the people at large that passing a constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget is the easy part.
  There has been no legislation introduced today, and I daresay there 
will be no legislation introduced in this Congress, that has such far-
reaching implications. This is where the rubber meets the road. Passing 
a constitutional amendment--which I believe will be passed--is the easy 
part. In doing so, we have to have a thorough understanding by every 
Member of the Senate, every Member of the House of Representatives, 
every Governor, every 
[[Page S24]] legislator in every State and the people at large, as to 
the awesome task that we take upon ourselves when we pass this measure. 
It is not going to be easy. It is probably one of the most difficult 
tasks that the Congress of the United States all during our history has 
ever saddled itself with. But saddle it we must if we are going to stop 
runaway deficits, skyrocketing national debts.
  I think the first thing we have to have a full understanding with the 
people on, if they do not understand it now, is that there is a 
difference between the annual deficit and the national debt. I am 
afraid the people hear about the $150 to $350 billion annual deficit 
and then they hear about the skyrocketing national debt that was 
addressed earlier in the day by Senator Daschle, under $1 trillion in 
1980 and now it is $4.7 trillion. They hear often that the fastest 
growing part of our budget is interest on the national debt.
  I simply say that if we are going to balance the Federal budget by 
the year 2002, as is outlined in most of the measures that have been 
introduced thus far, we are going to have to cut $1 trillion or more, 
depending on how much money we expend for tax decreases--worthy or 
unworthy, justified or unjustified. The political climate, it seems to 
me, is to make everybody happy we have to have a tax cut. Add that tax 
cut, if you will, to the $1 trillion that I have already outlined and 
you see the monumental problem that we have on our hands.
  Meanwhile back at the ranch we have all kinds of people, well-
intentioned people, who are saying, ``This has to be off limits. Of 
course that has to be off limits. We cannot touch this, we cannot touch 
that.'' I hope those of us who vote for a constitutional amendment to 
balance the budget recognize, as we must, that not all of us, maybe not 
a majority of us, will be here serving in the U.S. Senate and the House 
of Representatives in the year 2002. Yet we are mandating what people 
will do then. We, therefore, in my view, have the responsibility to 
plow a straight furrow, to tell the people exactly what the situation 
is, to put the pain and suffering that is going to take place in making 
these cuts so they are clearly understood--to recognize that, of all 
things, we may even have to raise taxes sometime before 2002 to 
accomplish the ends we are about to vote for. When you mention the tax 
word around here, though, that is a no-no.
  I simply say in tackling this proposition this Senator, and I expect 
two-thirds of the Senate, are strongly in support of and will pass a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget. We have the 
responsibility, not only to vote but we have the responsibility to 
fully understand what we are tackling and what we are taking on. 
Therefore, I want to make the point that this S. 9 is a far-reaching 
measure. It has to be passed, I believe, to bring some sanity to the 
Federal Government, to begin to balance income with out-go. Therefore 
it is a necessity. It is a very, very painful one and the people of the 
United States who send us here to do their bidding should understand 
when we do what they want us to do--the vast majority want a 
constitutional amendment to balanced the budget. I say to the people of 
the United States of America, it is not going to be easy. I am afraid 
too many believe if we just eliminate the $1,200 toilet seats and the 
$500 hammer, and if we cut the salaries of the Members of the House and 
Senate and their staffs in half, we could do those things and 
everything would take care of itself. It would be balanced.
  I heard a big debate on television last night about $300 million for 
public radio and public television. That is what television shows are 
made of. The $300 million that we spend on public broadcasting maybe 
should be cut. But it is a drop in the bucket. And we continue to focus 
on the little things, making believe if we do that, the problem is 
solved. It is a monumental problem of major proportions that all should 
understand, as we proceed down this dangerous course that in my view we 
must proceed on if we are ever going to bring outlays in line with 
expenditures.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. I make inquiry to the Chair on a matter, a parliamentary 
inquiry as to what the proceedings are before the Senate now?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may speak for up to 10 minutes.
  

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