[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 12 (Friday, January 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1253-S1254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       UNFUNDED MANDATES GRIDLOCK

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in order to properly frame some 
observations that I made last night and at the risk of being redundant 
in some of the comments I made on this floor yesterday, let me just 
make some reflections as to my feelings on unfunded mandates that come 
from quite a few years back.
  Back in 1967, one of my closest political allies and friends, who 
later became Senator David Boren, and I came to Washington from the 
State legislature to protest the mandates that came from Lady Bird's 
Highway Beautification Act of 1965. We made a list of what it would 
cost the private sector in terms of screening. We made a list of the 
violations, of what we perceived to be violations of the 14th 
amendment, property rights, people having their property taken away 
from them in such areas as outdoor advertising signs and others. But 
primarily because it was the cost to the municipalities.
  The leverage they used at that time was that if you do not comply 
with the mandates of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, we will 
withhold several million dollars of your Federal highway matching 
funds.
  Now, keep in mind, these are funds that emanated originally from the 
State of Oklahoma, went to Washington and were coming back. Of course, 
Oklahoma, having been a donor State for quite a number of years, does 
not get as much money back as it sends to Washington. So I guess what 
they were saying to us from the Federal Government, in its infinite 
wisdom, was we have passed a law that says you in Oklahoma cannot have 
the money you sent to Washington unless you comply with these mandates.
  That was my first exposure to mandates. I mentioned yesterday also 
that there are many fine Members of this honorable body who have 
differences of opinion philosophically and ideologically. Certainly the 
very distinguished Senator from California, [Mrs. Feinstein], and I 
differ on many issues, but we have one thing in common in our 
background, and that is we were both mayors of major cities.
  I remember when we were both serving on the U.S. Conference of Mayors 
Board of Directors our major concern at that time was unfunded 
mandates.
  Whether it is in the State of Kentucky or the State of Georgia, 
regardless of who you go to, if you talk to your mayors and your county 
commissioners and your State legislators and the private sector, they 
will say the major problem we have is not necessarily crime; it is not 
welfare; it is unfunded mandates. Because while we are facing fiscal 
problems here in Washington, the problems are even more severe at the 
local level.
  A lot of people do not realize the genesis of the problem that we 
have in these mandates. I think it goes back to the Great Society days 
when we decided Government was going to take on a role that perhaps was 
outside the boundaries of what our Founding Fathers thought the 
Government should be doing. At least if I have any understanding of the 
10th amendment to the Constitution, it says that powers will be 
reserved to the States or to the people other than those specifically 
delegated to the Federal Government; that we have become very greedy at 
the Federal level, and that this greed emanates from the desire of 
politicians, an insatiable appetite to give things to people in return 
for their votes. And realizing that there is not an adequate amount of 
money there, they, of course, impose those financial hardships on 
political subdivisions below them. And that is where we have found 
ourselves today.
  I hope that all of the American people were watching what was 
happening last night and what has happened over the past 6 days. I 
asked our staff to advise me as to how many hours have we been debating 
the unfunded mandates bill. According to their calculation, it is 47 
hours--47 hours of debate on something that really is not that 
complicated.
  Yes, we can get into the finer details and the amendments that 
perhaps might make it more workable, and I think our distinguished 
majority leader, Senator Dole, has gone far beyond the expectations of 
the American people in being fair. Those of us who are freshmen--and I 
think I can speak in behalf of all 11 of us who are newly elected who 
just came off the campaign trail and listened to the people and were 
there on November 8 when the mandate came out--do not look at this 
Contract With America in the cute reference that many other people try 
to put it, in a demeaning sense. It is a very real thing. People are 
sick and tired of the games we are playing here in Washington, and for 
the last 6 days we have been playing games. We have not been 
legislating. We have been playing games.
  I know that a lot of Americans out there are applauding at a 
statement like that because that is what is happening, and they are 
sick and tired of it. We have a man who ran for President of the United 
States, elected in 1992, who used throughout his campaign the word 
``gridlock.'' We are going to come to Washington and we are going to 
change; we are going to eliminate gridlock.
  We have created gridlock, Mr. President, in the last 6 days and we 
have done it willfully. We have created gridlock to stall an issue. And 
I am going to make a prediction in the Chamber of this Senate that is 
going to offend a lot of people, I am afraid, Mr. President, but it is 
something that I think has to be said. I believe that this issue has 
been stalled for a very good reason. First of all, why would they stall 
an issue on unfunded mandates? Who is opposed to unfunded mandates 
except for a few liberal people who want to keep the ability to pour 
money into social programs or other programs and then let the States 
and the cities and the counties and the people pick up the tab.
  Now, that is a philosophy that is out there, and there are some of 
those who want to do that. But this is not a Republican or Democrat 
program; it is not a conservative or liberal program, because if you 
look at the Senator from California, as I mentioned, Mrs. Feinstein, 
she is very supportive of this because she has sat in a mayor's seat 
and knows what it is like to have to pay for these mandates that come 
down.
   [[Page S1254]] Yesterday, in the Chamber, I outlined that in only 
three cities in Oklahoma the unfunded mandates exceeded $35 million, 
and this is over a period of time. It is just incredible that you could 
have this. It is not just in Broken Arrow and Tulsa, OK, and in San 
Francisco. It is throughout America. So it is something that everyone 
now wants to do something about. The liberals are for it. The 
conservatives are for it. Organizations like the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors are for it; the Municipal League is for it; the NFIB is for it. 
All organizations out there are for this. And yet it has been stalled 
and stalled and stalled and stalled. It is a bill, a resolution that 
could very well have been deliberated for 2 days and passed as 
everybody wants it.
  The reason I do not believe it was passed is because there is a 
deliberate effort to stall the vote on this until after the State of 
the Union Message that will take place next Tuesday night. And when 
that happens, I predict in the Chamber of this Senate right now that 
the President will stand up, even though he may not like the idea of 
passing an unfunded mandates bill, which I personally do not think he 
really wants but he heard that the American people did want it on 
November 8, and he is going to say, ``And I am going to ask this 
Congress, I am going to ask this Senate to go back into session and 
pass the unfunded mandates bill.'' And we will. And it is a bill that 
we should have passed a week before.
  Is this gridlock? Yes, it is gridlock. I think it is intentional 
gridlock. One time someone put the pencil to how much it costs us to 
keep this body in. I wish I could recall those figures right now, but 
it is very, very expensive. So there was a tremendous cost to the 
American people. There is a lot of inconvenience to a lot of people. 
There were late nights. There was a dialog. We talked on this floor 
about every conceivable subject that you could talk about and finally 
got around to making a few comments about unfunded mandates.
  So I am saying, yes, it is going to happen, but it is not going to 
happen until after the State of the Union Message. I think that is a 
very sad thing.
  Do you know where I got the idea of gridlock and where I am coming up 
with this? It came from someone who talks to a lot of people. It is my 
barber. A lot of times we have this beltway mentality here where we 
talk to bureaucrats and we talk to think tank people and we talk to 
each other and we forget that there is a real world out there with real 
people who are sick and tired of what is going on up here. I think we 
will all have learned a lesson as a result of this.
  So, Mr. President, in conclusion, I say I hope the American people 
have been watching for the last couple of days, because what they saw 
is something we are going to bring to an end. I think I speak in behalf 
of certainly all 11 of the freshmen Members of this organization when I 
make this statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Kentucky.

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