[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 15 (Wednesday, January 25, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1495-S1498]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE PRESIDENT'S PERFORMANCE

  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I will not direct my address to the 
President's 
[[Page S1496]] speech last night. But I have been planning for some 
time to make a few remarks regarding the President's performance, with 
emphasis on the things that I think are important to the future of this 
country.
  We get so bound up here in our considerations on the Senate floor, in 
our committee work, and in our speeches back home that I think we 
sometimes do not really sort out the wheat from the chaff and try at 
least in our mind's eye to go 10, 15, or 20 years in the future, and 
look back to see what was really important to the people that was 
passed by any administration. What has effect 15 years down the road 
for every family, every child, the elderly, the young --everyone in our 
whole society? What then should be relegated to trivial footnotes of 
history? It seems as though quite often we concentrate on things that 
in history's 20-20 hindsight will be but trivia, while in the future we 
will live with the important things that were passed in any 
administration. I think we need to consider the Clinton administration 
in that light.
  The October 24 issue of Time magazine had a little graph that showed 
that this President, President Clinton, had passed and signed into law 
more of his stated agenda than any other President since Lyndon Johnson 
and before that back to Dwight Eisenhower. In other words, it was the 
most successful first 2 years--not quite 2 years, but the first 20 
months--of accomplishing an announced agenda since President Dwight 
Eisenhower.
  That is a proud record quite apart from all the trivia and all the 
ups and downs of charges against the President that I think will wind 
up as small print footnotes later, trivia, in history.
  What we are talking about here is doing rather than talking. It seems 
to me people tend to ignore the record of what was done, what has been 
accomplished in this first 2 years. Too many on the other side keep 
talking about doing some of these things that are already under way, 
that are already being accomplished by this administration.
  I can go through some examples of this. The economy has never been 
better. We have the lowest unemployment in 4 years, and the budget 
deficit has come down 3 years in a row. That is not something for the 
future. This is being done now with the economic policies of this 
administration. We remember the reconciliation vote in August of the 
first year of this President's tenure in office. There was not a single 
Republican vote, not one, that we could get here in the Senate to pass 
that reconciliation. In fact, the Vice President had to break the tie 
on that vote. There were dire predictions by some on the other side 
that there was going to be massive unemployment. In fact, all the other 
things that were brought up at that time that have not occurred. The 
economy remains in good shape. I repeat this is the first time we will 
have reduced the budget deficit since the administration of Harry 
Truman-- 3 years of reducing the budget deficit.
  How about the size of Government? When this administration came in, 
we had a lot of publicity and talk about reinventing Government. But it 
was not all talk; a lot of things were also put into effect. Some 300 
different programs have been cut in the last 2 years. We talk about 
reducing the size of Government, getting the Government down-sized. The 
objective stated last year was that within 3 years we would be able to 
reduce the size of the Federal work force by some 272,000 people. At 
that time, a lot of people clucked a little bit, put their tongue in 
their cheek and said, ``We will believe it when we see it.'' Well, we 
are seeing it.
  Right now, the current figure of reaching that goal of reducing the 
Federal work force by 272,000 is being accomplished. 98,000 people have 
already been cut from the Federal work force. Along with those cuts--
and I worked with the administration on this as chairman of the 
Governmental Affairs Committee--has come something else. Formerly, the 
Federal work force was all skewed to bosses and there was not enough 
employees in many departments and agencies. In other words, the boss-
to-employee ratio was not what it is in private business, academia, or 
anywhere. In businesses across the country, the ratio of managers to 
employees is 1 to 12 or 1 to 15. The Federal Government has drifted 
over the years to a point where it is top heavy. We have about a 1-to-7 
manager-to-employee ratio.
  At the same time we are down-sizing by 272,000, how do we manage to 
adjust the manager-to-employee ratio? We put in buyout legislation 
along with early retirements. This encourages the GS--the civil service 
ratings--GS-13's, 14's, and 15's, who are basically the managers, to 
get out. So we are simultaneously down-sizing and correcting this 
imbalance that is very wasteful and adjusting it back to a better ratio 
that will compare favorably with what is done in private industry and 
private business. We do not hear that mentioned very often. When we get 
cut down to the 272,000 level, we will have the lowest Federal 
employment since John F. Kennedy was President.
  What other things have been done during the first 2 years of this 
administration? With the administration's support, the Congress put 
through a family leave bill. Everybody talks about making a more 
family-friendly administration here in Washington, a more family-
friendly Nation. What could be more family friendly, I ask you, than 
allowing employees to have time off when there is a bereavement in the 
family, when somebody is sick, or when there is a birth in the family? 
These are times when a person's attention should flow to the family and 
be concentrated on the family.
  Once again, there were all sorts of dire predictions of what would 
happen if we passed this legislation. So there was one exemption put in 
that said if you have key employees, and taking those key employees out 
for family leave would hurt the business, they were exempted. But the 
regular rung of employees in a company that can be filled in for on a 
temporary basis, they would have the right to help take care of their 
families if there is sickness, or a mother or father needs help, or if 
a child is ill, or whatever.
  This administration is expanding Head Start. We now have an extra 
200,000 young people in this country that have access to the benefits 
of the Head Start Program. Last evening the President talked about his 
National Service Program. This program is a helping hand. It is a 
program where people are doing constructive things for their community 
and reaping some benefit for it. I have talked to some of those people 
and they are proud of what they are doing under these Government 
programs.
  I submit that, once again, going into the future some 15 or 20 years, 
we will look back and many of those people will be in productive work 
because of the opportunity they were given at this time. I would be 
very surprised, if we took that view in the future and actually 
determined the past cost, if this program had not been something of 
benefit for the Government. Those people will be so much more 
productive. They will be paying taxes and will be productive citizens. 
Even more important will be the fact that their lives have been 
enriched, and they will be participating citizens in the future of this 
country. What can be more important than that?
  In another area, the college loan program has been expanded. The 
potential is there for some 20 million people to have the advantage of 
a college education over the next few years.
  For communities, there is a community development bank that has been 
provided. These are not things where we are just talking about it as 
though we had to do something in the future; these are things actually 
being done. They are being accomplished now. They are accomplishments 
of the first 2 years of this administration. These are not pie-in-the-
sky things. These are things where the new administration made these 
proposals, worked with Congress, and we got them through.
  I think the news media concentrate on the trivia of history to the 
exclusion of some of the good things that have gotten through for which 
the President should get due credit as accomplishments achieved during 
the administration's first couple of years. Yet, too often we find the 
other side talking as though nothing has been done in these areas.
  We want to cut the size of Government. It is being done, my friends. 
It is being done now--and ahead of schedule. There has been a 98,000 
reduction in the Federal work force already, but 272,000 was the goal, 
and that is coming.
   [[Page S1497]] Have we gotten everything done? Not by a long shot. 
We are just seeing the beginning of GATT. I have not mentioned that. 
International trade is now being addressed. This is controversial. We 
have a lot of people in my State of Ohio, and some were for GATT and 
some were against GATT. I submit that we have moved into such an 
economic situation in the world that had we not finally terminated 
negotiations and gotten an agreement on GATT, we would have placed 
ourselves at a great disadvantage down the road.
  To give an example of what I am talking about, if we went back to a 
New England village 100 years ago or so, it probably made very little 
difference whether anyone came through that village from one year to 
the next. The buggy-maker was on one corner, the cobbler or the 
shoemaker was over on another corner, most people had a garden out 
behind the house, and there were vegetables grown out in the valley. It 
was basically a self-sufficient community that took care of itself. 
People took care of people; the community took care of its local 
community. Now, what happened? Then we developed out of that village, 
and the cobbler, in effect, became all of New England and parts of the 
South. The buggy-maker became Detroit, and the Imperial Valley in 
California became the supplier for the whole Nation, as our means of 
shipping were expanded. Then we developed even further, and what 
happened? The buggy-maker that was in Detroit became 30 percent 
Japanese, and the cobbler became Korea and Italy, and our food was sent 
all over the world, with hundreds of millions of tons being shipped 
everywhere.
  In other words, we became, whether we like it or not, a worldwide 
community. And the question is, are we going to move into GATT and 
participate and be the competitive Americans that we have always been, 
or are we going to ask for protection in a world that is moving toward 
international relationships?
  I think it is to the President's credit that he moved us into GATT. 
GATT was not something that was supported by just this President alone, 
but he brought it to its final culmination, and we got it through. GATT 
had been going on over the last two Republican administrations. It has 
been negotiated over a lengthy period of time. But it was brought to 
fruition, and now we have this agreement that I think will be a 
pattern, not perfect, that we can follow into the future.
  Now, have we accomplished everything that needs to be accomplished? 
Certainly not. There was a lot that did not get done in the first 2 
years. Certainly health care is one that always comes up about what a 
great failure it was. Well, I think, in looking back on what happened 
here, the concentration on health care last year was not all a 
disaster, for this reason:
  For the first time we had a concentrated debate, concentrated 
attention on health care reform. Because of the efforts of the 
President and the First Lady, there was attention focused on health 
care all through last year. Maybe it excluded some other things.
  But was it a total loss? No; I do not think it was. Because what 
happened was the health care community, the health care providers, 
those in the health care industry, took a new look at themselves. They 
took a new look at themselves and said, maybe we can do better, and 
felt that they should do better or something was going to happen to 
them.
  So we find HMO's being formed and we find hospitals cooperating for 
the first time with other hospitals, not just in competition but 
working together to see whether they cannot share equipment and cut 
costs down. We find doctors' groups moving to HMO's. We find all sorts 
of things going on in the medical industry, the health provider 
industry, that are good, largely as a result of the concentration on 
health care during the past year.
  I do not want to be a Pollyanna about this and say that we solved our 
health care problems. Far from it. We have yet to address many 
problems, and they are still out there waiting to be addressed, because 
we have many millions of Americans that do not have health care 
insurance yet. But I would say that the costs are beginning to level 
off a little bit from what some of the predictions indicated because of 
the attention that was put on the industry last year and because of the 
action they have taken to try to reduce health care costs. So that is 
one that we have yet to deal with.
  There are environmental concerns that we have not yet addressed. Last 
night, the President spoke of several other issues that have not been 
addressed such as lobbying reform, political reform and campaign 
finance reform.
  There are two other issues that we are in the process of addressing. 
One of the two other objectives set early on in the administration was 
congressional compliance with the laws that apply to everyone. We voted 
that out of here. It went to the White House and the signing was just 
the day before yesterday. I participated in that signing. This 
legislation is something that I have pushed on the Senate floor since 
1978 and it has taken all this time to get it through. Senator Grassley 
and Senator Lieberman took the lead in drafting this legislation 
through our Committee on Governmental Affairs last year and we almost 
had it through last fall.
  Those who would somehow seem to eliminate all past considerations as 
though this legislation was something brand new that was passed just 
because there was a change of political leadership in the Congress have 
not looked back to see the long history of what has happened in getting 
to the point where we are now. Had there not been some of the delays 
occasioned in the last 10 weeks of the past session, where nothing was 
being let through, we probably would have had congressional coverage 
legislation last fall.
  I would say the same with unfunded mandates, the bill that is on the 
floor right now. Unfunded mandates is another one that my colleague 
Senator Kempthorne from Idaho has taken a lead on. I have worked with 
him on this. We had a bill through committee last fall, S. 993, but, 
once again, because of the delays, we could not get it on the floor. We 
even finally tried to do it by unanimous consent. We could not do that 
last fall in the last few days of the session, so that did not get 
passed. So we are addressing that now.
  This legislation also has a long history over the last couple of 
years of being addressed under the leadership of the distinguished 
Senator from Idaho. And he has done a great job. It has been an honor 
for me to work with him on this legislation. We remain as committed as 
ever to getting it passed. We are involved now in some of the 
difficulties in getting it through.
  There were delays in committee. We were not permitted to bring up 
amendments in committee, so we are trying to address those amendments 
here on the floor right now to correct some discrepancies in the bill 
and to make the bill better and workable. So we will work through this.
  But I wanted to take this opportunity, since there were some comments 
made about the President's speech last night, to make these few remarks 
here today on the floor about the accomplishments of the first 2 years 
of this administration. I personally think the President can be very 
proud of these first 2 years.
  As I started off saying, Time magazine in the October 24 issue showed 
a bar chart of accomplishments of the announced agenda of Presidents 
going clear back to Dwight Eisenhower, since World War II. This 
President has the best record of getting through what he said he would 
do since Lyndon Johnson, who came in on the heels of the Kennedy 
assassination, had a great wave of support at that time, and going 
beyond that back to Dwight Eisenhower, who was trying to reform things 
after World War II and had the support of the people in that effort.
  So I think this is a Presidency in which we can be proud of its 
accomplishments. Did the administration accomplish everything they 
wanted? No, certainly not. There was a mammoth effort on health care 
last year that did not result in everything they wanted, and we still 
have to deal with that.
  But I wanted to set the record straight on what I think will be in 
the mind's eye, looking back 20 years from now or 15 years from now, as 
to what is affecting my family, your family, our children, our mothers 
and fathers, and so on. What, in this first 2 years, will be the 
important things that are affecting lives across this country? And 
[[Page S1498]] if we look at it from that vantage point in the years to 
come, it seems to me that we will be living with a lot of very, very 
important things. We will have had a stable economy during this time; 
we will have had a new relationship in trade that we can expand; the 
crime bill--I did not mention that; that is one that affects us 
everywhere we live--family leave, Head Start, national service. These 
are programs that are good. They are programs that I have been glad to 
be a part of helping put through here in the Congress.
  Mr. President, I believe we are ready to move on some other items 
here. I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I had asked that we go into morning business. I ask 
that we return to regular order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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