[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 118 (Thursday, July 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10329-S10330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              RESCISSIONS

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will manage the minority leader's 
time. Mr. President, I want to respond to the majority leader in a very 
positive, and by no means personal, way.
  Mr. President, first of all, I thank the majority leader. He is quite 
right. There have been negotiations that have gone on for some time. I 
believe that we would be ready very soon to go forward on the 
rescissions package.
  There were several issues. The majority leader has now been working 
with us. We have agreed to have debate on a number of amendments--one 
dealing with the low-income energy assistance, 

[[Page S10330]]
and the second one, which I really want to talk about and hope that 
there will be some change and restore some of the funding for this 
program. The other has to do with the job training and education 
programs.
  Mr. President, the only disagreement--and I believe it will be worked 
out--has to do with a counseling program which, I say to my colleague 
from Missouri, I would like to talk about for a long time. I will not, 
because other colleagues want to speak, and I will get a chance to 
speak later.
  This is an interesting program, Mr. President. The ratio, Members 
will like this, of paid staff to beneficiaries is 1 to 2,000. It is not 
topped down. It is out in the States. This is a program that is 
extremely important. It is what we are all about. It is basically a few 
paid staff that in turn nurture a lot of volunteers that in turn 
provide seniors with just basic information about their health care 
coverage. People sometimes find that bewildering, and sometimes there 
is unfortunately some ripoff when it comes to supplementary Medicare 
coverage. It is extremely successful.
  The majority leader said last night, and he is quite correct, that he 
has now been working with us and actually is helping me to restore the 
funding to this program. It does not require a lot of resources. We are 
talking about restoring $5 million. It was a $10 million program. By 
the way, Mr. President, sometimes these numbers seem small to Members 
but this program makes a huge and positive impact in the lives of a 
good many very vulnerable citizens.
  The only confusion and disagreement was that I was waiting for the 
reprogramming of this. I thank the White House for their help. I 
certainly would like to thank the minority leader. What I wanted to be 
careful about, and this just simply had not been worked out yet, is 
that the reprogramming was not a ``rob Peter to pay Paul.'' I did not 
want to take this money from another program that was extremely 
helpful, for example, to seniors.
  So, Mr. President, the only delay, and I think it is a very slight 
delay, and I see no reason why we cannot go forward, is to make sure we 
have a reprogramming done. I also wanted to make sure that my 
colleagues had some understanding on appropriations. I mean, both the 
majority chair of the committee, Senator Hatfield, and the minority 
chair, Senator Byrd, I wanted to make sure that they were fully 
apprised of where we were going on the reprogramming. That just did not 
happen last night. That is the one missing piece. It all goes together. 
There would not be a need for a third amendment if we work that out. I 
think we will.
  Mr. President, I will just say what I have said all along, which is--
I am speaking for myself; I think Senator Moseley-Braun would say the 
same thing--we really believed that it was important that the bill not 
just go through here without some debate and discussion. We wanted an 
opportunity to have some amendments. We have agreed to a limited time. 
We are ready to go forward, and I think we can.
  Again, I say to the majority leader and I say to colleagues, at this 
point in time we have one piece to work out. I believe that will happen 
this morning. I see there is no reason why we cannot get the 
reprogramming part taken care of--that will be the piece that the 
majority leader and I are now working together on, which is of course 
always the best way to proceed, if you can--and then we will have a 
limit, time limit on two amendments that will deal with the two other 
areas. Then we will have a vote.
  Mr. President, I say this morning because I am quite confident that 
we can move forward and I will be ready to do so when the majority 
leader is ready to do so. We will just wait to work this out on the 
reprogramming part, and then we should be ready to go. That is what we 
have been aiming for all along.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

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