[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 27, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14396-S14401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          INTERNATIONAL TRADE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, inasmuch as the Senate is in morning 
business, I would like to say a few words about the subject of 
international trade.
  I, along with several of my colleagues, today had lunch with Eamonn 
Fingleton, the author of a new book called Blind Side, which describes 
in very interesting and provocative terms our trade strategy, our trade 
relationships with Japan and others.
  It reminded me again of what is happening this year with respect to 
trade. Our fiscal policy deficit, the budget deficit this year will be 
somewhere around $160 billion, we are told. Our merchandise trade 
deficit, however, will be close to $200 billion, a new record, the 
highest in the history of this country.
  When you talk about international trade, the minute you discuss it 
people begin to yawn. There is rarely thoughtful discussion about trade 
policy in this Chamber, or in the other body; rarely any thoughtful 
notion that I can discern in Washington, DC, about what our trade 
policy ought to be.
  The minute you start talking about the fact that our current trade 
strategy is injuring this country, you get turned off. You are tagged 
as some sort of a protectionist, xenophobic stooge. There are two camps 
here in trade. Either you are a free trader, you have a world view, you 
think in global terms, or you are some sort of protectionist isolation 
xenophobic. Those are the two descriptions.
  Let us evaluate that just a bit. What does a trade deficit mean? Why 
could people care about it? I have a theory about the sour mood about 
politics in this country these days. I have a theory that people are 
sour in this country because few in this Chamber, not Democrats nor 
Republicans, are addressing the central core of the issue that affects 
most families. 

[[Page S 14397]]

  Sixty percent of the American families will sit down for supper 
tonight around the table and have their family there and talk about 
their circumstances. And 60 percent of the American families will 
understand they make less money now in real terms--as adjusted for 
inflation--than they did 20 years ago.
  Why would that be the case? Why, if everything is going so well in 
this country, are more than half of the American families suffering 
from a loss of income even though they work longer hours than 20 years 
ago?
  At least part of it, in my judgment, is the construct of 
international trade. Since the Second World War we had a foreign policy 
and a trade policy that were married. The Second World War left Europe 
and Japan in tatters. War-torn Europe needed to be rebuilt. We did 
that. We pitched in a significant way and helped rebuild it. Japan was 
decimated, and we helped to rebuild Japan, too.
  In the first 25 years of the post-World War II period we could not 
only help them rebuild but we could largely construct a trade policy in 
which we say, ``By the way, ship all your goods here. It is not a 
problem.'' We were so strong and we were so big that we could compete 
with one hand tied behind our back. We were the biggest. We were the 
best. We won, and nobody could out-trade us and nobody could outproduce 
us. We won hands down.
  All during that 25-year period after the Second World War incomes 
were on the rise in this country. Our economy expanded and improved. 
And so did opportunity and incomes for the American family.
  Then what happened? Europe became a competitor. The European 
countries became tough and shrewd competitors. Japan grew up to be a 
tough economic competitor. And we still had the same old trade policy, 
a foreign policy masquerading as a trade policy. We still allow the 
circumstances to exist where we said our market is open to you but it 
does not matter that your market is closed to us.

  That is a fine relationship. We do not want to offend them so we just 
keep doing what we are doing. Meanwhile, corporations, many of which no 
longer say the Pledge of Allegiance and no longer sing the national 
anthem, but have become international conglomerates responsible only to 
the stockholders, have decided they would like, under the construct of 
this trade policy, to decide what is good for them.
  What is good for them? Well, what is good for them is to produce 
where it is cheap. Take your product and find a way to produce it in 
Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and then bring it 
back to the United States to an established marketplace where people 
have money to spend and sell it in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Fargo, 
and Denver.
  The problem with that is you disconnect. You move jobs away from 
America, offshore, overseas, so corporations can maximize profits, then 
ship the product back into our country. Then what you have is a 
wholesale loss of jobs in America and eventually a loss of income in 
this country.
  Manufacturing jobs are on the decrease in this country. Oh, the last 
couple years we have seen a small increase. After having lost millions 
and millions of manufacturing jobs, we have seen several hundred 
thousand additional jobs over the last few years. That is fine. But it 
does not replace the manufacturing base we have consistently lost.
  We have the folks who keep score down at the Federal Reserve Board 
and elsewhere in the Government. We have economists who are in the 
engine room or the boiler room of this ship of state and they read the 
little meters and gauges and dials, and they keep score by saying every 
month: Gee, America is really doing well. We are consuming this much; 
we are consuming that much; we are buying this much.
  All of it is consumption. All the indices of progress in this country 
are how much did we spend; how much did we consume.
  These economists and others who sit down there--I have said before 
they could sit in a concrete bunker. They need not ever see the Sun. 
They could sit in a concrete bunker and read these little numbers of 
theirs and give us all this nonsense about how healthy we are because 
of what we spend. It is not what we consume, it is what we produce that 
represents the economic base of progress in this country.
  It is interesting; the economic model, the basis for what economists 
tell us. For instance, when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and decimated 
that State, guess what? Their model, of course, does not measure 
damage. So they said that Hurricane Andrew contributed a one-half of 1 
percent growth to the gross domestic product of America because all 
they count is the repairmen who came in and rebuilt the houses, not the 
damage that destroyed them.
  Take another example; A car accident outside this building this 
afternoon. Somebody runs into another car. Economists call that 
economic growth because somebody is going to get to fix the fender.
  We do not need that sort of nonsense to tell us what is going on in 
the country. They can talk about consumption until they are blue, these 
economists. The fact is our country has lost economic strength because 
jobs have moved offshore, overseas.
  What has happened with the balance of trade as a result of all of 
this going on? Let us take a look at it regionally.
  First, let us look at Japan. We have a $65 billion trade deficit with 
Japan--$65 billion. That means things are produced in Japan and sold 
here. Jobs that used to be here are now in Japan. It means income from 
the American consumer goes to Japan in the form of profits.
  Is that healthy for our country? Of course not. Should we have this 
kind of trade deficit with Japan? Of course, we should not. Then why do 
we have it? Because we do not have the will to say to the Japanese: 
Look, if you want to ship your goods to America, God bless you; we want 
our consumers to have the widest range of choices from all goods 
produced in this world, but we expect something from you in return. You 
must have your markets wide open to American producers and American 
workers as well. And if you do not, then you will not find open markets 
here. We need reciprocal trade policies that say to other countries: 
straighten up. If you want to access the American marketplace, then 
your marketplace must be open to America. We insist, literally demand 
fair trade. We demand it. But we have not had the will or the strength 
or the interest to even begin talking in those terms with Japan.
  It costs $30 a pound to buy T-bone in Tokyo, T-bone steak. The 
Japanese want a lot of it. They would like to buy a lot of it. Why is 
it so expensive? Because they do not have enough beef produced in 
Japan. So will they buy sufficient quantities of American beef? They 
are buying more now because we have a beef agreement with Japan. And 
all those folks who negotiated it almost jumped right out of their 
cowboy boots with the success. They almost thought they should demand a 
medal because of the successful agreement with Japan.
  Guess what? When the agreement is finally phased in over the years, 
there will remain a 50-percent tariff on all American beef going into 
Japan. And we consider that a success because our expectations are so 
low with respect to what Japan will allow into their marketplace.
  We ought not consider those things success. We ought to demand of 
countries like Japan that have such an enormous trade surplus with us 
that their market must be open to us or we will take action. We ought 
not accept this one-way trade anymore.
  What about China? China now has a $30 billion trade surplus with us, 
or we a $30 billion deficit with them. We are a sponge for Chinese 
shoes and shirts and trinkets and goods. They move all their goods to 
America and we are a cash cow for the Chinese, who need hard currency.
  Now, China needs to buy some airplanes. Guess what? Does China go to 
the American plane companies, Boeing, for example, and say: By the way, 
we need to buy some planes from you. No, that is not what they do. They 
go to Boeing and they say: We are interested in some airplanes, on the 
condition, of course, that you manufacture those airplanes in China.
  This country ought to say to China: Wait a second. You do not 
understand how this works. You want America to be a sponge for all you 
produce. Then when you need something that we 

[[Page S 14398]]
have, you buy it here. That is responsibility. And that is what we 
expect from you, China.
  China needs grain. They need more wheat. They are off price shopping 
in Venezuela and Canada when they are running a $30 billion trade 
surplus with us.
  It is time for this country to have a little nerve and demand of 
other countries reciprocal trade policies that are fair.
  Now NAFTA. We had people who had apoplectic seizures over this NAFTA 
debate in the Senate in recent years. We had economists that were out 
waving their arms on the steps of the Senate talking about 270,000 new 
jobs if we would just construct a new trade agreement with Mexico--
270,000 new jobs. What is the record?
  The record is that the year before the free trade agreement with 
Mexico was negotiated we had a $2 billion surplus with the country of 
Mexico. We had a $2 billion trade surplus the year before the Mexican 
free trade agreement. This year it will be a $18 billion deficit. I 
would like to round up all of those disciples of this trade agreement 
somewhere up near the Capitol and have them explain one by one what has 
happened.
  What has happened? We know what has happened. All the jobs are moving 
south, two or three plants every single day being approved. They are 
moving to maquiladora plants over on the Mexican side because that is 
where you can get cheap labor; you can still pollute; and you can 
produce and ship back to America. It is not the kind of goods that we 
were talking about when NAFTA was developed.
  You take a look at what is causing our trade deficit with Mexico. It 
is automobiles, automobile parts, electronics; it is high technology 
goods, good jobs. And that is the problem. If you do not want to get 
technical with NAFTA, just travel across the United States-Mexican 
border and you will find you cannot get a raw potato across the Mexican 
border. Lord only knows why. You just cannot. Mexico will not allow one 
American raw potato across the border. But guess what? Even as U.S. raw 
potatoes are stopped going south, just watch tons of Mexican french 
fried potatoes going north. I would like to get the folks who 
negotiated that agreement in this building and ask them why.
  The devil is always in the details, whether it is potatoes or 
airplanes or beef or cars. But in the aggregate, the question this 
country needs to start asking Mexico, Japan, China, and others is: Will 
you not decide for a change that as a condition of trade, if you expect 
to enter the American marketplace, you will open your markets to 
American goods, American workers, and American producers? If you do 
not, then this country is going to reconstruct its trade model.

  We as a country do not have to continue down this path. We do not 
have to believe this corporate baloney that they need to produce in Sri 
Lanka to be competitive. We can decide there is an admission price to 
the American economy, the American marketplace. The admission price is: 
you have to give a living wage, you cannot pollute the water, and you 
cannot hire 12-year-old kids to work 12 hours a day and work for 12 
cents an hour. That is not fair trade. And we should not expect the 
American worker or the American corporation to compete against that.
  You say, ``Well, all that is abstract.'' Well, talk to the people who 
testified before the Senate who described little kids making carpets, 
with needles going through the carpet cutting all their fingertips, 
causing them to miss work. What do you think the carpet-makers would do 
so these children do not miss days of work? They would take the 
fingertips of these 10- and 12-year-old kids, and they would put 
gunpowder on them and set them afire so that they eventually scar these 
fingertips. They do this so that eventually when these little kids who 
are working with needles on carpets it will not hurt because their scar 
tissue is so big it will not hurt. Then they will not lose time and cut 
themselves on the needles.
  The products made by those kids come to the American marketplace. We 
are told by economists this is a wonderful thing because it is cheap. 
The American consumer can buy cheap foreign goods.
  What about the two girls who testified not so long ago about the 
designer-label blouses made in Honduras by kids working 14 hours a day, 
are not permitted to go to the bathroom. Then the blouses are shipped 
to a shop in New York to be sold under a designer label to American 
women shopping for blouses.
  Do you think someone shopping for a blouse in this country should 
expect to buy the product made by a 12- or 14-year-old kept in a plant 
for 16, 18 hours, who is paid less than 40 cents an hour, $1 an hour? 
You think that? I do not think that is fair trade. I do not think we 
ought to expect that in this country.
  I am not suggesting that we build walls around our country and I am 
not suggesting that we ought to develop a strategy in which we decide 
the rest of the world does not matter. I am saying this country ought 
not stand for being kicked around anymore. We are big enough and strong 
enough to insist that the central issue in this country still must be 
jobs.
  When we ask American workers to compete against others, it ought to 
be fair. They cannot compete and should not compete if they are 
competing with 2 or 3 billion people that are willing to earn 20 cents 
or 60 cents an hour and work in unsafe conditions and work 16 hours a 
day. We have got to start caring about keeping jobs in this country.
  There are dozens of ways to do that. We have a perverse little tax 
incentive in our Tax Code that I have been trying to get changed for 
years which rewards companies who take their jobs elsewhere, close 
their plant in America, move it overseas to a tax haven, make the same 
product, and then ship it back to Nashville, TN. And we say, ``Guess 
what? We're going to reward you for shutting down your plant. You get a 
tax incentive and you get to defer income tax on the profits you make 
in that plant until repatriation. Just close your American plant, move 
overseas, hire foreigners rather than Americans, and we say, `Hosanna, 
hallelujah. You get a tax break.'"
  I mean, if you cannot fix that little thing and take the first step 
on the road to saying that creating jobs is important in this country; 
then, by taking that step saying that the production base is important 
to this country's future, there is not a chance, in my judgment, to 
respond to the real concerns of Americans.
  The real concern of American families I think is the opportunity for 
themselves and their children to have a good job with decent income and 
a future of hope and opportunity. It is time--long past the time, in my 
judgment--where Republicans and Democrats should decide together that 
we need a new strategy.
  We need a new Bretton Woods conference, a new set of designs on 
international finance and international trade relationships that does 
not represent foreign policy. A strategy that represents some semblance 
of national interests for us in our country, not to the exclusion of 
everything else, but at least to stand up and say what happens in our 
country to our jobs and our productive sector matters.
  I said last week that, you know, next year we are going to have an 
Olympics. And it is going be on American soil this time. You know what 
will happen? We will put all these young athletes, trim and wonderful 
athletes, in these red, white and blue uniforms. The country will yell 
like crazy in support of our athletes. I will be among them.
  I love the Olympics. I want our team to do well. But is it not 
interesting that we are willing to become so involved in national 
competition, in an international event on an athletic field, and we are 
so uninterested, as leaders, in the question of how well we compete in 
the area of economic growth and jobs?
  After all, this is a circumstance where there is international 
economic competition and there are winners and losers. And the winners, 
which have been Japan, Germany, and others, will experience a future of 
growth, opportunity, and expansion. And the losers, subject to the 
British disease, which is long, slow, economic decline stemming from a 
philosophy that what you consume is a reflection of future economic 
health. This is a philosophy rooted, in my judgment, in the most 
confounding, confusing doctrine that I have ever heard. All the 
economics I 

[[Page S 14399]]
have studied--I studied some and taught some economics in college--
tells me that the source of long-term economic health in this country 
is our production.
  If you lose a manufacturing base, if you lose your productive sector, 
if you lose your ability to produce real things, you will not long be a 
world economic power. You will not long dominate in world commerce. And 
that is why it is not too late for this country to decide it is time 
for a new national economic strategy, not one of protectionism.
  Although if you want to use the word ``protection'' in a pejorative 
way, I am not so interested in the typical debate. However, if you want 
to use the word ``protection'' to mean protecting the economic 
interests of this country, count me in, because that is one of the 
reasons I am here. But we have to define some new economic strategy 
that tries to preserve our manufacturing base and tries to decide that 
our marketplace and our manufacturing base are important national 
assets. Assets that represent the opportunity for expansion and hope 
for the American family.
  The course we are on, the path that led to the largest trade deficits 
in history, a wholesale loss of American jobs overseas, is a 
destructive course, one that is wrong for our country. And I think it 
is part of the undercurrent of all the angst out there in the country 
with families knowing this is not working. This is a model that might 
make international corporations wealthy but people who do not have jobs 
are poor. It means a future of less opportunity for them. That is what 
I think is at work in this country. I know it is not quite as simple as 
all of that, but that, I think, plays a major role.
  You know something? All the things we do in this Chamber, over all of 
these months, all ignore that central fact. There has not been, in my 
judgment, one day of thoughtful, interesting debate about the central 
economic tenant of our times, and that is the issue of what the global 
economy means to the future of America, to the future of American 
families and American workers.
  Mr. President, there are some who will say that I am truly a broken 
record, and that is fine with me because I want to continue to repeat 
month after month what I think is one of the most serious problems we 
face in this country. And, along with recommendations, I want to be 
sure that we finally debate and we finally come to grips with the need 
for a new economic national strategy that moves our country forward. I 
want a strategy that gives our country an opportunity to win once 
again.
  Mr. President, having spoken for the full 10 minutes in morning 
business, I now yield back the entire balance of my time.
  Mr. President, I would suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business for no more than 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning business is in order.
  Mr. BURNS. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Burns pertaining to the introduction of S. 1278 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, Howard Schroeder first encountered southern 
Delaware during his Army service in World War II. His job was to 
protect the coast, which he did by applying his military training and 
muscle to help lay mines in the bay, and by applying his artist's eye 
and talent to help record the landscape of the area.
  Some of those first Schroeder landscapes remain on display today in 
the Lewes, DE, public library and middle school, testaments to a love 
affair that lasted a lifetime.
  Even beyond a lifetime--when he died at his Lewes home on Friday, 
September 8, at the age of 84, Howard's family announced that, in 
accordance with his wishes, his ashes would be scattered over the sand 
dunes and in the water at nearby Cape Henlopen State Park.
  The people of my State take great comfort in knowing that Howard 
Schroeder is still guarding our coast, not only in the resting place he 
chose but in the legacy of his love for the beaches, the small towns, 
the fishing boats, the marshes, the old buildings, the people--
everything that is the beauty and heart of Delaware's coastline.
  It is a recorded legacy of work, literally thousands of sketches and 
paintings that, as one Delaware reporter wrote, ``virtually define our 
mental image'' of parts of our State. Howard said that he was always 
``looking for the unspoiled,'' and he was able to find it, and to share 
it, not because he knew where to look but because he knew how to look.
  It is a living legacy of teaching, because Howard Schroeder was, 
always, inspired to inspire others. He taught at the St. Andrew's 
School, at the Rehoboth Art League, which he had served as president, 
and in workshops that he founded in towns through Kent and Sussex 
Counties. He started the Artists' Sketch Group to help local artists 
bring out the best in each other, and he was a founding member of the 
Sussex County Arts Council.
  He was, as his friend and fellow artist Jack Lewis wrote, ``a 
champion for the arts,'' and his drive to teach wherever there was 
someone willing to learn has left a permanent and deep imprint on the 
artistic community in and well beyond Delaware.
  Howard Schroeder's personal legacy is rich in family and friends. His 
wife, Marian, was his partner in every way, including the years she and 
Howard sold his work at their Rehoboth Beach art supply and gift store. 
Together, they raised six children, at a time when it was, as Jack 
Lewis said, ``unheard of'' to make a family living on an artist's 
earnings. Marian and Howard succeeded in doing the unheard of.
  Their son John, a Delaware State legislator, published a biography of 
his father, and remembers Howard as working until late at night in his 
studio but always making time for his children. Daughter Carole 
memorialized her father in a poem, in which she wrote:

     ``You showed me the beauty of life
     Through your music and your art
     Through history and words of prose
     But mostly, by living it.''

  Howard shared his life's lessons also with sons Stephen, Howard, and 
Robert and daughter Gail, with their families, and with countless 
fortunate friends and admirers.
  Mr. President, Howard Schroeder worked all over the world, he was 
profiled on national television, he was raised in the Bronx and in 
northern New Jersey. But he chose Delaware, and we remember him, 
gratefully, as a Delaware State treasure, a treasure that we were proud 
to share in his lifetime and that I am proud to share, and to honor, in 
the Senate today.
  Howard Schroeder was a neighbor with a special gift to see, and to 
teach us to see, the unspoiled in our own backyard. By his vision and 
his talent, and by the sincerity of his love, he led us to the best in 
ourselves, which may well be the greatest accomplishment and 
contribution of all.


                          ON THE NEW $100 BILL

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today, the Treasury Department is unveiling 
a newly designed 1996 series $100 bill that incorporates many state-of-
the-art anticounterfeiting features. I commend Secretary Rubin and the 
Treasury Department. Today's unveiling at the Treasury Department 
starts the process of reassuring the public, both here and abroad, of 
the abiding strength and integrity of our currency. That process will 
continue through next year when the new $100 bills in the 1996 series 
are circulated for the first time.
  This country faces a serious challenge from new technologies that 
enable counterfeiters to turn out excellent reproductions. 
Unfortunately, U.S. currency has been among the most susceptible to 
counterfeiting in the world. Although updated in 1990 with a deterrent 
security strip, our bills have not had the watermarks or sophisticated 
dying and engraving techniques that other countries use to defeat 
counterfeiters. 

[[Page S 14400]]

  In the past two Congresses, I have introduced, with Senator John 
Kerry, legislation to address the growing problem of hi-tech 
counterfeiting. I am delighted that the Treasury has adopted many of 
the features we have been recommending.
  According to the Secret Service, which has from its inception been 
combatting counterfeiting, the counterfeiting of U.S. currency has 
increased dramatically in recent years. Over the past 5 years, the 
Secret Service seized an average of $58 million annually within the 
United States. But in the first 4 months of 1995, alone, the Service 
seized more than $50 million in counterfeit U.S. currency. Likewise, 
seizure of counterfeit U.S. currency overseas has increased fourfold to 
$120.7 million in 1993 and $137.7 million in 1994.
  I know from personal experience the impact that counterfeiting has 
had on acceptance of our currency abroad. Over the summer, I took a 
trip with my family to Ireland. I carried with me a few $100 bills just 
in case some places did not accept travelers' checks. To my surprise, I 
found more places that refused to accept my $100 bills. Let there be no 
doubt, counterfeiters undermine confidence in our currency.
  Senator Kerry and I first introduced our legislation in May 1994, to 
stop counterfeiters from using fake American currency as a free meal 
ticket. Our bill would have required the Secretary of the Treasury to 
design a new $100 bill that incorporates some of the counterfeit-
resistant features, such as watermarks, multicolored dyes, and 
sophisticated engraving techniques.
  We were encouraged last summer when then-Treasury Secretary Bentsen 
announced plans for modernizing U.S. currency with new deterrence 
features. The results of that modernization effort are reflected in the 
newly-designed 1996 series $100 bill.
  I examined one of these new bills earlier this week. To defeat hi-
tech counterfeiting technology, this bill has a watermark, and color-
shifting ink, new microprinting that requires a magnifying glass to 
see, and concentric, fine-line moire patterns that are difficult to 
copy.
  I congratulate Secretary Rubin and the Treasury Department for 
putting this country in a better position to combat counterfeiting and 
protect our currency. I commend the National Academy of Sciences and 
the Secret Service for their efforts in connection with this project 
and thank the talented engravers, printers, and technicians who are 
bringing these changes to fruition.
  I also want to highlight a related development: the establishment of 
the Securities Technology Institute, a research facility with the Johns 
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, to assess emerging technology and 
evaluate features and additional protections for currency and other 
security documents.
  This is the most significant redesign of our currency in the last 70 
years, since the ``Big Bill'' was replaced by the ``Small William'' in 
1929. We have come a long way from the time when people could only tell 
a good Continental Congress note by the misspelling of Philadelphia. On 
the new $100 bill, the portrait of Benjamin Franklin, the father of 
paper currency in this country, and the familiar sight of Independence 
Hall remain. But they are now joined by a number of improved security 
features.
  I am delighted that this day has come and look forward to working 
with Secretary Rubin to serve our mutual goals of deterring currency 
counterfeiting and increasing confidence in our currency and our 
economy in Vermont, across the country, and around the world.

                           REMINDERS OF HOME

  Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the 
people of my beloved home State of South Dakota. The daily grind of 
life inside the beltway leaves me searching constantly for reminders of 
the sights, the sounds, and the citizens of the State I love. I always 
enjoy those moments when South Dakotans from back home visit my 
Washington, DC, office. I also look forward to the times when I can 
return to the people and the places I hold dear.
  As my colleagues know well, without the constant input I receive from 
the folks back home, we could not do our jobs effectively here in 
Congress. I am very fortunate that my fellow South Dakotans keep me in 
frequent touch with the issues of concern to them. I also enjoy the 
many letters from, and conversations with, South Dakotans regarding the 
diverse beauty of our home--the rolling fields of grain, the endless 
prairie, the majestic Black Hills, the sunsets against a backdrop sky 
of pink, orange, and purple hues, and the wide Missouri River.
  These daily visits and the calls and letters from South Dakotans mean 
a great deal to me. I cherish my home. I cherish the people of my 
State. Every day, through them, I feel a renewed pride in being South 
Dakota's U.S. Senator. Every day, through them, I am proud to be a 
South Dakotan.
  Mr. President, recently an article by Robert Pore appeared in the 
Huron, SD, Plainsman newspaper, describing many of the issues that are 
pertinent to the people of South Dakota. I would like to share these 
concerns and ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               The Mall Reminds Pressler of South Dakota

                            (By Robert Pore)

       Washington.--Every morning Sen. Larry Pressler starts his 
     day with a jog along The Mall in Washington.
       The shrines, monuments and museums alongside The Mall from 
     the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial seem a million miles away 
     from the prairies of South Dakota.
       But with a little imagination, as Pressler runs by the 
     grass and trees that line The Mall, he imagines his home 
     state and the people he represents who give meaning to his 
     job.
       ``It makes me feel like I'm in South Dakota,'' Pressler 
     said during an interview Wednesday in his office in the 
     Russell Building. ``It gives me a little time alone.''
       But along with running, Pressler seeks another form of 
     strength to cope with the rigors and demands of life in the 
     nation's capital.
       ``I belong to a weekly Senate prayer group that gets 
     together to collect our thoughts and exchange ideas on the 
     problems and promises we experience in life,'' he said.
       Pressler lives a couple of blocks from his Senate office, 
     which is located across the street from the Capitol. He said 
     work sometimes seems to be never ending, especially as he has 
     taken on the pressure of heading the Senate Commerce 
     Committee.
       But he makes a point to go home every night he can to have 
     dinner with his wife.
       ``It gives me a little time away from the Capitol,'' 
     Pressler said.
       Because Pressler holds a position of power as a committee 
     chairman and he is from a rural state, he understands that 
     the insults and jokes about him are part of the political 
     game. But at times they are personal and they hurt.
       Recent newspaper ads indicating Pressler needs to change 
     his opinion on Medicaid because it hurts people with 
     Alzheimer's disease went too far, he has said.
       ``My father died of Alzheimer's disease, so I know first 
     hand the tragedy of an illness in a family,'' he said.
       After serving South Dakota for more than 20 years in both 
     the House and Senate, Pressler always looks forward to going 
     home.
       ``We have an acreage back in Hot Springs where we hope to 
     build a vacation home,'' he said. ``We are pricing logs right 
     now, which are pretty expensive. We also have a farm near 
     Humboldt.''
       When he's not meeting with his constituents or spending 
     time with his family and friends in South Dakota, Pressler 
     also likes to ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle or his old 
     Model D John Deere tractor, especially in small-town parades.
       On his Senate office desk, Pressler has a model of his John 
     Deere tractor as a little reminder of home.
       ``I get a little fun from that,'' he said with a smile.
       What also brings a smile to Pressler's face is when he 
     meets with South Dakotans who have made their way to 
     Washington, either to vacation or to voice their concerns 
     about an important issue.
       ``It means a lot to me,'' he said. ``They are helping me do 
     my job. Whether they talk to me, my staff or another senator, 
     their presence helps our cause.''
       This week, Pressler visited with South Dakota farmers and 
     ranchers in Washington as part of the National Farmers Union 
     fly-in.
       ``Agriculture is a big industry, but it is getting smaller 
     in numbers'' he said. ``A lot of farmers have given up. 
     Therefore, it is important that they come here and see how 
     the federal government works.''
       Pressler's concern about the people who make up South 
     Dakota's No. 1 industry has deep roots going back to his 
     youth on a small family farm near Humboldt.
       ``We have to be very careful to protect our smaller family 
     farms,'' he said. ``Growing up on a family farm, I showed 
     livestock in 4-H and at the State Fair. I consider myself a 
     farmer. I'm interested in the welfare of our family farmers 
     and ranchers.''

[[Page S 14401]]

       Pressler said instead of rushing through legislation that 
     he feels would be a detriment of the state's family farming 
     heritage, he would rather see a continuing resolution that 
     will extend the 1990 Farm Bill for another year if there's an 
     impasse on farm bill legislation.
       ``Farm bills are always late because they are so 
     controversial and they require so much work,'' he said, 
     ``this year in particular because of the severe budgetary 
     crisis we are in.
       ``We have producers in South Dakota who are not in the farm 
     program, such as many of our cow-calf operators. We have to 
     think about them in terms of international trade and exports. 
     But we also have to think about the impact the huge deficit 
     has on farmers. If the deficit stays as high as it is, it 
     will mean higher interest rates.''
       ``While balancing the budget is a top priority for 
     Pressler, he doesn't want the numbers game to take priority 
     over the people he represents.
       ``I come from a family farm and I have seen how farm 
     families struggle on the land,'' he said. ``We have to be 
     very careful, but on the other hand we have to be honest with 
     people. There's a lot of stuff floating around this year from 
     the inside-the-Beltway bureaucrats. Every time we have asked 
     the bureaucrats to reorganize they have threatened to close 
     some local offices or take away some local services.''
       Pressler said the new farm bill must help producers make a 
     decent living and allow them flexibility about what and where 
     they can plant without all the hassle of government rules and 
     regulations.
       But he said the most important thing lawmakers can do when 
     writing the farm bill is to provide a framework that assists 
     beginning farmers and provides opportunities for the next 
     generation of South Dakota agricultural producers.
       During the 20 years Pressler has been in Washington, the 
     number of farms in South Dakota has dropped from 43,000 to 
     33,000 this year.
       ``When I was in 4-H there was a lot of young farmers who 
     went into farming and that was their dream,'' he said. ``But 
     nowadays many of the young 4-H'ers I talk to don't go into 
     farming or ranching. They go out of state in many cases to 
     take jobs.''
       He said technological changes are a big factor, making it 
     more expensive to get started in farming. But he said young 
     people also don't have the opportunity to borrow the seed 
     money they need.
       ``We have to be constantly tailoring some of these loan 
     programs for young farmers, change the estate tax law (which 
     I'm trying to do as a member of the Senate Finance Committee) 
     and income averaging for farmers, so young producers can get 
     started,'' Pressler said.
       Getting the message about the needs of South Dakota farmers 
     across to his colleagues is hard, especially when farmers 
     only make up about 2 percent of the nation's population of 
     700,000 plus is a mere drop in the bucket to the country's 
     260 million people.
       ``It is very, very hard because people don't want to listen 
     sometimes,'' Pressler said. ``They think that our farmers are 
     doing OK and they read about the subsidies they receive. 
     There's a lot of disinformation out there that really makes 
     my job a challenge.''

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