[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 201 (Saturday, December 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18781-S18784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND 
      RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume consideration of the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 2127, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2127) making appropriations for the 
     Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
     Education, and related agencies, for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 1996, and for other purposes.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the motion.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am sorry that we find ourselves in this 
present situation. I had thought that we could have worked out an 
agreement on Labor-HHS appropriations, whereby we would not be faced, 
again, with another cloture vote on it, but that we could have agreed 
to have brought up the bill and perhaps even passed it by voice vote.
  There have been, I know, a lot of discussions. I know my colleague, 
the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, who is the chair of the 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor and Health and Human Services, has 
been working very diligently to try to get an arrangement whereby we 
might bring this bill up and expeditiously move it so we can get 
together with the House and try to work out our differences.
  This is an important bill. It is the second largest appropriations 
bill, second only to defense. It covers not only all of the Department 
of Labor, job training programs, but it also covers education, all the 
education programs--everything from title I to college student aid. It 
covers Health and Human Services, everything from Head Start to funds 
for the operation of the Social Security system and Medicaid, plus a 
lot of related agencies, including the National Institutes of Health 
and biomedical research. Yet, this bill languishes because of the 
determination of a few to attach riders to it, riders that have no 
business being on Labor-HHS, riders which should be brought up in the 
context of an authorization and not an appropriations bill.
  Now I note for the Record, Mr. President, that other riders that have 
been put on other appropriations bills have been taken off, clearing 
them for approval to be acted on and sent down to the President. I will 
just mention three. The Treasury-Postal appropriations conference 
agreement, they dropped their effort to attach the so-called Istook 
antilobbying rider. Once this was taken off, it cleared the bill for 
approval and was sent down to the 

[[Page S18782]]
President. Also, there was agreement on a compromise on the abortion 
rider on the Defense appropriations conference report, which cleared 
for approval for both Houses and was sent to the President. I might 
point out they dropped all 17 House-approved EPA riders on the HUD-VA 
conference agreement. It passed and was sent on to the President.
  I know people attach these riders for well-intentioned purposes. They 
have a philosophy or a view or something they want to attain, but quite 
frankly all of these riders that were dropped appropriately belong not 
on appropriations bills, and cooler heads prevailed, they were dropped, 
and the bills went through. There is a rider on the Labor-HHS 
appropriations bill that cannot pass the Senate. Three times this year 
it was brought up, and it could not get enough votes for cloture and 
there are not enough votes for cloture. That is the so-called striker 
replacement provision.
  This side, I might say, earlier on was unable to pass last year, when 
the Democrats were in the majority, the striker replacement bill that 
would have prohibited companies, employers, from permanently replacing 
strikers if it was a legitimate, legal strike. We were unable to get 
that through.
  This year, the President of the United States decided, using his 
constitutional authority--and I do not think anyone has challenged that 
he does not have the legal authority to do it--implemented a policy at 
the Executive level that said that the U.S. Government, the Federal 
Government, would not engage in contracts or renew contracts with those 
entities doing business with the Federal Government if they did engage 
in permanent replacement strikers. That was challenged in the court. 
The court upheld the President.
  Now there is an attempt by some to overturn that, to say that, no, 
the President cannot do that, and that is what the rider is on the 
Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We had three votes on it this year. We 
had one vote on the first rescission bill, and we have had two on this 
bill, on the Labor HHS bill. Both times it did not have sufficient 
votes to provide for a cloture.
  You do not have to take my word for it; you can take the word of the 
distinguished majority leader. I will quote from the Congressional 
Record of September 29, 1995, when we tried to get the bill through 
before the end of the fiscal year. Senator Dole said:

       I talked with the leader about this bill, and we do waste 
     time periodically in the Senate, but this is a total waste of 
     time to continue on these two bills because they are not 
     going anywhere. I know some want to make a point. I agree 
     with the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Iowa 
     that we ought to pass that bill on a voice vote. We cannot 
     get cloture. There were two votes, 54-46, party-line votes. 
     My view is we ought to do it, pass it, and find out what 
     happens in the veto in the next round.

  I agree with Senator Dole that that is what we should have done, that 
we agree to take off that rider that they have on it, as others have 
done on other appropriations bills. I know there are some that want to 
have a debate and a vote on one or two abortion amendments. I think we 
can work that out with a time agreement, have a vote on the Senate 
floor, and move it out. So what we are engaged in now with this motion 
to proceed is just another waste of time. There will be a vote on 
Monday or Tuesday, whenever the vote is called by the majority leader, 
and they will not get cloture. It is a forgone conclusion. They will 
not get cloture, and we are right back where we started from.
  It is a shame we have to waste more time of the Senate and go through 
this exercise again. If cooler heads would just prevail and take that 
rider off, we could bring the bill out under a time agreement and 
probably get the bill passed within an hour and then sit down with the 
House and try to iron out our differences in conference.
  Mr. President, I was prepared to come to the floor to ask unanimous 
consent to proceed to H.R. 2127, the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, and 
to have it go through on a voice vote pursuant to what Senator Dole 
said on September 29. However, I am aware there is no one on the other 
side to object to my unanimous-consent proposal, so I will not offer 
that unanimous-consent in keeping with the comity of the Senate. 
Perhaps when we come back Monday and there are people, I may propound 
it again at that time, only again to show there is no objection on this 
side to bringing up the Labor-HHS bill and passing it by a voice vote 
as long as that rider is taken off. If that rider is taken off, there 
is not one objection on this side to bringing up the bill and quickly 
disposing of it.
  I wanted to take the floor to make that point in the hope that those 
who have that rider on the bill will listen to the majority leader and 
listen to Senator Specter if they do not want to listen to me and take 
that rider off, and we can get this very important bill passed before 
we, hopefully, go home for Christmas.
  Lastly, Mr. President, not in keeping with this bill--I guess it is 
somewhat in keeping with this bill--we are right now in a shutdown of 
the Government. There are those that work for the Federal Government 
that are now not going to work today and tomorrow, and I hope by Monday 
we will at least get a continuing resolution to put us through maybe 
February. It is a shame we have to do this. I hope that this weekend 
the President of the United States would exercise his authority under 
the law to provide funding for the Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance 
Program.
  Mr. President, last year this Congress, Republicans and Democrats, 
appropriated $1.3 billion to provide some assistance for low-income 
people to heat their homes during the winter. It passed with Republican 
and Democrat support. It was not a partisan issue at all. Also, earlier 
this year, Republicans and Democrats, working together, provided for a 
rescission. We rescinded $300 million of that $1.3 billion. But it 
still left $1 billion in there to help low-income people heat their 
homes in the winter.
  Because we have been under a continuing resolution, that money has 
been held up. We have not been able to get the money out for the Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

  Mr. President, I want you to know that people in Iowa, people all 
across the northern part of this country, have endured a very severe 
winter thus far. There are people in our northern States who are now 
really deciding whether they are going to buy some fuel or whether they 
are going to buy food or pay for their prescription drugs.
  As Senator Wellstone has so eloquently stated many times here, 
including yesterday--and I know he cannot be here today, he is on his 
way to Minnesota--as he pointed out, there are people right now in his 
State, and I know in my State and I know in a lot of northern States, 
living in one room of their homes. They have the oven on, because they 
are trying to cut down on their fuel bills because they do not have the 
money to pay them.
  I know in some States, the State authorities that put out the money 
for low-income heating assistance are saying they only have enough 
money to put it out in a crisis situation, and that is if an elderly 
person or low-income person has been notified that they are going to 
get cut off.
  Mr. President, 80 percent of the money we put into LIHEAP, the Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program, 80 percent of it goes to people 
with incomes of less than $8,000 a year; less than $8,000 a year. In my 
own State of Iowa there are elderly people living alone in small 
houses, in small towns--mostly women, elderly women--whose total income 
is $4,500, $5,000, $6,000 a year on Social Security. That is all they 
have. Now they are being forced to decide how they are going to pay 
their heating bills with a very cold winter upon us.
  We have a window of opportunity. The President of the United States 
has a window of opportunity. Since there is not a continuing 
resolution, we now fall back under the old law. The old law provided 
$1.3 billion. As I said, we rescinded $300 million. There is roughly 
close to a billion dollars out there that needs to be put out for low-
income heating. I am calling on the President, and I hope the President 
will as soon as possible get that money out. It has been appropriated. 
We appropriated the money last year. There is no reason to hold it up 
any longer.
  I am informed that as of this time, as of January of last year, about 
90 percent of the money appropriated for last year was put out. We are 
not anywhere 

[[Page S18783]]
even near that now. We are not even anywhere near 30 percent of the 
money being put out. Yet this is the time when people need that money.
  So I hope the President will exercise his authority and get that 
money out as soon as possible, this weekend. It is an opportunity, I 
think, for us to show, however bad this budget may seem to a lot of 
people, there are still a number of people here who care about ensuring 
that low-income and elderly people, especially, have enough money to 
heat their homes in the winter.
  I do not put this in a partisan context. Mr. President, 53 Senators 
signed a letter to the President on this very issue of getting the 
money out, and there were Republicans and Democrats on that letter. So 
I do not see it as a partisan issue, I see it as just a humane issue, 
an issue of decency and compassion. We ought to get this money out as 
soon as possible. So I hope the President of the United States will 
take this opportunity. It is sad to think we have to do something like 
this during a period of time when the Government is shut down, but we 
must take this period of time right now and get that money out so 
people can heat their homes.
  Lastly, I came across an interesting document earlier today, this 
piece of paper. I was on a radio show this morning with a small radio 
station in Iowa, Webster City, IA. There were a number of questions, 
people calling in asking, ``Why is the Government shutting down again? 
Why are we going through this again?''
  I have to tell you, maybe I am a little chauvinistic about this, but 
I happen to think my constituents, Iowans, are pretty reasonable 
people. They are pretty smart and they have a lot of common sense. One 
of the callers said, ``You had this last shutdown but the people got 
paid anyway?''
  I said ``Yes.''
  He said, ``What is the purpose of it, then?''
  I said, ``You tell me. I cannot tell you.''
  He said, ``Will the same thing happen now? If the Government is shut 
down, will these people get paid again?''
  I said, ``I suppose so. They are going to get paid. We are going to 
shut down but they will get paid anyway.''
  What is the purpose of it? It makes no sense to Iowans and makes no 
sense to me. Perhaps with this piece of paper I came across today, 
maybe it starts to make sense. This is a piece of paper dated November 
29, 1 p.m. It is called--it has a title on it, ``Building An Effective 
Government We Can Afford. Government Shutdown Project.'' That is how it 
is titled.
  I am told this piece of paper came from the Republican Caucus--
conference on the House side. It came from the leadership, from 
Congressman Gingrich's office: November 29. It says, ``Government 
Shutdown Project.'' This is November 29. Listen to this. The goal: 
``Hold effective hearings, press conferences and communication 
opportunities between December 4-13 to demonstrate mismanagement, 
politicization of government shutdown or to expose waste in government 
functions that was evidenced by government shutdown. (see themes 
below)''
  Here are the themes they say. Here are the ``themes.''

       Clinton politicized the shutdown--harming people 
     unnecessarily.
       Clinton is fighting to protect big government and the 
     status quo.
       Shutdown exposed Government functions that are wasteful and 
     unnecessary.

  And then they have the hearings here: ``Committee, chairman, date, 
topic.'' Here is activity one: ``Hearing, Government Reform 
Subcommittee on Civil Service. Chairman: Mica. Date: 12/6. Topic: 
Mismanagement of shutdown.''
  Here is the next, ``Hearing, Government Reform Subcommittee on 
National Economic Growth. Chairman: McIntosh. Date: 12/7 or 8. Topic: 
Rubin''--meaning Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Rubin--``scare tactics 
and raiding trust funds.''
  On and on. I could read the whole thing.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed 
in its entirety at this point in the Record so people can read it.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             Building an Effective Government We Can Afford


                      government shutdown project

     Goal
       Hold effective hearings, press conferences and 
     communication opportunities between December 4-13 to 
     demonstrate mismanagement, politicization of government 
     shutdown or to expose waste in government functions that was 
     evidenced by government shutdown. (see themes below)
     Themes
       Clinton politicized the shutdown--harming people 
     unnecessarily.
       Clinton is fighting to protect big government and the 
     status quo.
       Shutdown exposed Government functions that are wasteful and 
     unnecessary.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Activity                   Committee           Chairman              Date                Topic      
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hearings scheduled to date:                                                                                     
    Hearing.....................  Government Reform   Mica..............  Dec. 6............  Mismanagement of  
                                   Subcommittee on                                             shutdown.        
                                   Civil Service.                                                               
    Hearing.....................  Government Reform   McIntosh..........  Dec. 7 or 8.......  Rubin--scare      
                                   Subcommittee on                                             tactics and      
                                   National Economic                                           raiding trust    
                                   Growth.                                                     funds.           
    Hearing.....................  Resources.........  Young.............  To be announced...  Closing of parks  
                                                                                               versus Symington 
                                                                                               proposal.        
    Hearing (under                Banking             Bachus............  Dec. 13...........  Raiding trust     
     consideration).               Subcommittee on                                             funds--Reich     
                                   Oversight.                                                  versus Rubin.    
Other activities:                                                                                               
    Letter to HUD...............  Banking             Lazio.............  Sent on Nov. 27...  Mismanagement of  
                                   Subcommittee on                                             shutdown at HUD. 
                                   Housing.                                                                     
    Letter to Labor.............  Opportunities.....  Goodling,           Nov. 28 (expected)  Unknown.          
                                                       Ballenger,                                               
                                                       Hoekstra.                                                
    Letter to Labor.............  Government Reform.  Clinger...........  Sent on Nov. 28...  Document request: 
                                                                                               Notices sent to  
                                                                                               affiliated       
                                                                                               constituencies of
                                                                                               Labor (i.e.      
                                                                                               lobbying) re:    
                                                                                               shutdown.        
    GAO investigation...........  Ways and Means....  Archer............  Unknown...........  Monitor legality  
                                                                                               of Rubin actions.
    Letter to Rubin.............  JEC...............  Saxton [and Armey]  Sent on Nov. 17...  Document request  
                                                                                               re: raiding trust
                                                                                               funds.           
    Talking points..............  Republican          Boehner...........  Dec. 4............  Politicization of 
                                   Conference.                                                 shutdown.        
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Mr. HARKIN. So, I think this paper makes it clear why we are in a 
Government shutdown. This was by design, by the Speaker of the House. 
This is dated November 29. ``Hold effective hearings, press conferences 
and communication opportunities between December 4-13.'' They did not 
want to reach an agreement. This is all a plan and a scheme to make 
this a political issue. That is sad.
  I wish I had this this morning when I was on the radio. I did not 
have it then. If I had, I would have read it on the radio this morning 
to my constituents in Iowa, saying, ``Here is a piece of paper from the 
Speaker's office dated November 29, saying that their plan is to shut 
down the Government on December 15, and here is how you get ready for 
it. You have all these hearings and you have all these meetings and 
here is how you discuss it. It is all laid out there.''
  I suppose maybe he did not figure anybody would get a hold of this 
piece of paper. Once again, it shows you, in Washington, if you put 
something on a piece of paper someone is going to get a hold of it that 
you did not want to get a hold of it.
  So, Mr. President, there is only one reason why we are in a 
Government shutdown and that is because the Speaker of the House and 
his people over there, his allies over there, have decided that they 
want to do this to create a crisis, to create chaos, to create a 
disturbance, because Mr. Gingrich says he is leading a revolution, 
leading a revolution.
  I did not get a chance to read much of the paper this morning but I 
did read a little part of the paper in which Mr. Gingrich is saying 
something--in the Post this morning he said something like: Well, this 
is like 1933. It is a revolution like 1933, he said.

  Well, first of all, I think the Speaker has an overinflated view of 
himself as a historic person, first.
  Second, how can he possibly compare himself to Franklin Roosevelt, or 
compare what they are doing to government to what we did in 1933? The 
Speaker said, ``This is a historic moment, a moment fully as important 
as 1933.'' 

[[Page S18784]]

  Mr. President, this is a moment when we decide what we are about as a 
nation and where we want to go. It is a moment where we choose whether 
we want America to move forward, or to turn it back before 1933.
  So, Mr. Gingrich is right in one respect. In 1933, President Franklin 
Roosevelt looked at the United States of America, and he said, ``I see 
a country one-third ill housed, one-third ill clothed, and one-third 
ill fed.''
  Now, if that was Mr. Gingrich in 1933, he would have said, ``I see an 
America where two-thirds of the people are well fed, two-thirds are 
well clothed, and two-thirds are well housed,'' ignoring the third that 
were being left out of our system. There is a difference between Mr. 
Gingrich's philosophy and Franklin Roosevelt's.
  Franklin Roosevelt and that Congress decided never again--that we 
were going to change government to provide that ladder of opportunity 
for people at the bottom as well as the people at the top. How can Mr. 
Gingrich, how can the Speaker of the House, in any way compare his 
philosophy or what he is trying to do to what Franklin Roosevelt did in 
1933? I am incredulous. Rather, what the Speaker is trying to do is to 
undo everything that he did to make this country a little bit more 
fair, a little bit more just, and a little bit more compassionate.
  So, yes, we do have kind of a historic moment right now. Are we going 
to say that everything we have done to build a ladder of opportunity 
for people at the bottom we are going to take away; that what we did to 
provide for decency for the elderly in Medicare and Social Security, we 
are going to take that away, and turn it back to what it was before 
1933?
  We have to decide whether it is right to take $270 billion out of 
Medicare for our elderly without mounting a real attack on the waste, 
fraud, and abuse that is rampant in the system--that every senior knows 
about but we cannot seem to attack.
  It is a moment when we decide whether to raise taxes on working 
families and tell them, ``We are not going to only raise your taxes, 
but we are going to cut your Medicaid, and now you are going to have to 
pay for your parents' or grandparents' nursing home, too.''
  It is a moment when we decide whether it is responsible to make it 
harder for students to go to college and easier for companies to take 
their jobs overseas.
  It is a moment when we decide whether we are going to scrap the 
direct loan program for students, or whether we are going to let the 
banks have a nice, cushy deal and make billions of dollars in interest.
  It is a moment when we decide whether we are going to cut our 
investment in education and training and give billions more to the 
Pentagon, more than they have ever asked for.
  It is a moment when we decide whether we are going to pull the rug 
out from under family farmers in rural communities and stick them with 
a farm bill that I call a Welcome to Welfare Act.
  So, yes, it is a historic moment. It is a historic moment. It is 
nothing like 1933, though, because what we are doing here is we are 
turning--if we adopt this budget that the Speaker of the House has come 
up with, if we adopt that budget, we are turning our backs on progress 
in America.
  I swear--some people ask me a lot of times, ``What does Mr. Gingrich 
really want? What kind of America is he looking at?'' I swear that he 
will not be satisfied until we have an America that looks like a Third 
World country where a few rich are at the top and everybody else is at 
the bottom where there is no way for the people at the bottom to get to 
the top.
  I have always believed, Mr. President, because of my background, that 
in America you ought to be a success. There is nothing wrong with that. 
There is nothing wrong with making money in this country. There is 
nothing wrong with being rich. I do not begrudge Bill Gates with 
billions of dollars. Look what he has done. There is nothing wrong with 
that. That is the American dream.
  But I have always believed, Mr. President, that when you make it to 
the top, when Bill Gates makes it to the top, or if I make it to the 
top, that one of the primary responsibilities of government is to make 
sure that we leave the ladder down there for others and that we do not 
pull it up behind us.
  This budget proposal that has come to us from the House of 
Representatives allows those who get to the top to pull that ladder up 
behind them. It not only allows them to do it, but it encourages them 
to do it with the aid and the assistance of the Federal Government.
  Mind you, Mr. President, I said, a ``ladder of opportunity.'' I have 
always believed in that. I did not say escalator. I did not say 
something that someone can get on and get a free ride up. I said a 
ladder, because with a ladder you still have to exert some work to get 
to the top. But the structure is there.
  When you take away that structure of prenatal care, the Head Start 
Program, college student loans, and you take away Medicaid that is 
going to help the elderly pay for the nursing home bills, and when you 
cut Medicare and make the elderly pay for their monthly premiums when 
they do not have it, when you cut out the Low-Income Energy Assistance 
Program for people that make less than $8,000 a year, and when you turn 
right around and give more tax benefits to corporations and you do not 
go after corporate welfare in this country, more tax benefits to those 
who already have a lot, when 30 percent of the tax relief in the Mr. 
Gingrich's budget goes to people making over $100,000 a year, when in 
that budget families making less than $30,000 a year pay more in 
taxes--when you do that, you are pulling away the ladder. You are 
destroying the structure that allows people who start at the bottom to 
get to the top.
  So, yes, I believe in that American dream. I believe that people 
ought to be a success. But I am not going to stand here or be a part of 
the Senate without raising my voice and casting my vote against any 
budget that would take that American dream away for future generations 
on the bottom rung of the ladder. And that is as I see this budget.
  So, I close my remarks, Mr. President, by saying that I think the 
Speaker of the House really ought to examine what happened in 1933 and 
take a look at what kind of a historic figure Franklin Roosevelt really 
is and what he did for this country to move it ahead out of the dark 
ages of the past and to provide that ladder of opportunity for families 
like mine.
  If Mr. Gingrich looks at that and is indeed honest with himself, then 
he will see that what he is about is undoing all of that and turning us 
back to where we were before. But maybe that is what he wants. Maybe 
that is what Mr. Gingrich wants to do. Well, if so, that is his 
political philosophy.
  I do not want to turn this country back, and I do not want to take 
away that ladder of opportunity. I hope that more reasonable Members on 
the other side of the aisle, both in this body and in the House, will 
come to a reasonable bipartisan conclusion--that, yes, we need to 
balance the budget but not just do it on the backs of those on the 
bottom rung of the ladder.
  I believe if we work together in a spirit of compromise, We can get 
it done and we can get out of here for Christmas. But if Mr. Gingrich 
proceeds with this plan of his in shutting down the Government, well, 
then it looks like we might be here over Christmas and New Year's, too. 
If that is what it takes, I am prepared to stay here. If that is what 
it takes to stop this folly that the Speaker of the House is trying to 
inflict upon the American people, well, then I guess we will have to 
stay here.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________