[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19-S20]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ISSUES WE MUST ADDRESS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, at noon today we began a new session of 
the 104th Congress. The first order of business, as described by my 
friend, the Senator from Maryland, Senator Sarbanes, is to end this 
shutdown and get people back to work and pay Federal employees for the 
work they do.
  Someone yesterday on the floor said, ``Well, my constituents cannot 
understand this shutdown of the Federal Government.''
  There is good reason for that, because it is not an understandable 
kind of thing. It made no sense. It never made any sense for anybody to 
say to 280,000 Federal workers, ``We prevent you from coming to work, 
but we're going to pay you for not performing work we won't allow you 
to perform.''
  What kind of logic is that?
  And then to say to half a million others, ``We insist you come to 
work and we won't pay you until we resolve the dispute between the 
White House and the Congress on the budget.''
  What on Earth kind of logic is that? The first order of business is 
to end this shutdown that has never made any sense.
  The second order of business is to reach an agreement on the budget, 
one that, yes, does balance the budget, does it in 7 years and does it 
the right way with the right priorities.
  There are other things we need to do this year. There are other 
priorities. At the start of this session a couple of hours ago, I heard 
a description of some of the successes of the last session and, indeed, 
there were some successes in the last session. I might say one of the 
disappointments of the last session for me and many of us who come from 
farm country was the inability to have enacted into law a 5-year farm 
program. There is great difference in Congress about what kind of a 
farm plan we ought to have. There were virtually no hearings, there was 
no bipartisan markup, very little bipartisan discussion about a farm 
program this past year. One was cobbled together, posthaste, and put in 
a reconciliation bill that everyone knew was going to be vetoed.
  The result is we now cross into the new year with no 5-year farm 
program. I think that is unfair to farmers. It is important to tell 
farmers and their lenders what kind of a farm program we will have this 
year as they begin planting their crops this spring. My hope is the 
Congress will turn its attention to this, have a fair debate, have some 
hearings about a decent farm program, what works to help family farmers 
in this country. My hope also is while we do that, the Congress will 
extend the current farm program for 1 additional year. It seems to me 
that will provide some certainty, at least, with what will happen with 
respect to 1996, and then it seems to me we ought to decide to write in 
1996 a good farm program, one that saves money, yes, but one that saves 
family farmers and gives family farmers an understanding that there is 
a safety net so they will have a chance to make a living when 
international prices go down and stay down.
  So I hope the Congress will consider extending the current farm 
program for 1 year, and I hope the Congress will be serious and the 
Congress will decide quickly to begin hearings and to begin a 
thoughtful discussion about what kind of farm program works for the 
long-term future of family farmers in this country.
  I want to mention two additional items. Not very many minutes ago a 
Member of the Senate stood up and said one of the problems we face is 
the construction of a national missile defense program. He spoke very 
persuasively--not for me but very persuasively for his point of view--
that we need a national missile defense program.
  This is not about partisan politics, it is about fundamental 
disagreements about how we spend money. Stripped apart, someone who 
calls for a new national missile defense program is calling for a new 
spending program of $48 billion. Those who say we ought to tighten our 
belts and cut Federal spending and then stand up and say, ``By the way, 
we want to start a new star wars" --and, by the way, it is star wars, 
there are space-based components included in the program--a multiple-
site national missile defense program, are standing up and saying, ``We 
want to embark on a $48 billion new program to construct star wars.'' I 
am just saying that is out of step with what we ought to be doing.
  The cold war is largely over. In Russia today, they are destroying 
missile launchers and destroying warheads as part of the agreements we 
have on weapons reductions, and then we have people stand up and say, 
``By the way, let's begin a new $48 billion program for star wars, and 
we insist that you order 20 new B-2 bombers for over $30 billion that 
the Pentagon says they can't afford, don't need, and don't want.''
  So I urge us this year to have an aggressive thoughtful debate on 
those policies as well. If we want to cut spending, and we should, if 
we want to save money, and we should, if we want to balance the budget, 
and we ought to, we cannot afford, in my judgment, to order star wars 
or B-2 bombers the Pentagon says they do not want and this country does 
not need.
  Finally, there is another issue that we have to address in 1996, and 
that is the issue of jobs. We need to balance the budget because it is 
the right thing to do and will give us a better economy. I agree with 
that. But we also ought to care about specific policies in this country 
that relate to jobs.
  Yes, an expanded economy produces jobs. So does a decent trade 
system. Mr. President, you know something, with all of the angst, with 
all the nail biting and with all the finger tapping on the desks around 
here, the shrugging about this, that, or the other thing, the 
merchandise trade deficit in 

[[Page S20]]
this country will exceed the budget deficit this year, and you do not 
hear a whimper about it on the floor of the Senate.
  Let me say that again. We will have a larger trade deficit this year 
in this country than we will have a budget deficit.
  Our trade deficit will be nearly $180 billion. That means jobs have 
left this country, things are being produced elsewhere. And we have a 
bunch of economists who are measuring economic progress in this country 
by what we consume. Every month they flail around and say, ``Gee, 
America is doing well because we are consuming more.''
  The genesis of economic health, it seems to me, the seedbed of jobs 
and opportunity in the future is not what we consume, but rather what 
we produce. Do we have good manufacturing jobs in this country?
  Among the discussions of trade must be a discussion about NAFTA. I 
just want to show my colleagues a chart. The red, incidentally, is a 
trade deficit, trade with Mexico. Before NAFTA, before a trade 
agreement, a trade agreement which, incidentally, we never seem to be 
able to win--every time we show up at a negotiating table on trade, we 
seem to lose--we had a trade surplus with Mexico. We reached a trade 
agreement, and what happens? Well, we have a deficit with Mexico. This 
year, that deficit will be $16 to $18 billion. We will have lost about 
200,000 American jobs to Mexico.
  Take Mexico and Canada together, because that is what NAFTA really 
is, two countries. Look at the cumulative trade deficit with both 
countries, which will reach about $40 billion this year. I will during 
the next 4 or 5 months every month come to the floor to discuss the 
trade deficit with Japan, over $60 billion and the trade deficit with 
China, over $30 billion, all of which means fewer jobs and less 
economic opportunity in this country. It seems to me that we ought to 
turn our attention in 1996 to the question of who are we and what do we 
want to be in terms of providing opportunity in the private sector in 
the form of jobs to the American people.
  Do we decide we want to compete with people who make 12 cents an hour 
and hire 12-year-olds to work 12 hours a day? Not me. That is not fair 
competition. Yet, the product of child labor flows into this country 
every day in increasing quantities. The product of labor that makes a 
quarter an hour making tennis shoes, 30 cents an hour making shirts, 80 
cents an hour making shoes, flows into this country every single day, 
and it displaces American workers who, if they are able to find another 
job, find a lower-income job. And if they are not able to find another 
job then become unemployed, or those who are despondent, or those who 
see somehow a stock market that reaches record highs, productivity on 
the rise, CEO salaries never higher and discover that American workers 
get laid off or that 60 percent of American families--who, during 
dinner at night, discuss their situation --understand that they now 
make less money than they did 20 years ago when you adjust their income 
for inflation.
  Part of the discussion we must have as a country, Republicans and 
Democrats, conservatives and liberals, CEO's and workers, the private 
sector, Wall Street and Main Street, is what about economic opportunity 
in this country? Will we continue to measure our economic health by 
what we consume, or will we decide that our productive sector, our 
manufacturing base, the seedbed with good jobs, with good incomes make 
a difference to this country? Will we decide to do something about 
that?
  Will we decide to stop and put an end to the insidious, perverse tax 
provision that says if you close your U.S. plant and move it overseas, 
we will give you a tax break? That exists in law. I have had a vote on 
that in the Senate and lost. It is inconceivable to me that we would 
retain in our Tax Code a provision that says if you will shut your 
American manufacturing plant down, lay off your workers, and move those 
jobs to a tax-haven country somewhere else in the world and then 
manufacture the same product and ship it back in to our country, we 
will give you a tax break.
  It is inconceivable that this Congress does not act to say we stand 
for American producers and American workers. No, we do not build walls 
around our country, but we want our country to compete in an economic 
system where competition is fair.
  I hope in the coming months that this Congress will decide that trade 
deficits matter; that record trade deficits, the highest in the history 
of the world that this country absorbed in 1995, are intolerable.
  Trade deficits that are bigger than our budget deficits are 
intolerable. This country needs to do something about it. For those who 
wonder about some of the issues, on NAFTA, which is the one trade 
issue, there was something released yesterday by Public Citizen. It 
says that NAFTA has broken promises. It is a rather lengthy, footnoted 
document. There are many other evidences of the same problem.
  My interest in 1996 is that all of us, together, decide that budget 
deficits matter and we are going to balance the budget; trade deficits 
matter and we are going to address the chronic trade problems; farm 
programs matter and we are going to construct a farm program that makes 
sense for the family farmers of this country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

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