[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S60-S62]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     HOW LONG UNTIL SOME MEMBERS IN CONGRESS COME TO THEIR SENSES?

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, when I was a young man the Governor of 
Tennessee, the then-Governor of Tennessee, Frank Clement, delivered the 
keynote address at the Democratic national convention. As I matured and 
studied speeches like that, I decided it was not quite as great as I 
thought it was at the time. But the thrust of the speech was, ``How 
long, America?'' And he kept coming back to that recurring theme. ``How 
long, oh, how long, America?'' In other words, how long are we going to 
wait for solutions to these problems?
  That would be a good speech to give today, how long the American 
people are going to have to wait until some people in this body, but 
especially in the House, come to their senses.
  This morning we had a group of Social Security workers come into our 
Little Rock office. I was out at the time. My legislative director 
suggested that they call the Speaker of the House. He told them he 
would be happy to give them the names of the 73 freshmen Congressman 
over there, their telephone numbers, and reminded them that the Senate 
had voted to do precisely what should be done, thanks to the courage of 
the majority leader.
  The majority leader probably is not interested in having a Democrat 
compliment him for what he did because I am sure he is taking 
unbelievable flak from some quarters in his own party. That goes with 
the leadership. If you are not willing to stand up for what you 
believe, you do not deserve to be called a leader. If you do not stand 
up for responsible Government, you do not deserve to be here.
  We have a saying in Arkansas when something is really out of the 
ordinary. We say, ``I have been to two State fairs and a goat rope, and 
I never seen anything like this before.'' I can tell you, I have never 
seen anything like this before. I pray to God we never see anything 
like it again, because if the checks and balances of the Constitution 
can be circumscribed and circumvented by a simple hard-core majority 
who are willing to stick together, and most of whom distrust 
Government, strongly distrust Government, the next question you have to 
ask yourself is, if people are willing to abuse their power by 
circumventing the Constitution in a way that was never intended by 
Madison and the other Framers, how long can we continue to govern 
ourselves? That is a very legitimate question that you are going to 
hear asked more and more if this is not resolved shortly.
  The American people are divided to some extent. They do not 
understand it. But I can tell you, each day that goes on they become 
increasingly apprehensive about just what is going on, what is the 
meaning of it. They are not Federal employees, and so they are not very 
perturbed about it. But as they see their lives disrupted, as 
everybody's lives are going to be, if this goes on much longer, they 
are going to acclimate themselves and attune themselves to what is 
going on here.
  We should not for one moment forget what is the overriding issue 
here. There is a minor constitutional crisis that could loom very large 
in the future; there is, obviously, a tremendous political battle going 
on, and that is where the American people really do not understand why 
we would subject this country to this for political reasons.
  But we should not ever forget one simple fact: All we have to do is 
what the Senate did the night before last and pass a continuing 
resolution and get Government up and running. It has nothing to do--it 
has nothing to do--with the discussions going on at the White House. 
You can resolve every single issue that is at stake here without 
sending 250,000 workers home and others with half paychecks and scaring 
the pants off a lot of American citizens.
  The tax cut is one of the issues. That is not an unsurmountable 
problem. I cannot tell you how I detest the thought of that $245 
billion tax cut, and every time I look at the statistics on who gets 
that $245 billion, I am literally stunned that every newspaper in 

[[Page S61]]
the country is not editorializing on it every single day.
  Think about it. The people who make less than $30,000 a year get 
virtually not one dime of it, and if you make $300,000 a year, you are 
going to get over $8,000 a year in tax cuts. What kind of a nation 
passes tax bills like that?
  Let me go back. That is based on a CBO assumption that the budget 
will be balanced in the year 2002, and by doing so, interest rates will 
decline to the point that over a 7-year period, we will save $245 
billion. I can tell you that is a massive assumption, one that I can 
almost guarantee you will never come about.
  In order for that to come true, every single projection of growth 
rate, interest rates, and unemployment which the Congressional Budget 
Office puts out would have to come true, literally true--every one of 
those things.
  It also means that next year and the next year and the next year, 
through 7 years, Congress will do precisely what was projected in this 
1995 budget resolution. We will not even do what the budget resolution 
does in 1996. I can bet you we will not do it. We certainly are not 
going to do it every year between now and the year 2002. You are going 
to have tornadoes in my State, you are going to have floods in the 
Midwest, you are going to have hurricanes in Florida, you are going to 
have droughts throughout the Midwest, and we are going to pick up the 
tab for every bit of it. None of that is anticipated in the budget 
resolution.
  But for purposes of argument, because the President did, in fact, 
come out with his own tax cut, not nearly as massive as this one, but 
why not say to the Republicans: ``You're hot for a $245 billion tax 
cut. You want to spend all of $245 billion the Congressional Budget 
Office says you are going to save over the next 7 years. We do not 
believe that. Not only do we disagree strongly on who would get the tax 
benefits, we do not think those savings will ever materialize. But to 
prove our good faith, why don't we do this? Let's wait until the budget 
for 1998 comes up before we get into this tax-cutting business. If all 
CBO's projections have come true, interest rates are as low as they 
projected, all the other economic indices are the way they projected 
them and the savings are materializing, then say, `OK, we'll accept a 
$200 tax refund for all the children in America,' and if it goes 
according to Hoyle for 2 more years, up it to $400.''
  Why would that not be a simple solution to it? After all, once you 
put that tax cut in place, if this place falls apart and the dome of 
the Capitol falls to the ground, you will not be able to take that tax 
cut away. You are going to be spending the money for a tax cut that you 
do not have, because we will never undo it. So why do it, unless you 
know the savings are going to be there?
  I heard the majority whip say this morning that this President is the 
first President that ever wanted more money. He never heard of anybody 
vetoing a bill because they wanted more money. I remind the Senator 
from Mississippi, Ronald Reagan used to go around saying, ``I'm being 
accused for these massive deficits, and you know I can't spend a penny 
that Congress doesn't appropriate.''
  To the ordinary layman out there, that is fine, because the people 
always liked the President better than Congress.
  I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the order, we were to go into recess. 
The Senator is recognized for 5 additional minutes.
  Mr. BUMPERS. While he was saying, ``I can't spend a penny that 
Congress doesn't appropriate,'' he was never vetoing any money bills. 
He signed everything we sent him, and the people should be grateful, 
because while he was President, Congress appropriated billions less 
than he asked for. But he vetoed a defense bill because it was not high 
enough, and we had to give him more money to get him to sign the bill.
  Mr. President, the American people last fall were angry about a host 
of things. There was no one single thing that people were angry about. 
There were a whole host of things they were angry about. It is an 
interesting thing, you take 1 percent of the vote last fall and shift 1 
percent of the vote here, here and there, and we would not have 
anything bordering on an American revolution.

  As far as the bonded Contract With America, so far two things have 
passed both Houses and have been signed by the President, and both of 
them would probably have been passed without the so-called Contract 
With America.
  People were not voting for the Contract With America, because they 
did not know anything about it. They were voting because they were 
angry. They were angry about the deficit, they were angry about gays in 
the military, they were angry about some Members getting in trouble. It 
was a whole host of things.
  But I can tell you, Mr. President, the one thing they were not voting 
for was chaos. So far, that is all they have gotten out of it.
  The other day I mentioned James Baldwin, a great black author, who 
wrote a book called ``Go Tell It on the Mountain.'' In the book--it was 
sort of autobiographical, I guess--the person who was the central 
character in the book was obviously James Baldwin.
  He described the churches when he was a youngster and how people 
would have dinner on the grounds after church. Senator Heflin, and 
southerners like Senator Heflin and I know what that is like. He has 
been to a thousand dinners on the grounds after church on Sundays, just 
as I have.
  James Baldwin describes in the book listening to some of the black 
preachers talk about how many souls they had saved in the last revival, 
how many souls they had saved in the last year, and this youngster who 
wanted to be a preacher was offended by the way they talked about how 
many souls they had saved, not as individual people who were actually 
saved but macro numbers, and he took a vow that never would he take the 
gift of God so lightly.
  As you might guess, as you go on into the book, he becomes a 
minister, and the first thing you know, he is one of the big stars at 
the dinner on the grounds after the church services, and he is talking 
about how many souls you save, as he said originally, as though you 
were talking about ears of corn being lopped off the stalk. Yes, he 
fell into it, too. It was a magnificent novel. I recommend it to you. 
Here we talk about 250,000 employees, which is a big number. Do you 
know what they are? They are red-blooded human beings with families, 
with obligations. Some of them are losing their credit rating right now 
because they cannot pay their bills. They, each one, count.

  When people sometimes ask me how I would sum up our democracy and the 
Constitution of the United States--which is sacred to me--I always say 
the Constitution of the United States says one thing. Well, it does not 
say it, but it means one thing and, that is, each one of us counts. Our 
criminal justice system, our whole legal system, all of our freedoms in 
the Constitution say each one of us counts, and each one of these 
250,000 people who are suffering count. I know how nice it is to go 
into a coffee shop. ``It has not hurt me any.'' ``I have not lost a 
thing.'' ``It looks to me like we can probably do without those 250,000 
from now on.'' You let this go on another 2 weeks and see what they are 
saying in the coffee shops.
  So, Mr. President, these are human beings, and they are depending on 
Congress to do the right thing, to govern and not abuse their power. 
What is the cost of this? Why are the American people not up in arms 
about this? They say $45 million a day. I do not know who computed 
that, but add $12 million to that as of Sunday night. The 10-percent 
airline costs--do you want to take a guess what revenues that produces 
to the U.S. Government every year? Between $4 and $5 billion. We are 
losing $12 million a day. Add that to the $45 million, and then you 
take the loss of revenues of the communities who are dependent on 
Government, national parks, and so on. You are going to be at $100 
million a day, while we continue to negotiate and bargain and bicker 
about sums much, much smaller than that. It is the height of 
irresponsibility to hold this country hostage in order to get your way. 
It is an outrageous abuse of power. I do not mind saying, in a partisan 
way, that I believe a lot of people are going to pay for this come next 
November.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. 
  
[[Page S62]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). The Senator will state it.
  Mr. DOMENICI. What is the situation in the Senate now?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair indicates to the Senator that we are 
acting on a unanimous-consent request that the Senate go into recess 
subject to the call of the Chair immediately after the remarks of the 
Senator from Arkansas, and those have just finished.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have not had an opportunity this 
morning to speak because I had to be elsewhere, which you might 
suspect.
  I ask unanimous consent that there be a quorum call for 5 minutes 
after which I be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes and then the 
Senate recess subject to the call of the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator can ask for a quorum call but 
cannot predetermine what takes place after that. The Senator can ask 
unanimous consent to speak or put in a quorum call and then state that 
request, and the Chair would consider that.
  Mr. DOMENICI. The quorum call needs to run before I make the request?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. SARBANES. If the Senator will withhold for a moment, is the 
Senator prepared to proceed now?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I need that 5 minutes that I was seeking.
  Mr. SARBANES. Senator Nunn would also seek 10 minutes. Why do we not 
take a quorum call and then see if we can work that out.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SARBANES. Reserving the right to object. Could we have 3 minutes 
on this side, as well? We have been doing an equilibrium thing here all 
day.
  I amend the request to ask unanimous consent that this side of the 
aisle have 3 minutes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.

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