[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S876-S877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            OF POLLS, POLITICIANS, PROMISES, AND PRINCIPLES

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues made time last week to 
study a poll printed in the Washington Post. It took a close look at 
the American people and their relationship with the political process, 
and it was, at the same time, both enlightening and frightening.
  Mr. President, 40 percent of those responding to the poll did not 
know the name of the current Vice President; 40 percent of Americans 
were not aware that Republicans control both Chambers of Congress; 56 
percent of the people surveyed could not name even one of their 
Representatives in the Senate; and 74 percent were not aware that we 
serve 6-year terms.
  Fully 67 percent of the people who answered the survey did not know 
that the U.S. Senate had passed a plan to balance the Federal budget.
  The newspaper makes the argument that the problem lies in education--
that the more knowledge an individual has about the political process, 
the more likely they are to care about what we are doing here in 
Washington. But I think an equally compelling case can be made that 
after decades of broken political promises, the voters have been 
conditioned to tune us out. They do not care about us because they 
believe that, deep down, we really do not care about them, either. 

[[Page S877]]

  We should not be concerned that the people do not know our names or 
the length of our terms or who controls which Chamber. But we ought to 
be deeply troubled that so many people seem to have lost faith in us. 
And we should be especially concerned that the poll reflects these 
things at a time when Congress has made promises, kept them, and has 
demonstrated a sincere commitment to turning this Government around.
  Mr. President, when the 104th Congress was gaveled into session a 
year ago, there were high expectations. There had been a dramatic 
transfer of power. People called it a sea change, a revolution.
  There was a radical, new message that had begun to break through the 
noise of the usual political rhetoric. We talked about new solutions. 
We talked about Government as a service provider, not our national 
nanny, or caretaker. We talked about making Washington more accountable 
to the taxpayers, and a more efficient consumer of taxpayer dollars. We 
talked about shifting the focus of the Federal Government from advocacy 
on behalf of tax recipients to advocacy on behalf of the Nation's 
taxpayers.
  We talked every day about our children and grandchildren, and what 
kind of future we would be leaving them if we turned our backs and did 
nothing.
  One year later, our message has not changed, and we have passed a 
great deal of legislation in the last year to put real muscle behind 
our promises. But we did not count on running headlong into an 
obstructionist President, gunning for reelection, who was willing to 
deny the people a better tomorrow in order to preserve the status quo.
  Mr. President, up until last year, I believed wholeheartedly in a 
mathematical absolute I first learned in high school geometry--that the 
shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The idea has 
been around for so long--since the time of the ancient Greeks, in 
fact--that I never considered questioning it. But what I learned during 
the first session of the 104th Congress has forced me to rethink those 
early geometry lessons.
  You see, there is no line more straight than the 16-block stretch of 
Pennsylvania Avenue that runs between the U.S. Capitol and the front 
door of the White House. So when the American people elected a new 
Congress on our pledge to balance the budget, cut taxes, repair the 
welfare system, and save Medicare, it stood to reason that the road to 
enacting those fundamental reforms, in the shortest amount of time, 
would be a straight line as well: Congress would pass the laws, we 
would send them up Pennsylvania Avenue to the President, and he would 
sign them.
  But this President has managed to distort the laws of mathematics so 
badly that Pennsylvania Avenue has become not a straight line, but a 
tangled trail culminating in a dead end. Today, those 16 blocks are 
littered with legislative casualties that never had a chance against 
the veto pen of a President who is dead set against even the most basic 
reforms.
  Congress sent the President a balanced budget that acknowledges it is 
morally wrong to pass the debts of one generation onto the next. He 
vetoed it.
  We sent the President a tax relief package that offers a $500-per-
child tax credit--and a lot of hope--to every middle-class, American 
family. He vetoed it.
  We sent the President a bill that delivers on his promise to ``end 
welfare as we know it.'' He said he liked it. Then he vetoed it anyway.
  We sent the President a plan that moves Medicare into the 1990's, 
rescues it from bankruptcy, and reforms the system by offering seniors 
something they have never had access to through their Government-
provided health care plan and that was real choice. Once again, he 
killed it with a veto. Given yesterday's troubling news that the 
Medicare trust fund lost money in 1995 for the first time in 23 years, 
a full year earlier than expected, and may not survive until 2002, the 
President's veto appears even more shortsighted and misguided.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GRAMS. When I am through, I will yield for a question.
  Mr. FORD. I am sure it was part A, not part B. The Senator went over 
it with a broad brush.
  Mr. GRAMS. It is part A. Congress delivered tax relief, Medicare and 
welfare reform, and a balanced budget to the White House just as we 
promised the American people we would, and they were all returned to us 
``V-O-A''--``vetoed on arrival.'' So much for high school geometry.
  What I have come to realize, Mr. President, is that sometimes, the 
shortest distance between two points is not a straight line at all, but 
the route with the least congestion. What I want to assure my fellow 
Americans is that from now on, Congress will follow whatever line takes 
us where we need to go, and if that means bypassing the gridlock on 
Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House, so be it. We will not be 
deterred from pursuing the principles of individual freedom and 
restraint in Government that have already brought us this far. We moved 
an important step forward recently with the passage of the Balanced 
Budget Downpayment Act. The President may have vetoed our balanced 
budget plan, but our downpayment on it moves us $30 billion closer to a 
balanced budget, and keeps our children from going another $30 billion 
in debt, by eliminating a host of wasteful Government programs. It was 
not what the President wanted. In fact, his latest budget does not make 
any serious reductions in Government spending until the year 2000. But 
Congress controls the Nation's purse strings and in this political 
climate, Congress must start taking these small steps in order to reach 
our larger goals. One of the papers in my home State interviewed a 
number of Minnesotans last week and asked what they thought about 
Congress and the President and our accomplishments of the past year. I 
thought the comments made by the mayor of Woodbury were the most 
insightful. He said,

       We watch with interest but quite a bit of disappointment. 
     They are more concerned out there with their political one-
     upmanship, political brinkmanship, political hassle of each 
     other. There is a big gap in quality leadership.

  Those are the very same thoughts being reflected in the kind of polls 
we saw in the Washington Post. Mr. President, if we are going to begin 
restoring the people's faith in their Government, we are going to have 
to earn it through quality leadership, and we are going to have to do a 
better job of communicating our successes. Every American needs to know 
that this Senate passed a balanced budget. More importantly, every 
American needs to know that we are not giving up until President 
Clinton has signed a balanced budget into law.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.

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