[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 18 (Friday, February 9, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1163-S1166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FINISH WORK BEFORE WE RECESS

  Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I am glad to see there are a few of us left 
in Washington this morning: The Presiding Officer, Senator Hatch from 
Utah, myself--maybe there are a few other Senators around Capitol Hill, 
but there are not very many. It is that situation I wish to address 
briefly this morning.
  I do not come to the floor very often and give lengthy speeches. This 
will not be a very lengthy speech this morning either, but sometimes I 
think a sense of responsibility on how the Senate conducts its business 
or does not conduct its business is in order. It is that issue I want 
to address this morning.
  Mr. President, the Senate conducted rollcall votes on Wednesday. And 
although we are not technically in recess, there are no plans to have 
votes until February 27. No vote of the Senate was taken to decide 
whether we would recess. It was just decided we would go through the 
charade of pro forma sessions, of looking like we are doing something 
when actually we are not. I think it is important for the American 
people to know about what is going on here, because we have not passed 
all the appropriations bills for the fiscal year that started last 
October.
  We are 5 months into this fiscal year without having dealt with the 
unfinished business of the Senate.
  Currently the following departments are operating without regular 
appropriations bills. The Department of Veterans Affairs; the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development; the Environmental 
Protection Agency, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, 
the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, the 
Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
  We passed a continuing resolution. That is what we call it. A 
continuing resolution means you are supposed to go ahead and continue 
your operations as they were in the previous year if we have not passed 
an appropriations bill. But this year there is a new angle to this 
because in order to get a continuing resolution passed on most of these 
departments, most of what we would normally have had as a continuing 
resolution is not there because we have reduced most of them by 25 
percent over what their expenditure limits would have been. In other 
words, most of them are having to limp along and make reductions in 
their activities.
  I want to spell some of these out in a few minutes. But let me just 
say that five appropriations bills remain unfinished, and funding for 
the District of Columbia is not complete. We have yet to agree on a 
plan to balance the budget over the next 7 years.
  We do not have a welfare reform bill, nor Medicare reform, nor 
Medicaid reform, nor health insurance reform, nor product liability 
reform, nor Superfund reform, nor an Endangered Species Act, nor a Safe 
Drinking Water Act, nor a Clean Water Act, and we even face defaulting 
on the debt endangering the full faith and credit of the United States 
come March 15 if we have not acted. And, incidentally, all of these 
CR's also run out. So there would be no funding for these agencies or 
departments come March 15 unless we take action of the full Congress to 
correct it.
  All of the above is what we were supposed to be doing back in the 
1995 calendar year that would apply to fiscal 1996 which we are in 
right now and have been since last October. We have not even started 
yet on the 1996 agenda that will be for next year's budget. So we are 
completely behind.
  This lack of achievement will not stand in the way, however, of a 20-
day break in the Senate schedule. I know that recesses are scheduled 
during a legislative session. But I want to call the attention of the 
Senate and the attention of the people of this country to the fact that 
this election year the Senate schedule is already curtailed, and we are 
well behind even on this year's activity.
  Mr. President, by my count, if we assume an Easter recess, a Memorial 
Day recess, a Fourth of July recess, an August recess for the party 
nominating conventions, and an October 4 sine die adjournment--and a 
not unusual Senate 4-day workweek. The norm here is that nothing of 
substance usually happens Monday morning and there is nothing of 
substance normally on Friday afternoon. There are only about 88 
legislative days left in this 104th Congress this year to accomplish 
the business of last year as well as the business of this year.
  It is probably more like 70 to 75 days when we know the actual number 
of days when Members are here in numbers to conduct business. Sometimes 
we put things off from one day to another because certain people are 
not here, or their schedule has been accommodated by leadership on both 
sides of the aisle. But I think even an optimistic count, if you look 
at the calendar, is that we will have about 88 days left this year. 
That may come as a shock to a lot of people because they think we are 
here in mid-February and we have all the rest of this year to get our 
job done. We do not. Of the legislative days here, we have about 88 
days left for this year right now. I do not see how we accommodate our 
business that has to be done in that time period.
  Let me point out some of the problems that the Nation faces and we 
avoid by not being here doing our work. I requested that some of the 
affected agencies tell me how they are 

[[Page S1164]]
dealing with these cutbacks right now. This is not something 
speculative out there into the future. We can surmise as to what may be 
out there in the future. But here are a few things that are being 
curtailed right now, services that the people of this country thought 
they were getting and are beginning to be cut back on. Why? Because we 
have not passed the appropriations bills, and because we accommodated 
the demands of mainly the people over in the House that said that if 
they were going to even make a continuing resolution it had to be with 
major cutbacks in fundings now. In other words, they are doing what 
should be legislative cutbacks by just saying we will not provide the 
money, and we just refuse. So for most of these agencies or departments 
some of them are going along on about a 25-percent reduction.
  Let us look at the Environmental Protection Agency. According to the 
EPA, 40 percent of its planned inspections of industrial facilities 
were missed during this period--40 percent. EPA typically conducts 
9,000 inspections a year and takes 3,700 enforcement actions. These 
inspections help protect our drinking water and our air quality. 
Continued funding shortfalls will not allow EPA to catch up with its 
backlog. The work necessary to develop tap water standards for 
pollutants like cryptosporidium will be delayed. A couple of years ago, 
in 1993, 100 people died and many more were sickened by 
cryptosporidium. Even though this is a priority issue, these standards 
take time. And this is a complex issue requiring extensive data 
collection which is being delayed right now.
  Toxic waste cleanups are being slowed. Cleanups at hundreds of sites 
were stopped during the shutdown, and half of those will not be able to 
resume quickly. Further funding shortages will only cause further 
delay. Three new cleanups in Ohio, my home State, at Uniontown, Dayton, 
and Marietta may not begin this year. It looks as though they will not 
begin this year as scheduled.
  Further delays are expected in efforts to control industrial 
discharge into rivers and streams. The public's right to know about 
toxic chemical emissions in their area is jeopardized. Delays in 
pesticide registration will affect crop protection. Standards for 
controlling toxic industrial air pollutants will be delayed.
  A toxic sweep task force was established by Cleveland and the State 
of Ohio to rid the city of toxic problems that pose threats to the 
public health and welfare, fire safety, and serve as barriers to 
property redevelopment. Twenty-seven properties have been cleaned up 
under this program. EPA help was requested on three of the more 
difficult sites. However, EPA cannot respond, and redevelopment is 
delayed and may not occur at all.
  Those are just a few of the things that are going on just with the 
EPA budget because of this failure of the Congress to act.
  Under Health and Human Services, although many critical programs 
received full-year funding, the level of funding is not keeping up with 
the increased need due to our growing elderly population, and 
especially the old and frail elderly who need health and support 
services in order to just stay in their homes and their communities.
  The Health Resources and Services Administration supports programs 
such as community and migrant health centers, and maternal and child 
health block grants. The impact of interrupted and short-term funding 
is expected to result in reduced services to the poor, and will be 
detrimental to the health services infrastructure and the quality of 
services, including preventive services.
  Because final action has not occurred, uncertainty exists as to the 
availability of funding for Ryan White CARE Act programs. This 
inability to predict the annual level of funding available to cities 
and States will impact planning and operating systems for HIV/AIDS 
victims. The cities of Cleveland, Fort Worth, Hartford, Minneapolis, 
Sacramento, and San Jose now qualify for title I--HIV Emergency Relief 
Grant Program to provide emergency assistance to localities 
disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic--funds under both 
existing and proposed legislation because of the ever-growing need of 
HIV/AIDS services. Awards to all new cities must be delayed until there 
is permanent legislation.
  Under education--Mr. President, the largest investment we make to 
boost low achievement in educational skills is title I which provides 
some 50,000 schools and about two-thirds of our elementary schools 
across this country, with funds for individualized instruction, smaller 
classes, extra time to learn after school, use of computers, and more 
parental involvement. According to Secretary Riley, at continuing 
resolution levels title I will be cut by $1.1 billion, or 17 percent. 
This will deny help to more than 1 million students and cost 40,000 to 
50,000 teaching and teaching aides' positions. As an example, Chicago 
could lose some 600 teachers. In Beaver Local School District of Lisbon 
in northeastern Ohio, that means the elimination of the program for the 
middle school, losing three teachers, and ending remedial reading and 
math for 120 children. Ohio could lose over $50 million.
  That is just an example in my home State. But the same thing is going 
on all over this country--cutbacks in education and helping kids get a 
decent start in school, giving them remedial help that they need is 
being cut back right now.
  The Department of Labor is operating at funding levels provided in 
the House-passed bill. Should this continue, summer jobs for youth will 
be eliminated wiping out Federal support for summer jobs for 600,000 
young people--600,000 young people, if we continue to do nothing the 
way we have been doing, will not have summer jobs.
  Employment and training programs would be reduced by $1.6 billion, 
meaning 800,000 other people would be deprived of much needed services. 
Back to Ohio again. Ohio would receive $35 million less for job 
training and assistance with 30,000 people unserved that normally would 
have been helped during that period.
  Veterans. Congress' failure to deliver an acceptable VA-HUD 
appropriations bill is having a devastating effect on veterans 
programs. Veterans medical care is compromised by the requirement to 
eliminate 5,100 full-time medical employees at VA facilities. This will 
result in treatment of 36,000 fewer inpatients and 800,000 outpatients. 
This is the equivalent of closing three medical clinics with an average 
of 300 beds each. How can we possibly justify that? In addition, 
funding levels under the current CR preclude construction of two 
hospitals that are needed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA, 
and Brevard County in Florida. It also eliminates funding for five 
projects required to renovate and correct major deficiencies in older 
VA hospitals.
  How can we possibly look any veterans that are in those hospitals, 
who sacrificed in combat or wherever, however they came to be in the 
hospital, in the eye and say, ``Well, you are not in a war so we are 
going to cut you fellows out; we are going to cut the funding back, 
shut the facilities down.'' I find that very hard to accept.
  The Justice Department. Under the current continuing resolution, the 
Community Oriented Policing Services, so-called COPS Program, is funded 
at 75 percent of its 1995 levels. At this level, 1,674 additional 
police officers could be hired. Under the President's request, 3,166 
could be added. This means there are 1,492 fewer cops out there on the 
beat.
  Mr. President, I went up and visited one of the COPS programs in 
Toledo, OH, not too long ago. It is working very well. They have the 
additional police out in the community organizing the people to have 
community watch programs and cooperative programs. It is working very, 
very well. But those programs are now going to be reduced or eliminated 
or new ones will certainly not be started.
  The Department of Commerce. In the Department of Commerce, a variety 
of programs have been affected by delays which have impacted fishing 
communities, delayed NOAA's satellite procurement program, threatened 
funding of National Weather Service contractors and suppliers, 
disrupted orderly trade relations which hinders exporters, threatened 
Economic Development Administration assistance to local governments and 
businesses following military base closures. Review and processing of 
applications for new State coastal zone management programs in Ohio and 
Texas and Georgia 

[[Page S1165]]
have delayed eligibility for Federal funding of $2 million a year.
  Mr. President, these are just a few examples of the consequences of 
our inaction. Beyond the terrific impact of these shortfalls is the 
question of how can we expect to operate a system of government in the 
most efficient way possible while supporting it in only bits and 
pieces--starts and stops. No organization can operate effectively when 
run on that kind of an interim basis. Planning is hindered when you are 
funded for the next 6 weeks and uncertain about another, and whether or 
not there will be a 10th continuing resolution. We do not even know 
that. We do not know what the conditions of acceptance of another CR 
will be. The CR permitting the action I am talking about here this 
morning expires on March 15 along with the debt limit.
  You can be certain that efficiency of Government services will be 
questioned when it comes to next year's funding but Congress will not 
likely blame itself. Federal workers become an all-too-easy target.
  Mr. President, yesterday's Washington Post says, and I quote, 
``Congress has gone home to campaign. Given the little they have 
accomplished to date, you wonder what the members will campaign on, but 
resourceful troopers that they are, they will no doubt find 
something.''
  After a discussion of the farm bill, the Post suggests that Congress, 
``Can go on to the rest of their unfinished business, like raising the 
debt ceiling so the Treasury doesn't have to default, finishing this 
year's budget so they can get on to the next and figuring out what if 
anything they want to do about Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, the Clean 
Water Act and a couple of other trifles like that.''
  ``Trifles'' I am sure they meant tongue in cheek.
  Another clip out of the newspaper, Kevin Phillips noted in his column 
of February 7 in the Los Angeles Times, ``The 104th Congress may be the 
worst in 50 years.''
  The forces of an ideological jihad have failed to find workable 
compromise on their agenda and have forgotten that democracy depends on 
compromise. Failing to move a radical agenda to turn back America's 
clock, an effort to shut down the executive branch of the Government 
also failed. Now it appears we are applying the same tactics to the 
legislative branch of Government.
  Mr. President, not doing business is no way for the Congress to do 
business. One of the few successes of last year was requiring Congress 
to abide by the same laws as everyone else. I believe we are violating 
at least the spirit of that law when we hold Government employees 
hostage, when we borrow from the pension funds to keep the Government 
afloat, when we drive the Government to the brink of default, when we 
do not complete the job we were hired to do in the time we were 
supposed to do it, when we force the agencies and departments of 
Government to operate on an interim basis facing imminent cutoffs of 
funds and in a final note of folly when all else fails the Congress 
leaves town with very limited legislative time left in this calendar 
year of 1996.
  Mr. President, maybe we should require that Congress abide by another 
law that people in all of our communities have to work with also, and 
that is no work, no pay. We had votes on that. They did not pass. Maybe 
we ought to reconsider that when we get back in here.
  Meanwhile, Mr. President, everyone is out campaigning, doing whatever 
they are doing while the work of the Government sits here and is not 
being accomplished. We were elected to come here and deal with the 
problems and the programs of this country. We have not even dealt with 
the work we were supposed to do last year, and we certainly have not 
gotten around to completing that or even beginning the work we are 
supposed to do this year and time is very, very short.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial out of 
yesterday's Washington Post and also the column by Kevin Phillips out 
of the Los Angeles Times of Wednesday, February 7 be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Feb. 8, 1996]

                                 Recess

       Congress has gone home to campaign. Given the little they 
     have accomplished to date, you wonder what the members will 
     campaign on, but resourceful troopers that they are, they'll 
     no doubt find something. The Senate was the last to leave; 
     first it passed a farm bill. That would be fine; it's not a 
     bad bill. But the House hasn't acted yet and isn't scheduled 
     to return until the end of the month, the administration 
     claims to have serious reservations about the bill in its 
     present form, and farmers and their bankers would like to 
     know before planting season starts what the rules are going 
     to be for the year ahead.
       That's one of the factors that impelled the Senate to act. 
     Next week's Iowa caucuses may have been the other, Iowa being 
     a leading farm state. Neither Majority Leader Bob Dole nor 
     Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar wanted to enter 
     the caucuses empty-handed. Now they have at least a 
     provisional bill to discuss.
       The farm programs are outmoded. Mr. Lugar was one who 
     pointed that out early on last year, an unusual act for a 
     farm state Republican and presidential candidate who had just 
     assumed the chairmanship. The programs are both costly and 
     inefficient. Most of the money goes to the largest producers 
     least in need, and to the extent that farmers produce for the 
     government rather than the market, the system induces an 
     inefficient use of resources. There does need to be a safety 
     net to protect consumers and producers alike against huge 
     swings in the markets. But the guarantees are set too high. 
     To protect itself, the government then seeks to prop up 
     market prices in part by limiting production and in the 
     process costs the country sales and market share abroad. The 
     payments are also geared too much to production and not 
     enough to conservation.
       The Republicans proposed a reform--to break the tie between 
     production and payments, ratchet the payments down over the 
     next seven years to save money while leaving farmers free to 
     produce what they choose and appoint a commission to help 
     determine what kind of successor programs the country should 
     have. Ranking Agriculture Committee Democrat Patrick Leahy 
     insisted on adding amendments reauthorizing the food stamp 
     and other feeding programs, in part to give them some 
     parliamentary protection, and broadening the principal 
     conservation program to cover more than soil erosion in the 
     Plains states. More money could be used to prevent 
     agricultural runoff and improve water quality elsewhere in 
     the country, for example.
       All that's to the good. In the House, however, Republicans 
     who could otherwise pass a similar bill over Democratic 
     objections are divided. Some rightly want a chance to amend 
     the sugar and peanut programs, both of which jack up prices 
     unnecessarily at the checkout counter but which were 
     preserved to buy committee votes for the broader bill. The 
     administration meanwhile wants to change the broader bill, 
     which the president has already vetoed once; it was a 
     relatively minor part of the GOP proposal to balance the 
     budget that the rejected last year. Mr. Clinton's basic, 
     unhelpful position is that the farm programs don't need to be 
     changed much at all.
       And then, when they get the farm problem settled, they can 
     go on to the rest of their unfinished business, like raising 
     the debt ceiling so the Treasury doesn't have to default, 
     finishing this year's budget so they can get on to the next 
     and figuring out what if anything they want to do about 
     Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, the Clean Water Act and a couple 
     of other trifles like that.
                                                                    ____


                   [From the LA Times, Feb. 7, 1996]

           Consider This Congress the Worst in a Half-Century

                          (By Kevin Phillips)

       Washington.--The 104th Congress may be the worst in 50 
     years.
       It has another 10 months before it nails down top (bottom?) 
     honors. And it will, of course, face tough competition from 
     four other eminently second-rate Congresses--the 80th, 89th, 
     101st and 103rd. Even so, it's time for the national debate 
     to start, because what Americans decide to do about Congress 
     will color what kind of president they'll want to pick--or 
     settle for--in November.
       Believers in the Washington system--once described as 
     dropping coins into the elephants' and donkeys' mouths and 
     getting laws and regulations out the other end--were cheered 
     in early 1995 by the apparent renewal of tired political 
     parties and government mechanisms represented by 
     ultrapowerful new House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and his 
     bold agenda of national change.
       A year later, two-thirds of the ``contract with America'' 
     is sitting in the Senate's dumpster or crumbled in the 
     president's veto basket; Congress' ratings are back to autumn 
     1994 contempt levels, and Gingrich has set records for first-
     year credibility loss by a new speaker. The notion of a 
     ``reform'' GOP Congress is now right up there with Tinkerbell 
     and the Tooth Fairy; and Washington lobbyists are wondering 
     how they will ever collect on the regulatory breaks and tax 
     loopholes they thought they'd bought at the Grand Old Auction 
     Party last winter.
       Recent national surveys have shown voters saying President 
     Bill Clinton should be reelected to block the unpopular 
     Congress. But other new polls show the electorate is starting 
     to tilt Democratic for the House, as well. So November is 
     emerging as a dilemma-cum-

[[Page S1166]]
     challenge: Would dumping the House GOP and eliminating Gingrich as 
     speaker make it safe to also oust Clinton as president--
     especially if his family and staff start setting records for 
     time spent before grand juries? Clinton's great success with 
     his State of the Union speech isn't likely to repeat itself 
     if he has to make a State of Family Integrity follow-up.
       But Clinton's foibles have already been debated in two 
     elections--1992 and 1994. It is the failures of the GOP 
     Congress that might well be the focus of 1996.
       Take the ``contract with America.'' This started out as a 
     smart campaign ploy, but GOP strategists let its dozen or so 
     promises--from budget balance to a line-item veto--become the 
     be-all and end-all of Republican congressional achievement. A 
     few good ideas--congressional accountability and prohibition 
     of unfunded federal mandates being imposed on the states, for 
     example--made it across Clinton's desk and into the statute 
     books; but other popular themes (term limits) bogged down, 
     and some ideas, such as tort reform and environmental 
     overhaul, lost favor as the involvement of lobbyists became 
     all too evident.
       The collapse of public support was stunning. Polls by the 
     Times-Mirror Center found that, in winter 1994-95, voters 
     approved congressional GOP policies by 52%-28%; but, by 
     January 1996, they disapproved, 54%-36%. The NBC News poll 
     found virtually the same shift. Respondents had agreed with 
     the GOP policies, 49%-22%, in January 1995; by January 1996, 
     disagreement prevailed, 48%-34%. This is the sharpest slump 
     in policy-approval ever measured for a new Congress.
       The crown jewel of the contract--huge tax cuts tilted 
     toward business and the wealthy combined with the seven-year 
     zero budget-deficit blueprint--was especially flawed and, 
     worse still, a practical contradiction. The tax cuts proved a 
     zero-deficit program over seven years wasn't even a good 
     idea. In 1994, all the European Union nations, except 
     Luxembourg, had larger deficits than the United States. Ours 
     was 2% of gross domestic product, theirs ranged from 2.1% of 
     GDP in Ireland and 2.6% in Germany to a whopping 11.4% in 
     Greece. These countries, too, face high health and pension 
     costs, as well as job weakness; and the requirement that EU 
     members get deficits down to 3% is feared in much of Western 
     Europe as a recession prescription. The GOP's zero-deficit 
     prescription for America would have been even more 
     Hooveresque.
       Meanwhile, the 104th Congress has emerged as a beacon light 
     of hypocrisy when it comes to institutional reform and money 
     in politics. The promise of term limits was quickly scuttled, 
     and new GOP leaders, especially in the House, have used the 
     same kind of closed-door legislative tactics they attacked 
     under the Democrats. The vaunted lobbying ``reforms'' passed 
     this winter turn out to have something else--a downshift from 
     criminal penalties to civil penalties to civil penalties with 
     the usual game of widening as many escape hatches as are 
     closed. Discussing the loopholes in the new gift ban, the 
     president of the American League of Lobbyists remarked, ``I 
     would prefer to call them pathways or, in some cases, 
     interstates.''
       As for campaign finance, serious reform has already been 
     mocked and foreclosed. Congress' new GOP leaders have 
     collected bigger campaign contributions, from more special 
     interests, than any previous set of first-termers.
       The final mega-problem is the ``extreming'' of Congress 
     since the 1994 election. Not only has the ideology been 
     radical, but, on the House side, Gingrich and the 74 House 
     GOP freshmen are becoming twin symbols of political excess. 
     Recent polls on Gingrich give him only a 26%-34% approval 
     rating, while 55%-58% disapprove. No new speaker has ever 
     dropped so far so fast.
       The right-leaning freshmen are in just as much trouble. One 
     January poll found 70% of Americans disapproved of the 
     freshmen's willingness to shut down government in the budget 
     debate, with 45% calling the freshmen ``ideological 
     extremists who are holding the federal government hostage.''
       The ``extreming'' of Congress has even spread to the 
     hitherto centrist Senate. The rightward lurch of Senate 
     Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) signaled this shift, and 
     the retirement announcements of five GOP moderates make a 
     sharper swing to the right inevitable after they're gone. The 
     new Senate GOP of 1997 will be far more like the current 
     House GOP--not exactly an endorsement for keeping the 
     Republicans in control.
       Other Congresses that compete for the ``worst in 50 years'' 
     title are the 80th (1947-48), the 89th (1965-66), the 101st 
     (1989-90) and the 103rd (1993-94). The 103rd was the 
     Democratic Congress that voters voted out in 1994, angry at 
     its mix of petty scandals and ineffectiveness. Its biggest 
     failure was that the Democrats were stale and deserved the 
     boot after 40 years of unbroken control in the House.
       The 101st Congress featured the forced resignations of 
     Democratic Speaker Jim Wright and Majority Whip Tony Coelho. 
     The 89th was the lopsidedly Democratic Congress that ran amok 
     with the liberal legislation and overambition of the 1960s. 
     The 80th was the last GOP Congress to face a Democratic 
     president. It also went too far on economic, education and 
     social welfare issues.
       However, because the 104th has ideological radicalism, yet 
     another speaker facing an ethics investigation and a record 
     collapse of public esteem, it could turn out to be the 
     wustest that got there the fastest--to paraphrase the famous 
     confederate cavalry leader.
       Is there a remedy? Not necessarily. Though defeating enough 
     Republicans in the House to depose Gingrich as speaker could 
     be a start. Giving the Democrats a narrow majority back won't 
     empower them to do much more than squelch GOP excess. But in 
     the long haul, it will probably be necessary to find some way 
     of promoting a mix of third parties, campaign reform aimed at 
     helping independent congressional candidates (just proposed 
     by retiring Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.)) and other changes 
     designed to break the nexus between money and politics.
       After all, if Americans do start deciding that the 104th 
     Congress is the worst in memory--or even first runner-up--
     then it could be time for voters to demand a far different 
     set of arrangements and reforms. In Congress, as well as in 
     presidential elections, the two-party system, with its false 
     promises and special-interest masters, has arguably become 
     part of the problem, not part of the solution.

                          ____________________