[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 22 (Friday, February 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1291-S1294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                POPULISM

  Mr. DORGAN. There is an old axiom in politics, when your adversaries 
are having a healthy feud, never walk across the street and get 
involved in it. I will not do that this morning. I am tempted to. 
However, I wanted to discuss, at least a bit, the issue of populism. I 
will not discuss so much the details of the feud that is going on in 
the Republican Party and in the primaries, but I do want to talk about 
the issue of populism.
  What propelled me to do that today was Time magazine. There is a 
picture of Pat Buchanan in a hard hat and work shirt, and Lamar 
Alexander peeking over his shoulder in his plaid shirt, and then Bob 
Dole and Steve Forbes behind them.
  It says, ``Grand Old Populists.'' So I am presuming, I guess, that 
GOP means ``Grand Old Populists.'' I wanted to talk a little about this 
issue of populism. It is a fascinating concept to see these, as one of 
my colleagues in the Senate calls them, Grey Poupon-eating-, Jacuzzi-, 
country-club folks, wearing hard hats and work shirts and calling 
themselves populists.
  Let us put all this in perspective. About 80 or 90 million years ago, 
the brontosaurus and triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex were running 
across southwestern North Dakota. They are digging some of them up, by 
the way. Then we skipped and fast forwarded, and it was about 5,000 
years ago that we discovered there were people around, and about 2,000 
years ago Jesus was alive. About 500 years ago Columbus was relatively 
lost and stumbled onto the southern part of this continent, and despite 
the fact that the folks who were living here greeted his boat, he was 
credited with discovering something or another.
  And 200 years ago our country was born. Then 100 years ago we created 
planes, trains, and automobiles, roughly speaking. And 75 and 50 years 
ago it was the radio, then television. And 25 years ago we put a man on 
the Moon. Then 10 years ago the computer became something that you 
could have in your home and then later carry on your lap as you 
traveled. And now in the Republican Party ``GOP'' means ``Grand Old 
Populists.'' And it is causing quite a stir, actually.
  I noticed in this morning's paper one of the strategists, William 
Kristol, who speaks more often than most on politics from the 
conservative side, spoke of this issue.
  He is speaking now about the turmoil that is going on in the 
Republican primaries. ``William Kristol,'' according to the story this 
morning as a result of something he wrote recently--I guess this week--
``sees no need for the Republican Establishment to succumb, in Pat 
Buchanan's phrase, to `terminal panic.' A junior member of that 
Establishment, Kristol doesn't cower when 

[[Page S1292]]
the high-riding presidential contender thunders about the terrified 
knights and barons of the GOP,'' et cetera, et cetera.

       ``Someone needs to stand up and defend the Establishment,'' 
     says Kristol, a sometime strategist, party ideologist and 
     editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine. ``In the 
     last couple of weeks, there's been too much pseudo-populism, 
     almost too much concern and attention for, quote, the 
     people--that is, the people's will, their prejudices and 
     their foolish opinions. And in a certain sense, we're all 
     paying the price for that now . . . After all, we 
     conservatives are on the side of the lords and the barons.''

  He says there is ``almost too much concern and attention for the 
people * * * we are on the side of the lords and barons.''
  Well, what to make of this: The grand old populist with the hard hat 
and the honest conservative who says, ``Wait a second, there's too much 
attention being paid to the people here, the people and their foolish 
opinions,'' Mr. Kristol says. ``We are on the side of the lords and the 
barons.''
  God bless the lords and the barons. They are a good group of folks, 
but it is the people who run this country. It is the people for whom 
elections are held, because the Constitution gives the people in this 
country the right to grab the steering wheel and decide in Montana or 
North Dakota or Nevada or New York or Texas in which direction they 
want America to move. They nudge that steering wheel by collectively 
voting. It is the people, not the lords and barons, the people who grab 
the American steering wheel every even-numbered year. That is part of 
the miracle of the American Constitution. It is a miracle guaranteed 
every even-numbered year to the people in this country.
  What of this issue of populism? It is interesting to me, coming from 
a State where populism had its roots. In North Dakota, in the early 
1900's, nineteen teens, there was a legislator named Treadwill 
Twitchell who stood up in the chamber of the State legislature and told 
the farmers to ``go home and slop your hogs with great arrogance.'' He 
was someone who represented one of the big cities in our State. ``Go 
home and slop your hogs,'' he said.
  They went home all right, and 2 years later, they organized section 
line by section line all across North Dakota. They came back and took 
over in North Dakota in the 19 teens. They were populists. There is a 
book written about it called ``Prairie Fire,'' in which the people took 
hold and said, ``This is our destiny.''
  They built themselves in North Dakota a bank saying, ``We're tired of 
having public money put in private cronies' banks. We will have our own 
bank which belongs to people.'' My State is the only State in America 
that still has a Bank of North Dakota, and all public money goes into 
that bank used for the public good. It is not a case in our State where 
some of the State's money goes into some crony's bank someplace. It 
goes into the bank the populists created in the 19 teens.
  They built a mill and elevator because they were sick and tired of 
the big mills in the East taking advantage of our farmers. They said, 
``We are going to build a mill and elevator.'' They passed a farmers 
bill where they said, ``We want farmers, not corporations; we want yard 
lights where families live on the farm.''
  The populist legacy in our State is a legacy about people having 
power. Part of what I find heartening these days is the discussion in 
the political system, especially in the Republican primaries, but also 
in our party, the Democratic Party, a discussion about what kind of 
economic system does this country have. For whose benefit does it 
operate? Who reaps the rewards of this economic system?
  There are some things I have heard and seen in recent weeks that 
trouble me greatly, and I am sure that is true of many in this Chamber: 
Top advisers to campaigners out there who give speeches to white 
supremacist groups and use code words. Those kinds of things really 
bother me a lot, because there is a dark tinge to some of this 
discussion, and that ought to be rejected, and rejected quickly, by the 
American people.
  But there is also, in my judgment, an arrow headed straight to the 
center of what ought to be the economic debate in this country, and the 
center of the economic debate is how are American families doing? Are 
they advancing? Is their standard of living improving? When they sit 
down for dinner with the family to talk about their circumstance, are 
they able to say, ``Our jobs are secure; we have good jobs with good 
incomes; we have decent health care at affordable prices; we go to good 
schools''? Are they able to say that? Or do they say, ``Too often these 
days, we're not so sure about our job security. We worked for the same 
company for 22 years, but the company just reported record profits, the 
CEO makes $4 million, just got a $2 million raise and laid off 8,000 
people, because they call that progress.''
  So, too many families now sit down at dinner and understand the 
companies they have worked for for 20 years see them like they see a 
wrench or a punch press: As a tool, perfectly expendable and completely 
expendable once the company has decided it is in their interest to 
decide to get rid of them now and hire another tool or another worker.
  All too often in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, 
somewhere where they can hire someone without the restrictions on age--
you can hire a kid if you wish--without the nettlesome restrictions 
that you have to pay a living wage--you can pay 14 cents an hour to 
someone who makes tennis shoes in Malaysia--without the restriction 
that you have to have a safe workplace, without the restriction that 
you cannot dump chemicals into the air or dump chemicals into the 
water.

  So people now understand that they are expendable, and that is the 
sadness of the lack of security in the job place in America. Not only 
do they see they have less security, they also see that they make less 
money; they work harder, but they make less money. If one adjusts their 
wage for inflation and goes back 20 years and measures it, what has 
happened is they are working harder and 20 years later they are making 
less money and have less purchasing power than they had 20 years ago.
  Is there any reason that the American people have some anxiety about 
that? We can talk forever that the GDP numbers are up, America is on 
the move, our economy is growing, and it does not matter if the 
standard of living for American families is not advancing.
  I have spoken on the floor previously about this--I know it is 
repetitive--but it is important to say you do not and cannot measure 
America's economic health and its future promise by what it consumes. I 
am just flat sick and tired of hearing the news reports that the 
Commerce Department said this, the Federal Reserve Board this or that, 
car sales are up, home sales are up, shoes sales are up. At issue is 
not how much we bought, how much we consumed.
  The issue is what did we produce in this country? It is production 
that gives you good jobs. Good jobs come from our productive sector 
and, as our manufacturing jobs are moving, we are losing manufacturing 
jobs. They are being moved by international economic enterprises who do 
not say the Pledge of Allegiance and they do not sing the national 
anthem. They are interested in international profits. They do not care 
whether they produce in Pittsburgh or Malaysia. They will produce where 
it is the most profitable to produce, and manufacturing jobs are 
leaving America in droves. Witness the trade deficit we have.
  Last year, the trade deficit was larger than our budget deficit. 
There is nobody saying much about it, and it is almost a conspiracy of 
silence. The trade deficit means we buy from abroad more than we sell 
abroad. What that means is jobs that would have been here are instead 
somewhere else in another country.
  Corporations that are producing are producing elsewhere, and the 
American people have some role in this as well. It is not unusual to 
find somebody wearing a Chinese shirt, slacks from Taiwan, shoes from 
Italy, shorts from Mexico, driving a Japanese car, and then saying, 
``Where on Earth have American jobs gone?'' You are wearing where it 
has gone. So there is enough responsibility to go around.
  But the center of the economic debate in this country has to come to 
this issue about what is fair trade and how do we construct a 
circumstance in which we have a healthy, vibrant growing manufacturing 
base in our country.
  To those out on the campaign trail these days wearing hard hats and 

[[Page S1293]]
  preaching populism, I say to them, ``Come here and help us.''
  I offered an amendment in the U.S. Senate, and it was as simple as 
could be. No one could misunderstand it and no one could even, in my 
judgment, mistakenly vote wrong on it. I lost on a partisan vote.
  The amendment very simply was to say: Let us stop providing tax 
breaks so that companies can close their American plants and open up 
plants overseas. Let us stop providing tax breaks so that American 
corporations can move their jobs to foreign countries. Let us put an 
end to the insidious giveaway in our Tax Code that allows companies to 
do that: Fire American workers, hire foreign workers, become more 
profitable, and destroy job security in our country.
  I could not even get that adopted in the Senate. Mr. President, to 
all of those who voted and voted wrong, they are going to get a chance 
6, 8, 10, 12 more times, if I have my way, this year to rectify that, 
because this country should not and cannot continue to have economic 
incentives in its tax laws to say ``it is our aim to encourage you to 
move your jobs overseas.''
  It is my aim to encourage American companies to invest here, to 
produce here, and to hire here in this country.
  There are twin responsibilities that we have. The American worker has 
a responsibility, but productivity is on the rise. Workers are working 
harder. Workers do have a responsibility to be motivated, educated, 
dedicated, and to be good workers. But companies then have the 
responsibility, as well, to care about the people who make up that 
company, to care about the people who make the products that the 
company sells with that company's name on it.
  About a month or so ago, I read a piece in the Minneapolis Tribune as 
I was going through the airport. I came to the floor of the Senate and 
told, briefly, about what I had read because it was so foreign to 
everything that is going on in this country. It was about a fellow who 
had owned the company that make inline skates called Rollerblades. He 
and his wife had purchased this company and built it into something 
substantial, an enormously successful company, making inline skates. 
Rollerblades is the name of the company. And then this fellow, named 
Bob, sold the company some months ago. He had made a substantial amount 
of money because the company was enormously successful. Of course, all 
of us understand what has happened with inline skates. At 
Christmastime, some of the workers at this company began getting in the 
mail a letter from the fellow who had owned this company. They began to 
open their Christmas greeting from this fellow and his wife, and it 
turned out that he had sent them money. He no longer owned the company, 
but he sent all of the employees--I think something like 270 employees 
who worked for that company in the factory lines, custodial, the 
painters, and everything--if memory is correct, he sent them $160 for 
every month they worked for the company.
  In some cases, those folks on the factory lines, who had been there 
all the time he had the company, got up to a $20,000 check from this 
fellow and his wife. Do you know what else he did? He prepaid the taxes 
on it. So he said to them, ``This gift is for you. You owe no taxes on 
it. I have prepaid the taxes.''
  I called him and said, ``This is remarkable, at a time when we hear 
about all of the selfishness and layoffs and moving jobs overseas. I 
want to tell you how remarkable it is to hear about what you did.'' 
What he said to me was perfectly understandable. He said, ``I made 
money with that company because all of those folks helped make that 
company work. They worked on the factory lines. They are the ones who 
made the company, it was not just me, it was them as well, and I wanted 
to share something with them. I wanted to tell them that they 
contributed something significant in the success of that company.''
  I thought, ``What a hero.'' He did not have to do that. We do not 
hear many stories like that--stories that are unselfish, where the CEO 
says, ``You people really make this company work. When we put our 
company name on the product, we are proud because you helped make the 
product.'' That is almost unheard of these days. Nowadays it is, 
``Well, you worked for us, but tomorrow you are like a used wrench. You 
might be out of here with no security, no health care, and maybe no 
pension. We might be hiring your replacement 6,000 or 8,000 miles 
away.''
  Well, would it not be nice to hear more people do what that man did, 
and recognize that part of this country's success is to have a vibrant, 
expanding, growing manufacturing base, and to recognize the workers out 
there on the line producing products, doing good work, working hard, 
and are also part of the success and part of the competitive team?

  I just think that we have kind of gone in a different direction in 
this country, in which we have had economists, CEO's, and others 
develop an economic model that says that it is fine if we produce 
elsewhere and sell here as long as we are buying cheap. That is not 
fine. Major jobs are gone, and a major future is gone with it. That 
needs to be the center of the economic debate. How could we create 
conditions in which manufacturing in this country expands again, in 
which there is fair international competition, in which we reduce the 
trade deficit, bring jobs back to this country, and rev up the American 
economy to a reasonable economic growth.
  On a related but slightly different issue, yesterday, the President 
reappointed Alan Greenspan to head the Federal Reserve Board for 
another term. He is going to submit his name to us. Certainly, the 
Congress will accept that. I am terribly disappointed by that. I have 
great respect for Mr. Greenspan, but I have profound disagreements with 
him, as well. I agree with Jack Kemp on the issue of economic growth. 
The Federal Reserve Board sees itself as a set of human brake pads. 
That is their mission in life. They say America cannot have an 
unemployment limit below 6 percent because it is inflationary, or 
economic growth above 2.5 or 3 percent because it is inflationary. But 
wages are going down, not up, so that is nonsense.
  When you consign our economy to a meager growth rate of 2.5 percent, 
you consign an economy to an anemic future that is far less than what 
it should be for all Americans. It means fewer jobs and less 
opportunity. I am very disappointed the President has seen fit--not 
that Mr. Greenspan is a bad person, I have great respect for him. But I 
would have much preferred new leadership at the Fed--not leadership 
that says inflation is not important because, of course, it is. We have 
seen stable prices and a growing economy. Inflation has been going 
down--under 3 percent for 4 years in a row. Yet, the Fed has its foot 
on the brakes with higher interest rates than the producers in this 
country should be paying.
  Mr. President, I notice my friend from Nevada on the floor. He has 
some things to say today. So let me finish with a couple of other brief 
comments. This issue of populism, or the power that people have in this 
country to affect their lives and to force this political system to 
debate what it ought to debate, is a very important concept. We just 
finished debating a farm bill in the U.S. Senate. A fellow named Robert 
Greene, an Associated Press writer--somebody who I think does an 
excellent job of synthesizing what we do with foreign policy in the 
Congress. He wrote a piece that is probably the best piece I know of 
describing what we did on the farm policy. We passed the so-called 
freedom-to-farm bill, which I fought against and voted against because 
I think it is a terrible piece of legislation. Here is what he said 
about it:

       With a mix of luck, work and unusual organization, the 
     lobby for the big grain companies, railroads, meat companies, 
     millers and shippers scored a big win in the Senate-passed 
     overhaul of farm programs.

  The freedom-to-farm bill is a serious act of mislabeling. It is 
everything that big railroads wanted, that big grain trading farms 
wanted, that all the millers wanted, that all the food processors 
wanted. Guess what it means to the family with the yard light on at 
night trying to figure out how to operate the family farm? These large 
interests want lower grain prices. Talk about economic populism, about 
putting jam on the lower shelf so everybody can reach it. This sort of 
nonsense, the freedom-to-farm bill, which gives everything they want to 
the big grain trading firms, and shortchanges family farmers is the 
wrong way, not the right way, to address the issue of 

[[Page S1294]]
whether we should have family farmers in our future. If it becomes law, 
we will have large agrifactories from coast to coast, and you will see 
precious few yard lights on because family farmers will not be able to 
make a living.

  I was going to talk about other economic issues that relate to the 
same thing--who gets, who gives, who has the power, and who does not. 
As Mr. Kristol says, ``Who are the lords and barons, and what do they 
get?'' I will end where I began with not so much surprise at the 
message, but at the candor in the article this morning where Mr. 
Kristol says, ``Someone needs to stand up and defend the establishment. 
In the last couple of weeks there has been too much pseudo-populism, 
almost too much concern and attention for `the people.' ''
  Mr. Kristol has not served in the House or the Senate, but the people 
control the House and the Senate. This is their Chamber; it is their 
body. They, by their election, determine who serves here. I guess maybe 
some people, who have not run for county sheriff or Congress, for that 
matter, probably sometimes dismiss the interests of the people.
  There is a desk here that I was assigned to the first day I came to 
the Senate, and I have since been reassigned. It was temporary. I 
opened the drawer and, as is the custom, deep in the drawers, in the 
history of the Senate, everyone carves their names in the desk. That is 
not a practice we recommend to schoolchildren, but the history is that 
we do that. The desk that I was assigned to the first day I was here 
indicates that Harry Truman carved his name in the desk. A desk I was 
assigned to later says that Warren Harding sat in that desk. He later 
became President. Below his name is the name of one of the great 
populists in this country, Robert La Follette from Wisconsin. He 
understood about economic power. He understood about the people, and he 
would understand when I express enormous surprise that there is anyone 
who comments on, is interested in, or is involved in politics, who 
believes that there is too much concern and attention being paid to the 
people in our political campaigns.
  Frankly, there is not enough concern and attention being paid to the 
center issues that affect people, who, every day, are trying to figure 
out how do we get a good education, how do we afford decent health 
care, how do we find a good job that pays well, how do we find a 
company to work for that will value and trust us and keep us and 
appreciate our work? Those are the center concerns of a lot of people 
in this country, who believe that over two centuries of growth, through 
innovation and through hard work, America has succeeded beyond the 
dreams of most when you look at two centuries; but who also believe 
that the best days in this country are still ahead of us, if its best 
days are consigned to the interests of the people in this country, who 
still have the opportunity to control its direction and still have the 
opportunity to tell us what they think is important and what they think 
will make America a better country in which to live.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] is 
recognized.

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