[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3171-S3174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are now well into this year, the second 
year of this congressional session, preparing to go on a recess, to go 
back to our districts, do our business. So it is sort of interesting to 
reflect a bit on where we are and I guess more importantly where we go.
  It seems to me that this has been an extraordinary year, a year in 
which for the first time in 30 years, there has been a great effort to 
bring about a fundamental change in the operation of the Federal 
Government. Much of it, I think, results from the fact that the 1994 
elections, at least to most of us, had a message. The message was, the 
Federal Government is too large, costs too much, and it is 
overregulated. And there are consequences, there are consequences to 
that.
  Obviously, the consequence of being overregulated, one of them, is to 
keep a damper on the growth of the economy. It has to do with jobs, it 
has to do with wages. And we all want to change that.
  The idea of overspending, of course, has a couple of consequences. 
One of them is that we enjoy the benefits, we continue to add cost to 
Government without paying for it, to put it on the credit card--on your 
credit card. And you will be paying for it.
  The other is, of course, it takes more and more money from families, 
money that was earned by families, sent to the Government when more of 
it could be used by families themselves.
  What has really happened over the 30 years is we tended to go ahead 
with the Great Society programs in the social arena. We tended to 
simply discuss here how much more do we put into the

[[Page S3172]]

programs that have been there for a very long time. They are not all 
bad programs. But certainly after a number of years, there needs be to 
be a real look at whether or not those programs need to be there, 
whether, those, programs can be done more efficiently, whether, indeed, 
those programs can be transferred to local governments, closer to those 
who are governed, whether they need to be discontinued.
  So I am very pleased, frankly, with this year, even though we have 
not come to closure on as many things as I hoped we would have. We 
still have an opportunity in this week. And this week has been a good 
week for that.
  Nevertheless, the debate has changed entirely. The debate has changed 
from one of how much more money do we put into the program, to a real 
analysis of the program, a real change. Frankly, I guess being a 
freshman here makes it a little more exciting to help bring about that 
change, as the Presiding Officer would agree.
  But it is something that I think most of us want to do, and we intend 
to continue to do that. I had the good opportunity this last week, Mr. 
President, as I often do, to go to schools in my district. I went to CY 
Junior High in Caspar, WY. They asked me to come and talk a little bit 
about politics and particularly the primary. I am always happy to do 
that. I am happy to do it for a couple reasons.
  One is, of course, even though we sort of despair about politics and 
we call them politicians and all those things, politics is the way we 
govern ourselves. Politics is the way people in Caspar, WY, in my 
precinct where I am a precinct chairman, have input into what is done 
in this country, regardless of the party that they are in. So that is 
what politics is about. Obviously, I have urged young people to learn 
about it and become involved in it.
  The other, of course, is the primary, which is a very interesting 
aspect of our society, particularly when we generally have two parties, 
a two-party system. So there is in general a difference between the 
parties. Indeed, there should be. It is legitimate that there be that. 
That is what gives people a choice on how they govern themselves.
  Of course, generally, Republicans have been more conservative, the 
Republicans have been for less government, the Republicans have been 
for moving more government to the States. The Democrats, on the other 
hand, have generally supported more Federal Government and making more 
of the decisions there. Both of these are legitimate views. I happen to 
feel rather strongly about my view. I do not insist, however, that it 
is always correct.
  But it has been interesting this week, I think, Mr. President, to see 
how many of the things we have talked about just in the last couple of 
days would tend to show that that is indeed the case.
  The farm bill, we talked about the farm bill yesterday. It was a 
pretty clear choice as to where we go in the future. The choice is 
basically whether we continue to have a farm program--and I happen to 
come from a background of agriculture, and I can recall people, when I 
first got into agriculture in the 1960's, people saying, ``Hey, we have 
got to get out of this farm program. We have to get so we're producing 
for the market. We have got to get to doing something where farmers 
have more choices for themselves.'' We have not done that until 
now. Now we have an opportunity in this farm bill to move out over a 
period of adjustment into the marketplace, where we ought to be. It is 
pretty clear, a pretty clear division. We could see it on the floor 
yesterday.

  Health care--we will work today, we will work this week, we have 
worked for a very long time on health care. There are some very clear 
definitions there as to whether we want to deal with health care in the 
private sector, where people can make their choices, where we have 
IRA's for health care, where we do something about private insurance, 
or whether we move, as the administration sought to, 2 years ago, to a 
Government-controlled program. It is pretty clear.
  I think it is really important that we do understand that there are 
some philosophical differences here that have impact. I used to debate 
a Congressman from California, Mr. George Miller, on issues about land 
and the environment, but we had to make it clear to begin with that we 
had a great difference of philosophy, because often we were not really 
arguing about the bill but arguing about philosophy. George Miller 
would like to have the Government own more land. I tend to say there 
ought to be a limit, and private ownership ought to be sustained.
  Jobs and wages--I think all of us are concerned about that. We see 
two very different approaches taking place. One is to encourage the 
private sector. The Republicans are saying we should do something about 
that, do something about capital gains so people are encouraged and 
given incentives to invest, to create jobs, do something about 
overregulation; on the other hand, our friends with a little different 
point of view, different philosophy, say, ``Look, we ought to get the 
Government involved here and put these corporations in different 
categories, and if they behave properly with respect to Government 
regulations, then we give them some sort of preference.''
  I guess, Mr. President, what I am saying is, we talked a bit about 
differences, about choices. Obviously, no one agrees entirely with 
everything their party is for, but they find the party that most 
closely represents their point of view. That is what primaries are 
about. That is what elections are about. People ought to see where they 
are--the 10th amendment, the idea of involving the States more.
  Mr. President, I think this has been an exciting year. I look forward 
to completing more of that fundamental change that has been brought 
about here. One of the final comments I make, it was interesting that 
the Chief of Staff of the White House was indicating the other day it 
is up to the Congress to deliver to the President the kind of bill that 
he wants. Let me suggest that is not exactly the way it is set up, in 
my view.
  Under the Constitution, there are three equal divisions of the 
Federal Government--judicial, legislative, and executive. Each of them 
has the authority to make some decisions for themselves, and, indeed, 
the President has the perfect right to veto, and he should veto. That 
is his constitutional privilege. To veto does not mean the Congress has 
to continue to bring everything back until it meets his particular 
point of view. This is not a unilateral decision. This is a joint 
decision.
  My only point is the White House needs to make some accommodations, 
as well. The way you make that work is after a couple vetoes, you do 
not send any more, and there is no opportunity for the President to 
work.
  I hope we do come together. Certainly, we never will all agree. We do 
have the responsibility to move forward. We do have the responsibility 
to make the system work.
  Mr. President, I hope that we can move on some of those things. We 
have passed a great number of items in this Congress, all of which have 
met the same fate at the White House. We will change that. We will have 
to change that, so that we can move forward and respond to those voters 
who spoke very clearly in 1994.
  I yield to the Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my 
distinguished colleague from Wyoming. Many of my remarks will reinforce 
the point he is making. Sometimes we need to step back from the fray to 
sort of size up the situation we are in.
  Here in the waning days of March 1996, over 3 years after the 
election of President Clinton, I think we can come to the conclusion 
that the President does not want a balanced budget. He does not want a 
balanced budget.

  Those that might be listening would say, ``Well, how do you come to 
that conclusion?'' First, this recent budget we received from the 
President is his ninth attempt--ninth. He promised the American voters 
in 1992 that he would balance the budget within 5 years. He has yet to 
take an affirmative step to do that. In the first 2 years, he raised 
taxes in an unprecedented level--over 200-plus billion dollars. And the 
first effort he made was to add $20 billion to the deficit. That was 
his first financial overture to the people of the United States.
  Well, we wrangled over that for a period of time, and finally the 
104th Congress, this Congress, sent the President

[[Page S3173]]

a balanced budget, and he vetoed it. This Congress tried to pass a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and he rose in 
opposition and defeated it. He caused six Members of his own party who 
voted for the exact proposition the year before to change their votes 
because he did not want a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution, a discipline that would cause America to have to live 
within its means.
  At the time he and his colleagues said, ``Well, we just have to have 
the will. We do not need an amendment to the Constitution. Congress 
just has to have the fortitude and utilize its own jurisdictional 
powers and pass a balanced budget.'' Lo and behold, we did. And he 
vetoed it, and he opposed the balanced budget amendment. Then he would 
not submit a balanced budget. Then the Government closed down twice.
  Now we have the latest attempt in his last year of office under this 
term. He submits his ninth attempt. What does it do? Well, the first 
thing that happens is that 70 percent of the savings that theoretically 
would produce a balanced budget occur after he leaves office, if he is 
elected the second time. So all the work has to occur when he is long 
gone. As a world statesman, it is sort of like, ``Here, you handle it, 
America. You take care of it.'' Mr. President, 70 percent of the 
correctional devices occur after he is out of office.
  It makes no structural adjustments in the area of Medicaid and 
Medicare. In the case of Medicare, he totally ignores his own trustees 
who have told the President, they have told the Presiding Officer, they 
have told me, our colleagues in the Nation, that Medicare will write 
its last check in 5 years. This budget ignores that crisis, and 
therefore is ignoring all those senior citizens dependent upon that 
program. Once again, ``Here, you handle it--later. We will look at that 
after the next election.''
  Mr. President, these budgets talk of big, big numbers. They are hard 
to follow, even if you work on it every day, much less if you are 
trying to do the things that you are responsible for at home--get the 
kids up, get them fed, get them to school, get to the job, leave the 
job, someone is sick, get to the school, to the doctor, back home, one 
of the parents comes--we know the routine very well, Mr. President. 
Those families are the ones that are most impacted by the failure of 
this budget.
  What it does to that family, that average Georgia family at home, is 
it leaves enormous burdens right on their shoulders and backs. That 
family today makes about $40,000. Both parents work, as I just 
described, and they have two kids. Under this plan that the President 
has given us, they are going to take about 20 to 25 percent of the 
total earnings--gross earnings--of that family and ship it up here to 
Washington. Another 10 percent--$3,000 to $4,000--comes out to take 
care of State and local government. This is an interesting figure: Out 
of the $40,000 they make, they will contribute $6,500 for the 
regulatory apparatus we have set up in America.
  Under this President, it is going up. Just since he has been 
President, the bill for the regulatory apparatus has gone up $688 in 
the last 36 months. They are going to get to pay about $2,000 as their 
share of the interest on our debt, which we just increased last night.
  When you add it all up, how much do they have left to do what we have 
asked them to do for the country? Remember what we asked them to do, 
Mr. President? We said raise the country, educate the country, feed it, 
house it, transport it, see to its health. What does this budget that 
the President has just given us leave for that family to do its work? 
About half. They have $20,000 to $22,000 to do all the work we have 
asked them to do and to build their dreams--to build their dreams. That 
is what this President's budget leaves for them.
  When he vetoed a balanced budget, in effect, he took $3,000 out of 
their checking account--$3,000. Just think what that family could do 
with that. That is the equivalent of a 10- to 20-percent pay raise in 
that family. But this President thinks that the $3,000 is better used 
up here than in their checking account. Sometimes we wonder why people 
are so frustrated.
  When we took that $3,000 out of their account and brought it up here, 
it reminds us that when they sent Secretary O'Leary and her aides and 
friends all over the world, flying first class, staying in the best 
hotels, it cost $3.7 million, which took 739 Georgia families to pay 
for that travel bill. It took all that they sent up here to pay for 
that travel bill. To send her to China took 170 Georgia families, my 
neighbors, just to get her to China. No wonder they are furious. To 
send her to India, it took 144 Georgia families--everything they have 
earned and worked for and sent up here went to get her to India. It 
took 140 families to get her to South Africa.
  When the First Lady and her entourage went to Beijing, that took 499 
Georgia families to pay for that. Here is the whopper: To send Commerce 
Secretary Ron Brown and his aides around the country and the world, it 
took 13,700 Georgia families. We ask them to raise the country, feed 
the country, house the country, educate the country, prepare the 
country for the future. And here we have 17,000 Georgia families, and 
everything they earn, all that hard sweat that came up here just to 
fund this kind of foolishness. This budget that we just got from the 
President leaves all that burden and all that apparatus right in place, 
and it leaves all that pressure on those families. And it is not right.
  Sooner or later, the demand for balanced budgets, which leaves those 
resources in those families, will prevail, despite the opposition of 
this President.
  Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished Senator from Texas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President. What is the order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has up to 10 minutes.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to commend the 
Senator from Georgia. He really talked about the effect on people of 
wasteful, big Federal Government. He did not just talk about numbers on 
a page that do not relate to anything. He talked about how much it 
costs to have a bureaucrat waste taxpayer dollars, how many Georgia and 
Texas families it takes to pay for the waste in Government, families 
that do not have the ability to waste money because they are working so 
hard to do the things for their children that they would hope to do. So 
I thank the Senator from Georgia for bringing this into a debate about 
people and the effect on people's lives.
  Balancing the Federal budget is not about the runaway Federal 
deficit, or the debt ceiling, or even about temporary Government 
shutdowns. It is about the future of our country, about what America 
will be like tomorrow and the next day and a generation from now.
  Most Americans believe they are better off than their parents. But it 
is amazing how many Americans do not believe their children will be 
better off than they were. The American dream has always been about 
progress, about growth from one generation to the next, about 
generational improvements, that our children will have more 
opportunities, more choices, better lives than their parents. Why is 
it, for the first time in history, that a generation of Americans have 
lost hope, have lost confidence in our future? The answer is that too 
many people are in Washington, DC, making decisions about how to spend 
our money. For too long, Washington has spent more than it takes in.
  I was listening to the radio this morning, and a man called in and he 
said, ``I remember a quote about Thomas Jefferson.'' Thomas Jefferson 
was brought the Federal budget, and his budget advisers put it on his 
desk. Thomas Jefferson had one simple question: ``Do we take in more 
than we spend? That is the only question that matters because if we do 
not take in more than we are spending, take it back, do something with 
it, that is the only question that you have to answer right.''
  Thomas Jefferson said what we should be saying today instead of too 
many people in Washington spending our tax dollars the way they see fit 
and many times for the wrong reasons.
  The President's budget proposal asks for $600 million for increased 
audits

[[Page S3174]]

and enforcement and $850 million, on top of the $4 billion already 
spent, to improve tax collection procedures. Americans want the Federal 
Tax Code to be made simple, fair, and uniform. But they really do not 
want billions more to be spent on IRS bureaucrats.
  The President's budget fails to institute real work requirements for 
welfare recipients. It also guarantees that illegal immigrants will be 
able to receive food stamps. By refusing to sign the welfare reform 
legislation that Congress has sent to him twice, the President 
guarantees that welfare dependency will continue in the country and 
that the American people will continue to foot the bill. The working 
American will continue to foot the bill.
  I believe that is why Republicans were elected in 1994--to end 
politics as usual. For decades, politicians came to Washington and put 
Band-Aids on a bad situation until the next election.
  That is not what we are here for. We were sent here to offer real 
long-term solutions--not for the next election but for the generation.
  That is why we are trying hard to do what we said we would do and 
balance the budget. It is why we sent a balanced budget to the 
President. But he has vetoed that balanced budget. The balanced budget 
is not about numbers. It is about people just as the Senator from 
Georgia was just saying.
  I think of parents with children in high school afraid their children 
will not be able to attend college because they cannot afford the 
interest rates for college loans. I think of the newly married couple 
that wants to buy their piece of the American dream--a new home--but 
they are not going to be able to afford the interest rates on the 
mortgage. I think about working people in their forties and fifties who 
are trying desperately to set aside that little bit of extra money they 
are earning for their retirement security. And yet in the budget that 
the President has submitted it does not even allow homemakers to set 
aside $2,000 a year for IRA's like those who work outside the home are 
able to do. They are not even thinking about one-income earner couples 
that are sacrificing so that one spouse--the homemaker--will stay home 
and raise children. And I think of senior citizens who are depending on 
Medicare but are afraid that it may not be there when they really need 
it.
  These are real people with real concerns and real fears. 
Unfortunately, instead of hope, President Clinton hyped the status quo. 
Instead of inspiring Americans to have confidence in their future, 
instead he incites fear.
  It is wrong to ask that American people live within their means but 
not ask the Federal Government to do the same. Is it wrong to demand 
that Washington stop wasting taxpayer dollars? Is it wrong to demand an 
end to politics as usual?
  That is what we are demanding--a return to principle instead of 
politics; a commitment to the next generation instead of the next 
election.
  We are 4 years away from a new millennium. The year 2000 should be a 
new beginning. Where will we be in the year 2000? As we look forward to 
the year 2000, where will we be starting with what we need to do today?
  As that ball drops in Times Square, and people all over our Nation 
are celebrating a new beginning, will we be firmly on the path to a 
balanced budget, and a growing economy? Or will the deficit still be 
eating away at the working people's livelihood in this country? Will we 
have reformed the welfare system, or will it continue to undermine the 
work ethic destroying families and ruin the very lives of people who 
are receiving welfare? Will we have reduced the excessive tax burden on 
the American family leaving them with more of their money in their 
pockets or will we continue to have taxes that takes people's extra 
money so they cannot put it away for saving for their retirement? Will 
we have reformed Medicare so that our future generations will know that 
it will be there for them so that it will be stronger? Or will we have 
continued on the path that we are on now? And will Medicare be 2 years 
away from going out of business so that seniors in this country really 
will have to fear whether it is going to be there for them?
  In short, Mr. President, will we have continued business as usual for 
these 4 years that we have been elected to make change, or will we have 
kept the promise that we made to the American people?
  I hope that in the year 2000 we will have said this year there is no 
more politics as usual, no more excuses, that we kept our promises in 
1996 so that in the year 2000 when we are celebrating a new beginning 
we will indeed have a strong and thriving economy, and that we will 
have American families with the hope that their children will be able 
to have a better life than they have had just as so many generations in 
the past have been able to hope.
  Mr. President, the time to prepare for a new beginning in a new 
millennium is right now, and we are missing that opportunity with a 
budget by the President that does not speak to tax fairness and equity 
for the working families of this country. We are trying to make a 
difference.
  The President has vetoed welfare reform. He has vetoed a balanced 
budget. He has vetoed middle-class tax cuts. All of the things that he 
promised and all of the things that we promised--and we are trying to 
deliver--have been vetoed by the President.
  The time is now for us to put partisanship aside and do what all of 
us said we would do for the American people--balance the budget. That 
is our commitment. And, Mr. President, we have a chance to keep our 
promise. And that is what we are trying to do.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized to 
speak for up to 20 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for as 
much time as I need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________