[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3174-S3177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is, it seems to me, a time to talk
about change in this country. I think the central question is what kind
of change will make this a better place in which to live?
We have had a lot of struggles in our history in this country about
what the role of government is. Is there a role for government? What
kind of government, and how much government do we want? We have
struggled over the decades with that question.
I go back to the early 1900's which relates to the struggle we had
over the question of food inspection. I have told my colleagues this
before. Some know it because of the readings they have done. But even
then we began the struggle over all of these issues.
On the issue of food inspection, Upton Sinclair wrote a book at the
turn of the century. He did an investigative book on his discoveries in
the meat, packing plants, I believe in Chicago, where he discovered
that in the meat packing plants they had rats running around the
plants. And they were trying to, of course, control the problem of rats
in the meat packing plants. That is a pretty big problem. So they would
put out bread laced with arsenic and lay it around the meat plants. And
the rats would eat the bread, and die. And they would throw the rats
and the bread and the meat down the same chute, and out comes mystery
meat on the other side sold as sausage in some location somewhere in
America to an unsuspecting consumer. Rats, arsenic, poison bread, meat
and sausage.
Upton Sinclair wrote about that--about the outrage of that, about the
threat to this country's health as a result of that. And guess what
happened? The debate in this country turned quickly to the question of
how to stop that. How do we prevent that? How do we assure ourselves
that our food supply is safe?
We created in this country a level of government that says we are
going to inspect food so that when you eat food you are not going to
eat mystery meat laced with bread and arsenic that was used to poison
rats. Even then we had people who said it is none of government's
business; let the private sector decide. Well, arsenic and rats in meat
are the public's business.
Oh, we have gone several stages from that. And in the mid-1960's half
of America's senior citizens had no health care. They reached an age
where they were not working. They reached retirement age, and did not
have any money; nothing really to speak of. And they had no health care
coverage.
I remember driving one fellow to the hospital some 55 miles away when
I
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was a teenager--an old fellow that lived by himself, had no one, had
nothing, had no insurance, and was very sick. And my father, who could
not take him, asked me to take him to the hospital. I drove him there.
They said, ``Do you have money, or insurance?'' Of course not. They
took him in anyway.
But back then half of American seniors had no health coverage at all.
In the mid-1960's we had a discussion about that in this country, and
we decided that we would develop a Medicare Program.
A lot of people--90 percent of the majority party now--in Congress
voted against it and said we do not want Medicare the first time we
voted on it. Some are still bragging they voted against it.
Do you know something? Ninety-nine percent of American senior
citizens are now covered by health care. I am proud of that.
Do we have some problems with Medicare? Yes, we do. Should we fix it?
You had better believe it.
But should we decide to retreat on the things we have done to make
this a better country--food inspection and health care and dozens of
other areas? I do not think so. I do not think it really does much good
to suggest that somehow all of government is unhealthy or unholy and
does nothing to protect people. Government is our teachers. Government
is our police force. Government is our fire department. Government is
the food inspectors, the air traffic controllers. A lot of folks do a
lot of good work.
Now, we are reducing the size of government, and we should. There are
fewer people working for the Federal Government today than have been at
any time since John F. Kennedy. Why? Reinventing Government, headed by
Al Gore, the Vice President, developed by Bill Clinton. Reinventing
government is reducing the size of government. Do not believe me? There
are 200,000 less people working for the Federal Government now than
there were 4, 5 years ago. We have program after program after program
that has been abolished or disbanded because it did not work. Other
programs are reduced. Some programs that are important are expanded.
That is what we ought to do. We ought to use good judgment to see
what works and what does not. Let us get rid of what does not work. We
ought to ask two questions about everything we do in Congress: Do we
need it? Can we afford it? And if the answer is yes, let us go and do
it as a country.
I am a little confused, I guess, about some of the things that I have
heard in some discussion today, and I have certainly heard a lot of it
previously, about what an awful place this is, America has gone to hell
in a handbasket. Gee, this country is just in terrible shape. And then
we have folks out running for President who want to build a fence
between the United States and Mexico and keep the Mexicans out. And we
have folks from every other country of the world who want to come to
this country. We have a serious immigration problem.
Why would that be? Is it because this place is such an awful place to
live? No, it is because this place is still a remarkable country, a
country filled with people with enormous strength and vitality and
interest to make this a better place.
How do we make it a better place? Do we make it a better place by
calling for changes that say, well, let us decide to retract our
commitment to Medicare; let us decide it is not important for a poor
kid to have an entitlement to a hot lunch in the middle of the day at
school; let us decide that is not important; let us decide that what we
really need to do is cut the Star Schools Program which is designed to
try to boost our country in math and sciences and education; let us cut
Star Schools by 40 percent, and let us increase the star wars program
by over 100 percent because we want to build more missiles and put an
astrodome over America with missile defense and we want to do it much
faster with much more money than the generals and admirals think is
appropriate because these folks know better about that, so increase
that spending 100 percent and cut Star Schools investments by 40
percent. Does that advance this country's interests? I do not think so.
Maybe build some orphanages, as a welfare solution. Maybe give every
poor kid a laptop, take their lunch away but give them a laptop. And
the other one is term limits. If you can just have term limits, you
would solve all the problems. I tell you, it is hard not to laugh out
loud to see people walk in this Chamber who served here 30 years and
vote for term limits and say, ``Yes, the problem is I have served here
too long so stop me before I run again, except the term limit I want to
vote for will not apply to me.''
That is what they say. It is hard not to laugh out loud when you see
that. They do not believe that. And it is wrong not to deal with the
real issues.
Do you know what the real issues are, in my judgment? The real issues
I think you can categorize in about three areas. Kids. That is our
future. Jobs. There is no social program in this country more important
than a good job that pays well. Jobs. How do we get jobs? How do we
expand jobs and create jobs and have an economy that provides more
opportunity? Kids, jobs, and the other issue is values.
Those are the core issues I think we have to address. We can run
around on dozens of other issues. I just heard discussions about the
balanced budget amendment. We ought to pass a balanced budget
amendment. But anybody who thinks they are going to get a balanced
budget through this Chamber that loots the Social Security system by
taking the Social Security trust funds to the tune of nearly $700
billion in 7 years is dreaming.
I am not going to vote for that. I did not come here to vote to loot
the Social Security trust funds. We ought to balance the budget
honestly. The Social Security trust funds are dedicated only to be used
for Social Security, and to use them for other purposes is dishonest
budgeting. To those who say, well, we could not get it through the
Chamber of the Senate, I say I voted for a constitutional amendment to
balance the budget, one that said the Social Security trust funds will
have a firewall; you cannot use Social Security trust funds as
operating budget revenues because it is dishonest. Guess what. The
folks who said they wanted a balanced budget voted against that because
they wanted a balanced budget amendment in the Constitution that
created a constitutional opportunity for them to misuse $1.2 trillion
in Social Security trust funds over 10 years.
No wonder it did not get through the Senate. It is the goofiest idea
I ever heard--tell people we are going to take money out of your
paychecks, called Social Security taxes; we are going to put it in a
trust fund; and we promise we will get it in a trust fund dedicated
only for that use. But now we have decided to put in the Constitution a
provision that says we are going to use hundreds of billions of dollars
of the trust funds as offsets against other operating revenue. And by
the way, what are our priorities for the revenue and expenditures on
the rest of the budget? Well, we say, while we balance the budget let's
provide a tax cut. Let's provide a very large tax cut for people with
very large incomes and let's provide a minuscule tax cut for all the
rest. It seems to me maybe people are bound to be a little skeptical
about that.
So what do you do about the central issues that I think really relate
to people's lives? Kids, what about our kids, jobs and values? When
people in my hometown sit down to have supper --we call it in Regent,
ND; we sit down for supper--and you talk about your circumstances, what
is important? What is important is how are your kids doing. What kind
of opportunities are your kids going to have. It is also important, how
are we doing? Do we have more income now? We are working harder. Are we
making more? How are we doing? What kind of economic opportunity will
we have?
And then the issue of values. There is a collapsing kind of value
system, coarsening language, difficulty with what our children see on
television, more crime, and a whole series of related issues that I
think fall under the heading of values. But let me talk just for a
moment about kids.
The first issue with kids that matters most to this country, in my
judgment, is not all the peripheral antigovernment nonsense. It is, do
you have in this country the best education system in the world or do
you not? Because if you do not, we will not win. Our country ought to
dedicate itself at
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every single level of Government, and we ought to dedicate ourselves in
every home with every set of parents and in every school that America
is going to have the best education system on the face of the Earth.
American kids are going to be the best educated kids in the world. That
ought to be the central debate.
Now, most of education is run by State and local governments. It is
not run by the Federal Government. We play a peripheral role. We play a
role of providing financial aid to college students largely, plus we
have some title programs--title I which moves some money to school
districts to help some of the disadvantaged kids. But education is
largely a function of State and local government. We must, it seems to
me, as a country, not necessarily with a central plan but as a country
in which all of us work together, decide our goal is to have the finest
education system on the face of the Earth. That is the way this country
will succeed and win in the future.
I have told my colleagues before, and I am going to again because I
think it is so illustrative, the first week I came to Congress some
years ago I walked into the office of the oldest Member of the House,
Claude Pepper, and I will never forget what I saw on the wall behind
his chair. Two pictures. One was Orville and Wilbur Wright making the
first airplane flight down at Kitty Hawk, and Claude was an old fellow,
wonderful old fellow at that point. He had an autographed picture of
Orville Wright making the first flight autographed to Congressman
Claude Pepper, an autographed picture to him before he died, and then
he had a picture of Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon autographed to
Congressman Claude Pepper. I thought to myself, here is the person who
has an autograph of the first American to leave the ground and fly and
the first person to step on the Moon. What is the significance of
leaving the ground to fly, and flying to the Moon? Education, massive
investments in education, so that this country led the world in
technological achievement in dozens of areas from airplanes to
television to medicine--you name it. Education; it is the key to this
country's future.
Second, with respect to kids, is welfare. I know people talk about
welfare in this Chamber with respect to able-bodied people who will not
work. Able-bodied people on welfare ought to go to work. We offered a
program called Work First, which I am enormously proud of, that says to
people, ``If you are down and out and disadvantaged we will give you a
hand up and a helping hand, but your obligation is to get up and out
and get a job.''
But understand the reality of welfare. Two-thirds of the welfare
payments in this country go to kids under 16 years of age. A young boy
named David spoke at a hearing I went to some years ago, a 10-year-old
boy from New York who lived in a homeless shelter. He said, ``No 10-
year-old boy like me ought to have to lay his head down on his desk in
the middle of the afternoon at school because it hurts to be hungry.''
Welfare largely relates to America's children as well. One in four
children in America under the age of 3 is living in circumstances of
poverty. We must have a welfare system that says to able-bodied people,
``We are going to help you get a job because you cannot, as able-bodied
persons, remain on welfare indefinitely.''
But we must also have a welfare system that understands kids and the
needs of kids. It is not their fault they were born in circumstances of
poverty. And those who parade around these Chambers and say, ``By the
way, let us retract the entitlement for a poor kid to be able to get a
hot lunch in the middle of the day of school,'' do no service for
children. Let us care about kids, educate them, help them become better
educated citizens for the future of this country.
With respect to jobs, we can talk about a hundred other issues but
there is no social program that we will discuss in the 104th Congress
that is as important to this country and as important for Americans as
a good job that pays a good income.
We have seen what causes the anxiety. The chief executive officers of
America's corporations increased their compensation 23 percent last
year; last year alone, a 23-percent increase for the people at the top.
But guess what? For 60 percent of the American families now, when they
sit down for supper at night and talk about their lot in life after 20
years, they are working harder and they are making less money. When you
adjust their income for inflation they have less purchasing power now
than they had 20 years ago.
How can all that have happen? Last year we had the largest trade
deficit, merchandise trade deficit in the history of this country; the
largest merchandise trade deficit in history. That means jobs are
leaving, not coming. It means we are competing with 2 or 3 billion
other people in the world, some of whom will make 12 cents, 18 cents,
50 cents, or $1 an hour, working in unsafe plants that are dumping
pollution into the air and water. That is not fair competition and we
should not have to deal with it. We must deal with the issue of jobs
and do it now. We must bring jobs issues to the floor of the Senate and
respond in a real way.
Those who come to the floor talking about helping people do no
service, especially to working people at the bottom of the ladder, when
they also embrace policies that will pull out the rug from under those
people on the earned income tax credit, because that is the kind of
policy designed to help working people at the bottom of the economic
ladder.
Finally, on the issue of values, I think there is general agreement
in this Chamber, between Republicans and Democrats, that there is a
collapsing of values in this country that is troublesome. There are,
perhaps, many reason for it. But the restoration of values starts in
the home, in the neighborhood, in the community. It starts with all of
us. Television is too coarse, language is too coarse during times when
children are watching. There is too much violence on television.
America has become too violent a country. We are the murder capital of
the world. We are the cocaine capital of the world. We have 23,000
murders and 110,000 rapes every year, and we must respond to it. And
that is one of the areas, I think, in which Republicans and Democrats
have joined in trying to respond in a significant way. But we must
understand the collapsing of values in this country is also causing
significant concern.
Let me, finally, point out about those who spend a lot of time
talking about how awful Government is--and there are plenty of areas of
Government that have gone awry, that we must rein in and correct--I
applaud those and join them when they want to do that. I would also say
it is important for us to talk about what works and what is right. Do
you know we now use twice as much energy as we did 20 years ago, but we
have less water pollution and less air pollution? We have cleaner air
and water than we did 20 years ago, despite the fact we have doubled
our energy use. Is that accidental? No, it is not. It is because this
Congress decided we are going to start penalizing people who pollute;
there is only one Earth to live on, and we want the environment to be
clean.
I urge my colleagues to understand, there is a lot of what has been
done by people of this country in public policy, ranging from cleaning
up our air and water to providing health care for senior citizens,
intervening in the lives of young children to provide education and to
deal with hunger and nutrition issues, and many other areas that have
made this a better country.
As I conclude, let me just say I had a town meeting in which I said
to people who, I am sure, listen to all of the talk shows--and everyday
in every way we have all these shows that talk about what is wrong with
America. They hold up this little thing and say, ``Isn't this ugly? See
this? Is this not awful?'' I understand, it is what entertains.
I said, ``Why don't we talk about what works? Let us be positive for
a half-hour. Let's talk about only what works in our lives.'' It was a
remarkable transformation, because a lot of people talked about a lot
of good things in their lives, a lot of things that are improving, a
lot of things that are working. Then from that we discovered what is
left, what is left for us to do as a people together to make this a
better country.
I hope, in the coming months, the challenges that were discussed by
the Members of the majority party today and myself and others are
challenges we will decide to embrace quickly and
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debate in a thoughtful way. What about the future of our children? What
about our kids? What kind of jobs and opportunities will we have in the
future? How do we address the issue of collapsing values in our
country? Those are the central challenges I think we face in our
country today.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my understanding, I say to my
colleagues, is that I have 10 minutes in morning business. I will not
exceed that. I will be very brief.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
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