[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 103 (Friday, July 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7806-S7813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         GRIDLOCK IN THE SENATE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate that information. This 
morning, I listened with great interest to a menu of opinions that was 
offered on the floor of the Senate about why the Senate has not moved 
forward more expeditiously to address this issue or that issue, and why 
the Senate is not working as well as it really ought to work, who is at 
fault, what is wrong. The chorus was a well-rehearsed chorus. 
Obviously, a fair amount of time was spent on this tune, because 
everybody was singing almost in complete harmony on these issues.
  Let me take the most obvious and the easiest one. The U.S. Senate

[[Page S7807]]

passed, by a vote of 100 to 0, a bill dealing with health care. It was 
a piece of legislation that almost every American believes is long past 
due. It says the kind of commonsense things like this: You ought to be 
able to take your health care with you when you move from one job to 
another. Your health care plan ought to be portable. This legislation 
says to every American family that when you move from one job to 
another, you are not going to be threatened by losing your health care 
benefits for you or your children.
  It says that we ought not have a circumstance where insurance 
companies insure people as long as they are well and then cancel 
coverage when they are sick. It says we will not allow insurance 
companies forever now to say, if you have a child with a heart defect, 
a child with a preexisting condition of some sort, or a member of a 
family with a preexisting condition, that you are not going to get 
insurance coverage because that preexisting condition means you are no 
longer insurable.
  This piece of legislation addresses all of those issues and more. It 
is a piece of legislation that every American family will want. It is 
something that should be done. And it was passed 100 to 0 in the U.S. 
Senate.
  When we debated that bill, however, the then majority leader insisted 
that something else be added to it--something that was extraneous, an 
issue that was outside of the purview of what was in the Kennedy-
Kassebaum or the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill called medical savings 
accounts. I must say, at least from my own standpoint, that I think it 
is useful to evaluate with a test program whether medical savings 
accounts are a good idea or bad idea, whether they work or do not work. 
That is fine with me. It is a new idea certainly. Let us figure out 
whether it works.
  But to insist on a massive new approach--medical savings accounts, 
which many economists and other analysts say would undermine the whole 
circumstance of how we pay for health care costs in this country, I do 
not know whether they are right; I am just telling you there is a 
substantial amount of testimony about that--to suggest that must be 
added to this commonsense health care bill in order for it to move just 
is out of line. But the then majority leader insisted. He said this 
must be added to that bill.
  So he brought it to the floor of the Senate, and we had what you call 
a democratic vote; two ways. A democratic vote means that we all have a 
chance to express our opinion; and, second, the then majority leader 
failed. Senator Dole failed. The Senate said no, we do not want to add 
medical savings accounts to the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill. No, we do not 
want to do it. We did not weigh the votes. We counted the votes. When 
the votes are counted, those who have the most votes win. The votes 
that had the largest tally were votes that said let us not laden this 
bill with something else. Let us pass this commonsense health care bill 
by itself the way it is, the way the Senate has crafted it. That is the 
way it left the Senate.
  What has happened since that time? The bill is held hostage. No; not 
by the Senator from Massachusetts, or not by a dozen unnamed villains. 
The bill is held hostage by those who insist that the only way this 
commonsense health care bill will get through this Republican Congress 
is if it has medical savings accounts attached to it. If they are not 
attached to it, they have no interest in passing this legislation.
  That is what is holding this legislation hostage. We are told that 
this Senator, that Senator, or some other unnamed Senator holds this 
bill, or that bill in the palm--well, it is nonsense. This bill, the 
Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, has not moved because of some people's 
insistence that the only way this will pass the Congress is if other 
things are included with it. If we are not able to put other freight on 
this train, then we are not going to let the train move. That is the 
attitude of some in this Chamber.
  We heard a discourse yesterday about gridlock in the Senate. I think 
it is a curious thing to see in the U.S. Senate, which is a body where 
one would expect the issues of the day to be not just debated but 
debated fully, understood and thought out, reasoned, and compromised. I 
think it is unusual to see in the Senate a tactic in which the party 
that has the majority says the following: We are going to today, on 
Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whatever day it is, lay down a piece of 
legislation before the Senate. This will be the pending business of the 
U.S. Senate. This piece of legislation is what we will now begin 
working on today. Then on the same day--the same day--the majority 
party says, ``By the way, we have now decided today we will begin 
debate. We will also file cloture to shut off debate.'' The same day on 
which a bill is filed to begin debate, repeatedly cloture motions are 
filed to end debate.
  Yesterday we heard from the majority leader that this has been done 
before. We are simply learning lessons from what happened in previous 
Congresses.
  Well, we looked at the 103d Congress. On only one occasion did that 
happen, and then it happened because there was uniform agreement on the 
procedure by which it would occur. There was no disagreement about it. 
It was on product liability. There was agreement by which a procedure 
called for two cloture votes and then the bill being withdrawn. It was 
the only occasion on which the Democrats would have ever done that in 
this Chamber in the 103d Congress. It has been done repeatedly in the 
104th Congress--not by consent of anyone, but in a way that is shoved 
down someone's throat, a demand that although we begin debating the 
bill today, we also insist on shutting off debate today.
  That is no way to run the U.S. Senate. If someone wants cooperation 
in the Senate on issues, to debate the issues that are important to the 
people of this country and to others in the Senate, then they must 
allow debate on these matters--not concoct a strategy that says, ``By 
the way, we will offer our legislation as we have crafted it behind our 
closed doors without your involvement, and the day we offer it we will 
tell you, `No debate; no debate.' We are going to shut off your ability 
to amend. We are going to shut off your ability to debate, and that is 
the way we legislate.''
  If you come into this Chamber with that attitude and then wonder why 
your vehicle does not develop any speed, I will tell you why it does 
not develop any speed. Because that is not the kind of a vehicle you 
can drive through a legislative process in something constituted like 
the United States is constituted.
  There have to be some people who serve in the Congress who believe 
that we ought to be debating, amending, and improving legislation that 
deals with real issues people are concerned about. There are, to be 
sure, substantial disagreements in our philosophies about how to 
govern. I understand that.
  I think it is really interesting, by the way, that we have a bill on 
the floor of the Senate now that calls for $11 billion more in spending 
than the Pentagon asked for pushed primarily by people who insist they 
want to cut Federal spending--a bill that said let us spend hundreds of 
millions more for national missile defense, or a star wars program 
which the Pentagon does not want to deploy; a bill that chooses 
priorities that say we can afford the extra $11 billion but we have 
decided we cannot afford enough money to fully fund a Head Start 
Program. So we are going to tell a bunch of little kids that we do not 
have any room for you anymore in the Head Start Program. We know that 
program works. Do you believe that program does not deal with American 
security? Do you believe that program does not strengthen this country? 
That is the difference we have in priorities, I guess, in how we spend 
our money and how much we spend.

  But I just think it is ironic that those who talk so much about 
wanting to cut spending on one of the biggest bills before Congress 
demands and insists that they spend $11 billion more than the generals 
and the admirals in this country felt was necessary to defend our 
country.
  I am hoping that we will move ahead and deal with a series of issues 
in this Congress. I do not want a do-nothing Congress. I want a do-
something Congress. I want to participate in a Congress that makes 
progress. I want to do something about the issue of jobs. I want to do 
something about shutting down the tax incentives that encourage runaway 
plants. I want to do something about health care. I want to pass

[[Page S7808]]

the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill; invest in education to make sure that every 
little kid in this country has an opportunity to go to Head Start.
  There is a litany of issues that we need to address, and address in a 
thoughtful and an appropriate way.
  I want the majority leader to be a successful majority leader. I 
consider him a friend. I want the Senate to succeed--not as Republicans 
or Democrats. I want us to succeed as a Senate by addressing the issues 
which we think are appropriate and necessary to address at this point.
  But it does no good, it seems to me, for the Senate to spend all of 
its time just standing around in a circle pointing fingers saying, 
``Well, this person is at fault; that person is at fault.'' The fact is 
that you cannot be laying down bills in the U.S. Senate and demanding 
on the same day that you are going to shut off debate and then say, 
``Well, boy, I am surprised that you object to that. I mean, it doesn't 
make any sense that you would object to a procedure by which we say we 
have concocted what we want in a locked room someplace outside your 
view. Now we bring it to you to show it to you and demand that you have 
no voice in determining how it is going to be shaped. Shame on you.''

  Well, no, not shame on us. If those who would begin developing this 
process would understand the quick way, the best way to get the Senate 
to act on these issues is to involve everyone and to reach sensible 
compromises and then faithfully represent those compromises as we move 
ahead, we would pass far more legislation that is far more beneficial 
to the American people than this 104th Congress has done to date.
  I have some other things to say, Mr. President, but I will hold them 
for a bit. My colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, is here, and 
Senator Wyden from Oregon is present.
  Mr. President, I yield such time as may be consumed to the Senator 
from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and I thank my colleague from North 
Dakota for this time.
  Mr. President, I was in my office this morning listening to activity 
in the Chamber of the Senate, and I must say I was amazed to hear the 
charges leveled at the minority side by those in the majority. I was 
listening in my office, and I heard a litany of complaints against the 
minority for bringing gridlock to this Chamber.
  Mr. President, it was as if the majority has forgotten that they were 
once in the minority and it is though they have forgotten that they are 
now in the majority and they are controlling the flow of business in 
this Chamber.
  I especially found it fascinating that our friends across the aisle 
accuse us of stopping Government when it was their side who shut down 
the entire Government just a year ago--shut down the entire Government 
in order to try to dictate the results of the legislative process. It 
was their side that shut down the entire Government of the United 
States to try to dictate the results in this Chamber.
  That is not the way this Chamber is supposed to function. It is not 
the way democracy is supposed to function. If we go back and try to 
recall what they were trying to do, I think we can understand why they 
had to try to be so heavy-handed. What was it they were trying to do a 
year ago? They were trying to cut Medicare $270 billion in order to 
provide a $245 billion tax cut that would have been directed mainly at 
the wealthiest among us.
  That is what they were up to. And there was a reaction against that 
because it was too heavy-handed. The other side themselves described 
what they were trying to do as ``a revolution.'' That is what they were 
seeking to impose on the American people, a revolution, and they did 
not want anybody standing in their way. They wanted to trample minority 
rights. They wanted to proceed. They had the arrogance of power, and 
they abused their power. And as a result there was a strong reaction 
against them not only in this Chamber but in the country as well 
because the American people did not want a revolution. They wanted 
change; they wanted us to get our fiscal house in order; they wanted to 
reform the welfare system; they wanted this country to work better; 
they wanted more opportunity; but they did not want a revolution, and 
they did not want folks taking from those who are middle class to give 
to those who are the wealthiest among us. That was not what the 
American people wanted.
  The other side has engaged in a whole series of tactics to try to 
choke off the rights of the minority. We use a lot of words around here 
that are foreign to most people--cloture, cloture motion. What do those 
things mean? For most people it is not in their vocabulary. Most people 
I talk to back home in North Dakota have no idea what cloture is. I am 
not sure my colleagues understand all of what cloture means.
  Very simply, the tactic that has been engaged by the other side is to 
prevent the minority here from being able to offer amendments. Now, 
that is basic to the legislative process. The majority leader said 
yesterday, ``I just learned this tactic from your leader.'' No, they 
did not. Not once when we were in the majority did we lay down cloture 
motions on bills that could be amended unless there was an agreement by 
the two sides that were in dispute, and that only happened once. That 
only happened once, that a cloture motion was laid down which choked 
off amendments on the day the bill was introduced. And the only time we 
did was when there was agreement between the two sides in dispute. The 
other side has engaged in that practice repeatedly, laying down a 
cloture motion to choke off, to prevent the minority from offering 
amendments, to act as though the minority is not even here, to act as 
though the Democratic Party does not exist in the U.S. Senate, to act 
as though we have one-party rule.

  Mr. President, we do not have one-party rule, and we are not going to 
have one-party rule in this country or in this Chamber, and the 
majority, I hope, will recognize that that kind of dictatorial stance 
has led us to the gridlock we have today. They want to know why there 
is gridlock? It is because they have tried to choke off legitimate 
minority rights. That is not democratic, that is not American, and it 
is not going to be accepted.
  There is another way. There is another way. We see what works. We 
see, when we work together and we respect each other, that things can 
actually get done here. This week we got the minimum wage bill through 
this Chamber by an overwhelming vote. This week we got through this 
Chamber a significant package of tax cuts for small businesses and 
reforms in the pension system and a whole series of other measures to 
assist small business. How did it happen? It happened by working 
together, not by one side, in a heavyhanded, arrogant way, trying to 
dictate to the other side. That way creates gridlock. But, instead, if 
we work together, if we respect each other, things can actually get 
done here. It happened in the telecommunications bill this year--a 
major piece of legislation--when both sides were allowed to participate 
in the legislative process.
  I hope the majority will remember, this is an institution with two 
sides. This is an institution that was formed by our forefathers so 
that minority rights would not be trampled. This is a body that was 
formed by our forefathers to prevent a monopoly of power. This is a 
body that was formed by our forefathers to prevent the arrogance of 
power from trampling the legitimate rights of the minority.
  I heard other things said on the floor this morning that require a 
response. I heard the attack on the President for vetoing some of the 
bills that were passed by the Republican majority. You bet the 
President vetoed some of those bills. He should have vetoed them. They 
were opposed by a majority of the American people.
  The American people did not want to have a $270 billion cut in 
Medicare in order to finance tax cuts that disproportionately went to 
the wealthiest in our country. That is not what the American people 
wanted. Of course the President vetoed that legislation. I applaud him 
for it. He did exactly the right thing, and the American people agreed 
with him.
  I also heard on the floor of the Senate this morning that we defeated 
the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I am very proud to 
have been one who rose in opposition to that

[[Page S7809]]

phony balanced budget amendment. Boy, if there was ever a hoax tried to 
be perpetrated on the American people it was that so-called balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. I tell you, as more people found 
out how they were proposing to balance the budget by looting every 
penny of Social Security trust fund surplus over the next 7 years and 
call that a balanced budget, the American people would be in 
overwhelming opposition to it. That is not any kind of honest balancing 
of the budget.
  If a private company tried to take the retirement funds of their 
employees and throw those into the company's pot and call that a 
balanced budget, they would be in violation of Federal law. They would 
be headed to a Federal institution, and it would not be the Congress of 
the United States. They would be headed to a Federal prison, because 
that is a violation of Federal law. But that is exactly what our 
friends on the other side were proposing, that we have a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution that would have enshrined in the 
Constitution of the United States the definition of a balanced budget 
that included looting every penny of Social Security trust fund surplus 
over the next 7 years to call it a balanced budget. They were going to 
take $525 billion of Social Security surpluses, throw those into the 
pot, and call it a balanced budget. What a charade. What a hoax, to 
call that a balanced budget.

  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from North Dakota yield?
  Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator recalls the discussions we had, 
actually inside the Cloakrooms, in which some members of the majority 
party were, in private, saying to us, ``We will stop using the Social 
Security funds in 2008,'' while others were out on the floor saying, 
``We are not using Social Security funds to balance the budget.'' I 
said it was three stages of denial. Actually, there was a third person 
on the floor saying, ``There are no Social Security funds.''
  So the three stages of denial that were orchestrated, all at the same 
time, in total harmony, and I might give them credit for that, are: 
First, there are no Social Security trust funds; or, second, there are 
Social Security trust funds, but we are not misusing them; and then, 
third, back in the Cloakroom here, in their own handwriting, which I 
still have, by the way, there are Social Security funds, we are 
misusing them, and we promise to stop by the year 2008.
  Does the Senator recall that?
  Mr. CONRAD. I recall it very well. The other side was negotiating 
with the Senator from North Dakota and myself. On the floor, they were 
saying, ``Oh, no, we have no intention of using Social Security 
surpluses. We have no intention of doing that.'' But right in that 
room, right in that Cloakroom, they were telling us, ``Well, yes, we 
are going to use them, but we will stop doing it in the year 2008.''
  First they said, ``We will stop doing it in the year 2012,'' and we 
checked and we found out they were going to be using trillions of 
dollars of Social Security surpluses by that time. We said absolutely 
not.
  They went back out and came back in and said, ``Well, we will stop 
using the Social Security surpluses in 2008.'' Again, they would have 
taken over $1 trillion of Social Security surpluses, spent every dime, 
every penny, and then said they would balance the budget. What a fraud 
that would be.
  You know, as I was thinking about it, in considering my vote on that 
question, I thought if I was the only vote in this Chamber against that 
proposition, and if every one of my constituents was on the other side, 
I would vote no. Because I would never want it said of me that I had 
helped to put in the Constitution of the United States, the organic law 
of this country, the document that has made this the greatest country 
in human history, something that says you balance the budget when you 
have looted trust funds in order to call it balanced.
  I just want to conclude by saying, there is gridlock here. There is 
gridlock. And there is gridlock because the majority has tried to 
stifle the rights of the minority. They have tried to dictate 
legislative results. That is not the American way. That is not 
democracy. That is not the constitutional role of the U.S. Senate.

  The way to get things done here is to respect the legitimate rights 
of everyone, to respect everyone and to work together. When we do that, 
we get things done. We got the minimum wage passed that way. We got the 
telecommunications bill passed that way. We got a substantial package 
of tax relief for small business and reform of pension laws of this 
country that way. If anybody is serious about trying to get things 
done, the way to achieve results is to work together.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield as much time as he may consume to 
the Senator from Oregon.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, let me say, as somebody who is new here, as 
a new Senator who campaigned for months on the idea that we have to 
come together, we have to find common ground, we have to get beyond 
some of the partisan labels, I want to come today and speak for a few 
moments about the importance of that approach and why I feel it is the 
only answer, and how I hope the Senate can get back on track and look 
at issues that way.
  First, let me say, I have never considered myself particularly a 
partisan person. I come from a part of the world, the beautiful 
Northwest where we have a history of fresh and creative approaches to 
issues before the Government. Our citizens do not get up in the morning 
and say, ``Well, whose got the partisan answer? Is it a Democratic 
answer? Is it a Republican answer?''
  They get up and talk about tackling major issues in a way that is 
fair and responsible and meets the needs of the public.
  So I have tried to take that kind of philosophy, first as a Member of 
the House and now as a new Senator, in terms of attacking the need to 
address the concerns of the public.
  As the Senator from North Dakota said very clearly, it is obvious 
that is how the Senate has made progress. Look at this minimum wage 
issue, for example. It seems to me when workers put out the maximum 
effort, they deserve a decent minimum wage. The Senate agreed and, 
fortunately, Senators of both parties came together, and passed an 
important small business package. My State is just chock-full of small 
businesses. We have only a handful of big businesses in the State of 
Oregon. You can almost count the big businesses on one hand, so we are 
a small business State, and those tax incentives that were passed with 
bipartisan support are going to make a real difference at home in 
Oregon and on Main Street in our country.
  The same kind of bipartisan approach was used in the Kennedy-
Kassebaum bill. I think that the health insurance system in our country 
needs to work for more than the healthy and the wealthy, and yet, so 
often, when somebody gets sick, the whole system falls apart. For a lot 
of families, you can only get coverage when you really do not need it, 
which is when you are well.
  So the Senate came together, a bipartisan bill was passed, and it is 
going to make a real difference, because, for the first time, when 
citizens are trying to get ahead, when they work hard and play by the 
rules, they will not be limited in terms of their job advancement 
because they cannot get health insurance as they try to climb up the 
ladder in the free enterprise system.
  So there have been real successes since I have been here, when 
Democrats and Republicans worked together on issues like health and the 
minimum wage. I am very hopeful that over the next 7 or 8 weeks of the 
session--and I just remind again our colleagues and our friends that 
there are only a handful of weeks left in the session. To get real 
results on issues like welfare and crime and aviation reforms--many of 
us are concerned about the situation with aviation in this country and 
want to pass real changes to make sure that the Federal Aviation 
Administration's mandate is safety first; that there can be public 
disclosure of the safety records of airlines in our country. To get 
this kind of work done on crime and welfare and transportation, we are 
going to have to have a bipartisan kind of approach, once again, in the 
Senate.
  I think it has been very unfortunate. I have seen it over the last 
couple of

[[Page S7810]]

weeks and hope that it will not be the practice in the last few weeks 
in the session that as soon as a bill is essentially introduced--and my 
friends from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan and Senator Conrad, are very 
right to say, let's get away from some of these arcane, technical 
terms--``cloture'' and the like.
  What the bottom line is all about is that for the last few weeks, as 
soon as a major bill has been introduced, there has been an effort to 
immediately cut off the debate. That bars the minority, especially, but 
certainly Members of the majority may have differing views on some of 
these issues, and debate, reasonable debate, is what the Senate is 
supposed to be all about.

  The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan] and I both served in the 
House. One of the things that we thought was possible about service in 
the Senate was to have a bit more time, a reasonable amount of time, 
for all sides to have a fair airing of an issue. Sometimes that time is 
not available in the House, and sometimes the public's business suffers 
as a result of it. So I think this practice of, in effect, trying to 
shut off debate, almost as soon as it starts, is something that is 
especially unfortunate and is going to make it tougher to get the 
public's business done in the last few weeks of this session.
  Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, let me reiterate my interest 
and desire in looking at these issues in a bipartisan way. I think, for 
example, there are a variety of procedural reforms that would be very 
helpful in terms of the work of the Senate.
  We know, again, for the last few weeks of the session, one of the 
practices that is often abused is a Senator puts a hold on a bill and 
does it all in secret. I think the Senator's procedural rights ought to 
be protected, but I think there ought to be public disclosure. The hold 
is not the problem, but I think secrecy is. So what I have been trying 
to do is work with Senators on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and 
Republicans, to try to make a change, to try to get public disclosure 
when there is a hold that will make the Senate more open, more 
accountable and more efficient and be in the interest of the public, so 
that the public's right to know is protected.
  I am not trying to do that in a partisan kind of way. I am talking to 
Senators on both sides of the aisle, because I think that is the way we 
have to do the public's business.
  (Mr. STEVENS assumed the chair.)
  Mr. WYDEN. So, Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, I come to take 
the floor today to say that in these last 7 or 8 weeks of the session, 
when there is so much important work to be done, let us make sure that 
the procedural rights of the minority are protected, let us get away 
from this unfortunate practice we have seen in the last few weeks of 
literally cutting off the debate almost as soon as it starts, and let's 
take the kind of approach that folks in my home region, the Pacific 
Northwest, take, and that is a bipartisan one.
  I believe that it is possible to get some important work done in 
these next 7 weeks, to get a welfare reform bill. We have done that in 
Oregon. Senator Hatfield, my senior colleague, has done yeoman work in 
terms of our jobs plus program. It has a tough work requirement, but we 
are also helping with child care and medical care. That kind of 
bipartisan approach can be an ideal model for helping the Senate to 
come together, Democrats and Republicans, to reform the welfare system 
in the last few weeks of this session.
  But to reform welfare, to get a good crime bill, to have an important 
transportation bill--the Presiding Officer, Mr. Stevens, for so many 
years has done outstanding work on these aviation issues. He knows I am 
anxious to work with him in the days ahead--to really have progress in 
these last few weeks of the session, we are going to have to protect 
the rights of the minority; we are going to have to work in a 
bipartisan way. That is how we best address the public's needs.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments by the Senator 
from Oregon. We are delighted he is in the Senate. I expect he expected 
to come to the Senate from the House of Representatives where they have 
substantially different rules and be in a body where there is 
substantial debate. Probably a surprising discovery for him is a new 
trend here in the Senate of filing cloture motions on amendable issues 
in order to prevent amendments and shut off debate on the same day that 
a bill is filed in the Senate for debate.

  I echo the sentiments of the Senator from Oregon [Senator Wyden]. We 
have heard a good many Members come to the floor earlier this morning 
describing all the ills of the Senate to be laid at the feet of the 
President or the Democrats in the Congress.
  Frankly, it is not our interest, it is not my interest, I think it is 
not Senator Wyden's interest to impede the progress of the Senate in 
addressing the real issues that people want addressed. We are not going 
to roll over and play dead when we have people coming to the Senate 
saying to us, ``Here's our agenda. If you don't like it, tough luck. 
We're going to ram it down your throat and send it to the White House 
and demand the President sign it.''
  There was a complaint this morning about President Clinton's veto of 
some bills. Well, let me say as well, I am glad he vetoed the piece of 
legislation that says, by the way, let us take $270 billion out of what 
is needed to fund Medicare, and let us use the funds we get by taking 
that out of what is needed for the Medicare Program and use it to give 
tax cuts, the majority of which will go to the wealthiest Americans. I 
am glad the President said, ``Not on my life you are going to do 
that.'' He vetoed that. He vetoed that. So a whole series of 
overreaching and ill-proposed issues that came to the floor of the 
Senate last year the President had to veto.
  Now the question is, are we going to do this in a serious way? I 
noticed in the paper the other day, ``GOP To Press Missile Defense as 
Clinton Test.'' They are going to load the defense bill down with 
hundreds of millions of dollars extra for national missile defense, 
demanding that money be spent on the system the Pentagon says it does 
not want and the defense community says this country does not need, 
demanding it be done in order to confront the President with a defense 
issue so they can say the President is weak on defense. That is not 
from people who are serious about wanting to balance the budget. It is 
from people who want to use these issues as a political wedge.
  My own interest is that we address the central questions facing 
American families. Are there good jobs available for them and for their 
children? Is there some security with those jobs? Do they pay well? 
What about the schools you send your kids to? Are they doing well? Do 
we have enough money for the Head Start Program, enough money for the 
WIC Program? Are we able to take care of the children in our country? 
What about welfare in this country? Are we going to get able-bodied 
people off welfare and to work?
  I am proud to have helped construct something called the Work First 
Program. It does help enable people to go to work, but not injure the 
children. Do not say to a 10-year-old or 8-year-old, get off your 
behind and go to work. Two-thirds of those who are on welfare are under 
16 years of age. I do not think anyone is suggesting we shove them out 
the door and say, ``Get a job.'' Let us take care of the children in 
this country, but let us insist able-bodied people go to work.
  Let us reform the welfare system. There ought to be enough agreement 
on both sides of the aisle to do this in a way that is not politically 
gamed so they can construct it and have a veto at the White House, but 
in a way that really does reform the welfare system and in a 
thoughtful, sensible way.

  Health care. I have said before, let us just pass the bill. Let us 
pass it through the House and the Senate that has already been passed. 
It passed the Senate 100 to 0 dealing with the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill.
  Portability, preexisting condition, so many things the American 
family needs. Pass it. Be done with it. Get the President to sign it. 
He will. We will significantly advance the health care that the 
families need in this country in the right way.
  There are other things that I want to see done. I am sure the Senator 
from Oregon shares that.

[[Page S7811]]

  Crime. I tell you, I very much want to see us do another initiative 
on crime in the right way. I want everyone on parole and probation in 
this country to be drug tested, period. End of story. Everyone on 
parole and probation in America ought to be drug tested while they are 
on parole and probation. If they fail their drug test, it ought to be 
revoked.
  I also want to change the system so that in every circumstance in 
this country, if you are convicted of a violent crime, if you are a 
violent criminal and convicted of a violent crime, you spend all of 
your time in jail, you do not get good time off for good behavior. No 
good time off for people who commit violent crimes. If you go to jail, 
you stay in jail and do not get out until the end of your term. Very 
simple. If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. There is no good 
time off for good behavior. I would very much like to see us do that.
  I would like to see us advance the proposition of victims' rights. 
Frankly, there is now a law, which I authored, dealing with, at least 
in the Federal court system, if you are a victim in the Federal court 
system you have a right to be in court and testify at the sentencing 
investigation. The victim has the right to come and say, ``Here is what 
this crime meant to me.''
  What happens? The criminal comes in, the person that has been 
convicted comes in. They get them a new blue suit and haircut and they 
bring the minister and the neighbors in and say what a quiet young boy 
this was, what a wonderful young person. And you have this story about 
what the criminal is about. I want the victim to say, ``Here is what 
this person did to me and my family,'' or the victim's family to say, 
``Here is what this meant to me.''
  I am pleased to tell you that is now in Federal law because I wrote 
that provision in the last crime bill. But as you know, the Federal 
system only deals with less than 10 percent of the criminal justice 
system. I would like to see that in every State and local jurisdiction, 
in criminal justice all across America--victims' rights.
  The issue of jobs.
  Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes.
  Mr. WYDEN. This crime issue is so important. I share the Senator's 
view. I just add, this question of violent juvenile crime is especially 
important. Again, you see Senators of both parties who have done 
excellent work on this, Senators Hatch and Thompson--I have watched 
Senator Biden--all of whom have been very helpful to me and my staff in 
my early days as a Senator. I think they can help us put together a 
package dealing with violent juvenile crime.
  In a lot of communities--the adult crime rate is still too high but 
has sort of leveled off--but the rate of violent juvenile crime has 
just gone through the stratosphere. In fact, the Justice Department had 
a study recently that showed, particularly between 3 and 7 o'clock, 3 
in the afternoon and 7 in the evening, when you have these at-risk 
kids, that is when you really have a great portion of the violent crime 
in America.
  There is nothing partisan about tackling violent juvenile crime. 
There are Senators of both political parties that have dealt with it 
and come up with innovative ideas. There are people like the 
criminologist, James Q. Wilson, who are advancing approaches that could 
be backed by both political parties to try to particularly make sure 
that these violent juvenile offenders are accountable.
  But we are not going to get the important work done that the Senator 
from North Dakota is talking about without thoughtful debate that 
ensures that both sides have a reasonable opportunity. I hope the 
Senator from North Dakota takes the lead on this crime issue as a 
Member of leadership, and the kind of bipartisan approach the Senator 
is talking about will prevail, because issues like violent juvenile 
crime are issues that we can bring this body together on in a 
bipartisan way to deal with. I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. DORGAN. The fastest growing area of crime in this country is 
juvenile crime, especially violent juvenile crime. I find it 
interesting that if you access the NCIC or the III, the Interstate 
Identification Index, to find out who is on there, who committed crimes 
in this country, what you find is some of the most violent crimes 
committed are not in those records because they are committed by a 
juvenile. You will not have access, as a judge or a police officer, by 
accessing the identification index.
  One of the things we worked on for years is very simple, and we are 
not there yet. It requires a lot of attention by Congress. That is 
having a computer system, so that on a computer in this country we have 
the records of every convicted felon in America.
  If the Senator from Oregon would go to a department store this 
afternoon to buy a shirt and use a credit card to buy a shirt, they 
will take that credit card and run it through a little machine that is 
an imager that determines the magnetic strip on the card, and then in 
20 seconds they will tell the Senator from Oregon whether his credit 
card is good or not. Let us assume the Senator from Oregon has a credit 
card that is good. But immediately they will tell everyone, is this a 
good credit card or is it not? Twenty seconds.
  They can keep track of 200 million credit cards--more than 200 
million credit cards--that way, and access in 20 seconds the credit 
status of someone going to buy a shirt. The question is this: Why do we 
not have access, for the several millions of people who have committed 
violent crimes in this country, to every criminal record that exists in 
America for judges when they sentence, for law enforcement officials 
when they pick someone up on the streets, to determine, after a crime, 
is this a suspect? Is this someone who has committed three other 
violent crimes?
  The fact is, we have a system now in which about 80 percent of the 
available criminal records are not available in the one criminal 
justice record system we have. I know the FBI and others will say, 
``Gee, this is a wonderful system. It works well.'' The fact is, a 
whole lot of States do not participate in it or do not participate 
fully in it, and the system does not have a lot of the criminal records 
we need.
  To start addressing the crime issues, one of the first things we need 
to do is make sure we have a computer record of all convicted felons in 
this country, know who they are, what they have done and where they 
have done it, so that everyone--judges, law enforcement people and 
others--will have access to it instantly, in a complete manner.
  The other thing I say to the Senator from Oregon on other issues, the 
central issues for most families is, are we going to have a decent job? 
Will our kids have opportunities to get a decent job after they have 
had an opportunity to go to a good school? Schools and jobs and your 
kids--that is what this is all about.
  One of the things I would like to pass on the floor of the Senate is 
shutting down this insidious provision that says, ``Move your jobs and 
your plants overseas. We will give you a tax break.'' I tried last year 
to do that. They turned it down. I was promised they would hold 
hearings. They have not, but we will do it again this year. If you 
cannot take the first baby step of shutting down the tax incentive that 
says ``ship your jobs overseas and the American taxpayer will reward 
you to the extent of $2.2 billion''--$2.2 billion--``reward those who 
ship their jobs overseas,'' if we cannot shut that down, then, thinking 
has stopped in the U.S. Congress, in my judgment.
  Finally, I do not want to hold the Senator from Oregon up, but one of 
the things I think is interesting, which this Congress ought to deal 
with, is not just the trade deficit--which I will talk about next week 
with some of my colleagues; I will introduce a piece of legislation on 
the trade deficit--but the trade deficit, merchandise trade deficit 
enjoyed in this country is higher than the fiscal policy, different by 
a substantial margin, and there is not a whisper of attention to it. 
But you can only repay the trade deficit with a lower standard of 
living in our country.
  It is a threat to this country, and we must deal with it, not by 
shutting our borders, but by dealing with those countries with whom we 
have large trade deficits, dealing with those circumstances where it is 
resulting in a substantial export of American jobs. We have a $170 
billion merchandise trade deficit, and this country has to

[[Page S7812]]

begin to confront the question of why do we have that and what do we do 
about it.
  I wanted to mention one additional item today on the floor of the 
Senate. There was a story in the Washington Post this week that says, 
``Federal Reserve policymakers are watching wages for clues to whether 
they need to raise interest rates again.'' Now, the point of this is 
that Federal Reserve policymakers are watching wages. What is the 
message there? The message is that we better not see an increase in 
wages, we better not see something that is good for American families, 
or we will clamp down. That is the message.
  Now, what does this mean? It is because the financial markets took it 
on the chin last week. They said, ``A key factor was the report from 
the Labor Department that average hourly earnings jumped .8 of a 
percent last month, the largest increase since 1982.''

  What John Berry, the reporter, does not say, and they never say, is 
that the increase in wages last month, which was a large jump, only 
takes wages back to where they were last December. You do not get a 
report in the Washington Post by Mr. Berry, month after month, that 
talks about how far wages have come down, and if you take a look at the 
drop of American wages month after month after month in real purchasing 
power, you do not see many stories or much in the headlines about that. 
But have a spike up in wages in 1 month, only to take us back to where 
it was in December of last year, and all of a sudden the market and all 
those who write about the market have an apoplectic seizure.
  Every time you get a bit of good news for the family that maybe wages 
are stabilizing or going to start to come up just a little bit, what 
happens? Wall Street does a somersault. Wall Street looks for a window 
to jump out of. The unemployment rate drops to its lowest level in 6 
years, a July 6 headline, ``Stocks, Bonds, Plunge on Jobs Report.'' 
Unemployment goes down, more people are working, it means the economy 
is better, and Wall Street says, ``Oh, my God, look what is happening 
to America. Woe are us. What on Earth is going to happen to our 
country? More people are working, and they are getting higher wages. 
America must be going to hell in a handbasket. What on Earth is going 
to happen to our economy next?''
  Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. WYDEN. This issue is really an interesting issue. I say, it seems 
to me, in today's economy we can have more noninflationary economic 
growth than you could in the past. You look at technology, for example, 
and technology is driving so much of today's economy. I think the 
Senator is making a very important point with respect to the role of 
growth and the Fed and the issues that, frankly, are not getting the 
kind of attention they ought to receive.
  My sense has been the Government does not even really measure today's 
modern economy in an accurate kind of way. I served on the Joint 
Economic Committee for a period of time, and I was concerned that the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics was not in a position to have the resources, 
it was not in a position to have the tools to really measure the modern 
economy.
  This whole idea about the relationship of inflation and growth, I 
think, really needs a fresh look. My sense is that because of 
technology, we can have a higher degree of noninflationary economic 
growth than we could in the past. I look forward to working with the 
Senator on these issues.
  I also say, once again, we are talking about something that is not a 
partisan kind of issue. Everybody in this body wants to make sure that 
we grow the economy, that we incent the private sector in a way to have 
good-paying jobs, and we do not want to fan the fires of inflation.
  These are not partisan kinds of issues. The Senator, talking about 
wages and the Fed, he did not mention Democrats, he did not mention 
Republicans. We are talking about kinds of approaches this body ought 
to be looking at in terms of the modern economy.
  When I talk about noninflationary economic growth, I submit that what 
is driving it is the technological revolution, which, again, is not the 
special prerogative of Democrats or Republicans.
  I thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mr. DORGAN. I agree. There are two things that drive it. One is the 
technological revolution and the second is the global economy. Two or 3 
billion new workers in the world are now eligible and able to compete 
in an open market, especially with the lower skilled American workers, 
the bottom two-thirds of the American work force, and those 2 or 3 
billion people living elsewhere can make 10 cents an hour, 20 cents an 
hour, or 60 cents an hour. In many cases, what you have is 12-year-olds 
making 12 cents an hour, working 12 hours a day, competing against 
American workers, which drives down American wages. When American wages 
start to firm up a little bit, we simply climb back out of the hole to 
where we were last December, the stock market has a heart attack.
  Let me go through a couple other headlines: ``Job and Wage Data Put 
Pressure on Fed,'' July 8; ``Unemployment Rate Hits 6-Year Level While 
Pay Posts Big Monthly Gains.'' Again, it just crawled back up to where 
it was the previous December. If you read this all in the Wall Street 
Journal, it would give you great cause for alarm if you are on Wall 
Street and have another agenda. So what happens is the stock market and 
the bond market has a seizure.
  July 8, ``Jobs Data Sparks 115-Point Plunge.'' You would think maybe 
the jobs data was that it showed America was in deep trouble, deep 
unemployment, headed toward a massive recession. That is not what the 
jobs data was. The jobs data showed that fewer people were unemployed, 
more people were employed and the economy was getting better. What 
happens? A deep plunge in the stock market. News that even unemployment 
is at a 6-year low is not good news for Wall Street. NBC nightly news 
lead: ``The Economy Is Too Good for Markets.''

  The data in February and March. ``Employment revealed increases in 
jobs prompting steep sell-offs on Wall Street.''
  ``Economy Surge Hailed by President, but Markets Fall.''
  ``Wall Street plummeted Friday''--this is March--``and major sell-off 
triggered by what seemed to be splendid economic news, a drop in 
unemployment, and the biggest jobs gain in more than a decade.''
  February. ``When Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan hinted 
in testimony that the economy could grow at a 2.5 percent rate this 
year, the market gulped. The ensuing speculation sent the Dow Jones 
down 45 points.''
  Just to show that it is not all irrational, some of it is politics, 
this says, ``Gingrich blames White House for stock market plunge.'' But 
that is an aberration.
  ``U.S. Stocks Make Steep One-Day Drop.'' This is October of last 
year, on good economic news. But it is not all clearly irrational on 
that side. You get good economic news, and Wall Street looks for a 
window to jump out of. It happens the other way as well. ``Last year, 
bonds rose after the Labor Department said Friday morning that 
unemployment claims had risen by 5,000 last week.'' So you had some bad 
economic news, and Wall Street goes, ``Thank God, we got some bad 
economic news. That is good news for us on Wall Street.''
  What kind of twisted logic is this? Felix Rohatyn wrote a piece that 
I will send to my colleagues, in which he said that many corporate 
leaders agree and believe that it is a false choice in this country 
now. Wall Street and the Fed, especially, have led us to believe that 
it is a false choice that we must choose between economic growth and 
inflation--a fundamentally false choice. But those who believe we must 
choose between either growing as a country or inflation are the ones 
who are causing us to drop anchor at the first hint of wind that gets 
in the sales of this economy. The first time the economy starts moving 
a bit, it is time to drop anchor.
  What does all that mean? It means that the ups and downs--this casino 
in which there is daily betting with trillions of dollars, where people 
make money going up and make money going down, and people buy what they 
will never get from people who never had it, and they make money on 
both sides of the transaction--is all at the expense of working 
families, who sit around eating supper asking themselves: Well,

[[Page S7813]]

what is our life like? What about us? What is the situation in my job? 
Am I being paid more or less? Am I making progress or falling behind? 
Is my wage up, or is it deteriorating? Is my job more or less secure? 
What about my child, who is ready to go to college? Is the economy 
expanding sufficiently so that that child is going to have an 
opportunity to get some interviews and maybe have a choice of a job or 
two?
  That is the central question. Those who believe they should scare 
this country into accepting a rate of economic growth of 2 or 2.5 
percent, and decide that the standard practice in this country is to 
revel in bad economic news and despair in good economic news, have done 
a real disservice to the potential of this country's economy. Felix 
Rohatyn is fundamentally right. It is a false choice for us now in the 
global economy when wages have been going down, not up, to say that we 
must choose between economic growth or more inflation.
  I do not want more inflation. I do not think it serves this country's 
interest. Inflation has been coming down for 5 years in a row. If you 
believe Alan Greenspan, that the consumer price index overstates 
inflation by a percent and a half, we have almost no inflation in 
America today. Yet, we have all these micromanagers who see themselves 
in the hold or the engine room of a ship of state, operating the 
controls to try to slow the ship down. My Uncle Joe could slow the ship 
down. If that is the job description of the Fed for serving on Wall 
Street, my Uncle Joe can do that job. I want this country to have an 
economy that expands and produces more jobs and better wages.
  Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. WYDEN. I share the Senator's interest in this Rohatyn analysis. 
What is interesting is that there really is a link between the growth 
issue and those concerns of working families that the Senator from 
North Dakota is right to zero in on.
  There was a study a couple of weeks ago, a Census Bureau study, that 
showed that the gap between those at the very top and those at the 
bottom is widening again and, well, it confirms what a lot of us 
suspected. But there was also another study that did not get the 
attention, frankly, it should have, which said that the education gap 
is widening between folks at the top and folks at the bottom.
  So there really is a link, a kind of interdependence between the 
issues that the Senator is talking about. We ought to be looking at a 
noninflationary economic growth rate that I think is increased beyond 
where we are today. I think we can get it if Democrats and Republicans 
in this body come together and pass the kind of policies that will 
complement that.
  For example, if you want to attack that education gap, which was the 
study I mentioned last week, which complemented what the Census 
Department said, education is really the key. A lot of us here have 
said that what we ought to do, on a bipartisan basis, is say that when 
working families are making payments for college or vocational 
education, let us make that tax deductible. Let us let them write that 
off, so that we have a tax cut geared directly toward working families 
trying to deal with that wage crunch that the Senator from North Dakota 
is talking about. It gives us an opportunity to have the kind of growth 
that Felix Rohatyn and others are talking about.
  I think the Senator is very much on target in bringing these issues 
up. There certainly is not anything partisan about these kinds of 
questions. I hope that as we go into the last few weeks of the session, 
this is the kind of approach we should take. I thank the Senator for 
letting me work with him on this morning's discussion.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon, Senator 
Wyden, for coming this morning, as well as Senator Conrad and Senator 
Ford. Again, what he said last is, I think, most important. The Senate 
will work its will on issues. But we cannot have a circumstance where 
we are told we have made the decision in some room someplace, and we 
are bringing it to the floor, and we are cutting off your right to 
debate it and accept it, or else. That is not the way the Senate can 
work.
  Most of us are anxious to work with the majority to get things done. 
I say that, despite the anxiety of the end of the week on the 
legislation that was pending, this was actually a pretty productive 
week in the Senate. We passed some very substantial pieces of 
legislation dealing with the minimum wage, with small business 
regulatory issues, and tax issues that will be very helpful to small 
business. The Defense authorization bill was passed on final passage. 
This was actually a productive week. I hope future weeks will be as 
productive. Our intention is to work, in a serious and conscientious 
way, with the majority. But we will not be rolled over by people who 
insist on doing things that prevent us from being part of the debate. 
That is a message that they need to understand, and I hope they will 
understand.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. In my capacity as a Senator from Alaska, I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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