[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 113 (Monday, July 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9050-S9052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ELECTIONEERING VERSUS DAY-TO-DAY ISSUES

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor today, however, 
because as has been the case on most days, we have had five Republicans 
come to the floor today to talk about President Clinton and the White 
House. I understand that and understand it is an even-numbered year, 
and the Constitution of the United States provides in even-numbered 
years that we have elections. On even numbered years when we have 
elections, clearly there is interest for one side or the other to try 
to gnaw away and chew away the foundation of the base of the others.
  I watch from time to time, as organized groups come to the floor and 
we try to respond to them sometimes, those of us on our side of the 
aisle, to try to set the record straight as best we can. It is pretty 
hard to keep up with them, because they come in significant waves.
  I want to use the time for a couple of minutes to talk about the 
difference between what we confront in the electioneering, or the 
political efforts these days, and what the American people expect us to 
confront in terms of the issues they face day-to-day.
  If one were to view the activities from time to time, especially when 
we get 1 hour or 2 hours set aside for a couple of my friends from the 
other side of the aisle who then recruit several others, as was the 
case today, and have five, six or seven people come and repeat a 
message to try to get that message out to the country, it is kind of 
like watching beavers build a dam: They slap their tails, they are out 
there gnawing, chewing and biting and knocking down trees.
  In this case, however, it is interesting. These are, it seems to me, 
political beavers building a dam where there is no water, which I find 
interesting. Slapping the water and chewing on dead wood seems hardly 
productive to me, but it is a way to pass the day for some, I suppose.
  Most people sitting at home these days look at this political system 
of ours and say, ``Why can't you all work together?'' We have an 
Olympics going on, and in the Olympics, what is interesting is they all 
wear jerseys, and the jerseys identify one team versus another team.
  I particularly have enjoyed watching various sports in the Olympics 
and, I must confess, I root for all the athletes. I think it is a 
wonderful thing to see these young men and women, in some cases older 
men and women, compete, but I, like most others, especially want those 
people who wear the red, white and blue jerseys to do very well, 
because they compete with a little logo that says ``USA.'' They are all 
on the same team.
  The American people elect different kinds of men and women to the 
U.S. House and Senate. My guess is they expect us to all be on the same 
team. We might all have different techniques, different strengths, and 
different approaches, but they really do, in the long term, at the end 
of the day expect us to be working for the same ends.
  We can, I suppose, spend most of our energy being critical and 
chewing away and gnawing away and flailing away, but it hardly seems 
very productive.

  We have been working on a number of things in this Congress which I 
think are interesting. The Federal deficit: Some say unless you put 
something in the Constitution, you have not addressed the Federal 
deficit issue. Yet, the Federal deficit has been coming down, way down, 
and that is good news.
  We have some people who rush to the floor to explain why one person 
or

[[Page S9051]]

someone else should not gain credit for that. But nonetheless, the 
Federal budget deficit has come down very, very substantially.
  We have been working on health care issues, the need for the American 
people to have Congress address the issue of being able to take your 
health care from one job to another and not lose coverage because you 
change jobs or find you can't get health care because your child or 
your spouse or someone in your family has a preexisting condition. 
Those are very important issues, and I think we finally made progress. 
It has taken a long, long while, but I think we are going to have a 
health care bill that finally gets done and gets signed by the 
President.
  That would be a significant accomplishment. I hope we don't have much 
foot dragging in the coming weeks with respect to that issue, because 
that is something the American people want and need.
  We have been working on the issue of the minimum wage. Some say there 
shouldn't even be a minimum wage. If you believe that, why don't you 
bring a bill to the floor to repeal the minimum wage?
  There are some around here who say we do not want a minimum wage, let 
the market system set the wage; let 12-year-olds work for 12 cents an 
hour. I heard some people suggest that, by the way, not here on the 
floor of the Senate. But there are some people in this political debate 
who believe there should be no minimum wage at all. If you believe 
that, bring a bill to the floor. Why don't you represent a position 
that hearkens back to half a century ago and say, in your judgment, 
there ought not be a minimum wage?
  Some of us think that there ought to be a minimum wage. We have had 
one now for some 60 years. The question is, when should it be adjusted?
  The last time the people at the bottom rung of the economic ladder 
got a raise was 7 years ago, in 1989, when the Congress last enacted 
legislation adjusting the minimum wage.
  There are some who say, ``Well, if you adjust the minimum wage, it is 
going to cost a lot of lost jobs.'' The interesting thing about that 
is, I have not heard anyone suggest when the CEO's of major U.S. 
corporations get a 23-percent increase in their salaries in 1 year--a 
23-percent increase in 1 year--I have never heard someone say, ``Gee, 
that's going to cost lost jobs.'' But take someone at the bottom of the 
economic ladder working at minimum wage and suggest after 7 years they 
get a very small increase--not 23 percent in 1 year, but a freeze for 7 
years and then a small increase--and all of a sudden the sky is 
falling.
  We have worked on that, and I am pleased to say, finally, that those 
who were holding that bill hostage have seen the light. We are moving 
that. I hope maybe by the end of this week we can have a bill passed 
that addresses that issue.
  Let me mention one other thing that is in that piece of legislation. 
We attached to that piece of legislation something helpful to small 
business, and I am for that. There are a series of tax changes helpful 
to small business, but there is a provision--and I bet there are not 
five Members of the Senate who know it is there--a provision that comes 
from the House, and here it is:
  It is a provision called 956(A) dealing with the Tax Code. That 
provision says, ``Let's make it easier for companies to invest in jobs 
overseas.'' The Congress already passed that once, by the way, and the 
President vetoed that in a larger bill. But let's make it easier for 
American companies to create jobs overseas as opposed to jobs here.
  I am interested to know whether the Senate conferees will accept that 
provision of the House, which is a terrible provision. I have no idea 
how anyone thinking clearly could believe that repealing this 
provision, 956(A), which we did 3 years ago to try to tighten up on the 
loophole that exists to encourage people to move their jobs overseas, I 
have no idea how people believe it is in this country's interest to 
make it more attractive for companies to move their jobs overseas.
  That is something we are going to have to watch, because if it comes 
back to the Senate, some of us are going to be very upset and very 
aggressive.
  Let me, Mr. President, say those are the issues that make sense. I 
mean, those are the issues we ought to be dealing with--health care, 
minimum wage, economic growth, the deficit.
  There will be economic growth figures out at the end of this week, 
both unemployment and GDP figures. The interesting thing about our 
country today is if it shows that the country is growing well and has a 
robust economic growth figure for the last quarter, if it shows that 
more people are working, we have fewer unemployed, what is going to 
happen? Well, if what has happened in the last year will happen again, 
Wall Street will have an apoplectic seizure and look for windows to 
jump out of. They will want to find a doorway to the roof, I suppose.
  The slightest bit of good economic news creates, on Wall Street, some 
kind of enormous sense of sadness and sorrow and concern, and all of a 
sudden, we see stock prices drop, bond prices drop. I do not have any 
idea why they seem to be out of step with the interests of the rest of 
the country. I guess they think if we have any kind of good economic 
news at all, they are worried that over the horizon we will have more 
inflation. They are wrong about that.
  The fact is, wages in this country are going down, not coming up, 
have been going down consistently for about 20 years. So we do not have 
the threat of more inflation. What we have is a threat of our economy 
not producing enough, not growing enough in order to produce the kind 
of robust opportunity that we want for the American people. But those 
are the central issues. Those are the issues we ought to be dealing 
with.
  You know, the reason I came over today, after five people have talked 
about the subject of President Clinton again, is, we have, it seems to 
me, created in American politics an infection of sorts, an infection 
that suggests that we always have to be sawing away, always have to be 
chipping away and sawing away and gnawing away and biting away, or 
somehow we are not doing the public's work. That is not the public's 
work at all. That is the newly defined vision of American politics that 
I think is fundamentally wrong.
  There was, a couple of years ago, something put out by this new wave 
of politicians who took control in the last year or so, last couple of 
years. There was a primer put out by an organization called GOPAC, and 
they put out tapes. They had instructional sessions for candidates. 
They put out a primer: ``Here is how you talk. Here is what you say. 
Here is how you appeal to people.'' In it, they did something that I 
basically consider reprehensible. They said, ``When you talk about 
yourself, you use contrasting words for yourself. Always try to use the 
words like `hard work, toughness, flag, family, country.' '' They said, 
``When you talk about your opponent, whenever you are talking about 
your opponent, you need to use the terms `sick, permissive, pathetic, 
traitor.' ''
  This is an organization, incidentally, that has been winning. They 
won the last election. This organization trained the candidates that 
won the last election. The training manual says: ``If you're dealing 
with your opponents, call them sick, pathetic, traitor,'' fundamentally 
corrupting the American process, I say. That is not what the political 
process ought to be about.
  Calling your opponents traitors, sick, pathetic--what is sick and 
pathetic is the new style and the new brand of politics that believes 
this advances the public interest in this country.
  What advances the public interest in this country is, if and when 
both sides in the two major political parties finally come to the same 
point and are addressing the same central issues, even in different 
ways--jobs, education, health care, the environment, family farming. 
When both sides are addressing them, even if they have substantially 
different views, they are at least addressing the public's business, at 
least addressing the things that most American families want to see the 
Congress address.
  But when they are off always sawing away at the bottom of the tree, 
always biting and nibbling, always trying to figure out how you can 
simply destroy the base somehow, it seems to me you can hardly be 
called builders, you can hardly be called--in the tradition of those 
who always believed there would be enough people to make this system

[[Page S9052]]

work--hardly be called constructive builders who participate in helping 
build the political system that the American people want.

  My hope is that in the coming weeks--we have just 1 week left before 
there is an August break, and then about 4 or 5 weeks left before we 
will adjourn for the election--my hope is that during that time we will 
see substantially more cooperation, substantially less confrontation, 
and legislation enacted by the House and the Senate that addresses the 
central questions of people's concerns. I mentioned a few of them. Are 
they safe? Can they walk the streets? What about crime? Do they have 
jobs for themselves and their children? Does the education system work? 
Are our schools good enough? If not, what will make them better?
  Can we fix the health care system to deal with preexisting conditions 
and portability of health care coverage, and make health care 
affordable for all people? Can we address the issue of those frozen at 
the bottom of the economic ladder working for very low wages who have 
been frozen for 7 years? Can we adjust the minimum wage?
  Those are the central kinds of questions that if the Congress does 
address, will, I think, relate to the concerns of most of the American 
people.
  Mr. President, I will yield the floor. My hope is that, although we 
are going to run through some appropriations bills this week, my hope 
is that a number of these other issues coming out of conference will be 
addressed as well.

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