[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11213-S11214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                THE POSITIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF CONGRESS

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we hear so many negative things, and it is 
kind of enjoyable to talk about what has been accomplished sometimes. 
The Senator from Wyoming has been very articulate in expressing those 
positive things. I remember in 1987 when I was first elected to the 
other body. We had as our class project at that time to repeal the 
earnings test. I have always felt there is nothing more un-American 
than to tell the people in America that once you reach a certain age, 
you have to become nonproductive, and if you are not nonproductive, 
then we are going to take away some of your Social Security. Well, we 
tried for about 10 years to get that done, and it was not until we had 
a Republican Congress that we were able to have a major reform. We 
haven't totally repealed it, but we will phase into a position where we 
actually will be telling the people of America that you are not going 
to be punished if you decide to be productive past a certain age.
  Many years ago, I was the mayor of a major city in America, Tulsa, 
OK, and every time I go and talk to mayors now, I say, ``Tell us what 
the major problem facing your city has been.'' They don't say it's 
crime in the streets and welfare. They say it's unfunded mandates. I 
can remember so well as the mayor of the city of Tulsa when the Federal 
Government would come and tell us certain things that we had to do, and 
if we didn't do it, they are going to be taking money away from us, or 
if we did it, we would have to pay for it ourselves. Consequently, it 
would be up to us to allow Congress in Washington, with all of the 
lofty attitudes that they seem to portray here, to say that we have 
done these wonderful things for the people of America, and to say that 
some political subdivision underneath them--the cities, or counties, or 
States--had to pay for them.

  We passed an unfunded mandates bill where we are not going to be 
faced with that anymore. I would like for it to have been retroactive, 
but it could not have been. So that has been resolved. It is a major 
reform, and it was done by this Congress. I am very, very proud of

[[Page S11214]]

that. I counted the reforms we have passed, and I would challenge 
anybody to find a 10-year period in history when there have been more 
reforms passed by Congress than we have passed.
  Congressional accountability--the fact that we now have to live under 
the same laws that we impose upon other people in the rest of the 
country. I spent 30 years in the private sector. I understand what it 
is like to have to live under an overregulated society, and, yet, 
Members of Congress historically have been exempt from most of those 
impositions. Now they are going to have to live under the same laws 
that we pass for other people. I think that is a major accomplishment 
of this Republican Congress.
  The line-item veto: As long as I can remember, we have talked about 
that--about reforming the line-item veto. A lot of my friends say, 
well, I would like to have the line-item veto, as long as we know we 
have a conservative in the White House, or the other side of the fence 
would say they would like to have a line-item veto as long as we have a 
liberal there. But I suggest to you, Mr. President, that they miss the 
point when they say that, because all a line-item veto does is force 
the President and Congress to be accountable. Republicans and Democrats 
in the White House, for decades, have been able to say, well, I didn't 
want that law, but I had to either sign that because veterans benefits 
are in there, or something else was in there, and consequently they go 
ahead and sign something that they say they are opposed to. This forces 
them, or him, or her, Democrat or Republican, to be accountable, so 
that if there is 1 thing out of 25 things in a bill that he doesn't 
like, he can veto it and send it back, and that makes us accountable.
  So the whole idea there is accountability. We have passed that. I 
feel very good about it and think that is a major improvement. Back 
before I was in the U.S. Senate, I represented an all-urban area, 
primarily one county in the State of Oklahoma. So I did not have much 
of the agricultural areas and interests in my district. But I found, as 
I traveled around the State after becoming a Member of the U.S. Senate, 
where I had largely an agricultural State, the people who are in the 
farm communities in Oklahoma--and I suspect it is that way throughout 
the Nation--really have felt that we have had a failed agricultural 
policy in this country, that we have imposed upon our farmers things 
that they must do. Yet, they are not free to plant what they think the 
market will bear and what will best take care of their needs.
  Well, the Freedom to Farm Act was passed, and I find, as I go 
around--as I did, as a matter of fact, only Monday of this week. I had, 
I think, seven town meetings throughout agricultural areas in Oklahoma. 
They all think it is very good.
  Do you know what else they think, Mr. President? They want to do 
something about property rights. Well, that is one area where we have 
not been successful. I would like to say that we are able to pass all 
of the reforms that we wanted to pass. Unfortunately, several of them 
were vetoed by this President. The reform that will go down, I think, 
in history as the most significant reform that the public is aware of 
would be welfare reform. I have to remind you that President Clinton 
vetoed this bill twice. We passed a welfare reform bill that was based 
on what he campaigned on for President in 1992. He vetoed it, and then 
he vetoed it a second time. But just as we are getting into the final 
stages of the Presidential election year, he has signed it. At the same 
time, he has whispered to his friends on the left that if he is 
reelected, he will change some of the reforms that we have in the 
welfare bill.

  There are three things I have often said that make us globally 
noncompetitive, Mr. President. One is that we are overtaxed. The other 
is we are overregulated. Third is our tort laws in this country. I was 
proud to be a part of the success in changing our tort laws as it 
pertains to just one manufacturing item: airplanes and airplane parts. 
I have about a 39-year history and background in aviation. So I know a 
little bit about that. Prior to 1970, we made almost the entire world 
supply of airplanes in the United States--a major export item. And 
then, over the 10-year period of the 1970's, and up through to the 
present time, we quit making single-engine airplanes in America. We 
quit making them only for one reason, which is that you can't be 
globally competitive and offset the cost of all these lawsuits. So we 
have lawsuit after lawsuit against manufacturers of airplane parts and 
of airplanes where maybe it has worked perfectly well for 50 years, but 
all of a sudden there is an accident and they will go back and get a 
multimillion-dollar judgment against the manufacturer, and, 
consequently, our manufacturers either went broke or quit making small 
airplanes.
  I remember the case of Piper Aircraft. They said to the bankruptcy 
court, ``We can move our plant and all of our equipment to Canada and 
make the same airplanes and supply the same market and do so at a 
profit because of the fact that they don't have the tort laws we have 
in this country.'' So we passed a bill. Even though the President made 
a commitment to veto any kind of meaningful tort reform, he signed it 
because we had so much pressure out there. People realized this is a 
major manufacturing area that could benefit all of America.
  In Oklahoma alone, we can identify 4,000 jobs as a result of that one 
tort reform. Well, it would only stand to reason that if we can put 
America back into making airplanes by having tort reform, insofar as 
the manufacture of airplanes and parts is concerned, why not spread 
that across the entire manufacturing base? So we did. We passed a bill 
that would make America competitive again, and the President vetoed it.
  So I think we have a lot of things that we wanted to do. There was 
the $500-per-child tax credit, which the President vetoed. There was 
regulation reform, and some of the marriage penalties that we were 
going to correct, and the President vetoed it.
  In spite of that, we have been a very productive House and Senate, 
and I am very proud of the major reforms that have passed. I only 
regret that we were unable to get them all passed because of the vetoes 
of the President, and perhaps that will change in the near future.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. INHOFE). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________