[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 21, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S134-S136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, fellow Senators, I rise to compliment 
the Republican leader on the announcement today of the first Republican 
legislative agenda for the 105th Congress. I believe that most 
Americans would support the principles and the ideas contained in these 
10 pieces of legislation. I also believe that within the Senate itself 
there is a compelling majority that will support these 10 proposals. 
From my standpoint, I support them all, but I do reserve the right in 
two or three instances to change some of the things that are in the 
bills. But in no way does it minimize my admiration of and respect for 
the leadership for putting these bills forth, and the Republican 
conference and the hard work they put into coming up with these ideas 
and these basic premises.
  I would like to just run through each one quickly with a few thoughts 
of my own, and then yield the floor to my friend, the new Senator from 
Wyoming.
  The balanced budget constitutional amendment: I do not think there is 
any question that that piece of legislation speaks to the wishes of a 
huge percentage of Americans. I would not be surprised if as many as 70 
percent or 75 percent of Americans believe that we ought to build into 
our institutions a mandate--unless we have a war where we cannot abide 
by a balanced budget --that we ought to produce a balanced budget every 
year.
  Frankly, I have been working on budgets long enough to on the one 
hand be pulled by those who say, ``Why don't we do it ourselves? Why do 
we need the force in effect of a constitutional amendment?'' I guess 
the fact that we have all been working on it so long and can't get it 
done--and that when we look across the industrial nations, all we find 
is that with the passage of time instead of spending less, all 
governments spend more; instead of getting their deficits and debts 
under control there is growing concern, even in Europe, among most of 
our industrial friends there, that such things as pension plans and 
deferred obligations are going to bankrupt their countries. We are 
doing fairly well. But I do not think anybody ought to misconstrue the 
trend lines in terms of our current deficits to think that it is going 
to be easy to keep the deficit under control.
  In the next couple of weeks the Budget Committee will have a series 
of hearings to show what the next century is going to look like and 
what the major problems are, as the President

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speaks of a ``bridge,'' what we ought to be carrying across that bridge 
so we don't have bigger problems rather than a better life in the next 
century.
  The balanced budget amendment's time has come. There are some who 
will say, ``What happens when you need to spend more money and there is 
not enough room in this budget,'' such as unemployment compensation 
during a recession. Let me say that this amendment is very, very simple 
in that respect. If that is a serious problem, as serious as some would 
say, then all you need to do is get 60 votes. You don't have to pass 
any resolutions declaring emergencies. You just need 60 votes instead 
of 51 to let those expenditures take place. I believe that is good 
enough. I think history will reveal that we have had caps that are 
similar to this, to this constitutional amendment, on parts of our 
budget and that when we have been confronted by the need to increase 
something like unemployment compensation there has been far more than 
60 votes to go ahead and break the caps because there is somewhat of a 
countercyclical economic necessity that is forthcoming.
  So, from this Senator's standpoint, I hope that the early count of 
Senators who back home during the campaign said they were for a 
constitutional amendment, plus those who voted heretofore, continues to 
add up--and that the number clearly when you do that is there are 
plenty of votes to pass it--that they will not change their minds based 
upon Washington, DC talk--because most heard from their people, and I 
hope that we will all live up to that and get this job done.
  Safe and affordable schools is our second one. All I can say about 
that is I am not sure that any of us know the extent to which we ought 
to be for change in our education system. But I can tell you one 
anomaly that is rather frightening. All you have to do is go home and 
talk to people in the business sector that want to employ people from 
your State of Maine, or my State of New Mexico, and who continue to 
tell us, ``Well, the people we need don't have the skills required. 
They don't have the right training.'' I guess in the broadest sense 
they are saying they are not educated for the workplace.
  Frankly, I hope that we could sooner rather than later go beyond 
these few principles in this bill and come up with some concepts that 
would push our current institutions that educate our young people--and 
even our adults--to force them to be more responsive to the needs of 
our people who are looking for jobs.
  I ask for another 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator still has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thought you were reporting that I didn't have any 
time left. Excuse me. I still ask for 5 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, let me suggest that while the United 
States for college, community colleges, public education, and 
kindergarten through 12 continues to spend more and more, everywhere we 
look there are huge numbers of Americans who are not well enough 
educated for the jobs of today. Frankly, we continue to pour money into 
vocational institutions and vocational education; we put the strings on 
that so we can put money into our public education, albeit very small 
amounts. But somehow or another it seems that the time has come to ask 
the institutions which we currently spend our money on to see if they 
can't change their way of doing business a little bit so they may be 
more the engine of training and skills improvement rather than us 
having to fund new institutions and new ways of doing them.
  Family tax relief: This Senator's only comment is that every single 
item in there are very exciting items. And they are all probably good 
for either American families, or the American economy, or are motivated 
by fairness. In that context, I support them. In the context of how 
much we will be able to afford, I reserve the right to decide. We may 
not be able to afford all the enumerated items in the bill. But 
obviously, we will have to look at that, and I want to make that 
comment in the Record.
  The workplace act I think is an exciting piece of legislation. I 
support it. I hope we can get the message out as to what is in the bill 
and what is not, for some who are already talking about what they 
believe the bill does, but they are really talking about things that 
are not part of this legislation.
  Product liability reform has come under some great leadership in the 
Senate. We have already done a lot of work on that bill, but we cannot 
get it passed through for the President's signature. I hope we get 
there.
  For the partial-birth abortion ban, I believe there is a compelling 
majority of support for the bill. The question is whether we have 
enough to override a Presidential veto. I have heard words from the 
White House, but more importantly from Senators like Senator Daschle 
saying maybe we ought to work something out here, which leads me to 
believe that there are even more Senators who deplore the partial-birth 
abortion technique than those who voted for it. I, too, hope we can get 
something done there.
  Let me just quickly go through the Missile Defense Act. Obviously, 
there are some who would not put this in the top 10, but there are many 
who are concerned enough about it, and I support it wholeheartedly, in 
an effort to solve the problems that are stated by that legislation.
  The Superfund cleanup is long overdue. It is now good to know that 
Senator Chafee and Senator Smith of New Hampshire support a measure 
that will reform Superfund. And reform means that we will put more of 
the billions that will be spent during the next 10 years into actual 
cleanup instead of into court cases and litigation. I think that is the 
motivation and that is what we are trying to do. I think that is very 
positive.
  The Paycheck Protection Act speaks for itself. And then I will go to 
the last one, the Violent Juvenile Offenders Act. I am very pleased 
that many of the provisions of the legislation I introduced last year, 
after numerous hearings in New Mexico and a great deal of input from 
our judges and from probation officials, are in this bill. I think it 
is obvious that if any part of our criminal justice system has fallen 
apart, it is the juvenile justice system. For the most part, in most of 
our States, the juvenile justice system has not kept up with the times. 
It does not meet today's challenges, and I believe we are going to 
sensitize our States to this by offering to give them more financial 
support if they will modernize their systems. I believe this bill will 
lead them to hold more teenagers accountable for their actions and make 
more public the activities of the courts, rather than to hide their 
activities. They also should make juveniles more accountable, even for 
smaller offenses, so they do not wait until they have committed the 
equivalent of 10 or 15 felonies before something is done to try to help 
the teenager.
  Many of these things are encapsulated in the bill. There are some 
things that I am not sure ultimately, after detailed hearings, are 
going to be as good as they sound. We are trying to reform the existing 
law. The existing law is rigid and in many cases harms juvenile justice 
at home in our States.
  I am not sure that people are aware of it, but we have mandates in 
the Federal juvenile justice law, and one of them is called sight and 
sound separation. It has gotten way out of hand. I am not sure we 
should do away with the mandates entirely, but we have had a situation 
in New Mexico where because one correctional facility would have had 
the same kitchen for both adults and teenagers, the State was told that 
it could not house teenagers there. I guess they expanded the mandate 
to sight, sound, and smell, or maybe the flavor that will come from 
using the same kitchen. But I do not know how that had much to do with 
whether you ought to keep the teenagers in that facility.
  Perhaps we are underfunding the OJJP provisions, we are cutting those 
a little bit, and we ought to look at that. There are a couple of other 
things we ought to include, but for the most part we are moving in the 
right direction, and I am very pleased to be a cosponsor and 
essentially had a lot to do with what we put in that bill.
  I believe I am close to the time the Senate has granted me to speak, 
and I thank the Senate for the time and yield the floor.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.

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  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, just so our new colleague from 
Wyoming understands, this was the order that was agreed to under 
unanimous consent, and therefore, since he is waiting, I want to 
explain that this was not just being discourteous; it had been set that 
way. The junior Senator from Wyoming will get used to some of those 
things off in the corner. He may not like it, but it works out.
  (The remarks of Mr. Lautenberg pertaining to the introduction of S. 
18 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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