[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 76 (Thursday, June 5, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S5376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE POLITICS OF THE YEAR 2000 COMPUTER PROBLEM

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I spoke on Tuesday of this week 
about recent findings on the technological dimension of the year 2000 
computer problem. I rise today to warn of the yet unseen political 
dimension of the problem.
  Newsweek's June 2d cover story, ``The Day the World Shuts Down,'' 
offered a telling scenario in which Vice President Gore, while 
campaigning for President in 2000, spends all of his time trying to 
justify why he hadn't addressed this issue. To wit: ``imagine Al Gore's 
spending the entire election campaign explaining why he didn't foresee 
the crisis.''
  Vice President Gore is not alone here. Imagine 4 to 500 Congressmen 
doing the same. Come 2000, each of us will be held accountable if we 
have failed to deal effectively with the ``Y2K'' problem. Not a single 
Member of Congress right now, excepting those who can successfully pass 
the blame, will be absolved. Both parties will face a wholesale 
clearing of the decks. The deluge of blame will occur in the legal 
community, as well. Newsweek cited a conservative estimate of 1 
trillion dollars worth of litigation resulting from this crisis--more 
than three times the yearly cost of all civil litigation in the United 
States.
  Make no mistake, almost all experts agree there will be no ``silver 
bullet'' fix. Correcting this problem is labor intensive and very time 
consuming. Millions of lines of computer code have to be reviewed and 
changed--in many computer languages so outdated they are foreign to 
younger programmers. And as Newsweek stated, the bug ``affects 
everything from ATM's to weapons systems. Virtually every government, 
State, and municipality, as well as every large, midsize, and small 
business in the world, is going to deal with this--in fact, if they 
haven't started already its just about too late.''
  If American families are overtaxed by the IRS, improperly charged by 
their creditors, denied Social Security benefits, and faced with a 
constantly malfunctioning civil infrastructure, the blame will fall 
squarely on the shoulders of their Representatives in Washington.
  As Samuel Johnson observed, the prospect of hanging concentrates the 
mind. This prospect--the political repercussions--could finally get us 
up and running. We are not now. I have a first day bill, S. 22, 
creating a joint commission to take on the task as a national 
emergency. It is just that. No movement on my bill thus far. At this 
rate be ready to be out of a job in 2001.

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