Congressional Record, Volume 144 Issue 115 (Thursday, September 3, 1998)

[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 115 (Thursday, September 3, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9907-S9911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONCERNS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE ROLE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, it is an interesting time, of course, for
us here. Entering into the last month of this Congress, we are faced,
of course, with finishing the work that we have begun, and more
particularly, in closing up the appropriations process so that the
Government can continue to function with a real determination and, Mr.
President, to assure that that happens and that we do not get into this
business of accusing one another of closing down the Government because
we do not agree on issues. I am very much persuaded we will have a
continuing resolution so if we do have disagreements that cannot be
resolved in this time that the Government will continue to go on. If it
does not, it would be my opinion it would be up to the administration
to have it shut down.
As was the case with most of the Senators here, I recently spent a
month in my home State of Wyoming, having an opportunity to visit with
people about things that concern them, having an opportunity, perhaps
more importantly than visiting, to listen to what people believe to be
the role of the Federal Government, what the people believe to be the
issues most compelling to them. Of course, everyone has them.
In my State, where we have relatively little diversity in our
economy, we have three basic economic areas: One is tourism, one is
mineral extraction, and one is agriculture. Unfortunately, both
agriculture and mineral extraction are not in good shape economically
at the moment, and we are seeking to do something about that.
So this time I think is useful time for us. People always say, ``Hey,
you're on vacation.'' Well, it is not vacation. It is a very busy time.
But it is a useful time and a chance to perhaps stand back a little and
look at some of the broader problems. And that is so important,
especially, I think, in this last month when we become so focused on
every detail, every little appropriations process, where we tend
sometimes to sort of get away from really the fundamental issues that
we are here to represent.
So my comments today will simply represent my point of view. I do not
allege to speak for anyone else. But I happen to think that one of the
things that is most important to us as we deal with all issues is to
have some philosophical guidance, some basic belief that you measure
all these details against. Failing in that, it seems to me, it is very
difficult to make decisions that are consistent, to make decisions that
finally end up doing what you really believe in and what your
philosophy ought to be.

One of the conclusions that I have reached, not only on my own
certainly, but because of what I hear in Wyoming, people having heard
it of course in the media, is that this administration is basically in
limbo, that it will be for some time, that we have relatively little,
if any, leadership coming from the administration. We need to recognize
that and to move forward with the issues that confront us. We can do
that. And we need to do that.
Frankly, we have had relatively little leadership over the last
several years. This administration, in my judgment, and the judgment of
others, has been one without any real basic commitment to a point of
view or to a philosophy or to a direction, but rather driven more by
polls and what happens to be the political thing at the moment. I
suppose this is perhaps not a brand new idea, but one that I think is
very dangerous and one that really does not direct us in the way that
we ought to be going; that, indeed, instead we have a time of spin, an
administration that is basically sort of predicated on how you can make
things seem, whether they are that way or not, or whether, indeed, they
are predicated on Saturday morning radio talks in which there are
issues brought forth, and subsequently no real commitment to doing
something about it, like the State of the Union in which things like
``Social Security first'' are mentioned, but then nothing is done as a
followup.
That is a concern to me, that there is no real commitment and,
frankly, relatively little real belief or commitment or, indeed,
character in terms of where we are going.
I think there are some major areas that need attention and that will
be continuing to need attention. We need to look into them. One is
foreign affairs, foreign policy--or a lack of foreign policy. Almost
daily we see that some country--mostly the rogue countries--is
challenging the rest of the world, challenging the United States. Why?
Because they have begun to do this, and there is no real response,
there is no reason why they shouldn't. Why shouldn't Iraq thumb their
nose at us in terms of doing the weapons thing that they promised to do
when obviously they are not going to be required to do that? We have
not finished our job in Bosnia, Kosovo. Those things are still there.
We have the Asian currency issue, a difficult issue that impacts us,
one that, again, we need to make some decisions as to where we are and
let people know exactly where we are. The idea from the administration
that we are going to raise that question is not a good enough answer--
the most current one, of course, being North Korea, and which we have
dealt with for some time, particularly through the KEDO arrangement,
trying to find a way to cause them to control what they are doing in
nuclear arms development in return for a substantial contribution on
the part of the United States and Japan and South Korea to build light-
water reactors to replace that. And yet, they seem basically to say,
``Well, we appreciate what you are doing, but we are going to go ahead
and do what we want to do. We are going to go ahead and fire missiles.
We are going to go ahead and have underground development of nuclear
weapons, nuclear materials.''
We cannot do that, in my judgment. And I feel very strongly about it.
I happen to be chairman of that subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
Rim. We are going to have another hearing this week. We had one just a
month ago before we left and talked about the adherence to the KEDO
agreement. There was certainly a notion that at that time things were
being done that were not consistent with the plan.

I think we need to give some real consideration to our military
preparedness. This is not a peaceful world. One of the best ways to
ensure as much as we can that it is peaceful is to continue to have a
strong defense force, a strong military, to be the world's strongest
military. And we are. However, there is increasing evidence that we are
not putting enough emphasis into it in terms of support for it, in
terms of the distribution of our troops all over the world. It is very
costly. It is very difficult, then, to meet the mission that we have
given ourselves, and that is to be able to work in two theaters, if
necessary, at one time. Some doubt that we can do that now. So we, I
think, have to deal with those kinds of very difficult issues.

[[Page S9908]]

The matter of taxes is one, as you can imagine, we hear a great deal
about when we go home--taxes in terms of the amount of taxation that
citizens pay, the unfairness of taxes in terms of things like marriage
penalty, the behavior of the IRS, which, of course, we addressed in our
last session and hopefully will be useful. Perhaps even more important
is the whole notion of Tax Code reform. You can deal with the IRS, you
can deal with the management and the administration, certainly, of tax
collection, but the real bottom line is the Tax Code. If the Tax Code
is going to be so convoluted and so difficult and so detailed, it
becomes increasingly difficult to do that.
Here again, the administration has come forth with no real idea as to
how to simplify the Tax Code. There is not unanimity among any of us as
to what it ought to be--whether it ought to be a flat tax, a sales tax,
or a consumption tax, or simply a simplification of what we have now.
But we need some leadership to do that and we need something from the
administration to do that. We need some ideas to do that instead of
simply getting up and saying Social Security first, and then turning
off the radio.
I have a number of other items I would like to share, Mr. President,
but I want to recognize my friend, the Senator from Kansas, who has
come to the floor. I yield as much time as he desires for his
observations.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague and my good
friend from Wyoming for reserving this time and for talking about some
of the very crucial issues that affect our Nation's citizens, our daily
lives, our pocketbooks, and, quite frankly, the lack of leadership that
we see both from the standpoint of the administration and, to be very
candid, in this Congress as well.
What I would like to talk about for a few moments is the issue that I
think is the first obligation of the Federal Government. That is our
national security, our national defense.
In beginning my comments, Mr. President, I would like to refer to a
letter that was sent from the distinguished majority leader, Senator
Lott, to the President. Senator Lott said this:

I am very concerned about the growing inability of our
country to man the uniformed services. Not only is there
difficulty in recruiting, but also in our ability to retain
key personnel.

Senator Lott then went on in several paragraphs to describe the
problem that we have. Then in the last paragraph he said,

Mr. President, while I believe that more money needs to be
allocated to our National Defense, it needs to be done
prudently. We need to get the missions, manning, equipping,
and pay and benefits synchronized to enable us to continue
with a quality force into the 21st century. I urge you to
make this a high priority of your fiscal year 2000 budget
request.

And then in regard to the suggestion by the distinguished chairman of
the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens, there is an
effort by some of us who have the privilege of serving on the Senate
Armed Services Committee, and those of us in the Senate Intelligence
Committee, to take action as of this appropriations cycle. I think that
certainly would be very wise and it is very needed.
The President wrote back and pretty much said that he is committed to
ensuring that we have a strong and ready force and indicates--and I am
paraphrasing here, and perhaps that is not entirely fair, but the way I
read the President's letter is that we will stay the course and that we
have a defense system certainly prepared to meet all of our national
security interests.
Mr. President, I don't buy that. I rise today to voice my concern
with what I think is a very growing and very worrisome problem with our
military. And that problem exists right now and today and we should
take immediate action to find answers to that problem. The issue is
not, it seems to me, do they have enough tanks or fighters or ships or
small arms. By the way, I do not think they have the adequate funding
support for the modernization and the procurement of essential systems,
but I will leave that discussion for a later time. This issue is even
more fundamental and, I think, just as important; that is, the basic
care of the men and women of our Armed Forces and their families.

Now, we have all heard the concern from the leaders of the military--
we have had hearing after hearing--their real growing inability to
attract and retain the needed skilled personnel, such as pilots and
mechanics and ship drivers or any number of other very critical skills
maintained by enlisted and officers of our military. Some say they are
perplexed at this talent drain and wonder why they cannot stop the
hemorrhaging.
Let me recount some other related topics concerning the care of our
military and perhaps we can start to understand what I call this
hemorrhaging.
Following the end of the cold war, the United States started a
systematic downsizing of our military, consistent with the threat, and
that made sense. I think everybody agreed with that. However, many
people have not given much thought to how far we have downsized, just
how far we have downsized.
Let me summarize what we have removed from the military: 709,000
active duty troops--709,000 active duty troops--293,000 reserve troops;
8 standing Army divisions--8--20 Air Force and Navy wings with 2,000
combat aircraft; 4 aircraft carriers; 121 Navy ships and submarines.
With the end of the cold war and with these very dramatic reductions
in our military, we should be able to take great solace in the fact
that surely our military commitments and deployments have also taken
similar reductions. In other words, if you took dramatic reductions in
regard to the active duty troops, the reserve troops, the Army
divisions, the Air Force and the Navy wings, 4 aircraft carriers, 121
Navy ships and submarines, you would think that our commitments and our
deployments would have been reduced as well. Unfortunately, as also
many of us understand, just the opposite has occurred. The military
across the board has experienced a many-fold increase in their
operational commitments and tempo of their operations. Plainly stated,
our significantly ``downsized'' military has been asked to deploy much
more often and for longer periods of time than they ever have in our
history.
This increased operational commitment has directly impacted the very
culture of our military. For example, Mr. President, General Ryan, who
is the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, has stated that the Air
Force has shifted from a garrison force to an expeditionary force
during this period--a dramatic change. The bottom-line impact on our
people is that they are now away from their families significantly more
than they were in the past. And, by the way, as we have shifted to an
all-voluntary military, the number or percentage of married service
members has also significantly increased--reportedly 63 percent now of
our military members are married. So, problem No. 1, Mr. President, we
have significantly increased the workload upon a substantially smaller
military.
Since the percentage of service members that are married has grown,
this increased workload has amplified the negative affect of
deployments on the morale of our troops and their families. The
reluctance of families to continue to tolerate these separations really
contributes to the loss of mid-level personnel, key personnel, mid-
career personnel. Asking our military to deploy and endure hardship in
their personal lives is not new. Ask any veteran of World War II,
Korea, or Vietnam about hardship and long separations. But those
situations were drastically different than the involvements the U.S.
military is being asked to participate in as of today.
In each of the major conflicts in the past, the mission and
importance of the U.S. involvement was clearly articulated by the
President, by the administration, understood by the American people,
and certainly understood by our men and women in uniform. Those
conflicts were founded on the notion that our involvement was in the
U.S. vital national interests. The men and women of the military
understood that concept, and they and their families were more willing
to accept the hardship of military life.
I am convinced that the missions that our military are now
participating in today do not meet that fundamental threshold of
national interest. I am

[[Page S9909]]

also convinced that our military members understand the nature and the
motivation of their missions. Although they continue to perform
superbly, they understand that their sacrifice and their family's
sacrifice today is not for the same noble cause as the defense of the
American homeland--the very reason many join the military in the first
place.
Problem No. 2: With a significantly increased deployment schedule and
a substantially smaller force, the value and importance of today's
missions impacts on the willingness of the men and women to join or to
commit to the military as a career. Without clearly articulated mission
goals and objectives founded in the fundamentals of the U.S. vital
national interest, the ability to recruit and retain motivated men and
women for our military will remain very difficult.
You only have to look at the deployment of 27,000 men and women in
uniform in the Gulf, 37,000 in Korea, approximately 10,000 in Bosnia,
with the expectation of what happens in North Korea and Kosovo as an
example.
Certainly, if we are putting our military in a position of increased
deployments and increased family separation, Mr. President, we must
have or are doing a better job of adequate pay, health care, and
retirement system. Unfortunately, just the opposite is occurring in
today's military.
Let me outline the pay issue with one example that is occurring all
too often in the military today. Picture, if you will, a young
soldier--in which we have placed a great deal of training and
responsibility and trust--commanding the world's best tank, M1A2, a $4
million piece of equipment. At home, this soldier has a wife and three
children. They live in a mobile home off post, and because of his low
military income, they are on the WIC Program, the Women, Infant and
Children Program, which is a form of welfare.
What has happened to reasonable compensation for men and women that
are committed to the service of our country? Can't we pay our military
enough to keep them off of welfare programs or off of food stamp
programs? We, the Congress, cap the raises that the military can
receive. The net result of this action is that the military pay
differential between a comparable job in the civilian market and the
military has grown from 13 to 15 percent. That gap can go to 20 percent
in just a few years.
Problem No. 3: Although the skill level required of the men and women
of our military does continue to grow, the pay differential between the
same skilled civilian and the military simply continues to widen.
The current pay of many of our young military families is so low that
it is not adequate to keep them off of welfare programs. The prospect
of continued and frequent long deployments coupled, with the
opportunity to get better pay on the outside for the same work,
contributes to the inability to attract and retain the skills needed
for today's military. This is true for both officer and enlisted
personnel.
OK, the pay is not great, but surely the housing has kept up with the
increased numbers of married military members, and we have provided
them with adequate housing--not palatial housing, but certainly
adequate. Wrong again. To illustrate this issue, let me quote from an
article entitled ``Shoddy Military Housing Need Repair,'' by John
Diamond, a writer with the Associated Press. He says this:

``In reality, we're the biggest slum lords in the
country,'' said Michael J. Haze, chief of Fort Carson's
housing division. ``I have soldiers every day telling me they
live in the projects.''

In the projects.
The article went on:

Behind the bureaucracy, thousands of military families
continue to tolerate what the Pentagon acknowledges is
shoddy, substandard housing because they cannot or will not
pay higher rents for off-base housing.

I don't want to mislead anybody. Some of the base housing is very
nice and adequate. But if a serviceman happens to be unlucky enough not
to be assigned to nice facilities, or a base that has nice facilities,
their pay will not support quality housing in the private sector.
Problem No. 4: We ask our military to deploy at a much higher pace
than ever before, we assign missions that do not meet the national
interest threshold, we pay them less than they could get for the same
or similar skills as a civilian, and in many cases, we ask them to live
in substandard housing. It goes without saying that the culmination of
these problems really contributes to the dissatisfaction with the
military as a career and its attractiveness to potential recruits. How
could anybody assume otherwise?
Finally, many of the men and women are able to work with and through
all of these issues with their families and make the military a career.
Many are still doing that. For many years, the attraction and reward
for the tough life in the military was the great benefit of retirement.
The deal was that if you would spend at least 20 years in the service
of our country, your retirement benefits would be one-half of your base
pay. And if you elected to spend 30 years, you would receive 75 percent
of your base pay. That retirement program was a major benefit, a major
recruiting tool, a major retention draw. Many young men and women have
said, ``I can stick with this tough life because I know I am doing a
good job for my country and I know that at least I have half of my pay
coming to me at the end of 20 years.'' The plan is now that if a
service member works for 20 years, the benefit is only 40 percent of
the base pay. It is still 75 percent after 30 years, but the big draw
has always been the 20 years. This is not popular with the troops. That
is probably the understatement of my remarks. The fear is that the
retirement program has been so weakened that, coupled with a myriad of
other problems that I have described, many service members will leave
rather than ``tough it out until 20.''
Problem No. 5: The members of our military are working harder,
deploying more, receiving less pay than civilians are for the same job,
living in inadequate housing, and are now seeing a reduction in
retirement benefits. It is not difficult to understand that with this
collection of negatives, and all of our commitments all around the
globe--some may or may not be in our national interest--the military is
experiencing problems in retention and recruiting.
I didn't mention health care. I don't have prepared remarks regarding
health care, but I will come back to the floor and mention that as
problem No. 6. That is an additional problem--adequate and affordable
health care that is at least accessible. So, in many cases, that is an
additional problem.
Mr. President, these are very serious problems that face the men and
women of our military. I must admit that they do not have simple or
inexpensive solutions. I do plan, with the help of many of my
colleagues, to systematically attack these problems as a member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee. I hope that together we can help
restore the faith of our military members that the American people care
about the sacrifice they and their families make in the defense of our
Nation by providing adequate pay, housing and retirement benefits and
health care. We owe this to these men and women and their families that
serve our Nation.
In closing, again, I thank my colleague, the distinguished Senator
from Wyoming, for the time. I want to come back to the letter sent to
the President of the United States by the majority leader, Senator
Lott. Senator Lott said in two or three paragraphs, in brief, what I
have tried to outline today. Mr. President, we have to do something
about this. Mr. President, we have to do something now. We have to do
something with the current appropriations bills. The President has sent
a letter back to the majority leader saying, in effect, that we do have
a military that still stands in the breach to protect our individual
freedoms and national security. And we will talk about it in the next
budget. That is not good enough. It is not good enough. We need to
begin the process now.

I ask the President to reconsider the letter by Senator Lott. I know
my colleagues will work in a bipartisan fashion to end what is a
growing scandal in the military in terms of retention of the people who
we need to maintain our military and maintain our national security.
I thank my colleague and my good friend from Wyoming for the time. I
yield the floor.
Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

[[Page S9910]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Senator from Kansas very much for his
comments.
Mr. President, I guess the real issue and the thing that he and I are
both talking about is the basic, fundamental functions of the Federal
Government and what priority they should have. Certainly, the defense
of this country has to be among the--if not the--top priorities. No one
else can do that. I appreciate very much the comments the Senator has
made.
This whole idea of priority setting, this whole idea of the concept
of the basic belief of what you think the better role of the
Government, is of course a difficult issue but it is the basis of why
we are here; it is the basis of elections to decide. People say, ``What
is your position with respect to the Federal Government?'' There are
legitimate differences of view. You can see them on this floor. There
are those who believe sincerely that the Federal Government ought to be
the predominant activity in government in the whole country. There are
those who, frankly, have very little confidence in local governments
and in State governments, and they think the Federal Government ought
to do all of those things. Obviously, there are roles for the Federal
Government. In my view, there are quite certainly roles that are better
done at the local and State level. That is the constant issue with
which we deal.
I was talking about some of the things people talked about while I
was in Wyoming. I mentioned Social Security. I would like to go back to
that for just a little bit. There has been a great deal of talk about
the condition of Social Security to the extent that people, many older
people, are worried about, of course. But maybe even more importantly,
younger people who are now just entering the workforce are saying, ``I
am going to be paying into this thing forever, but by the time I am
ready to retire, there will be nothing there.'' I think it is clear
that Social Security is strong for 20 years or 25 years, and all those
who will become eligible for benefits during that time will see them.
But young people, like these folks sitting here, are the ones who will
be paying the tab. Unless we do something, we will unlikely have a
solvent Social Security program.
We need to move forward. I am pleased that there is a considerable
amount of talk about it. I hope we do something rather soon. It seems
to me that if we can do it, the sooner you do it, the less severe the
changes need to be. If you make rather simple changes, rather
incremental changes 20 years out, it makes a great deal of difference.
What are we talking about? Of course, one of them that is already
underway is to raise the retirement age. Times have changed. People are
living longer. People are working longer. That is legitimate. There
will be debate about how far that goes, of course. But, more
importantly, the notion that seems to be catching on is that some
percentage of the payments that are made, some of the percentages of
12-percent payments that are made into Social Security, should be set
aside into an individual account which is invested in equities,
invested in something that will earn more interest than the current
investment which is in Government securities; that that account will
grow more quickly; that there will be more benefits from the same
investment. And that is very possible, of course; further, that that
account would be your account and my account.
If for some reason or other you happen to pass on before you use all
of that, that it, indeed, be part of your estate. There would be a
substantial difference. I don't think many are talking about a full
privatization of Social Security. That is something that would be a
pretty big step. But to take 30 percent, for example, 3 or 4 percent
out of the 12 percent, I believe that is happening. I certainly hope
so.
I already mentioned tax reform. Certainly, we will have some debate
soon about what seems certain to be a budget surplus--a budget surplus
on which we will have some decisions to make; choices about doing
something about reducing the debt, a debt on which we pay $280 billion
a year in interest; do something about reducing tax rates so that the
people who own the money will be able to keep more of it. I suppose one
of the considerations will be to spend more. I hope that is not a
successful consideration. Others are suggesting some of it be put in
for this Social Security reform and that it be used that way.
There is nothing wrong with philosophical differences. We just need
to stand for what we are for. We are for less government, if we are
having people keep more of their own money. It is pretty clear where
you stand on that issue.

I hope the marriage penalty is considered. I saw some numbers the
other day where two single persons were making roughly $35,000 a year,
and they pay individually. If they are married, this is about a $1,300
penalty to the same people earning the same amount of money simply
because they are married. That needs, of course, to be changed.
Another one that I heard a lot about and I also feel strongly about
is the Executive orders that have been issued. There are a good many
Executive orders, some of which simply are done apparently to replace
what the Congress should be doing. One on federalism created a great
deal of concern.
Basically, the President issued an Executive order that broadened the
scope of the Federal Government in terms of working with States and
working with counties, and instead of the good old 10th amendment where
it says that those things which are specifically laid out in the
Constitution will be done by the Federal Government, other things will
be done by the States and by the people--this changed that. There was
such a reaction to it that I understand it has been withdrawn. But the
use of Executive orders is something that sort of moves away from the
leadership of causing the Congress to do things, and working with the
Congress. The idea of an Executive order on health care, for example,
which is exactly the thing that the Republican bill has on the floor,
it seems to me, is inappropriate.
Energy--I guess I have a rather strong feeling about energy in that
it is one of the things that is important to my State, but, more
importantly, it is one of the things that is important to this country.
We now have ourselves in the position where 57 percent, I believe, of
the fossil fuel we use is imported. That puts us at sort of a security
risk, it seems to me, in addition to not having the kind of domestic
industry that is very important. Do we have a policy at the Department
of Energy for that? No, we really do not. We really do not.
We have a real problem with what we do with nuclear waste that is the
result of nuclear power plants. Do we have a plan to do that? The
administration is opposed to it. We have a responsibility to do
something about nuclear waste storage. Does the Department of Energy
have a plan? No. We are not moving forward.
Those are the kinds of things that need to be resolved. One of the
energy issues that is fairly knew this year and will continue next year
is the deregulation of electric energy. It has a great impact on this
country.
The use of the huge monopolies--most of us would like to see us
change monopolies and make them come a little more into the
marketplace. Does the Department of Energy have a strong position on
that? No.
Finally, the chairman of the committee urged them to come up with a
bill. But we need to do something with that. Here again, we get into
the question of whether you do the same thing for every State. I can
tell you that Wyoming's interest in electric deregulation is different
than New York's. You have to have a system to do that. Leadership is
what we need.
The Senator from Kansas who just spoke is one of the experts in
agriculture. He was, indeed, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee
in the House. Agriculture is having a tough time. Agriculture is having
a tough time because of the Asian situation, because of the crop
failures, and because of the weather and many things.
We are trying to do something with it and, indeed, have, but we need
again some kind of impetus and leadership from this administration that
has not been there.
Previous to now, we have had accelerated payments that are the
changed

[[Page S9911]]

payments from where we had the acreage and payment program into a
market system. We have had averaging, income averaging, just extended--
that is good for farmers--and an IRA for farmers and ranchers. Of
course, if you don't have any money, it does not help a lot. And that
is going to have to be done. We did something about unilateral
sanctions in countries so that we can have more markets overseas.
These are some things, but there need to be more. We need to do
something with crop insurance to make that work. We need to open more
foreign markets because almost 40 percent of our agricultural product
goes into foreign trade. We need to do something about agricultural
credit to help make this transition from managed agriculture to market
agriculture.
So we need to work together, and we need some leadership in doing
that.
Mr. President, probably again the thing that seems always to strike
me, because I guess I believe it also, is that the real issue in many
of the things we do is in terms of federalism--what is the role of the
Federal Government? Where can we be most efficient? Where can we get
the job done more easily? At the Federal level? At the State level?
Should we send block grants, for example, in some instances to the
States? I think so. And the delivery system is so different.
We held a couple of meetings on rural health care while I was in
Wyoming. We have about 475,000 people in 100,000 square miles. Many
people live in very small towns. We only have two towns that are over
the 50-60,000 category. So you have to have a little different system
for the delivery of health care than you do in Pennsylvania or than you
do in New England, and that is an important kind of thing.
Telemedicine, for example, is going to be very important to us.
So all this comes into this equation of how do you best serve the
people of this country. I happen to believe, as you can imagine from
what I have said already, less Federal Government is better than more.
I am one who thinks that the most efficient delivery system comes when
it is done at the local level. I am one who thinks that the Government
closest to the people is the one that provides the kind of services
that people really want.
So we need to focus, I think, on fundamentals. We need to focus on
the idea that, for example, those things that are done by the Federal
Government that are commercial in nature ought to be put out for bid,
if that is possible, so we can do it in the private sector. It is done
more efficiently that way, and it also creates more jobs in the private
sector. And that is one of the fundamental things we ought to continue
to focus on.
We don't have much time remaining in this session--I think something
around 20 days of activity. We have lots of things to do. I am hopeful
that our friends on the other side of the aisle will address these
issues that need to be resolved. I think it is clear that there are two
or three issues they are going to try to insist on bringing up daily,
not with the intention of completing them and finding a resolution but
simply to bring them up so that they are the kinds of issues that will
be involved in the campaigns that are coming up in November--patients'
rights, for example. Both sides of the aisle have bills on patients'
rights. Most of the elements of those bills are very similar and there
is a consensus that some of those things need to be done. The
leadership has offered to deal with it with a limited number of
amendments so that we can get it done.
That is not acceptable to the other side of the aisle because they
want to keep this issue alive as a political issue. That is too bad. I
am sorry for that.
The minimum wage. We just have raised the minimum wage two times. It
is a political issue that has to keep coming back. Campaign reform.
Most of us want to make some changes in campaign reform. We have talked
about it extensively in this session of Congress. It is kept alive as a
political issue. We need to address ourselves to things that have to be
resolved, those things that are important to the people in the conduct
of the business of this country.
So I am just really hopeful that our leadership in the Senate and the
leadership in the House and this administration will address ourselves
to some of these issues and that we will, in fact, during this next
month be able to resolve them, conclude them, and do them in the
fashion that is most acceptable and most useful to the American people.
That, after all, is our job. I think it is based largely on making some
decisions as to what the Federal Government does best, how it does it,
how it can be done most efficiently, how we can involve the States, how
we can involve local governments. Invariably, when you go home, you see
things done voluntarily, you see things done on a local level, and it
reminds you, fortunately, the strength of this country lies not in its
Federal Government, the strength of this country lies in the
communities and the people who live there, people who give leadership
to issues that affect them, people who volunteer, people who address
the issues and resolve them, and that is, indeed, the strength of this
country.
Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask consent to be yielded the 10
minutes remaining under the time of Senator Thomas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

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