[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 138 (Tuesday, October 6, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11543-S11544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SCHEDULE OF THE PRESIDENT

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with a revelation 
that I suspect will come as a bit of a surprise to some of my 
colleagues and to a few Americans. Mr. President, fellow Senators and 
fellow Americans, President Bill Clinton, is in town. That is right. 
The President is actually in the White House today.
  For any who have followed the President's extensive travel throughout 
his term in office, you would notice that I say his ``time in 
Washington'' because that has been far less than his term in office. 
The fact that the President has actually planned to stay in town for a 
week is, in my opinion, a bit newsworthy.
  The President is supposed to be the head of our country. Instead, I 
suspect that Bill Clinton has been our country's feet. This President 
is already the most foreign-traveled President in U.S. history, with 32 
trips abroad in less than 6 years in office. In just the last 2 years, 
he has spent 79 days overseas. Those 79 days abroad in 2 years are 
almost as many days as President Bush spent during his 4 years in 
office.
  If and when he has come home to the United States does not mean that 
he came home to the White House. President Clinton spent almost half of 
last year, 149 days, and over half of this year, now 155 days, out of 
the White House. What has he been doing while logging those frequent 
flier miles on Air Force One? Well, a lot has been fundraising; 65 days 
over just the last 2 years have included out-of-town fundraising trips, 
and 14 more are planned for this month alone.
  Now the President is back in town for one of his rare weeks in 
Washington. What did he do on his first day at work yesterday? He 
sought, once again, to divert attention from his own problems--this 
time, by threatening to shut down the Government. It is hard to tell if 
this President has come back to town to simply repack his bags or to 
take, or attempt to take, Congress hostage.
  President Clinton appears intent on making the sequel to the movie 
``Wag the Dog.'' The President hasn't participated in the process of 
government at all this year, and now he returns, seemingly, to attempt 
to shut the process down. I have to say I think this is a bit of 
diversion. I don't believe it is leadership.
  Is it unfair to criticize? Is it partisan to be harsh? I asked myself 
that question before I came to the floor this morning. I don't think 
so. Here is why I don't think so. Consider just two issues that we all 
believe are important issues, that even the President has acknowledged 
are important.
  In just a few moments we are going to resume debate on a most 
important piece of legislation, the agricultural appropriations. It is 
on that that I want to speak for just a few moments, an issue that 
President Clinton once ignored. He ignored solutions to help farmers 
and ranchers. He didn't speak about them in his first term of office 
and has spoken little about them in his second term. Now we have 
legislation that we think will help farmers and ranchers, and on his 
first week back in town he says ``I'll veto it.''
  ``Agriculture'' is a word that this President hasn't found a place 
for in his vocabulary. Why? Because American farmers make up less than 
3 percent of the American public. They don't have as much political 
clout as they once had. So this President hasn't

[[Page S11544]]

addressed this issue. But just now, when American agriculture is in 
crisis and this Congress, in a bipartisan way, is attempting to find 
solutions to that crisis, our President comes to town, finds his 
footing, and says, ``I'll veto the effort.''
  Mr. President, that is fair if you had been part of the process, if 
you had been in here working with us, if there had been legitimate 
give-and-take and finally a breakdown. That is not the case at all.
  The President was absent--traveling, fundraising--away from what is 
most important. So he seeks now to make up for his absence by having 
not just one position on agriculture but three positions. First of all, 
he asked for about $2.3 billion in assistance on September 22. That was 
just 2 weeks ago. Congress then roughly doubled that amount. Yet now, 
to hide the fact that he had not been paying attention to American 
agriculture, President Clinton is demanding more, much more--nearly $7 
billion. And now he threatens to veto legislation that Congress will 
send to him--legislation that will give twice the money that he asked 
for less than a month ago.

  For 2 years, he has failed to use the tools that could have addressed 
the agriculture problems in substantial ways. He has ignored the 
tools--tools that I have requested the President not let rust away in 
some storage shed down at USDA, tools of trade, tools of trade 
intervention, humanitarian aid. All of those kinds of things that would 
have moved our products into the market were not used and have gathered 
rust and sat idle. Why, then, is the President coming back almost in an 
effort to demand a scorched-Earth policy? Is it politics, or is it the 
wag factor that is now at work? I am not sure. But, Mr. President, I 
think you have little credibility in this area.
  Let me discuss just one other area briefly. I know the Senator from 
West Virginia is waiting.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
  Mr. CRAIG. There is the issue of Social Security. So important was it 
that the President declared it in his State of the Union Address as an 
effort to save Social Security. Yet, the President has not bothered to 
make one step in that direction. The Congress waited a year, but no 
plan came from the White House. Just as with the farm crisis, he has 
only managed to use it--not address it, much less solve it. Like the 
farm crisis, he sought to use it to turn attention from himself. 
Instead of buckling down, this President has traveled around; over half 
of the days of this year the President has been out of town. He has 
found time to travel, he has found time to go overseas, he has found 
time to fundraise; but he has not found time to send any one plan to 
save Social Security to the Congress of the United States, or any one 
plan to alleviate a farm crisis that is now emerging.
  Well, I suspect that if the solution to Social Security had been in 
Beijing, or Chile, or Ghana, or Uganda, or Rwanda, or South America, he 
might have found it there because that is where the President was. Why 
now, the last week that Congress plans to be in session, with a 
schedule that was established at the first of the year, did the 
President find his way back to the White House to sit and only 
threaten--threaten to veto here, threaten to veto there?
  Mr. President, are you planning to shut down the Government? Is it a 
plan for diversion? Is it a plan to hide? Well, we have some problems 
and we are going to work to solve them. Those solutions should come in 
a bipartisan way. Mr. President, I hope you will be a part of the 
solution. The American people deserve nothing less than that.
  I don't like coming to the floor to give these kinds of speeches, but 
sometimes I feel they are important. Sometimes I feel it is important 
for the American people to recognize, as we do, that there are times 
when we work together and not times when we simply find our footing to 
threaten or to change the subject or to divert attention.
  Is the Presidency in crisis today? Yes, it is. We all know why it is. 
That is a constitutional tragedy. That will work its will. The House is 
underway in that process. Let us be allowed to work our will to solve 
the problem of financing our Government for the coming year.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have some remarks, which may require 10 or 
11 or 12 minutes.
  I ask unanimous consent that I may be recognized for such time as I 
may consume, and that the previous order to proceed with the 
Agriculture conference report be delayed until I complete my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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