[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 142 (Saturday, October 10, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12291-S12293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ADDRESSING PRESIDENT CLINTON
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to talk about three or four
things. I am going to try my very, very best to be factual. I am
concerned that here, in these waning days, considering the situation
that exists on Pennsylvania Avenue, that the President finds himself in
a very supercharged political environment. I don't think I had to say
that. I think everybody knows that. But I want to suggest that
yesterday afternoon, or whatever time of day it was that the President
had a quickly called press conference to talk about the Congress of the
United States and what we have and haven't done, and particularly to
say that we aren't taking care of his education programs, and unless we
do, he is going to keep us here.
Normally, when I say ``Mr. President,'' I am addressing the Chair,
because that is what we are supposed to do. If we care to address
anyone here, we do it through ``Mr. President.''
Permit me to address the Mr. President on Pennsylvania Avenue,
President Bill Clinton.
President Clinton, you have been known to have a fantastic memory. As
a matter of fact, I think you acknowledged that at one point recently,
although, as with many of us who grow older, you did indicate that with
the passage of time and the pressure of many things to do, that that
great memory fails every now and then.
Now, Mr. President--Bill Clinton--I am suggesting that maybe your
memory failed you when you gave that speech yesterday. So let me tell
you what I remember about your education programs that you claim we
have not funded.
I want everybody to know that on many things regarding budgets and
programs, you can look to the budget that the President sends up here
to see what it asks for and what we are giving him. This is the budget
for the year we are now appropriating, which started technically on
October 1. Here it is.
I had occasion, shortly after it was issued, to have the education
parts of this reviewed. I remember coming to the floor of the U.S.
Senate to say to the President, which OMB agreed to, ``Mr. President,
the official scorekeeper and official evaluator of budgets for the U.S.
Congress says that
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your request for money for two education programs--interest reduction
so that schools can afford buildings they need and so-called 100,000
teachers so we can lower the classroom ratio--those two programs were
found by the official budget analysts to not properly have been placed
in this budget. What they said is, they break the budget that you just
signed, Mr. President.'' Point No. 1.
Point No. 2: If they are so important--and I am not denying that the
President feels they are, and maybe many Senators feel they are--do you
know what the President did in asking us to pay for them? He didn't
provide the money to pay for them. He did not. It is not in this
budget. He said, ``When you pass the cigarette tax, I would like you to
use some of it for education.''
Let me just say, that sort of says to me, ``I couldn't find room in
the budget for these things that I am telling you are very important.
So if we get a cigarette tax, we'll pay for them.''
Do you know what happened? After weeks of debate, we didn't get a
cigarette tax.
Mr. President, what I know is that the appropriators in the U.S.
Senate, in the bill that takes care of education--so there will be no
misunderstanding, in this regular budget you asked for $31.4 billion
for education. Look at the appropriations bill, Mr. President. Ask OMB,
your official people who look at it. See how much the Senate gave you
for education funding for the year you are complaining about.
Interesting, $31.4 billion--exactly what you asked for. Now, Mr.
President, you tell the American people you are going to keep us here
until we do this, as if we are the ones to blame for it not being
done--that is, those two programs.
I am living in a different world, or the President's memory has
failed him, because do you understand, I say to my fellow Senators,
that the President is asking for that money now for these two
programs--and for many Senators it is doubtful whether that is the way
to help education, but, nonetheless, let's just follow it. He is now
saying he is going to keep us here until we do it. But guess what. He
knows, his helpers know, that he has to find programs within the
Government to cut, which are called offsets, in order to pay for those
two programs. He knows that, because this budget says he didn't have
room for it in here. He was making room through a cigarette tax that
never happened.
As of right now, 2:25 p.m., I am not aware that the President has
submitted a means to pay for those programs. I am not aware that the
President has told us how to pay for them if we wanted to adopt them.
All I am asking is that we depoliticize a few of these issues, or at
least state the facts correctly. We do not deserve blame for not
including two programs, which, I repeat, are not paid for in this
budget, when as of today, 11 days into the fiscal year, we don't know
how the President intends to pay for them. All right? That is the first
point I would like to make today.
Second point: There has been a lot of discussion this morning on the
floor of the Senate by some Senators about this issue of a Patients'
Bill of Rights. I think the country understands, but just so it won't
be left unaddressed here this morning, let me again refresh our
collective memories. With everything that we have to do, we took 3\1/2\
weeks to debate the Patients' Bill of Rights on the floor of the
Senate.
The minority can say we didn't let it pass, but, Mr. President, the
majority can say, they didn't let it pass. They had a bill; we had a
bill. We had more than 50 votes; they did not. They kept our bill from
passing which had more than sufficient votes. So I ask, who is to blame
for a bill not passing? Again, I want to be practical, I can't say it
is all their fault, the minority's fault, but clearly it is certainly
not all the Republicans' fault.
What was the really big issue between the two parties? And I leave
this one to the American people. The principal issue that divided us
was the lawyers of the United States. They support the minority
heavily--not all of them, not all of them, but those who litigate. What
did they want in the bill that we didn't want in the bill? We didn't
want a new right to go to court to sue managed care entities, HMOs. We
left the right to sue the doctors and the professionals, but we didn't
want to create a new right to sue the HMOs in courts of law for
damages.
We, on this side, for the most part--not unanimously, but for the
most part--have adopted a sense about health care, and it says lawyers
and lawsuits don't deliver health care; lawyers and lawsuits make
health care cost more. We could not see why, if the minority and the
President think it is such an enormous new status and set of rights
that we should adopt--and we tend to agree--why would the minority that
didn't have the votes to pass here but we had the votes to pass ours--
why would they deny a bill's passage based upon, they want lawyers back
in the loop and we don't want lawyers back in the loop? I leave it to
those listening and those who will look at the Record. See if I am
correct that that was the biggest stumbling block, and see whether the
President and the minority caused the Patients' Bill of Rights bill to
fail or not.
Those are two points, and I want to make a third.
Mr. President, in the election past, two things worked for the
President. He is probably the best public relations President we have
ever had. Two things worked for him as certain--as certain--as when you
write a name in ink on a piece of paper with indelible ink; it will be
there. And those two things that he has used over and over--you need
not think; they will pop into your mind--Social Security and education.
Right?
What we have seen, I say to my friend from Alabama, we have seen the
Social Security card played. How? ``No tax cuts out of the surplus
because it jeopardizes Social Security.'' That is the typical every 2-
year issue. It is raised again.
Let me suggest to Mr. President, Bill Clinton, you know, Mr.
President, that we are about, in the next 72 hours, to pass a very big
appropriations bill. Maybe Pennsylvania Avenue does not know this, but
here is the best estimate I have. We are about to spend--spend; not
tax, spend--$18 billion of the surplus that was supposed to be saved
for Social Security. Got it? The same pot that the President says,
``Don't touch it. It's for Social Security,'' we are about to spend $18
billion of it for so-called ``emergencies.'' And I will get to that in
a moment.
Friends here in the Senate and those listening, you cannot have it
both ways. You cannot say to Republicans, ``You can't use the surplus
to give back to the American people in taxes, even if it's a tiny
amount, but you can spend the surplus for bigger Government.'' You
know, it just does not wash. Both are diminishing, to some extent, the
surplus of $1.6 trillion that we expect in the next decade.
I do not think it will be that much. In fact, the year we are in
right now is supposed to have an $80 billion surplus. I think it will
be $20 billion off because of economics. And then we will spend $18-,
$20 billion of it that we did not plan to spend. Then we will have
something for defense next year that we need, and there will probably
be none left for tax cuts. That is what it looks like.
So I want to just talk about one of the emergencies.
I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. One of the ``emergencies'' is a real emergency. That is
to help agriculture in the United States. But let me suggest, to help
agriculture in the United States, we sent the President a bill. We had
$4 billion in the emergency funding for the farmers of the United
States.
When the President of the United States asked us for emergency
money--which he knew people like Senator Domenici would start adding up
to see how much more you are spending of the surplus than the
Republicans planned to use in tax cuts--the President asked for $2.3
billion for agriculture. We gave him $4 billion.
But in the meantime, a distinguished Senator on the minority side,
whom I have great respect for, the minority leader, Senator Daschle,
introduced a bill saying, ``We want $7.2 billion as an emergency for
agriculture. And we want to wipe out the new law which is only 18
months old called Freedom to Farm because we currently have an
emergency''--$7.2 billion. The President asked for $2.3 billion. Now we
get a communication from the President that says, ``I asked you for
$2.3 billion,
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but essentially I want Daschle's bill, too.'' Now, believe it or not,
we sent him a bill with $4 billion. He vetoed it and said, ``Now you've
got to give me what Senator Daschle's bill has.''
Mr. President, we have had the best people in this body working on
agriculture who put this emergency package together. And believe me,
the $4 billion package would make the American agriculture whole. There
would be no net loss of income to the agriculture community. They know
it. The experts know it. But because it is an election year, and
because of the turmoil that exists that I have alluded to earlier in my
conversation with the Senate here, the President now holds agriculture
programs hostage. If we do not do it his way, we will close down the
Department of Agriculture. Frankly, if we did, it would be the
President's--it would be on his shoulders, not ours. But you know, it
will get worked out. I just thought everybody ought to know how these
things work.
Now, should it matter? We have worked for 20 years to get a balanced
budget and a balanced budget agreement. The result has been nothing but
good news for America. Almost everybody that even touched the issue
lays claim to having done it all, including the President who claims
the entire economic well-being of the country is because he is
President. He can do that. That is fine.
The truth of the matter is, there are plenty--plenty--who deserve
credit, including the Federal Reserve, including Republicans in the
Senate, Democrats in the Senate, the same in the House. But it really
started happening, in terms of restraining the budget, when both bodies
became Republican. And we can go back and trace that. That is when we
fixed welfare to save money, that is when we changed Medicaid to save
big dollars, and on and on.
Let's go home, let's wrap this up in the next few days, but let's
remember the facts. And let's not let this superheavy, politically
charged environment color things such that we are going to take that
surplus we take so much pride in, and find out in 3 or 4 months that
there is only 25, 30, 40 percent of it left, even though we were told,
``You're going to really use it up if you cut taxes.'' What happened?
We did not cut taxes, and it got used up. Interesting.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from
Arkansas.
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