[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 6, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10-S13]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CHALLENGES FACING THE SENATE IN 1999

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wanted to take just a moment following 
the presentation by the majority leader to

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say that he begins this session of Congress with a very substantial 
weight on his shoulders. He is a leader in a Congress that is facing a 
very unique challenge. I consider the majority leader a friend. I know 
that these are not easy times for him, and I hope that as we proceed 
with the important matter of impeachment that all of us in this Chamber 
can work together with Senator Lott and the Democratic leader, Senator 
Daschle, to see that we do the job that we are required to do by the 
Constitution in a thoughtful, deliberative, and bipartisan way.
  I know there are some outside these Chambers who are worried about 
the Senate proceeding too quickly with the impeachment trial. Those who 
have had an opportunity to read two centuries of history of the U.S. 
Senate know that one of the last worries that one ought to entertain is 
that the Senate will ever move to quickly, or follow too closely.
  The U.S. Senate is an extraordinary, deliberative body. The problem 
has seldom ever, in the history of this country, been that the Senate 
moves too quickly. Rather, my concern is that we discharge our 
responsibilities to do our duty and do it in a way that will give the 
American people confidence that the Senate exhibited the dignity they 
would expect from this institution.
  The Senator from Mississippi, the majority leader, indicated that 
there are many other issues that challenge us and that will require our 
attention. He is absolutely correct about that. I, too, hope that we 
can join together to deal with these issues in a more bipartisan spirit 
in this Congress than we have seen in recent Congresses.
  I want to mention just a couple of those challenges.
  The Senator from Mississippi said that the way the last session ended 
was not a good way to end. He is right about that. It was shameful that 
so much business was left on the table at the end to be considered and 
dealt with by a few people--many of them unelected--behind closed doors 
and then brought to the floor by unanimous consent. That is not a way 
to do the Senate's business. It is not a way to do the business of 
Congress. All of us know that. All of us knew it then, and we ought to 
see if we can find a way to change the rules to prevent that from 
happening in the future.
  With respect to challenges that we face, first the challenges abroad: 
All of us understand the dilemma that is posed to us and the entire 
world in what is increasingly a global economy as a result of the 
economic collapse and significant challenges facing the economies of 
the Asian countries. All you have to do is ask American farmers what 
they have experienced as a result of Asian economies being weak and, 
therefore, purchasing less in farm commodities from our country, and 
you will understand the direct impact, not just in that sector, but in 
virtually every sector in this country. We have a stake in how well 
other countries in the world are doing. When the Asian economies 
experience significant trouble--recession and collapse--it affects our 
country and our future. When the Russian economy collapses, it affects 
us. When the Brazilian economy is in trouble, it affects us.

  So these difficulties that are being experienced in many areas of the 
world have the capacity to affect in a significant way the American 
economy. And we must work with our Secretary of Treasury, with the 
President, and with Members of Congress, to reach out and see that we 
try to contain the spreading financial problems that exist in other 
parts of the world.
  The other challenges are pretty obvious as well.
  When the country of North Korea tests medium-range missiles, when the 
country of Iran begins testing medium-range missiles, presumably to 
hoist something aloft and threaten someone down the road, do we need to 
be concerned about that? You bet. The testing of missiles by North 
Korea and Iran is a very ominous threat to this country and ought to be 
of great concern to us.
  When India and Pakistan decide to punctuate their poor relationship 
by exploding nuclear weapons virtually under each other's chin, is that 
destabilizing to the world? You bet it is. Do we need to be concerned 
about that? Of course.
  We have about 7,500 nuclear weapons in our arsenal. I expect that in 
Russia and other parts of the world there are 7,500 nuclear weapons. 
And if the Russian Duma decides to approve START II at some point in 
the future, we whittle that number of nuclear weapons down to 5,000. 
That is still far too many--5,000 nuclear weapons on each side? It 
doesn't make any sense.
  So we have a challenge to try to respond to that. We must respond to 
the issue of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  When you look at the potential threat to the entire world posed by 
India and Pakistan, two adversaries detonating these nuclear weapons 
virtually in front of each other, and then consider that other 
countries are trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, as well as 
the capability of delivering them on the top of a missile, is that a 
concern. When countries like Iran and North Korea start testing 
missiles, is that a challenge to this country? You bet it is. And this 
Congress needs to be concerned about it and work with this President to 
develop policies to try to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons 
and the technology for delivering those weapons.
  Here at home the challenges also are obvious.
  We are blessed with an economy that is growing and strong. Virtually 
every indicator of economic health in this country is positive. 
Unemployment is down--way down. Inflation is down, almost nonexistent. 
Home ownership is up. Crime is down. Violent crime is way down.
  You can take a look at a whole range of statistics to determine what 
is happening in this country. While we have a lot of challenges, you 
have to conclude that things are better in this country as a result of 
economic growth and other public policies that have encouraged changes 
in America.
  That doesn't mean everything is just fine.
  Among the challenges we have in this country is still to deal with 
the issues of education and health care, for example.
  The majority leader mentioned education. We don't run the education 
system in this country, and we shouldn't. Elementary and secondary 
education is largely operated and controlled by local school boards, 
and by State legislatures. Local control of schools has been a hallmark 
in this country, and I don't quarrel with that. I support that. But we 
can and should in this country develop national goals and aspirations 
of what we want to accomplish in education. Among the things we can do 
will be to commit ourselves to repair or construct new school buildings 
to replace those that are falling down.
  At the end of the Second World War, we had folks come back to this 
country who fought for our country's liberty and beat back the fascism 
of Hitler. They came back and got an education under the GI bill and 
had families. They paid taxes to build schools. We had a lot of new 
schools built all over America in the 1950s. Today, many of those 
schools are in disrepair. We need new schools and bigger classrooms. We 
need to repair schools that are crumbling.
  I have spoken at length on this floor about going into a school that 
educates largely Indian children--the Cannon Ball Elementary School. At 
this school, sewer gas comes up into a room used as a classroom at 
least once or twice a week and the classroom has to be evacuated. 150 
kids go to school in a building where there are two bathrooms and one 
water fountain, where you can't connect a computer to the Internet 
because the wiring is so old, a building that has largely been 
condemned.
  Do we need to do something about that? Is it fair to a third grader 
to go to school in conditions like that? No. We can do something to 
encourage additional school construction and school repair to make 
these facilities good facilities. We can also do something to encourage 
the reduction of class size by the hiring of more teachers. We can 
encourage that through public policy here without deciding that we 
should run the local school systems in this country.
  But I will tell you, if we improve education nationally through 
public policies that say education matters, this country will be 
stronger and better because of it. Education must be a priority. Our 
children are our future, and

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our ability to educate our children to become the best they can be is a 
significant investment in the future of America.
  Health care is another important issue we must address. We had a 
debate about this in the last session of Congress, but we did not solve 
the problem. Mr. President, 160 million people are now herded into 
health care chutes called managed care organizations. And now too often 
a family enrolled in an HMO discovers when a loved one gets sick that 
the question of what kind of care they are going to get is not 
necessarily just a function of what the doctor says that care ought to 
be but also a function of whether an accountant 500 or 1,000 miles away 
in the insurance company office decides they want to allow that kind of 
medical treatment to be performed.
  We have talked on the floor of the Senate about the horror stories. I 
am not alleging that these incidents happen with all HMOs, but I am 
alleging that they happen all too often. We need to pass in this 
Congress a Patients' Bill of Rights to say to the American people that 
when you go to a doctor, you have the right to go to a doctor of your 
choice who can meet your medical needs. You have a right to go to an 
emergency room if you need to.
  I told a story several months ago about a woman who broke her neck 
and was taken to the hospital unconscious. She was told later that her 
care was not covered because she didn't get prior approval to come to 
the emergency room. Now, what kind of nut case would make that kind of 
judgment--that someone who is unconscious and has a broken neck needs 
prior approval to get emergency treatment.
  We need a Patients' Bill of Rights, and this Congress ought to pass 
it. We didn't in the last session, and we need to this session. I hope 
we can join together on this issue. If there are specific debates about 
the details, let's work them out. Let's pass a Patients' Bill of Rights 
to respond to these problems.
  I come from farm country. While this country is doing better, and 
there are a lot of reasons to say our country is in pretty good shape, 
family farmers aren't in good shape. Those who went out and bought a 
Christmas ham probably paid $30 or $35 for a pretty good sized ham. Do 
you know that at about the same time, there was a farmer who put a hog 
in a pickup truck and hauled that hog to market and sold it. That 200-
pound hog brought that farmer $20. The shopper bought a ham for $35 and 
the farmer gets $20 for selling a 200-pound hog. Somebody is stealing 
in between. That is strong language, but the fact is that all of the 
packing plants, for beef, sheep, chickens and hogs, are now tightly 
controlled by just a few companies. If you are selling a cow, you sell 
it into a market system in which four companies control over 80 percent 
of the cattle slaughtered in this country. The same is true with hogs--
slightly less but pretty much true.
  The point is that these family farmers are experiencing collapsed 
prices for hogs, collapsed prices for cattle, collapsed prices for 
grain. This country will end up without family farmers in its future if 
it doesn't come to grips with a better farm policy that gives family 
farmers a chance to make a living.
  Every single institution, every single enterprise that touches what 
farmers raise is making record profits. Farmers who gas up the tractor 
and tend to the cattle are the ones who are losing their shirts. But 
everybody else is making record profits--railroads are making record 
profits; the slaughter plants, record profits; the cereal 
manufacturers, record profits. The farmer gets practically nothing for 
his grain, and the manufacturer puts it in a plant someplace and puffs 
it up, and then puts it on the grocery store shelf as puffed wheat. The 
farmer got close to nothing for the wheat and the folks who puff it up 
and put it in the box get rich because they are providing the puff to 
the consumer.

  Why have we decided in this country that family farming doesn't 
matter? Because a majority of this Congress in recent years apparently 
doesn't care whether we have family farmers in our future. I hope that 
changes, and I hope in the 106th Congress we can go back and revise 
that and have a farm program that really matters. We need a farm policy 
that says to family farmers: this country is a better place if we have 
a network of family farmers all across America, out there working and 
raising families under those yard lights that we call family farms.
  You talk about family values. You can't be for family values if you 
are not for family farmers. The history of this country is one of 
nurturing family values on family farms. Those values roll out to our 
big towns and big cities from our family farms. So that is another of 
the challenges.
  Finally, Senator Lott mentioned appropriately the challenge of 
dealing with the entitlements programs. We must in this Congress deal 
with the long-term financial difficulties facing Social Security and 
Medicare. Is that a tough job? Sure, but we need to do it. The issues 
facing Social Security and Medicare are born of success. If people 
weren't living longer, we wouldn't have financial strains on these 
programs.
  One hundred years ago, in the year 1900, if you were living in the 
United States of America, you were expected to live to be about 48 
years of age. Now a century later, you are expected to live, on 
average, about 78 years in the United States. Is that good news? 
Absolutely.
  I was at a place a while back where there was a 94-year-old woman. 
She danced all night at this place where they polka and waltz, and so 
on. You can go out and find people living much longer, healthier lives, 
doing things they never expected to do. Part of it is perhaps a better 
lifestyle, safer workplaces, part of it is better nutrition, part of it 
is the result of breathtaking medical changes. Fifty years ago, someone 
who had cataracts would be blind. Today they get an operation, and they 
can see. It used to be if you had bad knees or bad hips, you were in a 
wheelchair. Today you get new knees or new hips. Those who half a 
century ago would die of heart disease have heart surgery. You can find 
people 80 years old who have new knees, new hips, heart surgery and no 
cataracts, and they say, ``We feel like a million bucks.''
  All of these breathtaking medical advances have helped improve life 
in this country. People are living longer. That provides us with a 
challenge. With more people living longer, it means we have more strain 
on Social Security and the Medicare programs, but, gosh, that challenge 
is born of success. We ought not shrink from that. So we make some 
adjustments here and there, thoughtful adjustments that recognize these 
programs work and they are good programs, but we can do that. This 
Congress can do that and should.
  Mr. GREGG assumed the Chair.
  Mr. DORGAN. President Clinton has proposed at a meeting I was at with 
the bipartisan leadership of the Congress, that this is the year in 
which we tackle the challenges facing Social Security and Medicare. I 
think the Presiding Officer was at that meeting. I think there is a 
determination by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, by the 
President and Congress, that we owe it to the American people to 
address these entitlement questions, to make the kinds of changes that 
are necessary so that we can give the American people confidence that 
these programs will be around for a long, long while. But I do want to 
emphasize this challenge is born of success because people are living 
longer and better lives. I don't want people to come here saying these 
programs don't work. The Social Security program and the Medicare 
program have been remarkably successful. Just before the Medicare 
program was developed, over half of the senior citizens in America had 
no health care coverage at all. None. Now, 99 percent of the senior 
citizens in America are covered with health care. That is a dramatic 
difference and an improvement in the lives of tens and tens of millions 
of Americans.
  Mr. President, those are some of the challenges we face. I agree with 
the majority leader that the sooner we get to them the better. We must 
discharge our responsibility first on the impeachment issues, but then 
we must turn to the business of this country and respond to the 
challenges I have just described.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I make a point of order a 
quorum is not present.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

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  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  (Mr. SMITH of Oregon assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. SMITH of OREGON. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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