[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 150 (Friday, October 29, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13532-S13534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000--CONFERENCE REPORT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier we were discussing the District of
Columbia appropriations bill. It is a bill that I have taken an
interest in as the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. One of the
smaller spending bills, it has now become one of the largest. You might
wonder what has happened.
It turns out that the District of Columbia appropriations bill has
become a vehicle in the closing hours of this session for a lot of
legislative attempts at spending. In fact, the largest nondefense
budget to be considered by the Congress each year is for the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related
agencies. It is the largest bill. It passed the Senate in one form a
few weeks ago. But the bill in its original form never has passed the
House of Representatives. In fact, they went the entire session
debating about whether or not there would be enough money to fund
critical programs for education and health. The House could not muster
a majority to pass that bill during its regular session. It had to wait
for a conference committee which involved the District of Columbia to
finally bring it to the floor just a few hours ago where it passed with
a very close vote. It now is headed to the President's desk for his
consideration after we vote on Tuesday. It is my guess that the
rollcall will be by and large a partisan rollcall, but that the bill
will pass the Senate and head down to the White House.
It is also fairly certain that bill will be vetoed by the President.
In fact, the D.C. appropriations bill, as I mentioned earlier, has
bought a ticket on the Titanic. This bill is going to sink, as it
should, and let me tell you why it should.
I can't understand why we wait until the closing days of the session
to address the issue of education. It is the last priority in Federal
spending from the congressional perspective. It is the first priority
of every American family. We just don't get it. We don't connect with
people who time and time again, when asked in opinion polls for the
major concern we face as a nation, identify education.
Yet in this congressional session it is an afterthought. We have done
everything else; now let's look at education. I don't think the
American people expect that kind of conduct from Congress. They don't
expect Members in the closing hours of any session to finally get
around to talking about schools, kids, and education. That is exactly
what we have done.
This bill, which the President should veto and send back to Congress
to work on more, guts the class size reduction initiative, an
initiative which allows hiring more than 100,000 teachers nationwide so
that first and second grade classrooms have fewer kids. Every teacher
and parent knows the wisdom of that decision. Yet the Republican
majority resists. They voted for it last year; now they don't want it.
They ought to come to Wheaton, IL, and the schools I visited there.
This is considered to be a fairly conservative area politically. They
are for the President's initiative. They have seen it work. Why this
bill wants to kill that initiative, I don't know. They are not
listening to teachers or parents when the Republican majority insists
on that. The Republican bill funds 3,400 fewer afterschool centers.
Almost a million kids in America are denied afterschool programs, a
million who would have received it if the President's request had gone
through. The kids will be out of school at 3 in the afternoon with
little or no adult supervision and nothing constructive to do. The
Republican majority says that's fine; that is the way it has to be. I
don't think so. I think our vision of America should be broader. We
know kids going home to an empty house or hanging around a mall or
street corner are not engaging themselves in learning. I think the
President's proposal was far better.
There are many other areas of concern, including denying title I
reading and math teachers. Think about that. At a time when we need
more scientists and computer engineers, we are going to eliminate 5,400
title I teachers who would have been included in the President's budget
to teach reading and mathematics. Cut reading instruction for 100,000
kids, and they fall behind in their classes.
Is this the kind of bill we want to kick off the new century? Does
this define our priority in education? I think not. I think it is a bad
political decision. I hope the President wastes no time in vetoing it
and sending it back to the Republican majority to address.
The worst part of the bill, if that isn't bad enough, has to do with
medical research. Every administration tries in some way, shape, or
form to find something to do legally with the budget which will allow
them to get away from some tough decisions. Democrats have done it; the
Republicans have done it. What we have done with the National
Institutes of Health is tragic. The National Institutes of Health--and
I am sure most Americans are familiar with that name--is the agency we
assign the responsibility of finding cures for the diseases that plague
Americans and people across the world.
When one of my former colleagues in the House of Representatives,
Bill Natcher of Kentucky, who passed away several years ago, used to
bring this bill to the floor, he would say: This is the people's bill,
the one that everyone can identify with because we are all interested
in schools, education, and safety in the workplace.
The people's bill isn't being treated very well when it comes to
medical research. I had a chance to look at comments made in the House
of Representatives during this debate by my friend and former
colleague, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, CA. I think she
hit the nail on the head when she said our former Speaker, Tip O'Neill,
said all politics is local. But in this bill all politics is personal.
It is as personal as the woman with breast cancer, the man with
prostate cancer, or people with AIDS who look to us for hope.
As a Senator, one of the more emotional things I have to go through
each year is a visit from different groups interested in the National
Institutes of Health funding. They come to me in desperation. They are
the mothers and fathers of children with juvenile diabetes; they are
the mothers and fathers of autistic children; they are people who are
suffering from cancer and heart disease and rare diseases with names
that one might never have heard. They say: Senator, do something; make
sure the National Institutes of Health have the money they need to look
into medical research to save our children's lives and to give them
some hope.
That is a tough responsibility for anyone to face. Doctors face it
every day, but politicians and Senators face it rarely. When we do, it
is not a comfortable situation. I always assure them I will do
everything I can, I will pass every bill I can to put money in medical
research.
For the last several years, we have increased the amount of medical
research. That is good. My colleague in the House, John Porter, a
Republican from Illinois, has been a leader in that. I salute him for
that. I think we should continue on that track. This bill,
unfortunately, takes a giant step backwards because this bill, as it is
drafted and being sent to the President, says the National Institutes
of Health must postpone the awarding of medical research grants until
the closing weeks of next year. It means that universities and medical
researchers all across America are put on hold. They won't be given the
money to research diabetes, cancer, heart disease, AIDS and all the
other things we are concerned about. They have to wait.
What do their official organizations say about that? The American
Council on Education says of this approach in the Republican bill to
delay medical research in America:
. . . research programs cannot be stopped and started up
again without considerable, often irretrievable loss to
research progress.
The Association of American Medical Colleges says of this Republican
idea:
The cumulative impact of these effects will slow the
overall pace of research.
The Coalition for Health Funding says:
[[Page S13533]]
The net effect would be a significant slowing of biomedical
research endeavors.
This isn't just a budget gimmick. This isn't a way to save face. This
is, frankly, something that should alarm every American family. If
there is not someone in your household who is ill, you are blessed, but
tomorrow that can change.
For those who sit patiently in doctors' waiting rooms, in hospitals,
praying for a miracle for help from Washington when it comes to medical
research, this bill is no hope at all. This bill takes a step
backwards. The President should veto this bill. Basically, it says to
the National Institutes of Health, we will give you more money but wait
8 months. Let's let medical research stand on hold for 8 months. Mr.
President, 40 percent of their spending, 60 percent of their grants
will be delayed until the closing days of the next fiscal year. This is
beyond budget gimmickry. This is unfair. It is inhumane. If for no
other reason, President Clinton should veto this bill.
What it does to the Centers for Disease Control is also awful.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. REID. Isn't it true that in addition to the so-called forward-
funding, they are also talking about an across-the-board cut that would
also affect the programs at the National Institutes of Health in
addition to what the Senator has spoken about?
Mr. DURBIN. That is true. I concede the overall spending is moving
up, but they are slicing it back as part of the 1-percent, across-the-
board cut.
As we learned from the Congressional Budget Office yesterday, if the
Republican leadership is to keep their hands out of the Social Security
trust fund to accomplish this, 1 percent won't be enough. They will
need to cut back 5.8 percent, which means less money for medical
research than otherwise would have been there.
By failing to make the necessary, tough, hard choices about where to
spend money and where not to respond, they have tried to spread this.
And by doing so, they have hit areas such as medical research.
Mr. REID. Isn't it true, also, when they talk about 1 percent--which
we know has to be 6 percent--isn't there that much waste in government?
The Senator knows they are talking not about looking at pockets of
waste, fraud, and abuse. But these are indiscriminate, across-the-board
cuts; is that not true?
Mr. DURBIN. The Senator is correct. As a member of the Appropriations
Committee, he has had the responsibility of putting together a budget.
We are supposed to make choices. Some programs are worth investing in
and some are not. Instead of making the choice, the Republican
leadership says let's take a cut across-the-board on all of these
projects and programs.
I am not going to stand here and say there is waste, fraud, and abuse
when it comes to medical research. We fund at the current time fewer
than half of the requests. People come to NIH and say: We have an idea
for a cure for diabetes, or something to do with asthma, arthritis.
These people are vetted, the professionals look at them, the money is
given.
This approach is not only going to cut a percentage off the money for
medical research, it is going to delay 40 percent of the funds until
the closing days of the year. So all the researchers are put on hold,
and all the people out in America, worried about these medical
conditions for themselves and their families, frankly, are going to be
faced with that same delay.
Mr. REID. I ask one last question to the Senator from Illinois. I
think the Senator has done a good job of indicating these cuts are
related to real people, people who get sick. They are not numbers. They
are not statistics.
It was a few months ago at the West Front of the Capitol that I was
here with Miss America. There has been a new Miss America in the last
few weeks. The 1998 Miss America is a diabetic. She was out there
because she has hope that what we are doing at the National Institutes
of Health will allow her and the millions of other people who are
diabetic to be cured.
This will slow up the grants to these people who, we are told, are on
the verge of a breakthrough so children and others with diabetes can
look forward to the date when they will no longer have to take the
insulin shots, sometimes three times a day. Isn't that right?
Mr. DURBIN. The Senator from Nevada is right. Again, let me remind
you, this is a budget gimmick. If you delay the spending in an agency
until the closing weeks of the year and then when you calculate how
much it is going to cost, it won't come out to the same dollar amount.
In order to meet some budget guidelines and conform with some
regulations and rules, they make this decision to make an across-the-
board cut and delay the spending.
If somebody came to the floor and said, I have a great idea, let's
delay paying Members of Congress until the last few weeks of the year,
I think we might have some resistance here. I think some of my
colleagues and my wife and I might see that a little differently. When
it comes to medical research, we are prepared to do that. How can you
say that to the families you have met and I have met who come and
expect us to do our very best to encourage medical research?
Let me tell you another area. The Centers for Disease Control gets
$2.8 billion. What do they do? They try, across the United States, to
do things such as reduce the incidence of HIV and AIDS, try to reduce
tuberculosis, immunization programs for kids, things that make America
healthier. This appropriation the Republicans have brought to us delays
until the very end of the fiscal year a third of that money. Slow down
your effort to try to stop the spread of AIDS, this appropriation bill
says. I think that is irresponsible.
If there is any reason for the President to veto this bill, it is in
the area of health research and disease prevention. I hope the
President vetoes it, sends it back up in a hurry, and says to the
Republican leadership: Roll up your sleeves and get serious. If you are
going to make cuts in order to achieve some budget goals, don't start
with medical research, don't start with children who are suffering from
diseases where we might find a cure, don't go to the Centers for
Disease Control which has an important mission for all Americans to
make this a healthier nation. No, go somewhere else.
I have been elected to the Congress, the Senate, now, for 17 years.
There are some areas that are really worth a fight. We can talk about
roads and bridges. They mean a lot to a lot of people. But when it
comes to education and health, I think that is worth a fight. I invite
the President's veto as quickly as possible. Send this bill back up
here and say to the leadership, on both sides of the Rotunda, that they
have a lot more to do. Balancing this budget on the backs of kids who
need special tutorial help to learn to deal with reading and math is
unconscionable. Balancing this budget on the backs of thousands who
receive assistance from the Women, Infants, and Children Program for
nutritional assistance, so babies are born healthy, that is
unconscionable.
For those of us who next year again will face a steady stream of
people--from Illinois, in my case, Nevada in the case of Senator Reid--
who come to our office and beg us, please do something about medical
research so my child might live, I want to be able to look them in the
eye and say: We did the right thing. We encouraged the President to
veto an irresponsible bill, a bill which would have delayed medical
research for a lot of people across America who are depending on it for
their survival.
When it comes down to the closing hours of the session, sometimes
things move through quickly and people are anxious to get home. I know
I speak for myself and I probably do for many others when I say I am
prepared to stay as long as it takes to see that the National
Institutes of Health and all their medical research responsibilities do
not become part of the political gamesmanship of the end of this
session.
I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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