[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 165 (Friday, November 19, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14848-S14849]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE LACK OF SENATE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, there are other 
colleagues on the floor. I have waited for some time. I think it has 
been an important discussion, but I am going to try, since there are 
other Senators on the floor, to abbreviate my remarks. I actually could 
speak for 3 or 4 or 5 hours right now. I will not. We will see when we 
are going to finish up today.
  I would like to build on a little bit of the discussion I just heard, 
and then I would like to go to the issue at hand, which is the 
extension of the Northeast Dairy Compact, the way this was done, the 
impact on my State of Minnesota, and why we have been fighting this 
out.
  First of all, I also thank Senator Durbin for his very strong voice 
on the floor of the Senate. I say to Senator Reid from Nevada, 
sometimes we come out here and compliment each other to the point it 
becomes so flowery, people are not sure whether it is sincere or not. I 
believe it is sincere. Senator Reid is a good example of somebody in 
politics who, if he suffers from anything, it is modesty. He rarely 
takes credit. He really has done some tremendous work in the mental 
health field. He has probably done more than anybody in the Senate to 
get us to focus on the problem of depression. He never takes the 
credit. He should have included himself in this discussion.
  I am talking about Senator Reid.
  Mr. President, I am not sure how exactly to view this overall omnibus 
conference report we now have before us. I am a little worried about 
sounding so negative that it will seem I only come to the floor to be 
negative. I do not. I think some of what my colleagues have talked 
about--given the framework we were working within and given where we 
started, I think there are some things people can feel good about.
  I am pleased to give the administration and Democrats some credit for 
at least being able to get some resources for some areas of priorities, 
such as more teachers and schools and moving toward smaller class size. 
It was a fix. I know for the State of Minnesota, and I am sure for many 
States, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and the cuts in Medicare 
reimbursement had, no pun intended, catastrophic consequences, 
especially for our rural hospitals, some of the nursing homes, home-
based health care, and teaching hospitals. At least we were able to 
make a difference for a couple of years, though, again, it is 
temporary.
  I feel pretty good about some investment of resources that are going 
to be helpful to people in Minnesota. If I had to pick out one 
priority, it would be $14 million for the Fon du Lac School, a pretty 
important commitment of resources. I count as one of the best days as a 
Senator the day I visited Fon du Lac School. It is a pretty horrendous 
facility, and for years I have been trying to get some money to build a 
new school for kids in the Indian community.
  It is interesting, just this past week I was there, and at the end of 
the discussion I said to the students: I have to leave in 30 seconds, 
and I am sorry we are finishing. Can any of you talk about one thing 
you care more about than anything else?
  This one student who is age 15 said: The thing I think the most about 
is I would like for the children--I viewed him as a child at age 15--I 
would like the children to live a better life than we have been able to 
live, and I would like to live a life that will help kids do better.
  I said to this student: That was the most beautiful, powerful thing I 
heard said in any school I have visited, and I have been in a school 
every 2 weeks for the last 9, 9\1/2\ years I have been in the Senate.
  I tend to come down more on the side of the editorial debate of the 
Washington Post. I do not think this Congress has much to be proud of 
at all. Part of what has happened is we have been engaged in a lot of 
mutual self-deception. I came out to the floor quite a while ago on an 
amendment dealing with veterans' health care. I said it was a 
deliberate effort to bust the budget caps.
  The ways in which we have been talking about ``not raiding the Social 
Security surplus'' has been ridiculous. President Clinton started to do 
it. Tom DeLay has done it. We have put ourselves in a straitjacket. We 
know that is not what it is about, but it is great political 
sloganeering.
  For Republicans who do not believe, when it comes to the most 
critical issues of people's lives, there is nothing the Government can 
or should do, then I think you are consistent and I respect your point 
of view, for those Republicans who take that position, and this is not 
a problem. But for Democrats and other Republicans who believe there 
are certain decisive areas of life in America, such as investment in 
children and education and opportunities for children, decent health 
care coverage, environmental protection, making sure we have some 
support for the most vulnerable citizens in the Congress, whether it be 
congregate dining or Meals on Wheels or affordable child care or, for 
God's sake, making sure children are not hungry in America, I do not 
think we have much to be proud of because we have done precious little.
  As a matter of fact, I say to my colleagues on our side of the aisle, 
if you were to take the ``non-Social Security surplus,'' 75 percent of 
it because of cuts in the budget caps of 2 years ago in a lot of these 
areas we say we care the most about, in real dollar terms we are still 
not spending as much as we spent several years ago.

  I do not think we have all that much to be proud of and we have to do 
a lot better. I said at the beginning I would talk about some positive 
things. I do not want to come out here appearing to

[[Page S14849]]

be shrill. I do think, unfortunately, this is a pretty rigorous 
analysis.
  We did not pass campaign finance reform. That is the core issue. That 
is the core issue, the core problem. We did not pass patient protection 
legislation. We have done precious little to deal with the reality of 
44 million people without any health insurance coverage and many other 
people having health insurance coverage but being underinsured.
  Under title I--I saw this listed as one of our victories--we are 
funding about one-third of the kids who are eligible to be helped. 
These are some of our most vulnerable children in America, to the point 
where in Minnesota, in St. Paul, after you reach the threshold of a 
school that has 65 percent low-income population, there is no money for 
any other schools. It is about a $16 billion shortfall, and we have 
increased spending by $75 million.
  We have done hardly anything for affordable child care. We did not 
include prescription drug coverage as a part of Medicare. On a whole 
host of amendments I have worked on as a Senator, almost all of them 
were eliminated in conference committee; whether it be at least some 
support for kids who witness violence in their homes or trying to deal 
with the problem of exploitation of women in international sex 
trafficking or juvenile justice mental health services or having an 
honest policy evaluation of what the welfare ``reform'' is doing around 
the country or increasing some funding--I mean real funding, a real 
increase of funding--for Meals on Wheels or congregate dining or social 
services support.
  If you look at it from the point of view of how at least I think we 
can make life better for others--I am not going to speak for others--I 
think this has been a do-nothing Congress, I really do.
  I will make one other point before I talk about this dairy compact, 
and it is this: I am hearing so much discussion about testing. George 
W. is talking about testing third graders, and if they do not pass 
those tests, they do not go on to fourth grade. It is high-stakes 
testing, and by the way, I will have an amendment next year to the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act which makes sure we do not start 
testing at that young of an age.
  Here is the point. Jonathan Kozol wrote a book ``Savage 
Inequalities,'' in which he points out--and all of us know this about 
our States--some school districts have the best technology, a beautiful 
building, recruit the best teachers, have the best lab facilities, the 
best textbooks, and other schools have none of that. We do not do 
anything to change that.
  I cite a second bit of evidence. We have all these reports and 
studies, irrefutable evidence that if you do not get it right for 
children by kindergarten, many of them come to school way behind and 
they fall further behind and then they drop out. This is critically 
important, and we invest hardly anything in affordable child care.
  Third, we do not do anything about the concerns and circumstances of 
children's lives in New York City or Minneapolis-St. Paul or rural 
Aitkin County or rural anywhere or inner-suburban anywhere in the 
country before they go to school and when they go home, whether it be 
the violence in the homes, or the children who see the violence or the 
violence in the communities or children who come to school hungry or 
children who come to school with an abscess because they do not have 
dental care. It is not very easy for children to do well in school 
under these conditions. We do not do hardly anything to change any of 
those conditions for children's lives in America so that we can truly 
live up to the idea of equal opportunity for every child.

  But we are going to flunk them. We are going to fail them. We are 
going to give them standardized tests and fail them. We already know 
which kids are going to do well and which kids are not. I would argue 
it is cowardly. I would argue it is a great political slogan, but it is 
cowardly. There is a difference between testing and standardized--we 
should have accountability, but there are different ways of testing.
  If you cannot prove you are giving every child the same opportunity 
to achieve and do well in the test, what are you doing giving these 
kids these standardized tests and flunking them and not letting them go 
on to the next grade?
  We have done so little when it comes to good health care for every 
citizen, equal opportunity for every child, jobs at decent wages, and 
getting money out of politics and bringing people back into politics 
and speaking to the economic pain that exists among citizens in our 
country.
  I start with agriculture. I am from an agricultural State. We have a 
failed farm policy that is driving family farmers off the land. We have 
not done a thing about the price crisis. We have had another bailout. 
We have some money for people so they can live to farm another day, but 
we have not changed a thing when it comes to farmers being able to get 
a decent price. We have not changed a thing when it comes to all the 
concentration of power in agriculture and in the media and in banking 
and in energy and in health insurance companies. We do not want to take 
on these big conglomerates. We do not want to talk about antitrust 
action.
  So I argue that at the macrolevel this has been a do-nothing 
Congress. I think people in the country should hold us accountable. I 
say to the majority party, I think they should especially hold the 
majority party accountable because I think many of us have wanted to do 
much more. I think that is what the next election probably will be all 
about.
  If people believe education and health care and opportunities for 
their children and jobs at decent wages are important issues to them--
that is their center; that is the center of their lives--and they 
believe the Republican majority has not been willing to move on this 
agenda, and they feel as if there is a big disconnect between what is 
done here and the lives of people who we are suppose to represent, then 
I say, let the next election be a referendum. But I certainly wish we 
had done more.

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