[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 5 (Monday, January 31, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S127-S130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor as one who spent over 
90 minutes on the floor of the House last week listening to the 
President's State of the Union Message.
  For a few moments, I would like to kind of analyze that State of the 
Union Address as seen through the eyes of this Senator reflective of 
what I believe to be, shall I say, self-evident truth.
  There is no question that our President is a gifted speaker. He waxed 
eloquently while spending our children's heritage and vastly increasing 
the size and the parental meddling of our Government by all of the new 
programs that he has proposed to create while claiming credit for 
virtually every good thing that has happened in the last century, 
including those things which were accomplished despite his opposition 
and his veto.
  I say: Lyndon Johnson, move over; you heard a speech the other night 
that would cause your ghost to shudder. You had the record as being the 
biggest spending Government creator since FDR. Let me propose that this 
President is now vying for first place.
  Let me start by analyzing his spending spree.
  In his speech, President Clinton called for continued fiscal 
discipline while at the same time suggesting that we do a lot of other 
things and buying down the Federal debt.
  I say, Mr. President, what hypocrisy. Until the Republican Congress 
imposed fiscal discipline, until the American people demanded fiscal 
discipline, the President consistently proposed budgets with spending 
and debt and deficits as far as the average person's eye could see and 
the greatest prognosticator of the Office of Management and Budget 
could look in his crystal ball and predict. He didn't refuse to stray 
from the path of fiscal discipline. He simply did it. We forced him to 
get to that path. That election occurred in 1994. We know the rest of 
that story. Yet what has he proposed in his last State of the Union 
Message?

  The Senate Budget Committee made a preliminary estimate of the new 
spending proposed by the President at about $343 billion. That is about 
$3.8 billion a minute for his 89-minute speech. Not bad spending, Mr. 
President--the most expensive speech given in the history of this 
country, I suggest. If the Treasury can only print about $262 billion a 
year with the presses running nearly 24 hours a day, you even outspent, 
Mr. President, the ability of the U.S. Treasury to print it.

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  What about the taxpayers whose earnings the President would spend so 
freely?
  Last week, the Congressional Budget Office, using its most 
pessimistic estimate, announced that there would be an $838 billion 
non-Social Security surplus over the next 10 years. That is phenomenal. 
That is wonderful for this country. Yet the Clinton speech mentioned he 
would give back only about $250 billion of it. That is less than 30 
percent of the excessive income tax paid by the American people who 
that $838 billion represents. However, even this paltry $250 billion 
tax cut wasn't real. Much of it is disguised in new spending. Even the 
Washington Post, sometimes as difficult as it finds criticizing the 
President, said that he has artfully couched many of these new tax cuts 
in new spending programs. Thank you, Washington Post, for pointing that 
out.
  What is worse? This $343 billion in spending is just the tip of the 
iceberg, and the American taxpayers are riding on a potential Titanic.
  The Clinton version of government is not the end of big government as 
we know it. That is what he said a few years ago. But then again let's 
remember the source. It is Bill Clinton.
  More intrusive government? How about that.
  Less personal responsibility? I think that was the message our 
President spoke to so clearly last week.
  So let's talk about where he is, where I believe a Republican 
Congress is, and what I hope in the end we are able to do about it.
  The President says he wants to make schools accountable--but to the 
Federal Government. The Republicans want to make schools accountable--
but to the parents and to the young people who will be educated there. 
It takes Washington too long to realize the problems. Parents who deal 
with their children on a day-to-day basis know what the problem is very 
quickly.
  According to the Heritage Foundation, one-third of college freshmen 
take remedial classes because our elementary and secondary schools are 
failing to teach them some of the basics. Those are the students lucky 
enough to go on to college. These kids don't need the Princeton Review, 
as the President suggests. They need quality teachers who are 
accountable to parents and the local school board.
  What about health care?
  In 1994, President Clinton tried to remake a national health care 
system in this country in the image of the U.S. Post Office. Thanks to 
bipartisan opposition he failed. The world recognized it, and our 
public cheered.

  In 1996, he vowed to push for Government-run health care ``a step at 
a time until eventually we finish this.'' Those are his words. He would 
go after health care ``a step at a time''--that is Government-run 
health care--until ``eventually we finish this.'' ``This'' meaning, of 
course, his U.S. Post Office-style health care system. Now the 
President has renewed his commitment to Government-run health care with 
legislation that would cancel the private coverage of over 2 million 
Americans so he can push them a step at a time into an expensive 
Government-run program.
  Then there was that great but very soft and smooth Federal land grab 
statement he made the other evening. The President said:

       Tonight I propose creating a permanent conservation fund, 
     to restore wildlife, protect our coastlines, save our 
     national treasures. . . .

  What he wants to do is annually take several billion dollars of oil 
and gas royalties paid to the Federal Government and buy more land and 
make it Federal Government land. If he is successful, it means Congress 
will have to find $2 billion elsewhere to fund programs. But more 
importantly, the ratios of private versus public ownership would 
change. The Government already owns 1 out of every 4 acres of the 
landmass of this country, primarily in Western States; 63 percent of my 
State is owned by the Federal Government. Idahoans do not want Bill 
Clinton buying one more acre of Idaho. Why? That is the tax base that 
funds our local governments and funds our schools. So, Mr. President, 
we won't give you that money. We should not give you that money. If the 
environment needs protection, we can find the necessary resources 
without giving you a blank check to buy more Federal land.
  Mr. President, the very infrastructure of our National Park System is 
falling apart. How about putting some money there? That is where the 
American public wants to go recreate. Give our parks a chance to catch 
up with the traffic instead of shutting them down or closing people out 
of them. Let's let people into our parks. Let's invest in them. We 
don't need to buy more property; we need to take care of that which we 
have.
  The President said:

       The major security threat this country will face will come 
     from enemies of the nation state: the narcotraffickers and 
     the terrorists and the organized criminals.

  He boasts about ``agreements to restrain nuclear programs in North 
Korea''--a program for direct U.S. subsidies for one of the most 
vicious, anti-American, terrorist-supporting, drug-trafficking regimes 
in the world, responsible for deaths of millions of its own people? Mr. 
President, I don't quite understand your priorities.
  He is patting himself on the back for victory in Kosovo, a victory 
that means planting American troops in an alliance with what is known 
to be an organization of narcotrafficking terrorists and organized 
criminal cartels.
  Mr. President, I am not quite sure you have made yourself quite clear 
to the American people. I think you are saying one thing when your 
actions clearly demonstrate you are doing something else.
  The President highlights the needs for ``curbing the flow of lethal 
technology to Iran.'' The Republican Congress passed a bill that would 
have done just that, the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act of 
1997, that is H.R. 2709. And what happened on June 23 of 1998? The 
President vetoed it. Remarkably, President Clinton continues to support 
paper agreements rather than U.S. actions to keep Americans secure. 
Although he outlined real threats from ballistic missile proliferation 
in his speech, President Clinton refuses to deploy a national ballistic 
missile defense system to protect Americans from ballistic missile 
attacks. He even signed legislation calling for the deployment of such 
a system, although, in typical Clinton fashion, he has found many 
excuses to reinterpret the straightforward language of that 
legislation. Instead of defending America against a clear and present 
danger, the President hides behind outdated, ineffective, and obsolete 
arms control treaties.

  Because of President Clinton, Americans remain defenseless against 
ballistic missile attack. It is interesting; the President is now 
calling for ``constructive bipartisan dialog'' on a Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty when the administration turned a deaf ear to the critical 
national security concerns being voiced by Republicans for the last 
good many months.
  Despite President Clinton's best efforts to underfund and overextend 
U.S. military forces, it has been a Republican Congress that has 
consistently sent the President bills to keep our forces well trained 
and well equipped and properly paid. It was a Republican Congress that 
initiated the bill to improve the quality of life of our soldiers, 
sailors, airmen, and Marines, and helped retain those who were leaving 
who had already gained the kind of special skills that are so necessary 
in our military.
  Hyperbole? Hypocrisy? Exaggeration? Shame on me for even suggesting 
that.
  The President claimed credit in his speech for most of the good news 
in America for the past several decades--the healthy economy, welfare 
reform, falling crime rates, balanced budgets, a cleaner environment, 
smaller Federal workforces, and social progress. Anybody who sits in 
the Presidency and possesses the bully pulpit when times are good can 
make claim and take credit, but just for a few moments let me talk 
about how it got done.
  Mr. President, you are entitled to take credit but you can't steal 
Republican principles, Republican ideas, and the kind of work that went 
on in the Congress to make it happen. The President claimed that he 
ended welfare as we know it--after he vetoed it twice. Shame on you, 
Mr. President. It was a Republican Congress but, more importantly, it 
was Republican Governors out in the States who reformed welfare. We 
copied them. We didn't have the genius here. We were stuck in the old 
bureaucracy. We wanted to talk about reform but we took the ideas of

[[Page S129]]

the States, implemented them into the Federal program, and it worked. 
So, yes, you can take credit for it but you didn't do it. You vetoed 
the bills, you kept vetoing the bills, and on the very day that you 
signed them, you said we will be back to change them because we don't 
like this.
  But, of course, it was an election year. You knew you had to sign it, 
and you took credit for it while at the same time you were criticizing 
it. I am sorry, Mr. President; I happen to read history and I happen to 
remember what you said. Shame on me.
  On the environment, the President said:

       . . . one of the things I am grateful for is the 
     opportunity that the Vice President and I have had to finally 
     put to rest the bogus idea that you cannot grow the economy 
     and the environment at the same time.

  He said:

       . . . we have rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic 
     waste, ensured cleaner air and water for millions of people. 
     In the past 3 months alone, we have preserved over 40 million 
     roadless acres in the national forests. . . .''

  Mr. President, here is the rest of the truth. Those 500 neighborhoods 
you claim are a product of the Superfund laws that were passed long 
before you got here. Also, you are taking credit for cleaner air and 
water. Congress passed the Clean Air Act and Congress passed the Clean 
Water Act under Republican direction, and subsequently amendments to 
change that in a way that would make it more operative--and it has 
worked. But you are the one who ruined regulation, through ozone and 
particulate matter rules, for example, that have tried to pull it down 
and make it less operative.
  Mr. President, why don't we both take credit for the environment: 
past Congresses, current Congress, past administrations, current 
administration. We have worked together and our environment is cleaner, 
and we are proud of that.
  In 1995, President Clinton said balancing the budget was a bad idea. 
Let me repeat that. In 1995, Mr. President, you said balancing the 
budget was a bad idea, it was bad for the economy.
  Going into 1996 and faced with poll data that indicated the American 
people were demanding a balanced budget, you decided to surrender on 
principle and argue about the details later. The size of our economic 
boom today is because Bill Clinton reluctantly went along with the core 
principles that swept Republicans into control of the Congress in 1994. 
That balanced budget did not happen until there was a Republican 
Congress shaping it and, Mr. President, you know it. Social Security 
taxes today are being locked up and protected to secure Social Security 
and, Mr. President, that was not your idea. In fact, you wanted to 
spend a big chunk of that money last year, and we simply would not let 
you do it.
  President Clinton's greatest success story--the continued economic 
boom--is a direct result of the Republican fiscal policies enacted over 
the consistent objections of the President and his Democratic 
colleagues in the Congress. No, we will stand toe to toe on that 
debate. You cannot hide from your rhetoric and your actions of the 
past. Those were your policies before the American people said: We have 
gone too far; let's bring our Government under control.
  President Clinton is a President who claims he wants to protect 
Social Security, but in 8 years, he has failed to submit a serious 
Social Security protection plan. And President Clinton is a President 
who claims he wants to protect Medicare, and yet, last year--we all 
know it--he whispered in the ears of those he put on that conference 
and said: Don't vote for it. That was a bipartisan proposal, and that 
is the way reform of Medicare must come.
  Why didn't he want them to support it and to get it all wrapped up 
and finished in an election year? Because one could go out and point 
fingers and politicize Medicare and prescription drugs. Shame on you, 
Mr. President. Come back and work with us on that. Let's reinstitute 
the bipartisan agreement on which Democrats and Republicans stood. We 
will vote for it and you ought to sign it, Mr. President. And if you 
do, that could be your legacy. On that I would give you some credit.

       We have reinvented Government, transforming it into a 
     catalyst for new ideas. . . . With the smallest Federal 
     workforce in 40 years, we turned record deficits into record 
     surpluses. . . .

  I was quoting the President. Our record surpluses have little to do 
with the size of the Federal workforce. Record surpluses were created 
by hard-working Americans earning money and paying taxes and a highly 
productive economy. That is what has produced the surpluses, Mr. 
President, and it also produced record high taxes.
  Another area on which I want to comment is foster care. It was 
fascinating to me and frustrating when the President talked about 
foster care. I know how that happened. I know Republicans and Democrats 
have their differences. We came together and we worked on it in 
Congress. It was not in the White House nor was it the President's 
idea. But because it was a strong bipartisan effort here, we happened 
to pass it. Democrats and Republicans at the congressional level did 
that, and the President has ridden on it ever since. Why? Because it 
worked, because children are less in foster care today, and we are 
finding them permanent, loving homes. No longer is the bureaucracy 
harboring them. Foster care is a good institution, but it is an 
institution that was reshaped.
  Mr. President, because you signed the bill, I am willing to give you 
some credit for it, but that is all you did and that is all you 
deserve.
  Then, of course, there is that issue of guns. Last June, the 
President said: I will not send up a licensure bill on guns because the 
Congress won't pass it.
  Even on less controlling issues, a Democratic vote in the House 
killed gun control ideas of this administration. So why did the 
President do it this time? For Bill and Al; that is Bill Bradley, of 
course, and Al Gore. They are out on the stump talking about it. His 
party failed to make guns a national issue, and the reason they failed 
is because the American people know there are over 40,000 gun control 
laws on the books today, and the American people have grown wise. If 
you do not enforce the laws, the criminal element still runs rampant 
and commits crimes with guns.
  The American people are not asking for more gun control laws. They 
are asking for a Justice Department that will prosecute those who 
violate the law. Mr. President, that is the message and, of course, 
that is what we will do as a Congress. We are not going to stack up 
more gun laws; we are going to cause the Justice Department to enforce 
them.
  There are myriad other points of discussion, but I wanted the public 
and the record to show there is a very real difference between what 
this President said in his State of the Union Address and what actually 
happened and what is happening because we do not stand with this 
President on a variety of his ideas, and Congress and the public have 
largely rejected them.
  Republicans will not stand for a Government-run health care system. 
We will pass a Patients' Bill of Rights this year. We will allow 
citizens to be in control of their health care and their health care 
delivery, and we will enhance education this year. We will send it back 
to the States and local communities to control. We will save Social 
Security, as the Senator from Wyoming said, and I hope we can deal with 
Medicare.

  Mr. President, what is important is that if you want to work with us 
to resolve these problems in the final hours of your administration, 
then let us sit down and begin to talk because the hour is late, and I 
believe you have already written your legacy. I do not think there are 
enough Federal dollars for you to buy a new one. The American people 
are going to remember Bill Clinton not for his big government ideas and 
his big spending but for something entirely different.
  Let us begin our work in this Congress in the last session of the 
106th Congress to balance the budget and to secure Social Security. I 
hope we can deal with a Patients' Bill of Rights. I would like to see 
us deal with pharmaceutical drugs for our elderly. I hope we can also 
deal with our farm crisis and assure a strong military.
  I am not going to promise we can do all that Bill wants done and give 
tax cuts and buy down the debt because we cannot do all those things. 
Most important, we should not. I hope we can give

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a tax cut. We are buying down the debt. Most importantly, I say to the 
American people: We are not going to allow Government to grow in the 
image of Bill Clinton just for a legacy he would like to establish.
  I thank my colleague from Wyoming for the liberty he has allowed me 
in the use of time, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Idaho. Certainly, 
we share all those thoughts and ideas. I want to expand in the few 
minutes we have remaining in our allotment of time the public land 
issue the Senator mentioned.
  Public lands, of course, are very important to those of us in the 
West. As was pointed out, 1 out of every 4 acres in this country is 
owned by the public. My State of Wyoming is 50-percent owned by the 
Federal Government. Idaho is some 63-percent owned by the Federal 
Government. Nevada is 83-percent owned by the Federal Government. The 
management of these lands then, rightfully, is a public issue and one 
with which all of us need to be concerned.
  It would not be a surprise to know that some of the issues with 
regard to the management of those lands are seen differently by the 
people who live there and who have access to the lands as opposed to 
those who equally own them and live many miles away. The fact is it is 
a public issue and it deserves public input.
  There is a system that has been set up by the Congress and happens to 
be followed by everyone, except the administration, which allows for 
public input. It requires that all ideas be set forth so that they can 
be considered and there can be statements made on all these issues. 
Sometimes it takes an excruciatingly long time to do it, but 
nevertheless it is a vital concept.
  Now, of course, we have a different thing going on in the 
administration. They call it a land legacy, an effort by the President 
in these remaining months to leave a Teddy Roosevelt land legacy for 
himself and his administration. In so doing, he has done a number of 
things quite different from what we have seen done before and, quite 
frankly, has created a good deal of controversy, particularly in the 
West.

  There are different kinds of lands, of course, set out for different 
purposes. I happen to be chairman of the Parks Subcommittee, so I am 
very interested in that. I grew up right outside of Yellowstone 
National Park. As you know, Wyoming has several famous national parks. 
We are very proud of them. Those lands were set aside for a particular 
purpose. They were set aside because they were unique and they were 
different. They are used for a limited number of purposes.
  We have the forest reserve which, by its nature, was set aside, was 
reserved for special uses. Although there are many, part of them are 
wilderness areas set aside by the Congress in specific acts that limit 
the use, and properly so, in my view.
  Then there is the Bureau of Land Management, which has a very large 
section of lands. Those lands, rather than having been set aside for 
some particular purpose, were generally what was left after the 
Homestead Act was completed. They were sort of residual lands that were 
managed, first of all, by a different agency but now by the Bureau of 
Land Management--clearly multiple use lands. They are used for many 
things.
  These are the kinds of things we have. We have seen suddenly a rush 
for doing something in public lands. The system being used now by the 
administration completely ignores the Congress, which should have a say 
in these kinds of things, and as a matter of fact generally ignores 
people. One of them is the 40 million acres of roadless areas 
nationwide that were declared by the Forest Service.
  Frankly, I have no particular quarrel with the idea of taking a look 
at roadless areas in the forests, but each forest has a very extensive, 
very expensive, very important forest plan, a process that has been 
gone through that requires studies, that requires proposed regulation, 
that requires statements, that requires hearings. That is where those 
things ought to be done rather than having one EIS over the whole 
Nation, not for the Secretary of Agriculture to just come out and 
declare that there are going to be 40 million acres, and not even 
knowing exactly where they are.
  As a matter of fact, we had a hearing with the Secretary and with the 
Chief of the Forest Service in which they could tell us very little 
about it.
  Another is the $1 billion from offshore oil royalties that the 
administration has asked to be given to it to spend, without the 
approval of Congress, to acquire additional lands.
  As the Senator from Idaho said, in the Western States the acquisition 
of new lands is not the issue. The care of those lands, the investment 
in parks, the investment in forests is where we ought to be, in my 
view.
  The Antiquities Act, which is a legitimate act, has been on the books 
since 1905. Teddy Roosevelt put it there. As a matter of fact, Devils 
Tower, in my State, was put in by the Antiquities Act and was part of 
Teton National Park. But times have changed, and we understand now the 
President is going to have 18 different land areas changed in their 
designation without, really, any hearings--we had one last year in Utah 
that the Governor and the congressional delegation did not even know 
about until it was done. That is not the way to do these kinds of 
things.

  They have a proposal to change the way the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund is allocated. It was set up by Congress to go half 
and half--State and national. Now the administration wants to spend all 
that money for land acquisition.
  BLM now has a nationwide roadless plan in which there is very little, 
if any, input. They have the Clean Water Action Plan, which is 
something done by EPA, which has to do with the control of water, which 
is really a way of controlling land.
  Each of these things probably has some merit, but they ought to be 
examined. They ought to go through the system. They ought to be talked 
about. They ought to be agreed to, rather than imposed unilaterally by 
an administration.
  We can preserve public lands, and, indeed, we should: they are a 
legacy for us. We can have multiple use on those lands. We need them 
for the communities. We can have public involvement. That is the way it 
ought to be. We can have cooperating agency agreements in which the 
State and the local communities ought to have a real voice in doing 
this.
  I hope we do not politicize public lands simply because it is an 
election year, to the distraction of public use, to the distraction of 
the economies that surround them. The purpose of public lands is to 
preserve the resources and give a chance for the owners to enjoy it. 
The owners, of course, are the taxpayers.
  It is an issue on which I think we will have more and more input 
throughout the year. I hope we do.
  Mr. President, our time is nearly expired. I yield the floor and 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I think we are in morning business, right?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

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