[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 109 (Friday, September 15, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8627-S8629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 COMPLETING THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I know we are at or near the close of 
business of today's session of the Senate. I thought it important that 
we end up the week with a bit of an analysis of where we are and where 
we have to get in the next several weeks to complete the business of 
Government, to fund the necessary agencies, and to be responsible to 
the American people as it relates to the expenditure of their tax 
dollars.
  As most all Americans understand, we are now, fortunately, living 
with a balanced budget at our Federal Government level; that is, 
current operating budgets. Many of us in Congress for decades fought to 
get this budget balanced. It became balanced during a period of 
unprecedented economic growth in our country. I believe that a balanced 
budget contributed dramatically to that growth.
  At the same time as we worked to continue to balance that budget, 
many of us had wanted to now take some of the unprecedented surpluses 
of tax dollars that are coming into us and return them to the American 
taxpayer. We tried to do that this year in two forms: In the reduction 
or the elimination of the marriage tax penalty, about $1,400 per 
married couple; and in the near elimination of the death tax; in other 
words, the taxing of citizens of their wealth or their estates upon the 
incident of death. Those are two items extremely popular with the 
American people.
  Yet in trying to do that, we were told by this administration and by 
many of my colleagues on the other side that it would wipe out this 
surplus tax dollar amount--many statements such as that that couldn't 
be any further from the truth. The reality is that for those two tax 
packages that were passed by Congress and now vetoed by the President, 
we are talking of about a dime, one dime out of every surplus dollar, 
your surplus tax dollar, to be projected to come in to our Government 
over the next decade.
  Be that as it may, that is a problem we face. So here we are now 
working to finalize the work of the Government in the next 3 weeks, and 
we have an inordinate amount of work to get done. One of my 
frustrations as a leader on this side in trying to move the process 
along is that, for the last 6 months, we have heard the rumor, and we 
have watched the actions of the minority leader and the folks on the 
other side, which would indicate there was a stalling tactic going on, 
that somehow they didn't want to get the work done in a timely fashion, 
that they constantly objected to unanimous consents, and they asked for 
votes time after time on issues we had already voted on and had been 
thoroughly debated on the floor of the Senate, from which the political 
answers had come flowing forth on the debate.
  Let me give a couple of examples. I am one of those who always comes 
to the floor when there is a gun debate. Somehow, the other side is 
saying we have to have more votes on gun issues. Well, I will say this: 
We have already had 13 votes this session on the gun issue. I am not 
quite sure how many more we need, or will need, to express to the 
American people the intent of Republicans versus Democrats versus 
individual Senators as it comes to this issue.
  We have had rollcall votes on amendments 403 times; Democrats have 
proposed 231 and Republicans have proposed 172. Many of these 
amendments never would make it into policy and had been refused by the 
authorizing committees but were here either for time taken or for 
political expressions being made--not for substantive policy reform 
because we knew it would not happen.
  On the issue of ``Kennedy Care,'' or health care, we have already had 
eight votes; and we still are being asked to take more votes on the 
prescription

[[Page S8628]]

drug issue, a Government-run proposal on the part of some. We have had 
seven votes on that. How many votes does it take to express to the 
American people the intent of this Congress or this Senate when it 
comes to a given issue? A once-a-week vote? A once-a-day vote? How 
about one thorough debate and one vote up or down? That clearly 
expresses the will and the intent of individual Senators.
  This last week we have had a very significant debate on the 
normalization of trade relations with China, known as PNTR, permanent 
normal trade relations. It is a very important debate and it was 
handled very well. Most of the amendments have been constructive. But 
while we have been trying to do this, recognizing our work schedule we 
have been trying to do a couple of other things. For example, we have 
been trying to offer up additional amendments, or appropriations bills, 
or conference reports that will finalize the work of Congress. This is 
what has happened. It confirms what many expected was true and that was 
an attempt to slow-roll us or stall us so we could not get our work 
done.
  Here is a quote from the USA Today of Friday, September 8. It says:

       Senator Minority Leader Tom Daschle has a simple strategy 
     for winning the final negotiations over spending bills. Of 
     course, those are the key items that we must finish to finish 
     the work of the Congress so we can adjourn. What is it?

  He said:

       Stall until the Republicans have to cave in because they 
     can't wait any longer to recess and get out on the campaign 
     trail.

  Of course, the logic is simple if you are an insider and you know the 
workings of the Senate and you know how many are up for reelection.

       That is because 18 of the 29 Senators seeking reelection 
     are Republicans and 11 are Democrats. There are a lot of 
     vulnerable Republican Senators. I know they want to go home 
     badly.

  So what is the tactic? Stall, object. One Senator can come to the 
floor and all he or she has to do is say: Mr. President, I object. That 
simple action in itself can either take hours or days of debate and 
break down the process. It can be called a filibuster, or gaining 
cloture on a vote; but ultimately, and without question, it is a 
stalling tactic--especially now in light of what the minority leader 
says.
  Finally, Tom Daschle has come clean. He has openly and publicly said 
their tactic is to stall. What does stalling really get us? To some who 
believe in big government, it could probably get them tens of billions 
dollars more in money to spend on Government programs and, in some 
instances, more Government control, more Government mandates and, 
frankly, more Government in your back pocket.
  People of my thinking would suggest that is bad policy. But the 
dollars we are talking about, the surplus dollars that we tried to get 
back to the American people in the form of tax relief, which was vetoed 
this year by the President, is the kind of money they now want to 
spend. Oh, these Republicans, if we just stall on them, they are so 
anxious to go home that they will buy their way out of it in the final 
hours of the 106th Congress.
  Senator Daschle, Democrats, listen to me, please. We are not going to 
buy our way out of it. I don't want to buy our way out of it. The 
American taxpayers don't want us to buy our way out of it. They want 
good, sound policy, recognizing important programs. But they also know 
we are increasing Government spending at a near record rate now and, at 
the same time, we truly do have a surplus that ought to go home to the 
American taxpayer from whence it came. It is not our money; it is the 
taxpayers' money.
  That is why Senator Lott, the majority leader of the Senate, and 
Congressman Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, in a meeting with 
President, said: Mr. President, let's take 90 percent of the surplus, 
if you are not going to let us give it back in taxes, and let's use it 
to pay down the debt; 90 percent of the surplus could go against the 
debt. That leaves 10 percent of the surplus to spend on programs.
  Well, they can't even agree with that on the other side, when the 
American people are clearly saying: Give us tax relief. But if you 
can't do that, pay down the debt.
  For gosh sakes, don't spend that money. Get Americans debt free. Buy 
down that nearly $6 trillion debt in a way that is manageable, 
responsible to the economy--but, most importantly, in a way that is 
responsible to our young people and to their futures. It is a debt they 
will, obviously, have to assume.
  Mr. Daschle's answer is to stall. How do you stall? This is how you 
do it. When the leader comes to the floor and asks unanimous consent 
that H.R. 3615, the Rural Local Broadcast Signal Act--simple but 
important, and it is called the rural satellite bill--is ready to go, 
somebody from the other side stands up and says, ``I object.'' Senator 
Leahy did that for Senator Daschle.
  Stalling tactic? You bet. I call that stall No. 1. Here is stall No. 
2: H.R. 1776, the national manufactured housing construction bill. It 
has 32 cosponsors, including Democrats such as Senators Bryan, Cleland, 
and Hollings. The Leader requested, on September 8, to go to a 
conference to solve our problems. This is for safety requirements for 
manufactured housing. Senator Leahy, for Senator Daschle, said, ``I 
object.'' Stall No. 2.
  Stall No. 3, H.R. 1259, Social Security and Medicare Safety Deposit 
Act, the lockbox: Democrats and the President are trying to take credit 
for that right now. They fought us for a year on it. Senator Ashcroft 
of Missouri was the one who came up with the idea. News stories are 
replete about Republicans talking about that idea for the last year and 
a half. And now, of course, because some folks on the other side of the 
aisle want credit when we proposed bringing that up to debate it, to 
have it, and to truly protect Social Security revenues, oops, stall No. 
3.
  This time Senator Daschle himself came out and objected to reaffirm 
what he said to USA Today on September 8. They won't even let that go.
  Here is stall tactic No. 4, four district judges: We have been 
criticized all year because we won't confirm the judges the President 
has sent up. Majority Leader Trent Lott brings the judge bill to the 
floor, judges the Democrats want, judges the Republicans want, but, 
most importantly, judges that this President sent up. He brought the 
judges to the floor. Let's see. He brought a judge for Senator Durbin; 
he brought a judge for Arizona, and everybody agreed on these judges; 
Daschle himself objected, stall tactic No. 4.
  These are just functionary, important kinds of necessarily ``get done 
if you can'' kinds of things. We have time to do it. It doesn't require 
lots of debate. But it clearly appears to me that no action goes forth. 
And if we can stop that action, surely those Republicans in time will 
cave.
  Here is stall tactic No. 5, intelligence authorization: A request to 
go to the conference with Democrat amendments submitted to Daschle 
through a staff channel on September 7--no response from Daschle or 
others--with an indication that Democrats are preparing additional 
amendments, stall tactic No. 5.
  My goodness, aren't we going to get these authorizations done? They 
are very important.
  Here are four nominations to the U.S. Institute for Peace. I am not 
going to stand here and suggest the Democrats aren't for peace. We are 
all for peace. But at least they objected to moving nominations on the 
Institute for Peace; stall No. 6.
  A document that made stall No. 7 happen on the 13th of this month was 
a major report coming out of our Federal Government saying that 
violence in the media, violence in video games, violence on television, 
and violence in the movies is truly producing a culture of violence 
that could and appears to be translating into violent youth of America 
with young people witnessing over 100,000 acts of violence, actually 
watching on television, although acted and cast--8,000 murders during 
their young lifetime. Somehow that is important. We have been talking 
about it for years as being darned important.
  Senator Joe Lieberman, now Vice-Presidential candidate, proposed what 
is known as the ``Media Violence Labeling and Advertising Act of 
2000.'' Senator John McCain supported him. It is bipartisan with 
Democrats and Republicans, and now a national issue made true by 
studies and analyses of our Federal Government as to the impact on 
young people. We brought it to the floor. That is S. 2497, bipartisan

[[Page S8629]]

legislation, and there was objection to the unanimous consent to move 
it forward.
  For the week, that is stall tactic No. 7.
  What will next week hold? We are going to conclude PNTR on a vote on 
Tuesday, I believe. We have numerous appropriations bills that ought to 
be dealt with. Hopefully, we can and will deal with them and in doing 
so pick up the pace around here and get our work done so that we can 
adjourn--so that we can send a very clear message to the American 
people of the intent of this Congress to balance the budget; to hold 
sacred the Social Security surplus; to make sure that we deal with 
health care in a responsible way for our citizens; hopefully that we 
could give back a few of these surplus tax dollars, but if we can't do 
that, at least dedicate a large portion of it to debt buy-down so that 
young people in their lifetime won't have to finance the debt structure 
of the generation before them.

  Those are responsible and right things to do, and I hope we can do 
them. But I will be back next week to talk probably about stall tactic 
No. 8, No. 9, No. 10, and No. 11. At least I am going to until the 
minority leader comes to the floor and he recants and says that he 
didn't say this or that this isn't a strategy because if it is a 
strategy, it is bad politics, and it is darned bad government to simply 
say, no, we are not going to work until we get the right to spend 
billions and billions of dollars of more money. That is not bipartisan. 
Most importantly, that is bad policy.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. CRAIG. 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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