[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 64 (Monday, May 10, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5052-S5054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PLAN OF OBSTRUCTIONISM

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, like all of my colleagues, I am enormously 
proud to serve in the Senate. It is a unique and special privilege. I 
come from a small town of 300 people in the southwestern ranching 
country of North Dakota. Some of my colleagues come from big towns, 
some of them from family farms. We come from different parts of America 
to convene here and do public policy. I am enormously proud of this 
institution, but there are times when I see what is rancid, partisan, 
bare-knuckle politics played in this town that begin to bother me.
  I am big enough to understand politics can be tough. I have been in 
politics a long while and I think most of

[[Page S5053]]

my colleagues understand politics is a tough business, but the Senate 
is different. It does not mean there ought not be politics in the 
Senate, but it means we ought to be reasonably serious about doing good 
things for our country and creating good public policy.
  Last week we had a visit to the Senate floor by some colleagues, and 
I noticed an article in the National Journal that said the following: 
``House, Senate Republicans coordinate anti-Daschle message, Pryce''--I 
believe this is the chairperson of the Republican Conference in the 
House--``acknowledged Wednesday that the respective conferences are 
coordinating their current message against so-called Democratic 
obstructionism . . .''
  Today, I want to talk a little bit about this targeting that goes on, 
about the notion of obstructionism, because we had a discussion last 
week by one of our colleagues that talks about the ``price for 
obstructionism,'' ``the pain of obstructionism,'' and Democratic 
obstructionism specifically. Then we see this, the anti-Daschle 
obstructionism plan.
  I will talk about some of this partisanship that boils up and boils 
over. I came to the Congress when Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House 
and I served in the other body. Bob Michel was minority leader. The two 
of them liked each other. They spent a lot of time together, played 
golf together, worked together, did good things for America together. 
That was a different time and a different era. They respected each 
other and worked closely together. In my judgment, that is the way it 
ought to be.
  I might say that changed about in the mid-1980s. My former colleague, 
Newt Gingrich, formed something called GOPAC. This is a letter signed 
by Newt, ``Dear friend,'' and the letter describes his version of 
American politics and says:

       I have also included a new document entitled ``Language: A 
     Key Mechanism of Control,'' drafted by our GOPAC political 
     director.

  The letter then describes the words that should be used to describe 
the opponent and the words that should be used to describe one's self, 
signed by Newt Gingrich.
  Here is what Newt then counseled back in the mid 1980s: When you are 
talking about your opponents, use words like destroy, sick, pathetic, 
lie, betrayed, incompetent, greed, anti-family, anti-child, anti-flag, 
anti-job, corrupt, shame, disgrace. That is what Newt Gingrich 
counseled candidates across the country to use when they described 
their opponent. He said, by the way, when you describe yourself you 
really ought to use words, which we have tested, like courage, 
children, family, liberty, vision, success.
  Again, the rancid ignorance of excessive partisanship has its root 
about two decades ago in GOPAC--my former colleague, Mr. Gingrich, 
describing how people ought to play their politics in this country. I 
wouldn't do that in a million years. It ruins the political system, in 
my judgment.
  We saw some of that recently in the last campaign for Congress. I had 
a colleague in the Senate who left three limbs on the battlefield in 
Vietnam. In his campaign, his courage, patriotism, his commitment to 
his country was questioned--a man who lost three limbs on the 
battlefield had his patriotism and courage and his commitment to his 
country and his country's national security questioned.
  Now, the standard bearer on the Democratic side of the aisle is a man 
who has three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star, and they 
question his patriotism. They question his commitment to our country.
  Let me talk a little bit about this message last week from those who 
concoct a political menu that says lets just try to be involved in this 
search-and-destroy mission if we can--how House and Senate Republicans 
coordinate the anti-Daschle message. Let me talk a little about this 
``so-called Democratic obstructionism.''
  Let me say, no one here--certainly not me--will ever apologize for 
deciding that our role in selecting people for a lifetime appointment 
on the bench is to say no when appropriate. We have said yes over 96 
percent of the time when the President has sent us the name of a 
Federal judge he wants to sit on the Federal bench for a lifetime. But 
on those rare occasions when we say no, we have a constitutional right 
to do so and we will not apologize for keeping bad people off the 
Federal bench.
  No one on this side of the aisle, I think, is prepared ever to 
apologize for opposing bad fiscal policy, the kind of policy that has 
turned the largest budget surpluses in history into the largest Federal 
deficits in history. You won't hear an apology for not supporting or 
for trying to stop bad fiscal policy. You will not hear an apology from 
this side of the aisle.
  But I want to talk for a moment about this issue of obstruction. 
Senator Daschle doesn't need a defender on the floor of the Senate. His 
actions and his votes defend themselves. So is the case with my 
colleagues on the floor of the Senate. I respect differences of 
opinion. I think I served with some of the most talented and creative 
men and women in the Republican and Democratic caucus that I have ever 
had an opportunity to spend time with. I respect all of them. But let 
me talk for a moment about another kind of obstruction, and that is the 
obstruction of good public policy that ought to change this country for 
the better but that we can't get through the U.S. Congress because we 
have people who think they are just a set of human brake pads, that 
their sole mission in life is to stop good things from happening.
  No one here works at the bottom of the economic wage scale. No one 
here is on minimum wage. No one in the Senate understands what it is 
like to live on the minimum wage. Yet for 7 years there has not been an 
adjustment in the minimum wage. Yes, there are people who work long 
hours, many of them with two jobs at the minimum wage, trying to raise 
a family. Yes, there are people trying to raise a family on the minimum 
wage. They have not had an adjustment in 7 years. We can't get a 
minimum wage increase through this Congress. Why? Because it is 
obstructed by those who control the Congress--the House, the Senate, 
the Presidency.
  How about a simple little issue, country-of-origin labeling. We can't 
get that done. You know where your shirt was made; there is a label 
there. You know where your socks are made. You know where your shoes 
are made. You know where your belt is made. They are all labeled, 
except meat. Try to find out where your next piece of beef steak was 
produced. Did it come from a Mexican plant, Canada, the United States? 
You don't know.

  By the way, if you want a description of the FDA inspector who 
inspected the Mexican beef, I will give you the description. Then you 
really ought to want to know where that meat came from. Can you get 
labeling on meat? No, you can't get it done. Why? Because the 
administration and the House and the Senate don't want it done. 
Obstruction.
  How about the price of prescription drugs, the reimportation of 
prescription drugs. Why is that not now the law of the land, allowing 
the market system to work; allowing the American people to buy the less 
expensive, FDA-approved prescription drug from Canada; allowing the 
people who are on Lipitor, who pay $1.01 per tablet when they buy it in 
Canada, and for the same tablet, same pill, put in the same bottle, 
made by the same company, the U.S. consumer pays $1.81 per pill, and 
they ask the question why should the American public be charged nearly 
double for the same pill? Why haven't we fixed that?
  It is not because we on this side of the aisle haven't pushed and 
pushed and pushed. It is because the majority in the House and the 
Senate and the President don't want it. They have obstructed it.
  How about a highway bill. Last week I heard--in fact, the discussion 
on the floor last week about obstructionism on the part of this side of 
the aisle, and on the part of Senator Daschle, was about the highway 
bill. What a load of nonsense that is. The problem with the highway 
bill is not that anyone here is obstructing anything. We passed a 
highway bill. It passed with wide bipartisan support in the Senate. The 
reason we don't have a highway bill is because the Republicans--yes, I 
say Republicans--in the Congress and the Republican in the White House 
will not and cannot agree on what the number ought to be. So as a 
result of that, we

[[Page S5054]]

don't have a highway bill, and we have people on the other side of the 
aisle come out here and want to blame Senator Daschle for it. What a 
load of nonsense. It is simply not true. We don't have a highway bill 
because the majority party that controls the Senate and the House and 
the Presidency cannot agree and are having this internal feud on how 
big the bill ought to be, how much we invest in this country's 
highways.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to continue for 10 additional 
minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. What about an energy bill. We ought to have an energy 
policy. You look at the price of gas at the gas pumps these days and 
ask yourself, Do we want to continue to be more and more dependent on 
foreign sources of oil? It went from 50 percent to 60 percent. Does 
that make sense for our country? Our economy will be belly up at some 
point if, God forbid, terrorists shut off the supply of oil to our 
country. Yet we rely on the Saudis, Iraqis, and so many others from 
troubled parts of the world for our supply of oil. We need an energy 
bill.
  Don't point at Senator Daschle and don't point at the Democrat Caucus 
with respect to that issue. That bill failed the Senate by two votes, 
and my colleague, Senator Daschle, voted for it, as did I and others. 
The reason that bill failed in the Senate by two votes was because the 
majority leader of the House stuck a provision in it that he was warned 
would kill that bill, a retroactive waiver for liability for something 
called MTBE, a pernicious provision that he knew--he should have known; 
he was warned--would kill the bill. So they stick in a giveaway 
provision that kills the bill because it costs them four or five votes 
in the Senate, and then they want to come to the floor and point at the 
Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, as the problem. He is not the 
problem. The problem is the majority party that controls the House and 
the Senate and the White House.
  We need an energy policy. In fact, we should have had the energy bill 
back on the floor of the Senate 2 weeks ago, but we don't control the 
Senate. We don't schedule the Senate.

  Appropriations bills: I am a member of the Appropriations Committee. 
Last year we had to put seven appropriations bills into one big omnibus 
appropriations because we didn't get the appropriations bills done. 
Then in the middle of all that, the appropriations bill, with well over 
$300 billion--smack dab in the middle of that, those of us who were 
trying to overturn the FCC rules which would allow big broadcasters to 
become even bigger, and fewer and fewer people would control what you 
see, hear, and read in this country--they stuck right in the middle of 
this big appropriations bill something that upended our attempt to deal 
with the FCC rules. They stuck, right in the middle of this, something 
that interrupted the ability to affect the country-of-origin labeling 
for meat and other food products.
  I tell you, it is a hollow claim, it seems to me, that there is 
obstructionism from this side of the aisle. It is a hollow claim that 
Senator Daschle is somehow guilty of obstructionism. The obstructionism 
on things that would improve this country, public policy dealing with--
yes, the minimum wage increase, with country-of-origin labeling, with 
an energy bill, with a highway bill that means new jobs and new 
investment, with lowering prescription drug prices, with extending 
unemployment benefits to people whose benefits have run out during a 
time of economic trouble--all of those issues, all of those things 
that, in my judgment, would make this a better country and would 
improve things in this country have been stopped.
  They have been stopped because one party controls the House, the same 
party controls the Senate, the same party controls the White House, and 
they have stopped these things dead. It is as simple as that.
  Abraham Lincoln once said, ``Die when I may, I want it said by those 
who know me best that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a 
flower where I thought a flower would grow.'' I must say there are 
precious few thistle pluckers or flower planters these days in this 
political system. There are a lot of political flame throwers and those 
who decide everything they don't like ought to be put at the feet of 
the minority Caucus in the Senate and the minority leader of the 
Senate, Senator Daschle.
  The Constitution of this country begins, ``We the people.'' Some in 
the Senate think the Constitution is a rough draft--something they 
ought to change every month, every week. We are apparently going to 
vote on three constitutional amendments very soon in the Senate because 
that work which occurred over two centuries ago and which has been 
amended outside of the Bill of Rights only 17 times needs, according to 
the majority, to be amended again and again and again. I think that 
Constitution of ours is pretty important. That Constitution provides an 
opportunity for a minority in Congress to stop bad things from 
happening. But it also empowers the minority to push good public 
policy.
  We have as a Caucus offered a substantial amount of good public 
policy that would improve things in this country, provide hope and 
opportunity, and do what every American would want to have happen; that 
is, leave a country for their children that is better than the country 
they found when they were born into this great country of ours. All of 
us are lucky to be here and lucky to be here now. There is only one 
place on this Earth--only one place--named the U.S.A. This big, old 
globe of ours spins with 6 billion people on it. There is only one 
location on this big globe with 6 billion people called the U.S.A. We 
are lucky to be born here and lucky to be born now with all the 
opportunities and all the bounties that are offered to us as Americans. 
But with those bounties come responsibility. The responsibility is, in 
my judgment, to work together.
  I am weary and tired of those who continue to point the finger of 
obstructionism and who continue to organize these ``anti'' messages, 
anti-Daschle, anti-Democrat, anti-this, anti-that. I have no time at 
all for those who, as my former colleague Newt Gingrich did, put out 
word lists to pollute the political process in this country and say to 
those who aspire to serve in public service the way you ought to refer 
to your opponent is with words like ``sick,'' ``pathetic,'' ``betray,'' 
and ``poison.'' Shame on them. That is not the best this political 
system has to offer. John F. Kennedy used to say every mother hopes her 
child might grow up to be President as long as they do not have to be 
active in politics. But, of course, politics is the basis for making 
public decisions in our country. It is an honorable occupation. The 
practice, in the main, is by people who care a great deal about this 
country's future.
  I hope all of us will understand this isn't about trying to figure 
out who is setting up roadblocks and who is obstructing. Let us try to 
sort out between good and bad public policy and then pass the good.
  Let me say again this message--this organizing for anti-Daschle, 
anti-Democratic Caucus, obstruction message--to those who spend time 
doing that, this country is at war. This country has an economy that is 
still troubled. This country needs an energy policy. This country has 
so many needs that require so much attention from all of us. Stop this 
nonsense. Let us decide to work together to make this country work 
better for our children.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.

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