[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 15 (Monday, January 26, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S798-S800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BIPARTISAN COOPERATION

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on Friday, at the National Press Club, 
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell delivered an important address 
that everyone concerned about the future of our country ought to read.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
at the conclusion of my remarks Senator McConnell's speech.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator McConnell congratulated the 
President for reminding many in Washington, including many Republicans, 
that the American people want their leaders to work together to solve 
problems, not to set traps. He suggested that among the issues on which 
we could cooperate are reducing the national debt, energy independence, 
and lowering taxes. Specifically, Senator McConnell urged the President 
to follow up on his pledge to put the power of the Democratic 
majorities to work on entitlement spending, the automatic spending that 
threatens within just 9 years to consume nearly 70 percent of the 
Federal budget and to create a national debt that equals our Nation's 
annual gross domestic product. Already, each American's share of the 
national debt is $35,000.
  In order to do that, Senator McConnell said the President will have 
to reject the hyperpartisanship that exists in some quarters of 
Congress and engage Republicans on the merits of our ideas.
  Senator McConnell said that as Republican leader of the Senate, he 
would make this a firm principle of his dealings with the new 
administration, and he said that if the new President follows up on his 
promise to address entitlement spending, Democrats can expect more 
consideration from the Republicans than the last President received 
from them.
  This is a major statement by an experienced Senate leader who has 
proven he knows how to stop bad legislation but is offering to go to 
work with the new President to shape and improve good and needed 
legislation, if the new majorities will meet Republicans on the merits 
of our ideas.
  Some time ago, Senator McConnell invited President Obama to come to 
the Senate and meet with Senate Republicans. And we all hope that soon 
he may do that.
  The kind of cooperation Senator McConnell talked about in his speech 
on Friday did not happen often in the last few years. It did on energy, 
it did on American competitiveness, to some degree on foreign 
intelligence issues. Earlier, it happened on education and some other 
issues. But when President Bush, for example, made reforming Social 
Security the major thrust of his second term, Democrats said no. 
Neither side moved off their position, and so deficit spending and our 
national debt kept going up.
  If any subject over the last few years deserved cooperation, it was 
the war in Iraq. Senator Salazar and I assembled 17 Senators, 9 
Democrats, and 8 Republicans, and there were 63 Members of the House 
almost evenly divided between the parties who sponsored a resolution to 
set as a goal for the country to end the war on the principles 
recommended by the Iraq Study Group.
  President Bush would not support our legislation. The Democratic 
leaders refused to bring it to a vote. I remember telling both 
President Bush and Senator Reid I believed we were the only ones who 
actually united them on Iraq. They were both against what we were 
trying to do. But if either President Bush had supported our resolution 
or if Senator Reid had allowed it to come to a vote, I believe the 
resolution would have been enacted, sending a message to our troops, to 
our country, and to our enemy that we were united in bringing an 
honorable and successful end to that conflict.
  Ironically, we are now headed in Iraq toward a conclusion that now 
seems to have the general support of both President Bush and President 
Obama, presided over by the same Secretary of Defense, who has served 
them both. That is approximately the same result that was recommended 
by the Iraq Study Group.
  That is not just my opinion. Toward the end of last year I asked both 
Secretary Gates and Secretary Rice whether the path toward conclusion 
of the Iraq war that was agreed upon by the Iraqis and the United 
States and is now basically being recommended by President Obama, 
whether that was the path recommended by the Iraq Study Group, and each 
of them said yes.
  There is a lesson here for the new administration. Technically, 
President Bush did not need Congress's approval to wage the war in 
Iraq. He is the Commander in Chief. But if he had won that 
congressional approval for the last 2 years of the war, that would have 
made the war easier, perhaps more successful, and certainly the Bush 
Presidency more successful.
  Technically, President Obama, with large Democratic majorities in 
Congress, does not need Republicans to pass most legislation. ``We won 
the election; we will write the bill,'' said Speaker Pelosi. That is 
the way to pass many bills, but as President Bush found out, it is not 
the way to have a successful Presidency.
  The President and the Democratic majorities on their own can pass 
many bills, and we Republicans, with 41 or 42 votes in the Senate, can 
block some things and slow down almost anything. But most of us 
Republicans agree with Senator McConnell: That is not what we are here 
to do. And what President Obama said in his inaugural address is that 
is not the kind of Presidency he wishes to have.
  The new President is off to a good start in his relationships with 
Republican Members of the Senate. Even the Senate Democratic majority 
is showing some encouraging signs of letting the Senate function as it 
is supposed to function, as a guardian against the tyranny of the 
majority, warned of by de Tocqueville, by allowing debates, by allowing 
amendments and rollcalls on major pieces of legislation. That is what 
we are here for; we are here to represent the men and women who live in 
our States on those issues.
  Tomorrow morning, there is a bipartisan breakfast, the first one of 
this year. We had them during the last 2 years. At that breakfast, we 
will be discussing the resolution of Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg 
to create a Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action. In 
other words, to get serious about dealing with runaway entitlement 
spending. Already we have, I

[[Page S799]]

believe, 26 Members of the Senate, almost evenly split among Democrats 
and Republicans, who have accepted to come to that breakfast tomorrow 
morning. That is an unusual number of Senators for such an event.
  Republicans and Democrats will not always agree. We emphasize 
different principles. We have different solutions. We are here because 
we were nominated in partisan conventions or partisan elections. We are 
here to contend, we are here to debate, we are here to offer our ideas. 
But to get here, almost all of us had to earn Independent votes and 
some votes from the other party.
  When we got here, we all took an oath to represent all our 
constituents.
  What will make this Presidency and this Congress different is if 
after we conclude delivering our sermons to one another, we put aside 
the 20 percent on which we disagree, and see if we can come to some 
result on the 80 percent on which we agree, as Senator Enzi of Wyoming 
likes to say.
  This will not happen if the majority takes the position: We won the 
election, we will write the bill; or if the Democratic leader seeks to 
muzzle our constituents by not allowing amendments and debates and 
votes on the Senate floor. It can happen, as the Republican leader, 
Senator McConnell, said in his address on Friday, if we in the Senate 
act like grownups and have the courage to put aside hyperpartisanship 
and reject the advice of groups that protect narrow interests and find 
ways to work together to solve the real problems that are facing our 
country today.

                               Exhibit 1

      [From the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell, Jan. 23, 2009]

             Meeting Challenges: A Way Forward for Congress

       Remarks of U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell 
     (as prepared for delivery) National Press Club, January 23, 
     2009.
       ``Thank you, Donna. I also want to thank John Donnelly of 
     Congressional Quarterly for inviting me here today. I'm 
     delighted to be here, and I'm honored to be joined by such a 
     distinguished group of reporters.
       ``For more than a century, the National Press Club has 
     served a vital national purpose as a forum for newsmakers and 
     those who cover them. A free press is essential to our 
     Democracy. And today I thought I'd come over here to look for 
     some free press.
       ``This past Tuesday, millions of Americans who are old 
     enough to remember past inaugurations were reminded of one of 
     the great hallmarks of our republic, and millions of young 
     people experienced for the first time the rejuvenating effect 
     of the peaceful transfer of power. Of all our civic rituals, 
     few elicit the same feelings of national pride at home or 
     more admiration abroad.
       ``But the inauguration of President Obama was somehow 
     different, and not only because we were moved at seeing an 
     African American take the oath of office from the steps of a 
     building built by slaves. This year's inauguration was 
     different because this year's election was different.
       ``For the first time in awhile, America has a president who 
     isn't viewed by most people as an overly polarizing figure. 
     Americans are intrigued by President Obama's promise of post-
     partisanship. And this afternoon I'd like to share some of my 
     thoughts on the possibility of a new era of cooperation.
       ``As others have noted, the President does not govern 
     alone.
       He can't sign a bill Congress hasn't already passed. He 
     can't spend money Congress hasn't appropriated. If President 
     Obama's promise of post-partisanship is to be realized, he'll 
     first need some cooperation from Congress.
       ``And so, in the spirit of overcoming divisions, let me 
     start out by saying that I agree with President Obama's 
     assertion on Tuesday that many of today's problems are simply 
     too great for us to pass over in the interest of protecting 
     narrow interests. The normal constituencies must be widened.
       ``On issue after issue, members of both parties have too 
     often fallen into the habit of asking narrow interest groups 
     what they think should be done about something before 
     thinking about what the average American thinks should be 
     done.
       ``This is how a group like CodePink could end up having so 
     much influence in a national debate about the conduct of a 
     war. This is why a prominent labor leader thinks he can tell 
     a reporter that he expects `payback' from Democrats for the 
     support he gave them during last year's elections. And this 
     is how vulgar insults hurled from overcaffeinated activists 
     can suddenly pass for legitimate political discourse.
       ``When these things happen, it's easy to see why cynicism 
     about government persists.
       ``And it's easy to see why something needs to change.
       ``Both sides are guilty. Republicans need to reevaluate the 
     way decisions are made in Washington, and so do Democrats. 
     But one thing is clear: every decision cannot be made based 
     on a political calculation--because the usual interest groups 
     so seldom agree.
       ``President Obama seems to understand this. His campaign 
     was based on the notion that ordinary Americans would have a 
     seat at the table in his administration. And broadening the 
     old constituencies is, as he has suggested, one sure way to 
     uphold that pledge.
       ``Once we do this, there are many issues on which we can 
     cooperate. President Obama mentioned several of them on the 
     campaign trail: reducing the national debt, increasing energy 
     independence, and lowering taxes. There are others.
       But achieving any one of them will be impossible without 
     cooperation between both parties in Congress and between 
     Congress and the White House.
       ``Now, I realize that if you told most people Mitch 
     McConnell was down at the National Press Club hoping for 
     bipartisanship, they'd tell you that's like an insurance 
     agent hoping for an earthquake. Most people don't exactly 
     view me as the Mr. Rogers of the Senate. But, respectfully, I 
     think reporters too often confuse being conservative with 
     being partisan. And while my voting record clearly reflects 
     my core values, it also reflects a long commitment to working 
     with others.
       ``Senator Feinstein has been my closest collaborator in 
     fighting human rights abuses in Burma. For years, I worked 
     alongside Senator Dodd on the Senate Rules Committee, where 
     we teamed up to pass the Help America Vote Act. And more 
     recently, I took a lead role in brokering a bipartisan 
     financial rescue plan just a few weeks before my own 
     reelection bid in November.
       ``I fought for the rescue package because I thought the 
     country needed it, even though my party could have done 
     without it--and I ended up paying for my efforts. Soon after 
     the deal was struck, one of the very people who had sat at 
     the negotiating table with me ended up running ads against me 
     on that very issue. He saw that it made me vulnerable back 
     home, and tried to capitalize on it politically, which I 
     certainly didn't expect. But these are the risks that 
     politicians have to take from time to time in order to 
     achieve something worthwhile. And it's a risk I was willing 
     to take.
       ``There was, of course, a time when working on a bipartisan 
     basis to achieve big things for the nation didn't mean 
     exposing oneself to attack ads by one's own colleagues. For 
     years, the Senate was a place where real friendships across 
     party lines were common. One thinks of the breakfast meetings 
     between Mike Mansfield and George Aiken; or Jim Eastland and 
     Gaylord Nelson--men as far apart ideologically as you could 
     find--spending time together after a long day's work. My 
     Senate mentor, John Sherman Cooper, had a close relationship 
     with President Kennedy.
       ``These friendships were always good for the Senate, and 
     occasionally they paid major dividends for the whole country. 
     One of the great examples of this in the modern era is the 
     Social Security fix of 1983, brokered by Pat Moynihan and Bob 
     Dole. And it's an example we could learn a lot from today.
       ``As Moynihan later recalled it, the genesis of that 
     particular achievement came on the morning of January 3, 
     1983. Dole had published an op-ed piece in that day's edition 
     of the `New York Times' in which he said that Republicans 
     were eager to accomplish big things in the coming year.
       ``He cited Social Security as a case in point, arguing that 
     the looming insolvency of Social Security should overwhelm 
     every other domestic priority. By accelerating already-
     scheduled taxes and reducing future benefit increases, Dole 
     said, Social Security could be made solvent for decades.
       ``At some point later in the day, Moynihan approached Dole 
     on the Senate floor. If Dole really thought Social Security 
     could be saved, he said, why not try to do it together? Well, 
     13 days later, an agreement was reached, and the Social 
     Security crisis had passed.
       ``Twenty years later, Bob Dole could say that he had been 
     the longest serving Republican Leader in history and the 
     Republican nominee for president of the United States. But 
     when a reporter asked him what he considered his proudest 
     accomplishments in a lifetime of public service, the first 
     thing that came to mind was the Social Security fix of 1983. 
     Dole explained it this way: 'Those things that are lasting 
     are bipartisan. If you don't have a consensus, it's not going 
     to last.'
       ``This kind of bipartisan consensus has been increasingly 
     rare in recent years, and the nation has suffered as a 
     result. We saw this four years ago, when President Bush, 
     newly reelected and with expanded Republican majorities in 
     Congress, had the courage to put Social Security reform on 
     the agenda. When he asked for bipartisan help, not one 
     Democrat in Congress stepped forward. Every single one of 
     them turned his or her back, reflexively choosing politics 
     over governing--and the nation lost out on an opportunity to 
     fix a crucial program in desperate need of reform.
       ``Today, Democrats have substantial majorities in the 
     Senate and the House. They control the White House. And now 
     Democrats assume responsibility for a number of pressing 
     problems--including the one they refused to face in 2005. 
     The problem with entitlement spending has not gone away.
       ``On Social Security in particular, the situation is 
     increasingly dire: in 1950, 16 workers paid for every one 
     person who received Social Security benefits. Today, it's 
     about 3 workers per beneficiary. And within 10 years

[[Page S800]]

     times, more money will be coming out of the Social Security 
     fund than going in.
       ``Looking at entitlements in general, Social Security, 
     Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs will soon consume 
     about twice the percentage of the federal budget they did 
     four decades ago. If we don't rein this spending in, soon 
     we'll have only have a fraction left for things like defense, 
     roads, bridges, and special ed. And this is not a problem 
     that raising taxes will solve. In order to meet all our 
     current entitlement promises, we'd have to extract $495,000 
     from every American household.
       ``The expansion of entitlement spending is a looming crisis 
     that has been overlooked for too long. And with control of 
     the White House and big majorities in Congress, Democrats now 
     owe it to the American people to put their power to work on 
     this vital issue. And here's my pledge: If they do so, they 
     can expect more cooperation from Republicans than the last 
     President received from them.
       ``President Obama has said he wants to tackle the 
     entitlements crisis. But in order to succeed, he'll have to 
     continue to reject the hyper partisanship that exists in some 
     quarters of Congress. And he will have to engage Republicans 
     on the merits of our ideas.
       ``The good news is that most people think ideas should be 
     assessed on their merits, not on the senator or the president 
     who proposes them. Our new President seems to think the same 
     thing. And as Senate Republican Leader, I also pledge to make 
     this is a firm principle in my dealings with the Obama 
     Administration.
       ``President Obama's campaign reminded many in Washington, 
     including many Republicans, of the aspirations that the 
     Americans people have about their government.
       People want their leaders to work together to solve 
     problems, not to set traps. The challenge now is for both 
     parties to cooperate, not just in word but in deed.
       ``In all this, politics will have its place. But at this 
     moment, achieving big things for the country is where my 
     ambitions lie. Voters from both parties think Washington is 
     broken. And that's a shame. But if both parties have helped 
     create this cynical view of government, then both parties 
     will have to work to correct it. And we can start, once the 
     current debate over the Stimulus is through, by working to 
     reform Social Security and Medicare.
       ``In this and in other efforts, there will be 
     disagreements. But they can be principled disagreements, and 
     the result of principled disagreement is often principled 
     cooperation. The result won't satisfy everyone. As Bob Dole 
     said of the 1983 Social Security fix, `No one got everything, 
     and everyone got something.'
       ``But many of the domestic problems we face are simply too 
     great to kick the can down the road any longer. We need to 
     summon the courage to act on issues that are of grave concern 
     to our nation's future. And the long-term sustainability of 
     entitlements is one of them.
       ``As Republicans look for common ground in this and other 
     areas where legislative progress can be made, some will no 
     doubt accuse us of compromise. But those who do so will be 
     confusing compromise with cooperation. And anyone who 
     belittles cooperation resigns him or herself to a state of 
     permanent legislative gridlock. And that is simply no longer 
     acceptable to the American people.
       ``President Obama has shown himself to be a man of 
     legislative ambition. He reaffirmed this on Tuesday when he 
     called on the country to recognize collective failures, and 
     when he called on politicians to step up to the unpleasant 
     tasks and seek first the interests of the whole.
       ``Make no mistake: Some of our new President's proposals 
     will be met with strong, principled resistance from me and 
     from others. But many of his ambitions show real potential 
     for bipartisan cooperation. And if we see sensible, 
     bipartisan proposals, Republicans will choose bipartisan 
     solutions over partisan failures every time.
       ``Thank you very much.''

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________