[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20741-20742]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          UNFINISHED BUSINESS

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise today, first of all, to say it is 
good to be back in the Senate because I am very hopeful we can do 
something, in the remaining days and weeks we have, to make life better 
for the people we represent. I also have had some wonderful interaction 
with the people of my State. They have some very strong opinions on 
many of the issues facing us.
  I think the message I got more than anything was, can't you get 
together on both sides of the aisle and address the issues that impact 
our daily lives? I certainly think that is an appropriate sentiment.
  That is not to say that the Congress shouldn't be doing its oversight 
investigations, be it the Waco incident or what has occurred in Russia. 
I am not against any of that. I am for that. But we have to do 
everything around here. We have to do the oversight, but we also have 
to pay attention to business.
  There is an article in today's Washington Post written by Elizabeth 
Drew, who wrote a book called ``The Corruption of American Politics: 
What Went Wrong and Why.'' She has a very interesting article called 
``Try Governing for a Change.'' She says to Congress: Welcome back. We 
hope you had a nice vacation. We hope you will use the few weeks that 
remain to govern, rather than to position yourselves politically.
  That is my message today. We have unfinished business. I will go 
through some specifics. I am not going to just stand up and talk in 
generalities. I want to be specific.
  One of the first things we have to deal with is school safety. Our 
children are back at school. We have provisions in the juvenile justice 
bill that are now in conference that can make schools safer. We also 
have provisions in the commerce bill that will make schools safer. What 
are some of these?
  The Gregg-Boxer amendment that is in the Commerce bill, which would 
provide $200 million for school safety activities, including security 
equipment, hiring more police officers, and violence prevention 
programs for our children, is a bipartisan provision. It passed 
overwhelmingly. It ought to move forward. We ought to have that help 
for our schools.
  The gun control provisions in juvenile justice that are so very 
important and, might I add, are not radical--they are very moderate--I 
want to see us pass.
  We closed the gun show loophole that allowed criminals to get guns at 
gun shows without going through background checks. We banned the 
importation of high-capacity ammunition clips which are used in 
semiautomatic assault weapons. We required child safety devices be sold 
with every handgun. We required the Federal Trade Commission and the 
Attorney General to study the extent to which the gun industry is 
marketing its products to our students, our children. We made it 
illegal to sell or give a semiautomatic weapon to anyone under the age 
of 18. That is an assault weapon.
  These are very simple. They are very straightforward. We passed them 
in the Senate, and they are in conference. I have yet to see that 
conference committee meet. I certainly hope it will. I look forward to 
the opportunity for getting the people's business of protecting our 
children done. That is school safety.
  We have a lot of other unfinished business. There are not that many 
things but they are all very important. We have the issue of saving 
Medicare--a very important part of the President's proposal, saving 
Medicare. We have to get down to it. We have to do it. We have the 
issue of paying down the debt. We have a huge debt. We have an 
opportunity with the surplus to pay it down and save all those interest 
payments on the debt that we continue to pay out every single day, $1 
billion a day just to pay the interest payment on the debt that has 
accumulated since the 1980s. We ought to pay that down.
  On the minimum wage, I was amazed to see a report in the Los Angeles 
Times about the condition of people who live in Los Angeles County. I 
know my friend, the Chaplain, is from that area. More than 20 percent 
of Los Angeles County residents live below the official poverty line. 
That is $16,450 a year for a family of four. This is reflective of a 
lot of people in our Nation. It is not just Los Angeles. When most 
people think of Los Angeles, they think of Hollywood. They think of 
millionaires. They have to understand what is happening to real people.
  Twenty percent are living in poverty. One out of every three children 
in Los Angeles lives in poverty. If you go to Los Angeles and see 
little children, one out of three of them is living in poverty. That is 
up from one out of four in 1990.
  You might say: Well, maybe it is just minority kids. No, it is a lot 
of children, across the board. It is 21 percent of Anglo children 
living in poverty; 21 percent of Asian American children are living in 
poverty in Los Angeles; 33 percent of African American children

[[Page 20742]]

are living in poverty in Los Angeles; 43 percent of Latino children are 
living in poverty in Los Angeles; 12 percent of elderly people are 
living in poverty in Los Angeles, an increase from 9 percent in 1990; 
2.7 million residents of Los Angeles County have no health insurance.
  What I am saying is, when we talk about the minimum wage, this is 
real. Most of these people are working very hard. What is happening in 
our society today is people are working hard at the very bottom levels. 
I think the least we can do in this incredible economic climate that so 
many of us are benefiting from is to raise that minimum wage, save 
Medicare, help our seniors, pay down the debt, help the future, pass 
these safety provisions so our kids are safe in school, and pass a 
Patients' Bill of Rights. We have a watered down bill in the Senate but 
they are going to pass a good one in the House. Get them into 
conference and pass it, bring it out.
  Finally, campaign finance reform is so important. Of all these issues 
I have mentioned, I am sad to say our majority leader has only put one 
on the agenda for his must-do list. That is campaign finance reform. I 
am glad it is there. It is there because there was a threat to shut 
down this place if it wasn't on there, but I am glad it is on the list. 
All of these other things are not there.
  What is worse, when you look at the most important thing the 
Republican majority wants to do, it is going to hurt all these other 
things, because it is a huge tax cut of $800 billion that is going to 
help the people at the upper echelons and hurt everyone else. There 
won't be any money for Medicare. There won't be any money to save that 
program. There won't be any money to pay down the debt so we can be 
good to our grandchildren and their children. There won't be anything 
for education. There won't be anything for the environment.
  I say to my friends, let's do what the people want us to do. Let us 
take care of business.
  There was an extraordinary field poll done in California. I think it 
is very instructive, and it is amazing in the scope of what it said.
  It said that more than 80 percent of the people of California agreed 
with the President's approach to the budget, which, as we know, is to 
take that surplus and use a third of it for tax cuts for the middle 
class, a third of it for Medicare, and a third of it for education, the 
environment, health research. Now, this means the majority of 
Republicans agree with the President on this point.
  I think we have a golden opportunity to come together on issues that 
mean a lot to the people: school safety, a Patients' Bill of Rights, 
campaign finance reform, raising the minimum wage, saving Medicare, 
paying down the debt, targeted tax relief to the middle class, not to 
those at the very top who are doing very well.
  And the reason I shared the survey with you on the poverty in Los 
Angeles is that while the economy is terrific and is going very well in 
California, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing mightily. 
Those of us who care about our fellow human beings cannot turn our 
backs on this, regardless of our party, because it is a recipe for 
problems in the future.
  Mr. President, I thank you for your indulgence. I know my colleague, 
Senator Dorgan, has a lot to say on these and other matters. Again, I 
compliment my friends who are taking the lead on the East Timor 
situation. We have unfinished business to do. Let's get it done and do 
it across the party aisle and go home proud of our accomplishments.
  I yield the floor.

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