[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 25288-25290]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          THE WORK OF CONGRESS

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to comment on 
the pending status of the work of the Congress. Yesterday, Senator 
Stevens took the floor and outlined the work of the Appropriations 
Committee, making it plain that nothing could be done on the last bill 
on appropriations for Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education, 
until Tuesday because there had to be a reading of the bill and the 
other procedural matters which had to be attended to, even if the 
conferees came to agreement on Friday.
  Senator Stevens suggested that there was no point in having the 
Senate and the House in session on Saturday and Sunday and Monday. 
Notwithstanding that, and notwithstanding Senator Stevens' contacts 
with the President and the President's men, we are here. We are here 
for absolutely no reason. I chair the subcommittee which has 
jurisdiction over that appropriations bill and we have been in 
negotiations with the White House for weeks. We have not been able to 
come to an agreement because of the intransigence of the White House. 
They may say it is the intransigence of the Congress. We have a way of 
saying the other party is intransigent. But there is no doubt that they 
are at least 50 percent responsible for the fact that we have not been 
able to come to terms on this bill.
  On this bill, the subcommittee that I chair met the President's 
figure of $106 billion. It was hard to do. My colleagues in this body 
and the Republicans in the House didn't like that figure; they thought 
it was too much money. But the chairman of the House committee and I 
prevailed to meet the President's figure so we can come to terms and 
have an accommodation and get the bill passed. We put $600 million in 
that bill--more for education than the President did. And the President 
asked for $2.7 billion for school construction and teachers. It was the 
view of many colleagues that that was not a Federal responsibility, but 
we gave this figure. We put an addendum on that if the local school 
boards decided they wanted it for something else, they could use it for 
something else, so that there would be local control, which is the 
essence of education in America, contrasted with the Washington, DC, 
bureaucratic straitjacket.
  Notwithstanding that, the White House, his negotiators, wanted every 
semicolon their own way. So that bill is still languishing in 
negotiations. But it is certainly not the fault of the Congress.
  We are here today and we will be here tomorrow. The Members --535 of 
us--had thought we would have concluded our business a long time ago. I 
can tell the American people--if anybody watches C-SPAN II--that the 
fault is not that of the Congress that we are still here. The President 
has decided that we will be in session on 1-day continuing resolutions, 
as his way of trying to make a political point. He is not making a 
governmental point, he is making a political point. He is making a 
political point to try to blame the Congress as a ``do-nothing'' 
Congress, when that is not the fact. He is trying to blame the Congress 
for a situation the White House is really responsible for--at least 50 
percent responsible.
  We have come to a situation where the quality and parity between the 
Congress and the executive branch has long since evaporated. When the 
Government was closed down at the end of 1995, that was an enormous 
shift of power, so that now the Congress is really over a barrel to 
yield to whatever the President has to say.
  Being aware of that, we structured this final bill on Labor, Health, 
Human Services, and Education to finish it so that it could be 
presented to the President in September. The Senate acted on it on June 
30, which established a record, going back to 1976 for the earlier set 
of action on this bill. Then we finished the conference report on July 
27. It should have been presented to the President in September, and 
that projection was made so that we would be able to present it to the 
President and, if he vetoed it, have a national debate; and we thought 
we would be in a position to make our priorities stand up because the 
Constitution does give the Congress the responsibility and authority to 
establish the priorities.
  Mr. President, the essential point that I am coming to is that if we 
were not over a barrel in our relations with the President, we would 
submit to the President a continuing resolution for 3

[[Page 25289]]

or 4 days. But we are not doing that because it would be unseemly. We 
are not doing that because we don't want to engage in what might be 
viewed by the American people as a childish food fight.
  If we sent him a continuing resolution for 4 days, which would be 
reasonable under the circumstances, since we can't get anything done 
until Tuesday, and there was a stalemate and there was a closing of the 
Federal Government, the American people would say a plague on both of 
your houses. But the reality is that the Congress is being intimidated 
by the President and we are, in fact, being humiliated by what the 
President is doing. There needs to be some semblance of good will and 
comity between the Congress and the President. It doesn't exist and 
hasn't existed.
  This Senator has gone out of his way to try to work with the White 
House and try to find accommodations. But when you have this 
intimidation and what is really humiliation, it lingers. It has to be a 
factor considered, as we have so many delicate relationships with the 
executive branch of the Government. Frankly, I would like to see us 
submit a continuing resolution for 4 days and lay down the gauntlet to 
the President, if he wants to keep us around here doing nothing. But 
the parity between the branches has been lost and we are here wasting 
the time of 535 Members of Congress.
  We are wasting the time of the Congressmen, and we are also putting 
the people of America to a disadvantage because we have 
responsibilities to our constituents that will not be attended to 
today, or tomorrow, or Monday, or thereafter. I think it is high time 
that the Congress stood up and confronted the President because of this 
situation, which is simply intolerable.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, first of all, I certainly understand the 
frustration of the Senator from Pennsylvania. He does a good job of 
chairing that subcommittee. But his facts are wrong.
  Here it is 9 days until the election, and we are still in session. We 
are here because the leadership of the majority has simply refused to 
move this Congress along like it is supposed to. Since the first of 
September, we have passed only three or four appropriations bills. We 
struggled through the month of September, and nothing happened.
  Mr. SPECTER. Will the Senator from Nevada yield?
  Mr. REID. I yield for a question.
  Mr. SPECTER. What facts are wrong?
  Mr. REID. I was just laying those facts out.
  Mr. SPECTER. Does the Senator from Nevada deny the fact that the 
President and the White House, or at least the people in question, are 
responsible for the failure to come to agreement on the one outstanding 
appropriations bill?
  Mr. REID. We have 13 appropriations bills. This debate cannot relate 
around one appropriations bill. The Senator from Pennsylvania worked 
hard on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. A number of us have worked 
on it. But the Republicans have left this bill to the last bill so they 
can attach everything to it that has not been done and that should have 
been done previously.
  Mr. SPECTER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. No. I will not.
  I say to the Chair and to those Members listening that the President 
doesn't need to take any blame for what is taking place here in 
Congress. We have a constitutional framework that gives him separate 
but equal power with the Congress. He is exerting that now. Thank 
goodness he is able to exert that because what has gone on here, 
according to pundits and according to what I believe having been here 
for almost 20 years, is a travesty.
  Here we are trying to work our way through Congress 8 days before an 
election. This should have been completed a long time ago. We have not 
been able to have debates on issues in this Congress. Why? Because the 
majority has taken the position they don't want to have to take any 
difficult votes. As a result of that, we don't take any votes. We don't 
have debates.
  It is interesting to note that we haven't done anything on a 
Patients' Bill of Rights. We have done nothing on prescription drugs. 
On education, for the past 2 years in this Congress, we only have spent 
parts of 6 days dealing with education. The American people say it is 
the most important issue facing the American people. Members of 
Congress say it is the most important issue. It seems to me that we 
could spend more than 6 partial days talking about education.
  We need help with school construction. In Las Vegas, we have the 
sixth largest school district in America. We have to build one new 
school every month to keep up with growth.
  In the small State of Nevada, last year we spent $112 million just on 
interest on the money we borrowed to build schools. We need help with 
school construction and modernization. Schools all over America need 
help. The average age of schools in America is over 40 years. We also 
need to reduce class size. Unfortunately, we haven't had a meaningful 
debate that has allowed us to discuss how important and successful 
class size reduction is for our schools.
  A year and a half ago, following the Columbine massacre, we passed 
what we felt was minimal gun safety legislation. Nothing has happened 
since then to move that forward. We have not had a conference. The 
result is that we still have pawnshop loopholes where just anyone can 
go in and buy guns. They can be felons. The same happens not only in 
pawnshops but at gun shows. We need that legislation cleared for 
further action. We have been unable to do that.
  I say to my friend from Pennsylvania that, again, I appreciate his 
frustration. I appreciate his hard work.
  But the fact is that constitutionally the President has a role, and 
he is fulfilling that role. I repeat that I am glad he is fulfilling 
that role.
  We have so many things that we need to do in this Congress that we 
have simply been unable to do.
  As a result of our friend, Paul Coverdell, having unexpectedly passed 
away, the composition of the Senate changed. As such, we felt there 
should be another vote on the Patients' Bill of Rights. We were denied 
that.
  There are so many things that have been taking place here that has 
prevented the Senate from operating as the Senate.
  My friend from Pennsylvania is frustrated as a result of his dealings 
with the subcommittee.
  I am frustrated as a Member of the Senate that we are not able to 
talk about issues that I think are important. We have been prevented 
from being able to talk about those issues.
  In America today there are 3,000 children dropping out of school 
every day. Shouldn't we be allowed to talk about that? The answer has 
been no. We haven't been able to have a meaningful debate about the 
serious problem of children dropping out of school.
  The fact is the President is concerned about this $250 billion tax 
bill. The minority has been shut out of all negotiations. The ranking 
member of the Finance Committee has not been involved in anything, let 
alone any other members of the Finance Committee.
  We have conferences that are uniquely held with only one party.
  There is a lot of frustration to go around.
  I want to reassert and reemphasize that the President is doing the 
right thing. I believe he is doing the right thing, which is supported 
totally by the minority. He is doing the right thing by having us work 
every day.
  What good does it do? We should have been having 24-hour continuing 
resolutions 2 weeks ago. If so, we would have already completed our 
work 2 weeks ago. So, we are doing 24-hour continuing resolutions right 
now. If, in fact, we had a 4-day continuing resolution, people would 
fly out of here and back to their parades and campaigning and leave the 
work that needs to be done here in Congress undone.
  I am supportive of what the President is doing. It is good for 
Congress. It is good for the American people.
  Does the Senator from Pennsylvania have any questions of the Senator 
from Nevada?

[[Page 25290]]


  Mr. SPECTER. No. I can have some time of my own.
  Mr. President, may I inquire of the majority leader if I may have 5 
minutes at this time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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