[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 25291]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           WORK OF THE SENATE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, first of all, the President, I repeat, is 
doing the right thing. The right thing is having Congress do its work. 
This is all a game.
  Now if we could complete our work by Tuesday, it seems to me if 
people hung around here and did their work now--they said they have to 
start reading the bill--let them read it now. I also say if people want 
to expedite matters and challenge the President's authority, I am 
standing right where I am today and yesterday. I said we will agree on 
a voice vote to the tax bill and send it to the White House this 
afternoon. Nope, objections from the other side. They wouldn't let us 
do that. They wouldn't let us do that. They are here stalling for 
reasons that some of us are having a little trouble determining, but 
they are stalling. They have continued to stall. That is why we 
wouldn't get any appropriations bills passed until very recently.
  My friend from Pennsylvania said there is no factual variance. I was 
going to run through some of those, but the analogy is something like 
this. He says we gave the President 90 percent of what he wanted. 
Whether that is right or not, the point is, it is like a football game. 
You go to the 10-yard line and you almost make a touchdown; does that 
mean you should get the score? The answer is no. The score should not 
be given to the majority because they have not done their work. They 
haven't even gotten to the 10-yard line.
  I say Members should be here working. The President is saying we 
should work. We don't need to go home. Some of us have a long way to go 
to go home. We should be here doing our work. I think the American 
people understand that the President is equal to the Congress.
  I don't know why the framers of this Constitution had article I the 
legislative branch, article II the executive branch, article III the 
judicial branch. They could have been reversed. It doesn't matter. They 
are separate but equal.
  I am so thankful that the President recognizes his ability to take a 
look at what is going on here and say, ``I don't like it.'' That is 
what he said. He doesn't like it and 46 of us over here, we don't like 
it either.
  Because of that, we are in the position we are now in. No one is 
being humiliated. The word was used twice by the Senator from 
Pennsylvania. But, no one is being humiliated. The Constitution has 
been in effect for over 200 years. The President has an absolute right 
to do what he has done. If, in fact, the majority does not think the 
President will veto these bills, send them down and we will find out.
  The problem is really that the bills are unfair. We have had very 
little input. We will let the American people decide who is right, 
whether President Clinton is right in doing what he is doing or the 
Republicans are right, doing what they are doing. I think the American 
people will resoundingly proclaim that what has gone on over here has 
been not only procedurally unfair, it has been substantively unfair.
  I also say, using Nevada as a State that doesn't need help--no one is 
asking that local control of schools be taken away. This is something 
the majority always uses. Only about 7 percent of what any school 
district in America gets comes from Washington. There is not a person 
on the Democratic side who says they want to take control away from 
local schools. We are saying that schools need some help in helping pay 
the interest on the bonds. The illustration I used was that the State 
of Nevada spends $112 million in interest without paying a single penny 
on the principal. We are a small State, 2 million people. His State is 
12 million people. We believe the people of America realize the school 
problems we have, the education problems in America are national in 
scope and Congress has to take a look at some of the national problems. 
Schools are crumbling, classes are too large, too many kids are 
dropping out of school. The solution the majority has is to take 
control away from public schools and put all the money in private 
schools; do what you can to damage and destroy public schools. We are 
not willing to do that. We believe that because the vast majority, in 
fact almost 95 percent, of kids go to public schools, we should do what 
we can to improve public schools.
  Again, I think the Senator from Pennsylvania does an excellent job as 
chairman of that subcommittee. I understand his frustration. A lot of 
the control has been taken away from the subcommittee chairs and 
ranking members in these last days of Congress. The majority leadership 
is calling a lot of the shots. That is what we read about. The 
Democrats can only read about it because we are not in many of these 
negotiations. But the Senator's frustration does not take away from the 
fact that the President of the United States has done the right thing 
in saying Congress should be working this weekend, every day, until 
Congress completes it work.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

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