[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 422-423]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          SENATE ORGANIZATION

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I wish to talk a little about the 
congressional session we are in now for our second week. We have lots 
of things to do. Certainly, the American people are anxious that we 
move on to do those things. Yet we find ourselves in sort of a stall on 
the floor, which is disappointing. We know we have actions to take. We 
know we have to be organized. Yet we are held up in being organized. 
That is discouraging to many of us.
  The fact is that 2 years ago, when the Senate was 50-50, we had an 
agreement as to how to work and how to fund the committees. Now we 
find, particularly on the other side, that we can't come to agreement.
  As I understand it, we had then a 50-50 arrangement with 10 percent 
going to the majority committee because there are lots of common costs. 
So it broke it down really into a 60-40 arrangement. That was 
satisfactory.
  Now it seems that we can't find a satisfactory agreement. I urge the 
leadership to move forward so we can get on to do the things we are 
here to do. We have a lot of things to do, many of which are held over 
from the last session.
  One of the most pressing is ready to be acted upon whenever we are 
ready to act on it, and that is 11 of the 13 appropriations which we 
did not even get to last year. The other is to begin on a budget of 
which we had none last year. A lot of people say it doesn't make much 
difference whether you have a budget anyway; You always break it. The 
fact is, it is important because it has a restriction in it. When a 
budget is set and the spending goes beyond that budget, you can raise a 
point of order, and it takes 60 votes instead of 50. That is a 
protection from overspending. We hear a lot about spending. I am one 
who wants to control spending.
  So here we are with things to do in the new year. We are here with 
items left over from last year, and we are not able to get going with 
it.
  Everyone, of course, has their own priorities, but there are some 
fairly commonly agreed upon. Certainly education is one. There is 
nothing more important. When I talk to people about Government programs 
and things they want to do more about, education is always among the 
top. It is true that the Federal contribution to the financing of 
education is only about 7 percent of the total. But nevertheless, it is 
an important part, particularly when Federal rules and regulations 
provide some unfunded mandates to the States to do the things they must 
do.
  I am in favor of having some common methods of having an assessment 
of how schools are doing partly because now we move so freely in this 
Nation; if you are educated in Wyoming, you may end up working in New 
York. You need to know that your education is comparable so you will do 
as well there as you could anywhere else.
  We are talking about funding. We are talking about IDEA, funding for 
special education, which is very important. I hear a great deal about 
that. My wife happens to be a special education teacher, and it is 
terribly important that we give everyone an opportunity. To do that, 
you have to have special education.
  The Perkins Act, which funds vocational education, whether it be 
agriculture, business, whatever, is apparently in somewhat of a 
controversy at the moment. It is very important that we be able to 
provide vocational education and opportunities for young people to 
become trained in what they want to do.
  Testing, of course, is very controversial, but I believe it is a test 
as to whether or not schools are keeping up with others. Some argue, 
well, you just teach to the test. I suppose there is some danger of 
that. If the tests are adequate, perhaps that is not a bad idea, but 
there has to be accountability. So that is where we are with education.
  On energy policy, we spent a great deal of time with that last year, 
more probably than we should have had to spend because it was pulled 
out of committee and the committee did not make the decisions. We 
brought it to the floor. I believe we were here 7 weeks on energy 
policy. Then it went into committee to facilitate the differences 
between the House and Senate and, frankly, we never did come to a 
successful conclusion.
  Energy policy is very important at any time because nothing touches 
more of us than does energy--whether it is light, heat, automobiles, 
whatever. Even more important now, as we deal with economic 
difficulties, is that we find the price of energy going up, partly 
because of the unrest in the Middle East. So energy policy, it seems to 
me, is very important, and we ought to get back on that.
  We can have an energy policy. We have not had one for years. We need 
to have one that has to do with domestic production, so that we are not 
60-percent dependent upon exports as we are now. We need a policy that 
provides for more research into new sources of energy, so that we have 
renewables, so that we have various other kinds of opportunities. We 
have to have research to make sure that what we use now--coal, for 
instance--is as clean as it can be for air quality. That is the kind of 
balanced policy we need. But here we are with that need to move forward 
and we are not able to do that.
  Certainly, health care is one. In my State of Wyoming, health care 
has become particularly important over the last couple years, largely 
because of cost and accessibility. Often, when we talk about health 
care, we talk about Medicare, and certainly we should. Medicare is very 
important to a large number of people who have higher costs generally. 
Nevertheless, Medicare is there and we need to make some changes with 
it, particularly as we look forward to what we are going to do over the 
next few years--a program that gives some choices and hopefully brings 
in more private operations and a more private distribution of resources 
that will fund a program that is needed over a period of time. The one 
we have now isn't going to do that.
  We have to make some changes. I suspect we will be looking at more 
short-term changes originally, as we first go about it. We need to look 
at the long term, what we want to have over time and what it takes to 
provide a health care distribution system that is useful. It is not all 
Medicare. For example, in our State the prices have gone up 
substantially. There are a number of reasons, of course. Part of it is 
liability insurance for physicians. Many have given up certain kinds of 
practices because the cost of liability insurance is out of sight. We 
can do something about that, and we can do something about it here as 
well as in our States.
  We have a problem with the number of uninsured in this country. Of 
course, the notion of insurance, the concept of insurance is that you 
have a broad participation of people, some of whom are less likely to 
need services than others, so that it levels out the costs. But when 
you have a large segment of the most healthy people who do not carry 
insurance, then that concept is weakened. So those are broader issues 
that we need to have. We have a shortage of nurses. We need to do 
something about that. It has very little to do with Medicare.
  The other one that is important, of course, and I suspect will be 
dealt with more quickly, is pharmaceuticals. Some say we have an 
overutilization of pharmaceuticals. For many people, particularly the 
elderly, the cost is extremely high for pharmaceuticals and is unable 
to be handled by many people. We need to find a better way of 
distribution, find a better way of using generics, find a better way of 
examining the pharmaceutical requirements.
  We had some meetings. In one case, we had a retired pharmacist take a

[[Page 423]]

look at the pharmaceutical needs of the people employed by his former 
company. He was able to reduce it substantially and still provide the 
same kind of health care. So there are a lot of things that we can do.
  As to jobs and the economy, obviously, nobody is unaware of the fact 
that we need to do something there. We need to have a program. All we 
have heard in the last 2 weeks is criticism of the President's economic 
program. I believe the President has a very well-balanced effort at 
doing something about the economy. He does something initially with 
payments, such as child care, reduction of income tax withholding, 
which would put more dollars in right away. I suppose we can talk about 
the size of the package because of dividends on some of the payments 
that are made. But the fact is, it is a balanced program that has 
initial impact; it has long-term kinds of tax reductions that create 
jobs.
  Now, it is one thing to just sling money out there, which some folks 
like to do. The real answer is to develop jobs so people have them long 
term, and that is what it is all about.
  On judicial nominations, we are behind from last year. We still 
haven't organized a committee to do that.
  We are faced with lots of opportunities to do some things that need 
to be done. Yet here we are waiting to begin to move. I think the 
pressure needs to be on the leadership to resolve this issue and get us 
into a position to move forward so we can deal--as we are here to do--
with the issues before us and resolve many of the questions that are 
pending.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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