[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7569-7570]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              PAUL OFFNER

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I wish to mark the passing of an 
outstanding public servant, former member of the Senate community, 
former staffer to Senators, and former staffer for the Senate Finance 
Committee--Paul Offner.
  Born in Bennington, VT, Paul spent part of his childhood in Florence, 
Italy. He earned a bachelor's degree from Amherst College, a master's 
degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and 
International Affairs, and a doctorate in economics from Princeton.
  After this outstanding education, Paul began his career in public 
service with the U.S. Senate, serving as a legislative assistant to 
Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.
  Paul had caught the political bug. He decided to run for office 
himself, seeking to represent the people of La

[[Page 7570]]

Crosse, Wisconsin, in the State legislature. That showed that Paul 
didn't shrink from tough odds, as he ran as a Democrat in La Crosse, a 
city that had not elected a Democrat for quite some time. Paul proved a 
natural campaigner. He had a great slogan: ``Vote once. Vote Offner.''
  Winning that election, Paul served in the Wisconsin State 
legislature, and then in the Wisconsin Senate. He established himself 
as an expert on the challenging area of health care and health 
insurance.
  In the early 1980s, Paul ran for Lieutenant Governor and for 
Congress, but those elections did not work out for him. Fortunately for 
us, he stuck to his career in public service nonetheless.
  In 1990, Paul returned to work for the U.S. Senate, serving as senior 
legislative assistant for health and human services for Senator Daniel 
Patrick Moynihan of New York. Staff for Senator Moynihan recall that 
from their very first meeting, Senator Moynihan regarded the staffer 
with the Princeton doctorate as a colleague.
  Paul became one of the leading national voices in welfare and health 
policy. After President Clinton won the 1992 Presidential election, 
Paul coordinated the Clinton transition team's welfare reform policies.
  When Senator Moynihan became chairman of the Finance Committee, Paul 
became the committee's chief health and welfare counselor. Having 
served as chairman and ranking minority member of the Finance 
Committee, I know that Paul's position was a demanding one. Paul 
handled it well during the important year when Congress enacted 
President Clinton's first budget, in 1993. That budget set the pattern 
that led to 8 years of economic growth and the creation of more than 20 
million new jobs.
  Paul served with the Clinton White House Health Care Task Force, 
which tried to extend health benefits to millions of uninsured 
Americans. The task force did not succeed then, but they fought an 
important fight. We will need to revisit that important task again, 
before long.
  During the debate on welfare reform in the mid-1990s, Paul 
contributed a series of prominent articles. He influenced the national 
debate.
  When the Republicans took control of the Senate with the 1994 
election, Mayor Marion Barry asked him to become the commissioner of 
health care finance for Washington, DC. One need not be a critic of 
Washington to know that when Paul took on the job of running Medicaid 
for the District of Columbia, he took on as thankless and difficult a 
task as there is. And he did it well.
  He went on to work at Georgetown University and the Urban Institute. 
In recent years, he focused on the situation of young Black men in 
America, arguing that society needs to make a greater effort to improve 
their chances of making it.
  It tells you something about Paul that while he was working hard at 
high-powered Capitol Hill jobs, he also served as a dedicated tutor to 
school kids in the District. He was a volunteer tutor for the Friends 
of Tyler School, a public elementary school not far from the Capitol 
building in Southeast Washington, DC.
  People will tell you that Paul had a tremendous intellect, a caring 
heart, and a quick wit. He was the kind of person who went through the 
policy wars enough to be a skeptic, but was still in there pitching, 
trying to make things better.
  ``He believed in public service,'' said Molly Collins Offner, his 
wife of 8 years. ``Accomplishing good and making the world better was 
key for him,'' she said.
  The noblest human endeavor is to serve our fellow man. It can be 
service to church, to community, to family, to spouse, to children. 
Paul Offner served.
  Members of the House and the Senate who serve also get the benefit 
and gratification of seeing their names in newspapers and their faces 
on TV. But dedicated professionals such as Paul work very hard behind 
the scenes, often with little or no recognition. I recognize the 
central role that Paul Offner played.
  Paul passed away last week, and was remembered this past weekend at a 
Mass of Christian Burial not far from here on Capitol Hill. He will be 
remembered by his wife Molly Collins Offner, daughter Mary Shu Yu 
Offner, and sister Antoinette Gerry. But he will also be remembered by 
a thankful U.S. Senate community. And for years to come, he will be 
thanked by millions of Americans whose lives will have been made better 
for his having lived, but who never knew his name.

                          ____________________