[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12843-12844]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            OBSTRUCTIONISTS

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, on Tuesday--for the record, today is 
Thursday--President Bush gave a speech in which he complained that 
Democrats are obstructionists because we are not accepting his entire 
agenda.
  The President also said that we say no to everything. I listened to 
him and I watched him on TV. But look at all the things he says no to. 
President Bush said no to Tony Blair when the Prime Minister was here 
to ask for more help for Africa, to help with AIDS, hunger, and loan 
reduction. He said no.
  President Bush says no to kids with juvenile diabetes, autism, or 
other childhood diseases, when they ask to be permitted to do stem cell 
research to see if we can prevent those diseases from plaguing these 
youngsters for life.
  President Bush said no to parents and teachers who want education 
fully funded.
  President Bush said no to a real Patients' Bill of Rights.
  President Bush said no to making polluters pay for Superfund 
environmental cleanups, a program that has been very successful. I was 
author of the second iteration of Superfund in 1986. It was a program 
that needed some time to get going. But now we can look at lots of 
sites that have been cleaned up and are put to useful purposes that 
don't threaten children or families who live in the area. President 
Bush said no to making the polluters pay. He said yes to making the 
taxpayers pay for the cleanup problems the polluters created.
  President Bush said no to getting tough with the Saudi Arabians, so 
we can really bring down oil prices. The Saudis said no to us when we 
asked for help in keeping oil prices down. Look what has happened to 
oil prices. I remember so vividly in the last Presidential campaign, 
when Senator Kerry challenged President Bush. The thing that came out 
of the White House--the statement most clearly was: If Senator Kerry 
becomes President, you are going to see taxes on oil prices. If you 
want to see taxes on oil prices, just look at what happened. The only 
difference is these taxes are being paid to Saudi Arabia and other 
places that are not friendly to the United States. But the public is 
paying for it. Gasoline has gone from $1.20 to, in some places, $2.50, 
which I paid recently. I don't hear the President saying no to them 
when they call and say they want help from us.
  And the President calls us the obstructionists? I find that label 
very interesting. What it means is, if you oppose any of President 
Bush's policies, you are an obstructionist. Frankly, in a democratic 
Nation, that is unacceptable. It is a disastrous line of thinking. In 
my view, if you don't like challenge, then you don't understand 
democracy. This is not a nation where we have a dictator. There should 
not be a time when simply because the President of the United States 
thinks it is a good idea that we avoid debate or challenge that we 
should. No, not on your life. That is how we get ideas and how we 
challenge the public in this country to say something about the 
programs in which we are engaged.
  The President says: If you don't like my programs, then you are an 
obstructionist.
  Tell that to the people whose pensions are fading in front of their 
eyes. Tell that to the people who work 25, 30 years for a company and 
see their jobs ended, without the prospect of coming anywhere near the 
salary they were earning. No, he doesn't say no to the people he ought 
to say no to. The President proposed the other day--yesterday--that the 
tax rate that has done us so much good is something he wants to make 
permanent--I wish he would say no to that--so that the wealthiest among 
us don't go ahead and wait for their airplanes to be delivered after 3 
years. If you order a private airplane--a $25 million or $30 million 
airplane--if you want to buy one, sorry, there is a line. If you want 
large yachts, 100 to 200 feet, you have to wait 2 years. What a pity it 
is for those rich guys to have to pay their share of taxes. I am one of 
those who have been so fortunate in America. I created a business that 
got to be very big, along with two other friends who grew up in the 
poor neighborhood in which I lived. I am more than willing to pay more 
taxes because, if I do that, I have more money left.
  I wish the President of the United States would say no to those 
people and yes to the people struggling to make a living; yes to the 
kids who cannot afford to pay for college tuition; yes to those people 
and don't accuse the Democrats of being obstructionists. Saddam Hussein 
didn't have to worry about obstructionists in his country. He killed 
them or jailed them. Mr. President, leaders who are free of 
obstructionists are also known as dictators.
  Our constituents elected us to represent them and their viewpoints in 
the Senate. One thing I knew when I came to this Senate--now over 20 
years ago--I wasn't elected by all the Republicans, by a long shot. I 
am not even sure I was elected by all of the Democrats. But I won. When 
I stood and took my oath, I never thought once that I don't have to pay 
attention to those who did not vote for me--the Republicans, typically. 
When I won this seat and the responsibility, I accepted the 
responsibility, and I had an obligation to every citizen in my State 
and the citizens of this country to listen to them and try to 
understand their needs. That is what you get in a democracy. You get 
the opportunity to represent all of the people. It is not just the 
rubberstamp of the President's initiatives. The Constitution created 
the Senate as a check on Presidential power. The Founding Fathers 
created the Senate in order to obstruct the President, when necessary.
  Mr. President, throughout history, so-called obstructionists have 
been the champions of democracy. Looking at these photos of people like 
this who resisted tyranny, are they obstructionists? Are the people who 
stood up against tyranny in so many other countries obstructionists? 
Are they people who are fighting for a cause, or are they 
obstructionists? This picture looks like Boston. Can those people be 
called obstructionists as they tried to defend their land? I don't 
think so. If we look further, there were people who disagreed with some 
of the Founding Fathers' views, who obstructed the King of England with 
our Declaration of Independence. It was a pretty good idea, one would 
have to assume. There was another time when an obstructionist stood up 
with incredible courage; her name was Rosa Parks. She obstructed 
immoral rules in her State, and in the picture you see her being 
fingerprinted before she goes to jail. Obstructionist? There was a 
former Republican Senator, Margaret Chase Smith. She spoke so 
eloquently in 1950 in the Senate in order to obstruct the

[[Page 12844]]

tactics of Senator Joe McCarthy, with his bullying, sadistic kind of 
approach. Is that an obstructionist or is that a heroine? Women fought 
for the right to vote. The young women who are here tonight cannot 
think about times like that. Imagine a woman not being allowed to vote. 
Were they obstructionists?
  Mr. President, the signs in the picture say, ``How long must women 
wait for liberty?'' And ``Mr. President, what will you do for woman 
suffrage, for the right to vote?'' Yes, they obstructed immorality.
  So obstructionism, per se, is not an evil force if you are on the 
side of the people.
  I say here today, in light of our democracy's heritage of productive 
obstructionism, I will be proud to obstruct some of President Bush's 
proposals this year.
  I am happy to obstruct the President's plan to privatize Social 
Security and throw our retirement security into the stock market. I 
will be happy to obstruct those. If people want to take a chance, if 
they want to gamble, they should go to Atlantic City or Las Vegas, but 
do not do it with your pension because when you need it, it is liable 
not to be there.
  A few months ago the President presented an unrealistic and flawed 
budget to Congress, and I hope to obstruct many items in the 
President's misguided budget proposal. For example, I hope to obstruct 
President Bush's plan to cut Medicaid by $60 billion over 10 years. 
Cuts that hurt the poor and the elderly, our Nation's most vulnerable 
populations. They need that help for their health and for their 
families. I am not going to stand by and not obstruct those cuts.
  President Bush wants to take health care away from lower income 
families and lower income senior citizens. Is there any compassion 
there? I do not think so.
  If we look at Amtrak, the Nation's premier rail service, the 
President wants to leave it without money, zero fund Amtrak, shut down 
the system. You better believe I am going to be there to obstruct that 
plan whenever I can. Shut down the system that took 25 million riders 
to their destinations last year?
  The President also wants to slash community development programs. He 
proposes cutting funding to these programs by more than a third. Nearly 
$4 billion will be taken out of communities across the country. I want 
to obstruct that.
  In regard to protecting our homeland, President Bush has proposed 
reducing homeland security block grants, cutting them by $253 million. 
America's soil, America's land, it is a second front in this war 
against terrorism, and our soldiers are paying a price for their fight 
there, a terrible price, because the President said no to having enough 
soldiers to do that job right from the beginning. There are great 
generals who now reflect on the mission and say: We could have used 
more soldiers there. One very senior general got fired for suggesting 
we need over 300,000 troops there.
  The President said no to them, but he should not say no to having 
homeland security financed sufficiently to protect our citizens when 
they go to work, go to school, go to the library, or travel about our 
country. I hope everyone in this Chamber will obstruct that cut. I 
would like my colleagues to say no to that.
  On the issue of airline travel, President Bush wants to increase the 
airline passenger tax by $3 for each leg of a flight. A family of four 
traveling with a layover each way could see their taxes increase by up 
to $64 for their round trip.
  People are already paying too much in airline passenger taxes. I will 
obstruct, yes, obstruct President Bush's tax increase.
  On our environment, President Bush's budget cuts environmental and 
natural resource programs by $2 billion. With child asthma cases 
increasing and other environmental dangers increasing across the 
country, why would we reduce environmental protection?
  I have a grandson who is 11, and he happens to have asthma. He is the 
oldest of my 10 grandchildren. He is a very good athlete. But whenever 
my daughter takes him to compete in a baseball game or a soccer game, 
she always checks where the nearest emergency clinic is in case he has 
an asthma attack. Childhood asthma is growing in this country by leaps 
and bounds, and it is because the air is bad and we are not doing 
enough to clean it up. Asthma and other environmental dangers are 
increasing across the country. Why would President Bush say no to 
environmental protection? President Bush, I do not know why you want to 
obstruct funding for those programs.
  Obstructionism is all that separates democracy from dictatorship. 
Sometimes obstruction is necessary, and in the case of President Bush's 
agenda, it deserves a healthy amount of obstruction. I hope my 
colleagues on this floor, regardless of party, will look at each of the 
President's programs and say: Remember that President Bush obstructed 
funding for teaching, for schools, for stem cell research, for research 
on Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. Remember, he obstructed funding for 
those programs. He took care of the rich, who are only getting richer.
  If you looked in the New York Times about 2 weeks ago, there was an 
article about how the richest in this country are leaving the rich 
behind, about how 90 percent of the people in this country who work to 
keep their families together own only 10 percent of the assets of the 
country, and it is just the reverse on the top side.
  In the case of President Bush's agenda, it deserves a healthy amount 
of obstruction, and I hope the people in this Chamber have the courage 
to stand up and say: No, I obstruct those terrible cuts and that mean, 
unhelpful disposition to make it tougher for hard-working families in 
this country to be able to support themselves, their children, and 
their needs.

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