[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14050-14051]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 CONGRESS CAN LEARN FROM TOM EVANS' DAY

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following 
op-ed from the Wilmington News Journal be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From the Delaware News Journal, Aug. 19, 2011]

                 Congress Can Learn From Tom Evans' Day

                           (By Darry Carmin)

       The wild, turbulent, white-knuckle political ride of the 
     summer of 2011 appears to have caught Americans with their 
     seatbelts unfastened. Many of us seem to have been totally 
     unprepared for the economic uncertainty, largely precipitated 
     by Washington political gridlock and the inability of 
     Congress to get the nation's financial house in order.
       As a result, there are a lot of angry people out here. And, 
     as to be expected, our rage is directed at those perceived as 
     the perpetrators of the mess in which we find ourselves, 
     i.e., Congress and the White House.
       A recent Washington Post survey indicates that 80 percent 
     of Americans are dissatisfied with how the political system 
     functions, up from 60 percent in November 2009. There appears 
     to be plenty of blame to spread around: 28 percent of those 
     surveyed cited President Obama as making things worse, while 
     35 percent pointed finger at congressional Republicans.
       What this suggests is that, regardless of how disgusted 
     they are about the $14 trillion debt or how outraged they are 
     at the intransigence of the tea party, most Americans crave 
     government that can address the nation's problems and achieve 
     some sort of solution, no matter how imperfect.
       Not too long ago, things were different in Washington. I 
     was privileged to have had a front row seat in a Congress 
     that did get things done. From 1977-1983, I worked on the 
     personal staff of Delaware Congressman Tom Evans. Tom quickly 
     became something of a master at bringing together members 
     with widely divergent politics to accomplish something 
     important to the nation. I was amazed to see liberals join 
     with conservative forerunners of the tea party to support 
     legislation I suspected they would never have supported 
     without Tom serving as a catalyst.
       Among several of Tom's key legislative victories were 
     passage of the first Chrysler loan guarantee assistance bill 
     in 1979 and the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, co-authored 
     with Sen. John Chaffee.
       The Chrysler bill appeared dead on arrival with House 
     Republicans in 1979. But Evans, essentially acting as the 
     Republican floor manager of the measure, persuaded enough 
     conservatives and moderates to go along with President Jimmy 
     Carter's administration and pass the legislation.
       The legislation proved to be highly successful. The 
     automaker continued operations, paid off the loans that had 
     been guaranteed by U.S. taxpayers, and repaid $350 million to 
     the U.S. Treasury, rewarding taxpayers for the risk that was 
     taken.
       Another direct benefit for Delawareans was that the Newark 
     assembly plant remained open for 28 years.
       The Coastal Barrier Resources Act stopped federal subsidies 
     and assistance for the development of fragile coastal barrier 
     areas. The act was initially opposed by both Democratic and 
     Republican members of Congress,

[[Page 14051]]

     reflecting the opposition of major land developers. But 
     again, Tom persuaded enough House members to vote for the 
     measure, which, since its passage, has been estimated to save 
     U.S. taxpayers several billions while preserving priceless 
     natural resources.
       Recently, I asked Tom what made the Congresses in which he 
     served so much different than the Congress of today that took 
     Americans to the precipice of national default.
       He mentioned three factors:
       A willingness of individual members to put the needs of the 
     nation above their own personal ideologies.
       The ability of those members to respect different 
     philosophies, leading to productive dialogue.
       A firmly held belief that Congress was elected to address 
     the nation's problems with action rather than intransigence.
       The first phase of the debt ceiling debate is now over and 
     the nation's attention is shifting towards the 12-member 
     supercommittee charged with the enormous task of finding $1.5 
     trillion in debt reduction.
       I hope this panel's deliberations will be substantially 
     different than what we saw in Congress last month, when it 
     frequently appeared that a parliamentary brawl was about to 
     break out on the U.S. House floor.
       It would be great to see the dialogue between the six 
     Republicans and six Democrats guided by the kind of 
     principles that I've mentioned.
       Not only would a respectful and productive dialogue between 
     the parties do much to quell the nation's and financial 
     markets' fears about the ability of the political system to 
     see us through this current crisis, there's another more 
     paradoxical outcome that might well result.
       What I learned from my time with Tom Evans is that by 
     treating your colleagues with respect, grace, and dignity, 
     you often achieve much greater results than with the 
     ideologically pure, winner-take-all approach that pervades so 
     much of Congress today. There is much to be learned from the 
     recent past.

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