[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12368-S12369]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BUDGET AND PRIORITIES
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened with interest to the Senator
from Texas. He is always interesting in his presentations. During my
presentation, I will take issue with a number of the comments he has
made.
At the start, I want to indicate it is not, in my judgment, the case
that this issue of education has just recently been raised in recent
days. The last few days, certainly, have included a lot of references
to education by the President and by others, but going back to January
and February of this year, the President and Members of Congress on
this side of the aisle were pushing very hard for education changes
that we think would strengthen the school systems and strengthen
opportunity for education for all children in this country.
I want to speak more generally, first, and then I will address a
couple of those issues. I am enormously disappointed that we come to
the middle of October in this session of Congress, the 105th Congress,
and find that at the end of this long, arduous Congress, we have half a
dozen, maybe a dozen people somewhere in a room--Lord only knows where
the room is--negotiating a third to half of the Federal budget in
appropriations bills that the Congress didn't get completed.
First of all, in this year, the Congress passed no budget. It is the
first time, as I understand it, since 1974--no budget. The requirement
is that the Congress shall pass a budget by April 15. This Congress
didn't pass a budget. This Congress, by its inaction, said, no, we
don't think there ought to be a budget. That is No. 1.
No. 2, because the Congress didn't even bother to pass a budget, it
didn't pass a good number of its appropriations bills. So we came to
the end of the fiscal year, months after when the appropriations bills
should have been completed, many months after the budget should have
been passed, and the Congress had to pass a continuing resolution to
keep the government operating. Then we have this closed-door bunch of
folks in a room making deals on how to resolve these final issues.
During this Congress, at a time when no budget was enacted and a good
many appropriations bills were not completed, the Congress said no to
campaign finance reform, not once, not twice, a good number of times.
No, we don't want to do campaign finance reform. They said, no, we
don't want to do HMO or a Patients' Bill of Rights reforming the
managed care system and providing certain rights to patients in this
country. They said no to tobacco reform, don't want to do that; no to
the education proposals offered in the President's budget calling for
reduction in class size.
Incidentally, I take issue with the charts used moments ago, and I
guess most parents who have kids in school will take issue with that
chart, suggesting somehow that classroom sizes are decreasing rather
than increasing. I think most parents understand that is not the case
in their schools. It is not unusual for kids to be going to school with
22, 24, 28, 30 children in their class. The question is, Does that make
a difference? Does it make a difference for a teacher when there are 15
in the class versus 30 in the class? Does it make a difference in terms
of the personal attention a teacher can devote to children with 30 kids
in a class versus 15 to 18? The answer is, of course.
This Congress, in passing no budget and missing most of its
appropriations bill, said no to campaign finance reform, no to tobacco,
no to Patients' Bill of Rights, no to the education proposal offered by
the President on school construction and reduction in class size.
In the old western movies you will recall the folks that rode
themselves into a box canyon, took their hat off and scratched their
heads wondering why they were being attacked on all sides. Because they
road into a boxed canyon is why they are under attack. That is exactly
what happened in this Congress.
Is it surprising that a Congress that doesn't pass a budget and
doesn't finish its appropriations bills finds itself today, on Monday,
October 12, in a situation where we are scrambling, trying to figure
out who is doing what with whom, to determine what kind of spending we
have in dozens and dozens and dozens of areas? Does it surprise anybody
we have this kind of a mess at the end of this session? I don't think
so.
The previous speaker just spoke of a robbery. He used the term
``robbery'' to describe the amount of money that some are proposing to
be offered to deal with certain education issues. I personally think it
is a significant and exciting and wonderful investment in the young
children of our country to invest in education. That is not a robbery.
That is a remarkably effective investment for this country.
Investment in health care is not a robbery. That is a remarkable
investment for the people of this country.
How about for family farmers? Part of this debate is what we do for
family farmers in the middle of a farm crisis. No one should think that
would be a robbery, to take some funds during the middle of a farm
crisis and say to family farmers when prices collapse and you are down
and out, we want to give you a helping hand to help you up and help get
you through this tough time. That is the issue here. The issue is what
are our priorities?
Let me give an example of a robbery. Yes, there are robberies taking
place. I understand there is a tax extender bill that some in Congress
are trying to slip in, another $500 million little tax incentive for
some of the biggest economic interests to move their jobs overseas,
make it a little sweeter deal. We have a perverse incentive in our Tax
Code to say if you want to move American jobs overseas, we will pay you
for it, we will give you a tax break. Just take those good old American
jobs, shut your plants, move them overseas, and we will give you a tax
break. Talk about perversity. We have people working to try to juice
that up, increase the tax break. That is a robbery. It robs America of
jobs it needs, it robs us of the revenue we ought to have to invest in
kids and invest in health care.
The point is, priorities. What are our priorities? What do we think
is important? At the start of this century, if you lived in America you
were expected to live an average of 48 years of age. Almost 100 years
have elapsed and now if you live in this country you are expected,
perhaps, to live to be 78. Forty-eight to 78--30 years added to the
lifespan of the average American. Is that success? Yes, I think so. You
could solve all the Social Security problems and all the Medicare
problems, all the financing of those issues could be solved if you
simply take the life expectancy back to the 1940s or the 1920s or the
1900s. However, for a range of reasons, life expectancy has increased
dramatically in our country in one century.
We have invested an enormous amount in health care research, National
Institutes of Health. I am one, and some of my colleagues have joined
me, who wants to increase the investment in health research. We know 50
years ago if someone had a bad heart, bad knee, bad hip or cataracts,
they wouldn't be able to see, they wouldn't be able to walk, and they
would probably die after a heart attack. Now they have knee surgery,
get a new hip, get their heart muscle and arteries unplugged, have
cataract surgery, and they come to a meeting in that small
[[Page S12369]]
town and feel like a million dollars. All of that is possible because
of research, an expenditure in health care in this country. It is
remarkable. It has been remarkably effective. The same is true with
education.
My colleague from Illinois is going to follow me on the floor. He
will remember--and I have told my colleagues this on previous
occasions--he will remember Claude Pepper, who served with us in the
U.S. House. The first time I went to Claude Pepper's office, I saw two
pictures behind his chair. One was Orville and Wilbur Wright making the
first airplane flight; it was autographed to Claude Pepper. Orville
autographed the picture before he died. And then a photograph of Neil
Armstrong standing on the moon, and that photograph was autographed to
Congressman Pepper.
I thought, what is the interval between leaving the ground to fly,
and flying to the moon? What is that interval? It is the most
remarkable investment in human potential and in education compared to
anywhere else on Earth. All of the kids that went to our school, that
became the best scientists, the best engineers, the best at whatever
they could be the best at, and we discovered we could develop the
technology, through research, to learn how to fly, learn how to fly all
the way to the moon. And standing on everyone's shoulders with
accomplishment after accomplishment, we have now understood that
virtually anything is possible. That comes from massive investment in
education. That is what the interval in the two pictures told me--that
investing in America's children in education has paid dividends far
beyond our wildest imagination.
That is why I come here today.
Let me make one additional point with respect to family farmers. I
have talked about investment in health care and education. Investment
in America's family farmers is also one of the best investments our
country has ever made. We have the best food in the world for the
lowest percent of disposable income anywhere on the Earth. Who produces
that food? A lot of families living out there in the country, by
themselves, taking risks that almost no one else takes--the risk that
they might lose everything they have, this spring, this summer, this
fall if a seed doesn't grow, or if a seed grows and is destroyed by
nature, or if it grows and is not destroyed and they harvest it and
take it to the elevator and it is worth nothing. These family farmers
just inherit, by the nature of what they do, the most significant risk
you can imagine.
That is why this country, for 60 or 70 years, has said we want to try
to help farmers when we have these price depressions, we want to build
a bridge to help them over the price valleys. That is what this fight
has been about in recent days here in Congress. That is what the
President's veto is about--about trying to get this country to say,
during a time of severe crisis in family farming, during a time of
abject price collapse, where the price of wheat has gone down 60
percent in 2 years--our farmers in North Dakota have lost 98 percent of
their income in 1 year alone. Ask yourself, in any city, on any block,
any occupation, what would happen to you if you lost 98 percent of your
income? Would you be in a severe crisis? Despite that, what do we do
about that? Can we extend a helping hand? Can we say, during these
tough times, that we want to help you over this valley because we want
you in our future?
Family farmers matter to this country. If we lose family farmers, we
will have lost something about ourselves that is very important--broad-
based economic ownership, with families living on the land and
producing America's foodstuffs. That is what the fight is about. I am
not saying one side is all right and the other side is all wrong. But I
am saying to those who say that farmers aren't worth it at this point,
just let them float in some mythical free market, that we just don't
have the money, or those who perhaps would say if you use the money to
save family farmers, it is ``robbery''--I don't understand that.
This, after all, is about priorities. What are our priorities? What
is important to us? A hundred years from now, everybody in this room
will likely be dead. The only way anybody might determine about our
value system as a people is to look at how we chose to spend our
resources. What did we think was important? Education? Family farmers?
Did we think it was important to deal with health care? What were our
priorities?
President Clinton, at the start of this year, asked for the education
priorities dealing with school construction and class size. He asked,
at the start of this year, to deal with health care issues--Medicare,
managed care, and the Patients' Bill of Rights. He asked, at the start
of this year, for a tobacco reform bill. He asked, at the start of this
year, for campaign finance reform.
Sadly, we now come to the 12th hour and we have a bunch of folks
sitting in a room somewhere trying to negotiate probably a third of the
Federal budget, or a third of the Federal spending, by themselves. I
just think that is a terrible way for Congress to conduct its affairs.
My hope is that when all of these fights are done and the dust has
settled, we will have achieved a result that says the priorities for us
at this point are to try to save family farmers during a time of
crisis, the priorities for us are to invest in our kids and our
schools, and the priorities for us are to decide that, in the future,
we ought to do our work in Congress the way the law describes. Let's
pass a budget, pass some bills, do the regular order, and not end up
another session the way this session appears to be ending.
Mr. President, I know that the Senator from Illinois is waiting to
speak. Let me also say, as I conclude, that the Senator from Illinois
has been very active on the issue of tobacco legislation, as well as
education issues. I think he has been a remarkably effective addition
to the U.S. Senate. It has been my pleasure to serve with him in the
105th Congress.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the
Senate for 20 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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