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“DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--MOTION TO PROCEED” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S18781-S18784 on Dec. 16, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 2127, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 2127) making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other purposes.
The Senate resumed consideration of the motion.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am sorry that we find ourselves in this present situation. I had thought that we could have worked out an agreement on Labor-HHS appropriations, whereby we would not be faced, again, with another cloture vote on it, but that we could have agreed to have brought up the bill and perhaps even passed it by voice vote.
There have been, I know, a lot of discussions. I know my colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, who is the chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor and Health and Human Services, has been working very diligently to try to get an arrangement whereby we might bring this bill up and expeditiously move it so we can get together with the House and try to work out our differences.
This is an important bill. It is the second largest appropriations bill, second only to defense. It covers not only all of the Department of Labor, job training programs, but it also covers education, all the education programs--everything from title I to college student aid. It covers Health and Human Services, everything from Head Start to funds for the operation of the Social Security system and Medicaid, plus a lot of related agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and biomedical research. Yet, this bill languishes because of the determination of a few to attach riders to it, riders that have no business being on Labor-HHS, riders which should be brought up in the context of an authorization and not an appropriations bill.
Now I note for the Record, Mr. President, that other riders that have been put on other appropriations bills have been taken off, clearing them for approval to be acted on and sent down to the President. I will just mention three. The Treasury-Postal appropriations conference agreement, they dropped their effort to attach the so-called Istook antilobbying rider. Once this was taken off, it cleared the bill for approval and was sent down to the President. Also, there was agreement on a compromise on the abortion rider on the Defense appropriations conference report, which cleared for approval for both Houses and was sent to the President. I might point out they dropped all 17 House-approved EPA riders on the HUD-VA conference agreement. It passed and was sent on to the President.
I know people attach these riders for well-intentioned purposes. They have a philosophy or a view or something they want to attain, but quite frankly all of these riders that were dropped appropriately belong not on appropriations bills, and cooler heads prevailed, they were dropped, and the bills went through. There is a rider on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that cannot pass the Senate. Three times this year it was brought up, and it could not get enough votes for cloture and there are not enough votes for cloture. That is the so-called striker replacement provision.
This side, I might say, earlier on was unable to pass last year, when the Democrats were in the majority, the striker replacement bill that would have prohibited companies, employers, from permanently replacing strikers if it was a legitimate, legal strike. We were unable to get that through.
This year, the President of the United States decided, using his constitutional authority--and I do not think anyone has challenged that he does not have the legal authority to do it--implemented a policy at the Executive level that said that the U.S. Government, the Federal Government, would not engage in contracts or renew contracts with those entities doing business with the Federal Government if they did engage in permanent replacement strikers. That was challenged in the court. The court upheld the President.
Now there is an attempt by some to overturn that, to say that, no, the President cannot do that, and that is what the rider is on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We had three votes on it this year. We had one vote on the first rescission bill, and we have had two on this bill, on the Labor HHS bill. Both times it did not have sufficient votes to provide for a cloture.
You do not have to take my word for it; you can take the word of the distinguished majority leader. I will quote from the Congressional Record of September 29, 1995, when we tried to get the bill through before the end of the fiscal year. Senator Dole said:
I talked with the leader about this bill, and we do waste time periodically in the Senate, but this is a total waste of time to continue on these two bills because they are not going anywhere. I know some want to make a point. I agree with the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Iowa that we ought to pass that bill on a voice vote. We cannot get cloture. There were two votes, 54-46, party-line votes. My view is we ought to do it, pass it, and find out what happens in the veto in the next round.
I agree with Senator Dole that that is what we should have done, that we agree to take off that rider that they have on it, as others have done on other appropriations bills. I know there are some that want to have a debate and a vote on one or two abortion amendments. I think we can work that out with a time agreement, have a vote on the Senate floor, and move it out. So what we are engaged in now with this motion to proceed is just another waste of time. There will be a vote on Monday or Tuesday, whenever the vote is called by the majority leader, and they will not get cloture. It is a forgone conclusion. They will not get cloture, and we are right back where we started from.
It is a shame we have to waste more time of the Senate and go through this exercise again. If cooler heads would just prevail and take that rider off, we could bring the bill out under a time agreement and probably get the bill passed within an hour and then sit down with the House and try to iron out our differences in conference.
Mr. President, I was prepared to come to the floor to ask unanimous consent to proceed to H.R. 2127, the Labor-HHS appropriations bill, and to have it go through on a voice vote pursuant to what Senator Dole said on September 29. However, I am aware there is no one on the other side to object to my unanimous-consent proposal, so I will not offer that unanimous-consent in keeping with the comity of the Senate. Perhaps when we come back Monday and there are people, I may propound it again at that time, only again to show there is no objection on this side to bringing up the Labor-HHS bill and passing it by a voice vote as long as that rider is taken off. If that rider is taken off, there is not one objection on this side to bringing up the bill and quickly disposing of it.
I wanted to take the floor to make that point in the hope that those who have that rider on the bill will listen to the majority leader and listen to Senator Specter if they do not want to listen to me and take that rider off, and we can get this very important bill passed before we, hopefully, go home for Christmas.
Lastly, Mr. President, not in keeping with this bill--I guess it is somewhat in keeping with this bill--we are right now in a shutdown of the Government. There are those that work for the Federal Government that are now not going to work today and tomorrow, and I hope by Monday we will at least get a continuing resolution to put us through maybe February. It is a shame we have to do this. I hope that this weekend the President of the United States would exercise his authority under the law to provide funding for the Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance Program.
Mr. President, last year this Congress, Republicans and Democrats, appropriated $1.3 billion to provide some assistance for low-income people to heat their homes during the winter. It passed with Republican and Democrat support. It was not a partisan issue at all. Also, earlier this year, Republicans and Democrats, working together, provided for a rescission. We rescinded $300 million of that $1.3 billion. But it still left $1 billion in there to help low-income people heat their homes in the winter.
Because we have been under a continuing resolution, that money has been held up. We have not been able to get the money out for the Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
Mr. President, I want you to know that people in Iowa, people all across the northern part of this country, have endured a very severe winter thus far. There are people in our northern States who are now really deciding whether they are going to buy some fuel or whether they are going to buy food or pay for their prescription drugs.
As Senator Wellstone has so eloquently stated many times here, including yesterday--and I know he cannot be here today, he is on his way to Minnesota--as he pointed out, there are people right now in his State, and I know in my State and I know in a lot of northern States, living in one room of their homes. They have the oven on, because they are trying to cut down on their fuel bills because they do not have the money to pay them.
I know in some States, the State authorities that put out the money for low-income heating assistance are saying they only have enough money to put it out in a crisis situation, and that is if an elderly person or low-income person has been notified that they are going to get cut off.
Mr. President, 80 percent of the money we put into LIHEAP, the Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program, 80 percent of it goes to people with incomes of less than $8,000 a year; less than $8,000 a year. In my own State of Iowa there are elderly people living alone in small houses, in small towns--mostly women, elderly women--whose total income is $4,500, $5,000, $6,000 a year on Social Security. That is all they have. Now they are being forced to decide how they are going to pay their heating bills with a very cold winter upon us.
We have a window of opportunity. The President of the United States has a window of opportunity. Since there is not a continuing resolution, we now fall back under the old law. The old law provided
$1.3 billion. As I said, we rescinded $300 million. There is roughly close to a billion dollars out there that needs to be put out for low-
income heating. I am calling on the President, and I hope the President will as soon as possible get that money out. It has been appropriated. We appropriated the money last year. There is no reason to hold it up any longer.
I am informed that as of this time, as of January of last year, about 90 percent of the money appropriated for last year was put out. We are not anywhere even near that now. We are not even anywhere near 30 percent of the money being put out. Yet this is the time when people need that money.
So I hope the President will exercise his authority and get that money out as soon as possible, this weekend. It is an opportunity, I think, for us to show, however bad this budget may seem to a lot of people, there are still a number of people here who care about ensuring that low-income and elderly people, especially, have enough money to heat their homes in the winter.
I do not put this in a partisan context. Mr. President, 53 Senators signed a letter to the President on this very issue of getting the money out, and there were Republicans and Democrats on that letter. So I do not see it as a partisan issue, I see it as just a humane issue, an issue of decency and compassion. We ought to get this money out as soon as possible. So I hope the President of the United States will take this opportunity. It is sad to think we have to do something like this during a period of time when the Government is shut down, but we must take this period of time right now and get that money out so people can heat their homes.
Lastly, I came across an interesting document earlier today, this piece of paper. I was on a radio show this morning with a small radio station in Iowa, Webster City, IA. There were a number of questions, people calling in asking, ``Why is the Government shutting down again? Why are we going through this again?''
I have to tell you, maybe I am a little chauvinistic about this, but I happen to think my constituents, Iowans, are pretty reasonable people. They are pretty smart and they have a lot of common sense. One of the callers said, ``You had this last shutdown but the people got paid anyway?''
I said ``Yes.''
He said, ``What is the purpose of it, then?''
I said, ``You tell me. I cannot tell you.''
He said, ``Will the same thing happen now? If the Government is shut down, will these people get paid again?''
I said, ``I suppose so. They are going to get paid. We are going to shut down but they will get paid anyway.''
What is the purpose of it? It makes no sense to Iowans and makes no sense to me. Perhaps with this piece of paper I came across today, maybe it starts to make sense. This is a piece of paper dated November 29, 1 p.m. It is called--it has a title on it, ``Building An Effective Government We Can Afford. Government Shutdown Project.'' That is how it is titled.
I am told this piece of paper came from the Republican Caucus--
conference on the House side. It came from the leadership, from Congressman Gingrich's office: November 29. It says, ``Government Shutdown Project.'' This is November 29. Listen to this. The goal:
``Hold effective hearings, press conferences and communication opportunities between December 4-13 to demonstrate mismanagement, politicization of government shutdown or to expose waste in government functions that was evidenced by government shutdown. (see themes below)''
Here are the themes they say. Here are the ``themes.''
Clinton politicized the shutdown--harming people unnecessarily.
Clinton is fighting to protect big government and the status quo.
Shutdown exposed Government functions that are wasteful and unnecessary.
And then they have the hearings here: ``Committee, chairman, date, topic.'' Here is activity one: ``Hearing, Government Reform Subcommittee on Civil Service. Chairman: Mica. Date: 12/6. Topic: Mismanagement of shutdown.''
Here is the next, ``Hearing, Government Reform Subcommittee on National Economic Growth. Chairman: McIntosh. Date: 12/7 or 8. Topic: Rubin''--meaning Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Rubin--``scare tactics and raiding trust funds.''
On and on. I could read the whole thing.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed in its entirety at this point in the Record so people can read it.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Building an Effective Government We Can Afford
government shutdown project
Goal
Hold effective hearings, press conferences and communication opportunities between December 4-13 to demonstrate mismanagement, politicization of government shutdown or to expose waste in government functions that was evidenced by government shutdown. (see themes below)Themes
Clinton politicized the shutdown--harming people unnecessarily.
Clinton is fighting to protect big government and the status quo.
Shutdown exposed Government functions that are wasteful and unnecessary.
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Activity Committee Chairman Date Topic
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Hearings scheduled to date:
Hearing..................... Government Reform Mica.............. Dec. 6............ Mismanagement of
Subcommittee on shutdown.
Civil Service.
Hearing..................... Government Reform McIntosh.......... Dec. 7 or 8....... Rubin--scare
Subcommittee on tactics and
National Economic raiding trust
Growth. funds.
Hearing..................... Resources......... Young............. To be announced... Closing of parks versus Symington proposal.
Hearing (under Banking Bachus............ Dec. 13........... Raiding trust consideration). Subcommittee on funds--Reich
Oversight. versus Rubin. Other activities:
Letter to HUD............... Banking Lazio............. Sent on Nov. 27... Mismanagement of
Subcommittee on shutdown at HUD.
Housing.
Letter to Labor............. Opportunities..... Goodling, Nov. 28 (expected) Unknown.
Ballenger,
Hoekstra.
Letter to Labor............. Government Reform. Clinger........... Sent on Nov. 28... Document request:
Notices sent to affiliated constituencies of
Labor (i.e. lobbying) re: shutdown.
GAO investigation........... Ways and Means.... Archer............ Unknown........... Monitor legality of Rubin actions.
Letter to Rubin............. JEC............... Saxton [and Armey] Sent on Nov. 17... Document request re: raiding trust
funds.
Talking points.............. Republican Boehner........... Dec. 4............ Politicization of
Conference. shutdown.
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Mr. HARKIN. So, I think this paper makes it clear why we are in a Government shutdown. This was by design, by the Speaker of the House. This is dated November 29. ``Hold effective hearings, press conferences and communication opportunities between December 4-13.'' They did not want to reach an agreement. This is all a plan and a scheme to make this a political issue. That is sad.
I wish I had this this morning when I was on the radio. I did not have it then. If I had, I would have read it on the radio this morning to my constituents in Iowa, saying, ``Here is a piece of paper from the Speaker's office dated November 29, saying that their plan is to shut down the Government on December 15, and here is how you get ready for it. You have all these hearings and you have all these meetings and here is how you discuss it. It is all laid out there.''
I suppose maybe he did not figure anybody would get a hold of this piece of paper. Once again, it shows you, in Washington, if you put something on a piece of paper someone is going to get a hold of it that you did not want to get a hold of it.
So, Mr. President, there is only one reason why we are in a Government shutdown and that is because the Speaker of the House and his people over there, his allies over there, have decided that they want to do this to create a crisis, to create chaos, to create a disturbance, because Mr. Gingrich says he is leading a revolution, leading a revolution.
I did not get a chance to read much of the paper this morning but I did read a little part of the paper in which Mr. Gingrich is saying something--in the Post this morning he said something like: Well, this is like 1933. It is a revolution like 1933, he said.
Well, first of all, I think the Speaker has an overinflated view of himself as a historic person, first.
Second, how can he possibly compare himself to Franklin Roosevelt, or compare what they are doing to government to what we did in 1933? The Speaker said, ``This is a historic moment, a moment fully as important as 1933.''
Mr. President, this is a moment when we decide what we are about as a nation and where we want to go. It is a moment where we choose whether we want America to move forward, or to turn it back before 1933.
So, Mr. Gingrich is right in one respect. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt looked at the United States of America, and he said, ``I see a country one-third ill housed, one-third ill clothed, and one-third ill fed.''
Now, if that was Mr. Gingrich in 1933, he would have said, ``I see an America where two-thirds of the people are well fed, two-thirds are well clothed, and two-thirds are well housed,'' ignoring the third that were being left out of our system. There is a difference between Mr. Gingrich's philosophy and Franklin Roosevelt's.
Franklin Roosevelt and that Congress decided never again--that we were going to change government to provide that ladder of opportunity for people at the bottom as well as the people at the top. How can Mr. Gingrich, how can the Speaker of the House, in any way compare his philosophy or what he is trying to do to what Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933? I am incredulous. Rather, what the Speaker is trying to do is to undo everything that he did to make this country a little bit more fair, a little bit more just, and a little bit more compassionate.
So, yes, we do have kind of a historic moment right now. Are we going to say that everything we have done to build a ladder of opportunity for people at the bottom we are going to take away; that what we did to provide for decency for the elderly in Medicare and Social Security, we are going to take that away, and turn it back to what it was before 1933?
We have to decide whether it is right to take $270 billion out of Medicare for our elderly without mounting a real attack on the waste, fraud, and abuse that is rampant in the system--that every senior knows about but we cannot seem to attack.
It is a moment when we decide whether to raise taxes on working families and tell them, ``We are not going to only raise your taxes, but we are going to cut your Medicaid, and now you are going to have to pay for your parents' or grandparents' nursing home, too.''
It is a moment when we decide whether it is responsible to make it harder for students to go to college and easier for companies to take their jobs overseas.
It is a moment when we decide whether we are going to scrap the direct loan program for students, or whether we are going to let the banks have a nice, cushy deal and make billions of dollars in interest.
It is a moment when we decide whether we are going to cut our investment in education and training and give billions more to the Pentagon, more than they have ever asked for.
It is a moment when we decide whether we are going to pull the rug out from under family farmers in rural communities and stick them with a farm bill that I call a Welcome to Welfare Act.
So, yes, it is a historic moment. It is a historic moment. It is nothing like 1933, though, because what we are doing here is we are turning--if we adopt this budget that the Speaker of the House has come up with, if we adopt that budget, we are turning our backs on progress in America.
I swear--some people ask me a lot of times, ``What does Mr. Gingrich really want? What kind of America is he looking at?'' I swear that he will not be satisfied until we have an America that looks like a Third World country where a few rich are at the top and everybody else is at the bottom where there is no way for the people at the bottom to get to the top.
I have always believed, Mr. President, because of my background, that in America you ought to be a success. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with making money in this country. There is nothing wrong with being rich. I do not begrudge Bill Gates with billions of dollars. Look what he has done. There is nothing wrong with that. That is the American dream.
But I have always believed, Mr. President, that when you make it to the top, when Bill Gates makes it to the top, or if I make it to the top, that one of the primary responsibilities of government is to make sure that we leave the ladder down there for others and that we do not pull it up behind us.
This budget proposal that has come to us from the House of Representatives allows those who get to the top to pull that ladder up behind them. It not only allows them to do it, but it encourages them to do it with the aid and the assistance of the Federal Government.
Mind you, Mr. President, I said, a ``ladder of opportunity.'' I have always believed in that. I did not say escalator. I did not say something that someone can get on and get a free ride up. I said a ladder, because with a ladder you still have to exert some work to get to the top. But the structure is there.
When you take away that structure of prenatal care, the Head Start Program, college student loans, and you take away Medicaid that is going to help the elderly pay for the nursing home bills, and when you cut Medicare and make the elderly pay for their monthly premiums when they do not have it, when you cut out the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program for people that make less than $8,000 a year, and when you turn right around and give more tax benefits to corporations and you do not go after corporate welfare in this country, more tax benefits to those who already have a lot, when 30 percent of the tax relief in the Mr. Gingrich's budget goes to people making over $100,000 a year, when in that budget families making less than $30,000 a year pay more in taxes--when you do that, you are pulling away the ladder. You are destroying the structure that allows people who start at the bottom to get to the top.
So, yes, I believe in that American dream. I believe that people ought to be a success. But I am not going to stand here or be a part of the Senate without raising my voice and casting my vote against any budget that would take that American dream away for future generations on the bottom rung of the ladder. And that is as I see this budget.
So, I close my remarks, Mr. President, by saying that I think the Speaker of the House really ought to examine what happened in 1933 and take a look at what kind of a historic figure Franklin Roosevelt really is and what he did for this country to move it ahead out of the dark ages of the past and to provide that ladder of opportunity for families like mine.
If Mr. Gingrich looks at that and is indeed honest with himself, then he will see that what he is about is undoing all of that and turning us back to where we were before. But maybe that is what he wants. Maybe that is what Mr. Gingrich wants to do. Well, if so, that is his political philosophy.
I do not want to turn this country back, and I do not want to take away that ladder of opportunity. I hope that more reasonable Members on the other side of the aisle, both in this body and in the House, will come to a reasonable bipartisan conclusion--that, yes, we need to balance the budget but not just do it on the backs of those on the bottom rung of the ladder.
I believe if we work together in a spirit of compromise, We can get it done and we can get out of here for Christmas. But if Mr. Gingrich proceeds with this plan of his in shutting down the Government, well, then it looks like we might be here over Christmas and New Year's, too. If that is what it takes, I am prepared to stay here. If that is what it takes to stop this folly that the Speaker of the House is trying to inflict upon the American people, well, then I guess we will have to stay here.
Mr. President, I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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