John Ashcroft

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. So the bonus would be to the next generation by having lower debt instead of a bonus being to politicians to have bigger spending?

Mr. ASHCROFT. That will be when we reduce the spending on the floor as a result of an amendment; instead of that money automatically just being diverted to other spending, it would go into a special category which could only be used to reduce the deficit?

Mr. ASHCROFT. It seems to me that some of the rules of industry ought to apply. One of the great rules of industry is that your system is designed to give you what you are getting. It may not be designed to give you what you wanted to get, but it is designed to give you what you are getting. We have been getting a lot of debt and maybe it is because we need to redesign the structure.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor the Ernest and Margie Eaton of Clinton, MO, who on March 3 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. Ernest and Margie's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor the Reverend and Mrs. Ernie Berquist of Springfield, MO, who on February 28 celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. The Berquists commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Woodrow and Billie Dove Jackson who on February 23 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. The Jackson's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor William and Stella Lettman who on February 14 celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. The Lettman's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Mr. and Mrs. Albert Moore who on February 24 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. The Moore's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. It is a matter of interest and of concern to hear questions raised about the business of the Senate. We have much business to conduct. I should just point out that if we are worried about the cost of interest or worried about the finances of this country, if we are worried about the financial well-being of America, the full faith and credit of the United States, nothing could be more important than balancing the budget and moving this country in a fiscally responsible way toward accountability. We must cease the practice of displacing to the next generation the responsibility of paying for the programs to which we seem addicted. We have spent a year working hard to try to do that. It is a little bit troublesome to hear individuals from the other side of the aisle suggest that the work has not been hard. It has been very hard. Last year, we voted well over 600 times. In the first 5 years of this decade we voted about 320 times on an average per year. I think if we really care about the future of this country, if we really care about interest rates, we will balance the budget. We will enact an amendment which will structurally require us to balance the budget and the full faith and credit of the United States will not be dependent upon the activities of the Senate and the House. They will be guaranteed by the structure of the Government which we have. I believe that if we are concerned about the debt limit, we ought to take the steps necessary to make sure we do not unreasonably incur debt and that we do not irresponsibly continue to displace the costs of those things which we seek to have to the next generation. I am perfectly willing to work hard and to stay late, and I believe we all are and we all ought to be. But we all ought also to work in good faith. When we see a bill like the farm bill come up and we see a threatened filibuster and several hundreds of amendments proposed, with a view toward making it difficult to pass and enact the measure, I think those who are concerned about the way in which we spend our time here ought to speak clearly in those instances as well. Because when we have filibustering, whether it be done formally through time spent speaking in the Chamber or through efforts to delay passage of legislation merely by proposing redundant amendments which have nothing to do with the legislation, sense-of-the-Senate amendments that are not really germane to our activities, those also impair our progress. So I do believe that we have a great job to do. I think we have to be realistic about doing it. We have to be consistent in working toward it. We have to understand if we are, indeed, worried about the cost of interest and the cost of capital in this country and what it does to our citizens, we should understand that balancing the budget of the United States would very likely reduce the average cost of housing in this country to families by a couple thousand dollars a year, and reduce the average cost of a car loan by $1,000 or more. That is important. That can happen by balancing the budget. So we ought to do our work. There are tasks that have been left undone, and we must focus on them. I am eager to get them done. I rise today to point out one of those tasks which remains undone. This task does not remain undone, however, because the Congress has failed to act. The task of welfare reform remains undone because the President of the United States has vetoed the work product of the Congress, and has preferred the status quo, a rather bankrupt welfare system, the tragedy of which is to be measured most importantly in human lives and human costs, not in terms of the actual resources in dollars and cents, although they are not inconsequential. At the time our Republic was coming into existence, Madison envisioned, in Federalist Paper No. 57, a Congress ``with a habitual recollection of their dependence on the people.'' He wanted Government to be dependent on the people. I am afraid we have inverted that. We have people who are now dependent upon Government. And perhaps today's business in the agricultural area was a clear indication of that-- farmers who clearly would not know how to plant, could not understand whether the Government would allow them to plant or not allow them to plant until we passed a new agriculture bill. It is a shame that instead of having a Congress habitually aware of its dependence on the people, the people could not even do the most fundamental things that citizens are supposed to do without first looking to the Congress. I have to say that I was pleased that the agricultural act this year moves us away from that system of dependence. It is the freedom to farm act. It begins to say to individuals, ``Government will not be dictating when you plant, when you reap, whether you plant wheat or whether you plant corn, when you inhale, when you exhale. The Government does not want you dependent on Government.'' We need to have a farm program and a system of agriculture in America that initiates its activities based on the will, the desire, the creativity of individuals and the demands of the marketplace. So today we took a step away from dependence by the agricultural community on Government. We tried to take a step away from dependence by many people on Government with welfare reform, moving people from the dependence of welfare to the dignity of industry and work. The President of the United States vetoed that. It is a tremendous problem that our welfare system has encouraged dependence on Government. Welfare law has conditioned assistance on dependence and irresponsibility rather than promoting the virtues of work, independence, and integrity. We have sent the wrong message. We have said to individuals, ``No matter how irresponsible you are, we will continue your payments.'' As a matter of fact, it has been worse than that. We have said, ``The more irresponsible you are, the more children you bring into the world, children whom you cannot support, we will increase your payments.'' We have actually provided an incentive for irresponsibility. That has been a pernicious, negative impact of our welfare system that instead of moving us toward the value of independence, it has moved us deeper and deeper into the mire of dependence. The tragedy of dependence has not only been in the numerics of a budget that is out of control, in an entitlement system, it has been in the tally of individual lives, families and entire communities. When I served as chairman of the National Commission on American Urban Families in 1992, I went to some communities where 80 percent of the children were without fathers. That was shocking. But it was almost impossible to comprehend that in some neighborhoods children were born and raised who did not know a child with a father. In other words, in some of the neighborhoods in those communities, fatherhood was nonexistent. That is a tragedy. That is a consequence of a welfare system that demands reform, a welfare system which we sought to reform, and the reform of which would have changed it substantially to avoid and avert that human tragedy. But when the rescue was on the way, the reform was vetoed by the President of the United States. The number of individuals receiving AFDC has more than tripled--more than tripled--since 1965. The rescue program designed to assist people and lift them from poverty has mired them deeper and deeper in the mud. More than 3 million of 5 million welfare recipients will be on the rolls for more than 8 years. The average length of stay is 13 years. Programs designed to lift people and help them up have held them down. The hand up has become a web of dependency. You know, a net can either be used as a safety net or a snaring net. Unfortunately, the welfare system in the United States of America has been a net of snaring rather than a net of safety. Fifty percent of unwed teenage mothers receive welfare within 1 year of having a child. Children born into welfare families are three times more likely to be on welfare when they reach adulthood. This tragedy of a welfare system, which is uninterrupted and continues unreformed because the President of the United States has vetoed the work product of this Senate and of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a tragedy in no uncertain terms. Perhaps the tragedy is compounded in the way that interest compounds on debt--when you cannot pay the interest, you begin to pay interest on unpaid interest, and it snowballs. When you have a welfare system that is intergenerational, you have a snowballing impact of a welfare tragedy, the human cost of which is staggering. I give you an example. Ernesto Ventura, a 4-year-old child from the inner city of Boston, MA, was brutally abused and neglected by his mother. He is a third generation welfare recipient. His mother Clarabel was 26 years old and pregnant, a mother of six, by five different fathers--I should say men because I am not confident they were fathers. A crack addict, she sold food stamps and even the family's washing machine to get money to purchase drugs. One day Clarabel went into a rage and plunged Ernesto's arm into boiling water. He did not get any medical treatment until paramedics found him 3 weeks later in a back room of his project housing, smeared with his own blood and excrement. Ernesto's family is the story of an intergenerational web of welfare. It is not a web that is a safety net. It is a net of ensnarement. Fifteen great-grandchildren now comprise the fourth generation of this welfare web. The type of benefits received by the extended family are the alphabet soup of the acronyms of Washington--all perfectly legal, and just as perfectly destructive to the human spirit. They were designed to help, but seem to destroy the one fundamental ingredient in the recipe for recovery that is absent from our welfare system, and that is hope. Ernesto Ventura's grandmother Eulalia has 14 living children, virtually all of whom receive a variety of at least one form of welfare benefits from AFDC, SSI, food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing. This does not even count what the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and others receive. It is time for us to understand that we need to move welfare reform to the top of the agenda. We need to insist that the President reconsider his veto of the reform measure which would have dramatically changed this tragedy. Yes, it is a problem whenever we threaten the fiscal integrity and financial security of the United States. No question about it. There is a need for us to be fiscally responsible, financially accountable. But there is something even more tragic when we threaten the safety and security of the lives of individuals born in this, the greatest nation on Earth, but ensnared in a web of welfare, a net which was meant for safety but which becomes a net of entrapment. We need to replace the dehumanizing dependence of Government with the dignity of work and hope. It is clear that we have had a system for the last several decades which emphasizes debt instead of discipline; it has emphasized the dehumanizing dependence instead of the dignity of industry and work. It has provided for decadence instead of decency, and the real cost of our approach has been in human lives. Welfare reform would fundamentally redefine this culture. It is something about which we must be concerned immediately. From a culture of dependence, we must switch to a culture of dignity and hope. And dignity and hope come in the dignity and hope of work. We enacted a 5-year limit on benefits to say that welfare was a way of helping people up, but not of providing a career. The President vetoed our intentions. We said that there should be no entitlement that exists forever based on the ability of people to qualify, but instead we should give the States the opportunity to structure welfare reform plans which elicit from individuals the kind of behavior that would bring them out of welfare. That therapy was similarly vetoed by the President. We asked that there be a requirement for work and that people prepare themselves for work, that they develop in themselves the capacity to be productive, to lift themselves and their families out of the web of welfare dependency and out of the snare, the entrapping snare of the so-called net of safety, which has become a net of capture. And requiring work was vetoed by the President of the United States when he vetoed the welfare bill. We passed a welfare bill which confessed the fact that Government alone is very unlikely to be able to inspire people to the kind of ethics and values that will result in their rescue from the tragedy of welfare. We passed a bill that would invite charitable organizations to deliver services because the compassionate capacity of these organizations meets the deeper needs of individuals, and these organizations tend to view individuals not just as statistics who qualify for a governmental program, but as worthy human beings who have the potential of industry and the potential of opportunity and the potential of service to themselves and others. Our welfare reform measure included that, and that as well was vetoed by the President of the United States. We cannot allow the veto by the President of the United States to extinguish the flame of hope that is within us and needs to be rekindled across this Nation from county to county, city to city, State to State, a flame of hope that says we can do better than what we are doing. The wretched tragedy of the welfare system as it now exists is not something with which we must live. It is something which we can and ought to change. It is not simply a debate about restructuring a Government program. It is a debate about how we will save the opportunity for America to continue to reach its potential. It is a question about rescuing our children and our culture from tragedy. The human costs of what the welfare system has occasioned are beyond speaking, and the examples are hard to recite. But unless we confront them, we will never understand the desperate need we have to change the way in which we do business. Every day we fail to reform the welfare system, we are nourishing the seeds of cultural disaster in our country. We have the ingredients for reform in the bills which we have passed. I believe it is time again for us to act and to call upon the President to change his mind on welfare reform and to endorse a reform which will save a generation and provide an opportunity for security and success in this society in the next century. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Donald and Mattie Bell Weiss who on January 20 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and will renew their wedding vows. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. Don and Mattie's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, the business of the Senate has been consuming and demanding this year. The debate over the balanced budget amendment and the debate over the achievement of a budget which will protect the fiscal integrity of this country and bring us into balance in the next 7 years has been an important one and it is a necessary one. It has consumed much of our energy and the opportunity of this Senate. I think it is important for us to understand while this is a task which must compel and will compel our attention, it must not do so to the exclusion of another important agenda that is essential to the progress that the American people sent us here to make. The American people not only sent us here to protect the fiscal health and integrity of the economics of the United States of America, but they expect us to protect the physical health and the integrity of the people of America, in particular of the people who have been the victims of a welfare system the consequences of which have been tragic, to say the least. The welfare reform debate is not a debate about a revolution for a change. It is literally a debate about a revolution for survival. If we do not reform the welfare system there are going to be continuing numbers of individuals who simply will not survive in America because our welfare system not only dehumanizes and devalues them, but it literally threatens their continuing existence. The welfare reform debate is not just about change, it is about restoring hope, restoring dignity to the lives of individuals where hope and dignity have been destroyed. The missing ingredient in the current welfare system is the ingredient of hope, and the recipe for recovery must reinstitute hope. There is a structural problem with the current exclusively governmental system which precludes hope, which must exist if people are to get back on their feet. This is a matter of human survival and national sustenance and survivability. If our society is to be sustained, to survive to be successful in the next century, we must end the current welfare tragedy. It is tragic, indeed, that the Congress, which has acted to help end this tragedy, has been met with a Presidential tragedy: That is, the President has vetoed the effort of the Congress to stop this human cost of America's greatest tragedy, our welfare system. The President had the opportunity to reform the system but he vetoed it. Congress acted to stop rewarding illegitimacy, and the President vetoed it. Congress acted to stop penalizing marriage, undermining families, and the President vetoed it. Congress acted to stop the culture of entitlement, where individuals are conditioned to expect from Government rather than to work within themselves to solve problems, and the President vetoed it. The tragedy of our welfare system is borne out in the lives of the children of America, in the horror stories of opportunities that have been dashed, futures that have been destroyed. I will not burden you with a litany that is all too familiar, but I think of one of the children, little Ariel Hill, who was less than a year old when she died, weighing only 7 pounds at her death. Her mother was an addict sustained by a system which makes no judgment about behavior, but just continues to reinforce behavior regardless of its counterproductivity. Her mother, irritated with Ariel's crying one afternoon, scalded her in a sink of hot water. When the investigators came to the apartment after Ariel's death, they found a list of the children in the household and the amount of welfare that each child brought to the family. That is the tragedy of the welfare system where children, the most valuable resource of a society, develop a value only in the devaluing checks of an entitlement system. It is time we reform that system. We had an opportunity to do so and the President vetoed it. We cannot leave this task undone because the President vetoed welfare reform measures. We must proceed to change the system. Our system has been rewarding the wrong values. We have rewarded decadence--the out-of-wedlock birth rate has exploded from 5.3 percent in 1960 to 33 percent in 1995. That is up to 80 percent in some of the cities of this country. We need to replace that system, which values decadence and rewards it with checks, with a system that values and rewards decency. Our system has rewarded dependence. More than 3 million of the 5 million welfare recipients will be on the rolls for more than 8 years. The average length of time a person is on the welfare system is 13 years. It is a system that rewards dependence rather than discipline. It is time for our system to be changed. The opportunity that we had, and that we capitalized on to reform the system, would have substituted discipline for dependence. It is time for our system to reward discipline. We have established, as the way of operating in Government, a system of debt. We need to replace that system of debt with a system of dignity, of integrity, of paying for the things we consume rather than displacing the costs of what we consume to the next generation. But the devaluing system of welfare dependence and decadence has been a system which has driven the debt. We simply have to make a commitment within ourselves that we are not going to let this issue die. We are not going to walk away from the mandate of the American people to wage a war on poverty. We cannot leave in place a system that subsidizes decadence, that subsidizes dependence, that encourages debt--no. Our war on poverty will have to have a fundamental element of hope and will have to replace decadence with decency, replace dependence with integrity, independence and work, and replace debt with discipline. The welfare reform measure which Congress passed provided us with an opportunity to change our current system--an opportunity that was extinguished at the hand of a President who vetoed welfare reform. We must reform a system which is not only costing children in many cases their lives and their futures, but is undermining a set of values upon which this country must march forward. We must not turn our backs on this tragedy. We can ill afford to think that because there is a controversy on the budget that we can exclusively focus on it. We must address it. We must continue to be involved. But this war, this opportunity for change, cannot be confined to a single front. The budget is important, but we have an operation on the right, an operation on the left, and we have a revolution to wage in terms of rescuing what we believe is the greatest of all the cultures that have ever graced this planet, the free culture in the United States of America. We cannot turn our backs on the tragedy of welfare. So, today I rise, grateful for this opportunity to say we must look again to the responsibility that we have, to the call which we have received, to the demand which the American people are making upon us, to the expectation of this culture and to the duty we owe young people. It is a duty to protect, yes, their fiscal integrity and their financial futures, but it is also a duty to protect the very lives and the values and the potentials which they have. When we subsidize decadence as opposed to decency, when we subsidize debt as opposed to dignity, and when we subsidize dependence as opposed to integrity and industry, I believe we have to change that system and change it dramatically. So, I thank you, Mr. President, for this opportunity to speak, to remind the U.S. Senate that its obligation is substantial, its opportunity is significant, and the consequences of inaction could be as tragic as the system which is the status quo, because, unless we act to reform and to change it, we will have to live with it. And living with it has had deadly consequences. Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, these are trying times for the family in America. Unfortunately, too many broken homes have become part of our national culture. It is tragic that nearly half of all couples married today will see their union dissolve into divorce. The effects of divorce on families and particularly the children of broken families are devastating. In such an era, I believe it is both instructive and important to honor those who have taken the commitment of ``til death us do part'' seriously and have successfully demonstrated the timeless principles of love, honor, and fidelity, to build a strong family. These qualities make our country strong. For these important reasons, I rise today to honor Raymond and Charlene Ollison who on February 2 are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and will renew their wedding vows. My wife, Janet, and I look forward to the day we can celebrate a similar milestone. Raymond and Charlene's commitment to the principles and values of their marriage deserves to be saluted and recognized. I wish them and their family all the best as they celebrate this substantial marker on their journey together.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, today I rise to salute the tireless efforts of a Missourian who has worked and given of his time, and himself for one of our country's most precious resource, our libraries. The Mid-Continent Public Libraries serve Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties in the Kansas City, MO, area and provide a valuable service to the community. Lauzon Maxwell was selected as building manager for the Mid-Continent Public Libraries in 1985, after the library was given authority to oversee its own building projects. In the next 8 years, Mr. Maxwell oversaw the task of building and remodeling 25 facilities, many times having between three and five projects under construction at the same time. Most projects were completed under budget. These projects translated into an additional four branch libraries, four expanded buildings, and a warehouse for the Mid-Continent Library system totaling an additional 381,769 square feet of new or remodeled facilities between 1985-95. Through his hard work and leadership in the Mid-Continent Library's expansion project, the libraries have provided better library services to their clientele in the Kansas City area. Our libraries are an investment in our communities, and the outstanding services of Mid- Continent Libraries are a credit to their communities. I commend Lauzon Maxwell for his outstanding service and dedication in the leadership of the building projects of the libraries of Kansas City. They are noteworthy and exemplary.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to the life of Dr. Richard Halverson. To many in this body, he was a spiritual leader. To others, he was a counselor. To me, he was both of those and he was also a friend. I got to know Dick Halverson when he responded to my pleas for help with the Missouri Prayer Breakfast. Despite his hectic schedule, he helped and encouraged me in developing the Missouri Governor's Student Leadership Conference on Faith and Values in Leadership. His display of kindness and love was remarkable. Even more remarkable, however, was that this was not remarkable--it was just the way Dick was. Dick's legacy will be a lasting one. Words written during his life endure and will serve as inspirational challenges not only to us, but to those yet to be born. A family nurtured by this father, husband, and grandfather will bear a continuing witness to his love. And the countless lives that he touched and influenced and saved help make this world a better place and heaven a more crowded place. What is the measure of man's life? Richard Halverson knew the answer. A man's life is measured by how much he loves God and how deeply he cares for those that God has put around him. Dick's life was a full one--measured great by any standard of earthly success--counted great by the one opinion that counts. For Dick lived life and lived it abundantly, knowing what was important and what was not. I will miss Dick, but I will also rejoice at all God did through him.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I appreciate the debate that has been undertaken here in the U.S. Senate and the remarks of individuals who are sincere on both sides of this question. I do think, however, that in characterizing the resolutions upon which we will be voting, it is important to understand the wording of the resolutions and to take them for their face value. The distinguished senior Senator from Georgia has sought to characterize the resolution of Senators Hutchison and Inhofe as being one which would not signal to the troops that we really support them. I would like to read section 2, which is entitled ``Expressing Support for United States Military Personnel Who Are Deployed.'' The wording is simple, straightforward, and unmistakably clear: The Congress strongly supports the United States military personnel who may be ordered by the President to implement the general framework agreement for peace in Bosnia/ Herzegovina and its associated annexes. It seems to me that that is a very clear and generous statement. It is an honest statement by the U.S. Senate, which allows that even if we disagree with the President--and many of us do--when such a deployment is made, in the words of the resolution, we will strongly support the military personnel who are ordered by the President to implement the particular mission which has been designated. In this case, it is to implement the general framework for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the associated annexes. Today, Mr. President, the United States again finds itself faced with the conflicting demands of a confused and chaotic world. Today's debate carries the name of ``Bosnia,'' but it is a debate that this Congress has faced numerous times before--it is just the name that has changed. At stake and at question are the specific terms, conditions, and reasons for deploying U.S. troops, and the nature of U.S. foreign policy generally. These are not small or trivial matters--not for the President or for those of us here in the Congress, not for the military, and certainly not for the families of America's service men and women, who are preparing for deployment in Bosnia. Like all Americans, I want to see an end to the killing and cruelty that have come to define the daily existence of millions of people in Bosnia. The atrocities committed by all parties are so heinous as to offend all of our consciences and to fire within us justifiable outrage. That these horrors come to an end is not a point of debate; that the United States has a special responsibility in the world, as the only superpower, is likewise not a matter of genuine debate. But today's debate is much more narrowly focused--it is a debate about a so-called peace plan--brokered by the United States, agreed to by the warring parties, signed in Dayton--and whether that plan warrants the involvement and possible deaths of U.S. ground troops in the Balkans. I believe that until the Clinton administration can clearly and convincingly answer why, how, and under what conditions we ought to be involved, I cannot support the President's decision to deploy American soldiers to enforce the peace agreement. In any deployment of U.S. ground troops, I believe that we must meet at least a five-part test. I will state the parts of that test again today, just as I have consistently over the course of the last year. First, I think we have to identify the vital U.S. national interests. It has to be a security interest. It has to be an interest which is important to the continuing existence of this country. Second, we need to outline clear U.S. military and policy objectives. Third, we need to construct a timetable and strategy for achieving those objectives. Fourth, we need to develop an appropriate exit strategy; and, Fifth, we really need to gain the support of the American people for the policy initiatives and the military objectives in any deployment. What we determine to be our vital interests is dynamic. A geographical region that might be vital to our interests at one time may not be at another time. Technology might change. Broadly defined, ``vital'' U.S. interests are defined as being those interests that have a direct political and economic effect on the Nation. They ought to have an interest about our capacity to survive and succeed as a nation. Threats to strategic assets, to shipping lanes, to our strategic allies, and threats to our traditional sphere of influence, similarly represent ``clear and present danger'' to the United States. Less clear is the nature of humanitarian interest, and how and when such interests are considered vital U.S. national interests. Despite the protestations of members of the Clinton administration, it is this final category that I believe we are dealing here. In the course of the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to hear from a number of the architects of the Dayton accord--Secretary of State, Warren Christopher; Secretary of Defense, William Perry; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, and chief negotiator Richard Holbrooke. Their explanations of why we should be involved, in my judgment, lacked credibility. Their rationale has never included a valid explanation of how vital U.S. national security interests are at stake in the Balkans at the close of this century. On the one hand, they have said that we have a risk of an expanded full-scale Balkan war that could domino its way all across Europe. Such assertions fly in the face of fact. Secretary Christopher has stated that a major reason the peace agreement was reached is that the warring parties are suffering from battle fatigue. This is an internal conflict that has raged for years, stemming from differences which have divided people for centuries. If the fighting factions are war weary, then what evidence is there to suggest that the potential for the war to spread is imminent or greater now than it has been in the past? We have seen some 30 cease-fire in this region before, which begs the question, is this the cease-fire of the century or a cease-fire of the season, with another long winter's nap? While the threat of another massive European war makes for good headlines, baseless threats make for lousy public policy. The President has argued that our continued leadership in NATO is at stake here. He believes that it is a vital U.S. interest to prove ourselves overseas. U.S. perception and leadership overseas are clearly vital. The question that no one has answered, however, is how the deployment of U.S. ground troops will help. The only response I have been given that comes close to answering this question is that U.S. ground troops must be deployed in order to vindicate the President because in a speech 2 years ago, he made a promise to send troops. Retreating from that promise would somehow signal a failure in his leadership. Well, very frankly, we should not put American lives on the line just to rescue an outdated Presidential promise. Following the gulf war, world perception of our resolve--of our determination to get things done--was clear, the United States meant what it said and acted accordingly. Since that time, world perception has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Our foreign policy objectives have been unclear, and our resolve has been uncertain. Before we deploy U.S. troops anywhere in the world we must determine whether our vital national interests must be at stake. I am confused about the explanations by the administration which allege that this indeed involves a set of vital interests because when you ask the administration about the deployment, they say that the deployment will be for 1 year. The achievement is not of a vital interest. The achievement here is a time of duration. If these interests are so vital, if they are critical to the success and survival of this country in the next century, why is it that they are only critical for a year, and we will leave whether or not we will achieve them in a span of a year? The idea this is a deployment for a term of days rather than for the achievement of vital and specific interests is an idea which shakes and threatens the very foundation of the allegation that there are vital interests here. I guess there is the question about whether the United States should be a world policeman that imposes her morality on the world. The United States is the world's only superpower, and that role carries with it responsibilities no other nation has. These responsibilities include the responsibility to use our forces judiciously. We should not decide to deploy U.S. troops simply because we can. We should not exercise military prowess to conquer a mountainous civil war merely because it is there. We should not be a 9- 1-1 on call to respond to every world dispute or civil disturbance. We must recognize that it is possible to squander our power and our resources by misusing them. Mr. President, according to the administration, we have an expiration date but we have no achievement strategy. Why deploy ground troops in the first place if we are going to pull them out whether or not anything is accomplished? There is a related issue about this agreement that troubles me. It has to do with the assignment of our soldiers that they are being asked to undertake. There are some components of the Dayton accord which really elevate values in which we do not believe. We should ask ourselves, under the Dayton accord, will we be going abroad with our troops to enforce things and values which are not things that we are willing to support or that we respect at home? As a matter of fact, are we going there to support or reinforce things which we abhor at home? Would we be going there to enforce a type of ethnic de facto segregation that we are fighting against at home? Is it possible that we are deploying America's soldiers to fight for values of ethnic isolation that run contrary to America's values? Are we asking our troops to defend territorial lines among ethnic factions which were gained through offensive atrocities? Are we validating ethnic segregation of the parties to promote peace, when our Nation painfully learned that it is only ``united we stand, divided we fall.'' For generations we pursued an international strategy of promoting democratic values. I think we have to ask ourselves, is that what we are doing here? There are a lot of nuances and uncertainties about foreign policies. This is not one of them. We fight abroad for our interests and our values. We must not agree to work for something that is both not in our vital national interests, but contrary to our values. Let me just say in conclusion that I believe that we must make sure that the deployment of our troops is not merely the appetizer and that the main course becomes massive foreign aid that is felt as an obligation of this country and Congress as a result of having had the deployment of our troops on the soil of a foreign nation. All too frequently, we feel that we must follow our troops after a deployment has been concluded, with an outbreak of nation building and infrastructure construction and resources which are beyond the ability of our culture to afford for ourselves--certainly not within our capacity to provide for everyone around the world. There is a substantial expense in this whole operation that is going to take $2 billion out of our defense budget this year, and there will be requests for additional money to support this deployment. Frankly, it will hurt--it will hurt our ability to provide defense in other areas. I am convinced that we have to be careful not to weaken our ability to defend strategic vital national interests where they occur around the world by deploying our troops in areas which do not have clear objectives, where there are no strategic vital national interests, or where those interests are not clearly outlined and where our commitment is not for the achievement of a specific objective but it is for a term of days. Mr. President, I intend to vote in favor of the Hutchison resolution because I believe that it is appropriate for us to indicate to our troops that when they are deployed we will provide them with all of the resources necessary for their security and success. But that Hutchinson resolution, cosponsored by a number of other Senators, including the leadership of the junior Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, also provides an opportunity for Members of this Senate to express their disagreement with the decision of the President to deploy ground troops in Bosnia. I believe that is the appropriate position for this Senate to take. I urge other Senators to do so. I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 30, 1995, at 10 a.m.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be permitted to meet Thursday, November 30, 1995, beginning at 10 a.m. in room SD-215, to conduct a confirmation hearing on nominees currently pending before the committee.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be granted permission to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 30, 1995, for purposes of conducting a full committee business meeting which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. The purpose of this meeting is to consider pending calendar business.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 30, 1995, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a closed hearing regarding intelligence matters.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 30, 1995, at 2 p.m., in room 226 Senate Dirksen Office Building to consider nominations.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I want to propound a unanimous-consent request.