John Ashcroft

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to hold a business meeting during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 30, 1995, at 10 a.m. in SD-226.

Mr. ASHCROFT

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ASHCROFT

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I offer this amendment to provide for a fair and uniform way of compensating individuals, shippers of household goods for damage to those goods and to ensure that there is a fair and uniform way of making sure that those damages can be received by shippers of household goods. Interstate commerce involves the transmission of goods from one jurisdiction to another. Something shipped in California may well cross numerous States on its way to Connecticut. It is important that we do not have the responsibility for those who ship goods to try and prove where damage happened to the goods if there are damages to the goods. It is important that we do not have to try and impose on those who are the carriers of the goods some ability to defend about whether or not there was negligence. There is in this amendment, and the meaning of this amendment, a requirement that if goods are damaged, that no person whose goods have been damaged has to prove that the damages were caused by the negligence of the carrier or, otherwise, by the improper activities of the carrier. There is an automatic right of the person who ships the goods to recover the value of the goods, and that would be uniform. Absent that uniformity, there are other things which might exist. For instance, normally, in order to recover against someone who has damaged something, you have to prove negligence. And I do not think that people who ship goods are in a position to prove negligence. They were not in possession of the goods. They usually were not with the goods. They were not in the area where the goods were damaged. They would have a hard time proving that. So, this measure would provide that you do not have to prove negligence, that if you deliver the goods to the shipper, the household goods were being shipped across the country, and they were damaged, that you could automatically recover the value of the goods without proving negligence, without having to show that there was a particular substandard way of dealing with the goods on the part of the carrier involved. In return for the concession that the shipper of the goods, the person who sends the goods, does not have to prove negligence, the damages are limited to the value of the goods. You cannot recover emotional harm or pain and suffering because of the anguish of learning that your Aunt Millie's vase was crushed in the shipment. You can only get the value of the vase. So, the carrier is protected from having to pay some very subjective damages, but the person who ships the goods is guaranteed that if the goods are damaged, that those goods can be replaced because of the strict liability on the part of the carrier. This is a good system. It is a system which has long worked. It ought to be enshrined in this statute. Now, the alternative is to have States create different laws about what kinds of recovery could be made by individuals whose goods were damaged. You have the potential of someone who ships something from California to Connecticut trying to prove that their goods were damaged in the most generous State or that their goods otherwise were valuable so that if that State allowed for pain and suffering or emotional distress, that those kinds of damages ought to be considered. In my judgment, such damages ought not to be considered because they provide an incentive for forum shopping, people trying to make sure and prove that goods were damaged in one State as opposed to another. They subject shippers to unreasonable requirements to try and prove where the damage happened or where it did not happen. And we would be well- served in regulating interstate commerce to say that the person shipping the goods does not have to prove negligence, but the person who is carrying the goods is not responsible for a level of damages which is above and beyond the value of the goods, which would include emotional distress or other kinds of subjective things which are very difficult to prove and the amount of which could go into very high levels of expenditure above and beyond the value of the goods. It is with that in mind that I have proposed the amendment, and I believe the amendment would be something that should be included in this measure. Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I have conferred with individuals whose interest in the amendment which I had proposed has been expressed, and they have been very cordial in their willingness to work to try and accommodate the objectives which I have expressed in filing the amendment, and because we have an opportunity to work toward those objectives together--and I would hope that we can do so effectively--I at this time withdraw my amendment.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. The President's proposal was that we use CBO figures. It was a good idea in 1993. It was a good because they are accurate. It is a good idea in 1995 because they are accurate, but it also is a good idea because it would give us a common basis for discussion. More than anything else in politics we need to start with as much in common as we can. We all know that we have ideas and philosophy that tends to divide us, but when we start from a common basis of resource, we will at least have an intelligent means for discussing how that resource is to be divided, used, allocated, and spent for the benefit of the people of this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Washington for his clear statement about the kind of challenge that is before us. This is a turning point--a turning point in the history of our country. Will we decide to discontinue using the credit card of the next generation and then after racking up the charges, sending them the bill? That is the fundamental decision. It is a decision we have not had the courage to make for the last 26 years. Over a quarter of a century has passed since we last operated without sending this enormous credit card bill to our children and grandchildren. This is an issue of freedom. Who will be free to make the decision on how the next generations resources will be spent? Will we be free to decide how their resources are spent? Or will they be free? It is not unlike the kind of decision that was made when this country came into existence. The British thought they could tax us and spend our resources without listening to us. We referred to it as taxation without representation. And spending our resources against our wishes was so offensive to us that we drew a proverbial line in the sand. The midnight ride of Paul Revere launched this Nation into a period of conflict to establish once and for all that one group does not spend the resources of another group against the other group's wishes and will. I believe that this is a fundamental turning point in America. Who is going to control the destiny of the next generation? Will they, as free people, have the God-given right to shape the tomorrows in which they live by deploying their resources in ways in which they see fit? Or will they be slaves to the past? Will they be devoting their resources to pay for our excesses? I think the Senator from Washington has stated the case rather clearly. He has pointed out that we have to live within our means, that we have to fashion a spending plan that is within the limits of the money that we will have. Now, that is always a little bit difficult to do in government. You have to project how much money you will have. You do not know exactly how much money you will have because you do not know how much will be paid in taxes and you do not know the level of business activity. So you have to make estimates. You have to have assumptions about the level of economic activity in society. You have to have forecasting. Any time you have forecasting, you run into the same trouble that you run into if you are going on a picnic with [[Page S 17424]] your family. No family that I know of is so devoid of good sense as to turn the television or radio on to get the weather forecast and there is a 100-percent chance of rain and thunderstorms and then see it maybe on one or two channels and say, ``There is a series of bad forecasts out there; we need to have our picnic. Let us go out on the street and find somebody else who might tell us that there is going to be sunshine.'' The truth of the matter is that you have to use honest data in a forecast. You cannot go to somebody who does not know anything about the weather or somebody who has another agenda, who wants to sell you the hot dogs and say, ``Are we going to have weather good enough for a picnic?'' You have to have the right forecast. We have to have the right forecast if we really want to balance the budget. That is really what this business is about when we talk about using honest numbers. Are we going to use numbers that are put together by nonpartisan individuals who are solely and totally devoted to the development of an honest forecast, or are we going to use figures put together by people who want to sell the hot dogs and send us on the picnic in the hopes that maybe there will be some miracle? Well, that is where we are. We believe that using the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as the basis for the forecast--using their numbers and their forecast--is trusting the best source of prediction. This source of prediction is so well revered and so well honored as the independent and nonpartisan, accurate source, that the President of the United States, President Clinton, in 1993, in his State of the Union message, said we should stop using other groups like the Office of Management and Budget, which is subject to political pressures. This is true even if the forecasters are not overt or do not mean to develop distorted figures. Sometimes the real desire of people in politics to do what they want to do skews their judgment a little bit. They have too much of a stake in the fight to be the referee. The President said in his State of the Union Message in 1993, ``Do not use other figures, use Congressional Budget Office figures.'' I think there is a real reason to use Congressional Budget Office figures, because they are bipartisan and they do not have a dog in this fight. They can go either way. As a matter of fact, that is what the Congress has been insisting on. At least, that is what those of us on this side of the aisle have insisted on--that we use the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasting. I point out that using the Congressional Budget Office forecasting does not make balancing the budget easy. It makes it tough. It makes it hard because it is a realistic forecast. If we were to try to solve this problem by going and getting another forecast, by going to find some other economist that would tell us, ``Do not worry about it, you are going to have lots and lots of money, so do not worry about how much you spend,'' I think we would be sticking our heads in the sand. Then we would suffer the consequences of not knowing when the real peril emerged to threaten the future of this country. Let me just tell you that I am not totally comfortable with the CBO forecast. I am not a professional forecaster, and I am willing to accept their perspective. CBO has forecast that for the next 7 years we will have 2.4 percent growth every year. I really cannot remember a 7-year period when we could have counted on that kind of growth before. Almost every time in a 7-year period you have some downturns. Now, there are those folks who say, surely we will have growth of greater than 2.4 percent. I confess, I am willing to bet that we will. But I am terribly fearful of the fact there may be times when we are below the 2.4-percent growth line. The idea we would leave CBO out of the equation and leave the leavening influence, the stabilizing influence, the ballast of this nonpartisan organization out of the settlement is an idea which is frightening indeed. CBO, which has made a pretty aggressive estimate that we will have 2.4 percent growth--and that means overall we will have that kind of growth as if there is no upturn or downturn, that we will not ever slide below it enough to drag the average down, is pretty aggressive. I think as we work with the President toward a balanced budget, and I am committed we will work long enough to get a balanced budget, to get the commitment--people have been calling me from home saying, ``Do not weaken. Do not sell the future of America. Do not jeopardize our children and grandchildren one more time.'' We are at a turning point. Children born this year already will have, if we do not do something about the debt, $187,000 to pay in their lifetime in interest on the debt. ``Please do not extend that,'' they are saying. I do not want to. We will work together with the President to get something done here, but make sure we commit ourselves to 7 years and make sure we commit ourselves to reasonable estimates by nonpartisan professionals. Heavens knows, with a 2.4-percent 7-year presumption in the mix, to assume there will not be some downturn there somewhere would be whistling in the dark. It would be planning the picnic in the face of a tornado, but going to someone who knows nothing about the weather and saying, ``Give me a better forecast. I want to go out in spite of the dark clouds that may be on the horizon.'' Let me add just one other thing as I talk about these forecasts and about the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan forecasting agency of Government. I know the CBO and OMB and all these letters are like alphabet soup, and I am sorry we have to use them. If the President says he wants to balance the budget and he uses one set of figures, and the Congress says they want to balance the budget and we use another set of figures, the President can argue from one set of figures, we argue from the other set of figures, the twain shall never meet. We never really come to grips. We never have an honest debate. We never figure out what we will or will not spend because one debate is on the basis of one projected income and another debate is on the basis of a different amount of money as projected income. It does not provide for rational debate. When the families of America balance the budgets around the kitchen tables, the husband does not come in and say we have this much money to spend and the wife comes in and says ``no,'' we have this much money to spend. The first thing we do is agree on how much money we have to spend. Not only does that happen around my kitchen table, but it happens around virtually every kitchen table in America. It happens in corporate America, in businesses, in charitable institutions, in churches, and in civic organizations. The first thing you decide is how much money you have to spend, and until you agree upon that, you do not start the debate about how to spend. In Government, we sadly had this position where one part of the Government comes in and says we will have this much to spend and another part of the Government says we will have this much to spend, and they all talk about their independent things, never coming together. It is time for us to follow the suggestion of President Clinton in his 1993 address to the Congress where he said we ought to use the Congressional Budget Office figures. He said we ought to use them because they are most likely to be correct and they are more accurate than other figures. The truth of the matter is we need to use them for another reason, and that is so we are all debating the same amount of money rather than one debating one set of facts and another debating a separate set of facts. I had the privilege of serving as Governor of the State of Missouri for 8 years. We had this insane system of different sets of facts and different presumptions when I became Governor. We were able to work with the legislature to arrive at a single budgeting forecast so that we had what we called consensus revenue estimation. We would get together, figure out with an independent forecaster how much money we would be talking about, and then the debate meant something. The President proposed that in 1993. It is, I believe, time for the President to agree to it now in 1995. It is his proposal. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes. [[Page S 17425]]

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan for yielding time to me. It is true that different people can look at the same thing and see different things. As the Senator from Michigan has aptly stated, some look at this package and view spending $4,800 in 1996 per recipient to $7,000 in 2002 per recipient as a cut. I think you have to be a very substantial pessimist to call an increase of $2,200 over a base of $4,800 a cut--but that is how some people are choosing to view it. I personally do not think it is nor do I see it as a cut. I see it as an increase. It is this precise inability to come to the same conclusion from viewing the same set of facts that sometimes confuses us. However, sometimes--as a single individual--you can look at the same thing--time and time again--and see something different all the time. For instance, you can look at the President of the United States and try and find out whether he wants a balanced budget at all, or whether he wants a balanced budget in 7 years, or whether he wants a balanced budget in 10 years. You could look at the President of the United States and try and find out whether he wants to use the figures of the Office of Management and Budget, which is the political arm of the Presidency, or whether he wants to balance the budget according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Depending on when you look at our President, you get a different reading. You and I know that he said, when he was a candidate, that he wanted a balanced budget in 5 years. Later on, he came to us with a budget that would never balance. Then he came with one that would balance in 10 years, but only if you use the partisan figures of his Office of Management and Budget. In between times, he said 7 to 9 years. So looking even at the same President, you might see far different things. It is, in part, because the President has not been firm. He has not reflected the kind of dedication and commitment to a balanced budget that indicates that he has a plan for one. As a matter of fact, the President has not had a budget at all. Well, he did send a budget up here, and it was so unrealistic that it lost 0-99. His second budget, the so-called balanced budget, was voted down 0-96. Not a single Member of the minority party voted in favor of either budget. As we have been trying to find ways for the President to maintain the operation of Government in the last several days, we have seen the same President, but we have seen something vastly different every time we have seen him. At first, he says it is the Medicare problem. He cannot bear to have spending increased only from $4,800 to $7,000 per Medicare recipient per year over the next 5 or 6 or 7 years. That is not a big enough increase. The truth of the matter is that the provision we are going to send him in the Balanced Budget Act of 1995 has bigger increases in Medicare than he originally requested. He asked for 7.1 percent, I think, and we are sending a budget that has a 7.7 percent. He threatened to veto our proposals due to both his effectiveness and willingness to scare people over Medicare. Medicare also was his main concern when trying to pass the continuing resolution. Therefore, we decided to send him a continuing resolution without a Medicare provision. When we ripped off the Medicare mask, what did we see? We saw a President concerned about regulatory reform. He said ``I would not want to sign something that has regulatory reform associated with it.'' I said to myself, is this the same President that, in the past, has said, ``We want and need regulatory reform, and we need to free this economy, and we need to unshackle the economy so we can have more jobs, growth and opportunity''? Apparently, not at the moment, because he said, ``If you have regulatory reform or the criminal justice system reform in the package***'' --oh, about 20 years ago, the President and I had the privilege of each being an attorney general. We all know the way in which the criminal element manipulates the criminal appeals, and how the habeas corpus laws are abused. We saw them operate as attorneys general. We saw them operate as Governors. We see them operate now. I believe he really knows that we need to reform the criminal appeals process, but he said he did not want to sign a continuing resolution containing criminal appeals reform. So we took the criminal appeals and regulatory reform out. We even took the provisions strengthening, protecting and preserving Medicare out of the continuing resolution and sent it to the President. It became clear, after ripping off all the masks--the Medicare, the regulatory reform and the habeas corpus reform masks--the real reason for his veto. His real reason for vetoing the continuing resolution can rest only on the single condition that now attends the continuing resolution, and that is the condition of a balanced budget in 7 years, with honest CBO figures. A balanced budget is important. It is important that we understand that a balanced budget is not a sacrifice for this country--it is a substantial investment in this country. We talk about cuts and we use the phony language of Washington to make it a cut. When you have an increase from $4,800 per year per capita to over $7,000 per year per capita, only in Washington, DC, does a $2,200 increase on a $4,800 base per capita result in the ability of some individuals to call it a cut. Not only do we not cut spending, we make substantial improvements and give substantial opportunities to the American people. The benefits have been quantified. The econometric studies have been conducted. The ideas have been distilled. The forecasts have been made. Here is the forecast: Nearly $11 billion more to our gross domestic product will result from a balanced budget. That is real growth. That is real increase. An additional $32 billion in real disposable income to American families will be realized in the time period covered. More than 100,000 additional new houses will be built over the next 7 years. More than 600,000 new cars will be sold in America over the next 7 years as a result of the discipline, as a result of the priority setting, as a result of this country doing what every family has to do on a regular basis. That is--sit around and say what can we afford, what can we not afford, how can we structure what we are doing--how can we achieve prosperity rather than continuing our decline. That prosperity is important and it will make a big difference to people who are buying houses. They say $10,000 less for payments for people on a $100,000 home loan--a $10,000 bonus for a family in addition to the tax relief for families in the bill. You consider other areas where the family is borrowing money, such as car loans and student loans. The impact on our culture is not an impact of shared sacrifice. This is an impact of enjoyed benefit. We balance the budget. Not only are there more jobs, 100,000 new houses, 600,000 more new cars in the country in the next 7 years, but also we have this vitality in the economy that gives us all great opportunity. Our President, though, is unwilling to make a commitment to join us, to join us in the necessary discipline to balance the budget. I am afraid we have found ourselves backed into a political corner. He is saying he cannot do it because of Medicare. He is saying he wanted to increase Medicare by 7.1 percent, and this bill increases Medicare by 7.7 percent. This proposal significantly exceeds his own proposal. Yet he holds up Medicare as an attempt to scare the American people. Not only do we spend substantially more for Medicare but we are going to provide ways for people to use what we spend to be much more effective. All the marketing, all the revolution in the health care professions to restrain costs and to expand service and to improve the product available to the American people and the private sector really has not been available in the public sector. That is why the public sector's costs have soared. Well, in the private sector for medical costs we have seen a leveling off of those costs, the HMO's, the PPO's, the ability of physicians to join together in order to offer services. All of those things are part of the program in addition to moving people from $4,800 a year to over $7,000 a year. That is not just a gross number but a per capita number, taking into account the demographic projections that seem to frighten our colleagues on the other side of the aisle so dramatically. It is time for us to understand this is a great opportunity. We have come to a crossroads in American history. We are at a turning point. It is a turning point that we need to recognize and understand. It is whether or not we will conduct business as usual, whether we are just going to go merrily down the beaten path of massaging the old hot button of acquiescence in the demands of this or that special interest group, and continue to run the printing press which publishes the debt of the United States. It is whether we are going to generate at higher and higher volumes to the detriment of our children, or whether we will make some important decisions about allocating our resources. There are tough decisions, but they are not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. There are a few areas where there are real cuts, but frankly there are many more areas where we just restrain the growth. We bring Government under control. This is a question about Government control, whether we will control Government or whether Government--out of control--now will spend so much of the next generation's money that it will control everything that they do. If kids who are born this year are going to have to spend $187,000 just to cover the interest costs on the national debt during their lifetimes, their spending will be controlled. They will not have the opportunity to decide to do other things. They will have an obligation which will simply lock them into paying for the excesses of our consumption. We can turn that around, and we can turn it around now. We have not done so since 1969. We have not had the encouragement. We have not had the integrity. We have not had the tenacity. In 1994, last fall about this time, the American people said ``stiffen your spine. Resolve to make a difference. Do something different. Change the way.'' That is why we are at a turning point. This is about control. We want the future generations to be able to control their own environment and their own communities. We want the future generations to have the control to spend their money on their own priorities, not to have to just pay off the debt which we have been paying. We must act now if we want to stop this potential of eroding the ability of the next generation, undermining the ability of your children and mine. Hopefully someday I will have grandchildren--and I do not want to shift to them the responsibility to pay for the things that I have done. I want them to have the opportunity to do what every American should have the opportunity to do--that is to exercise the freedom of shaping a Government and spending your own resources the way you choose. It is as fundamental as the beginning of the American Republic. Mr. President, 200 years ago Thomas Payne said it best, I think: ``We have it within our power to make the world over again.'' That is basically a statement that free people can govern themselves and they can devote their resources to things that they choose to devote their resources to. We keep spending in debt--further and further in debt--stacking it up to where it is now about $19,000 per person, every man, woman and child. Mr. President, it is $76,000 for a family of four, and we are not paying off the debt, we are just paying interest on it. Now if we keep stacking up that kind of debt we simply will not allow the next generation to make any choices on their own. They are just going to have to spend all they have to pay foreign creditors, pay all kinds of other individuals. Talk about big business. They talk about we sure do not want to do anything that would help business. We want the little guy to prosper. Who do you think holds this debt? The people that own the securities of the United States--a lot is held in the hands of foreign people and governments. Do you want the people who command what your children and grandchildren do to be people overseas--people who have the ability to call the debt and demand that the payments be made. Then the only thing that those who follow us have the opportunity to decide will be to decide to pay the guys who hold the debt? We owe them much more than that. We owe them much more than that. Our country came into existence as a result of taxation without representation. I am afraid unless we stand up for the children right now and say we are now going to continue spending their money without their representation, we are not going to continue spending their resources and displacing to them the costs of doing our business--they would have every right to revolt against us--just as we did to establish this country in the first instance. It is time for accountability. The American people want a Government which pays its debts. They sense that we can do it. When the different masks were being displayed by the President--about we cannot do this because it is the Medicare thing, there was a lot of confusion. Then the Medicare mask was taken off and we sent a continuing resolution without the Medicare provision and another mask was pulled out. Finally all the masks are gone. The only thing that is left is the balanced budget. We come down to the question, Mr. President--I ask for an additional minute.

Mr. ASHCROFT. So, now the President has before him an ability to continue the operation of the Government, coupled with a golden opportunity to commit this Government to responsibility and integrity. He can do that in signing a continuing resolution and he can do that in embracing a historic achievement for his administration or any other, the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. This is a golden opportunity. It is not an opportunity that will make that much difference to you and me, but it will make a great difference to the generations that follow. It is time for us to share with them the benefits of an ordered, priority-setting development of a budget that is structured and responsible and respects our future. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, today I rise to honor two dear friends of mine whose generosity and giving spirit have made a positive impact on many throughout their home of St. Louis, MO. This week Desi and Mary Ann Lee were honored by the Missouri Botanical Garden as winners of the 1995 Henry Shaw Medal, the highest honor presented by the Garden. The Lees were honored for their generosity and service to the Botanical Garden by their establishment of the E. Desmond Lee and Family education program. The program is designed to improve science education for underserved [[Page S 17011]] schools in the city of St. Louis by giving teachers expanded opportunities for training and resources in science education. The program also increases opportunities available to students using the Botanical Gardens, the St. Louis Science Center, and the St. Louis Zoo creating a partnership to improve science education in St. Louis. Desi and Mary Ann also gave the gift that allowed the Botanical Garden to purchase and renovate a building near the Garden to provide needed space and classroom facilities for the Garden's education program. The Lee's generosity toward the education programs at the Botanical Gardens is but one of many ways that their commitment to their home of St. Louis is evident. Desmond Lee graduated from the Washington University School of Business in St. Louis in 1940 after founding the Lee/Rowan Co. while still a student. He has served on countless boards of directors in the St. Louis area, including the St. Louis Science Center, the St. Louis Symphony, and the St. Louis Zoo. An elder in his local Presbyterian Church, Desi Lee has also received many awards in the St. Louis community for his service, including an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Missouri at St. Louis in 1995, and the 1995 A World of Difference Community Service Award. I rise today to salute my good friends for not only their service to the Missouri Botanical Garden for which they received the Henry Shaw Medal this week, but for their lifelong dedication to their home of St. Louis, where they have worked and given tirelessly to improved life for all who call St. Louis home. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Thank you. Abortion is, and always has been, one of the most divisive moral issues of our day. It strikes at the very core of who we are as a people and as a nation. It challenges us to define life and to measure liberty--difficult things both. But it is an issue that will not go away and so it demands of us civil debate and reasoned discourse. And so I rise to speak today in tempered tones about the untempered terror of partial-birth abortions. Lest there be any confusion, what we are talking about is an abortion procedure that allows a child to be partially removed from the mother's womb only to have its skull crushed and brain extracted by a doctor pledged to ``do no harm.'' What message do we send by allowing this slaughter of innocents to continue? What does it say about who we are? What does it say about the moral condition of America when people of faith are unfaithful to the most vulnerable among us? I would suggest that a nation that allow this mindless brutality to continue is a nation out of touch with the most basic dictates of humanity. The procedure in question is so cruel and so inhumane as to defy rational, reasoned support. Advocates of partial-birth abortions are attempting to defend the indefensible--and they cannot. So, instead, they raise the specter of confusion, introduce rhetorical nonsense, and obfuscate with absurdity. We are almost tempted to forget that which we are debating. This amendment is not about the right of choice, it is about the right of this Nation to act in a manner befitting its founding. It is about the right of America to say that it will not allow the brutality of partial-birth abortions to continue. Over 30 million lives have perished since Roe versus Wade became the law of the land. An almost incomprehensible number. I am pained to my core by this tragedy and stand ready to reverse it. We can begin by putting an end to a medical procedure which takes an unborn child, one able to be sustained outside the womb, and kills it. The question is simple: Do we want to continue to allow that procedure or do we want to outlaw it? The American people clearly want the latter. They overwhelmingly oppose this barbarism. They know to be true that which we are forced to debate. Namely, that this procedure has no place in a civilized society. A final point. There is a legitimate place for hearings. They can be important. They can be illustrative. They can be used for probing areas of uncertainty. Mr. President, there is no uncertainty here. We do not need hearings to determine that partial-birth abortions are the monstrous, barbaric, and hideous destruction of human life. We do not need hearings to say, ``No more partial-birth abortions.'' The House of Representatives passed this measure last week with 288 votes. Let us lend our voice to their cause. For our party must be about more than a higher standard of living. It must also be about a higher standard of character. The task before us is a simple one. It is to reaffirm humanity, reject brutality, and ban partial-birth abortions. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. ASHCROFT

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

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking the senior Senator from New Hampshire for his work on this legislation. Few have done more for the unborn than has Senator Smith, I am pleased to join him as an original cosponsor of the bill before us today. In just the past several months our work has been witness to acts of terror in Oklahoma City and again over the weekend in Israel. Each of these cases has been surrounded by voices of concern for the harsh rhetoric many feel provoked the atrocities. While I do not know how thoroughly I agree with that analysis, it does point out the need for our national debate on even the most divisive issues to be civil, to be reasoned--to win, arguments must not merely move the heart, they must persuade the mind. And so today, that is what I want to accomplish--to speak with civility and reason about the horror of partial-birth abortions which literally rip a child from its mother's womb. As I mentioned earlier, abortion is the divisive moral issue of our day. It hits at our deepest notions of liberty and questions our most fundamental assumptions about life. For more than 20 years now, abortion-on-demand has been the law of the land. I think it a poor law and I think it an immoral one. But for now it is the law and it must be observed. The bitter fruits of this law have been the death of over 30 million human begins who will never know what it means to learn and live and laugh among us. The inhumanity of this loss can never be gauged, never be measured, never fully be felt. We saw yesterday humanity's grief at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin. A great man was mourned by a grateful world. How much greater the grief of 30 million lives that will never know peace, never know love, never know the warmth of a father's embrace or the strength of a mother's love?

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise to extend my deepest personal sympathies and condolences to Mrs. Rabin, Mr. Rabin's children and grandchildren, to the people of Israel, and to the Jewish community of Missouri and the United States. Yitzhak Rabin was a warrior. As a young man, he left behind boyhood dreams and assumed the mantle of a soldier for a country that was still a dream to him and many others. He helped liberate 200 of his brothers in a heroic and legendary raid. He fought in the siege of Jerusalem and kept open the vital lines of supply. In 1967, it was General Rabin who was the architect of the determined fury of an Israeli Army that was victorious over three substantial enemies in what would become known as the Six Day War. Nevertheless, his prowess as a warrior was exceeded only by his courage as a peacemaker. He was an Ambassador to the United States. He made the first visit ever by an Israeli Prime Minister to West Germany. He tried to open peace negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan in the late 1970's. And, in a move that would ultimately cost him his life, he made peace with some of Israel's most substantial enemies. He need not have been a peacemaker. He could have gone quietly into the annals of history as a warrior, a Prime Minister, a father, and a grandfather. But Yitzhak Rabin was, from his earliest days, a Zionist. His goal, both in war and in peace, was the preservation of a land that God had promised. In the end, he saw in peace and through diplomacy what military victory might never bring--security for his home, for his land, for his nation. Unfortunately, it was not a journey which he was able to see through to completion. In his life, Yitzhak Rabin defined courage--the courage to fight in war and the courage to fight for peace. His legacy will be judged finally not only by what he started, but also by what Israel and her neighbors will eventually accomplish and achieve. That is a task which they must pursue and that they must complete. It is a task for which we will all be held accountable. So, when the mourning is completed--and mourn we must and should--may we resolve to do what he started and may the resolve linger in all of us to complete that which he began. As a boy, Yitzhak Rabin wanted to learn how to make the fertile soil of his land produce crops more abundantly. As a man and as a leader, Prime Minister Rabin plowed and harrowed the rocky ground of peace. It was both his hope and his vision that out of that ground would grow a tree bearing the unknown fruit of peace in a [[Page S 16716]] land and for a people that had seen so little of it. In his finest hour, 2 years ago, at the White House, Prime Minister Rabin acknowledged this aspiration, as he said: Let me say to you, the Palestinians, we are destined to live together on the same soil in the same land. . . . We have no desire for revenge. We harbor no hatred towards you. We, like you, are people--people who want to build a home. To plant a tree. To love--live side by side with you. In dignity. In empathy. As human beings. As free men. It is all of our prayers that his dream will live on. Mr. President, I thank you. Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to introduce to Members of the Senate Peter Dugulescu, a Member of the Romanian Parliament. Peter is a friend of mine of some time, and was influential in bringing much greater levels of democracy to Romania. As a matter of fact, when the revolution in Romania began, he was part of a crowd in the city of Timisoara where 100,000 people had gathered one day to protest the lack of religious freedom there. They had called for a pastor to come to speak to the crowd. And no one felt confident enough in the regime to come and speak to the crowd. And Peter finally offered himself to the crowd. [[Page S 16465]] This was during the days of President Ceausescu. When Peter went to speak to the crowd and lead them in prayer, it was a turning point in the revolution of Romania. He now serves in the Romanian Parliament and is a testimony to the kind of courage that real patriots exhibit. It is my pleasure to have him accompany me to the floor today. And I just wanted to thank the Senate for the opportunity to allow me to commend him, not only for the example he has set for his fellow citizens in Romania, but to commend him for the kind of example he sets, his dedication of principle and commitment to strong ideals and values and commitment to his God and recommend him to citizens around the world. I thank the Senator from Washington for allowing me to make this interruption. And I hope that someday I have a chance to return the favor. Thank you very much. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, another St. Louis Post Dispatch article, published on the 24th of November of last year, which is similar: State officials estimate that that provision would result in health insurance coverage for 300,000 people who cannot afford it today--about half the State's uninsured. That provision referred to is one which would waive Federal regulations and allow the State to design its own program. I thank the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from January 31, 1995, which bears testimony to the fact that: Missouri also wants to start a managed care system for its 600,000 Medicaid recipients. It would use the money saved to provide medical coverage to another 300,000 Missourians who do not qualify for Medicaid coverage now and who also cannot afford insurance. So it would really provide insurance for about half of the individuals who currently are uninsured in the State. That is what the promise of this potential is.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from the Tennessean, published on October 24, 1995, which praises the success of Missouri's use of managed care for its Medicaid population. I thank the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an editorial which appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch entitled ``Missouri's Wise Shift to HMOs,'' be printed in the Record. It states, in part: The Carnahan administration made the right move in deciding to use HMOs to provide medical care for the 154,000 St. Louis area residents eligible for Medicaid. The potential of a waiver is similar to what we would have in a block grant.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Your comment referred to my argument and I choose not to yield. The second thing that the Senator from California said, how can you get a system more efficient? I think it is clear, we allow States to develop the efficiencies that provide for as much as a 50 percent increase in the delivery of services. The fact of the matter is, that is what has been shown in the pilot projects in Missouri. Our director of Medicaid says that if he could just get rid of the Federal regs he could move from 600,000 people to 900,000 people with the same amount of money. That is how you get more efficient--take the onerous one-size-fits-all Federal Government out of the picture. I yield 6 minutes of our remaining time to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, the Senator from California spoke as if there were going to be decreases in the amount of funding. I think it is important to just call to the attention of the American people that when we refer to cuts here in Washington we are referring to cuts in the amount of increase. We are not going to take 2 years out of the funding of the next 7 years. We are going to reduce the level of increase. We will still have a 40-percent increase in the amount of resource available. It is important that we define the situation in terms that the American people would normally use. In that respect, we have a 40- percent increase in funding.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, thank you very much. I think it is important to put the reforms that are proposed by the majority into context here and to try and speak about those reforms in rational language, instead of the panic and paranoia that has been expressed regarding those reforms. It has been represented on the floor of the Senate today that the block grant program for Medicaid as proposed would be a collapse of the Medicaid system. I think that is an overstatement by a substantial amount. Let me just address the issue of what kind of collapse could happen in the event we were to have the block grant program. We began in the State of Missouri, my home State, in which I had the privilege of serving as attorney general for 8 years and Governor for 8 years, a total of 16 years. During that timeframe we began to use managed care under a special waiver from the Federal Government to deal with the needs of those who needed assistance in regard to their medical needs. And as a result of our experience with that, we have come up with some idea of how much we could do if we were given a block grant compared to what we were able to do under the Federal system of bureaucratic intermeddling and a one-size-fits-all Washingtonian Medicaid Program. Now, it should be noted after I left the Governor's office almost 3 years ago now, my successor, who is a Democrat, maintained largely the same set of professionals to run the program, so that the individuals who will talk about the program from that experience are not partisan individuals. Earlier this year, the director of the program in the State of Missouri indicated if they had a block grant, they could increase the number of individuals covered from 600,000 under the Federal plan, to 900,000 if they had the flexibility of doing with the funds what a State could do under the flexibility of a block grant. Now, I do not call the extension of medical services to an additional 50 percent a collapse of the system. I call this an empowerment of State and local governments to be able to do something that they may or may not deem necessary. It gives them the flexibility to meet the needs of the indigent rather than to define this in terms of a collapse. I was interested with the statement, particularly because it was now a statement from an individual in a Democratic administration of a Midwestern State. And after it appeared in the newspapers around my State last January, I inquired of the individual who came to my office to talk about these proposals in the summer. And I asked him point blank, ``Is this the fact that you could increase the coverage from 600,000 people to 900,000 people if you were absent the redtape, if you had the same amount of money on a block grant?'' His direct testimony was ``yes.'' Now, that is not a collapse of the system. Now, it may be politically expedient to talk about scare tactics and to talk about collapses, but the truth of the matter is, we are not going to provide the basis for a collapse. We are going to provide the basis for meeting needs, and meeting them effectively. And just a few moments after we had the collapse theory expressed on the floor here today, we had the we would not have the slightest idea of what to do theory expressed on the floor today. I cannot believe that a State as profoundly well disposed as Minnesota would not have the slightest idea in terms of how to meet the needs of their citizens. It is stunning to me. As a matter of fact, they could look to the State of Missouri, or a number of other States, to find out. Let me just tell you some of the Missouri experience. As a matter of fact, even if we do not have this major reform, Missouri is going to try and continue to expand its ability to serve through managed care. Next year, Missouri would have half of all of its recipients on managed care. What does the system look like? What does the system look like if States have the right to design the system, because they have been given a partial right in my home State? Here is what it looks like in St. Louis. Last year, they decided to offer to Medicaid individuals the option for managed care. They asked companies that can provide that managed care to provide proposals. There were eight or nine companies that competed to provide proposals. Seven of them were authorized as a menu so that the people who have needs could get those needs met in a managed care system. People choose the HMO. People choose the provider system that they want. Nine out of every ten recipients of the program make a choice. The other 10 percent have to be assigned by the State. They do not have enough interest in their medical care to even make their own choice, but they are assigned. What is interesting to me is this: That at the end of every year, including our pilot program in Kansas City and St. Louis, individuals have a right to switch from one system to another. If this were a draconian system, if this were an abusive system, if this were a system where there was lots of dissatisfaction, you would expect to see a lot of people switching at the end of every year. You would expect to see people trying to find a better way, looking for a different company, finding a different provider. You would expect to see a tremendous outpouring of rejection of the system of managed care that the block grant would really endow every State with the capacity to implement. Do you know what? Do you know what the rate of changing providers is every year at the end of the year in the State of Missouri? The rate is 1 percent. There is a 1-percent dissatisfaction rate, individuals-- well, they may not be dissatisfied, they may just try something else or they may move to a different part of the city so a different provider would be more convenient for them. A 1-percent--1 percent--change rate does not indicate a system which is in collapse. It does not indicate a system which is in chaos. You do not have a 1-percent change rate if your system is one where they do not have the slightest idea about how to meet the needs. When you have a 1-percent change rate, you are really doing well. I cannot imagine a federally operated system where 99 percent of the people were lauding the system and endorsing it by their sticking with the program, in spite of the fact they had six or eight other options from which to choose. It has been said this is a shell game. Well, Mr. President, I say to my colleagues, it is a shell game all right to propose that this is chaos or this is collapse. We are not talking about reducing our commitment to individuals who are medically needy. We are talking about our ability to provide for ways of meeting their needs more substantially. If in Missouri we could expand from 600,000 to 900,000, just with ripping out the red tape, it is a shell game to say that we want to keep the old system. Forty percent growth over the next 7 years in the resources--and if you could have a 50-percent increase in the number of recipients with the current amount of funds and you provide a 40-percent growth, this is empowerment, this is not shell, this is not collapse, this is not chaos, this is compassion, and I mean that seriously. I just want to say that when we hear these arguments indicating that, ``Oh, we're not going to be doing enough; there are children that are going to''--we have a system which is in collapse. We have a system which is in chaos. It says if to endow States with the capacity to correct the errors is going to promote collapse or chaos, we have collapse and chaos. That is what has happened in the welfare system of the United States. It not only collapsed financially, it has collapsed in terms of its humanity, and it is wasting resources. It is supporting in my State 600,000 people when the same resource could be supporting 900,000 people for medical care. I might add that in the State of Missouri, this is not a State where we have to spend a whole lot of money to get the 99-percent satisfaction rate. Missouri is far below the national average when it comes to the kind of resources that are required to meet the needs of the medically needy. So let us just try to set the record straight for a moment. Giving States the right and the opportunity to have cost reduction does not mean they are going to reduce the services. It may mean we are going to improve. It has in the State of Missouri, and I think it can in every other State. Asking States to exercise their ingenuity in their capacity to rescue a failed system from the Federal Government does not mean we do not have the slightest idea about how we can meet the needs of individuals. I think that is an overstatement, even for Minnesota. I believe they will have a good idea, and I believe they can make it work. This is an opportunity we have to change a failed system and to move from a failed system to a system that can succeed. It is not a tightfisted opportunity. It is not an opportunity that does not recognize that there will be additional needs. It is a system which provides for reasonable growth, but not unbridled expansion. I thank the Chair.