Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Before the Senator moves on any further, I ask him if he will yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question on that?

Mrs. BOXER. I am sitting here listening carefully to the Senator from Massachusetts, to my Democratic leader, and others. I realize why the Senator started out with the word ``fairness'' and why this bill is so unfair. I wish to just ask one question. I wonder if my friend has seen the Washington Post analysis of this particular tax bill entitled ``Businesses Poised To Benefit From Bills.'' I wanted to point out an irony and see if my friend doesn't agree, the irony of calling this a small business bill; in other words, they have hollowed out the small business bill. But let's look at what they have done. And I will be very brief, but I think it is important. It says, ``From the National Association of Broadcasters and defense contractors to the racetrack industry, to tobacco companies, business interests are poised to reap large benefits from the small print of Republican-backed bills that were moving through Congress yesterday.'' Looking at several of the bills, it goes on to say--and again I will be brief--``But those benefits pale''--those benefits pale--``in comparison with the ones lavished on medical care providers,'' the HMOs. Those pale. So they gave to the tobacco industry; they gave to the defense contractors; they gave to the broadcasters. We know how they are all suffering. And those benefits pale in comparison with what they gave to the HMOs. So when the Vice President is out there talking about fairness and talking about fighting for people, this proves his point. When Democrats are locked out of the room--and we know they were--who walks away with the sacks of money but the HMOs that have been hurting our people. So I think my friend has really laid out the case. And by the way, the Post points out there are many other special interests hanging around these corridors. They are unhappy they were left out of the mix, and they are listed here--the lobbyists in their pinstripe suits standing around here waiting to get in, waiting to get some of the benefits. So I just wonder at the irony of the situation. I notice my friend is not wearing a pinstripe suit himself today. But the bottom line here is giveaways to those who have, asking nothing in return, giveaways to those who are hurting the senior citizens, kicking them out of the HMOs because they say Medicare doesn't pay enough. They get billions of dollars back. Nothing is really asked of them to walk away with those sacks of money. And all they are doing with the so-called small business bill is giving breaks to big business. I say to my friend, he is right to be upset on this point.

Mrs. BOXER. Senator Landrieu and Senator Craig have worked so closely together. I am not an expert on that. I just saw Senator Landrieu deeply disturbed and upset in her view that rather than helping the people who adopt the most difficult situations, in other words, children who are disabled, children in foster care, we are going in the other direction. I only want to say, in good will, that it looks as if the President will veto this bill for the many reasons we talked about. I am not going to, believe me, go into that. But when he does that, maybe we can go back and fix this problem so we can really celebrate passage. I am only reflecting Senator Landrieu's distress that she feels that the toughest cases here are not being helped. That is all I wanted to say.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the Senate will soon bid a fond farewell to one of its most distinguished members, the senior Senator from New York. I rise today to bid him adieu. As we all know, Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the Senate's Renaissance Man, a man of dazzling intelligence and accomplishments in many arenas of public life. A scholar, an author, a teacher, a statesman, a Senator: he is--to paraphrase President Kennedy's comment on Thomas Jefferson--perhaps the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever graced the United States Senate. This body and every one of its members have been touched by his grace, and we shall all be ever the richer for the days he spent with us. I have enjoyed the additional pleasure of serving with Senator Moynihan on the Environment and Public Works Committee. In past years, as Chairman of the Committee, he raised public awareness on the issue of acid rain. In doing so, he broadened our horizons by greatly expanding our understanding of the far-reaching effects that human actions can have on the environment and the effects that environmental degradation can have on human beings. Mr. President, I know that Senator Moynihan has much more to offer his country, and I hope that he will long continue to give the Senate the benefit of his peerless intellect, insight, and experience.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my friend for bringing these issues to the floor of the Senate. I think this issue of pain abatement is a key issue. I go even further than that in this debate because the issue of physician-assisted suicide, which I do not support, is really not what I am afraid of in Senator Nickles' approach. But I just want to say to my friend, thank you for bringing this issue forward. I watched a loved one, who was as close to me as anyone could be, cry out in pain hour after hour, saying: I don't want to live. I wanted this person to live more than I can say. But I went to that physician of this loving relative and I said: Please, please, do everything in your power to anesthetize this pain, to sop this pain. This physician looked at me and he said: I will do everything that I can. I am so fearful that someone else, if this bill becomes law, will look at me and say: Barbara, I know how much you love this individual, but I can't do more than I am doing because I'm afraid I'm going to be hauled off to prison. I don't want any family looking in the eyes of a physician, begging to put a loved one out of this type of misery and pain, being told that their hands are tied; they would love to help and they can't. That is why what the Senator from Oregon is doing is so important and why I am so saddened that this bill, in the dead of night, that could lead to people writhing in pain, not being able to get the help they need, was done in such a fashion where we really can't even give it the attention it deserves. As my final point, would my friend tell me again, for the record, so that everyone watching this debate can know, which organizations are opposing this Nickles provision for the reason that the Senator has stated--that it will lead to people suffering needlessly, and doctors being afraid to help them because they will be hauled off to jail.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I am happy to yield.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, Senator Lautenberg has been my real chairman of the Budget Committee. Senator Domenici is the official chairman. But I always call Senator Lautenberg my chairman because he speaks for me. He has incredible experience on growing a business that turns into a mega business with his compassion and his caring about his employees and people who work for a living. My friend helped on the issue of Social Security. We tried to protect Social Security and set aside that surplus in a lockbox, and we finally made it happen. I want to say again, if we had followed Governor Bush on Social Security, he promised a trillion dollars to the seniors, and he promised the same trillion dollars to the young people, telling them they could have their private stock market accounts. The other thing I didn't mention today is I used to be a stockbroker after I graduated from college with my degree in economics. It was a long time ago. But I have seen the market go up, and I have seen the smiles on the faces of the people who entrusted me with their investments. I have seen the market go down. I think what we need to keep in mind as we talk about privatization of Social Security is this: If you happen to retire on a day when your stock market funds are turned into an annuity and prices are high, you are doing great. But with a volatile stock market that can go down 400 points in one day, and that happens to be your day, or within the days of the month that you are going to turn that stock market fund into an annuity, you are going to find yourself in deep trouble. That is another reason why Al Gore makes so much sense because he is saying save Social Security; keep it the foundation of the house. And if you want to do a voluntary stock market investment on top of your Social Security foundation, that is fine. My friends, that makes sense. It is conservative. It isn't a river boat gamble. It is another great issue at stake. Great issues are at stake in this election. It is an exciting election. It is not an election between two people who agree on everything. They do not agree. We have a Republican candidate who wants to go back to the 1980s with trickle-down economics of the past, with small investments in education. I will end my remarks with education because the Senator from Utah said there is a big difference between Republicans and Democrats. He said Democrats want the Federal Government to tell the local school districts what to do. That is incorrect. Every single program that we support dealing with school construction, dealing with smaller class sizes, dealing with after school, dealing with high tech in the schools--those are all options the school districts can take advantage of if they so choose. There is no program on this side of the aisle, or any in Al Gore's portfolio, that says that any local school district has to take these funds. I think that is key. It goes back to Dwight David Eisenhower, whom I always quote, because he said you can't really be a strong country and you can't be secure unless you have an educated workforce. This was a Republican President. I liked Ike. My family liked Ike. One of the reasons they liked Ike was because he said that educating our children was a national priority and the Federal Government shouldn't just say: Here, States; take a whole lot of money and do what you want. He started the National Defense Education Act. That wasn't a blank check to the States. It was clearly for a purpose, and the purpose was to make sure that our teachers knew math and knew science and could teach math and science. We know if you follow the Dwight Eisenhower kind of system that we need to look at our school districts and say: What do you need help with? Can we help you? We have the resources thanks to the great stewardship of the Clinton/Gore team. We have the great stewardship of the economy. We can invest some money. Do you know what they told us? We need to help with the hiring of teachers. We need school construction. We need afterschool funds so our kids can learn after school. And the Democrats responded. The big fight at the end of this year is over a lot of those issues. We stand with the children; we stand with the families; and we stand with the seniors against the HMOs. That will be a big issue in the last few days. Are we just going to do giveaways to the HMOs and keep letting them drop the seniors out of Medicare? We on this side of the aisle and Vice President Gore are ready to stand up to the HMOs. We are ready to stand up to the tobacco companies. We are ready to stand up for our children. In the waning days, I think these issues will play themselves out.

Mrs. BOXER. I am happy to yield.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. The economy in California was just on its knees; it was so bad when Bill Clinton and Al Gore took over. I remember being on an airplane talking to Leon Panetta, the then-budget adviser to President Clinton. And we were looking at every avenue to bring hope to the people. One of the things they did was invest in defense technology. We had the Technology Reinvestment Act. We did so many things to bring this country back. That is why I wonder why the Bush camp isn't ahead in California because they have spent $1 million practically every week--if not more--bashing Al Gore. People remember, I say to my friend. We were in a horrible situation. I was an economics major in college, which doesn't qualify me for that so much. But I do know something about Economics 101. It is pretty simple. You don't give a big massive tax cut in a time when the economy is running strong. We have been joined by our friend from New Jersey who ran an extraordinarily successful business and came here. We are going to miss him so much. He knows because it is so clear that you don't give the stimulus with tax cuts to wealthiest people in the middle of a prosperous time. You don't do that. You will only then add to inflation, which will lead to higher interest rates, which will then turn around and make it more expensive for people to buy a home, to send their kids to college, or to buy cars. As sure as you can bet on it, people will start retrenching, and it will lead to a recessionary atmosphere. We know the George W. Bush plan is wrong--not because we are talking about it from an academic point of view but the fact is we lived through the trickle-down economics. We lived through that decade. Oh, you could go back and find some quotes from those trickle-down big tax cuts to the wealthy. What were the wealthy going to do? They were going to invest in the businesses here and create jobs. Let me tell you that didn't happen. A lot of that money went offshore. The bottom line is we got into big trouble. While our Republican friends were talking about a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, guess what we did. We balanced the budget without one of their votes.

Mrs. BOXER. He is a Republican pollster.

Mrs. BOXER. That is correct.

Mrs. BOXER. I am happy to yield.

Mrs. BOXER. I am aware of those reports, and I am aware of yet another report that came out in the last few days as well. Another independent, nonpartisan report says Texas is 48th in ranking as far as a good place to raise a child. Only two States were worse than Texas in terms of raising a child. I say to my friend that I don't really know why we are in session now. We should have finished our work a long time ago. As long as we are in session, I intend, on behalf of the people I represent, to come down to this floor and make sure the folks in the country understand the choices they are facing, both in the Presidential election and in the congressional elections. When our friend from Utah comes and talks about the economy and says, amazingly, the reason we are doing well in this economy is because of what happened 20 years ago, I have to scratch my head and say this is back to the future, folks, back to the future. He is citing things that happened 20 years ago. I want to cite what happened when then-President Bush in the 1980s went to Japan. He was there to beg for guidance on what to do about our economy, which was failing. People had no hope. They were afraid. The recession was taking hold. Things could not have been worse. Deficits were as far as the eye could see. He went to Japan and said: Please, sir, tell me what you are doing. Well, the answer was right here in America: faith in the entrepreneurship of our people, faith in our children, investing in their education, and the guts to cut this deficit, to make the hard choices that President Clinton and Vice President Gore made. We were proud to stand with them and we saw Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote. So our friends on the other side of the aisle are going to go back 20 years. That is similar to saying if you had a disease 20 years ago and you took something for it and it didn't work, but something else in the nineties worked, you are giving credit to that medicine.

Mrs. BOXER. I have.

Mrs. BOXER. I think one of the biggest differences in the Presidential race, which is mirrored on the floor of the Senate as we debate tax legislation, is the fact that in Vice President Gore's plan it is the middle class who will get the breaks; in Governor Bush's plan, it is the very top 1 percent. I want to be specific because I think people are tired of hearing that, and they don't really know exactly what we are talking about. Under Governor Bush's plan, if you earn over $350,000 a year, you get back $50,000 a year. You get back $50,000 a year. That is more than three full-time minimum wage jobs, I say to my friend. If under Governor Bush's plan you earn $30,000 a year, you get back about $200 a year. So I think my friend is right to point out that the kind of tax cuts Vice President Gore has in his plan, the kind of tax cuts that we stand here and fight for, would be for those in the middle class who really need to have the help. I think that tax deduction for tuition is very important because the cost of college is going up enormously.

Mrs. BOXER. To college, absolutely.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the assistant leader for the time. I was very interested in hearing the Senator from Utah talk both about the economy and about education. I may never have been in quite that high an income bracket as he was, but I think I have a view that I learned growing up as a child of an immigrant family on my mother's side, a first-generation American who had to go to public schools. I know the assistant leader has a major story to tell. I think it is very important that we consider that when we are on the floor. We ought to be fighting for the people who really need to make sure they have the economic opportunity; and everything that we do, we should keep those working families in mind because I think that the people at the top 1 percent are OK. In fact, many of them live in my State and they are telling me: Senator, we don't want a great big, irresponsible tax cut. We are doing great. We want to make sure, in fact, that the rest of America can come along. I thank them for that progressive position. I think this Presidential race presents the starkest choice when it comes to our economy, and the good news is we have history to prove who succeeded on this economy and who has failed miserably.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely.

Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely.

Mrs. BOXER. That is right. We wanted to protect Social Security. They did not want to go that way, which really led me to Social Security.

Mrs. BOXER. I remember that.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, it has been more than a year since the Columbine tragedy, but still this Republican Congress refuses to act on sensible gun legislation. Since Columbine, thousands of Americans have been killed by gunfire. Until we act, Democrats in the Senate will read the names of some of those who have lost their lives to gun violence in the past year, and we will continue to do so every day that the Senate is in session. In the name of those who died, we will continue this fight. Following are the names of some of the people who were killed by gunfire one year ago today. October 26, 1999: Manuel Guilarte, 78, Miami-Dade County, FL; Damien McFarland, 25, Gary, IN; Willie B. Nelson, 47, Atlanta, GA; Sarah Petty, 49, Atlanta, GA; Brett Pleasants, 39, Denver, CO; Brenda Ray, 31, Atlanta, GA; Tony B. Richards, 32, Memphis, TN; Fernando Rodriquez, 25, Detroit, MI; Comer Sistrunk, Jr., 61, Cincinnati, OH; Ronald Turchi, 61, Philadelphia, PA; Tony Unk, Houston, TX; Michael Washington, 16, Baltimore, MD; and Deric West, 18, Oakland, CA. One of the victims of gun violence I mentioned, 31-year-old Brenda Ray of Atlanta, was shot and killed one year ago today while walking home from her sister's house with her two children. A stranger approached Brenda, robbed her, then shot her in the chest while her six-year-old son and five-year-old daughter stood by watching. We cannot sit back and allow such senseless gun violence to continue. The deaths of these people are a reminder to all of us that we need to enact sensible gun legislation now.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask my assistant leader if I might have 10 minutes.