Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I know this psychologically is a terrible way to open a debate, but I have no delusions about the possibility of winning on this amendment. Given the makeup of the Senate right now, it is going to be several years before an amendment like this will take root, but it will take root when the American people focus not only on their misery but what caused it. Everybody here is aware of the fact that we treat defense as not only the highest priority but everything else is secondary to it. Not to be trite, but the truth of the matter is that we, like so many civilizations, from the Israelites on, may very well find that the strength of this Nation is not all in planes, tanks, and guns. How we treat our people, the kind of health care they get, the kind of education they get, the kind of environment they live in, those things determine what a powerful nation is, too. It usually takes me about an hour or two after I read the Washington Post in the morning to get enthused sufficiently enough to come to work. This morning it was especially depressing. Here were three front page stories: House votes to prohibit States from paying for an abortion in cases of rape or incest. Mr. President, to me, that is a form of barbarism, to say that a child who may be pregnant by her father, or the most innocent housewife who is raped, if she has the money, no problem. If she is poor, she will birth that child. You remember the beatitude, ``Blessed are those who are persecuted.'' If that is not a form of persecution, I do not know what is. The second story was: Senate votes to abrogate antiballistic missile treaty. That is not entirely true, but figuratively and, down the road, literally it is true. We will decide the interpretation of the treaty; we will decide whether it is abrogated or not, and if the Russians happen to disagree, so be it. The language of the bill itself said the Senate, not the President, will decide whether the ABM Treaty is in our interest or not. We will decide whether we want to live by it or not. And that solemn document that we put our names on in 1972 will be for naught. Who else wants to sign a treaty with us knowing that that is the way we treat our treaties? We simply cannot give up on the cold war. We just love it too much. Dr. Strangelove. Another beatitude is, ``Blessed are the peacemakers.'' Not too many people are blessed in this body. The third story was: House cuts $9 billion in education, health care, and food for the poor. ``Blessed are the poor,'' unless one of them happens to get pregnant at the age of 17. What do we do in the Senate? We add $7 billion more than the Secretary of Defense and our chiefs of staff want. Can you imagine that? We are adding $7 billion more than our defense authorization asked for. It was depressing. And as I read those three stories, I pondered on what else. Medicare? No firewalls around Medicare, health care for the elderly; there are no firewalls there. We are going to cut $270 billion over the next 7 years. We are going to give the States block grants on Medicaid and AFDC, not necessarily because we think it is more efficient, but because we are going to cut back on Medicaid. All that is health care for the poorest of the poor. We are going to cut PBS, which is one of the few things that provide a little enrichment for our children. ``Sesame Street'' and Big Bird, adios. ``All Things Considered,'' which every Member of the Senate listens to going to and from work on NPR, adios. No commercials. We need to privatize this so we can get some commercials on PBS and NPR. I want to see, right in the middle of the Civil War series, a bunch of youngsters running down the beach with a Budweiser in their hands. That is what I call cultural enrichment. And the arts--how I wish that guy Mapplethorpe had never received a grant. You see, he does not have anything to do with the repertory theater in my State. But we will be lucky to make it in my State with our symphony without some help from the National Endowment. Food stamps. We did not develop food stamp programs willy-nilly. We did it because we made a conscious decision that we did not want anybody in this country to go hungry. Everybody acts as though it was some sort of a Communist conspiracy that should have never been put in place. We are going to cut that. If you do not happen to have a PAC or a $1,000 check, you are not getting anything out of this crowd. Eliminate affirmative action. I have heard so many anecdotes on affirmative action that make my blood boil, and some of them are true. It has been an abused program. But do not say that the time has come when we have a level playing field when 14 percent of the black males in this country are unemployed, and 40 percent of the black teenagers are unemployed, compared to about 5 percent white. You know, if we were to eliminate this famous tax cut I hear so much about--that is what the Medicare cut is, $270 billion; and $250 billion of that--virtually all--is for a tax cut, 70 percent of which goes to people who make over $100,000 a year. When I was a young practicing lawyer, I yearned for the day when I would make $100,000 a year. So now I am going to get a nice healthy tax cut. Every Senator gets $133,000 or $135,000 a year, a big fat pension, a health care plan second to none, and we are going to get a tax cut when 50 percent of the people in this country over 65 cannot sleep at night because they are in abject terror of getting sick and not being able to pay their bills. If we just cut Medicare by half that amount and eliminate the tax cut and spend the other $135 billion on education and things that make us a great nation, we can still balance the budget in the year 2002 and do what we know we ought to do. No, we are going to reward those who have already been richly blessed. And we are going to further abuse those at the bottom of the ladder. Indeed, we will step on their hands if they happen to be reaching for the first rung. We have become so cynical and indifferent. So we have to put firewalls around defense to make sure none of it ever gets out of the Pentagon into the hands of some poor soul who might need it for an education. Senator Kohl is going to offer an amendment later today which would cut the $7 billion which was added on to this bill. Even if he were to prevail, which he will not even come close to doing, you could not take that money and use it for any other purpose. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I hope the time will not start running until we have order in the Senate.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, my chief cosponsor on this amendment is Senator Simon, who happily has laryngitis, so I get to do all the talking. My cosponsors are Senators Wellstone, Moseley-Braun, Kohl, and Feingold. I am prepared to yield back such time as I have remaining.

Mr. BUMPERS. I yield the Senator 30 seconds of my time.

Mr. BUMPERS. Yes.

Mr. BUMPERS. Nondefense discretionary spending. Of all the spending cuts over the next 7 years, poor little old nondefense, domestic discretionary spending--education, health care, law enforcement, you name it--takes 43 percent, 43 percent of the total spending cuts over the next 7 years. The Senator said this is not about B-2 versus Head Start. That is precisely what it is about. I supported the B-2 much longer than I should have. For years I voted faithfully for it. I voted for the Trident submarine, the F-15's, the F-16's, the F-18's, the F-111's, the F-B-111's, the F-117's, you name it. I voted for all of them. And I tried to cut a few, too. I have stood at this desk for 20 years saying, for example, that we ought not to bring 40 rust-bucket battleships out of mothballs. Boy, the herd of instincts flew through here. The ``evil empire'' was about to come up the Potomac and get us. We even bring battleships out of mothballs, the ones the Japanese surrendered 50 years ago on, and we spent almost $2 billion on them. What do you think happened? They floated the high seas for 2 years and we put them back in mothballs. But our $2 billion is gone. You could not say anything here without being considered a dove. Senator Domenici told you a moment ago what all would go up. He did not tell you what would go down. What will go down is $250 billion a year in taxes--$250 billion over the next 7-year period for people who make over $100,000 a year. They get 75 percent of it. Is that where this country's values are? We are going to cut Medicare for the elderly $270 billion and cut taxes by $250 billion. He told you about nondefense discretionary spending. I just got through telling you that will take--that nondefense discretionary spending is going to absorb 43 percent of all the cuts. And in the year 2002, nondefense domestic discretionary spending will fall to 2.4 percent of our economy, the lowest since 1954. The Senator from Georgia said this same amendment was brought up on the budget resolution. And it was. But it was one of those amendments that could not be debated. You just had to throw it out and let people vote on it. And on that same budget resolution, incidentally, that came out of the Senate and went to conference, you know what happened to it in conference? It came back with $33 billion tacked onto it from the time it left the U.S. Senate. We gave in to the House on everything and added $33 billion to the budget resolution after it left the Senate. Year after year, as I stood here and said, ``Don't bring those old battleships out of mothballs,'' and a host of other things, I always got run over like a Mack truck. And here I am again. I always come back hoping that somebody across America might be paying attention, might even be listening. But the argument always was, ``The Secretary of Defense wants this,'' ``The President wants it,'' ``The Joint Chiefs want it.'' And this year I say the Secretary does not want it, the President does not want it, and the Joint Chiefs do not want it. And the argument on the other side is, ``Well, what do they know?'' It does not make any difference what you do, whether you want it or do not want it, you get it. Mr. President, this ought to be compelling. It ought to be absolutely compelling. The figures are stark. They are staggering. I told the Senator from Georgia awhile ago, I do not have anything to lose. I know how many votes we are going to get on this and how we are going to come out on it. It is going to be years before this U.S. Senate is going to listen to this kind of argument. I only pray that it will not be too late. So, Mr. President, let me just close--and I am prepared to yield back my time and let the Senator make his point of order.

Mr. BUMPERS. In the next 7 years, they will more than make up. You said ``Name one program.'' I will name them.

Mr. BUMPERS. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. BUMPERS. Let me say, the Senator from Indiana has said, name one program that suffered with the cuts that defense has taken. I am sorry I did not prepare for that particular question. But let me tell you why I am up here today. Right here on this chart--and figures do not lie; liars can figure--defense goes from $264 billion this year, goes up every year, to $280 billion in the year 2002. Where are they suffering in all these big budget cuts?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I move to waive the Budget Act for purposes of the Senate's consideration of this amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. [[Page S 11384]]

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

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

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I have watched on Discovery Channel for the past 2 months and on PBS all these battles of World War II, a lot of them the Russians against the Germans. Twenty-two million Russians died. They starved to death by the thousands at Leningrad and in Stalingrad. I am not suggesting we be afraid of Russia. I am suggesting that the world will be eminently better off if the two superpowers of this world can agree. The American people really do not understand the details of this. Do you know what the American people do? They elect you and me to do responsible things. They elect us expecting that we will know something about it and that we will protect the American people.

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask for 1 additional minute.

Mr. BUMPERS. All I heard was, ``The chiefs want it, the Secretary wants it,'' and now the chiefs do not want this. They did not even want the $7 billion that was added in committee, and they certainly do not want all this language in the bill. Chairman Shalikashvili does not want it. Nobody wants it except the Armed Services Committee. Our bombers are not on alert. Our cities are not targeted. For the first time in 40 years the American people can get a decent night's sleep. So what are we going to do? We are going to say, ``Wake up, remember the good old days when you couldn't sleep at night for fear of a nuclear war? They are going to bring it back to you in spades.'' There are a lot of things wrong with this bill. I said this morning, and I say again, in my 21 years in the Senate, this is, by far, the worst defense bill that has ever been presented on this floor. Oh, the arrogance of power. Every great nation that has indulged in the arrogance of power, as this bill does, has lived to regret it. The Senator from New Hampshire said we have not violated the ABM Treaty ``yet,'' ``we're just going to interpret it any way we want to and we are going to build a system and we will decide where the demarcation line is.'' Do you think the Russians are going to take something that they feel is prejudicial to their security? The last guy to underestimate Russia was Adolf Hitler. They are on their hunkers, but I will tell you, they will starve their people before they will be humiliated.

Mr. BUMPERS. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Michigan. Mr. President, I heard the Senator from Maine a moment ago say that there is not anything in this bill that abrogates the ABM Treaty between Russia and the United States.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Is it necessary, when a unanimous-consent request is made, is it necessary for a Senator to reserve the right to object to get the floor?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, first of all, I want everyone to understand that the President's request already has $371 million in the bill for a national ballistic missile defense system. The committee added $300 million. So now we have $671 million, almost doubling what the Pentagon requested. The Senator from North Dakota very sensibly and wisely is trying to strike out the extra money. I hear people on that side of the aisle saying, ``We are not trying to abrogate the ABM Treaty. This does not abrogate the ABM Treaty.'' Really? Here is what the ABM Treaty says: Each party shall be limited at any one time to a single area out of the two provided in Article III of the treaty for deployment of antiballistic missile systems or their components. . . . English is the mother tongue. If you speak English, you understand the word ``single.'' It means one. Our one site is now in North Dakota. [[Page S 11235]] Here is what this bill says. Here is what the language of the bill clearly says if you speak the mother tongue. It is the policy of the United States--to deploy a multiple-site national ballistic missile defense system . . . . I want to emphasize that--``a multiple-site'' NBMD system. And section 235 of the bill says: The Secretary of Defense shall develop a national missile defense system, which will attain initial operational capability by the end of 2003 . . . It shall include . . . ground-based interceptors deployed at multiple sites . . . Remember, the ABM Treaty bans multiple-site systems. If that in itself is not compelling, there is more. This bill says we will decide what is a national missile defense system, and what is a theater missile defense system. We could not care less what the Russians think. Do you think people in Russia, the former Soviet Union, who crafted this treaty with us and that we ratified with, should have any say about what we are going to do in abrogating the treaty? I read a very interesting article the other day in the Washington Post, an op-ed by someone named Sarah Roosevelt, who I do not know. She said, ``Do not tweak the bear.'' Russia is an economic basket case. They are a military basket case. They were a military basket case and an economic basket case when Hitler decided he could take them with one hand behind him. They did not have any choice but to allow millions of their people to be slaughtered until they could arm and beat Hitler. If I had asked this body 10 years ago standing beside my desk, ``Senators, what would you give to see the Soviet Union disappear, and to see East Germany, Hungary, Poland, all of those nations free, how much would you be willing to cut the defense budget in exchange for that?''--10 years ago--I daresay a consensus in the body, the smallest number would have been 30 percent, and a lot of people would have said 50 percent. So what are we doing with this bill, which is the most irresponsible defense bill I have seen in my 21 years in the U.S. Senate? We say we are going to give to the Pentagon $7 billion which it doesn't even want. What kind of insanity is sweeping over this body? We spend already, without the additional $7 billion, twice as much as our eight most likely enemies including China, Russia, North Korea, Iraq, and Iran--twice as much; and, with NATO, twice as much as the rest of the world combined. And in this bill we are putting an additional $7 billion into defense. If this bill goes to the President's desk in its present form and he does not veto it--I am going to say publicly he is a very good friend of mine, and I want him to be reelected--if he does not veto this bill, I am going to be terribly disappointed. I yield the floor.

Mr. BUMPERS. I ask for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. BUMPERS. I thought I was. I see it lying on the floor. Most people say, ``I heard your speech awhile ago, and when I stuck my head out the window I could really hear it.'' Is this better? I apologize. As I was about to say, the Senator from Maine awhile ago said there was not anything in this bill that would abrogate the ABM Treaty. I do not know how more forcefully you can abrogate the treaty than to pass this bill. Now, obviously, it is not going to be abrogated until the Soviet Union gets a stomach full of this kind of stuff and withdraws from the treaty, which they have a right to do on 6 months' notice. But, first of all, I want you to look at the language of the treaty. As I said this morning, English is the mother tongue. That is what we speak. That is what we write. And here is what the mother tongue says in article I of the 1976 Protocol of the ABM Treaty. ``Each party shall be limited at any one time''--limited at any one time--``to a single area out of the two provided in article III of the treaty for deployment. . .'' You see the word ``single''? That means one. ``Single'' and ``one'' are the same. Here is what the bill says. Section 233, ``It is the policy of the United States to . . . deploy a multiple-site''--``multiple,'' colleagues, is more than one. ``. . .United States to . . . deploy a multiple-site national ballistic missile defense system.'' Section 235, two sections down, ``The Secretary of Defense shall develop . . . national missile defense system, which will attain initial operational capability by the end of 2003.'' It shall include ``Ground-based interceptors deployed at multiple sites''--not two; maybe a half a dozen. And the treaty is very specific that we shall be limited to one. And people have the temerity to get up on this floor and, I assume, try to deceive the American people into believing this is a perfectly harmless, innocent little bill. Oh, I wish I missed the cold war like some of my colleagues do. There are colleagues in this place that cannot sleep at night since the cold war ended and will do anything to resurrect it. There are defense contractors who cannot stand the demise of the Soviet Union. I do not know why it bothers them. We certainly have not cut defense spending any. When the Senator from Maine mentioned the people of Israel, he was talking about a theater missile defense system which virtually every person in this body has strongly supported. We are not talking about theater missiles. We are talking about headed toward an antiballistic missile system in direct contravention of our word as a nation with our name on a treaty that either means something or it does not. Oh, the arrogance in this bill drives me crazy. First, we will say where the demarcation line is between whether something is a theater missile or an antiballistic missile system. We will decide. And if the Russians do not like it, as we used to say when I was a kid, they can take it or lump it. We will deploy on multiple sites. And if the Russians think that violates the treaty, which it clearly does, they can take it or lump it. This bill says ``the Senate.'' Now, you think about the President of the United States, who negotiates treaties and who is talking to the Russians right now about trying to resolve some of these ABM questions. What does this bill say? The Senate--not the President--the Senate will appoint a group of Senators to review ``continuing value and validity of the ABM Treaty.'' We will decide whether it has any value, whether it has any continuing validity. That would be insulting enough. What else do they say? This committee will recommend policy guidance, and the President--Mr. President, you will ``cease all efforts to modify, clarify or otherwise alter this treaty,'' et cetera, et cetera. The arrogance of a bill that says to the President, ``Stop it. Quit trying to work something out. We will decide whether this treaty has value or not.'' The arguments on the other side about how this bill does not abrogate the treaty, all it does is set out a whole host of things which lead unalterably toward a flagrant violation of the treaty and abrogation of the treaty. No self-respecting nation--and Russia is one--will sit idly by while we construe the treaty any way we want to. And they are expected to sit idly by and say, ``Yes, yes, yes.'' I have never heard as much third-grade sophistry in my life as I heard when the Senator from Michigan offered his amendment. On June 21, President Yeltsin submitted the START II Treaty, not negotiated by Bill Clinton, negotiated by George Bush--a good treaty. It should be ratified by both sides immediately. George Bush should say he wants it put on his epitaph that he negotiated START II. So when President Yeltsin appointed his Foreign Minister, Andrey Kozynev, and his Defense Minister, Pavel Grachev, then the President of the Russian party, to negotiate with the Duma and ratify START II, a spokesman for the Duma said: The ratification process would undoubtedly be influenced by progress in the attainment of a Russian-American agreement on the delineation of the strategic and tactical antimissile defense system. The observance of the 1972 ABM Treaty depends on this. The role of this treaty remains unchanged in creating conditions for cutting down strategic offensive weapons. Can you blame Russia? Be fair-minded for about 10 seconds. That is unusual around here. But try it. Be fair-minded for about 10 seconds. If the roles were [[Page S 11269]] reversed, if the Russians were passing laws to abrogate the ABM Treaty, would we ratify START II? We would take it to the men's room, is what we would do with it. Well, Mr. President, both nations have saved billions of dollars by not building antiballistic missile systems. We have a lot of Senators, I say, who just can hardly handle the end of the cold war. How many times have I stood at this desk trying to keep this Nation from spending $2 billion resurrecting a bunch of old rusty buckets called battleships. Two billion dollars. Where are they? In mothballs right where everybody knew they were going. Two billion dollars already gone. I stood here pleading with this body, ``Don't buy all these D-5 missiles, you can't possibly use that many.'' And the Star Wars battle which I thought was over.

Mr. BUMPERS. Why can they not buy weapons now?

Mr. BUMPERS. But it is not necessary, is it?

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, my question is, is it necessary?

Mr. BUMPERS. But is it necessary for a Senator to be recognized? When a request is made for a unanimous-consent agreement, is it necessary for the Senator to say ``I reserve the right to object'' in order to state whatever he wishes to state or she wishes to state?

Mr. BUMPERS. The whole reason this provision should be struck from the bill is because the only countries that need it are those whose credit is so bad that they cannot get weapons under the four existing programs for selling military equipment.