Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I therefore ask unanimous consent that I may speak out of order for such time as I may consume.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, has the Pastore rule run its course for the day?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the Senate?

Mr. BYRD

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I intend to vote for this bill. Some amendments have been adopted, however, with which I do not agree, and I would prefer that they had not been adopted. But that was the Senate's will. Even so, I think this is a new approach and it is entitled to be tested. So I am going to support this legislation for that reason. Mr. President, the Bible tells us that Solomon prayed for wisdom and knowledge. He did not pray for riches. He did not pray for honor. He did not pray for the life of his enemies. He asked the Creator for knowledge and wisdom, and perhaps we in the Senate should do the same. Mr. President, I am very concerned by our Nation's failure to produce better students despite the billions of Federal dollars appropriated every year for various programs intended to aid and improve education. To put it simply, the sums of money invested in our Nation's education system continue to grow each year and, yet, the quality of our Nation's students does not keep pace. Several Senators have championed efforts to improve the dilapidated state of our Nation's school buildings, and I commend them for their leadership. According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), over fourteen million students attend schools in need of major renovations, and I am concerned by this figure. Then, why, my colleagues may ask, have I chosen to vote against an initiative to use Federal funds for construction of our Nation's school buildings? It is not because I do not recognize the benefits or the need for better school facilities--I certainly do. The GAO has estimated that the total bill for addressing this problem nationally tops $100 billion. However, I have reservations about the administration's approach to school repair and construction, which may be more appropriate for better-heeled school districts than are to be found in West Virginia and other rural States. Many poor districts do not have the ability to repay any loan, even an interest- free loan. We are right to be concerned about dilapidated school buildings in this Nation. However, Mr. President, I believe that before the Federal Government embarks upon the new mission of providing massive amounts-- and they will be massive amounts--of scarce Federal dollars for school construction, we should just step back and take a fresh look at why our students are not performing well scholastically. Is it due to aging school buildings? No. Reasons much more fundamental than aging school buildings underlie the poor academic performance by American students. It is these problems which must be addressed. Senators stand on this Floor and we argue about the benefits of tax credits for education, we argue about funds for aging schools, we argue about funds for private schools versus funds for public schools. Yet, I tell you that I believe we are all just talking past each other and past the problem. The problem is rather clear. It has two major components. The problem with education in America has, as its root, (1) the quality of our teachers, and (2) the quality of what they are teaching. We have many good teachers and many of us owe more than we can ever pay to our good teachers. I had dedicated teachers when I was a child. They didn't get paid much back in those days. We came through the Great Depression. But they were dedicated. They loved the children that they taught and they inspired us to excel. And a good teacher can do that, can inspire his or her students to excel, to try harder, to work harder, and strive to be at the head of the class. According to the Third International Math and Science Study, released on February 24 of this year, ``U.S. 12th graders outperformed only two (Cyprus and South Africa) of the 21 participating countries in math and science.'' This is deplorable, absolutely deplorable. Why is it that from 1993 to 1998, education spending has increased by 25 percent, and at the same time, results from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) rank U.S. high school seniors among the worst participants in the areas of math and science? Why is that? Why is it that in all three content areas of advanced mathematics, U.S. advanced mathematics students' performance was among the lowest of the twenty-one participating nations? It is not because of lack of money. James A. Garfield, one of the Presidents, said with regard to the value of a true teacher: ``Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him.'' He wasn't talking about massive buildings, impressive halls and corridors. So why is it? Why is it that in all three content areas, as I say, of advanced math, U.S. advanced--the best--math students' performance was among the lowest of the 21 participating nations? These are supposed to be our Nation's stellar students, our Nation's best students. This is not to say that all our students fall short. We have some excellent students. We have some good schools. I am 100 percent for education. In all my life I have endeavored to press to improve myself. I wanted to start at the beginning, start with myself, improve myself. And I think I have--my colleagues know that. I also wanted to help others. So, in 1969, almost 30 years ago, I started a program in West Virginia to reward the high school valedictorians. And I started a program that is referred to as the Robert C. Byrd Scholastic Recognition Fund. When I began it, I began it with money out of my own pocket. In the beginning, a $25 savings bond was presented to each high school valedictorian in the State of West Virginia. That was in 1969. After a while, I established a trust fund for purchasing the savings bonds, which, in recent years, have been $50 bonds. I wanted to reward students--not the athletes, they get their rewards--but the students who work hard to excel in reading and in mathematics and algebra and geometry and music and so on, encourage those students to excel and to recognize them for excellence. As I say, we recognize the great athletes. We don't recognize the best spellers. Often I hear my colleagues talk about their State's No. 1 standing in football teams and so on. The question that occurs to me is how well can they spell? How well can they add and subtract and multiply and divide? How well can they read? That is what we need to reward--the children who are in the libraries and in the laboratories and who are working hard to improve themselves, to get an education. So I am 100 percent for education but I want to have some confidence, more than I presently have, that my vote to spend the hard-earned dollars of taxpayers will produce a return to merit that investment. I have been voting for Federal aid to education for decades--not just years, for decades--since 1965, to be exact. That was the year in which the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed as well as the Higher Education Act. I have been supporting those acts. But, we still seem to be losing the battle against mediocrity. I do not want to vote against spending for education. But, Mr. President, when do we admit that we are doing poorly, and try something new? It is glaringly apparent from the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and other similar studies that increased education funding does not necessarily translate--does not necessarily translate--into higher student achievement levels. An even more recent study, conducted by the Fordham Foundation, a private organization committed to quality-based reform of elementary and secondary education, indicates the low quality of state standards in math and science. In mathematics, the Nation flunks, with only three States out of 50 receiving a grade of an ``A'', and just nine others a grade of ``B''. In science, the United States is just mediocre, if we can call it that, with nine States failing and seven earning ``D's''. The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation found that our schools are also doing a pretty dismal job of teaching history and geography. I quote from the foreword of the report on history: ``. . . the vast majority of young Americans are attending school in states that do not consider the study of history to be especially important.'' Now think of that. ``. . .the vast majority of young Americans are attending schools in states that do not consider the study of history to be especially important.'' Napoleon said: ``Let my son often read and reflect on history; this is the only true philosophy.'' That was Napoleon. ``No doubt some children are learning lots of solid history from excellent teachers in fine schools. Their good fortune, however, appears to be serendipitous. State standards rarely constitute a ceiling on what can be taught and learned. But it's not unreasonable to view them as the floor below which no child or school should fall . . . when it comes to history, most states have placed that floor where the sub-basement ought to be . . . in only a few instances is history itself the focus of the state academic standards that pertain to it. In most jurisdictions, history remains mired in a curricular swamp called `social studies,' . . . '' Social studies is all right. I don't have any quarrel with social studies, but let's also have history. Let's don't substitute social studies for history. There is no substitute for history. History, of all things, is not thought to be important enough in many of our states to be taught as a separate subject, and that is most unfortunate. Mr. President, merely continuing along this same path of proliferating education programs and investing more and more Federal dollars into our Nation's education system will not solve the problem of improving the quality of our Nation's students. I congratulate our colleagues who work diligently on their committees to bring bills to the floor and manage the bills, who are highly dedicated to serving the students of the Nation and to improving the schools of the Nation and to getting better teachers. I congratulate my colleagues for their efforts. They, too, must become discouraged. On a fundamental level, however, there is something askew with the way we are approaching education in this Nation. I started out in a little two-room schoolhouse along about 1923, when we did not have hand calculators. Lord, have mercy--calculators? We did not have them. We did not have computers or other high technology. We did not have much money for supplies, just the bare essentials. We got by with spring water. We had only one bucket in the school room. A two- room school; two buckets in the school. I was glad when the teacher chose me from time to time to go with another lad across the hill to the spring to bring back the bucket of water. We all drank out of the same bucket and out of the same dipper. We didn't have any indoor plumbing. We had an outhouse--a couple of them--and we didn't have electricity. When the storms came, we had to light a candle or a kerosene lamp. So I do know something about so- called ``difficult'' conditions. I am one of those children who started out with the bottom two or three rungs of the ladder gone; they were missing. In those days, mathematics was about rules, memorized procedures, memorized multiplication tables and other methodical tables. Science was stern stuff. History was about dates and heroes. That is where many of us who went to school in the mountains and hollows of West Virginia learned about our heroes, the people we wanted to be like. There is where we learned about Nathanael Greene, one of Washington's top generals, perhaps his top one. Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox; Daniel Morgan; Nathan Hale, who died on September 22, 1776, because he had been asked by George Washington to go behind the British lines and to draw pictures of the breastworks and other military excavations, and so on. Hale was discovered the night before he was about to return. He had these drawings in his pockets. The next morning, he was executed. He was asked if he had anything he would like to say. He had already asked for a Bible and a chaplain and had been denied both of those. He asked if he had any statement. He said, ``I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.'' So there in our history books is where we children first learned about American heroes, our heroes. History was about dates and heroes. And with these basics, the United States became a mighty industrial power, a leader in medicine, and a winner of world wars. But, somewhere along the line, we seem to have gotten off the track. Today, our students have algebra textbooks that include discussions of chili recipes and hot pepper varieties. I made a speech on this floor a year or so ago about this and brought the particular so-called algebra book with me. And these textbooks do not even begin to define an algebraic expression until page 107--107 in this particular book, so it is no wonder that our students do not fare better on international tests such as the TIMSS! On Friday, March 20, I noted an article on the front page of the Washington Post, which reported a new trend among teachers to teach without the benefit of textbooks. The article discussed how teachers are increasingly relying on the Internet or on materials that they prepare themselves, and spurning the traditional student textbook. Now, what is the reason for this phenomenon? I quote from the Post piece, ``Scientific knowledge is expanding so rapidly that many textbooks are outdated only a few years after they are published. Recent political disputes''--get this; this is the Washington Post talking--``Recent political disputes over textbook content have made publishers wary of offending any interest group, and the result is that the books have become bland and shallow, some teachers complain. . . . Some teachers even cite a decline in children's reading skills as a rationale for abandoning the tomes.'' Mr. President, imagine that. Our kids can't read well enough to effectively digest a textbook. And furthermore, textbooks have become such worthless amalgams of touchy-feely, politically correct twaddle, that many teachers are casting them aside in favor of doing the extra work to prepare material themselves. Mr. President, if we ever hope to improve the quality of students in this country, it is essential that we recultivate an interest in education for its own sake--education for education's sake--not only in our Nation's children, but also in their parents. Our Nation's ailing education system is, in part, influenced by the parents of those children, and of young adults attending high school and college. Parents need to take an active role in their children's education. Without parental involvement, dumbed-down textbooks will continue to creep into the local school systems, and it will be our children and our grandchildren who suffer. I hope that we do not try to tell the American people that fighting over school vouchers or the size of an education IRA, or even the repair of our school buildings will solve the problem of the often shallow, substandard, low quality education we are offering our kids these days. I strongly suspect that our students' poor performance as scholars has a lot more to do with the general dissolution of the family structure, loss of respect for authority, rampant alcohol and drug use by students even in the lower grades, and a pervasive change in attitudes about the value of discipline, than it does with dilapidated school buildings. We can rebuild all the school buildings that we want, and, yes, I agree that we undoubtedly need to modernize and to rebuild some of these structures, but let no one believe that school construction will solve what is wrong with education in this country today. The problems assail us from many directions. How can our teachers teach if they have to create their own textbooks as well as attempt to maintain discipline, and please every interest group? When one considers the meager salaries of teachers generally, and having to struggle against the backdrop of a society that glorifies athletics and the attainment of any type of celebrity far more than it cares about scholarship, it is easy to see why good teachers are increasingly hard to come by. How can mundane scholarship, which requires commitment and hard work on the part of the student, compete with sensational television and movies that offer brutal murder, steamy sex, and filthy language as standard daily fare for our young people? What in the world has happened to a society that is intent on rewriting every single discipline from algebra to geometry to history to be sure that those essential basic subjects are, first and foremost, absolutely politically correct? It has taken us over lock, stock and barrel. We are pulverizing essential knowledge and facts to pulp, easily digested by even the laziest and most undisciplined brains--baby pablum for the mind. So, while we rage on here today about which political party will capture the education issue, let us remember that we are only skimming the surface with any and all of these well-intentioned solutions. There is something much, much more fundamentally wrong with education in America today than a shortage of funding. The public school system had better shape up, or else public support for it is going to completely erode. And I, for one, am willing to try some new approaches--new approaches--anything that may help our most precious resource. The Democratic party is not our most precious resource. The Republican party is not our most precious resource in this country. Our children are our most precious resource--our kids. And so I am willing to try some new approaches to achieve the kind of scholastic excellence that our children need and deserve. My only hope is that someday--someday--in some effective manner, we will find the courage and the practical means to address what amounts to educational child abuse in this Nation in a bipartisan fashion. It should not make any difference whether the right approach is Democratic or Republican. We ought to forget that stuff. That is mere junk partisanship. What matters is the education of our children. There is no room for mere political jousting on a matter of such momentous importance to our people and to our Nation. And that is exactly what the country is witnessing in Washington with regard to the education debate--political jousting. Mr. President, with U.S. high school seniors ranking 19th out of the 21 countries in mathematics, and 16th out of 21 countries in science, we must devote greater attention to stimulating excellence in education. Getting back to the basics is the obvious starting point, and we better start now. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I would like to briefly explain my vote on the motion to table the amendment offered by my distinguished colleague, Senator Kennedy, to H.R. 2646, the Education Savings Act for Public and Private Schools. Despite my support for excellence in teaching and the need for more teachers--high-quality teachers--in the classrooms across America, I voted in favor of tabling the amendment. Like many of my colleagues, I realize the importance of quality teachers in our nation's elementary and secondary schools. I started out in a modest two-room schoolhouse where I did not have high-technology equipment or much money for supplies, but what I did have were dedicated teachers who really cared about my future and my education. Today, our children and grandchildren are being taught mathematics by teachers who have no background whatsoever in the subject area--none at all! There are situations in which teachers who have been trained to teach physical science instead find themselves teaching mathematics! That is not right, and not fair to the teacher or--more importantly--to the students. This amendment would provide a maximum of $8,000 of loan forgiveness over a five-year period to graduate students entering the teaching profession. Given the rising costs associated with a higher education, this certainly does not amount to much in the eyes of a student faced with loans totaling $50,000 or more. Nor does such an incentive help to bring in more teachers in demand subject areas, such as mathematics. Mr. President, the issue and need is for more qualified teachers, not just more teachers. Teaching is a profession for which one must have a true passion as well as dedication and talent. As Aristotle stated so eloquently in his day, Teachers who educated children deserved more honour than parents who merely gave them birth; for bare life is furnished by the one, the other ensures a good life. This amendment does not ensure that quality teachers will be brought into the classrooms. While ostensibly a targeted amendment designed to help provide better teachers for Title I schools and those schools which lack quality teachers in core subject areas, it would cover over ninety percent of all schools. Over ninety percent, Mr. President. I do not call this targeted. While I support the amendment in principle, I believe that it is an unfocused proposal at best. The amendment relies heavily on the hope that limited student loan forgiveness will serve as incentive for graduate students to opt into a teaching profession in lieu of a higher paying job. Furthermore, it does not target the schools which are truly in need of better quality teachers, nor does it ensure that it will be quality teachers in the needed subject areas who make their way into the classrooms. For these reasons, Mr. President, I have voted to table the amendment.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. May we have a reading of the amendment?

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the very high degree of leadership that he has demonstrated in managing this bill. It was a difficult bill with a great number of amendments. And he has remained on the floor, worked hard, and demonstrated his characteristic fairness and objectivity throughout the work on the bill. I thank him on behalf of the Senators and express our collective appreciation and, may I say, our admiration.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am offering an amendment to S. 1768, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill, to address the inequitable treatment of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency's (FSA) federal and non-federal county committee employees when separated from their jobs as a result of a reduction in force (RIF). FSA RIFs are occurring nationwide and are a result of comprehensive changes in the agency's mission mandated in the USDA Reorganization Act of 1994 and the 1996 Farm Bill. Complicating the impact of the FSA downsizing is the fact that the FSA is currently operating an unusual personnel system that contains two classes of employees, one federal and one non-federal. This was a result of the reorganizing legislation that combined the former Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) and the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) into the FSA. ASCS employees were paid through the FSA budget but were hired by a county committee. Therefore, ASCS employees were non-federal. FmHA staff were regular federal employees. Although now in one agency, this two-class system continues. My amendment would place RIFed federal and non-federal FSA employees on equal footing when competing for another USDA job. Currently, the RIFed non-federal employees are not on equal footing with their FSA federal employee counterparts for USDA job vacancies due to a preference only available to RIFed federal employees. Current law gives priority to any former federal employee when applying for another federal job. Thus, if all other qualifications remained equal, the former FSA federal employee would automatically get the job over the former FSA non-federal employee. My amendment would grant the RIFed non-federal employees the same priority as currently enjoyed by the RIFed federal employee when applying for another USDA job. Again, my amendment would simply provide equitable and fair treatment for all FSA employees, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I strongly support the amendment offered by the senior Senator from North Carolina. The administration has been on a nonstop campaign to color the Congress as irresponsible chiselers on U.N. dues. At the same time, however, we are forking over emergency money for Bosnia operations and for Southwest Asia operations in this bill that amounts to nearly $2 billion. It was the present NATO-led operation that bailed out the embarrassingly bad failure of the United Nations to keep the peace in Bosnia which had witnessed a modern version of the Holocaust. It was the U.S. military operation, exclusively in Southwest Asia, that gave teeth to the U.N. Secretary General's negotiations with Saddam Hussein, a fact readily admitted by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. The United States has paid out many times over in unilateral costs the so-called arrearages claimed by the United Nations to be owed by the United States in support of the objectives of the United Nations in both theaters. The amendment by Mr. Helms is truth in international funding, truth in international fundraising. We do not see much in the way of contributions by other members of the Security Council to our operations in either theater. The figures used by Mr. Helms, some $6 billion or more in U.S. unilateral outlays since 1990, compared to the trumpeted past due bill of $1 billion we supposedly owe to the United Nations, provides the stark contrast--the stark contrast--the basic unfairness of the charge that the United States is some kind of debtor to the United Nations, some kind of deadbeat, as it were, some kind of chiseler, as it were. My mom used to keep boarders back in the coal mining community. And we took on boarders who came to our house. I often listened to a new boarder for a few minutes. From time to time I would say to the woman who raised me--``He's going to beat you out of your board bill. That man won't pay you.'' And I was amazed in so many instances to find, to my chagrin, that that man would not pay his board bill. He was a chiseler. That is what we are portrayed to be--chiselers; deadbeats--we will not pay our dues; we will not pay our arrearages. The United States has been bailing out the rest of the United Nations for years now. Take the United States out of the United Nations, what do you have left? What is there left? The other members of the United Nations, in fact, owe the United States. They owe us a massive back bill for military operations and funding. The first question that was ever asked in the history of the world, in the history of the universe, in the history of all creation, the first question that was ever asked was when God walked through the Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day, searching for Adam and Eve. They had forfeited--they had forfeited--their right to that everlasting life in that garden of bliss, a virtual paradise, by eating from the Tree of Knowledge in violation of God's warning not to do so. So God came looking for them in the cool of the day. God asked that first question: ``Adam, where art thou?'' They had hidden themselves from Him. ``Adam, where art thou?'' Mr. President, we might well ask the other members of the United Nations, ``Where were you when we were in the hot sands of the gulf, when we had sent our men and women away from their homes, away from their firesides, away from their children, away from their loved ones to take possible action to protect you and yours? Where were you? Where were you?'' Mr. President, the time has come for the administration to cool down--cool down--it's hot rhetoric on the matter of the so-called arrearages by the United States. The time has come to see the forest-- not just the trees--on the matter of who is fulfilling the responsible role--the responsible role--of international leadership against aggression. I commend the Senator for his amendment. I thank him for allowing me to be a cosponsor of it. I hope that it will get a big vote in this Chamber so that a clear message is sent to the whiners--to the whiners--both in New York and down Pennsylvania Avenue on this whole issue. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. BYRD. Will the distinguished Senator restate what the situation will be in the event that the IMF amendment is defeated?

Mr. BYRD. Would amendments then be in order?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President----

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me, I am hearing that further amendments would be in order if the IMF amendment is defeated. I just want to be sure that the agreement allows for such an eventuality.

Mr. BYRD. But it is my understanding other Senators may be at liberty to offer additional amendments; they need to be able to offer additional amendments, in the event the IMF amendment is defeated.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am advised that is satisfactory.

Mr. BYRD. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, would the distinguished Senator state again what time tomorrow morning the first vote will occur?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank both the distinguished Senator from Texas, Mrs. Hutchison, and the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, for the courtesies they have extended to me. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator who is now presiding over the Senate, Senator Pat Roberts, quoted me earlier in respect to the Bosnian matter. I wish to quote a great American President--a great American President. And that President's comments were pertinent at the time and are pertinent today. Perhaps I should first thank Senator Hutchison for offering the amendment. I can assure her and assure the Senator from Wisconsin that when the time comes to discuss and to consider appropriations for the fiscal year 1999, I shall be active, the Lord willing, in dealing with this matter that is the subject of this amendment; namely, Bosnia and our participation in the circumstances and conditions that presently prevail in that area. The constitutional framework arranged by the framers speaks with crystal clarity regarding the war powers. The authority to initiate war rests solely with Congress, except for one narrow area, the defensive authority to repel sudden attacks which is granted to the Commander in Chief. Let us listen, though, for a moment to the words of President Abraham Lincoln, in a letter, to William H. Herndon, on the subject of the exercise of the unfettered use of the war power by a President. Mr. Lincoln wrote: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect after you have given him so much as you propose. If today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ``I see no probability of the British invading us,'' but he will say to you ``Be silent. I see it, if you don't.'' Lincoln continues: The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their peoples in war, pretending generally if not always that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. So, Mr. President, Lincoln spoke to the subject in his day. This is a very difficult area. It is an area of mixed powers, and the problem is, Presidents in recent years have been prone to put men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces in areas of danger and then call upon the Congress for appropriations to sustain that American manpower, and Congress is reluctant, of course, once the men are in the area, reluctant to be charged with pulling the rug out from beneath them. But there has to be an accounting. Congress has to be a part of this equation. Congress has the responsibility and duty to make itself heard in this matter. The time will come when we will have that opportunity. I hope that Congress will rise to the situation. I will have considerably more to say on this subject at that time, as will others, I am sure. But we cannot just sit back and leave it up to the administration to use the term ``Commander in Chief,'' which is a British term from the beginning and which was used to designate various army officers in various locations during the time of Charles I, Charles II, and so on. That term is not enough. It is time to use the power of the purse. And many of us in this Chamber have fought for that power of the purse. We have resisted the efforts to give the President, whether he be a Democrat or a Republican, a share in the control of the purse. That matter is coming home to roost. We will see here, as we have seen it previously, that Congress' power over the purse is the one voice, the one voice that every administration, Republican or Democratic, will hear and will heed. I hope that we in this body will remember that the time was not too long ago when Congress gave to the President of the United States the line-item veto. When we did that, we stuck a dagger in the back of the Senate. I hope that the Supreme Court will strike that nefarious law dead, dead, dead. But that is just one example of our being the culprits in giving to the Chief Executive a power that the Constitution does not give him. But in this case let us speak up. Again, I congratulate the lady from Texas. I will be with her, we will talk, we will work together, and I have a feeling that the administration will come back to the Appropriations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, and I believe that the administration will be shorn of its trappings, which were so impressive, they thought, a year ago as they assured us on the Armed Services Committee that our troops would be in Bosnia only, perhaps, about a year. I think they were dissimulating at the time. I think they knew better than that. I think we had a strong suspicion that that would not be the case. They were being a little disingenuous at the time--not the first time Congress has been treated in that fashion; there have been other times. It is time that Congress spoke up and took a stand for this Constitution of ours. I thank the Senator from Texas for her courtesy.

Mr. BYRD

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