Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator. I appreciate the Senator from California yielding. As I indicated before, I can speak for myself. I cannot speak for others. It is true that the Senator spoke to me about offering the amendment. In the context of what we are doing here, a time limit is reasonable. It is just that I cannot speak for other Senators who I know would want to speak in opposition to the Senator's amendment. I would be happy to check with those Senators and try to get an answer back to the Senator from California and announce to the Senate a reasonable time agreement. In answer to the Senator's other point, it appears to me that the Senator's amendment attempts to extend the rights that our States, 50 States do not have to the District of Columbia. This Senator is not prepared to do that. I do not know if other Senators are prepared to do that. I think that question has to be addressed in the Chamber as well as the viability of the commingling, of extending the full abortion rights to the District of Columbia when we are not really certain how the funds are commingled between District funds and Federal funds. Everybody knows that the District of Columbia is bankrupt. We do not know how they are applying the funds or what Federal funds they are going to be getting or how the services would be funded or how the funds would be separated. I think there a number of questions that have to be asked. In response to the Senator's question, I would be happy to try to ascertain what response other Senators might want to give.

Mr. COATS. If the Senator will yield, I just walked in the Chamber and I am not 100 percent sure of even what the amendment says. I think I have the gist of what the amendment is, and I think that there are probably a number of Senators who may want to speak on the amendment. I could easily check that and try to find out within the next few minutes as to whether or not that is the case and whether or not a reasonable time limit would entertain. But I cannot speak for other Members. I would like to speak in opposition to this amendment, but I cannot speak for other Members, and I am not prepared to agree to a time limit at this particular point.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I do not intend to debate this amendment at this particular time. I have been in negotiations with the Senator from California relative to her amendment. We are attempting to work out an agreement whereby we can offer our amendments for a limited period of debate and prevent second degrees from being offered so that the amendments can be dealt with on their merits and voted on an up-or-down basis. I want to put the amendment in place so that when we reach that agreement we can proceed on that basis. I will just very briefly describe this amendment, without debating it, for my colleagues' information. Until January 1, 1996, the Accrediting Council for Graduate Medical Education did not require that a hospital train its residents to perform induced abortions. Such training, if it was necessary, was done on a voluntary basis. On January 1, 1996, the accrediting council changed its standards and now requires those facilities and residents to undergo training in induced abortion procedures in order to receive its accreditation. As a consequence, most Federal Government rules regarding reimbursement to these hospitals and regarding grants and loans available to residents and resident training programs are pegged to the hospitals and training programs receiving the accreditation of the Accrediting Council for Graduate Medical Education. These facilities, if they choose not to require this abortion training, will lose their Federal funding. It is important that they retain this. While there is a conscience clause exemption, obviously that does not apply to secular hospitals, most of which do not require mandated abortion training. That is the essence of the amendment. It is a nondiscrimination amendment which would prevent any government, Federal or State, from discriminating against hospitals or residents that do not perform, train, or make arrangements for abortions. It would prevent, therefore, governments from denying these providers Medicare reimbursement, loans, or licenses to practice medicine. It does not--it is important for my colleagues to understand this-- this legislation does not prevent the accreditation council, a private, quasi-Government accrediting agency, the ACGME, it does not prevent them from promulgating any standard that they wish to promulgate regarding abortion. We are not telling them who to accredit and who not to accredit. We are simply saying that if they did not accredit because a hospital, for whatever reason--conscience reasons, moral reasons, religious reasons, community standards reasons, business reasons-- decided not to mandate the requirement of teaching their residents abortion procedures, that they will not be in a position of losing their funds. That is a quick summary of the amendment. We probably will have time to debate it more at length, but I did want to offer it and will continue to work with the Senator from California in achieving some type of balanced approach to these two amendments. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. COATS. This Senator is pleased to hear that information. Amendment No. 3513 to Amendment No. 3466 (Purpose: To amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit governmental discrimination in the training and licensing of health professionals on the basis of the refusal to undergo or provide training in the performance of induced abortions)

Mr. COATS. Before I send this amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration, might I inquire as to whether this Senator's name is on that list?

Mr. COATS. As I said before----

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Dole, myself, and Mr. Lieberman, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I wonder if I could ask the Senator from Virginia to just yield for a moment? I have an amendment I would like to offer on behalf of Senator Dole. I need to beat the clock. May I take 30 seconds to do that?

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Adm. William A. Owens and his extraordinary efforts in developing the military's Joint Requirements Oversight Council, better known as JROC. Admiral Owens retires today after 33 years of service to our Nation, and as our military's third Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--the second highest ranking officer in our Armed Forces. As Vice Chairman, Admiral Owens defined the role of the JROC in the defense requirements planning process--a process that has seen little change from the cold war planning process instituted by former Defense Secretary McNamara in the 1960's. The JROC as a forum, and a process, is little known and even less understood. But I believe it is essential to leveraging the tremendous capabilities that can be gained through joint planning and operations. I believe it also signals the need for a fundamental change in the way America plans for its future defense. This need for change is not a challenge limited to the Defense Department, but rather will provoke many of us to reflect what means to be pro-defense today--in a daunting era of emerging new technologies, uncertainly over future threats, an expanding continuum of military operations, and scarce and competing resources. The JROC evolved in response to these challenges. But the JROC was also largely motivated by the Goldwater-Nichols' Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Goldwater-Nichols required the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to conduct net assessments to determine our military capabilities. The act also required that the Chairman provide the Secretary of Defense with alternative program recommendations and budget proposals--recommendations alternative to decisions derived from business as usual. To assist the Chairman in this role, Goldwater-Nichols created the position of the Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Vice Chairman for the past 2 years, Admiral Owens has chaired the JROC and its members--the Air Force and Army Vice Chiefs of Staff, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, and the Assistant Commander of the Marine Corps. These senior military leaders now devote 10 to 15 hours each week to review issues generated by various joint warfighting capability assessments, or JWCA's. The JWCA's, which Admiral Owens initiated, comprehensively evaluate 10 distinct warfighting capabilities across military service lines. The purpose of these assessments is to enhance interoperability among programs and services, and to identify those new technologies, organizational changes, as well as deficiencies and redundancies, that will improve our military's warfighting capabilities. Through his leadership and vision, Admiral Owens transformed the JROC into what it is today--a forum where our military's senior leadership undertakes the critical process of reviewing, debating and planning our military's future warfighting capability. The JROC has given our military service members a greater awareness of other services' programs, requirements and operations, as well as the capabilities required by each of the warfighting commanders. Because it comprehensively assesses the overarching military capability as a whole--compared to the well-rooted program by program review of the past--the JROC can better assess how much warfighting capability is enough and how much redundancy is acceptable. The JROC is in a state of evolution and its recommendations will not always be popular. But what's remarkable about the JROC is its ability to address military requirements across service lines--across the lines of parochialism that have, in the past, inhibited the military's move toward greater jointness, to greater effectiveness and to greater efficiencies. Admiral Owens and the JROC have been a catalyst for moving defense planning away from business as usual--shifting the focus of the defense debate away from defense spending levels, and move toward a process that collectively addresses a kaleidoscope of defense challenges, and will ensure that defense investment decisions and force structure changes are wise, attainable and affordable. At one of our last meetings, Admiral Owens left with me a booklet entitled ``New York Habits for a Radically Changing World.'' There is one particular quote in this book which perhaps best captures Admiral Owens' concern and vision for the future of our armed forces. I quote: Organizations can't stop the world from changing. The best they can do is adapt. The smart ones change before they have to. The lucky ones manage to scramble and adjust when push comes to shove. The rest are losers, and they become history. Our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to Admiral Ownes for effecting change before it was compelled, and for his stewardship in ensuring our Armed Forces are well-equipped, well-trained, and well-prepared in this century and beyond.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I want to tag on, I do not know if I can add to what was so articulately presented by my colleague, Senator Lieberman, from Connecticut, about the many reasons why we ought to go forward and support this demonstration effort to determine whether or not it is a valid idea to allow students and their parents to make a choice, or at least to have a choice, to attend a private school in lieu of the public school education they are receiving. Senator Lieberman and I obviously feel that it is. We have been trying to promote the idea of school choice for several years here in the U.S. Senate, albeit, unsuccessfully. The evidence is rolling in at a very rapid rate that at least in certain sectors of our country the public school system is badly failing our children. Now, many Americans can opt out of that. They can opt out of that because they have the financial wherewithal to select a different school for their child if they feel that child is not receiving a legitimate education or an education that will allow them, in many cases, to escape the poverty that they find themselves in. Probably most, if not all, of the Senators in this body had that choice. I think that it is important to stress what we are attempting to do here. We want to allow a test of the concept of making assistance available to families and to students who do not have the financial means to make a choice as to where their children will be educated. Many low-income families find themselves trapped in a failed education system or in a school that is not providing education to them in a sufficient way to allow them to escape some of the desperate situations that they live in. We find parents that are pleading for the opportunity to have the choice that most of the rest of us in this Chamber enjoy. This is an extraordinarily modest attempt, far less than what I would propose. Maybe it is the only thing that is achievable, but an extraordinarily modest attempt to give a few students and their families, in some of the poorest areas of this city, an opportunity to opt out of a failed system and into a school that they think can provide a better education and a better atmosphere for their children. I ask my colleagues, if you have any doubts about the value of such an opportunity, go and visit the school that Senator Lieberman and I visited a couple of weeks ago. This school is located in one of the poorest sections of this city, and the vast majority of its students, over 90 percent, are African-Americans, many of whom are from low- income families. Their parents have made extraordinary sacrifices to pay the tuition, which is modest for the education they are receiving, so the children can go there. It is one of the most remarkable examples of the differences that exist today between private schools and public schools in many areas. I do not want to say all public schools are bad because they are not. I happen to send my children to public schools. That is a choice we have. If I were living in an area where the public schools were not, in my opinion, providing the learning experiences, providing the education, providing the atmosphere, the safety, that I felt was appropriate, I had the choice, the financial wherewithal to send them somewhere else. However, many low-income parents do not have that choice. They are condemned to the school in their neighborhood, the school to which they are assigned.

Mr. COATS. I will be happy to yield at the end. If I had unlimited time I would be happy to yield to the Senator because I know of his experience in this issue and I respect that. There is a school in Indianapolis that exists in the near east side, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Indianapolis. It is a private parochial school. A wealthy individual in Indianapolis who was frustrated over the inability of low-income students to have the same choices as other students put $3 million of his own money into a fund that would pay for half of the scholarships at this school. The school, incidentally, charges a per pupil tuition which is one-third the per pupil expenditure in the public schools. This gentleman decided to pay half the tuition for low-income families living in the inner-city neighborhood of the school to ensure that those families would have a choice as to where their children would be educated. The demand for these scholarships was so overwhelming that the school could not begin to accommodate the numbers of students interested. This parochial school had the kind of streamlined bureaucracy that Senator Lieberman referred to earlier in discussing private schools. This school has one principal and I think one administrator who handled the book work and so forth. But the remarkable difference between this school and public schools concerned the experience of the students--the extent of their education, their achievements, their respect for the institution, and the involvement of many of the teachers, many of whom were making a great financial sacrifice to teach as part of a commitment and a mission that they felt--it was dramatic difference. So, really what is at issue here today is whether or not the U.S. Senate is going to continue to insist that the educational choice available to middle and upper income families not be allowed for essentially minority, low-income students. And whether or not we have an obligation to at least test the concept to see whether or not the benefits that we propose are in fact benefits that do inure to these students. If opponents of this proposal are correct, that this program will undermine the public schools and not be successful at better educating some low-income students, then we will know, will we not? If we allow the District to experiment with school choice, as other communities are beginning to do, we will be able to evaluate objective results. The measures that Senator Lieberman and I have offered over the years have provided a very stringent accountability and testing of the demonstration program so that this Congress is given a set of data with which to make an objective determination of whether it works or does not work. I am not sure that it takes some fancy studies to figure out that there are problems in our public school system today, particularly in many inner-city areas, and that there are parents who are desperate for educational options for their children because they believe that the current system condemns them to a lifetime of inadequate educational preparation. Many families are worried that they are condemned to a lifetime of living in the conditions they are living in because educationally they will not have the tools to allow them to achieve a better standard of living for themselves and for their children. So this bill represents an extraordinarily modest attempt to experiment with the concept of school choice. I hope that this is something that my colleagues would take the time to examine to determine whether or not we should pursue this type of education reform. I come from an area of Indiana--Fort Wayne, IN--that has successfully, for generations, operated parallel school systems. We have a vigorous public school system which we are proud of, we have a vigorous private Protestant system--it is a Lutheran school system--and we have a vigorous parochial, Catholic school system, all operating side by side. I contend, and I think the statistics prove, that all three of those systems are healthy and are vibrant and are successful because the competition among the three has caused all of them to try to do a better job. I do not know of anything in America, that provides better quality at a better price as a result of a monopoly, but I have thousands of examples of better quality products at a lower price because of competition. So many of our success stories have come about by people trying to do a little bit better than the person next door, or trying to do a little better than their competitor. This bill acknowledges this truth about success and says that it is possible, as a result of competition, to provide better quality education. If any Senators can stand and argue that the public school system does not need some shakeup, some change, I think they have not been examining what is going on in our public schools. All you need to do is ask the parents or ask the students or make a visit. I know the hold of the organized public school lobby is extraordinarily strong, but I think their arguments are becoming much harder to defend, and I hope we can at least provide this demonstration program. For that reason, I will be supporting the vote on cloture. I thank my colleague from Connecticut for his articulating the many, many reasons why we should go forward with this.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise to support the motion to invoke cloture on the Farm bill before the Senate today. I encourage my colleagues to support this motion so that the Senate may move to consideration of the merits of the bill. Those who crafted this legislation have been working day and night to put together a package that would allow for the farm legislation to proceed. The legislation offers flexibility, certainty and opportunity for America's farmers. Mr. President, it is imperative that we enact farm legislation soon. Failure to act this year leaves us with bleak alternatives. Reversion to 1938 and 1949 laws could dramatically increase the cost of running the farm programs. Extending current programs only delays the need to make significant reforms in a 60-year-old farm program. Hoosier farmers, and farmers across America, need payment assurances and guidance in planting decisions. The compromise legislation would provide fixed payments to program farmers and allow farmers to plant any program crop. The compromise also contains meaningful conservation and nutrition proposals. At the same time, this legislation would work toward reducing Federal spending. The Senate should not overlook this opportunity to move forward and pass farm legislation. We should not miss the opportunity to initiate change and institute reform in the Nation's farm policies.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I stand before you today to urge my colleagues to support final passage of this telecommunications reform legislation. It is truly a monumental piece of work. The competitive forces that this legislation will unleash will create an explosion of new jobs, new technology. It will secure for this Nation, well into the future, its rightful place in the forefront of industry and technological development and utilization. I am pleased that the conference report contains strong protections for America's children. This provision reflects the concern of our Nation to ensure that, as we establish the framework for the rising tide of the technology society, we take care to establish an environment safe for our children. I am speaking about the provision, sponsored by myself and Senator Exon, that deals with the issue of pornographic material on the internet. Mr. President, sometimes our technology races beyond our reflection, and we are left with a dangerous gap--a period when society is unprepared to deal with the far-reaching results of rapid change. This is the situation we have on the internet. This is the situation which this legislation will address. The type of pornography currently available on the internet includes images and text dealing with the sexual abuse of children, the torture of women and images of perversion and brutality beyond normal imagination, and beyond the boundaries of human civilization. Childhood must be defended by parents and society as a safe harbor of innocence. It is a privileged time to develop values in an environment that is not hostile to them. But this foul material on the internet invades that place and destroys that innocence. It takes the worst excesses of that red-light district and places it directly into a child's bedroom, on the computer their parents bought them to help them with their homework. Let me take a moment to outline exactly what this legislation will do: Those who utilize a computer to persuade, include entice, or coerce a minor to engage in prostitution or any sexual act will be prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned up to 10 years. If you use your computer to contact and harass another individual, you will be prosecuted under this bill. This legislation would prosecute those who utilize an interactive computer service to send indecent material directly to a minor or use an interactive computer service to display indecent material in a manner easily available to a minor. On-line services and access software providers are liable where they are conspirators with, advertise for, are involved in the creation of or knowing distribution of obscene material or indecent material to minors. This legislation leaves unchanged E-mail privacy laws. Simply put, this legislation extends the same protections for children that exist everywhere else in our society to the internet. The bottom line is simple: we are removing indecency from areas of cyberspace easily accessible to children, if individuals want to provide that material, it must be in areas with barriers to minors, if adults want to access that material, they must make a positive effort to get it. Our warning is equally clear: if you post indecent material on the internet in areas accessible to children, you will be held to account. Mr. President, one of the most urgent questions in any modern society is how we humanize our technology--how we make it serve us. America is at the frontier of human knowledge, but it is incomplete without applying human values. And one of our most important values is the protection of our children--not only the protection of their bodies from violence, but the protection of their minds and souls from abuse. We can not, and should not, resist change. But our brave new world must not be hostile to the innocence of our children. Mr. President I am proud that we have taken this very important step. I am proud that as we usher in this information age, America has placed the protection of our children as a central issue in this landmark legislation.

Mr. COATS

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

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I have been informed that it is the leader's intention to go into recess subject to the call of the Chair immediately after my statement.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend the time of morning business for an additional 10 minutes, and that I be permitted to speak during that time.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, may I inquire, what is the current status of the Senate?

Mr. COATS. And thereafter, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate go into recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I think we have an agreement here that we would extend the period of time for morning business by 20 minutes, with 10 minutes allocated to this Senator and 10 minutes allocated to the Senator from Arkansas, as given by the Senator from Maryland. If that is acceptable, I so ask unanimous consent.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I have come for the first time to a disturbing conviction. That conviction is that I do not believe this budget process is going to succeed. I am beginning to believe that any amount of negotiating in the future is not going to result in agreement. I have come to this point because 44 days after the President said he agreed that we should enact a balanced budget, nothing has happened, and I am not sure that negotiating and bargaining is being done in any way that would fulfill that commitment. The President, first of all, has not demonstrated any history of supporting or proposing a balanced budget and has yet to put a balanced budget as scored by the agency that he insisted it be scored by, on the table. He has vetoed the only real budget that has come before his desk, and even now, today, January 4, as I said, 44 days after he agreed to enact a balanced budget, he has yet to propose a balanced budget. President Clinton has now proposed four budgets, none of which has produced a balance. The third so-called balanced budget he proposed was scored by the Congressional Budget Office as $200 billion per year over balance as far as the eye could see, and then his fourth budget only managed to reduce the deficits to $100 billion a year for every year ad infinitum. Not one Member of the Senate, Republican or Democrat, has voted for the President's budget. In one vote, it was defeated 96 to nothing, in another 99 to nothing. So this is just not Republican rhetoric. This is a unanimous rejection of the President's attempts to balance the budget by all Republicans and all Democrats in the Senate. So for anybody who is under the illusion that the President has proposed a balanced budget with honest numbers, no one in this body, Republican or Democrat, agrees to that. It seems to me, third, that at every stage of the negotiations the President has purposely tried to distract the Nation's attention from a balanced budget. First, he talked about the number of years it would take to balance the budget and finally agreed, under duress I think, that 7 years would be the right number. But he was quoted as saying, and I quote again, ``[As President] I would present a 5-year plan to balance the budget.'' He said that on Larry King in June. And then in July, he said, ``But I do not believe it is good policy, based on my understanding of this budget--which is pretty good, now--to do it in 7 years.'' That he said in a Rose Garden ceremony in July. Then he said, well, I think we ought to ``balance the budget in 10 years. It took decades to run up the deficit, it's going to take a decade to wipe it out.'' That was during his Presidential address to the Nation. Then he used the scoring issue, that is, determining whether or not the numbers were real, as a distraction. He challenged us--and I sat over at the House of Representatives during his State of the Union Address--when he said, ``Let's at least argue about the same set of numbers so the American people will think we are shooting straight with them.'' That was in his address before a joint session of Congress on administration goals in February 1993. And so we accepted that challenge, and we said we will agree, Mr. President; let us use the agency that you want to use. That is the Congressional Budget Office. And then we argued back and forth, back and forth, and the President said, well, the Congressional Budget Office, I do not agree with them. I wish to use my own numbers. For nearly 9 months he was able to distract the press, the Congress, and the American people from the real issue of balancing the budget by focusing the debate on how long it ought to take, on what numbers we ought to use. So he--I have to give him credit--he masterfully maneuvered and shifted the debate for month after month after month when the real issue was balancing the budget. The President's attitude is particularly destructive because we are at a unique moment in recent history. We have the opportunity to pass a real balanced budget, interestingly enough, at a time when the differences between us are not that great. We have a chance to negotiate because really we are quite close. A number of Democrats have worked with Republicans in trying to put together an alternative budget that would reach balance, and the number differences really are not that far apart. The differences between the Republican budget and the President's only amounts to 2 percent of the entire budget. Even on the most divisive issues, those issues of Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare reform, we are quite close. On the most contentious issue of all, Medicare, both the President and the First Lady have essentially stated that they would do more to slow the rate of growth than what the Republicans have done. In 1993 the President said: . . . Medicare and Medicaid are going up at three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it go up at two times the rate of inflation. This is not a Medicare and Medicaid cut. The First Lady in 1993 said: We are talking about beginning to reduce the rate of increase . . . in the Medicare from about 11 percent . . . increase annually to about 6 or 7 percent increase annually. So what the Republicans have done in their budget is exactly what both the President and the First Lady had indicated that we ought to do. And yet now it is politically turned to the fact that the Republicans are trying to cut when it is not a cut. We are trying to do what they suggested. My point is, not necessarily that the President is playing politics with this, although clearly he is, my point is that we are not far apart at all. I think we need to understand also that this partial shutdown of Government could be solved overnight if the President had simply signed the appropriations bills that were sent to him. He chose to veto the Interior appropriations, the Commerce, Justice, State appropriations, and the VA-HUD appropriations bills. Those hundreds of thousands of workers, Federal workers that are not now working that we hear about every day at drumbeat out of the White House could all be at work if the President had just signed the bills that we sent to him. What is discouraging, Mr. President, is that we have come so close for a result so important and that the remaining differences between us are narrow. But it seems to me that the President is willing to sacrifice perhaps one of the most important things the U.S. Congress could do in this decade if not this century. We are sacrificing that, the demands of history for the demands of politics. Look, this game cannot continue indefinitely. We have to end this political posturing. I think we have a moral obligation to do so. I am convinced that we should set some kind of firm deadline and prove once and for all if the President has any intention of supporting a balanced budget. That deadline ought to be set in weeks, not months. If the President refuses to negotiate in good faith to reach that agreement and do what he said he would do, that is, put a budget on the table that actually balanced, if he is not willing to do this, then I think we should end this politically motivated pretense that is going on. It would then become an issue to be decided in the 1996 elections. Voters would be presented with a very clear choice: The status quo, continue the Government growing as it has, leave it the same, that Government needs to do more, keep spending, keep taxing, or change the fundamental direction and course of Government and achieve a balanced budget. If we do that, we can pass appropriations bills that produce enough savings to ensure that we can still reach a balanced budget in 7 years during this interim period between the time we cut off negotiations and the election of 1996. Mr. President, I suggest that it is time for the games and the politics and the distractions to end. There is one issue, and one issue only that we must decide: Will we fulfill the promise of this unique moment in passing a balanced Federal budget? All the rest can be negotiated if both sides negotiate in good faith. If the President refuses to do so, as he has done to this moment, then the question will need to be put to the American people--is it enough for a President to talk about a balanced budget or do we need a President who will actually agree to a balanced budget? Mr. President, I yield back any time I have remaining. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. COATS

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