William Cohen

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. I thank my colleague and friend from Michigan. I want to join in support of the amendment that he has offered to make what I believe to be very strong antifraud measures even stronger. Mr. President, I have listened at length to the debate today, and I think the American people are wondering, why are we here at this point in time debating this issue in the fashion that we are debating it? We are here because there has been a lot of politics involved in the entire debate. Ever since the release of the trustees' report on the Medicare trust fund last spring, Republicans have said, ``We have to do something.'' I recall that Senator Dole, the majority leader, last spring urged that President Clinton try to put together some kind of a bipartisan commission or committee or group of Senators and House Members to see if we could not resolve this on a bipartisan basis. There were no takers. There were no takers at that time. They simply said there is not a problem. ``There is no problem with Medicare, and you Republicans are simply trying to blow it out of proportion.'' Well, there is a problem. There is a problem that has to be fixed. Let me say very candidly, as we talk about taxes, that I, for one--I may be a minority of one--do not favor tax cuts at this time. I think that we should be balancing the budget, period, at this time. But I think we have to separate out the issue of the reformation of the Medicare fund itself. I compare it to a situation of a home in Maine, by way of example. We are going into the winter season. We have a home that needs to be heated. And there is frost on the walls, and the inside of the walls, not the outside. That is how cold it is. We have a home that is losing heat. We need to get heat into the home to keep people warm. The problem is, you have several holes in the roof, and the windows are broken, and we have an inefficient furnace in the basement. Now, there are one or two ways that we can keep warm in that home. We can try to buy more fuel. We do not have enough money, so we have to get a second or third job, assuming you can find a second or third job. And so we have to buy more fuel to put more fuel into the home to keep the frost from freezing us inside. That is one way of doing it. That way would be to simply increase taxes. If you want the analogy to be made properly, we just have more taxes to keep the system going at a rate of 10 percent growth. That is what we have to do, increase the taxes. I have not heard one single person on the other side call for a 44- percent increase in taxes, in the payroll tax of part A of the Medicare trust fund. So we know that we would have to get more fuel oil or get a second or third job to buy more fuel oil to put oil in that house. Or we could make the house more energy efficient. We could fix the holes in the roof. We could fix the windows that are broken. We could put a new furnace that is energy efficient in the basement and conserve energy as opposed to allowing it to go out through the chimney and the holes in the roof and the windows. That, basically, is what the Republicans have tried to do in terms of slowing down the growth of the Medicare fund as such to make it more efficient, to stop growing at a rate of 10 percent to 6.3 or 6.5. Now, President Clinton, to his credit, admitted that we have a problem, and he suggested that we slow the growth down to 7.5 percent. Mr. President, I suggest that there is room for agreement between our two parties, between the President and the Senate and the House. And right now, unfortunately, we are in a stage where we are setting the posture for a potential agreement sometime down the line. But let us not make any mistake about it, we still need to reform the Medicare system. Part A and part B have to be reformed if we are going to ever stop the growth rate of 10 percent a year, which cannot be sustained under anyone's calculations without a major tax increase. And no one on that side of the aisle is talking about a major tax increase. I would like to come back to a subject matter which I think has been addressed earlier but is of great importance to me because it deals, not with Medicare, but Medicaid. One of the mistakes, I believe, that has been made in the bill as reported out of the committee is that we are suddenly waiving many of the standards and regulations that have been hard fought in the field of nursing home care. One of the first bills that I introduced back in 1973, in December 1973, was the Nursing Home Patients' Bill of Rights. That came in the wake of a number of congressional investigations into absolutely intolerable conditions in nursing homes where patients were tied to their beds or wheelchairs, where they were medicated and overmedicated to the point where they were practically zombies, where a Senate aging committee called them warehouses for the dying. As a result of the expose of the abuses that were taking place in the nursing home industry itself, we were able to, over a period of time, establish nursing home patients' rights. Many of them have been put into place by Executive order. Finally, under OBRA 87, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1987, we finally were able to put into law specific regulations and standards about how these homes should be run and maintained. We have, for all practical purposes, eliminated that under the bill. I hope that we can correct that. I believe that we can correct that, and we should correct it. But tomorrow we are holding a hearing in the Aging Committee in which we will again discuss the reasons why we need a continuation of the Federal standards and oversight and enforcement of nursing homes. Let me give you just a couple examples. By the way, this is not a new issue. I ask unanimous consent to have this material printed in the Record.

Mr. COHEN. We have had over 50--at least 50--congressional hearings and reports over the years dealing with nursing homes, going back all the way to 1965. This only starts in 1986. We have had many more since that time. But let me just cite you some examples of what is taking place, even as I speak. Recently in Maryland, a resident expired due to strangulation from an opposing restraint because the resident was not properly wearing a restraint. In Ohio, we had a resident who died due to strangulation from a vest- type restraint that was incorrectly applied. In Florida, we had a resident who was sexually assaulted by a nurse's aid. In Indiana, a resident was found with maggots in wounds. In Ohio, a resident was being fed with a syringe and aspirated. The staff was unaware what to do. The resident became cyanotic and was subsequently hospitalized. In Louisiana, we had a resident who was left unattended in a geriwalker and fell. She hit her head and required hospitalization. In Texas, a resident was force fed with a syringe and aspirated and was hospitalized. In Maine, we had a resident die of pressure sores. In Indiana, a resident fell down the stairs and was killed. In Indiana, a resident in respiratory distress was left unattended for 7 hours. The resident died. In North Carolina, a resident required thickening liquids to prevent choking. It was not provided. The resident developed aspiration pneumonia. In Indiana, a resident was missing from the facility. He was found two blocks away. I could go on for some length this evening, which I will not do. I suggest we have to make modifications to this legislation to make sure that we tell the States, ``No, we are not simply turning it all over to you, that, because Medicaid has been turned over in the form of a block grant as such, we still expect some standards and oversight and enforcement on the part of the Federal Government.'' This is not something that the States can say, ``Wait a minute. This is a Federal mandate here.'' We have $800 billion going to the States in the next 7 years, $800 billion. That gives us some right, it would seem to me, to say that there ought to be standards that have been set. They ought to be enforced, and we ought to maintain a level of oversight that will, in fact, make sure that we do not have a repetition of some of the things that I have outlined here tonight. These are just symptomatic; these are just a small sample. I know my friend from New Mexico is sensitive to this. He served with me on the Aging Committee. The Presiding Officer sitting in the chair also serves in that committee. And we will hear more about this. We need to make sure that when you finally come to that position in life where you have to take a parent or a grandparent and turn them into the arms of those who run our nursing homes--that is just the beginning--we have to make sure that those facilities are well run, they are well managed, that the residents are properly cared for, so that the people who have entrusted their loved ones into the hands of these individuals who are running the nursing homes do, in fact, treat them with loving care, and make sure that we are satisfied that that is so. Now, Mr. President, I will not take the time this evening--I have, I think, just a few moments remaining--other than to indicate that my friend from New Mexico is aware of my concern about this. I know that he and others are working along, hopefully, with others on both sides to make sure that this is corrected. I believe it is a deficiency. We need to correct it. And it should be done, if not this evening, certainly tomorrow before we proceed further. And I yield back.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Madam President, this week in the Capitol rotunda the United States Congress will host the United States Inaugural Ceremony of Jerusalem 3000, beginning the celebration of the 3,000th anniversary of the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It is a particularly appropriate time for the Senate to act on this important legislation that would reaffirm our commitment to Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel by directing the relocation of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem by 1999. It has been over a decade since a majority of the Members of Congress, and I was proud to be among this group, called for the movement of our Embassy to where it belongs--in the capital of Israel. Since then, as Senator Moynihan has recited in detail, the Senate and the other body have repeatedly adopted by overwhelming and frequently unanimous votes legislation calling on the United States to affirm Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital. Most recently, nearly every Member of the Senate signed a letter to the President urging that the relocation take place no later than May 1999. This letter clearly rejected the assertion of some that declaring our intent to move our Embassy would endanger the peace process, noting that: United States policy should be clear and unequivocal. The search for peace can only be hindered by raising utterly unrealistic hopes about the future status of Jerusalem among the Palestinians and understandable fears among the Israeli population that their capital city may once again be divided by cinder block and barbed wire. We also endorsed in that letter Prime Minister Rabin's declaration that ``United Jerusalem will not be open to negotiation. It has been and will forever be the capital of the Jewish people, under Israeli sovereignty, a focus of the dreams and longings of every Jew.'' The bill we have before us, of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor, brings this legislative process to fruition by establishing in law United States policy that Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel and that our Embassy should be relocated there no later than May 31, 1999, and by authorizing funding beginning this year for construction of a United States Embassy in Jerusalem. To help that ensure the executive branch implements this policy faithfully, the bill requires semiannual reports from the Secretary of State, beginning in January, on the progress made toward opening our Embassy in Jerusalem. It also would give the State Department a strong financial incentive by limiting the availability of its construction funding after 1999 until the Embassy opens in Israel's capital. As a practical matter, this limitation would not actually take effect until the middle of the year 2000, given the historical spend-out rates for the State Department's construction budget. But it emphasizes the importance Congress places on this matter. Even with this inherent flexibility, however, the administration has shown resistance to this legislation. In response, Senator Dole has now added a broad waiver authority that would allow the President to suspend this limitation on State Department construction if he believes it is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States. I should also note that the bill carefully states that the rights of every ethnic and religion group should be protected in the undivided capital of Jerusalem. Three major faiths revere Jerusalem as a holy city. The best way to protect the religious interests of members of all these faiths is to ensure that Jerusalem never again is divided, which would only threaten to reignite religious conflict. Madam President, Senator Dole and Senator Moynihan are to be commended for their persistent leadership in ensuring that this legislation has finally come for a vote on the floor of the Senate. I hope that, once the House of Representatives gives its approval, this legislation will be signed into law by the President, who during the 1992 campaign clearly stated that ``I recognize Jerusalem as an undivided city, the eternal capital of Israel.'' Given the very strong support this bill rightly enjoys in both Houses of Congress, I think the President's advisers would be unwise to suggest another course of action. And once this bill is enacted into law, through whichever mechanism, I trust that the President will move expeditiously to implement it and attain its objective before the May 1999 deadline. Madam President, many of us in the Senate have had the opportunity to help cultivate America's special relationship with the State of Israel. As a strategic ally and an island of stability and democracy in an important but troubled region, Israel steadfastly supported American interests during the cold war. During the gulf war, when Saddam Hussein sought to gain control over Middle Eastern energy resources, Israel stood firmly with America, enduring savage attacks on its civilian population that were designed to split Israeli policy from United States policy. Having protected U.S. interests in a hostile region for decades, the American-Israeli strategic alliance today is the foundation for the Middle East peace process. Without steadfast United States support for Israel, those among Israel's neighbors who have accepted the necessity for a negotiated peace settlement would not have done so. And without our continued steadfast support, the peace process will not be successful. Nowhere is this need greater than on the question of the status of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is and will remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel, and we must not miss the opportunity to underline that fact-- particularly today on the eve of the inauguration of the celebration of the 3,000th anniversary of Jerusalem's establishment as the capital of Israel. This legislation will help to ensure that the fourth millennium of this holy city will begin with an era of peace. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, so that we can pass it with a large majority and ensure its swift enactment into law.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Special Committee on Aging will hold a hearing on Thursday, October 26, 1995, at 9:30 a.m., in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The hearing will discuss quality of care in nursing homes.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, as we all know, the Senate can impose tremendous demands on its Members as we grapple with the difficult decisions facing this body and this Nation. It is no surprise then, that the Senate begins each of its sessions with a prayer delivered by a distinguished religious leader. Earlier today, that spiritual leadership came from the Reverend Kenneth Dutille, Jr., of the First Baptist Church in Bath, ME. Reverend Dutille is truly dedicated to his work, his congregation and his community, and I am very pleased that he was selected to be one of two guest Chaplains we will have this month. The distinction is deserved, for Reverend Dutille visits us with many accomplishments. He is a graduate of Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO, and the University of Maine. He holds a masters degree from the California Graduate School of Theology. In his many travels, educational and otherwise, he has preached in over 200 churches in New England alone. It is praticularly fitting that Reverend Dutille lead the Senate's invocation today because he brings with him an understanding of some of the demands and pressures on those in public life. He is a selectman in his town of Richmond and was a candidate for the Maine State Legislature in 1994. Reverend Dutille also knows the strains and joys of a successful life as a small business owner, running the Good News Book Shop in Brunswick. Just recently, he added a book of his own to the shelves, ``Images of America: Lewiston and Auburn.'' As evidenced by Reverend Dutille's invocation this morning, he is an asset to his congregation and his community. His accomplishments, boundless energy, and exemplary service make [[Page S 15277]] him an excellent choice as the guest Chaplain. Again, I am very pleased to have Reverend Dutille, his wife Patricia, and his daughter Melissa with us here today. I'm sure I speak for all of my colleagues in extending a very warm welcome on this special day.

Mr. COHEN

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

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, let me express my support for what the Senator from Wisconsin is seeking to do. We have a choice to make in our society as to whether we are going to try to have intervention programs for young people who are on their way to becoming criminals, or whether we are simply going to sit back and say we are going to build more prisons and more jails and have more incarceration. I was interested yesterday, to read in the Washington Post--I was shocked, really to read in the Washington Post yesterday a story of a little town in Texas where some kids, they are not old enough to be called adolescents, they are children--whether 6 years old--the Senator from Texas may know--6, 7, 10, ranging all the way to 11--they happened to go by and they took a horse and beat that horse to death. They crippled the horse so it could not move. Then they jammed a stick up its nostril. Then they took some kind of a bludgeon instrument and beat the horse's head until it died. They then went on to school and they laughed and joked about it. And they were telling all their friends what a joy it was they had just engaged in, beating this horse to death. They finally were apprehended later that day or the next day and were somewhat surprised to find themselves forced to stay overnight in a local detention facility. But what was surprising about it is these young kids were really expressing their crime, as such, against this animal in a positive fashion. They were laughing about it. They were joking about it. And the fear that was expressed in that community is what is going to happen a couple years from now? What is happening in our society that we have got young people like this who take joy and pleasure in killing an innocent animal? What is going to be the future down the line when they start turning whatever is inside them toward their fellow human beings? So, Mr. President, we have a choice here. We can say we are going to put them away, we are going to lock them up, we are going to wait until they really do something serious by committing some other crime and then put them in an incarceration facility. That has been one solution that we are moving toward. This is an opportunity to provide block grant money to States and let them decide how the money should be spent. Let them decide whether or not they are going to have weed and seed programs. Let Wisconsin decide with its funds, whether they want to put police officers into high schools and junior high schools and working with kids before they get into the fast lane to crime. I read a book sometime ago called ``There Are No Children Here.'' It talked about what is happening in our inner cities, in particular; that these young kids are growing up under circumstances in which they have to duck bullets whizzing by in the nighttime; that they do not have any opportunity to ever walk the streets safely. So States and local communities ought to have an opportunity to come up with programs. Now, I do not know much about midnight basketball. I am a professional basketball fan. Maybe [[Page S 14645]] midnight basketball works in some inner cities, I do not know. It does not apply to me. It might work in Chicago. It might work in cities in Wisconsin. Why should we make that judgment? This is an opportunity to provide some limited funding for States to employ juvenile prevention programs. Mr. President, it is worrisome that the number of young males who are aged from 14 to 17 will grow over the next 5 years. We can expect to see record levels of juvenile crime. There is one expert who estimates that this demographic trend is going to produce a minimum of 30,000 more muggers, murderers, and chronic offenders than we currently have. Are we going to keep building jails and prisons, and keep putting our kids away, or are we going to try to intervene in the early years to see if we can prevent them from heading down the pathway to crime? So I join with enthusiasm my colleague from Wisconsin. I think it is a very important amendment, and I hope it will enjoy the support of a majority of our colleagues. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

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

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Domenici amendment. I would like to address a comment made by the Senator from Texas. I think he is exactly right. This is a matter about choices. We are called upon to make choices each and every day in this Chamber. When it comes to priorities, for example, the Senator from Texas cited requests from the FBI Director or from the Clinton White House. If we look at the defense bill, the Clinton White House did not request money for the B-2 bomber. The Secretary of the Air Force did not request money for the B-2 bomber. Somehow, $500 million is added for the B-2 bomber program, just another downpayment on a $30 billion project. That is a choice that has been made. It does not apply to this particular bill, but we make choices. Would I rather see $500 million applied to other programs? Low-income heating assistance? Assistance for the poor? Feeding programs for children? I would put my priority over there. But soon we will be presented with a measure that will add another $500 million to keep a program alive, a program the Pentagon is not even requesting. So, we are faced with choices. I took the floor the other day in opposition to the space station--a $100 billion program. I think we can find better ways of spending $100 billion--such as satisfying our research and development needs in medicine--than to put it in a space station which is going to cost us more and more as our European partners decline to make their contributions. As the Senator from Texas has articulated the issue, he said, basically, if you are for more prisons and prosecutors and taking drug addicts and pushers and terrorists off the streets, then you will support him. But if you are in favor of protecting the poor or providing legal services to the poor, if you want to have that kind of a dichotomy, that kind of a balance, then you will support Senator Domenici. Really, it is a nice positioning on the part of the Senator from Texas. But it seems to me that we have an obligation to provide poor people in this country with an opportunity to get to the courthouse. It is something that every one of us enjoys. We can afford it. But in this bill, we are saying, ``Poor, no longer will you have a Legal Services Corporation. We do not like this structure. It has a left-wing agenda. We do not want any left-wing agenda.'' But I submit, if we genuinely aspire to have a system of ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' as it is written on the front of the Supreme Court, then our neediest citizens must have access to that system. The facts simply do not support the contention that legal services organizations are promoting a left-wing agenda. About one-third of the cases involve family violence. We have a serious problem in this country dealing with family violence. People are being abused. There are 52,000 clients seeking protection from abusive spouses, who are represented by attorneys funded through the Legal Services Corporation. There are 240,000 poor senior citizens who are represented by legal services attorneys. Tens of thousands are represented in landlord- tenant disputes. Tens of thousands were assisted in applications for public benefits. But our answer is, ``We do not want this structure anymore. We do not want a Federal hand in this anymore. We want to turn this all back to the States.'' By the way, you do not just turn a Federal program back to the States at no cost. Under the block grant proposal, 50 separate States, with their own bureaucracies, will have to administer the funds. And unless the Domenici amendment is passed, none of the funds can go to a legal services organization; they can only go to individual lawyers. If you take away the Federal structure and you prohibit money from going to established organizations within the State, the funds must go to individual attorneys. Then, eventually, you will find very little representation for the poor. ``Let the private lawyers take care of this,'' you say--pro bono work. I used to do a lot of it myself. I used to think I had an extension of the Pine Tree Legal Assistance operation in my law firm because there were a lot of poor people who came to the door who simply could not afford to pay the legal fees, and I represented them. But we are deluding ourselves if we think we are going to see an expansion of these points of light, that many thousands and tens of thousands of law firms are going to undertake representation for all of the needs of the poor or take on and fight the landlord-tenant disputes. How many poor people have complaints against the landlords-- slum lords, in many cases--of uninhabitable, rat-infested, asbestos ridden residences. We say, ``Well, tough luck. You are poor. You do not get representation.'' The law firms are not going to give you their youngest attorneys. They are on corporate mergers now. That is a higher priority at the law firm. They say, ``We have big mergers taking place. We do not have time to allow you to engage in bringing a lawsuit to protect people from uninhabitable conditions.'' Mr. President, I am not entirely satisfied with the Domenici amendment, as it places unprecedented restrictions on legal services organizations such as Maine's Pine Tree Legal Assistance. Unlike previous LSC legislation, this bill not only places restrictions on Federal funds, it also restricts how organizations such as Pine Tree may spend money received from State grants, State bar associations, and private donations. This is a Federal mandate. We are telling States like Maine that they cannot give grants to legal services organizations to represent immigrants or pursue class action lawsuits. There are times, in my own State, when State legislators ask legal services attorneys for advice about how they should shape laws and regulations to help out people in need. We cannot do that under the Domenici approach. These attorneys cannot be called to testify before legislative hearings. They cannot file class action suits. So basically it is pretty restrictive. The amendment does not go as far as I would like to see it go. Let me provide one example. A number of years ago there was a lapse in a Federal program that provided assistance for displaced workers. The Maine Legislature requested advice from Pine Tree Legal Assistance to determine how the law could be changed to ensure that these workers could qualify for State unemployment benefits. But under the amendment, Pine Tree would have to remain silent; its expertise would be wasted. I am going to support the Domenici amendment, however, because I believe we have an obligation to see to it that poor people in this country have access and keys to the courthouse. There is a major trial taking place right now which thankfully is coming to a close. Not many people in this country can afford that kind of representation. [[Page S 14602]] That is in a criminal case. I am talking about the civil actions now. Not very many people in this country, especially those at the very lowest of the economic strata, can call up an attorney and say, ``Would you represent me against this claim? Would you represent me against my husband or against my wife? I am being abused. I need help.'' ``Sorry. We do not have any money to help you.'' Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will support the Domenici amendment.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Let me take a moment to challenge the notion that somehow the U.S. Senate is engaged in micromanagement. We are talking about the President of the United States, who is considering deploying 25,000 troops to one of the most hostile regions in the world, that has been filled for centuries with ethnic hatred, poison and death. And we are talking about deploying those troops to that region without having any sort of defined plan presented to us, without knowing what the ground rules are going to be, so to speak, without knowing who is in charge, without knowing what the Russian role is going to be. If ever there was a case in which we ought to be consulted and give approval, it is this one. Let me also take issue with those who said, ``Well, President Bush finally came to Congress.'' It was only after we insisted day in and day out and by going down to the White House, that the President finally agreed to come to Congress to get authority. Before that President Bush was determined to say, ``I only have to get authority from the United Nations, that's where I get my authority.'' We resisted that, and we actually forced the administration to come to us. Not only was it politically wise for him to do so, but we believe he was constitutionally mandated to do so. So the notion that somehow we are micromanaging is misconceived. We are the ones who raise and support the Army, and we have a coequal responsibility, not just the President, if we start deploying 25,000 troops to a region that has been afflicted over the centuries with hatred and conflict. Mr. President, I support the Senator's resolution.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to support the fiscal year 1996 intelligence authorization bill. Although most of the programs authorized by this bill remain classified, there are a number of general points that are worth noting as the [[Page S 14792]] Senate considers this important legislation. First, the time has long since passed when the intelligence budget escaped serious scrutiny within Congress or the executive branch. Let me briefly outline the current process: Prior to its submission to Congress, the intelligence budget is reviewed by the DCI's Community Management Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Office of Management and Budget. The intelligence budget is then reviewed by no less than six congressional committees. It is available to all 535 members of Congress, and indeed, every year the Senate Intelligence Committee sends a written invitation to each member of the Senate inviting them to review the President's request and the committee's recommendations. To the best of my knowledge, this degree of access is not available to members of the British or French Parliaments, the Israeli Knesset, or representatives of the world's other great democracies. Every Senator has the right to review the classified annex accompanying this bill prior to voting on it. In addition to the scrutiny provided by the House and Senate Intelligence, Armed Services, and Appropriations Committees, GAO has personnel who routinely audit a variety of intelligence programs. The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board [PFIAB] also has access to budget and operational information as does the congressionally mandated Presidential Commission on Intelligence Roles and Missions. The CIA has a statutory IG with broad powers to investigate programmatic issues as well as alleged improprieties. In short, the intelligence community's black budget is subjected to careful scrutiny each and every year. Some may say, if that is all true, how could the NRO secretly hoard over $1 billion without Congress, DOD, or the DCI being aware of these funds? The fact is that the DOD IG became aware of the NRO's policy with regard to carry forward accounts in 1989. Further, in 1992 the audit staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee uncovered the NRO 3- month carry-forward policy and learned that this policy was a response to increased technical risks associated with launch problems that developed in the mid-eighties. The committee was assured that the 3- month carry-forward policy would be reduced to a 1-month margin by 1996. That did not occur in a timely fashion as promised, and the Congress has intervened to remedy the problem. So I would submit to my colleagues that although the oversight process continues to evolve and improve, it was that very process which brought the NRO carry-forward accounts to light. I think we all need to be clear about the NRO issue. There is no evidence that funds were misspent or laws broken. Every dollar was duly authorized and appropriated and every dollar that is taken out of the NRO's so-called carry forward accounts this year will need to be restored in future budgets. The NRO was excessively conservative in its planning and budgeting, which has not increased the overall acquisition costs for satellites, but has reduced the funds available in the near term for other important intelligence programs. That problem has been brought to light and is being rectified. Because there are a number of misperceptions about the NRO funding issue, as well as other aspects of the intelligence budget, I would like to briefly comment on what we are authorizing in this bill and why it is still necessary, notwithstanding the end of the cold war, to devote considerable resources to intelligence programs. We are not buying a crystal ball that will bring future events clearly into focus. No matter how much we spend on intelligence, there will never be a foolproof method for predicting the future of Bosnia, Russia, or the Middle East. There are no documents we can acquire, photographs we can take, or sources we can recruit that will foretell the future of these turbulent regions. As my colleagues may know, the intelligence community was not able to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait with certainty. It is quite possible that Saddam Hussein himself did not decide to proceed with the invasion until the final hours--therefore no matter what access the United States had had in Baghdad the invasion of Kuwait could not have been confidently predicted in advance. What United States intelligence could and did do, however, was provide substantial detail on the Iraqi troop buildup along the Kuwaiti border in the weeks prior to the invasion. Developing a policy in response to the buildup then became a matter for the President and Congress. Then, after the invasion, the intelligence community provided General Schwarzkopf with the information needed to decisively defeat Iraq with a minimum of allied casualties. That is the primary rationale for the programs authorized in this bill--to provide critical information to policymakers and if diplomacy fails, to fight and prevail with a minimum of casualties. As a member of both the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, I am keenly aware of the vital linkage between intelligence programs and military operations. Roughly 85 percent of the intelligence budget is executed by the military services or defense department agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office [NRO], the National Security Agency [NSA], and the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]. These agencies, which are designated Combat Support Agencies pursuant to the Goldwater-Nichols Act, provide intelligence and warning in peacetime and direct combat support in wartime. The Defense Department is by far the Nation's leading consumer of intelligence information and most of the programs authorized by this bill have been developed in response to military requirements. Many of the systems that support the U.S. military, however, are also used on a daily basis to monitor arms control agreements, detect and track illegal narcotics, monitor the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and monitor terrorist organizations. To a large extent, the intelligence produced on these topics is a dividend made possible in peacetime by an intelligence system geared for the wartime requirements of the U.S. military. My colleagues should also appreciate the fact that the dependence of the U.S. military on sophisticated intelligence systems is increasing. As the U.S. military force structure shrinks, the Pentagon has consciously decided to compensate for smaller numbers of men and equipment by placing increased reliance on sophisticated intelligence and communications systems. Precision guided munitions require precise targeting information; smaller numbers of more advanced ships and planes need to be allocated against the highest priority targets; and as the force structure shrinks each of our remaining military assets becomes more valuable and its potential loss more costly to the military. Further, in many of the politically sensitive conflicts underway in the world today, an option that involves substantial, so- called collateral damage is not a politically viable option for the President. For all of these reasons, the Department of Defense needs and expects voluminous amounts of precise intelligence information to support military operations. In sum, intelligence is a force multiplier that permits the U.S. military to do more with less. In conclusion, all Senators should understand that the Armed Forces are the primary advocates for the programs in this bill, and the overwhelming majority of the funds this bill authorizes will be executed by the Department of Defense. I should also point out that the DCI has publicly stated that his top priority is support to the U.S. military. As a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, he certainly understands the importance of this mission, and I know he is dedicated to providing the best support possible to our men and women in uniform. The world we live in is turbulent and dangerous. The proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons concerns us all. Terrorism is a continuing threat--one that could become far more dangerous in the future given the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Intelligence is contributing to recent arrests that have severely damaged the Cali cartel. As the Ames case demonstrates, counterintelligence operations remain critical to U.S. national security. And without national intelligence systems, it would be difficult to enter into verifiable arms control [[Page S 14793]] agreements. Yet, even if none of these requirements for intelligence collection existed, the great majority of the spending in this bill would still be necessary to support our men and women in uniform. For all of these reasons, I believe that intelligence activities remain vital to U.S. national security and this legislation deserves the support of every member of the Senate.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Madam President, I thank my friend. Madam President, if this were construed to be an antiwomen's health issue vote, an anti-breast-cancer vote, an anti-ovarian-cancer vote, I would not be on the floor supporting the Senator from Arkansas. I have never known him to be antiwomen. I have never known him to cut back on funds for research, be it for osteoporosis or cancer of any form. In fact, he has probably been one of the leaders in favor of more research. So the notion that somehow this vote, by failing to support the space station, is now going to be an antiwomen's health vote, is that what we have come to? Madam President, I would like to support the space station, which will cost probably about $100 billion. I would even like to support the B-2 bomber, which the occupant of the chair also supports. That is another $30 billion. And we are probably going to get both. Probably when all is said and done, we are going to have another $130 billion just in these two programs. By the same token, we stand over here on this side of the aisle and we talk day after day about budgets, about how we have to save money for our children, the crushing debt we are putting on their shoulders. We heard words quoted from Jefferson and the implication from President Kennedy. Maybe we should say we will pay any price, will bear any burden, will borrow any money in order to build a space station, whatever its costs, whatever the merit of the scientific experiments. Last year, we heard the debate on the NAFTA vote. Maybe the giant sucking sound we are going to hear will be all those dollars being drained into a large black hole. Madam President, 2 years ago, this program was on the verge of being terminated, and at that time, in a desperate effort to save it, the Clinton administration brought Russia into the program and they asserted this was going to reduce the cost by nearly $2 billion, down from $19.4 billion to $17.4 billion, and that promise of $2 billion of savings was critical to saving this particular program. I was suspicious at those claims. I asked the GAO to make an analysis of those claims, and they found that $2 billion savings to be about as thin as the space through which the space station is going to fly. As a matter of fact, the Russians, by coming into the program, are actually going to cost us almost $2 billion more. Contrary to the claim of saving $2 billion, it is going to be about $2 billion more. NASA failed to take into account and to identify the additional costs of involving the Russians in our program. It reminds me somewhat of the Steve Martin routine where he says: ``I can tell you how to make a million dollars and pay no taxes. The first thing you do is make a million dollars. The second thing, you pay no taxes. Then when the IRS shows up, slap yourself on the forehead and say, `I forgot, I forgot.' '' What NASA has forgotten to do is to identify the additional $1.4 billion in costs of bringing the Russians into the program by forcing us to have to accommodate their technologies with ours and match them up. But beyond that, we have heard a lot of talk about being a good business partner, about this being an international project. Indeed, it is. Just yesterday, the trade press reported that officials at Russia's Mission Control Center at Kaliningrad said low salaries are making it difficult to prepare, with Johnson Space Center in Houston, to run the international space station. And Russia is not the only international partner backing away from this program. Canada already reduced its commitment. Yesterday's press account indicated Italy is backing away from its contribution to the space station and wants other European countries to pick up the slack. According to the media reports again yesterday, German and French officials are calling Italy's action the death knell for European participation in the United States-led effort. If any more of our partners decide to cut back, guess where the cost is going to come from? Good old Uncle Sam is going to have to cough up the money our international partners are starting to back away from. NASA says this program is going to cost roughly $71 billion. Given the fact that the average cost overrun in NASA programs is about 77 percent, it should come as no surprise that this program will probably come nearer to $100 billion. But even if you assume it is going to come in right on target, $71 billion is something that we cannot afford for the Russian Alpha station any more than we could have afforded the $120 billion space station Freedom which the administration terminated back in 1993. Neither can our children, from whom this money is going to be coming. NASA cannot afford it. As the GAO and CBO both warned in several dire reports, NASA's budget over the next 5 years falls $10 billion short. They cannot account for how they are going to come up with another $10 billion to fund the programs already scheduled for their funding. So we have so much money going into the space station now that they are not going to be able to carry on the kind of programs that are going to be necessary for them to carry out their mission. Another disturbing discovery by GAO is that most of the research proposals submitted to NASA for funding were described as being rather mediocre or even worse. Nearly two-thirds--nearly two-thirds--according to the GAO, said they were not considered scientifically meritorious by scientific peer review panels. We heard a lot about all the experiments that are going to take place only in space, and yet two-thirds of the proposed experiments are not supported by scientific peers. Madam President, the reason I rise in support of the amendment is that we cannot, on the one hand, continue to talk to our colleagues and our countrymen and women about the need to restrain spending, and then come up with B-2 bombers that we have to fund at $30 billion or come up with a space station that will cost another $100 billion. And there may be no end in sight, indeed, as far as infinity itself may carry us into space, as to how much this program is ultimately going to cost. On the one hand, we are cutting back from major programs--from Medicare, from homeless, from Head Start and all those that have been articulated--and we are going to commit endless billions of dollars to this program with no end in sight. For that reason, Madam President, I rise in support of the Senator's amendment. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. COHEN

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

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

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

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, early last year, Mr. President, the Senate adopted an amendment I offered to require the President to submit a report on the revised Russian military doctrine and Russian military operations outside Russia's border. The report was necessary because Russia has been engaging in a systematic effort to regain effective control over the countries that formerly made up the Soviet Union. The tools Moscow has been using in this effort have included economic, political, and military, including blatant military intervention and covert military actions. Moscow fomented secessionist war on Georgia, bringing the government of Eduard Shevardnadze to the brink of defeat. Once Moscow had coerced him to capitulate to its demands to join the Commonwealth of Independent States and give Moscow permanent military bases, Russian troops rushed in to keep the peace. In Moldova, Russian troops assisted ethnic Russian secessionists establish a self-proclaimed independent republic sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine's western border. In oil-rich Azerbaijan, Russian troops provided assistance to rebel forces that overthrew the democratically elected government and then may have supported coup efforts against the new government once it refused to succumb to Moscow's effort to dictate to it on oil policies. Russian troops are heavily involved in the civil war in Tajikistan and patrol the borders of Tajikistan and Armenia, putting them once again on NATO's border. The revised Russian military doctrine asserts Russia's right to intervene militarily throughout the territory that was the Soviet Union. And so the Senate adopted the amendment requiring the President to tell us and the American people what the Russian military was doing and what the implications were for American and allied security. But when the President submitted the report last September, it was classified from cover to cover, even though much of the report did not warrant being restricted by a security classification. The decision to throw a cloak of secrecy over this report probably was not related to the fact that it was submitted just a few days after his Washington summit with President Yeltsin. I am only speculating here, but perhaps the administration did not want to embarrass President Yeltsin, although it is not clear that he would have been embarrassed at all. Just prior to the summit, President Yeltsin embraced a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service report calling for reintegration of the former Soviet republic into a single economic and defense zone, complete with a unified military command and a Russian nuclear umbrella. Perhaps the administration was worried about being embarrassed itself given its acquiescence to Russia military adventures. In any case--no need to speculate about this--the decision to classify the report from cover to cover has prevented Congress from conducting a complete public debate about Russian actions and the administration's policy toward Russia, and it has prevented the American people from becoming fully informed on these matters. And so I am offering an amendment today to require that the report be declassified to the maximum extent possible. The amendment also requires submission of an addendum, unclassified to the maximum extent possible, updating the information in the report. Among the more recent issues that need to be addressed in the addendum are the agreement Prime Minister Chernomyrdin signed last October to withdraw Russian troops from Moldova within 3 years, which Moscow now seeks to nullify by pressuring Moldova for permanent basing rights. There have been further coup attempts in Azerbaijan in which Moscow might have had a hand as part of its intense effort to compel Azerbaijan to ship its oil through a Russian pipeline. Moscow continues its pressures to unify the defense policies of the newly independent states, with President Yeltsin personally endorsing the effort just last week. And Moscow seems intent on blatantly violating the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the so-called CFE Treaty, which the administration has called the cornerstone of post-cold-war European military stability but [[Page S 14014]] which the administration is not proposing to amend in response to Russian threats to abandon the treaty. Ironically, the Russians now object. After having negotiated and signed and ratified the CFE treaty--they now object to its provisions. So, clearly, the need for a well informed public debate is greater today than when the Senate voted on this last year, calling for the President's report. The amendment I offer would ensure that such a debate can take place in Congress, in the media, and in other public fora. So I urge my colleagues to accept, or if not accept, adopt the amendment.

Mr. COHEN. I have no objection.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, last year, Mr. President, the foreign operations conference report contained a provision that caused serious difficulties in our relationship with Thailand. The provision conditioned military education and training for Thailand and required a report on the Thai military's support for the Khmer Rouge. This provision was viewed by in Thailand as a ban on military education and training and an accusation that the Government of Thailand was providing support for the Khmer Rouge. The provision was, in fact, somewhat more subtle than that, but this was nonetheless the perception in Thailand and was the basis for the Thai reaction. This came at a sensitive time in United States-Thai military relations, as the United States sought Thai approval to deploy six Army prepositioning ships off the Thai coast to support potential combat operations in Korea or the Persian Gulf. As chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, which is responsible for projection forces such as these Army prepo ships, I can assure Members of the Senate that prepositioning more equipment in Asia is critical to defend our interests. If we had not cut the Defense budget for 11 straight years, perhaps we could afford to preposition such equipment in both the Persian Gulf and Korea. But we only have the money for one set of equipment, and so we must deploy it in a location where it can swing in a short time to either Korea or the gulf. The United States military--and the Thai military--were quite optimistic that Thai approval could be obtained for putting these prepo ships off the shores of Thailand, a long-time ally. But the issue became a political hot potato in Bangkok and our request was denied. The foreign operations provision on IMET and the Khmer Rouge was not the only factor in making this politically sensitive in Thailand, but it was a factor. I was in Bangkok immediately after the Thai denial and know that the foreign operations provision drew great attention in the Thai media and great resentment in the Thai Government, which unfortunately was exacerbated by similar accusations about Thai Government support to the Khmer Rouge from an Australian official. Beside contributing to the denial of the request to preposition ships, the foreign operations provision nearly led Thailand to terminate its support for our military advisory group in Thailand, which is responsible for arranging Thai purchase of United States- produced military equipment. The great irony is that the concern about Thai Government support to the Khmer Rouge is off target. Thai Government support for the Khmer Rouge was a legitimate concern at one time. But well before the foreign operations provision was enacted, the Government of Thailand adopted a policy of not supporting or cooperating with the Khmer Rouge. United States officials in the best position to know confirm that the Thai Government has adhered to this policy. Thus the Thai Government and the Thai people have a reasonable basis for being upset when accusations are made. As one Thai official told reporters at the time, One has to wonder at the American timing. They come here asking for a tremendous favor at a time when their Congress is threatening us over what we believe to be a nonissue. I do not mean to suggest that there are no Thai military personnel engaging in any cooperation with members of the Khmer Rouge. We can, should, and are encouraging the Thai Government to work energetically to prevent such cooperation by individuals or groups of personnel deployed in the field. But our military alliance with Thailand, the value of which stretches from the oil fields of the Persian Gulf through the booming economies and vital sealanes of Southeast Asia to the Korean DMZ, cannot be made a hostage to such freelancing. Are we going to suspend military cooperation with certain NATO allies because, according to credible press reports, some of their troops deployed as peacekeepers in Bosnia have engaged in unprofessional and even heinous acts? And so, Mr. President, rather than repeating last year's mistake by gratuitously and even mistakenly criticizing the Thai Government, we should correct the record. Similar considerations apply on the question of Burmese migrants in Thailand. Last year's foreign operations bill required a report on ``the Thai Government's efforts to impede support for Burmese democracy advocates, exiles, and refugees'' and did so in a way that seemed to link this issue to the imposition of conditions on Thailand's participation in IMET. The bill completely ignored the heavy burden imposed on Thailand's economy over a period of many years by the large numbers of Burmese and migrants and refugees from other countries in the region who have made their way to Thailand. The bill completely ignored the assistance Thailand is providing to these migrants and refugees, as well as Thai facilitation of the assistance provided by private and international relief agencies. Mr. President, I would like to quote from some official statements about Thailand's treatment of displaced persons. State Department spokewoman Christine Shelley, January 1995: It has been Thai policy over the years to provide refuge to displaced persons, including Burmese, for as long as it is unsafe for them to return to their place of origin. We commend the Thai for this humanitarian policy. The Foreign Minister of Australia, January 1995: Thailand has a good record of sheltering previous waves of Burma border-crossers. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Representative in Thailand, January 1995: Permit me to express to . . . the Royal Thai Government the international community's gratitude for the temporary asylum and asistance that Thailand is providing in the border area with (Burma), until such time as conditions in that country are conducive to the return of the affected population in conditions of safety and dignity. A coalition of human rights groups in Burma and international human rights groups, February 1995: We thank the Royal Thai Government for their magnanimous and benevolent treatment of the thousands of Burmese refugees taking shelter on Thai territory. In direct response to the accusations of Thai Government interference with relief to displaced Burmese, Secretary of State Christopher earlier this year reported to the Congress that: [[Page S 14070]] Royal Thai Government treatment of Burmese democracy advocates, exiles, and refugees is generally humane and in accord with international norms. The Royal Thai Government does not, as a matter of policy or practice, impede humanitarian support for non-combatant Burmese in Thailand. Thailand may not do everything for the 200,000 Burmese migrants and refugees that some might like, including allowing the use of Thailand as the launching pad for political attacks on a well-armed neighbor with whom Bangkok has no choice but to maintain a constructive relationship. While it is easy for to tweek Burmese generals from Washington, the Thais do not have a buffer of 12 time zones. I would also note that Thailand has adhered to the Comprehensive Plan of Action, the U.N.-sponsored plan for handling Vietnamese and other migrants and refugees in the region. In contrast, the 104th Congress has called the CPA into question, triggering riots at migrant camps across Southeast Asia. Yet some think it appropriate for Congress to freeze United States aid and cooperation with Bangkok until it improves its treatment of migrants in Thailand. Throughout Southeast Asia the question of whether America intends to remain engaged is asked constantly by political, business, and military leaders who must calculate with which big power to cast their lot. Clearly, Mr. President, if this is the way we treat our allies in the region, few will view us as reliable or even reasonable partners. Accordingly, Mr. President, I am offering this amendment. After last year's mistake by Congress, it would set the record straight by acknowledging that the Government of Thailand has had a policy of not supporting or cooperating with the Khmer Rouge and is host to large numbers of displaced persons from neighboring countries, placing a significant burden on the Thai economy. It also expresses the sense of the Senate that the President should affirm to the newly elected Thai Government United States support for this Thai policy, established by the last government, against the Khmer Rouge. It also calls on the President to encourage the Thai Government to vigorously pursue efforts to prevent freelancers in the military from violating this policy. With regard to Burmese in Thailand, the amendment would call on the President to encourage Thailand to fully cooperate with relief efforts. And, since it is not enough to criticize and cajole, it would call on the President to take appropriate steps to assist Thailand in such efforts. I believe that this is a more constructive approach than gratuitously and even erroneously slamming the Thai Government, and I hope that it will help to salve some of the wounds from last year's ill-considered provision. I urge Senators to support this amendment. Amendment No. 2755 Add the following new Section to Title V: extension of tied aid credit program and authority to conduct a demonstration project

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Congress over the years has sought to ensure that States have the proper tools to handle their responsibilities in human services programs. For example, the fiscal year 1993 Omnibus Reconciliation Act provided matching of State funds over a 3-year period to be spent or information systems for foster care and adoption assistance programs. Forty-six States and the District of Columbia have responded, and are on their way to improving their information technology systems in these critical areas.

Mr. COHEN. Unfortunately, without Federal help, many States will not be able to afford the up-front costs required to plan, develop, and install these systems, and train personnel on their use. This is why the Federal Government has always maintained a leadership role in this area. I strongly believe we must continue specific assistance to States in making information technology investments, even in a block grant environment. I call on the eventual conferees on this legislation to carefully consider this point, and work with the House to ensure the States have the resources to make the necessary investments.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Dole modified amendment. Every Member of this body has come to the floor and declared that it is time to ``end welfare as we know it.'' We have disagreed on the most appropriate ways to do that but I hope that there can be no disagreement that welfare reform will not succeed without a more generous provision for child care services. Even under the current system of entitlement, there are more than 3,000 children of working parents already waiting to receive child care assistance in Maine. Some of these parents have transitioned off of welfare, others are at-risk of going on welfare. One child care center in Maine has just now started serving families who have been on a waiting list for more than 2 years. This amendment will create a separate block grant for child care services. By creating this separate grant fund, we hope to assist States by providing them with a specific amount of child care funds. This is identical to the approach the House of Representatives elected to take in the Personal Responsibility Act. We have gone further to provide States with additional funds and to help ensure that child care funding does not disappear for welfare families and low-income families alike. I am glad to see that the Governors have finally weighed in on this issue. Last week, I received a copy of a letter sent to both the majority and minority leadership from the National Governor's Association requesting supplemental funds for child care services. I would like to quote one sentence from the letter, signed by Governor Thompson from Wisconsin and Governor Miller from Nevada. The NGA states that: Child care represents the largest part of the up-front investment need for successful welfare reform. More women will be able to work when there are child care funds available. More women who have jobs now will keep them if there are funds for child care. In a report issued by the General Accounting Office in December, GAO found that child care costs are a significant portion of most low-income working families' budgets. In fact, child care consumes more than one quarter of the income for a family below the Federal poverty level. For families above the Federal poverty level, child care consumes about 7 percent of income. Unlike the Dodd-Kennedy amendment, we know where the funds are coming from to pay for additional child care slots. I support our efforts to eliminate the deficit by 2002 but finding money for States to follow through on welfare reform is imperative. By agreeing to realize a smaller amount in overall savings from this legislation, we have taken the steps necessary to lead to successful welfare reform and help us maintain our goal to zero out the deficit. While there has been an emphasis on the need to help States meet work participation requirements, of utmost concern is the safety of children. Some parents are already forced to leave their children in unsafe settings. I recently reviewed a report from the State of Illinois where more than 40 children, half of them under the age of two, were discovered being cared for in a basement by one adult. The cost of that care was $25 per week. This is not an isolated case. Recent studies have indicated that 1 out of every 8 children in child care are being cared for in an unsafe setting. The provision for child care services in Senator Dole's earlier substitute did provide certain protections for children who are not yet in school by prohibiting States from penalizing mothers who cannot work because there simply is no child care available. The Senate also overwhelmingly approved an amendment sponsored by Senator Kassebaum to eliminate a provision that allowed a transfer of up to 30 percent of the funds from the child care development block grant. The CCDBG has played an important role since its creation in 1990 as a source of funds targeted at enhancing the quality of child care and providing subsidies to low-income families. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Without access to child care, mothers will not be able to work. When 92 percent of AFDC mothers are single mothers, the need for additional child care slots must be met if our version of welfare reform is going to be successful. interracial adoption provisions

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, one of the clear messages sent by the voters in last year's elections was that confidence in the Federal Government to solve problems has declined precipitously over the past 20-30 years. As David Broder observed in his Washington Post column, the 1994 elections ``ushered in a fundamental debate about what government should do, and what level of government should do it.'' There is a growing sense that the trend toward more centralized government in Washington should be reversed and that decisionmaking authority should revert back to the State and local levels. Some functions of government, like defense, must be conducted at the Federal level. Other functions, however, may best be left to the States. Having said that, I believe we have a common and national interest in assuring an effective social safety net for all Americans, regardless of where citizens may reside. So I would not support any effort to completely remove the Federal Government from the welfare system. Washington does not have all the answers. It is misguided, if not downright arrogant, for us to assume that one-size-fits-all Federal solutions offer better hope than granting more freedom to States to design approaches that address a State's unique set of circumstances. In considering our welfare system, I think it is useful to distinguish beneficiaries by three major groups. First, there are those in need of temporary assistance. People who, while they are generally able to support themselves and their families, they have fallen on hard times. Food stamps and other assistance must be there to provide temporary help when unforeseen economic crises occur. The second group includes those whom most of us would agree cannot work. These individuals--through no fault of their own, are simply not able to economically provide for themselves. They have disabilities that warrant our compassion not our scorn. The welfare system should be there for them. The third group consists of people who fall somewhere in between the first and second groups. They have been on and off the welfare rolls for years, yet they do not seem to fit the profile of someone whom most would agree cannot work. It is this third group that should be the focus of the current welfare debate. The debate has often been extremely polarized. Many on the left are reluctant to vest any sense of personal responsibility in welfare recipients. They view them as unwitting victims of societal injustices, refusing to acknowledge the role that personal behavior may play. On the other hand, many on the right are reluctant to acknowledge that no person is an island--that each of us thrives or fails to thrive, to some extent, as a result of our environment. Some on the right naively believe that we all have the same opportunities and that a failure to succeed is simply evidence of laziness. As in most cases, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We do no one a favor by excusing them of all personal responsibility. But some of the poorest members of our society are born into environments of drugs, crime, and severe poverty. Through government, we have an obligation to try to counter these negative influences. Unavoidably, a debate about welfare is a debate about values. Richard Price, the author of ``Clockers,'' a book about life in the inner city, said that during his year of living in a New York slum that he wanted to try to understand why some kids worked in McDonald's, earning minimum wage, while some of their peers hustled drugs outside, earning upward of $1,000 a day. He said the key difference he was able to discern was that the kids working in McDonald's had someone to go home to who offered them hope. For these kids, working at McDonald's was a beginning not an end. The kids dealing drugs, however, had little hope about the future. They sensed that, if they went to work in McDonald's, they would never get out. According to the author, the corollary to the hope that some homes offered was a sense of expectation that their children would meet certain expectations. They instilled a sense of discipline and a sense of hope that convinced their kids that minimum wage at McDonald's was better than hundreds of dollars in the drug trade. Parents are the principal source of moral teaching. Regrettably, too many of our young people are growing up without two parents involved in their lives. The correlation between single parenthood and welfare dependency is overwhelming. Ninety-two percent of AFDC families have no father in the home. Society must also acknowledge the correlation between crime and fatherlessness. Three-quarters of all long-term prisoners grew up without fathers in their homes or active in their lives. When 24 percent of children born today are born to unwed mothers, we cannot avoid this issue if we hope to break the cycle of poverty and crime that permeate some of our communities. Unfortunately, no one really knows how to counter this trend. For this reason, I do not support efforts to attach a lot of strings to the welfare block grants, including provisions ostensibly designed to curb illegitimacy. It is clear that welfare reform cannot disregard the growing incidence of out-of-wedlock births, teen pregnancy, and absent fathers, but it is also clear that we do not know what will counter this trend. Accordingly, we ought not prescribe a Federal solution that would hamstring the ability of States to try different approaches. Time will tell how effective States will be in improving our welfare system. To the extent that we clarify what level of government is responsible for welfare, I think we will go a long way to making the system more accountable and thereby more effective. I support the general thrust of the pending welfare legislation to turn more decisionmaking authority over to the States. Consistency would suggest that we not at the same time put a lot of requirements on States on how and who to spend Federal welfare dollars. I do think that it is important to ensure that States share responsibility with the Federal Government by investing dollars at the State level in welfare programs. For this reason, I think it is important that the block grant provision include a maintenance of effort requirement. Under current law, States have an incentive to spend their own money on AFDC and related programs. That incentive is the Federal match. Fourteen States receive 1 Federal dollar for each State dollar they invest. The rest of the States receive more than a dollar-for-dollar match. A maintenance of effort provision continues the incentive for a State to spend its own resources to aid its own people. Understand, however, that the State match does not require a State to spend money. If a State is successful in trimming its costs, there is no requirement that it maintain its spending. But if a State is going to realize savings in its welfare program, I think the Federal Government should share in the savings, too. I am also concerned about the bind States may find themselves in with respect to child care. Even under the current system of entitlement, there are more than 3,000 children of working parents already waiting to receive child care assistance in Maine. Some of these parents have transitioned off of welfare, others are at risk of going on welfare. The pending legislation has a strong work requirement--States that are not successful in placing 25 percent of recipients in work programs in 1996 will lose 5 percent of their block grant allocation, no questions asked. The provision for child care services in Senator Dole's substitute does provide protections for children who are not yet in school by prohibiting States from penalizing mothers who cannot work because there simply is no child care available. I believe we are addressing my concerns with child care. Last week, the Senate overwhelmingly approved Senator Kassebaum's amendment which prohibits the transfer of money from the child care development block grant to activities not associated with child care. The amendment also streamlines the administration of child care programs because States will now be able to operate a unified child care system. No longer will mothers who successfully move off of welfare have to move their children out of a child care facility simply because they are no longer eligible for AFDC. To give States a shot at meeting the goals of welfare reform, we have now provided States with $3 billion to expand child care services. In the year 2000, States must put 50 percent of their welfare population to work. This means that Maine will have to increase the number of working welfare recipients by 64 percent. Now that we have reached an agreement to realize a smaller amount of overall savings in the short term, in the long term these additional dollars will pay off. A vivid example of a welfare program run amuck is the SSI Program, which I have investigated over the past several years through my work on the Special Committee on Aging. Our investigations have discovered that the Federal disability programs, which were intended as a vital safety net for America's most vulnerable citizens--the elderly and the disabled poor--have mushroomed into the largest and fastest growing cash welfare programs in the Federal Government. Despite the huge outlay of taxpayer and social security trust fund dollars, we have paid far little attention to how these benefits are being spent and taken far too little notice of how the disability programs are being abused. The lax management and rampant abuses in the SSI Program that have come to light through these investigations shocked the public. Drug addicts and alcoholics have been using cash SSI benefits to subsidize and perpetuate their addictions, and many addicts were actually seeking out the SSI Program as a steady source of cash to support their habits. The message of the program has been, ``Stay addicted and you qualify for benefits. But stop drinking or shooting up drugs and the benefits will stop.'' Tragically, these policies have not only drained the Federal Treasury, but have also been destructive to substance abusers themselves, by rewarding addiction and discouraging, or failing to require, necessary treatment to pave the way to rehabilitation. Following legislation I introduced to correct these abuses, Congress took swift action to place protections on disability benefits paid to drug addicts and alcoholics. We took the cash out of the hands of the addicts by requiring them to have third parties handle their benefits for them, and made alcoholics and addicts eligible for SSI only if they receive treatment for their addictions. Finally, we imposed a 3 year cut-off of SSI and disability insurance benefits for addicts and alcoholics. These changes enacted last year removed major incentives for abuse of the SSI Program and encouraged rehabilitation, rather than lifelong dependency. Another stunning example of abuse of the SSI Program pertains to one of the major areas of growth in the SSI Program, namely, benefits for legal immigrants. Just last week, for example, I released a GAO report finding that the Social Security Administration is not doing enough to crack down on fraud by translators who fraudulently assist legal immigrants qualify for SSI benefits. In one case, a middleman arrested for fraud had helped at least 240 immigrants obtain $7 million in SSI benefits by coaching them on medical symptoms and providing false information on their medical histories. The GAO has identified major weaknesses in how SSA awards SSI benefits to legal immigrants. While the bill before us will go far in reducing the problem of unchecked benefits to legal immigrants, this will continue to be an area of potential abuse that we must continue to watch carefully. Fraud and abuse in SSI should not be the only cause for reform of the disability programs. Even more fundamental problems should motivate reform. First, the SSI and disability insurance programs as now structured encourage lifelong dependency, not rehabilitation. The programs return virtually no one to work: Less than 1 person in 1,000 on the SSI-DI rolls gets off the program through the programs' rehabilitation efforts. We must address the growth of these programs if we are to preserve them for the truly disabled. Persons are getting SSI at younger ages, with very little chance of ever getting off the rolls. The SSA recently estimated that a typical SSI recipient will stay on the rolls for about 11 years, and we are paying out roughly $51,000 in SSI benefits to each new person on the rolls over this period of time. The cost to the Government for each recipient is far higher when Medicaid and food stamps are added to the equation: Recipients can receive total Federal benefits of about $113,000 when these other programs are taken into account. With dollars this large at stake it is crucial that we do all we can to reform the disability program so that it emphasizes rehabilitation rather than dependency. In reforming this program, our guiding principle must be that we preserve the disability programs for the truly disabled, but that we not remain blind to the very real problems that exist within the SSI Program. As Marvin Olasky noted in his recent book, ``The Tragedy of American Compassion,'' effective welfare requires the ability to distinguish those who have fallen on hard times and need a helping hand from those who simply refuse to act in a disciplined and responsible manner. When welfare is a Federal entitlement, it is very difficult to make these distinctions. Giving State and local governments more discretion in the welfare system is a step in the right direction. Block-granting AFDC to the States is not a panacea. A welfare system that has clearer lines of responsibility and accountability will be more effective. But this is not the end of the welfare debate. Hopefully, the legislation we enact this year will make meaningful improvements in the current system. But turning these programs over to the States will not itself fix the problems. Congress and the President must continue to work with States to improve the welfare system to make sure that a safety net is there for those who need it but is denied to those who abuse it.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I would like to raise a subject which I believe will be a key problem for the States in implementing welfare reform under block grants--ensuring the States are able to make the necessary investments in information technology. Most of our attention here on the floor has been with regard to very contentious social issues such as work requirements and unwed mothers. We have devoted little attention to the problems States will face in managing the vastly increasing responsibilities which this legislation will transfer to them. I am concerned that all our hard work to set the stage for new and successful human services programs will fall short of its goal if States are not equipped with the necessary information systems. If the States are unable to handle these enlarged responsibilities, pressure will rapidly build for the Federal Government, piece by piece, to become involved once again in managing these programs. The unfortunate fact is that many States are far behind the rest of our society in computerizing and reinventing the delivery of their services. Among the State agencies, it is often the human service agencies which are the most in need of automation. While I endorse the concept of block grants and the latitude they provide to States, I believe the Federal Government must continue to provide specific assistance to States to automate.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. I fully concur with Senator Snowe that this funding is critical to helping potato growers in Maine and other States protect their crops from the devastation of late blight. We note that the committee has provided $10.9 million for pest management in its fiscal year 1996 bill, which is the same as the amount appropriated in the current fiscal year. Is it the chairman's understanding that the President's fiscal year 1996 budget request for this account includes $800,000 to continue this late blight control program in Maine?

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed to amendment No. 2586.