Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. It was a dramatic vote in the sense that Senators were voting their conscience about where the public wanted the educational dollar to go, not to get bound up in the Federal bureaucracy and have a lot of it spun off here, as the President apparently would want, but for that money to move right back to local units of education. Is that not true, and was that not the goal of this Congress?

Mr. CRAIG. I have no objection.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator restate his unanimous consent request?

Mr. CRAIG. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. CRAIG. About a year ago, the Senator from Washington came to the floor and offered an amendment that would dramatically change the way money flows out of Washington back to local schools, local units of education. And as I remember, there was a resounding vote here on the floor in favor of that.

Mr. CRAIG. Will the Senator from Washington yield?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, with that, I will continue now and speak in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 4 p.m. today, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I have a couple of unanimous-consent requests. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives from the House legislation providing for continued Government funding until midnight on Wednesday, October 14, the resolution be considered agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I believe it has been cleared with the other side.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, a great deal has been talked about here this afternoon as to what this Congress and our President will do on the issue of education. I am, once again, pleased to see our President engaged and spending time talking about education. He spent so much time skipping class and trying to avoid detention that he failed to learn about what Republicans and the majority here in Congress have been doing on behalf of education for the last good many months. It is with that in mind that I would like to, for a few moments, talk about what we have done and what is being done. I am pleased that the President is once again engaged. We finally got his attention in the last week. He is staying in the White House and trying to work with us to resolve some of these issues. That is important. It is time that Congress adjourn, but most important, we must finish our work before we go. The President did come home on occasion to veto a few bills this year, but he seems to have forgotten them. He seems to have forgotten the Coverdell A+ education bill that he vetoed, which would have provided educational savings accounts, would have allowed parents to set aside $2,000 a year per child for educational expenses, and teacher testing and merit pay would reward teachers for their performance in the classroom. That was part of the bill that he vetoed. It also included dollars to the classroom, which would put money directly from the Federal Government into helping students instead of the bureaucrats. It is interesting that my colleagues on the other side, a few moments ago, introduced information about what GAO said. Let me tell you what the Federal Government said, what the Department of Education said about its own problems with paperwork and the burning up of valuable educational dollars. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that it takes approximately 48.6 million paperwork hours--the equivalent of almost 25,000 employees working 40 hours a week for a full year--to complete the paperwork involving the administration of the Federal education programs. The Senator from Washington spoke about the amount of time that local units of education use filling out the paperwork. In my State of Idaho, as is true in Iowa, Ohio or any other State across the Nation, 50 percent of its paperwork burden is directly related to the 5 percent of the money that it gets. What happened? The President vetoed it. He came home, focused for a few moments, vetoed it, and left town again. What about the tax regarding the College Tuition Program, encouraging parents to save for their child's college education? That, too, was vetoed by the President. So when this President stands up and says, ``I want billions of dollars more for education,'' what he is saying is, ``I want billions of dollars more here in Washington to be run through a Federal system to be directed out for education,'' while this Senate voted, by a majority, to do quite the opposite--to literally turn the public loose to fund education without Federal strings. Eighty-four percent of Federal elementary and secondary education funds are used for instruction, according to the April 1998 report by the U.S. Department of Education. What happened to the other percentage? Let's see. I guess that would be 16 percent. What happened? Overhead and administration. That is what it cost to get the money out. You see, there is a game played in this town. It is how big you can build the agency and how many times you can roll the paper before you send the money out. That is exactly what this Congress tried to avoid. That is exactly what we did avoid with legislation passed by this Senate and passed by the House and vetoed by this President. Now that we are attempting to adjourn our Congress, just in the last few days the President is home back in school, not avoiding classes, and he is trying to spend, or spin his story about education. Mr. President, why did you veto all of these productive pieces of legislation that were passed by a majority, a bipartisan majority, in Congress? Why did you veto legislation that, when polled, well over 60 percent of the American people said it gave more power to the family, to the parent, to the local education school board? That is what America wants. They don't want 100,000 federally paid-for teachers and a bureaucracy to go along, and over 20 percent of the money staying right here to be spent on thousands and thousands of hours of paperwork. I yield the floor. Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, on behalf of all of us here on the floor and all colleagues here in the Senate, we know this is a stressful day. It should actually be a joyful day for Senator Lott. It is his birthday and we wish him a happy birthday. [Applause.]

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Will the leader yield for a moment?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise today to make a few remarks concerning the Medicare Beneficiary Freedom to Contract Act. Most Americans believe that should control their health care to the greatest extent possible. Others continue to favor comprehensive federal control of seniors, health care which results in rationing. All patients should be able to choose their own doctors and have complete freedom to supplement their insurance, including Medicare, as they see fit. The right of seniors to pay out of their own pocket for the health care of their choice is an essential element of our nation's concept of liberty. Under this Act, Medicare would pay the standard fee for the standard procedures by the standard practitioner with private contracting reserved for more specialized procedures. While it would be a right that--because of economics--would be exercised only in special circumstances, private contracting is a basic right every senior should have. And importantly, it would provide a safeguard from government manipulation--something which under the Clinton Administration is an all-too-real possibility. Under this act, seniors would be even less likely to privately contract than they are to go to nonparticipating physician, because with private contracting they agree to pay the full cost of the service themselves (just as they historically have.) In fact, if the desire to pay out-of-pocket were widespread, seniors wouldn't join Part B (which is voluntary) at all. But seniors overwhelmingly choose Part B insurance--just as most other Americans do in choosing doctor-visit coverage in their health plans. President Clinton said in the State of the Union that all Americans must have the right to doctor choice, and assess to specialists without referral. Why not seniors, too? Mr. President, I believe that Americans are right when they tell me in letters and phone calls and personal visits that they do not want to be trapped by a one-tiered Medicare program. I think I am correct in stating that senior citizens over age 64 are right in being angry at all members of Congress and the Clinton Administration for denying them their right to make any medical choice for themselves, to see any physician they want for any service they want if they want to spend their own money. It is for this reason, that I ask all my colleagues to work with us to restore to seniors their right to privately contract for any medical service with physicians of their choice. I look forward to working with the distinguished Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Roth, and other Members of the Senate toward that goal.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I require no more than 10 minutes.

Mr. CRAIG. The Senator from West Virginia and I would also like some of that time if at all possible prior to 11:30. If you would take that under consideration, I would not object.

Mr. CRAIG. May I inquire how much time remains in morning business under the order?

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me join with my chairman, Senator Thad Cochran, chairman of the Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee, who spoke with a certain amount of frustration in his voice just a few moments ago. He has every reason to be frustrated. This chairman has bent over backwards in the last 6 months trying to understand and address the agricultural crisis that is now upon America's production agriculture. He has joined with us--those of us here in the Senate who come from strong agricultural States--at every step along the way to see how we could resolve this under current policy. I don't blame his frustration. I came to the floor just a few moments ago to announce that the President is in town for the full week for the first time in a good many weeks, and the first thing he says is that he is going to veto the agriculture appropriations bill. I am critical of this President. Mr. President, wake up. You haven't had a position on agriculture your entire term in office. Now you say, ``I'm going to veto,'' at a time when this Congress has worked collectively, on a very strong bipartisan vote on the House side just last week, 333 House Members, Democrat and Republican, on the very issue that we have on the floor now that the chairman has spoken to and that we will vote on this afternoon. I am not quite sure why he is doing that. I suggested this morning that maybe it was a bit of ``Wag the Dog.'' I don't want to make accusations, but why isn't he helping us, working with us to resolve this, rather than simply addressing it with a veto threat. What has the bill to offer production agriculture? For the last several days, we have laid out the amount of money that is being spent that will go directly to farmers to offset the market losses that they have experienced, the very real and dramatic declines in commodity prices that are going to place some of our very good farmers and ranchers in bankruptcy. We want to be sensitive to that. This Congress is being sensitive to that with a $4.2 billion package. Payments directly to farmers who have experienced natural disasters--$1.5 billion for that--who through no fault of their own, have lost their crops; market loss payments, reflective of what has gone on in the Pacific Rim and the loss of markets there, payments of about $1.65 billion, directly down through to the farmer and the rancher; a multiple-year losses program of about $675 million; livestock feed assistance for those areas that were ``droughted'' out who obviously produced no feed for their livestock this year and are having to reach well outside their barriers and pay premium price for hay to be brought in; and, of course, emergency-related aid of about $200 million. This bill is very sensitive to the needs of production agriculture. What is the debate really about? Why would the President want to veto a bill that provides so much at a time of true need to production agriculture? As I said, it could be a ``Wag the Dog'' problem, but more importantly it is probably a debate over significant problems. We--Republicans--believe, and I think American agriculture supports a recognition that farmers ought to be farming to the market. The Freedom to Farm bill reflected that and we made significant change to policy. We also said government has a responsibility to break down the political barriers that the chairman spoke about to expand world trade, and yet the tools to do that are rusting down in the toolshed at USDA because they have failed to use them. Throughout the time this crisis was growing, not one kernel of grain was purchased for humanitarian purposes. Yet, the Secretary had the tools to do it. The Secretary had the tools to enhance trade for the purpose of moving the product that was stored out there on America's farms, or in America's granaries. Yet, that didn't happen. And now, all of a sudden, when we are trying to shape some form of aid to get us through this cropping season and keep what American farmers say is a good farm policy in place, the President takes time off from his world travels and his campaign fundraising events to say, ``I am going to veto this bill.'' Mr. President, I hope you will study it a bit and change your mind, because if you think you are going to use an additional $3 billion or $4 billion from the surplus that you want to put in Social Security to save Social Security, think again. It isn't necessary and it isn't needed, and I don't think this Congress is willing to provide it. Those are the realities with which we are dealing.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with a revelation that I suspect will come as a bit of a surprise to some of my colleagues and to a few Americans. Mr. President, fellow Senators and fellow Americans, President Bill Clinton, is in town. That is right. The President is actually in the White House today. For any who have followed the President's extensive travel throughout his term in office, you would notice that I say his ``time in Washington'' because that has been far less than his term in office. The fact that the President has actually planned to stay in town for a week is, in my opinion, a bit newsworthy. The President is supposed to be the head of our country. Instead, I suspect that Bill Clinton has been our country's feet. This President is already the most foreign-traveled President in U.S. history, with 32 trips abroad in less than 6 years in office. In just the last 2 years, he has spent 79 days overseas. Those 79 days abroad in 2 years are almost as many days as President Bush spent during his 4 years in office. If and when he has come home to the United States does not mean that he came home to the White House. President Clinton spent almost half of last year, 149 days, and over half of this year, now 155 days, out of the White House. What has he been doing while logging those frequent flier miles on Air Force One? Well, a lot has been fundraising; 65 days over just the last 2 years have included out-of-town fundraising trips, and 14 more are planned for this month alone. Now the President is back in town for one of his rare weeks in Washington. What did he do on his first day at work yesterday? He sought, once again, to divert attention from his own problems--this time, by threatening to shut down the Government. It is hard to tell if this President has come back to town to simply repack his bags or to take, or attempt to take, Congress hostage. President Clinton appears intent on making the sequel to the movie ``Wag the Dog.'' The President hasn't participated in the process of government at all this year, and now he returns, seemingly, to attempt to shut the process down. I have to say I think this is a bit of diversion. I don't believe it is leadership. Is it unfair to criticize? Is it partisan to be harsh? I asked myself that question before I came to the floor this morning. I don't think so. Here is why I don't think so. Consider just two issues that we all believe are important issues, that even the President has acknowledged are important. In just a few moments we are going to resume debate on a most important piece of legislation, the agricultural appropriations. It is on that that I want to speak for just a few moments, an issue that President Clinton once ignored. He ignored solutions to help farmers and ranchers. He didn't speak about them in his first term of office and has spoken little about them in his second term. Now we have legislation that we think will help farmers and ranchers, and on his first week back in town he says ``I'll veto it.'' ``Agriculture'' is a word that this President hasn't found a place for in his vocabulary. Why? Because American farmers make up less than 3 percent of the American public. They don't have as much political clout as they once had. So this President hasn't addressed this issue. But just now, when American agriculture is in crisis and this Congress, in a bipartisan way, is attempting to find solutions to that crisis, our President comes to town, finds his footing, and says, ``I'll veto the effort.'' Mr. President, that is fair if you had been part of the process, if you had been in here working with us, if there had been legitimate give-and-take and finally a breakdown. That is not the case at all. The President was absent--traveling, fundraising--away from what is most important. So he seeks now to make up for his absence by having not just one position on agriculture but three positions. First of all, he asked for about $2.3 billion in assistance on September 22. That was just 2 weeks ago. Congress then roughly doubled that amount. Yet now, to hide the fact that he had not been paying attention to American agriculture, President Clinton is demanding more, much more--nearly $7 billion. And now he threatens to veto legislation that Congress will send to him--legislation that will give twice the money that he asked for less than a month ago. For 2 years, he has failed to use the tools that could have addressed the agriculture problems in substantial ways. He has ignored the tools--tools that I have requested the President not let rust away in some storage shed down at USDA, tools of trade, tools of trade intervention, humanitarian aid. All of those kinds of things that would have moved our products into the market were not used and have gathered rust and sat idle. Why, then, is the President coming back almost in an effort to demand a scorched-Earth policy? Is it politics, or is it the wag factor that is now at work? I am not sure. But, Mr. President, I think you have little credibility in this area. Let me discuss just one other area briefly. I know the Senator from West Virginia is waiting.

Mr. CRAIG. There is the issue of Social Security. So important was it that the President declared it in his State of the Union Address as an effort to save Social Security. Yet, the President has not bothered to make one step in that direction. The Congress waited a year, but no plan came from the White House. Just as with the farm crisis, he has only managed to use it--not address it, much less solve it. Like the farm crisis, he sought to use it to turn attention from himself. Instead of buckling down, this President has traveled around; over half of the days of this year the President has been out of town. He has found time to travel, he has found time to go overseas, he has found time to fundraise; but he has not found time to send any one plan to save Social Security to the Congress of the United States, or any one plan to alleviate a farm crisis that is now emerging. Well, I suspect that if the solution to Social Security had been in Beijing, or Chile, or Ghana, or Uganda, or Rwanda, or South America, he might have found it there because that is where the President was. Why now, the last week that Congress plans to be in session, with a schedule that was established at the first of the year, did the President find his way back to the White House to sit and only threaten--threaten to veto here, threaten to veto there? Mr. President, are you planning to shut down the Government? Is it a plan for diversion? Is it a plan to hide? Well, we have some problems and we are going to work to solve them. Those solutions should come in a bipartisan way. Mr. President, I hope you will be a part of the solution. The American people deserve nothing less than that. I don't like coming to the floor to give these kinds of speeches, but sometimes I feel they are important. Sometimes I feel it is important for the American people to recognize, as we do, that there are times when we work together and not times when we simply find our footing to threaten or to change the subject or to divert attention. Is the Presidency in crisis today? Yes, it is. We all know why it is. That is a constitutional tragedy. That will work its will. The House is underway in that process. Let us be allowed to work our will to solve the problem of financing our Government for the coming year. I yield the floor. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will take just a few moments because I want to sandwich some comments into this very important discussion on cutting taxes and lowering the rate of impact our Federal Government has on the average American family. The Senator from Missouri has spoken so very clearly today about what is happening, once again, in our Nation's capital. We fought for a decade to balance the budget--and Republicans are proud that it has now happened, it happened on our watch with our fiscal conservatism--but now we have a President who wants to throw up the facade of saving Social Security and yet sending a very large spending package to Capitol Hill. I hope we do have an opportunity to vote for tax cuts. This is one Senator who will proudly cast an ``aye'' vote for it.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, first of all, let me thank the Senator from South Dakota for those kind words. I enjoyed working with him on the meat labeling issue. While the legislation before the Senate advances it only slightly through a study as it relates to the country of origin, I do believe in this country the consumers have a right to know. I believe the consumers have a right to understand whether they are buying foreign or domestic beef. I think the livestock industry deserves, also, that opportunity. I thank my colleague from South Dakota for his leadership in the area. We will continue to work on this. This is an issue that will not go away. I certainly understand the difficulties of those in the retail industry. We can work those differences out. The compromise the Senator from South Dakota spoke to, that he and I worked on, moved a lot in that direction. I am sorry that they finally, in the end, felt they had to gang up on us a bit during the conference, but we will be back and the issue will be resolved. I must also tell you that I support a compromise in livestock reporting. I think there must be a transparency in that market for all the world to see. There isn't at this time. We are going to have to work to get to that. I am disappointed that the bill delays the implementation of a Federal milk marketing order reform that I supported. Now, while I have expressed my disappointment, I will stop with that because those are the areas that I had some concern about. Let me discuss the positive things that are in this very important bill. First, I thank the chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee of the full Appropriations Committee, the Senator from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, for his leniency, his cooperation, his understanding, but most importantly, his dedication to the American farmer--whether in his State of Mississippi or whether in my State of Idaho--in ensuring that there is fair play in the balance of appropriating the Nation's resources, tax dollars, for the purpose of American agriculture. I do believe that this agriculture appropriations bill contains important funding for America's farm families. I am proud of it. I will vote for it. I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. It is an excellent effort on the part of the Senator from Mississippi. Compromise is what we work at. I am disappointed that the President, at the last moment, would send a signal of veto. I am amazed that this is a President who didn't say agriculture twice in his first campaign, but promised to say it three times in his second campaign. He never came with an agriculture policy, and now, in the last minute, after they discovered there was a farm crisis 3 months ago, he wants to veto an effort that has been underway for months to try to not only be sensitive to the issues that are down on the farm at this moment, causing great consternation, but would do so by saying, ``let's veto.'' The reason he says ``let's veto'' is because it is a habitual kind of thing for the President to want to fall backward into old policy that didn't work, that bound America's agricultural producers into a lockstep Government program offering no flexibility to the marketplace, but more importantly, having to ask the producer to turn to Government every year to decide what they were going to produce and what they were going to get in return. Now, that is not what the American farmer wanted, and even today, while those in production agriculture recognize the importance of some adjustment, some change in the current program, they are still saying leave the new farm bill program in place. Yet, this President is threatening a veto because we will not fall back to the policy of the old. What does the bill do that we are talking about here on the floor? Let me tell you what it does and let me tell you what it does for my State of Idaho. I will use it as an example. It funds research at America's colleges and universities in agriculture, at a time when agriculture and yields were dropping nationwide because we weren't investing in the future of American agriculture. Well, in my State of Idaho, the bill contains $500,000 for peas and lentils research; $500,000 for grass seed research; $500,000 for barley research; $550,000 for research on canola, a new and important crop in our area of Idaho; $1.7 million for research in small fruits; and $1.2 million for research in potatoes and potato disease, the blight that devastated production in the Idaho potato crops last year. Those are all part of a new research initiative the Senator from Mississippi worked to assure that we would get funded so we can invest in the productive future of American agriculture. It funds food stamps and other nutrition programs. Very little has been said about that today by those on the other side. Yet, that is critically important to America's poor and disadvantaged. It funds conservation and environmental programs, and some very good ones. It contains important biodiesel legislation, a new program for a very important part of a new and emerging market for production agriculture in the oilseed industry. It contains important sanction reform legislation and exempts agricultural products from sanctions on India and Pakistan. Why, then, if all of these good things are in there, do we have a President that threatens a veto? I have to believe it is because they didn't come with a policy; they don't have one today, and they have this habitual problem of wanting to fall back into the past. Freedom to Farm is everything about the future and very little about the past. That is where we ought to be. Now, there is a problem in weather-related disasters. There are certainly problems with world markets, as we increasingly tie production agriculture and its profitability to the world markets. Well over 40 percent of everything a farmer in America produces today has to sell in the world market, and we have to be sensitive to that. When those markets go south, prices go south. Does that mean the policy is bad, or does it mean we have a world economic problem? I think it is the latter. We recognize that and we have pumped billions of dollars into that. It won't go to the trader and it won't go to the exporter; it goes right to the bank account of the American farmer--$2.35 billion in disaster-related programs, weather-related programs. We turn to the Secretary of Agriculture and say: You have the tools, you implement it. We even gave him money to hire more staff to do so-- $1.65 billion in income assistance directly to the farmer. This assistance will help provide America's farmers with economic stability that they need to talk to their banker this fall and to talk to their banker next spring, to get a line of credit to put the seed in the ground. And the cycle goes on. What does it mean in my State of Idaho? I will break it out for you. Today, the price of wheat at the Port of Lewiston, ID, is $2.75. So in the 1998 crop-year, if you add the transition payment of 65 cents, another transition of 45 cents, a loan deficiency payment of 55 cents, and the aid package I just talked about of $1.65 billion, that is 19 cents--that is $1.85 per bushel, Government assistance, to a $2.78 price at the Port of Lewiston today. That is $4.62 per bushel, and $4.62 is, under the current domestic and world market situation, a fair if not a good price in Idaho for wheat. Idaho wheat hit the bottom in early September when the price hit $2.26 at the Port of Lewiston--although the price was lower further inland in my State, which is more dependent upon rail traffic. Today, wheat is sold at $2.78; that is up 50 cents from its low. The market has assessed the production, and it is making its adjustments. We are helping stabilize that. That is probably why the bill that I am talking about, the current legislation, is supported by the National Farm Bureau and a majority of Idaho's farmers. Is it enough? Well, it is enough to get by on, especially when Government should not be the sole provider of the well-being of production agriculture. But it should understand when there is a crisis and respond to the crisis. That is what we are doing. That response is $1.84 a bushel in assistance. Now, some keep talking about the loan caps. We voted and voted, and we voted once again on that issue. A majority of Congress said leave the loan caps alone. I believe that the farmers don't want current policy changed. And while some would agree that the loan caps ought to be changed, when I talk to my farmers back home and we walk them through all that this appropriation bill offers, they say: That is fair, Senator. That is as much as we could expect you to do, and thank you for doing it. We have worked hard on this bill. The Senator from Kansas explained the coalition that came together before the July 4 break. We met with all of the commodity groups and asked, ``What do you need?'' They said, ``Don't change the policy, but we have to have some transitional assistance.'' Times are tough, and we understood that. Many of us went home in August and listened to our farmers and came back with the mind of putting a package like this together to offer assistance. The President wasn't listening then and he wasn't focused then. Mr. President, why did you quit your travels and come back this week and say you are going to veto the bill? I don't understand that. I don't understand why you have not been focused on this; yet, all of a sudden, it is time to veto it. You said, ``I support Senator Harkin's programs''; yet, you offer a supplemental that is billions of dollars less. You have taken two positions on the issue and now you have a third. You say, ``I will veto what you send me.'' I don't understand that. I don't think America's farmers understand that very well. Government isn't the end-all to production agriculture. It should be of assistance when assistance is needed. It should care, and it should be concerned, and that is what this bill is reflective of this evening. We should knock down the political barriers and boundaries to enhanced trade. What has this administration done this year? They have not sold or given away one kernel of wheat in the name of humanity. Yet, they have hundreds of millions of dollars to buy wheat in the world and move it into the world hunger areas. Mr. President, why are you not doing that? Why do you come home from your world travels and political travels and say it is time to veto this effort? I don't understand that, Mr. President. I don't understand it. What we do understand, what Congress understands, and what this bill is reflective of is that you don't change policy; you work to adjust it. You make it fit the marketplace. When there is a national environmental or weather-directed disaster, when there is a downturn in world markets, you make adjustments, you care about production agriculture, and you darn well make sure the money gets home to the bank account of the farmer. That is what this appropriations bill offers. That is why the House voted on it 333 to 53. That is a big bipartisan vote for the House. Somehow there has to be some good in this legislation, if it drew that kind of a vote in the House. I hope it draws a bipartisan vote here when we vote on it. It deserves it, because it is reflective of the concerns of the current agricultural situation in our country, and, most importantly, it is reflective of the concern of production agriculture when production agriculture says don't change the policy over some transition, make sure that you are sensitive to what we are concerned about. But what is important to all of us is that we listen to production agriculture. And we know that there are times when a safety net is necessary. This year, as in past years, we have offered one of the largest safety nets in the history of our Government, and we will continue to do that. But let us not change the policy and drive our Government into the business of being the partner of production agriculture, drive it into the business of not ever determining the acreage that should be farmed, or the amount that should be farmed, but into the business of knocking down political barriers, into the business of working as a partner in selling in the world markets instead of simply sitting back with hands folded saying, ``Oh, gee, we have an agriculture problem.'' I think we ought to do something about it. We ought to control production. We ought to squeeze down on production in the rest of the nations of the world, save time to gear up and time to increase our acreage. If we are going to pull away, if the United States is going to pull away from its spot in the world market, we are going to fill it. That is what the policies of the past offered, and we had to fight for decades to gain them back. I hope that in the end, when the rhetoric cools, when the President develops an understanding of production agriculture--and I give him 24 hours to do it--that he will sign the bill, offer up the kind of assistance that this bill recognizes is important for our producers, and get on with the business of being a cooperating partner with production agriculture, and not a barrier, or not a hindrance, or not a Johnny-come-lately. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thought it would be important this morning to do a short reality check on our President. The President last week said Congress is a do-nothing Congress. They have not done their work. Why has Congress not done its work? You know, when he made that comment about us--and I have been here hour after hour in committee meeting after committee meeting, here on the floor, day after day for the balance of the year--I thought, you know, Mr. President, you challenged me a little bit. It is time to do a reality check. So I sent staff scurrying. We compiled the President's travel log, and what I am about to report to you is the travel log of President Bill Clinton. For a man who is bent on remaining in the White House, President Clinton sure spends a lot of time away from the White House. What you are about to hear is an analysis of how much time he has spent away, and why his people have not been on the Hill, why they have not been working with us, and now in the closing hours of a Congress he is either threatening a veto or threatening that he might just have to shut down Government to awaken us. Mr. President, let's do a bit of a reality check. Last year, President Clinton broke the Presidential record for foreign travel with his 27th trip abroad. Like the Energizer Bunny, he has continued to keep on going and going and going. This year so far he has logged 41 days in 11 countries--11 different foreign countries. Some say he is traveling in foreign countries to keep his mind off domestic problems. I would not want to make that assertion. What I do know is that the President has now broken all-time Presidential travel records with 32 trips abroad, more than any other president ever. Mr. President, you are out breaking records. However, just because President Clinton is not on foreign soil all the time doesn't mean he is in the White House. Bill Clinton also likes to travel around the country as well. He is particularly fond of combining both domestic travel and campaign fundraisers, with at least 37 trips which include fundraisers just through this year, 1998, and there are at least 14 more fundraising events scheduled for October, according to reports. Stay tuned as I go down through this report, because you will find an anomaly between official travel and fundraising travel and what it is costing the taxpayers and maybe why he needs a little bit of supplemental spending. All told, the President has spent almost half of 1997, 149 days, as well as over half of 1998 so far, 155 days, outside of Washington, DC. Hello, Mr. President, we are trying to get our work done here. You criticize us for being a do-nothing Congress? Mr. President, where have you been? The President's travel at taxpayers' expense long ago broke the foreign travel record. To put it in perspective, Mr. President, you have traveled domestically over 304 days in the last 2 years. You have already spent more time out of Washington than four out of the last five Congresses have spent in session. If the implications were not so serious, the President's wanderlust would be a mere fact for amusement, and we could all chortle a little bit about it. This is, after all, a President who has claimed an initiative for every problem and credit for every solution. Yet the President has not been around for much of the work. If America is to believe he is serious about Social Security reform and Medicare reform and health care reform, tax reform and a host of other problems, it would help if they could first believe he is going to be here so we could meet with him to get the work done. In 1992, then-candidate Bill Clinton excoriated President Bush for taking 25 trips to 60 countries from 1989 to 1993. He stated, ``It is time for us to have a President who cares more about Littleton, NH, than Liechtenstein; or more about Manchester than Micronesia.'' But once in office, guess what? Mr. Clinton took Air Force One and away he went, and he broke the Bush record. In less than 2 years, 1997 through 1998, Clinton has spent almost as many days overseas as Bush spent during his entire term in office--79 versus 86 days. President Clinton has taken 32 foreign trips during his Presidency, 6 more than President Bush, to 78 countries, including 51 different ones. Trips to South Korea, Japan, Malaysia are already in the travel plans for next year. Mr. President, I could go on and on. The point is quite simple. As America has discovered, just because Mr. Clinton is in the country does not mean he is in the White House. The ``DC'' in Washington, DC, probably means ``Devoid of Clinton.'' While Clinton was able to leave his passport in the White House, he has made sure he has taken donor cards. As the press has noted, fundraising is prominent in his travel agenda. What is in the Washington Post today? The President was out once again, Friday, fundraising. I understand now the American people are waking up a little bit. Here is what one of the picket signs said as the President entered a fundraiser in Ohio: ``Fundraising? Is this the people's work?'' I am starting to ask the same thing. In 1997, President Clinton spent 111 days on the road on domestic travel. He has already surpassed that in 1998 with 114 days. In 1997, he used at least 28 of those trips for fundraising. Through September of this year, President Clinton has already used at least 37 of those days for fundraising. That is part of the story, but here is the rest of the story that really concerns me. Do you know how much it costs to fly Air Force One? Mr. President, in 1992 figures it was $42,000 an hour. Mr. President, that is for you and the entourage. How do you balance that off between important domestic travel and fundraising? I hope you are keeping an accurate record, or the taxpayers will be paying a phenomenal amount for our President to be out of the White House. President Clinton was out of town 149 days in 1997; 155 days through September of 1998. The President spent a total of 304 days outside of Washington in just the last 21 months. The reason I come to the floor this morning to talk about the President's travel schedule is to bring some substance to the seaminess of a comment a week ago that this is the do-nothing Congress. You might have grounds to make that kind of an argument if you had been sitting down at the White House with a phone in your hand working with us to try to resolve the budgets, to try to get out our appropriation bills, to try to do the business of this Government. But you have chosen not to do that. You have been out and about the country and the world at a record pace, and at the expense of the American taxpayer. I understand by news reports today the President is in town for the week: Mr. President, welcome back to Washington. I understand that you are going to be here for a week, hopefully to work with us in finalizing the work of Congress to get our budgets complete so we can leave town--most important, adjourn the Congress and go home as the American people would expect us to do and turn off the expense clock. I also think it is important, Mr. President, that you do, in fact, recognize that our country and our world is just in a little bit of an economic crisis and you are finally willing to cancel a few travel schedules and stay home to see if we can work out our problems. So, Mr. President, welcome home. I am going to be watching very closely and giving reports from time to time as the President spends the American public's tax dollars to travel around the country. Here is the travel log, and it is growing. Here are the charts, and they are growing. Call us a do-nothing Congress, Mr. President, and I will call you AWOL because you won't be here; you will be off flitting around the country, either fundraising or staying out of Washington because the heat is too hot in the kitchen. I yield the floor. Mr. HUTCHINSON addressed the Chair.