Robert Dole

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank the staff. I know it was not easy to come here. We are not going to be here but a minute or two, but I thank all the members of our family here, and I appreciate very much their presence.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in recess until the hour of 12 noon on Wednesday, January 10, 1996; that following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be deemed approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there then be a period for morning business until 12:30, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. I just say for the information of all Senators, we would not expect any rollcall votes on Wednesday. I am not certain what the status of the House will be by Wednesday. They may be in recess subject to the call of the Chair. So it would be my thought that probably on Wednesday there would be very little, if any, business.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that the Senate stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we started our negotiations with the White House about 40 minutes ago. I will return to the White House. Again, I think everybody is acting in good faith. We have not reached any agreement. We may not; we may. I do not think anybody knows at this point. But I think as long as there is the spirit of cooperation and credible negotiation, the Speaker and I, and the majority leader in the House, Congressman Armey, feel that we should continue negotiating with the President. So we will be doing that for the rest of the afternoon. (Mr. JEFFORDS assumed the chair.) Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOLE. I thank my colleague from Virginia for his kind remarks. I also would want to compliment the Architect's office and all those responsible for snow removal at the Capitol. All the streets around the Capitol have been cleared and most of the areas in and about the Capitol have been cleared. They have done an outstanding job. I certainly appreciate their efforts, as I said earlier. Now, maybe being from the Presiding Officer's home State, this is just another snowfall, because Vermont takes these things in stride, but for this area of the country it, I guess, is the fourth largest in history. So it will cause, as the Senator from Virginia said, some suffering in some cases where they are not able to deal with it. I hope that we will be able to get everybody back to work after the one Government shutdown. This Government shutdown is not one Congress or the President is responsible for.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, for the past several weeks, America has focused its attention on the budget talks in Washington, and on the Government workers who have been hostages in this debate. However, one of the faces not shown on the evening news as a hostage in these talks is that of the American farmer. As I travel around rural America, farmers remind me that they are taxpayers too. And as taxpayers, farmers want a balanced budget. Rural America realizes what this balanced budget means for them. For agriculture alone, spending on interest with a balanced budget is projected to decline by $15 billion over 7 years. And for a lot of family farmers who struggle to make ends meet, the money saved by reduced interest payments could make the difference between success and failure. In addition, the Balanced Budget Act would provide much needed tax relief to millions of rural Americans; including an increase in expensing limits, death tax relief, an increased deductibility for the health insurance cost of the self employed, a capital gains tax cut, and operation of a medical savings account. Mr. President, along with putting America on course to a balanced budget, there is something else that Congress must do to be fair to America's farmers. I believe we have an obligation to announce by the end of February, if not sooner, the details of a farm bill so farmers can prepare this year's crop. Kansas farmers have already planted their winter wheat without knowing any program details. In my view, Mr. President, Congress has three options from which we can choose. Option No. 1 is to do nothing, and to simply let the 1990 farm bill expire, which would mean that permanent law would be in effect. Anyone who knows anything about permanent law realizes such action would be bad for farmers and bad for America. Farm prices would reach parity levels which to many may sound attractive. However, the long-term ramifications to the marketplace and U.S. Treasury would be significant. Farmers would produce for the Government and not the marketplace. Option No. 2 is to pass an extension of the 1990 farm bill. This in my view, would also be the wrong road to take. Those who are advocating this choice are unwilling to modernize American agricultural policy as we prepare to move into the next century. The world population will grow by 50 percent by 2025. We must provide American agriculture with the tools to unleash our Nation's productive capacity to meet a growing world demand. An extension of current farm policy without addressing changes that have occurred and continue to occur, is unacceptable to a majority of farmers in this country. If we are going to have an extension, it has to be at least for a couple of years. You have to give farmers flexibility, and you have to remove production controls. Option No. 3--which is the correct choice--is to adopt the farm bill proposals contained in the Balanced Budget Act. One year ago, I spoke to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting in St. Louis. While there, I outlined some of my goals for the 1995 farm bill. These goals included providing farmers with full planting flexibility, elimination of set-asides, program simplicity, and a farm policy that transitions farmers into the next century without disrupting the farm economy or land values. All of these goals are reached in the language contained in the Balanced Budget Act. Unfortunately, that act was vetoed and we must now address how to best proceed. I am hopeful that provisions contained in the Balanced Budget Act can be retained and can be passed before the end of February. Mr. President, American agriculture does not operate in a vacuum. Rural Americans share the Republican conviction that Congress must balance the budget. Rural Americans realize that there are important policies outside the farm bill that greatly affect their bottom lines. Republicans are actively working to provide the needed relief that rural Americans are asking for. And we will not stop. Mr. President, there are those who claim there has been no public input into the agricultural provisions included in the Balanced Budget Act. I disagree. Last year, the Senate and House Agriculture Committees held 33 hearings on the 1995 farm bill with over 350 witnesses. In my view, the public input has been significant. I also hear some colleagues talk about the need for a vote on the Senate democratic proposal which would reduce the agriculture savings and provide and increase in marketing loans. I would simply point out that Senator Harkin offered this amendment during Senate consideration of the reconciliation bill. The vote failed 31 to 68 with 15 Democrats voting with Republicans to defeat the amendment. The fact is that we have debated farm policy. And adopting the agriculture provisions contained in the Balanced Budget Act is right for our farmers and the right path for America. Mr. President, I point out to my colleagues that the suggestion has been made that maybe there is an alternative plan. We had a vote on that plan, offered by Senator Harkin. We voted 68 to 31 in opposition to that proposal. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me indicate to my colleague that is sort of what I pointed out. There are, as I see it, three options. We talked about it to some extent today at the White House. But I appreciate that. Of course, we need to do something because, as the minority leader indicated, our winter wheat farmers have already planted their wheat. They do not know what the program is going to be. They are taking a chance, as they do from time to time.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. For the benefit of staff who must sit here, I move the Senate stand in recess until 6:30 p.m.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following statements by the Senator from New Mexico, who is here, and the Senator from Virginia, that the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we are waiting on the Senate side for, I think, three bills to come over from the House which would in effect put Federal workers back to work, and which is targeted, to a certain extent--two of the bills cover many of the agencies that the Presiding Officer has been concerned about as has this Senator and others on both sides of the aisle. Then there is the third bill which would be the one with the CR until the January 26 date, if the President submits a balanced budget as scored by the Congressional Budget Office. As I understand, they passed one. They are now on the second. It may be another hour, 2 hours, 2\1/2\ hours.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I am going to ask about three unanimous consent requests. I will state them first and then if there are any objections, they can be heard.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. I do not disagree, obviously, with the Senator from Alaska or the Senator from Oregon. I think in the event we should reach an agreement with the President on a balanced budget we can take care of all the appropriations bills that are still around here, but otherwise it is going to present a real problem. But I would just say the House insisted that they be for 1 year or they not be included at all. So you had to make a judgment because some of these are very sensitive programs, very important programs. So we yielded to the wishes of the House appropriators in this case. But I understand the Senator's concern.

Mr. DOLE. Some are the House figures and some are the conference figures. But the Labor-HHS, since that has not been completed that is the House figure in Labor-HHS.

Mr. DOLE. Let me thank all my colleagues. The House is still debating what we have completed. But we are going to--in case there should be any amendment, the Democratic leader and I agreed we would be here tomorrow so we could concur on any additional amendment, if we agree on it, concur in that amendment, because we want to be certain on Monday the money is available for whatever may be in that text that I sent up. I do not think there will be any amendments adopted on the House side, but if so that will be taken care of tomorrow. And we will condition coming in tomorrow on whether or not there are any amendments added. If there are no amendments added, we will not be in session tomorrow, we will not be in session Sunday, we will come in about 2 or 3 o'clock on Monday, probably about 3 o'clock Monday. I want to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation. In my view, we have a resolution now of a very thorny problem and one that unfairly punished a lot of good people, Federal employees in particular who were being paid for not working, not because they do not want to work--they were willing to work--but they could not go to work. And this will see that they are paid. In addition, we have provided money for a number of programs, as pointed out in the two sort of targeted appropriations bills that we passed this evening. Of course, the President now, if he decides to lay down a balanced budget, scored by CBO, over a 7-year period, then everything is going to be open until January 26. I think by that time we will either have reached the budget agreement or not. That gives us 3 weeks in which to do that. And I hope that if we cannot come to some agreement that we are not going to go through this process again with a Government shutdown or partial shutdown. I know that the Speaker is working on some language that in the event this should happen again that I think every Federal worker would be deemed essential so they would still be coming to work, and some other provisions they are working on on the House side so there would not be a repeat of the 21- or 22-day shutdown, following the earlier 7-day Government shutdown or partial shutdown. So I want to thank the Democratic leader. And I want to thank my colleague from Virginia who has been on the floor all week long, and others who have an interest in this matter, as we all do. I think now that we have completed action we can tell everyone to go back to work. Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOLE. Yes.

Mr. DOLE. The Senator is correct.

Mr. DOLE. That takes care of the Senator's request?

Mr. DOLE. In the second, yes.

Mr. DOLE. I think the Senator from Alaska wants to comment, too. I think the Senator from Oregon, Senator Hatfield, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, has some concern about this process. In fact, I think the Senator from Alaska talked to the Senator from Oregon. But let us proceed. We need to work on some of these things. Has anybody determined, once they look through the list--NIH will be approved for an entire year, in fact, a number for an entire year, some March 15. That takes those provisions out of other bills that may be pending or may have been vetoed. I think it does present some difficulty for the appropriators, particularly those who might be conferees when they try to salvage the rest of those proposals and get them passed. I will be happy to yield to the Senator from Alaska for further comments. I know he talked to Senator Hatfield. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. DOLE. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now turn to House Concurrent Resolution 131, directing the House to enroll and send to the President House Joint Resolution 134, after he has submitted a certified balanced budget using CBO numbers; that the concurrent resolution be immediately agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, all without any intervening action or debate. House Joint Resolution 134 And I further ask unanimous consent that once the Senate receives the message from the House on House Joint Resolution 134, the House- initiated continuing resolution, conditioned on the President submitting a balanced budget, the Senate be deemed to have concurred in the House amendment and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, all without any intervening action or debate.

Mr. DOLE. Let me indicate we hotlined this on this side. As far as I know nobody has indicated any objection. I wanted to be sure we did that because after the action we took last week I know the Senator from Texas, Senator Gramm, said he would have objected had he been here. I understand the Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, and the Senator from Georgia, Senator Coverdell, made the same indication. I am not certain about the Senator from Mississippi, Senator Lott. But everybody has been notified. If they want to make any objection now, wherever you are, now is the time to be heard.

Mr. DOLE

Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, leaders' time has been reserved. Mr. President, today we will be awaiting a possible House action on maybe one or two measures on returning Federal workers and also paying Federal workers who have not been paid. We do not expect rollcall votes to occur during today's session. We do not know precisely what the form of the legislation will be when it comes from the House. We hope to be able to pass it by unanimous consent. So if anybody wants to object, they ought to be letting us know early because we will have to give 24-hour notice to get our colleagues back here sometime tomorrow for that vote. I know that some indicated that they would have objected to the last UC while they were hundreds of miles away. So I want to be sure those people who may be out and around the country today understand that there may be another request for a unanimous consent, and if they wish to object, they had better hustle back here and do so. I hope, with the House apparently trying to come together on a couple of proposals that would enable Federal workers to return to work with pay, that we would not engage in rhetoric here today that might discourage positive action by the House. So it would be my hope that we would dwell on other matters, if necessary, and let the Senate then stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair awaiting House action. I do not think it is going to help anything if some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle find it necessary to beat up House Republicans. It will only make it more difficult, and it should make it more difficult, frankly. So I hope we can avoid that rhetoric today.