Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of the Senator from Iowa. I will try to finish before 5 minutes. I want to finish this point. The Senator from Iowa is on the floor and I know wants to speak. Let me finish this point because I think it is so important. The difference in priorities here is a priority. I am not saying one candidate is a bad person and the other candidate is a good person. Those who aspire to be President of this country have different priorities. Governor Bush says he supports a very large tax cut right up front even before we have the surpluses. We have all these economists telling us we are going to have 10 years of surpluses. Most cannot remember their telephone numbers, and they are telling us what is going to happen in this country 8 years down the road. Nonsense. We would be very smart to be more conservative than that. What we ought to do, as Vice President Gore suggests, is use a substantial portion of that estimated surplus to pay down indebtedness. If during tough times you run up the Federal debt, during good times you ought to pay it down. One of the advantages of doing that is you reduce the third largest item in the Federal budget--that is interest on the debt--and use that for another purpose. That is exactly the answer to the question the Senator raises.

Mr. DORGAN. I want to make one additional point. What brought me to the floor today was this discussion of $1 trillion that is proposed to be taken from the trust funds of Social Security that is now used to pay benefits to those who are now retired and to be used instead for private accounts for working men and women. My point is this: We already spend $100 billion a year to incentivize private investment accounts. I am all for that. In fact, as far as I am concerned, we can increase that and probably will. Vice President Gore suggests Social Security-plus to keep Social Security, do not threaten the base of Social Security at all, do not take money and divert it, but then on top of Social Security say we are going to provide even more incentives for those who want to invest in private savings accounts. My point is this, very simple: When the issue of credibility is raised about all of these claims and counterclaims, there is a serious credibility issue of taking $1 trillion out of the current trust fund over the next 10 years, $1 trillion that would otherwise go into the trust funds to pay current benefits to those who are retired, and saying at the same time: It is available for private accounts for other people. As I said before, when you take bookkeeping in high school or college, they do not teach you ``double entry'' means you can use the same money twice. Yet that is exactly what has happened with this proposal.

Mr. DORGAN. I will yield just for a moment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this, I think, is the debate we ought to have in this country on the subject of Social Security. I am pleased to hear the Senator from Idaho describe the plan proposed by Governor Bush and describe the proposal by Vice President Gore on the issue of Social Security. If you read history, you will find there are people for the last nearly 70 years who have predicted that Social Security won't work, will go broke, and won't be there when they retire. Decade after decade, people predicted that in every community around this country, especially the small towns of North Dakota. There are people living better lives because the Social Security Program provided them something called ``security.'' Does it provide for all their needs? No. But it is a bedrock security for their retirement years. They invested in it when they were working and now they have Social Security in their retirement years. The word ``security'' in Social Security is not some accident. People understood that the purpose of Social security is just that--security. It is the economic baseline of retirement, the one means of financial support that Americans can count on. As I indicated, there are people who, every decade, have said the sky is falling with respect to this program. There are some who never supported this program in the first place. They wouldn't have supported Social Security because philosophically they didn't believe Government ought to do anything, and they didn't support Medicare because philosophically they thought the Government shouldn't do anything. What would America be like today if we had an aging population without Medicare or Social Security? This country would not be as good a country as it is without those two important programs. People are living longer and better lives. That has placed some stress on both Social Security and Medicare, but do not let anybody tell anybody else that the problem is that these programs do not work. These programs work and work well. People are growing older and living better lives in this country. This is a problem born of success.

Mr. DORGAN. But you are wrong if you take that position. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me reclaim my time. I am generous to yield and always yield when asked to yield. But this notion of a Ponzi scheme--the definition of ``Ponzi,'' it seems to me, is a description that says: The surplus that is going to go into the Social Security system each year, for a while, is somehow available for some other purpose. We have a deliberate surplus going into Social Security. Why? Because it is needed, as the Senator from Idaho knows, to meet the day when baby boomers retire. We are going to need that money. What is going to happen is, if you follow his proposal, or the Governor's proposal, and you take that money out, when you need it later, it is not going to be there. So I do not want anybody to stand up on the floor and say: Oh, yes, there is a surplus right now. By the way, that is unobligated. Somebody can come and grab that, and it will not matter. That surplus is delivered. I happened to be on the Ways and Means Committee in the House when we passed the Social Security reform plan. We did it to deliberately create a surplus to meet the needs when the baby boomers retire. When the Second World War ended, the folks came back from fighting for this country's liberty and freedom, and they created the largest baby crop in the history of our country. They are called ``war babies.'' There was this outpouring of love and affection, I guess, and we had the largest baby crop in American history. When that largest baby crop in American history retires, we are going to have a substantial need for all of the surplus we have designed to put into that trust fund now. My point is, if you take that out now, by saying it is not obligated, that we do not need it, I just say you are wrong. You can stand up and holler ``Ponzi'' all you want.

Mr. DORGAN. I reclaim my time. Mr. President, $40 trillion --I do not know how big the school of the Senator from Idaho was. I assume he did not study a trillion, nor did I. There ought to be rules when one starts talking about trillions of dollars. If you extend it for two centuries, you can probably come up with hundreds and hundreds of trillions of dollars, but it is largely irrelevant. The issue is this: We have a Social Security program and a Medicare program. Both of them have some funding challenges in the outyears--not next year, not in the next 10 years. For Social Security, it is well beyond the next three decades, but there are challenges. Why do we have these challenges? This is good news. Let's not grit our teeth and wring our hands and wipe our brow over good news. People are living longer and better lives. Good for them and good for us. This is good news. This is born of success. If you want to solve the Social Security problem and Medicare problem, go back to the old mortality rates. At the turn of the last century in 1900, if you lived in this country, you were expected to live on average to age 48. Now people are going to live 30 years longer on average. That is good news. Good for us. That causes some difficulties in Social Security and Medicare. This is not a big problem. We can solve this problem. Let me describe something the Senator from Idaho needs to know. The Senator from Idaho never did address the question of the $1 trillion hole. He sort of went over it like: ``Well, people say a trillion dollars but'' and then went on. If you are going to take money out of the current revenue base for Social Security and say to young people who are now working--you can use it for private accounts, then what happens to the estimated $1 trillion over 10 years you took from over here which was to be used to pay benefits for current beneficiaries of Social Security? I have served in this Congress with my colleague from Idaho and others. Over the years, we have put in place $100 billion a year in incentives for private savings and private investments. We have SEPs. We have traditional and Roth IRAs and 401(k)s. We have them all, and more. We say to people: If you put some money away in savings under certain conditions, you will have a tax benefit, a tax credit, a tax deduction. We spend $100 billion a year in reduced taxes by providing incentives for people to create and open private accounts, to invest in the stock market, and to invest in other things. We do that. I support it. I think it makes good sense for this country. But that is not the same as Social Security. The word ``security'' ought to mean something. That is the bedrock, the foundation of retirement funds that we do as a country. The Senator from Idaho asks the question--I want to answer it--he asks the question about the issues that the Vice President has raised on the widow's benefit to surviving spouses and also of the issue of the motherhood penalty. The Vice President proposes to solve those, which I think makes some sense. I assume the Senator from Idaho will agree that the issue of the widow's benefit, to increase the widow's benefit to 75 percent of the couple's previously combined Social Security benefit, makes sense. He knows and I know all kinds of retired women around this country living by themselves who are struggling mightily to make ends meet with a pittance in their assistance check, and we need to do better than that. The Vice President proposes we do better than that. The Senator from Idaho asks: Where does he get the money? I will tell him where he gets the money. Then I will ask where does George Bush get the $1 trillion because I would like to hear an answer to that. Where does Vice President Gore get the money? He does not propose a massive $1.5 trillion in tax breaks, most of which goes to upper income folks. He proposes a smaller tax cut to working families and uses the difference to reduce the Federal debt. When we reduce the Federal debt every year, we have a surplus and will get to the point when we wipe out the indebtedness. When we wipe out the Federal debt, the third largest expenditure in the Federal budget, which is interest on the debt, will no longer exist. And that money which we now pay for interest on the Federal debt, the Vice President proposes be put into the Social Security system to help pay for the two issues the Senator from Idaho just described and provide increased solvency for the Social Security system. The answer is very simple. The Senator asks where does the money come from? It comes from reducing the Federal debt, eliminating interest on the debt as cost to the Federal budget, plowing that back into the Social Security system to help mothers, widows, and to increase and promote solvency in the system. That is the answer. It is a very simple answer.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to comment today on this issue of credibility with respect to the Presidential race in our country. I know there has been a lot of discussion about credibility on one side or another. I wish to talk about the issue of credibility with respect to Social Security. Some while ago, Governor Bush of Texas, who is running for President, suggested we should take about $1 trillion--about one-sixth of the tax moneys that are coming into the Social Security system--and invest it in private individual accounts in the stock market. On May 30th, Senator Schumer and I were joined by twenty of our colleagues in sending a letter to Governor Bush asking how that added up and how he would replace the $1 trillion that would be a shortfall in the Social Security trust fund used to pay the Social Security benefits of those who are retired. We have not yet received a reply in the intervening months. And the Presidential debates did nothing to illuminate what might or might not be on the mind of the Governor with respect to that $1 trillion. But this is not a case of double-entry bookkeeping, as understood by politicians, where you can use the same money twice. You cannot use the same money twice. If you take $1 trillion--or one-sixth of the tax money that would go into the Social Security trust fund--and say, we are going to take that money and invest it in private accounts in the stock market, then you have $1 trillion less in the Social Security trust fund with which to pay benefits for those who are retired. The question is, How do you make up that difference? A great many studies have been done on this issue. Let me cite one. Last week, a distinguished group of Social Security experts--one of my favorites, Henry Aaron, at the Brookings Institution, who I think is a remarkable and wonderful economist, Alan Blinder, Alicia Munnell, and Peter Orszag--released an update to their report about what this plan would mean of diverting Social Security trust fund money into private accounts. They point out that it could very well mean less in Social Security benefits for those who have the private accounts later, and that some $1 trillion in the Social Security system, that would be expected to be available, would no longer be available because that $1 trillion was moved. There is an interesting comment from Governor Bush about this proposal. This is not a question of whether he proposes to do this. He says: . . . and one of my promises is going to be Social Security reform. And you bet we need to take a trillion dollars --a trillion dollars out of that $2.4 trillion surplus. So he says he is going to take $1 trillion out of the Social Security trust fund and use that to establish private accounts for current workers. Now, Allan Sloan had an article in today's Washington Post which I thought was interesting. He said: If you ever wanted living proof of what a fool you would be to entrust your personal financial fate--or the nation's--to the stock market, you sure got it last week. On Wednesday the Dow plummeted more than 400 points before you could finish your first cup of coffee. He said: Sorry to disappoint you, but if you're looking for rationality, don't look at the stock market. At least not on a day-to-day basis. And don't look to the markets to bail out the Social Security ``trust fund'' or to make everyone in the United States rich. He says: If we put a big chunk of the Social Security trust fund into stocks, as many people suggest, the national budget will be hostage to short-term stock movements. Aside from the issue of the credibility of saying to our senior citizens, ``It is going to be in the Social Security trust fund'' and then saying to the younger workers, ``I will take the same $1 trillion and allow you to have private accounts in the stock market with it''-- aside from the credibility of having $1 trillion that is missing and no one forcing Governor Bush to answer the questions: What are you going to do with the $1 trillion? What is it going to be? How are you going to fill a hole that exists in Social Security if you take the $1 trillion and allow private accounts to be invested in the stock market?--aside from that question, which I think is very important, the other point is this: If you look at 20-year periods in this country, there have been 108 20-year periods in which one can calculate a rate of return on a dollar invested in U.S. securities. In six of those periods, the return was less than 2 percent; and in only eight of those periods, the return was 11 percent or more. The point is, instead of having a Social Security plan that provides some security of income when you retire, you might find--with Governor Bush's plan, assuming that the $1 trillion was made up someplace, assuming you did not have a $1 trillion hole, which now exists in the Governor's proposal--you might still find yourself having retired and having private accounts in your name and having much less money than you ever expected or ever would have received under the Social Security system because you don't retire on an average date, you retire on an actual date. You retire on a specific day. Who knows what the stock market is going to be doing in that particular period. It is not the case, as economists have demonstrated, that there will always be good news for everyone with respect to these private accounts. But let me, again, go back to the central question: What about the $1 trillion? If someone in this Chamber said they would like to take $1 trillion out of this trust fund and use it for something else, logically someone would stand on the floor of the Senate and say, but if you are going to take it out of this trust fund and use it for something else, what are you going to do for this trust fund where the money is needed? That is the logical question to ask Governor Bush. And we did. And there has been no answer. Because the $1 trillion will be gone from the trust fund. He knows it. We know it. So if there is a question of credibility on these issues, it seems to me it would be wise to at least question the credibility of someone who wants to take $1 trillion out of the Social Security trust fund and use it for private accounts and then say: Oh, by the way, it all adds up. It does not add up. I went to a high school with only nine seniors in my senior class. We did not necessarily take advanced mathematics, but we took enough math to understand how to add these numbers. We did not discuss ``trillions'' in my school, but we discussed it enough to understand that if you take one-something here and move it over here, it is gone in the first location. Politics, apparently, these days does not require one to reconcile; it does not require one to add and subtract in a traditional way. I think the American people will want to know the consequences of that. You cannot do both. You cannot promise that which you promised to senior citizens for their retirement and then say: By the way, that money is going to be promised to workers for private accounts in the stock market under your name. You cannot promise both. To those who do so, I would say, retake your accounting exam, and remember double-entry bookkeeping does not mean you can use the same money twice. That's a pretty simple lesson, it seems to me, for political dialog in this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, is the Senate in morning business?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it has been more than a year since the Columbine tragedy, but still this Republican Congress refuses to act on sensible gun legislation. Since Columbine, thousands of Americans have been killed by gunfire. Until we act, Democrats in the Senate will read the names of some of those who have lost their lives to gun violence in the past year, and we will continue to do so every day that the Senate is in session. In the name of those who died, we will continue this fight. Following are the names of some of the people who were killed by gunfire one year ago today. October 24, 1999: Yvetta Boyland, 30, Memphis, TN; Andy Carr, 18, Atlanta, GA; Chun Man Choi, 27, New Orleans, LA; Javier Cortez, 29, Houston, TX; Anthony Jackson, 38, Dallas, TX; Ricky Harris, 22, Oakland, CA; Mary Mata, 16, Fort Worth, TX; Matthew Nimene, 39, Minneapolis, MN; Robert D. Steward, 29, Chicago, IL; and Jones Tiran, 21, Dallas, TX. Following are the names of some of the people who were killed by gunfire one year ago Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. October 20, 1999: Rossi Anderson, 37, Houston, TX; Melvin Axler, 75, Miami-Dade County, FL; Steve Gaitan, 19, Miami-Dade County, FL; Michael Hanton, 24, Philadelphia, PA; Darrion Johnson, 28, Chicago, IL; Roasiare Morneault, 58, Hollywood, FL; Rafel Stokes, 41, Detroit, MI; Carlos Thomas, 23, Washington, DC; Richard Washington, 20, Chicago, IL; Manuel Watkins, 14, Dallas, TX; Betty Weaver, 56, Detroit, MI; Albert Winters, 24, Washington, DC; Shavon Young, 16, Irvington, NJ; and Unidentified male, San Francisco, CA. October 21, 1999: Alexander Bednar, 87, Seattle, WA; Kwame Bellentine, 24, Miami-Dade County, FL; Calvin Berry, 29, Detroit, MI; Antonio Davis, 20, Washington, DC; Jerry Dodd, 35, Chicago, IL; Vivian C. Geary, 72, New Orleans, LA; Devon Gross, 19, Wilmington, DE; Judith Herbert, 57, Denver, CO; Orlando Jones, 24, St. Louis, MO; Edward Morris, 29, Atlanta, GA; Marilyn Starr, 42, Dallas, TX; Nichole Thomas, 19, St. Louis, MO; Richard Wilson, 27, St. Louis, MO; and Kirk C. Wint, 25, Chicago, IL. October 22, 1999: Antonio Crawley, 20, Houston, TX; Juan Maldonado, 38, Chicago, IL; David Marshall, 18, Washington, DC; Thomas McEvoy, 47, Miami-Dade County, FL; Martin McCinigley, 35, Philadelphia, PA; Tita-Marie Murray, 36, Washington, DC; Huey M. Rich, 29, Chicago, IL; Eugene Richardson, 20, Baltimore, MD; Timothy Spain, 22, Atlanta, GA; Donald Storeball, 20, Detroit, MI; Unidentified Male, 37, Honolulu, HI; and Unidentified Male, 36, Newark, NJ. October 23, 1999: Juan Castellonos, 29, Dallas, TX; Deandre Clark, 4, Gary, IN; Clyde K. Edwards, 23, Oklahoma City, OK; Lu Hu, 24, Houston, TX; Walter Joseph Kurtz, 45, Baltimore, MD; Timothy Lockett, 32, Baltimore, MD; Timothy Massey, 26, Baltimore, MD; Juan Pina, 28, Dallas, TX; and Walter L. Weber, 77, North Little Rock, AR. We cannot sit back and allow such senseless gun violence to continue. The deaths of these people are a reminder to all of us that we need to enact sensible gun legislation now.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in 1996, the Congress passed the Telecommunications Act. I was involved in the passage of that act. I served on the Commerce Committee, and we wrote the first rewrite of the telecommunications law in some 60 years. One of the contentious areas in that debate was the ownership limits on television and radio stations. The ownership limits on television and radio stations in this country were established over the years because we wanted to promote localism in radio and television stations, local ownership, local control, so that people living in an area would have some notion that those who were distributing information over their television and radio stations would have some idea of local responsibility. It is interesting what has happened since 1996. When we had that debate in 1996, the Commerce Committee took all the limits off radio stations. You could own as many as you want. They took the limits that existed on television stations and increased it. I authored an amendment on the floor of the Senate to change what happened inside the Commerce Committee. I offered an amendment saying I didn't think that was the right way to go. We didn't need bigger ownership groups owning the radio and television stations. The amendment would have restored the ownership limits on television stations in this country. We had a rollcall vote, and I won with Senator Dole leading the opposition. It was a surprise to everyone, but I won. Then a Senator on the other side asked for permission to change his vote. He changed his vote because he wanted it to be reconsidered at some point. That was at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And then dinner intervened. About 7 or 8 o'clock that evening, as I recall, they asked for reconsideration of the vote, and four or five Members of the Senate had some sort of epiphany over the dinner hour and discovered their earlier vote was wrong and they really had to change their vote, so I lost. I understand how things work here. I understand what happened over the dinner hour. People didn't have bandages and visibly broken arms, but clearly pressure was applied because over a period of 3 or 4 hours people changed their votes, and I lost. We have no ownership national limits on radio stations, and the ownership limits on television stations have been dramatically relaxed. The number of television stations you could own has increased. Let me show a chart on radio stations. In 1996, we had the top 10 companies in this country owning roughly 400 radio stations. Clear Channel had 57 stations. This total was about 400 radio stations for the top 10 companies. Let me show you what this looks like today on this chart. These are the top 10. Between them, they now own well over 2,000 radio stations. Clear Channel owns over a thousand by itself following its merger with AM/FM. I won't go through the rest of them. You can see what is happening--a massive concentration. They are buying up radio stations all over the country. In 1996, Clear Channel wasn't in North Dakota. Now they own numerous stations in the State. In Minot, ND, a former broadcaster called me and said: Do you know what is happening? They own all the radio stations except the two religious ones. I said: How could that be? It was approved because the Minot service area was considered the same as the service area with Bismarck because their signals overlap. Therefore, it was one market and in a community like Minot, with 40,000 people, one company can essentially own all the radio stations. The question is: What do they do with those? What kind of localism exists when you have a company whose headquarters is somewhere else controlling a thousand radio stations? Does that matter? It sure does to me. It ought to matter to the Senate. How about television stations? On this chart, the yellow bar represents the situation in 1996 when we passed the Telecommunications Act. For example, the number of stations Paxson had was 11, and now Paxson has 60 as the red bar indicates. That doesn't describe, incidentally, the management alliances that existed. It is much more aggressive than this chart indicates. In television and radio stations, we are galloping toward concentrated ownership in a very significant way. I think this Congress ought to ask itself: Is this what we intend? Is this what we want to have happen? Don't we want local ownership in this country with radio and television stations? Do people in our communities not have a voice in what is broadcast on their radio stations? Does their voice have to extend to a city 2,000 miles away where the owner of their radio station resides? I think the Congress ought to have a good discussion about that. Where does it end? Do we end up with several companies owning almost all the radio stations? In one of our largest cities, two companies will bill over 80 percent of all the billing from radio stations--two companies. Is that competition? I don't think so. I raise the question because I intend to meet with the FCC and send them a letter and meet with others. I don't mean to be pejorative with Clear Channel. I've never met with them, but they are the largest group in radio ownership. They were approved for the merger with AM/FM. They have well over a thousand stations. Where does this end? Is it good for this country to demolish the notion of localism in broadcasting? I don't think so. I don't think it is good for television or radio. These are public airwaves and they attach to it, in my judgment, the responsibility of certain kinds of public good that must be presented by broadcasters when they accept the responsibility of using the airwaves. So I raise that question today, and I intend to visit with the National Association of Broadcasters, and especially with the Federal Communications Commission, to ask them if this is really what was intended, is this what Congress wants, and is it something that we think marches in the right direction? Frankly, I don't think so. I hope we can discuss this as we turn the corner next year and talk about public policy and whether we think concentration of radio and television stations is something that should alarm all of us. I believe it should. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I merely want to ask the majority leader a bit more about the schedule. I understand there are no votes tomorrow, on Tuesday, and the potential of votes on Wednesday. I missed part of the presentation of the majority leader for which I apologize. Is it the intention of the majority leader to try to complete business this week?

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the majority leader for his response. Might I inquire on one further issue, the issue of the tax matters that the Senator described? Can the Senator tell me how those tax issues will come to the floor of the Senate and the House? In what form? Attached to what legislation?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. A bipartisan bill passed the House. The Senate did not pass a bipartisan bill. It was a shell of a bill. Things have changed in the Senate, so if we had another vote on it, we would prevail. One Senator is gone; a new one is here. We would have a 50-50 tie. The Vice President would break the tie, and the Senate would pass the Patients' Bill of Rights. We are unable to get to the vote despite the fact, in my judgment, a majority of the Senate would now support a real Patients' Bill of Rights. We would then be in conference with the House having passed one. We would pass one, and the American people would have a real Patients' Bill of Rights.

Mr. DORGAN. One other issue. I asked the majority leader a question about how the tax issues will come to the floor. It looks to me as if a menu of tax issues will come to this floor in the last hours put in a small business authorization bill. I believe the House has actually added other conferees to that conference who are not part of the Small Business Committee. A small business authorization bill will now be the carrier for all kinds of tax provisions in a conference report, and no Member of the Senate who cares about taxes and wants to have a role in that, perhaps offer an amendment, or have some discussion about what ought to be in or out, no Member of the Senate is going to have that opportunity. It is done in a conference by a few people in a bill that is totally unrelated. It will come in a conference report, and the result is none of us will have the opportunity to do much about it. The majority leader is a friend. I talked with him one day and said running this place is similar to that commercial on television where those leather-faced cowboys wearing chaps and buckskin vests, riding those big old horses, are herding cats, trying to run cats through the sagebrush, talking about what a tough job that is. I understand that. Running the House and the Senate probably is not much different. I do believe at some point we have to be in a situation in the Senate where we use the rules to allow everyone to have their day and everyone to have their say, and at the end of the day we vote. If you lose, you lose, but you need the opportunity to have the votes so the Senate can express its will on a series of important issues. Frankly, this blocking motion that has existed now for a month and a day that prevents the Senator from Iowa, me, or anyone else from offering, for example, the Patients' Bill of Rights on which we would now prevail, is what stands between the American people and a good Patients' Bill of Rights. The result is that men, women, and children will discover when they go to a doctor's office they will be told: Yes, you now have to fight your cancer, but you also have to fight your HMO to get payment for the treatment that you need from your oncologist. That is happening all too often. The legislation we aspire to pass evens up the score a bit. It says patients have rights and those rights cannot be abridged or abused. We can pass that in the Senate if someone will take that blocking motion off, and we will get one more vote on a Patients' Bill of Rights. This vote will be 51 for, with the Vice President voting for, and 50 against. I say to those who have this blocking motion, give us the opportunity this afternoon or tomorrow or Wednesday, and we will pass it and go to conference. It will take an hour in conference to resolve the House and Senate bills, and the American people will have a Patients' Bill of Rights. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened to the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, a few moments ago, as he spoke about the unfinished agenda. I suppose every Congress finishes with a speech by 1 or 2 or 10 or 20 Members of Congress talking about the unfinished agenda. But that unfinished agenda in this Congress is mighty long and also mighty important. The Senator from Iowa talks about the Patients' Bill of Rights, education issues such as the crumbling schools, smaller class sizes--a whole series of initiatives that we really should get to. The Senator just asked unanimous consent--I guess it was a nomination he was attempting to get to the floor of the Senate. I made this point last week to the consternation of a couple of my friends here in the Senate, but I think it is important to make it again. On September 22, a motion was brought to the floor of the Senate, a motion to proceed to the consideration of S. 2557. That is an energy bill. That motion to proceed has now been pending here in the Senate for a month and a day. On September 22 it was put on the floor, and it has been here for 1 month and 1 day. My feeling is that the motion to proceed is here--and we are not voting on it and we are not proceeding--it is here because it is a motion to block any other effort to bring up any other issues. We have a wide range of issues; I suppose some of them are being negotiated these days, but most of them will remain unfinished at the end of this session. The Senator from Iowa, who has a real passion to want to get certain things done, is unable on a Monday or Tuesday to come to the floor to say I want to offer a motion to proceed on his issue. Let's assume it is the minimum wage. He wants to test whether time has changed some minds on the minimum wage. He is unable to offer that. The Patients' Bill of Rights? He has been unable to offer that. Campaign finance reform? Unable to offer that. Why? Because there is a motion pending, and the motion pending is the motion to proceed to the consideration of S. 2557, a bill that I do not believe was ever intended to come to the floor. But the motion pending is a motion to block the efforts of others who might want to offer a motion here on the floor of the Senate. That is what I think is thwarting the interests of the Senator from Iowa. When he described the unfinished business, one might say: If it is unfinished, why don't you come down here and make a motion? The Senator cannot make a motion because that particular motion to proceed has been blocking anyone else from offering anything for a month and a day. The Senator did ask unanimous consent. Of course, unanimous consent never clears here. There is always an objection to unanimous consent to move to something. Then the question would be, Why couldn't he just make a motion? The answer is: You can not move to it because we have a blocking motion that has been here for a month and a day.

Mr. DORGAN. I would say after a month now it is quite clear this motion to proceed is simply an effort to block the opportunity of others to offer amendments. People have a right to do that in the Senate. But they should understand, as I said last week to some colleagues who were on the floor, one can chaff quite a bit at that kind of treatment because it means the passions that brought a number of them to the Senate to do certain things, come here and use all the energy you have to advance good public policy--those passions cannot exist in a circumstance where you are not able to offer motions even to pursue the kinds of things you think this country needs to be doing. We just saw the chart of the Senator. Some of them said we should probably increase the minimum wage a bit at the bottom. We have 3 million workers working a full 40-hour week trying to raise the family on the minimum wage. They are at the bottom of the economic ladder. This Congress was real quick to say the folks at the top of the ladder, we need to give them a huge tax cut but not quite so quick to say let's help those at the bottom of the ladder. Some might say we had a vote on that. Yes, we had a vote on that a long time ago. Maybe we ought to have another vote and see whether there is now the will to proceed for some modest increase in the minimum wage. Can we have that vote? No, you cannot offer that nor can I. I offer that as an example.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will make one additional comment. A Patients' Bill of Rights is an awfully good example of where we are at the moment. A bipartisan Patients' Bill of Rights passed the House of Representatives which does what ought to be done: It gives patients protections against some of the practices of HMOs that allow accountants to practice medicine rather than have the doctor and patient decide what is best. The fact is, there has been a change in the Senate. The House passed a bipartisan bill, a good bill, and the Senate passed a watered down bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I pay tribute today to a North Dakota family whose heritage not only spans the history of our state-- and then some--but which also exemplifies the spirit of rural life and all that it contributes to our Nation. Nils and Inger Midgarden started their family as homesteaders in North Dakota in 1874. That was 15 years before North Dakota become a state. They raised seven children, built a successful family farm, and just like thousands of other North Dakotans at that time, did the hard work that carved hardy communities and, eventually, a state from the prairie. I have a letter I would like to share with my colleagues, written by one of Nils and Inger's great-grandchildren. It tells us a great deal about the founders of this family. It says: Nils was a successful farmer and his sons greatly expanded the farming operation. When his children married, they built farms within sight of the homestead. Each one of those farms are today owned and occupied by the grandchildren and great- grandchildren of Nils and Inger Midgarden. Let me tell you, that's quite an accomplishment. As anyone who knows much about it will tell you, farming is hard work. When you consider that this family managed to survive everything from the Great Depression to droughts, floods and grasshoppers over the span of more than a hundred years--while raising a family that has remained across the generations a close knit one--you understand why their's is such a remarkable accomplishment. The letter goes on: The farm, while a potent symbol of the pioneer spirit my great-grandparents embodied, is not the greatest legacy they left behind, ``Nils' and Inger's great grandchild writes. ``Nearly everyone who know me and my family remarks on our closeness and old-fashioned values, characteristics fewer and fewer families seem to share these days. What Nils and Inger gave to their children--to us--was the gift of family. Through bountiful harvests and times of drought, through births, deaths, and marriages, joy and sorrow, the Midgardens have always stood together. Older cousins taught younger ones to swim, uncles pulled wayward nieces and nephews out of snowy ditches, and Sundays brought the family together in worship, meal, and play. Once during a tornado sighting, all the Midgardens in Walsh County drove out to the homestead to stand on the road, as if sheer will power and their bodies alone would protect the place Nils and Inger made home. Today, Midgardens still live on those family farms, and while not all family members remain on the farm, those who moved away to pursue other livelihoods continue to draw on the basic strength that came from the farm: they remain a close knit family, wherever they are, wherever they go. Those who moved away contribute to our state, regional and national life in a variety of ways. They became veterinarians, lawyers, advertising executives, architects, doctors, teachers, nurses, and even congressional staffers. Families like the Midgardens demonstrate the importance of preserving family farmers and the rural communities they make strong. through the generations, the Midgarden family makes clear what those of us who grew up and live in rural areas know so well: family farms produce much more than the food that feeds this nation and much of the world. They also produce strong, solid families. In closing, I ask that a tribute to the Midgarden family, written by another descendent of Nils and Inger for a family reunion earlier this year, be printed in the Record. The material follows: Our Legacy The Laurel Wreath of Wheat is the symbol of two souls entwined a symbol of victory and triumph; a symbol of Inger & Nels. The Seedling in the center has seven leaves for seven living children--now gone, but very much alive in us all. Amund, with his quiet contemplation, peace and vision; Alfred, with his forbearance and stoicism; Dewey, for his sparkle skillfully hidden behind the stolid Midgarden work ethic; Marion, for her elegance and grace; Gunder, for his mercurial spirit and sense of humor; Joann, for her boundless energy and endless creativity; and Chris--coming around the corners of life on two wheels; radiating a zest for living, affecting us all. Inger & Nels and their seven children, eventually fourteen, as each found his or her irreplaceable mate: Bessie, Beulah, Clara, Olaf, Florence, Oscar and Evelyn, whose love and courage and enduring presence we are still blessed with on this day. Fourteen children, seven couples, seven families forming the foundation of this Midgarden Millennium Celebration, counting over 200 family members gathered here today. We remember the love, the closeness, the pioneer spirit, the dedication of these parents, and their embracing of not only their own--but us all. Our memories are many and golden . . . oceans of flax fields in spring; the scent of alfalfa in early summer the heading of wheat in July; the way the grain felt on our skin when we rode in the hopper at harvest; haying time and the Tarzan ropes in Gunder's barn; burning fields in August; oiled wood floors of the Fedje store tracing aisles of supplies and stacks of wonder; the excitement of the first day of school in a one room country school house or a little brick school in Hoople. Rows of potato sacks stretching endlessly on the autumn horizon; anticipation and humor in the air; Lena Olinger holding court in the cookcar; harvest tables and blue tin mugs; excitement when it was our Mom's turn to take lunch to the fields and we could tag along. Then mercury dipping to unbelievable lows--but our spirits high as the massive snowdrifts; Julebukken and Grandma's Christmas Eve; Uncle Oscar dancing in with potato sacks full of dime store treasures; then months of winter white only to turn once again to Spring. Seasons of our family--seasons of our lives. Those who stayed here close to this earth, preserving the legacy of this land; and those of us who spread our wings to the four corners now span this wonderful family from coast to coast. Seeking and finding our way; sharing memories with our children and grandchildren; always knowing our roots are here in this blessed place where it all began. Inger and Nels, their incredible children and the indelible people they found to marry . . . our parents, your grandparents and great grandparents . . . and each and every one of you share in this legacy of love and excellence. And that is why there is a Laurel Wreath of Wheat with a Seedling in the center. It is our beginnings, our present, our future. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I make a point of order a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my understanding Senator Stevens yielded back his time on the continuing resolution?