J. Exon

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. There is the Senator from Connecticut and there is myself and the Senator from Louisiana, so that is three.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut would be next. How much time does the Senator from Connecticut need?

Mr. EXON. I have some time that I can yield off the bill.

Mr. EXON. Ten minutes. I yield 10 minutes off the bill to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. EXON. How much time does the Senator from Nebraska have left on the amendment?

Mr. EXON. On the Daschle amendment.

Mr. EXON. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, may I inquire as to whether or not the yeas and nays have been requested on the Daschle work first amendment?

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I think we are trying to bring this debate to a close. The Senator from Nebraska has been yielding time now for 2 or 3 hours. I wish to address this briefly myself, not hash over other ground. I understand that the Senator from Connecticut may wish some time. Is that correct?

Mr. EXON. I will be glad to yield 5 minutes. Then I will take 3 or 4 minutes. I believe that will be the end of the debate on this side. Then maybe we can get some agreement to proceed to a vote.

Mr. EXON. As soon as the manager of the bill finishes his statement, I will yield 5 minutes off of the bill to the Senator from Connecticut. Then I will use the last 3\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. EXON. I have agreed to give 5 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut. I think I have 3\1/2\ minutes left on the bill, for a total of 8\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, in order to accommodate everyone, the manager of the bill will agree to put my statement in the Record. I yield whatever time I had to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. EXON. Madam President, may we have the chart back up for a minute. I yield myself such time as I may need. I will be brief and then I will yield to the next speaker on this side. It is an interesting chart that my friend and colleague brought up. We have been debating this. I simply point out that I think we are debating a smelly dead polecat or a straw man. Both of the bills, the Republican bill and the amendment that we have offered, both address what has been pointed out here as something wrong. Another way of saying that is that there are general agreements on both sides of the aisle that these kind of things must be corrected. I simply want to point out that we agree with the points made by the chairman, my friend and colleague from New Mexico, and the junior Senator from New York. I simply say of the 800-page bill that we have agreed to cut down, one or two of the pages in that bill that address the very same thing that is adequately addressed in your bill, are two of the pages that we will not drop. I simply say, I think we have enough to debate about. I want to make the point there are lots of similarities between the two bills, and it may take 800 pages to define some of the objections that we have which we will continue to debate and point out. I come back to the basic point I made in the opening remarks on this side. We are most concerned about children, and while we recognize and agree and salute the opposition for some of the changes they have made, we still think more has to be done with regard to children. How much time remains on the Daschle amendment?

Mr. EXON. How much time does the Senator from North Dakota need?

Mr. EXON. I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I rise to support the Democratic work first substitute amendment to the budget reconciliation bill. As I observed in my opening statement, there is ample room for improvement in the Republican welfare reform bill. But there is also a great deal of common ground upon which we can build. There is agreement that the current welfare system serves neither the recipients, nor the taxpayers. The cycle of dependency deepens with each new generation and is most discouraging. We agree that all able- bodied recipients should earn their daily bread. And we concur that assistance should be conditional. I want to commend by colleagues on the other side for moving off of some strongly held beliefs and seeking the center. I believe that this new version of the Democratic work first welfare reform bill also reflects this same spirit of compromise and bipartisanship. I argue, however, that the amendment before us today is preferable to the Republican plan. The sponsors of the amendment have spoken with great clarity and vigor about the differences between the two plans. Both give the States greater flexibility to administer welfare. But the Democratic work first plan does not accomplish it at the expense of innocent children who find themselves in the middle of this legislative crossfire. I would hope that Senators on both sides would hold the line on protecting the safety net for children. The Democratic work first plan does that in three critical areas. First, it provides for vouchers or noncash aid to children whose parents have exceeded a State's time limit on the welfare rolls. Depriving a child of life's necessities not only saps their strength; it weakens our spirit as a Nation as well. Second, the Democratic plan provides for flexibility during times of recession. Who is hurt most in these times? The poor. Let's not make a bad situation worse. And third, the Democratic plan does not provide for an optional block grant of food stamps. We should not be encouraging the States to lower aid even further. There is great merit in both bills, but the necessary safeguards I have just outlined make this amendment the superior piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to vote for it. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. EXON. I yield 3 minutes and 20 seconds to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. If I may speak there for just moment?

Mr. EXON. I thank my friend for his kind remarks. I think it is important we move this matter along. I would like to add my plea to those on this side and those on the other side as well, to please give us the amendments that you have in mind as early as possible, hopefully maybe before noon. If we can get a list of the serious amendments that are going to be offered, then we are going to be in a better position, not only to fashion this bill that may eventually receive a substantial number of votes if some amendments can be agreed to, but also expedite the process. So I pledge my cooperation to every extent I can to the chairman of my committee, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee. I think the four of us working together with our usual understanding and cooperation can move this matter along. That is my desire.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, if I understand the unanimous-consent request, there is 1 hour equally divided between the two sides up to 1 o'clock; is that correct?

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, at this time, I yield myself 12 minutes of that time. Following my remarks, I yield the remaining time, up to the 1 o'clock time, to my friend and colleague from New York, the ranking member of the Finance Committee. We will be working jointly on the various amendments. I am grateful that both he and the chairman of the Finance Committee will be working jointly with us on this matter today. Mr. President, as the Democratic leader on the Budget Committee, I come to the Senate floor today with some truly mixed emotions. I am most relieved that the Republican majority has decided that they will strike the Medicaid language from the reconciliation bill. It was with that understanding that I joined my colleague and chairman, Senator Domenici, in reporting out this bill to the floor. Obviously, cooler heads in the Republican fever swamp prevailed. I trust this will be reflected in the vote. I salute my friend, the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, for his role. Might I suggest that Senator Domenici's good counsel had much to do with the decision to seek a more productive and less combative path. But I say somewhat wistfully that I wish his voice of reason had not been drowned out earlier in the budget process. For all their fluster and bluster, the Republican majority will walk away from the 104th Congress with precious little deficit reduction to show for it. There is no bipartisan 7-year budget plan. Far from it. Republicans made a lot of noise about balancing the budget. In the end, the Democrats made a lot more sense. At this time, I renew a plea that I have made oftentimes, and that is, in view of the fact that we have an economy today that is moving ahead progressively and well, with little or no inflation concerns, I simply hope in due time, maybe sometime in the next couple of weeks, the Federal Reserve Board will recognize the situation and maybe begin to ease at least slightly the interest rate problem which continues to bother many sectors of America, including the stock market. I do not think our decisions should be directly made here on what happens in any certain phase of our economy. But the facts of the matter are, as I just alluded to the fact we have no 7-year balanced budget plan. We do not have that because the Republican majority and their leadership in the House and the Senate have refused to meet with the President to see if we cannot come up with a bipartisan compromise. I have said time and time again, and I am not sure that Americans totally understand it--sometimes I wonder if the news media understands it from the reports I have been reading--that both sides have agreed basically to make the cuts that are necessary to balance the budget in 7 years. It can be done, it should be done, and I appeal, once again, now that the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate have come out of their cocoon, to recognize this is the time to strike. Let's get together. Let's let the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate take up the offer of the President of the United States to meet and come up with a 7-year balanced budget plan. I know there is a great deal of haste right now, Mr. President, to get out of town, to leave things here because we want to go about campaigning. Certainly, I believe that there is nothing that could better serve the United States of America--the great two-party system that has served us, with all its warts, quite well over the years than if we can, before we leave here, have a balanced budget agreement. It is clearly within our grasp if we would just get on, put aside some of the egos and come to some kind of understanding. I make that plea once again. Mr. President, I believe that the Republican majority had little choice but to yank the Medicaid portion of this bill out, as we and the President had suggested. One did not have to read the tea leaves to see that it was certainly headed for a veto without that change. It was a plan hatched by the far right that reneged on the promises of providing health coverage to low-income Americans and those most in need of it-- the elderly, children, and the disabled. Many of the Governors could not accept the plan because funding did not automatically adjust for changes in enrollment. I am glad that this unreasonable scheme has been laid to rest. Now that the shackles of the Medicaid plan have been released, we have a good opportunity to work together and fashion a bipartisan welfare reform bill that will win not only the approval of the Congress but the signature of the President as well and I believe would have a good chance of receiving near universal support from the American people as well. I compliment the majority for making some substantive and key changes in their previous welfare plan. For example, child care resources that were woefully lacking in their earlier efforts have been shored up, at least some. But the majority should know also that those of us on this side do not plan to spend the next 20 hours singing hosannas to their bill. We intend to offer amendments that we believe could significantly improve this bill and make it acceptable to a broad spectrum of Senators on both sides of the aisle. I add, I would have preferred to deal with welfare reform outside of the reconciliation bill. Welfare reform is a policy issue, not a budgetary matter. In fact, there are no budgetary savings. I emphasize again, Mr. President, there are no budgetary savings from what most people believe as welfare. I, of course, reference aid to families with dependent children. The savings in this bill come from food stamps, child nutrition, denying SSI and food stamp benefits to most legal immigrants. I hope in the future the majority will not feel the need to hide behind reconciliation skirts when every tough issue comes down the pike. I point out, too, that last year, we were able to come to a bipartisan agreement on welfare reform outside of the context of the budget reconciliation. I emphasize once again, Mr. President, I think that while we are going to do this, making this part of the budget bill and the reconciliation process is not the way that this should have been handled. It should have been a freestanding bill. It should have come out of the Finance Committee which, I think, would have been the proper course of action. But, obviously, for many reasons that was not to be. Mr. President, we have heard a great deal in this Congress about returning power to the States. Under the rubric of devolution, we have seen some thoughtful proposals, such as restrictions on unfunded mandates and others that are played bad, like the Medicaid plan. But the clear signal we are getting from the townhall meetings and the State houses is the need for greater flexibility in dealing with these problems. I believe the Democrats answered that challenge in our updated ``Work First'' welfare plan that will shortly be offered as an amendment to this measure. It gives the States the flexibility to consolidate and streamline welfare operations yet protects children and saves $50 billion in the process. As a former two-term Governor of Nebraska, I have more, Mr. President, than a passing acquaintance with the problems that are faced daily by the Nation's Governors. I have done my able best to help them where I could. I was an original cosponsor of the unfunded mandates bill. But as sympathetic as I may be to our Governors, we must ensure that welfare reform does not just meet their needs, their needs being the Governors. It must continue to meet the needs of the innocent children who have become pawns, unfortunately, in this debate. In this regard, there are still areas of concern about the Republican package. I will not address all of them today. I am not wedded to any particular amendment, but I do want to touch upon a few concerns today that have a common thread. That common thread, that important thread, is kids in need. Children should not be an afterthought in welfare reform. Protecting children should be right up there with requiring able-bodied men and women to earn their keep. The first issue in the voucher program is important. The Republican measure prohibits--prohibits, Mr. President--any assistance once a parent has been on the welfare rolls for a time limit to be determined by the individual States. This, Mr. President, could be anywhere from 60 days at a minimum to 5 years at the outside. Under the Republican bill, no vouchers would be allowed for families reaching the time limits set by the individual States. They would be locked in to whatever State they were a resident of. In my book, this is draconian. We should not cut and run on our poor kids. Depriving a child of the bare necessities in life, such as food and clothing and shelter, serves no useful purpose. The Government is not punishing the parents; it is the children who would suffer. We should not visit the sins of the parents upon their children. I see no reason why we cannot design some sort of a voucher or noncash aid for these children. Under the Democratic work first plan, the States would provide a minimal safety net. That would be an enormous improvement to this bill. My second criticism involves the inflexibility of the Republican plan during hard economic times. This bill cries out for more flexibility during recessions. Under the preferred Democratic proposal, children are entitled to assistance based on their household incomes, not whether the States have exhausted their funding due to increased needs during a recession or other uncontrollable events. This would be a reasonable and a desirable addition to the welfare reform package and something that I hope the Senate will accept. My third concern, Mr. President, revolves around the food stamps and the optional block granting of the program. It is a good idea to encourage electronic benefit transfers and to reduce fraud and abuse in the Food Stamp Program as is called for in the Democrat work first plan. We should throw the book at violators, but I cannot say that I am as understanding about the Republicans' insistence on block granting food stamps. It is evident to this Senator that States devote radically different levels of effort to our needy children. They do not treat them with the same level of compassion. By removing the Federal entitlement and block granting food stamps, we could knowingly exacerbate these differences. I am also concerned that block granting does not completely take into account the changes in the caseloads or regional economic trends. Mr. President, many thoughtful observers have also suggested that the instigation of block granting would trigger a so-called race to the bottom. Let us understand that term. We are very much concerned that the way this is written now, it would almost guarantee a so-called race to the bottom among the States seeking to lower services to the poor so as not to attract more of them. Even worse, some States may reject the dwindling block grants and drop the whole burden on to the narrow shoulders of the counties and the local governments below them. We should not be abetting such a shirking of responsibility if it should happen. Mr. President, there are, of course, many other issues, bones of contention, in this legislation that we will be addressing. Senators on both sides of the aisle will be talking about them and, undoubtedly, offering amendments. But I do believe that, with a few modifications, we could have a bill that sits well with both sides and with the American people. To pass their test, it will have to be a bipartisan effort that requires work while still protecting children. Those are the tricky waters that we still have to navigate over the next few hours. I trust that we will be successful. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield it, as I have previously indicated, to the Senator from New York.

Mr. EXON

Mr. EXON. Have the yeas and nays been requested?

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.