Wendell Ford

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Reserving the right to object to the motion that has been made by the distinguished majority whip, I ask him this. The cost of Government being shut down I understand is somewhere around $40 million a day, with the statements of the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate saying all those who have been furloughed would be paid. I do not think that includes the inconvenience to a lot of folks as it relates to the services of Government. Let me give you a couple of--well, just one. We have a band from Lexington, KY, that is going to participate in the Fiesta Bowl. They have worked their fingers to the bone and worked their little hearts out to raise enough money to go to the Fiesta Bowl. There will be about 400 of them, members of the band, parents, chaperones, et cetera, and they have reservations in national parks next week, and the parks have notified them they are closed. They cannot get in. So you have a large group of high school students, bands, their parents, chaperones, a real coup, by being invited to where they will decide the national championship as it relates to football, collegiate football in this country, and we are saying to them, ``You can't get in because the Government's closed because we didn't get a balanced budget, or are even close to an agreement.'' So I ask my friend, would it be possible to have an amendment that would open the entire Government? Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. FORD. No, it is not. I have not had a chance to reserve the right to object. Others quicker than I have on that side of the aisle.

Mr. FORD. May I regain my time here? If the Senator wants to vote it down now, I think it can be done. I do not think he wants that because it would be a voice vote, and I do not believe he wants to ask for a rollcall vote. Then we would have to postpone it because the majority leader has already said there will be no more votes today.

Mr. FORD. Reserving the right to object, I hope that the Senator from Colorado would not interfere with, hopefully, the funding of AFDC, foster care, adoption assistance, and, maybe if we can get to it, keeping the Government open, for a tea tasting question that seems to be paramount here to kids out there getting their AFDC checks. Now, if you want to stop the veterans from getting their checks, AFDC from getting their checks, our Government staying open, then you get your tea tasting amendment on this resolution or we just withdraw it, then we will let your tea tasting amendment bring it down.

Mr. FORD. Yes, I will be glad to yield.

Mr. FORD. Be glad to.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, according to the latest figures I have, there are 92,160 unemployed individuals in Kentucky. Eight counties in my State still have double-digit unemployment rates. There is widespread support for putting welfare recipients to work. But one of the questions I frequently get when I talk to constituents about welfare reform is ``Where will the jobs come from?'' I still do not know the answer. I do not think we have thought through that simple question very well. I also get asked two conflicting questions about welfare. One is ``Why don't you cut spending on welfare?'', and ``What are you going to do to enable those on welfare to find jobs?'' These are legitimate questions. I hear about three common barriers to those on welfare who truly want to work: First, fear of losing health care for their kids--and that is Medicaid; Second, lack of affordable child care; and Third, inadequate educational or job training opportunities. I supported the earlier version of welfare reform because I thought it was a good faith attempt to address these competing priorities. It did reduce overall spending on welfare programs, and it also attempted to address some of the obstacles to finding jobs--particularly child care. Unfortunately, the conference report before us today, in my opinion, has shifted entirely toward cutting spending. It cuts spending far more than the Senate-passed bill, and it retreats from putting people to work. When you combine this with the impact of the Republican budget proposal, you see even further that this conference report just simply will not work: First, the proposed Republican budget cuts in Medicaid will be devastating for those trying to get off of welfare and go to work. Second, the proposed Republican tax increases on low-income families will hurt many just as they try to get off welfare. Third, the revised, pessimistic CBO numbers on the unemployment rate assume that unemployment will remain virtually unchanged at 6 percent over the next 7 years even if we pass a balanced budget plan. This means jobs will be at least as scarce as they are today for those trying to go from welfare to work. Mr. President, I do believe this welfare conference report will succeed in reducing Federal spending on welfare programs. But I believe it will-- First, fail to put people to work; Second, underfund child care; and Third, increase poverty among our children. For these and other reasons, I cannot support this conference report, because I simply do not believe it will work.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, may I also wish my distinguished friend and colleague from Virginia a merry Christmas, a happy new year, and a successful 1996. Let me say, Mr. President, also, that we thank you for being here. It is late. Everybody else basically has gone home. We are here trying to do the Government's and the institution's business. Let me thank the staff because if they were not here and dedicated we would have a difficult time getting through. So I want the record to show that we appreciate the staff and all their work. I thank my friend.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I understand that, I say to my friend. And I say to him, a clean CR would have taken care of everything, and now we send what we think is compassionate in our clean CR to the House and they take out Medicaid and send it back to us and recess. These sorts of things just do not ring well outside the beltway.

Mr. FORD. I understand that.

Mr. FORD. I believe the majority leader agrees with that, because if the others are not being paid, how does that Federal employee perform the service that he is there voluntarily doing until such time as a continuing resolution is passed for them to be paid? So I thank him for trying here, but a clean CR would have been much better than what we are trying to do. We are monkeying with the statutory provisions now, and I am not sure that we are doing everything that we ought to do. A clean CR would have accomplished the end result, and I think it is unfortunate that we are furloughing Federal employees by statute and then paying them for not working by continuing resolution at the rate of $40 million a day. I yield the floor.

Mr. FORD. And the distinguished majority leader said in the Chamber yesterday he did not approve of closing Government down. And I appreciate what he is trying to do here. I think this needs some work on it.

Mr. FORD. One item we tried to add to the continuing resolution earlier today was a clean CR so that we would not have any question.

Mr. FORD. I understand.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I thank my friend. Mr. President, I am a little bit older than some in this Chamber and going back to the years when I was growing up, my grandfather would not make any kind of a contract on Sunday. He never had to worry about signing a paper during the week; we always shook hands. A handshake was our bond, and our word was our bond. I hear a lot about all the blame on the President. I listened to the majority leader say now we are finally going to get some adults to negotiate the balanced budget--some adults. Well, the President calls to get the adults together, I guess. That was the majority leader, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the President of the United States. They shook hands after 2\1/2\ hours, or better than 2 hours, I understand, on what they would do. The Democratic Caucus in the Senate voted unanimously under those circumstances to give to our minority leader, our Democratic leader, the ability to go and represent us. I assumed from the remarks of the majority leader that he had the same respect and admonition from those on his side. But, lo and behold, the Speaker of the House could not get his caucus to agree to sit down and work out a CR, to develop the framework, to arrive at a balanced budget in 7 years. We hear the CBO is conservative and OMB is optimistic. Let me just say, something happened to CBO. They got optimistic and increased their projection by $135 billion and got them closer to OMB. I yield the floor.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, on behalf of the floor manager for the minority, I yield 15 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Illinois.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Senator, that is not what I asked. I asked, did it not take 2 weeks for CBO to score what the President sent in, offered? That was part of the delay.

Mr. FORD. No, they did not.

Mr. FORD. No.

Mr. FORD. But he is asking about 2004 and 2005.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Reserving the right to object, I would like to have an opportunity for the Members that are at the White House to have an opportunity to come back. As I understand, the majority leader is willing to leave the vote open until they arrive. If it will just stay open.