Wendell Ford

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Is it appropriate to have the modification read before we get the tree filled?

Mr. FORD. I will be glad to.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn] are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I will, in just a moment, withdraw it. It is not very often I come before my colleagues and ask for something other than what I think is----

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I am not going to take any additional time on this because I know the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is itching to get away from here, and I do not blame him. It was about 3 hours ago, I think. But what I have is a split judgeship, one in the eastern part of Kentucky, one in the west. The youngest judge is assigned to the east and the west. So we have some going to the mountains and some going to the flatlands of west Kentucky, and this one judge spends 5 and 6 hours on the road. If the jury is out until 2 o'clock in the morning, then makes their judgment, comes in, the judge is back in the car and has to drive another 5 or 6 hours. It is absolutely a horrendous situation. Mine is not the only State. Missouri has split judges, Oklahoma has split judges. But we just have one. And when you traverse the State from Pikeville in the far east to Paducah in the far west, it is some 600 miles. So it gets to be a tremendous burden. What I am asking in this amendment is to allow Kentucky to have an additional judge. That additional judge, then, would mean that we would have a full-time judge in eastern Kentucky and not divided with the west. We would also, then, have a full-time judge in the west. And we would see that the court docket was reduced tremendously.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I would like to have the floor in my own right. I do not think the Senator from Pennsylvania has withdrawn his amendment yet. There is a pending amendment.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an amendment to correct a longstanding problem in my State of Kentucky. There is an old expression that goes, ``justice delayed is justice denied.'' Well many in Kentucky are being denied justice and if it were not for an extremely hardworking and dedicated judiciary, many more would feel the same. The situation is nothing short of critical. For several reasons Kentucky is in a unique situation. It has what is known as a ``swing'' judgeship. That means a judge is shared between two districts. In this case it is the eastern and western districts. Being largely a rural State, the communities that hold court are usually a long way from each other and the only means of travel is by car over bad roads that wind through the mountains. This situation is far more troubling than many of my colleagues from other areas of the country may realize. Long trips by judges after hours or before court take up a significant amount of time--time a judge would normally spend hearing cases. In fact, without the difficult travel requirements, I probably would not be troubling the Senate with this amendment. Unfortunately, I must--the problem is just too great. Juries also travel great distances. This results in jurors who would rather deliberate late into the evening--sometimes into the early morning--in order to avoid travel home and back for additional days of deliberations. This poses still further hardships on the judges who are then forced to stay up late and then travel to court in the next jurisdiction the very next day. Furthermore, new gun control legislation has dramatically affected cases in Kentucky. Many times a more routine drug bust or other arrest turns into a time consuming and difficult case because of the presence of the firearm. The practical effect of this has been a large increase in long cases that tie up the judges, keeping them from getting to other matters on their dockets. Civil cases in many instances have been held to a stand still.

Mr. FORD. To this body and to the Judiciary Committee, through this method, which is the only one I have, then I think I would be remiss in representing my State.

Mr. FORD. There is a lot more to dispensing justice than the number of cases. What we are doing now is, the youngest judge, a female judge, is on the road day and night. And that is justice delayed. She is absolutely working her heart out, getting a driver, dictating, writing while she is on the road, trying to accommodate the lawyers in the cases and the courts in which she is assigned. So it is fine for you to say you will work with me. The commission sent a report, in which it gave us an extra judge in Kentucky, which would have solved our problem. I understand the commission withdrew their suggested increases. Now we are in limbo and I do not know where we are. I will not accept ``we will try sometime in the future, next year.'' I would like to try sooner than that, if I could. Because the judge is being overworked by travel, by court cases. We have an excellent judiciary in Kentucky. They are working hard to eliminate the burden of cases. But, under the circumstances, we are not able to do that and it is not the number of cases per judge that creates the problem for us.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I withdraw my request.

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I want it read before we fill the tree.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, this side of the aisle has no objection.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley], the Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle], the Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye], the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerrey], and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Nunn] are necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I enjoyed listening to my friend from the State of Washington. It seems like the only hearings we are going to have on this budget are on the Senate floor. It is very difficult not to have people in to hold hearings and have markups on many pieces of legislation. Mr. President, it is a little bit interesting to look at all the figures that are coming out. Everybody has different figures. CBO says one thing and they give you a certification. Then we get numbers from someplace else. Then the Budget Committee comes up with theirs, and I am tickled to death with the work of the Budget Committee except I do not think they ought to give the tax cut. Now we see almost 50 percent of the taxpayers of this country are going to have their taxes increased by not allowing the tax credit that they have had in past years that encouraged people to work, to bring people above the poverty level. So, you can say all you want to about how great this is. There is a hymn, ``How Great Thou Art.'' There is nothing about ``thou art'' in this budget. So I hope we will look at it very closely. I am disappointed we did not have an opportunity to dig into the details because, as I have brought up, the devil is in the details. We have not seen all the details yet, and I hope at some point during the debate some of the details will come out. I do not know whether or not anybody else is seeking the floor, Mr. President. If not, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I was listening to the debate by all of our Senators and how well words are used and how well numbers are used. We see this big board that is here--you may take it down; it should not be on the floor after the Senator has left, anyhow--that the budget is balanced. The budget is balanced under the proposal. That is the reason we can give a $245 billion tax cut; the budget is balanced. If you take $245 billion out of it, it is unbalanced. Figure it any way you want to. I have a balanced budget, but all of a sudden I have an expenditure that I did not account for, so my budget is out of balance. Anybody sitting around the kitchen table at night trying to figure up their bills, has a balanced budget, then all of a sudden they have a doctor bill, have a car that breaks down, whatever it might be; therefore, their budget is out of balance. Instead of a medical bill or car breaking down, they want to give a $245 billion tax cut. We hear about cutting education, only just a minimal amount--$400 million is $400 million. The distinguished occupant of the chair and other Senators here know States that put up anywhere from 60 to 70 percent of their general fund in that State to education. Every little bit of help makes [[Page S 15444]] education better, gives the States an opportunity. Talk about private education--sure, the big companies, corporations give to their private institution of higher learning. What about the State institutions? We have 55,000-plus students in Kentucky that get some kind of grant or loan to go to school. Now we will reduce those or eliminate them or make them higher at the end, and we will lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 Pell grants in my State. They say, well, we will increase Pell grants by $100. That is true. But you will knock out from 600,000 down, so eliminate my students that have an opportunity to have a little bit to get over the hump. It is the same way with the earned income tax credit. We have a poor family out here struggling to get into the middle class at $27,000 annual income, a family of four. You tell him you cannot have any credit for working, you cannot have any help for working, you cannot have any help to get over the poverty line. So we will cut that out. They say, CBO said we would balance the budget. That is true, but then you will take $245 billion out of it. I hear a lot about what the President said about taxes; he may have taken too much or gone too far. Let me say this, Mr. President. In my State, after I voted for that package in 1993, those who paid taxes in 1992, 12,500 of my constituents, according to the information I have, paid increased taxes--12,500 filers in 1992 paid more for 1993. Mr. President, 315,000 of my constituents paid less. Everybody else paid the same. We reduced the budget by $500 billion, and by that we reduced interest rates, and that made a $600 billion reduction. We eliminated or reduced over 300 programs in the Federal Government; going to remove 272,000 Federal bureaucrats, and we are on the way-- close to 200,000 less than in 1993. I thought that was a pretty good vote and I thought the path had been drawn pretty clear. I do not believe the Republicans would be here today with their deficit reduction tax cuts--all these things--if we had not cast that vote in 1993 to make this country better. We hear a lot about Social Security and Medicare and the commission that reports it. The commission reported a year ago that we would have solvency problems in Medicare a year earlier. Now it is a year later. We are in better shape. For a small amount we can take care of Medicare as it is for a decade. We have always taken care of the problems in Social Security and Medicare. So now we hear they will cut Medicaid. Medicaid is what the middle- income, if you want to call it that, $35,000 to $75,000 income--most of them, after they spend everything they have, they are on Medicaid in a nursing home. About August they will pick up the phone and say, ``Wendell, come get Dad. We have run out of money.'' ``Wendell, come and get Ma. We have run out of money.'' Do not worry about that; that will never happen, they say. They have reduced the regulations on the nursing homes, and the statement was that you can sedate these old folks in nursing homes. They will be easier to handle and you can have fewer employees. That is exactly what got the Federal Government in the nursing home regulation business in the first place--the damage that was being done to our elderly that we were trying to help. When you begin to look at the morass of what we are getting ready to vote on and shove down our throats, you will find in the days to come that there will be a lot of words that were said on the other side, how great it will be, take our money, put it in stocks and bonds. You get on the stock market one of these days and you will have problems. Pension funds; use them. Do all these things. This is one Senator that is not going to vote for it. I hope that the question that the distinguished Senator from North Dakota asked the chairman of the Finance Committee or the Budget Committee the other day, where is the meat? Where are the hearings? We do not have any hearings. Are you afraid to debate it? I am not afraid to debate it. But you come here on the floor with public relations house statements, statements that are written--I have the book sent to all the Republicans. Everyone has one. Here is what you say when asked this question. Here is what you say when asked that question. If they do not ask this question, you raise this. All from the public relations house. Mr. President, I know my time is up, and I wish that we would have more time when reconciliation comes up so we could really look at it in depth, but we are going to be limited, we are going to be limited. I yield the floor.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator Warner, our new chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, in announcing that as of this morning, the Senate is now online on the World Wide Web. The Senate Rules Committee first authorized a Senate presence on the Internet in September, 1993, with the creation of the Senate FTP Gopher Server. In November of that year, the Rules Committee established policies and procedures for Senate participation on the Internet. In the short 2 years since that time, Internet technology has leaped forward producing the significantly improved graphics capability of the World Wide Web. The Web provides the Senate an improved opportunity to provide educational information to the public and I am pleased that we are able to announce this step forward today. The U.S. Senate World Wide Web Server is produced under the auspices of the Secretary of the Senate's office with technical advice and input from the Sergeant at Arms' Office and the Rules Committee technical staff. The Senate Server will provide the public with general information on the Senate and how it works. The Senate Home Page will provide a direct link to Member's home pages located on the Server and will allow the public to surf such useful information as visual tours of the Capitol, committee membership and jurisdiction, a glossary of frequently used legislative terms, and the history of the Senate. While we all recognize the somewhat limited reach of the Web today, with an estimated 6 million users nationally, the potential--and I emphasize ``potential''--for this technology to eventually reach every school child, office place, and even private home, is obvious. The Senate needs to move into the 21st century and our presence on the Web ensures that the Senate will not be left behind as this technology explodes. The Rules Committee will continue to monitor the development of the Web with an eye to ensuring that as technology moves forward, the Senate keeps pace with policies and procedures that ensure access to improving technology on a fiscally sound basis. I congratulate our chairman, Senator Warner, on moving forward with this initiative and encourage my colleagues to take advantage of this important communications tool. I yield the floor.

Mr. FORD. Leave the ``tough'' out.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senate from Delaware [Mr. Biden] is necessarily absent.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield?

Mr. FORD. I just want to ask a question.

Mr. FORD

Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Illinois [Ms. Moseley- Braun] is necessarily absent. [[Page S 15278]]