Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. May I ask the Senator another question?

Mr. GREGG. Without your yielding to the floor----

Mr. GREGG. He said that to sign this continuing resolution would mean that he would have to commit to the Republican budget proposal.

Mr. GREGG. If I am to understand this correctly, when the Chief of Staff of the President comes out on the portico of the White House and says to the national press, ``The reason we oppose this continuing is because it means cuts in Medicare,'' he either, one, does not understand how the continuing resolution works--which would be difficult to believe in light of his history as head of OMB and head of the Budget Committee--or alternatively, he is continuing this rather jingoistic theme of trying to scare seniors without substance, which appears to be the policy of this White House relative to this budget process, is that correct?

Mr. GREGG. He said--and maybe he does not understand this. He said that in order to sign this continuing resolution, ``I would have to sign on to the Republican budget.'' Now, as I understand this continuing, all it says is that he must agree, or should agree, to join with the Congress in promoting a proposal that reaches balance by 2002, the practical effect of that being he can put forward his proposal and we can put ours forward, and we can reach an agreement. Is he right, or is my understanding of this right?

Mr. GREGG. If the Senator will yield for a question on that point, I was just listening to the President speak.

Mr. GREGG. If the Senator will yield for another question.

Mr. GREGG. Therefore, when the President cited that to sign this continuing resolution, he would have to sign on to the Republican budget, he was wrong. What he should have said was, to sign this continuing resolution means I have to commit to a balanced budget by the year 2002, under any terms I want. That would have been his reason for rejecting this.

Mr. GREGG. I will ask another question. Earlier today, I heard the Chief of Staff, who used to be the head of the OMB and the Budget Committee in the House, state that the reason they oppose this continuing resolution was because it meant massive cuts in the Medicare Program. Now, it is my understanding--and I wish the Senator would clarify this for me--first, that this budget resolution deals with discretionary spending, am I not correct? And it deals with Medicare entitlement spending, and this continuing resolution has no impact of any nature on any Medicare spending that is presently occurring, because Medicare spending is an entitlement program, is that correct?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I would say that the President was off on a tangent, and a tangent which is really not necessary to be on because the President already came up here once and said CBO is OK. In fact, he not only said it was OK, he demanded that we follow CBO. I believe that his initial decision in that area was correct. I just want to hold him to what his initial commitment was, that CBO should be the scorer. I see no reason why we should not use CBO. They are going to be right sometimes, wrong sometimes. Blue chips are going to be right sometimes, wrong sometimes. But at least we are using one acceptable group. The CBO being the group both the President and ourselves have used over the years, it seems reasonable we accept them. Then that standard is one we should all be comfortable with. But the core issue, of course, is he has to agree to balancing the budget in 7 years.

Mr. GREGG. The Senator may not be able to say what his position is.

Mr. GREGG. Well, what the Senator from New Hampshire----

Mr. GREGG. Yes, I yield to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for this time, and I want to respond just briefly to the comments that were just made and make a couple of additional points. This debate is about whether or not the President wishes to participate in balancing the budget--nothing else. Everything has been taken off of this continuing resolution that the President originally objected to. The only thing that is on this continuing resolution that does not involve day-to-day operation of the Government--remember, this resolution only runs for 19 days--the only thing that is on this resolution is a statement that the President will join with the 104th Congress in a commitment to balancing the budget by the year 2002 using the Congressional Budget Office numbers. It does not say he has to agree to our approach to balancing the budget. If he wants to use the two proposals outlined by the Senator from North Dakota, he can do that. He can use either of those proposals if he wants to use them. And some of the ideas put forward by the Senator from North Dakota may be ideas upon which we could reach an agreement. The point is that he has to agree initially. He has to make this initial minor step, small, incremental progress of saying, hey, I wish to balance the budget, too. That is all we are saying to the President. Just come forward and say I wish to balance the budget, too, in 7 years. Is that an outrageous request? I should not think so since he has already on a number of occasions said he wanted to balance it in 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, 8 years, 9 years. He has been at [[Page S 17126]] this position once or twice before during his term of office. We are just asking him that he sort of settle out, settle out, on the idea of 7 years. I think it is a reasonable request. I do not think most Americans feel 7 years is an unreasonable period of time to get this financial house in order. I think most Americans look at 7 years as maybe an excessive amount of time for us to get our financial house in order. They wonder why we cannot do it a little sooner, but we do not appear to be able to. So we said 7 years. On the issue of whether or not we use CBO numbers, of course, the opposition to that really is a red herring because the President came to this Congress and he, in rather definitive terms, said he was willing to use CBO numbers in his first statement to this body. And so the opposition to that language is, I think, a bit of a sidetracking exercise because he has already agreed to that. If the President wants--and the Senator from North Dakota mentioned the tax issues in our budget--he can come up here with a balanced budget which raises taxes. He can do it all with tax increases, and he will be consistent with the language we have asked him to sign on to. We have not said he had to do it by reducing the rate of growth of Government as we have proposed. We suggested that the rate of growth of Government not be cut. We have not done anything that draconian. We have just suggested it grow at 3.3 percent annually, which is more than the rate of growth of the economy. We have suggested that Medicare be allowed to grow at 6.5 percent; that Medicaid be allowed to grow at 4 percent; that senior citizens be given more choices for their health care options; that the States be given control over welfare, that people who are on welfare be allowed to only stay on it for 5 years during their lifetime, not be on there for an entire experience of their working lifetime; that they be asked to go to work after a couple of years. These were our suggestions for how you get to a balanced budget. But we are not saying we have all the answers. If the President wants to come up here with a new tax package as he did a year, 2 years ago, when he proposed the largest tax package in history, as a way to get this budget under control, if he wants to duplicate that event, so be it. That is his option. Under this language, it would be consistent with the proposal that we are asking for. All we are saying to the President is, sign on to a balanced budget. Agree that the budget must be balanced.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I have listened to the Senator from Nebraska, whom I greatly admire as ranking member of the Budget Committee, and from what I have heard him say, I can understand no reason why he would not vote for this resolution. This resolution does not use specifics as to how we reach a balanced budget. It does not say that we must follow the outline laid down by the Republicans on our side of the aisle--which outline I happen to think is a fairly reasonable one. The Senator from Nebraska has characterized it as ``extremist,'' but I do not know what is extreme about balancing a budget over 7 years, allowing the Government to grow by 3 percent over that period of time, allowing Medicare to grow by 6.5 percent, or $349 billion, over that time, allowing Medicaid to grow by about 5.4 to 5 percent or $146 billion over that period of time, saying to senior citizens, ``We will spend $4,800 on you today but in the year 2002 we will spend $6,700 on your health care.'' Those are hardly extreme positions. They are fairly reasonable positions, and they allow us to reach a balanced budget by slowing the rate of growth of the Federal Government. If you allow the terminology of the Senator from Nebraska to apply-- ``extremism''; this is what is being used often on the other side as a reason for rejecting a balanced budget--even if you accepted what the Senator from Nebraska has said that he would, however, be willing to agree to a budget which reaches balance in 7 years and that that is a doable event--he does not like our budget but it is a doable event. What this continuing resolution says is, ``Let's reach a balanced budget in 7 years.'' It does not say how. It does not give specifics. It does not bind the President or the members of the other party to a specific glidepath to reaching that balanced budget. It simply says the President and the Congress shall enact legislation in the 104th Congress to achieve a unified balanced budget not later than the fiscal year 2002 as scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Therefore, all it is saying is that we have to reach a balanced budget by the year 2002. It is not saying how we reach a balanced budget. It is not demanding a certain set of specifics be used for reaching that balanced budget. It simply is saying, during the term of this Congress, during our watch, we must put in place a balanced budget that is scored by the Congressional Budget Office which, of course, is what the President initially said he would use as a scoring agency. Therefore, when the Senator from Nebraska, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, gets up and states he is for a balanced budget in 7 years, it seems to me he should be comfortable with this resolution which says exactly that: Let us reach a balanced budget in 7 years. It does not say let us reach the Republican game plan for a balanced budget, it says let us reach a balanced budget in 7 years. So, I do not see this resolution as being on the extreme. In fact, this resolution is right in the mainstream of the comments made by the distinguished Senator. The further comments were made that it is ludicrous, and there is an attitude of futility here, in pursuing a balanced budget under these types of terms. Why is it ludicrous? Why is it futile to bind the Congress and the President to reaching a balanced budget in 7 years? We are not saying, in this resolution, you have to cut this program, you have to cut that program, you have to slow the rate of growth in this program, you have to raise this tax or cut that tax. We are just saying let us do it. Let us agree we are going to do it, we are going to balance the budget in 7 years. What could be ludicrous or futile about that? That seems like a fairly constructive statement. It is a statement which I suspect most Americans would say is maybe too passive on the issue of reaching a balanced budget. I suspect most Americans would like us to say specifically how we are going to do it. We as Republicans have. We have laid down a plan for that. From the other side we have not seen such a plan, but we have heard statements, like the Senator from Nebraska's, saying they would agree to balance the budget in 7 years. So all we have done in this continuing resolution is say: All right, let us take one little baby step on the road to balancing the budget. Let us, as a Congress, agree, with the President's support, that we shall balance the budget in 7 years. Let us not get into specifics, but let us just take this little step into the water. Let us put our toes in the water, the water of a balanced budget, and say we are going to commit to it. That is neither ludicrous nor futile. That is what we are supposed to be doing as a Government. We do not say do it in 4 years or 5 years, which is what the President originally said he would do when he ran for this office, and what many of us would like to do. We say 7 years, which is a fairly reasonable timeframe. During this period of 3 weeks, while we will be functioning under the continuing resolution, we have not unfairly impacted the spending accounts of this country. We have simply set up a structure which says we will spend at the levels, the lower levels of either the House or the Senate numbers. Or, if there is no spending on a program, we will have it function at 60 percent of its level, which is a fairly reasonable thing to do when we are talking about a short timeframe. Why would you want to excessively fund programs over their funding levels which have been laid out in the appropriations bills as they have been coming through? It would be unreasonable to fund them at the higher level. It would be inconsistent with good government to fund them at a higher level when we as a Congress may choose the lower level when we finally pass the appropriating bills. So it is the safer and more thoughtful course to take the lower level. Thus, this is a resolution which really does not do a whole lot. As I say, it just puts our toe in the water of the balanced budget issue. In fact, I happen to think it is far too weak. I have serious reservations about it. I personally am on the borderline of whether I even want to vote for something that is this weak on the issue of balancing the budget. But the fact is, it is not extreme, it is not futile, and it is not ludicrous to suggest the Congress, the 104th Congress, should commit with the President on this resolution that we are going to balance the budget by the year 2002. That is not only not extreme, ludicrous, or futile, that is our job. That is what we should be doing. That is what the American people hired us for. And therefore I take a bit of exception to the statements of the Senator from Nebraska and ask him to review those statements in the context of the resolution. I think if he does, he will come to the conclusion he can support this resolution. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this morning it is the leader's intention to turn to the consideration of the House message to accompany House Joint Resolution 115, the continuing appropriations bill, and hopefully pass the resolution on a voice vote. Following the passage of the continuing resolution, the Senate would immediately begin consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 2491, the budget reconciliation bill. Four motions to instruct the conferees are in order: Regarding Social Security, health care, Medicare tax cuts, and nursing standards. There is a 1-hour time limitation on each motion. Votes will be stacked to begin no earlier than 5:30 p.m., today. And at 2 o'clock, following debate on the motions to instruct, the Senate will consider the House message on H.R. 927, the Cuban sanctions bill, in order to appoint conferees. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I am not going to speak specifically to the resolution, but I do want to speak to the underlying issues with which the resolution--and the other business which we will be taking up today--is involved. That, of course, is the question of the impending shutdown of the Federal Government, what has brought it about, and where we are going. I think it is unfortunate that it has been characterized--but it is not unusual--as I understand it, by the national press as an event which is involving a confrontation over personalities, a confrontation that has borne the position of business as usual, or politics as usual; not necessarily name calling, maybe name implying, rather than a confrontation for what it is. This is an issue involving some very substantive philosophical differences that we have arrived at, and we have not yet arrived completely at the point of final decision, if there is ever a final point of decision, in the business of governing because the point of final decision is more appropriately the reconciliation bill at which this motion to instruct is directed. The reconciliation bill, which is now being conferenced, involves the fundamental changes which we as Republicans have proposed--or many of them anyway--especially in the entitlement accounts; fundamental changes which go to the fact that we believe the Nation's budget must be brought under control, that our Federal Government must work towards a balanced budget; and that needs to be done within a confined period of time; that we need to reach that balanced budget by the year 2002, or 7 years from now; that the way you reach that is not by cutting the Federal Government but slowing its rate of growth, and specifically slowing the rate of growth in certain major entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, farm programs; and, that in slowing the rate of growth of the Federal Government we believe--and we have put forward proposals with which we think we can deliver better programs. We can, for example--and have--put forward a program which is going to deliver to our senior citizens we believe a much stronger Medicare system, at least one which will be solvent, which is absolutely critical, something which will not occur if action is not taken. As we have heard from the Medicare trustees, the Medicare trustees say that it is going to be insolvent unless something is done. What we have proposed--and what is being discussed--essentially is to say to seniors we are not going to allow you to keep your present health care system. But, if you wish to participate in it, we will give you a chose of other forms of health care delivery. We are going to give you choices of other forms of health delivery, like I or other Members of Congress have, and using an HMO, or a PPO, or some of these other initials, which mean basically groups of doctors and different types of health- care suppliers getting together and offering you, the seniors, service. We are going to bring the marketplace into the Medicare system, and by bringing the marketplace into the Medicare system hopefully create more efficiencies of delivery of service while still delivering first class-service, and in the process giving our seniors more choices; and, also in the process slowing the rate of growth of Medicare. We have proposed in the welfare area that we take this system--which is so fundamentally flawed, which has created such dependency amongst so many of our citizenry and has not allowed people to get off the system but rather put people into the system for generations--and say to those folks, ``Listen. You can only be on welfare for 5 years. You have got to be willing to go to work, if you are going to get welfare benefits.'' And, more importantly, we are going to turn it back to the States and allow the States to manage this welfare system, something that we should never have taken from in the first place because the States can do it so much better, to be quite honest, because they are closer to the people that are impacted by this. So we are putting forward ideas which fundamentally reform the way this Government operates. Today we are confronted with the fact that the President has vetoed the continuing resolution, which would allow the Government to operate for a couple of weeks, because he disagrees with the basic theme of the proposals that we are putting forward. It is the administration's essential position that the status quo works. I do not believe the status quo works. And many of us obviously on this side of the aisle do not believe that the status quo works. We happen to believe that this Government needs to be adjusted, that we cannot pass a Government on to our children which is fundamentally bankrupt and expect our children to have an opportunity to prosper. So we come to the point of decision. That point of decision is going to be the reconciliation bill. But, prior to getting to that point, we have reached this preliminary discussion over about how we fund the Government for the next 2 weeks. And the President has decided to make a stand at this point on his belief that the Government of the status quo is appropriate. So that is his right. It is his right to put forward that philosophical position--that this Government is not large enough, that it should get larger, that this Government should take more taxes from our citizens rather than less tax taxes, that this Government, which has a Medicare system which is going to be bankrupt, according to our own trustees, should pursue a system which does not correct that system, or improve that system. That is his right to put forward those philosophical differences. What I think is unfortunate, however, is that, as we move forward over the next week, we will be in a period of confrontation which appears to be one surrounding politics as usual--name calling or posturing that is superficial--rather than one that in actuality we are really discussing here, really getting to the question of how this Government is delivered over the next 7 years, as to how this Government is going to be restructured and reformed, and, in my opinion, improved, and significantly strengthened. So as we take up this issue for the balance of the day--and I suspect we are going to be in this matter of the Government shutdown for quite a few days because I do not see any immediate resolution of it--I hope that we will stick to the issue of discussing the substance that has gotten us here, the substantive issue which have brought us to this point. Those substantive issues really come down to this. Do we wish to bring the Government into balance? Do we wish to have a Government which is fiscally responsible, one which is a Government which we can afford, and a Government which our children can afford? That is what this debate is really all about. It is not about who talked to who on the flight to Israel. It is not about what the phone conversations were, and the tone of the phone conversations. It is about whether or not we as a nation are going to finally make some decisions, and we in the Congress and this President as a Presidency are going to finally make some decisions about restructuring this Government and make it affordable for our children, and how we go about doing it. My expectation is that we will not resolve this overnight; that decisions which will be made in the next 24 hours will not be those so momentous as to [[Page S 16949]] complete or even significantly impact that final decision process, but it may well be significant in impacting the manner in which we get to that final decision. We can spend our time over the next few days as we debate this continuing resolution, which is simply a preamble to the major issue which is reconciliation, we can spend our time debating the superficial issues of who, where, when, or what names we call each other or we can talk in terms of the substance of the debate which is how do we reform this Government and how do we take this Government which is so completely out of control and bring it under control; how do we give our children an opportunity to have a lifestyle that is better than ours; how do we become a generation which passes more on to children than was passed on to us by our elders. These are the core issues, the issues of substance which we should be discussing over the next few days, and hopefully we can attend to those issues rather than become involved in the ancillary issues of name calling, political posturing, of Government by polls and Government by reelection. Mr. President, I yield back such time as I may have. Mr. PRYOR addressed the Chair.

Mr. GREGG

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes off the motion.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. GREGG. I wish to respond to the Senator from Massachusetts. I find it a bit disingenuous that Members of the other party would come to this floor and state that it is robbing senior citizens, inappropriately treating senior citizens, for us as Republicans to be putting forward proposals which essentially assure the solvency of the Medicare trust fund, the purpose of which is to supply health insurance for our senior citizens, when no proposal--no proposal--has come from the other side of the aisle or from the President. Furthermore, to state that allowing the percentage of premium that is paid by seniors to drop from 31.5 percent, which it is today and which it has been for a while, back to 25 percent is an action of good will or a gesture of kindness or gratitude or appropriateness that we should pursue as a nation on behalf of our senior citizens, is to ignore who pays the difference. Under the present law for the part B premium, seniors' children, their grandchildren who are working--most seniors have children and grandchildren who are working--support 69 percent, approximately, of the cost of their seniors' health insurance. So if you happen to be a working American today and you have parents who are on Medicare, or an uncle or grandfather who is on Medicare, or just a friend who is a senior citizen who is on Medicare, you are paying as a working American 69 percent of the cost of that individual's health insurance. We have, as a society, said that is reasonable, that is fair. We, the working generation, are willing to do that. I am happy to do it. My taxes go to support that. If we reduce that percentage from 31.5 percent--which seniors pay; so they pay a third of the cost, and working Americans, their children, and grandchildren, are paying two-thirds of the cost--if we reduce that to 25 percent, which is the proposal of the President or the course which the President wishes to pursue and which the Senator from Massachusetts has so aggressively spoken here in behalf of, then what you are doing is you are essentially raising the taxes of working Americans of the children and the grandchildren of those seniors by an incredible amount of dollars--hundreds of millions of dollars. You are increasing the taxes on working Americans and increasing the obligation, the subsidy of working Americans, which goes to support seniors. Now, I think the split of two-thirds/one-third--actually it is more than that--70 percent, approximately, 69 percent/30 percent is a pretty good effort made by working Americans, children of seniors and grandchildren of seniors to support the senior citizen population in this country. I think most seniors would understand and recognize that the fact they are asked to pay 30 percent of the cost of their health insurance is a reasonable request. To reduce that to 25 percent is to skew the process to mean that their children and their grandchildren, who are trying to raise their families in these sometimes difficult economic times, who are trying to help their children go to school, who are trying to, maybe, buy their first home, maybe just make ends meet, to say we are going to raise the taxes on those people in order to further dramatically skew the process and subsidize the senior citizen population at an even higher level for their part B premium seems to me to be the height of pandering to one interest at the expense of another interest. Intergenerational pandering is what it amounts to, or extra- generational pandering. The fact is, the differential between or the difference, the support that is now being paid by children and grandchildren of seniors, working children and grandchildren of seniors, of 69 percent of the cost of that seniors' health care insurance is a fair amount. To increase the tax on working Americans by another 6\1/2\ percent, which is what is being suggested in this proposal, is not fair. Then there is the other issue here. We have heard a large amount of crocodile tears from the other side of the aisle about how the Republicans are helping the wealthy at the expense of the poor in our tax cuts. Of course, you might note--which is never noted by the other side of the aisle--that the President raised taxes by about $240 billion and said it was too much of a [[Page S 16851]] tax increase just a few weeks ago. He raised taxes by $240 billion when he said he would not increase taxes during the first term in office, over a 5-year-period, and we are cutting taxes by $240 billion approximately over a 7-year period. We are basically at a wash. We are getting back to the point that the President appears to want to be at now when he said he raised taxes, too. We are trying to correct that, getting taxes back to where they were when he came to office. Independent of that we hear--the crocodile tears about it being horrible what is being done here to the poor and moderate income Americans by the Republican tax cut, and helping the wealthy--first, it is factually inaccurate. The tax cut that we are proposing, 70 percent of it flows to people, families with incomes under $75,000, and 90 percent of it flows to people with incomes under $100,000, and people with incomes up to $70,000 are not wealthy in this society. More significantly, something that is conveniently ignored by the other side in the area of Medicare legislation and which the President appears ready to veto is the fact we are saying to the wealthy Americans who are seniors, ``Hey, you have to stop being subsidized by your working children and grandchildren.'' We do not think it is right that a working child and grandchild who is trying to raise a family should have to pay 69 percent of the cost of the insurance of the fellow who just retired from IBM last year and is making hundreds of thousands of dollars maybe--tens of thousands, anyway--in pension benefits. It is not fair that a person who is working 40, 50, 60 hours a week trying to make ends meet on a computer assembly line in New Hampshire or at a farm in the Midwest or at some other activity--garage or a restaurant--that an individual, family, a husband and wife, working their hearts out trying to make ends meet should have to subsidize the top 100 people who retired from General Motors or Ford last year, whose incomes on pensions exceed the earnings of the people who are paying the taxes to subsidize their health benefits. It is just not right. So, in the Republican plan, we say if you have more than $50,000 of individual income or as a husband and wife you have more than $75,000 of income, you have to start paying a higher percentage of the cost of your part B premium. Instead of being subsidized at 69 percent by the working Americans in this country, you are going to have to start to pay more. And if your income exceeds $100,000 as an individual or $150,000 as a husband and wife, then you have to pay the full cost of your part B premium. That is good policy. That is exactly what we should be doing. We should be making this more fair. So, let us have a little integrity in the process here as we debate this issue. Let us note that, when the President says he wants to reduce the amount of the premium that seniors are paying, when he wants that 31 percent to go down to 25 percent, that is a tax increase on the people who pick up the difference, the people who pick up the cost for that tax cut to seniors. It is a tax increase on working children and grandchildren. Mr. President, 70 percent today, or 69 percent, of senior's premiums today are already subsidized and we have accepted that as a fair number. But to go to 75 percent, as the President wants, means you are going to raise the taxes on working Americans, the children and grandchildren of those seniors, by at least 6.5 percent, under the President's proposal. That is not right and it is not fair. Let us remember also that wealthy Americans today are subsidized by working Americans who cannot afford it. It is time to change that and that is what the Republican proposal does. As we continue this debate I think a little forthrightness on the facts would help the process. I yield.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for a period of up to 20 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure be granted permission to conduct a hearing Thursday, November 2, at 10 a.m., hearing room SD- 406, on courthouse construction and related GSA public buildings program matters.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 2, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing to discuss Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the special committee to investigate Whitewater development and related matters be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 2, 1995, to conduct a hearing on the handling of the documents in Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster's office after his death.