Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. On your time.

Mr. INHOFE. First of all, Mr. President, I was not planning to make any remark, but as I was presiding a few minutes ago and listening to some of the arguments, I remember that yesterday I had an occasion to meet the registered nurse, Brenda Shafer. What was impressed upon me was that she went into that position as an acknowledged pro-choice nurse. That was the way she felt. When she went through the experience that was just expressed by the Senator from New Hampshire in such an emotional way--I have a hard time listening to that and maintaining composure--she changed her whole philosophy because she saw a child, a living child, dying in their hands and she was in some way a part of that. I wish there were a way of getting her on the Senate floor to tell the story she had to tell. I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, I do not mean this in a personal way, but as I was presiding a few minutes ago, I have never been so thankful that I am not a lawyer, because to have to try to find provisions in the law where you can almost rejoice in saying we found a loophole so we can take this baby's life and expand this whole idea of abortion to someone who is just about to take that first breath. And, when you say perhaps we need--that is the subject of this discussion right now, submitting it to a committee, if we did that. Let us just say the committee reported it out and it passed. Let us say it took 3 weeks, that is an average time for something like this. We are talking about 400 more of these little babies who would have this procedure done to them. Then the Senator talked about, under the 10th amendment, this is, perhaps, something that should be addressed by the States. I have been a defender of the 10th amendment. I think it has been abused too much, and I agree this is something that should be approached on a State level. But during that period of time, you are not talking about 4 weeks, now. You are talking about months and years. To quantify that in lives--I have not done the math yet so I cannot do that. But if you see one of these procedures, then you do not have to quantify it because one is enough. Then we talk about how much pain there is. This is something that is difficult to quantify, too. But when you have this procedure taking place, as was described in such an articulate way by the Senator from New Hampshire, you know there is pain. You know the pain would be unbearable. But there is a loophole in the law that allows us to inflict that pain. My wife and I have four children and we have three grandchildren. Actually, our third grandchild is not yet born, but it is still a grandchild. I am looking forward to Christmas Day when he will be born. I do not think there has ever been any woman who has gone through a pregnancy and has reached, say, the 9th month or 8th month and has not gone through some degree of depression during that time. Certainly my wife did. It is a very difficult thing to go through. I think this particular procedure is one where these people can fall prey, because in the event you go through some type of depression and you want to have this procedure, think of what that person must go through the rest of her life if she realizes what she has done. I will conclude by only saying, if we had read that someplace back in ancient history, in some barbaric land or sometime in our history, this procedure had been used to perform abortions or to kill young children, we would look back and say, how in the world, back in those paganistic days, could they have taken a life in such a cruel way? I think history, 400 years from now or 500 years from now, will reflect back to this moment saying here this body met in a deliberative way to stop this barbaric practice. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator. I was listening, and I think I can pretty well summarize why my colleagues are distressed about the demagoging going on in the reconciliation legislation. We have to remind the American people that there was a mandate that went with the 1994 elections: Less Government involvement in our lives, balanced budgets, and to do something about the tax increase of 1993. In other words, let us offer tax relief and welfare reform and Medicare reform. That is exactly what we have in our reconciliation effort. I really think that those who are trying to stop these major changes and the revolution from taking place are underestimating the intelligence of the American people. I would like to read a couple paragraphs of something that appeared just the other day. This was the day of the vote in the U.S. Senate of this reconciliation bill. This is a quote: ``I have been in this field all my adult life, almost 60 years now, and I have never seen a change of this magnitude.'' This is Richard Nathan, provost of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs. He said: ``This is bigger than Lyndon Johnson's Great Society because it is going to profoundly affect the American federalism and social policy.'' And then Jim Richley, a political scientist from Georgetown University, said, ``Nothing on this scale has ever been attempted before.'' I think that it is necessary to talk about the magnitude of what we are doing here. This is something we have [[Page S 16571]] been talking about all these years. This is something that we talked about during the campaign of 1994. And this is something that the President is trying to reject. He has come out and said he is going to veto this. It is very difficult for us to understand how he can talk about vetoing it when these are things he has talked about, when he ran for President of the United States on this very platform--welfare reform, reducing taxes, Medicare reform, balancing the budget. That is exactly what we are trying to do. I want to stick with this and not give in. There is an interesting statement that was made just the other day by the President. I will quote that statement. I think this gets to the crux of where we are in this debate. He said: ``Probably, there are people in this room still mad at me for the budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think we raised them too much, too.'' This is exactly what we have been saying. If you were not for the largest single tax increase in the world--and that is not conservative Republican Jim Inhofe talking, that is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee when this was passed--if you were not for that largest tax increase that now even Bill Clinton says he was not for, and that was his tax increase, then you ought to support repealing part of that tax increase. That is exactly what we are doing with some of the tax cuts that we are suggesting, Mr. President. I think that when you talk about the cuts, it is interesting that we have a President now who is saying over and over again that the Republicans are trying to cut Medicare and Medicaid. I will read you another quote, and this came from the President in a speech to the AARP on the October 5, 1993, just 2 years ago: ``Today, Medicaid and Medicare are going up three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it go up two times the rate of inflation. That is not a Medicare or Medicaid cut. So when you hear all this business about `cuts,' let me caution you that that is not what is going on.'' So there is the President saying--very accurately, I might add--back in 1993, that we are talking about slowing down the growth in the areas of Medicare and Medicaid because if we do not do it, the system is going to go into bankruptcy. He is turning around now and saying that which we want to do on the Republican side is cutting Medicare and Medicaid when, in fact, it is not. So it is a very difficult thing when you are dealing with these moving targets, and you have a President that says one thing one day, has his polls around the White House, and he says something different the next day. That is very discouraging.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am going to be leaving today, going over to Bosnia. I have never seen something that is as critical as it is today on what the President is trying to do by sending our troops on the ground in Bosnia. Two and a half years ago, I predicted, when the President wanted to do airdrops in Bosnia, thereby giving the Americans a position within that warring faction of three different factions and going with one side against the other in getting involved in it, I said at that time, first, we will have airdrops, then air attacks and, after that, the President is going to want to send troops in on the ground. It was the other day, Michael Rose, the British general, commander of the Bosnian troops--he probably is the greatest authority on Bosnia-- said, ``If America sends troops into Bosnia on the ground, they will lose more lives than they lost in the Persian Gulf war.'' Mr. President, I think that is exactly what is going to happen. I asked Secretary Perry and Secretary Christopher in the Senate Armed Services Committee, ``Is this mission that we have in Bosnia--that mission being twofold, containing a civil war and, two, protecting the integrity of NATO--worth the loss of hundreds of American lives?" Secretary Perry said, ``Yes.'' Secretary Christopher said, ``Yes.'' General Shalikashvili said, ``Yes.'' That is why I am going to Bosnia. I want the American people to know what kind of risk we are sending our troops in there to sustain. It was not until we went month after month, when we tried to get President Clinton, by resolution, to bring our troops out of Somalia--he did not do that until, finally, 18 of our rangers were murdered in cold blood and their corpses were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. I do not want that to happen in the streets of Gorazde or the streets of Sarajevo. I think we have a job to explain to the American people what the risks are over there and to stop this obsession that President Clinton has in sending our troops into Bosnia on the ground. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity and many other opportunities between now and the next few weeks, to strongly urge the President to come to Congress for authorization before he makes a decision to send American troops into Bosnia. We have discussed this in our committee meetings, our Senate Armed Services Committee, and I am very much concerned about the fact that if you look at the history of Bosnia, all the way back to the Ottoman empire, you see that you have these three warring factions that have always warred with each other. We know that the Archduke who was assassinated was what precipitated World War I right there in Sarajevo. We know that in World War II, Marshal Tito, when he was putting together his alliance to go against the Germans, he had most of them except for Croatia. At that time Croatia was on the other side. We were on the side of the Bosnian Moslems and the Serbs. So it has been a moving target throughout the years. The only thing that is consistent is that they have been murdering each other. And we have evidence in the last 6 months, all three factions have fired on their own troops and tried to blame the other side. So we have a long and agonizing history of what has been happening over there. There is no more hostile area any place in the world to send our troops on the ground than there. Back in World War II, any of us who have studied history at all remember how the former Yugoslavians were able to hold off the best that Hitler had on the ratio of 1 to 8. This, in other words, is not the Persian Gulf. These are mountains with caves, Mr. President. This is an area where historically a small number of people have been able to murder a much larger force and take many, many casualties. This is the environment into which we are talking about sending our troops. I draw an analogy between that and Lebanon in 1983. In 1983, we sent our troops over to Lebanon. We had a very modest mission at that time, and it was not until the months rolled by when the bomb went off and 241 of our troops were killed, and, of course, then there was a public cry, and we brought our troops home. Or Somalia. I cannot hang that on the Democrats because George Bush, in December, after he lost the election, before the new President, President Clinton, was sworn in, he sent troops to Somalia really just for 7 weeks. And then he went out of office and Clinton came in. At that time I was serving in the other body. Almost every month we sent a resolution to the President, ``Bring our troops home. There is no mission that is relative to our Nation's security in Somalia.'' And it was not until 18 of our Rangers were murdered in cold blood and they dragged their corpses through the streets of Mogadishu that there was enough public outcry to bring the troops back home, and we did with our tail between our legs. Nothing was accomplished. You see, we have adopted a foreign policy in this country where we are sending our troops out on humanitarian missions, as opposed to missions where we have our Nation's security at risk. Well, now, this came to a head when we had our Senate Armed Services Committee meeting--it was a public meeting--just the other day. We had Secretary Christopher, Secretary Perry, and General Shalikashvili. When we came to the part where we were talking about the mission, the strongest mission they could state that we have in Bosnia is twofold: First to contain a civil war, which has been going on for hundreds of years; second, to protect the integrity of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. So I asked a question--and this was after there was a quote from General Rose, who was the U.N. commander in Bosnia. He said, ``If America sends troops over there, they would lose more American lives than they lost in the Persian Gulf.'' There we lost 390 lives. So I said, ``So we can reasonably assume we are going to lose hundreds of American lives if we send troops over on the ground in Bosnia? That being the case, Secretary Perry, is our mission, as you have described it, to contain a civil war and to protect the integrity of NATO worth the cost of many hundreds of American lives?'' He said, ``Yes,'' without flinching. I said, ``Secretary Christopher?'' He said, ``Yes.'' And General Shalikashvili said, ``Yes.'' So here we have the people who are in the top ranks, the President's three top men, reflecting the wishes of the President--that is, to send troops into Bosnia on the ground. There is something else that is very curious about this, which came up in this meeting. They stated in the meeting that no matter what the condition was 12 months from now, those troops would be back in the United States. I ask you, Mr. President, in all of your well-read days on military science, if you have ever found a time when a country sent its troops into a warring area with a time certain to come back, regardless of the circumstances, whether we were in the middle of a very hostile situation or whether it was a peace accord, we are going to bring them home in 12 months? They all said, ``Yes.'' They had it written down that, ``The troops will return in 12 months.'' As much as I hate to see it, the only thing I could think of with any degree of certainty that is going to happen in 12 months is that it will be election time, November 1996. I hope that does not have anything to do with this decision. So I plan, in a couple of days, to go over to Bosnia. I am going to go, and I am going to stand in the same places where all of our troops are going to be standing if the President is successful in not coming to Congress for authorization to send troops. I am going to look at the hostility around me, and I am going to listen to the gunfire, and I am going to bring that message back to the American people. This is something that has to rise above politics. We went through this same thing when President Bush wanted to send troops to the Persian Gulf. Yes, we had a real mission there relative to our Nation's security. That mission was whether or not we could have the energy necessary to be viable in fighting a war--a real mission relative to our Nation's security. At that time, he said we are going to send the troops there, and we said: Mr. President, we do not think it is wise to send the troops over, those soldiers, not knowing they have the support of the American people as well as the support of Congress behind them. He did not have to. Just like President Clinton does not have to come for authority to the Congress, President Bush did not have to, but he did it. It was a very wise move for the sake of those individuals who were going over there to lay their lives on the line, where 390 Americans died valiantly. The President, at that time, came to the Congress, asked for authority, and we had a united America in fighting the Persian Gulf war. This war over there is not our war, Mr. President. This is a civil war. Sure, it is a problem for people in Western Europe, and I hope that Western Europe gets busy. Let them do what is necessary to protect their security interests. Perhaps they have security interests in Bosnia. We do not. I do not want to wake up and find out that the American public did not know about this, did not care about this enough that they did not know whether they have an outcry to bring our troops back until our American corpses are dragged through the streets of Sarajevo. We can stop it right now, Mr. President. I plan to go to Bosnia and spend several days there at the end of this week and bring a story back for the American people. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have a very brief, 2-minute colloquy with Senator Helms.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator. I thank the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from North Carolina. I thank the Chair. I would like to have a chance to look at that. I think we all want to accomplish the same low cost and choice.

Mr. INHOFE. I say to Senator Helms, just briefly, there was a little evolutionary process that we went through with this amendment. I think the amendment is very good, and I am in support of the amendment. Initially the Senator had it that under a managed plan, if a person wanted to leave the managed plan in one area of specialty, there was a split between the additional costs, if there were additional costs, of 70-30 percent. My suggestion in talking with the Senator and with his staff was it might be a better idea if we had a managed plan that allowed the market to take care of that differential so that if an individual went into a managed plan and at a later date wanted to go to another specialist, that individual would pay the differential himself so that the patient would have the choice of any practitioner he wanted to use and yet the savings of the managed plan would be effected. My question would be, does the Senator think that perhaps this might avoid a duplication of all kinds of actuarial calculations, just to have one? And maybe we could talk about this or bring this up during the conference. Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico for yielding. I wanted to ask a question of the distinguished Senator from Arkansas when he was very eloquently expressing his position. He was unable to yield to me. What I was going to ask him is, I heard him state several times on the floor of this body the tax reductions that took place under the Reagan administration. There is a fact that has to be stated at this time, every time someone talks about that, and that is the total revenues for marginal rates in 1980 amounted to $244 billion; in 1990, from the marginal rates that had been decreased, the total tax amounted to $466 billion. In other words, we almost doubled the revenue during that 10-year period, and what happened during that period, as was pointed out by the Senator from Arkansas, is that we had the most significant tax reductions during that period of time. In other words, we increased revenue by reducing taxes, and that has gotten lost in this debate somehow. Then another observation I had after listening to the Senator from Arkansas was that those same individuals who are fighting the tax reduction that we are proposing in this resolution are the same ones that supported the largest tax increase in the history of America, as it was characterized by not a conservative Republican, Jim Inhofe, but by the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in 1993: The Clinton tax increase was the largest single tax increase in the history of America or the history of public finance. Who are the ones who voted for that? Those individuals who voted for that tax increase were the big spenders as ranked by the National Taxpayers Union, National Tax Limitation Committee and all of the other organizations that ranked big spenders in Congress. So you had the big spenders who were for a tax increase at that time. All we are trying to do is say, ``Mr. President, you made a mistake back in 1993 by passing a big tax increase. We want to repeal some of that tax increase.'' So the same individuals that are opposing our reduction in taxes now, to give some of the taxes back to individuals in America, are the ones who were supporting a major tax increase. The last thing I want to mention is that those individuals who in 1993 supported the huge tax increases, a very large percentage of them are not around to vote today because those who came up for reelection during the 1994 election, when that was the major issue in their campaign, were defeated. We have shown that with charts on the floor many times before. I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. INHOFE. Three minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. With this timeframe we are looking at now, it is so critical that we ignore the demagogs and those who are trying to ignore this problem. I suggest, as I did yesterday, that one of these newspapers which has always been pro-Democrat, as opposed to Republican, which has been liberal in their editorial policy, the Washington Post, had an editorial just the other day, September 15. This editorial is called ``Medagogues.'' In this editorial, they talk about how the Democrats are trying to draw a relationship between tax relief and balancing the budget. I suggest that anyone--and it has been suggested in some of these editorials, not this particular one, that if anyone was opposed to the tax increase of the Clinton administration of 1993--this is back when the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate and this was characterized as the largest single tax increase in the history of public finance in America or anyplace in the world, and that was not Jim Inhofe, a conservative Republican talking, that happened to be a Democrat on the floor of the Senate talking, that that was the largest single tax increase in 1993. What did they do? It was a tax increase on, among other people, the senior citizens, a 50-percent tax increase in Social Security, raising it from 50 to 80 percent. This is something the American people did not want. So I suggest to you, Mr. President, that if there is anyone out there, including Democrats or Republicans, who opposed that tax increase, they should be for tax relief now. Essentially all we are trying to do is repeal the damage that was done to the American people back in 1993. ``Medagogues'' is the name of the editorial: What the Democrats have instead is a lot of expostulation, TV ads and scare talk. They go on and on. But there isn't any evidence that they would ``lose their Medicare'' or lose their choice of doctor under the Republican plan. This is something that is very critical, because this is an important part of the bill that will be considered. Ten days later, they came out again, and I think this is the first time probably in the history of the Washington Post that they came out twice on the same subject taking the conservative side of an issue. The last two sentences of this editorial are: The Democrats have fabricated the Medicare-tax cut connection because it is useful politically. It allows them to attack and to duck responsibility, both at the same time. We think it's wrong. I want to conclude, because my time is almost up. I have to be very critical of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. They are flooding the airwaves throughout America with propaganda such as this one that says: ``Inhofe Feasts on Tax Cut for the Privileged While Children Go to Bed Hungry.'' Just the other day this was sent out to every newspaper in Oklahoma characterizing me as some kind of monster abusing the children, abusing the elderly. All we are trying to do is protect America for the next generation, my grandchildren, which, if we do not do it, will have to spend 82 percent of their lifetime income just to support this monstrous Government. So, Mr. President, this is what conservatives are going up against. This is the ridicule we have been subjected to. These are the slings and arrows that are happening to us. I can tell you right now, the American people understand the same as they understood they did not want our health care delivery system turned over to Government, they understand this is the last opportunity we are going to have in America to actually bring this budget under control and, in this case, to eliminate the deficit by the year 2002. I will conclude by quoting one of my favorite people, Churchill, who said: ``Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may rescind it, ignorance may deride it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.'' And the truth is going to come through. We are going to succeed in this effort. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I will not yield yet. We are on a timeframe. There are a couple things I want to cover first. The Senator will have an opportunity to have his 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. I hope that everyone is watching what is going on right now. I cannot tell you how long many of us have been working on the problem of the deficits in this country. And we are finally to a point where we can do something about it. It is hard for Americans to understand the obstacles that we are facing. There are those of us who really want to do something, really want to balance the budget, with the obstacles we face, and not just the things that are said that are not true, but the fact that I cannot help but believe there are some people who really do not care that much about balancing the budget. This goes back a long, long time. I can remember, Mr. President, U.S. Senator Carl Curtis from Nebraska. I saw the Senator from Nebraska a moment ago. I was hoping he would still be here when I talked about his home State. He came up with an idea way back in 1972. Carl Curtis said the only way we are ever going to get a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is to get something ratified in advance from the States to show that there is enough grassroots support to pass it. And so he devised this plan. He said, we are going to have the State senates and State legislatures throughout America pass and preratify an amendment to the Constitution so that will give us the power that is necessary and influence necessary to get this thing passed. He came to Oklahoma. I was in the State senate at that time. I remember back in 1972 the total national debt was something like $200 billion. And I remember a TV ad that they had to try to impress upon people to quantify how much money this really was. They had $100 bills that they stacked up and then finally it was up to the height of the Empire State Building, which was a tall building at that time. That was $200 billion. That was 1972. Well, anyway, I passed a resolution in the State senate of the State of Oklahoma to preratify it even though technically we know that would not work. And so he came in and we talked about it. That is how long we have been working on this. Now since that time in my own personal life we have had four children. Now they are all grown. Now we have grandchildren. We talked on the floor of this Senate as to the significance of the discussion that has taken place right now of the fact that we really have an opportunity to make a vote, to take a step that the CBO and everybody else says is going to balance the budget, is going to eliminate the deficit by the year 2002. Many of us would like to do it earlier than that. But we are satisfied in knowing that we cannot continue on the course that we are on. During the national prayer breakfast that took place in February of this year I had the honor of participating in that and of talking to many groups that came in from foreign countries. One was a gentleman who came in from one of the former Soviet Republics. I cannot recall the name of which one it was at this time. But they just recently found their freedoms in that country. He asked me a question in front of a group. This is during a national prayer breakfast discussion. He said, ``Senator Inhofe, in your country, how much can you keep?'' I said, ``No. I don't understand what you are saying.'' He said, ``How much money can you keep?'' Then after a little while I figured out what he was talking about. What he was really saying is how much do you have to give the Government in America? He was very proud to announce to us that under their new democracy, under their new freedom, that they are able to keep 20 percent. In other words, in that particular country, they turned around and had to give the government 80 percent of everything they earned on a periodic basis like every month or every 2 months. I do not remember the exact timeframe. And I thought, my goodness, he is so proud of this freedom. Then we looked at a study that no one has refuted, and no one in this Chamber today will refute it, that if we do not do something to change the course that we are on, that by the time someone who is born today, like my three grandchildren, during the course of their lifetimes, they will have to pay, not 80 percent, but 82 percent of their lifetime income just to support the Federal Government. Now, that is what we are looking at right now. That is why this is significant. That is why we are at a point we cannot say that we are just going to be business as usual. The elections of 1994 were very specific. They had mandates in those elections. All of the postelection surveys have indicated there are about four areas that people want in this country. First, they want less Government involvement in their lives; second, a stronger national defense; third, punishing criminals; and fourth, which actually came out first, they want to do something about eliminating the deficit, about starting to cut into reducing the debt. [[Page S 15330]] Now, obviously you cannot do that until you stop increasing the deficits. We have a program now, that will accomplish that by the year 2002. I yesterday took to the floor and talked about some of the new allies that those of us who really want to do something constructive about eliminating the deficit have, some new allies that are coming along. We are seeing right now responsible but liberal editorial boards throughout America are now saying, ``Look. We have heard enough of this lie that is being perpetrated by the leadership of the Democrats in both the House and the Senate, trying to draw a connection between tax relief and balancing the budget.'' And I suggest to you that the choice is not taking that amount of money that is going to be coming out in tax relief and putting it toward the deficit because we know if we are going to be honest with ourselves all that would do is go to more social programs which this administration wants. They do not want cuts. They do not want freezes. They do not want to control growth. They want to increase the social programs. They want business as usual. Mr. President, the times are changed now. This is not the way it would have been 2 years ago or 4 years ago or 6 years ago.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Finally, Mr. President, I feel confident that the American people are not going to buy into this lie. I know it is a very short message. I know the Democrats are rejoicing. They think they fooled the American people into thinking that the Republicans are going to cut Medicare in order to have tax cuts. There is no connection, as far as tax cuts are concerned. I hope that anyone in America that is looking at that and saying ``we do not want tax cuts'' will stop and remember what happened in 1993. In 1993, President Clinton came out with the largest single tax increase in the history of public finance in America or anyplace in the world. These are not the words of conservative Republican Jim Inhofe. These are the words of a Democrat on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I suggest to you that anybody who was opposed to that major tax increase that we did not need in 1993 ought to be supporting a tax cut. All we are trying to do is repeal a lot of the damage that was done to the American people in 1993. We may not be able to get by with this, until we change the personality in the White House. Nonetheless, we should not connect what we are trying to do to save Medicare with the fact that we would like to have tax relief for the American people--not the superrich, we are talking about the American people and child deductions and that sort of thing. I feel confident that we are going to be able to sell that message because it is right and honest. We are getting more and more support around the country from liberal editorial boards who are saying: ``That is enough; we are not going to perpetrate a lie on the American people such as the Democrat leadership is trying to perform.'' You know, it was Winston Churchill who said, ``Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may rescind it, ignorance may deride it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.'' [[Page S 15267]] I think we will find truth and truth will prevail. I yield the floor. Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been told, and we hear over and over again that we have lost the war on words on the Republican side and that this, what has now become known as the ``big lie'' around the country, is selling; that people are buying the idea that the Republicans are cutting Medicare and giving tax credits and tax relief for the very wealthy. Of course, this just is not true. I come here with a message of hope this morning, because I really believe that the American people will catch on. We are going to go through the same thing we went through a couple years ago when they were talking about socializing medicine. I am not nearly as distressed as other people are because we have time, time works in our favor, we have logic on our side, and we are seeing some things happening right now that I get really quite excited about. The other day, I picked up an editorial that was in the Washington Post. Mr. President, we are talking about the Washington Post now. This is not the Limbaugh Letter and this is not the Human Events, this is the Washington Post. Generally, the Washington Post is more liberal on their editorial outlook. If anything, they are more on the Democratic side than the Republican side. The editorial is called ``Meda- gogues.'' This is really a kind of neat article. The first paragraph says. I will paraphrase it: Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole accused the Democrats and their allies yesterday of conducting a campaign based on distortion and fear . . . They're right; that's precisely what the Democrats are doing--it's pretty much all they're doing--and it's-- A crummy idea. I ask unanimous consent to have this editorial, entitled ``Medagogues,'' printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this is what is going on around the country. I just feel very strongly that the people are not willing to buy this. I wish I had a blowup of it, but there is a cartoon that has been sent out, I guess, into all the districts by the Democrat senatorial committee that depicts us as individuals who are trying to cut taxes for the superrich and we are going to be cutting Medicare. The things are just outrageous. It says: ``Inhofe feasts on tax cuts for the privilege while children go to bed hungry.'' This is something that is, in my opinion, so extreme that the American people are not going to buy it. It was not long ago, just a little over a year ago, that the Democrats were trying at that time to sell to the American people a program where the Government would run the health care system and discard a health delivery system that has been the most successful system in the history of all nations, of all mankind, and it was one to adopt a program that was similar to what they have in Canada, or the age-old failure in Great Britain or the Scandinavian countries; and that is, all presume that the Government can run things better than the private sector. We were all so distressed at that time. Keep in mind this is just a year and a half ago. Even the American Medical Association bought a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal and said they were throwing in the towel, raising the white flag, ``We surrender.'' For a few crumbs, they were willing to give up this system and take Hillary's health care system, and that was only a year and a half ago. I had an experience a couple weeks ago that drove home to me what a great system we have now. I have a close friend, Mr. President. He is an ear, nose, and throat surgeon in Tulsa, OK, one that has a very, very fine reputation among his peers and nationwide. I was talking to him and shared with him in casual conversation, about 20 years ago, that I lost my sense of smell. He said, ``Come around sometime and I will examine you.'' I went in and he said, ``You need to have surgery.'' It is called endoscopic nasal surgery. It is a really yucky thing to talk about. But nonetheless, this is 2 weeks ago. Today, I am walking around and I have characterized this, Mr. President, as the most significant non- Christian experience that I have had or change in my life. I now have had this restored, and I have a sense of smell. This could not have happened in any other country, where you have a choice of practitioners to go to, you have the state of the art and a degree of professionalism that none of the other countries have. It happened to me. Now, a year and a half ago, we were willing to give that up. And now, if you surveyed the American people, they know that we are making changes, that we need to do something about medical malpractice. They know we are going to come up with medical savings accounts and improve the system we have now. But the Government is not going to take it over. Well, this is what we are going through right now. By the way, this is, I think, unprecedented for the Washington Post to do. They came out with another editorial, and this was on September 25, called ``Medagogues, Cont'd.'' I will read the last two sentences: The Democrats have fabricated the Medicare-tax cut connection because it is useful politically. It allows them to attack and to duck responsibility, both at the same time. We think it's wrong. Again, that is what the Washington Post said. I ask unanimous consent that at this point this editorial be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this afternoon we are going to be discussing some of the amendments to the current Job Corps Program. One of those amendments will be offered by Senators Specter and Simon in a bipartisan fashion. There is something that is unique about this program. I have had some personal experiences with the Job Corps Program formerly as mayor of the city of Tulsa. We were able to use the participants of this program in doing massive public works within our city. Somehow none of this ever shows up to the credit of the Job Corps Program. While I am the strongest supporter of virtually every element of the Contract With America, I do believe that there are some areas where we should give serious consideration to allowing a program to exist where it can breathe more freely across State lines, and this just might be the case as opposed to sending it in block grants back to the States. The construction industry is an industry that, First, is cyclical and, second, varies from State to State. One of the problems that exists right now in the construction industry is that it is very difficult to find young people who will go into the construction industry, into carpentry, into masonry, some of these areas where perhaps the future does not look as glamorous as it would in some type of highly skilled or high-technology position. As a result of that, many people do not choose this except when there is a building boom going on. One of the problems we have is that nationwide we could have a building boom in Pennsylvania and there could be a slump in Oklahoma. By the time you gear up to the boom in Pennsylvania, it could be in a slump again. Consequently, it has worked quite well to have these programs in a national scope where they do provide for a ready supply of skilled labor jobs, carpentry jobs, masonry jobs, and jobs that are critical to the building industry. It is my understanding that the Specter-Simon amendment will not be scored, and if that is the case I would urge some of my conservative colleagues to give serious consideration to supporting the Specter- Simon amendment. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may be recognized for 1 minute as in morning business.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we were very proud to present to all of America today Miss America, Shawntel Smith. She has requested that I submit her statement, which she made today on the lawn of the Capitol, for the Record. I ask unanimous consent at this time to have printed in the Record the statement by the new Miss America, and former Miss Oklahoma, Shawntel Smith.