Jim Jeffords

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. I move to lay that motion on the table. [[Page S 14125]] The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, this is a technical amendment to bring the printed bill into compliance with the committee's recommendations and the tables in the back of the committee report. The amendment eliminates $70,000 that was not part of the committee's recommended amount. I believe this amendment has the support of the Democratic floor manager. I yield the floor.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, we have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I move to table the Dorgan amendment No. 2770, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the amendment. It is an effort to try to end some of the problems we have with young people who get in trouble in school and need some guidance and support. It helps, I think, to maintain discipline. I think it is worth a demonstration project, as the amendment provides, to see if in the city we can demonstrate alternatives to kids just being put out of school for disciplinary reasons and then just walking the streets and getting into trouble. So I think it is a good amendment.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I see no other speakers, so I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes action on S. 1244 that it be held at the desk, and that when the Senate receives the House bill making appropriations for the District of Columbia for the fiscal year 1996, that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1244 as passed by the Senate be inserted in lieu thereof; I further ask consent that the House bill as thus amended be immediately passed without any further debate, amendment, motion, or action of any kind, and the motion to reconsider the vote by which the bill is passed be laid upon the table; I further ask consent that the Senate insist on its amendment and request a conference with the House of Representatives thereon, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint the managers on that on the part of the Senate; finally, I ask unanimous consent that S. 1244 be indefinitely postponed.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, be authorized to meet during a session of the Senate on Friday, September 22, at 10 a.m., in Senate Hart Building, room 216, on the Ruby Ridge incident.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, September 22, 1995, to conduct a hearing on the Federal Reserve's semiannual report on monetary policy.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, not to extend beyond the hour of 2:20 p.m. today.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. JEFFORDS

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

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, there are few issues that bear more directly on the future of the globe, and on our own health and way of living, than population growth. If the world's population continues to grow at the current rate, our prosperity and the potential for prosperity in much of the developing world are at grave risk. And if we are slow in stepping up to the challenge of controlling population growth, then it just might be too late. Experience has proven that it does not take a lot of money to have a large effect upon population growth. However, it does take efficient programming, consistency, and a commitment for the long term. The U.S. Agency for International Development runs the premier bilateral family planning program, and UNFPA runs the largest and most effective multilateral program. I am troubled by certain aspects of this debate. For many years we have hashed over the issue of what kind of conditions we should place on organizations that receive U.S. population assistance. A majority of this body repeatedly spoke up in opposition to imposing stricter conditions upon family planning activities overseas than we impose on U.S. organizations receiving family planning funding at home. This policy seemed to be clearly in our best interest and was certainly the most effective way of supporting the best international family planning programs. We thought that debate had been settled. Yet here we are again. Mr. President, I do not think a lot has changed in the rest of the world since we last revisited this issue. Our family planning assistance is still urgently needed. UNFPA is still the premier international family planning organization. And it is still in our best interest to cooperate with those groups which are doing the best work. Imposing stringent conditions upon our assistance will merely undercut our own long-term goal--which is to prevent unchecked growth of the world's population from robbing all of us of the opportunity to give our children a better future. I yield the floor. [[Page S 14045]]

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that John F. Guerra, a Pearson fellow on my staff, be granted the privilege of the floor for the pendency of this legislation.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I will be brief, as I have to take the chair as soon as I can. Privilege of the Floor

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I will be brief. First, I will support the amendment of the Senator from Colorado, but I also will take a moment to commend the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] for the time and hard work he and his staff put into crafting this legislation. He has done a commendable job with a tough assignment: to reduce our expenditures on foreign aid by a significant amount without compromising national interests. I appreciate his willingness to work with all of the members of the subcommittee to craft a bill that meets the budget allocation and comes to the floor with a broad backing of both the Appropriations Committee and a majority of the foreign assistance community. Let us look at the big picture for a moment. We have committed ourselves to reducing the crippling Federal deficit, and failure to do so would irrevocably cripple our Nation and our economy for years to come. Yet, we must not blindly slash spending across the board. We must carefully review our priorities and assign our limited funds accordingly. I have been arguing for some time that education must be one of our top priorities. Spending on education is only about 3 percent of the entire Federal budget. Yet, if we do not prepare our children for the future, we will be unable to maintain our standard of living. I am concerned that the quality of our educational system is falling behind that of our major international competitors, and if this trend continues, we will find ourselves severely handicapped in our efforts to maintain a position of economic leadership and our standard of living. The other very small, yet very important, area of Federal spending is foreign aid. While many Americans think we spend about 15 percent of our budget on foreign aid, in truth foreign aid comprises only 1 percent of the budget. And this small investment is being cut in this bill by almost 10 percent. Foreign aid is doing its share in contributing to deficit reduction. Yet, there is a danger in cutting these accounts too deeply. Much of this funding goes to meeting basic human needs abroad and to empower people to take control of their own development. If we do not make a modest contribution to the efforts of certain less developed nations to get their societies and economies on the right track, then we will lose out as these markets open to foreign business. If we do not increase our exports, we will not be able to maintain our standard of living. It is that simple. Let me touch briefly on a few of the concerns I have with the bill. I am confident that the chairman and the ranking member will continue to work with me and other Members to address the [[Page S 13952]] issues as we move through the process. While I am appreciative of the efforts that have been made to increase the funding for international organizations and programs account, more needs to be done. The funding is highly leveraged in most cases by funding matches from many other countries that share these development and environmental priorities. I hope we can address this issue further as we move through this process. Otherwise, I worry that we may jeopardize the very good work done by many international organizations, including those ably led by Americans. Let me mention the consolidation of the development assistance and economic support fund into a single assistance account. That dissolves the well-established separation between those two distinct aspects of U.S. economic aid. I am worried this change makes developmental assistance vulnerable, especially in the event of emergencies, to short-term pressures at the expense of long-term goals. I understand the chairman's reasons for including both the development fund for Africa and the child's survival program in the new bilateral economic assistance account. However, I trust that as we move through the process, every effort will be made to protect these programs from any further reductions. It is critical that the funding for these neediest individuals and the neediest continent be preserved. The cut of $28 million below the administration's request for voluntary funding for the peacekeeping account is also of concern. International peacekeeping is a great way of leveraging our defense expenditures and reducing the exposure of our troops, while helping to resolve conflicts of direct concern to us. It is one of the most cost- effective methods of increasing capabilities while sharing the burden in situations that demand our attention. Mr. President, I want to again commend the Senator from Colorado for raising and discussing very eloquently this very difficult and important amendment. I also again want to commend both the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee for their efforts in crafting a bill under extremely difficult circumstances. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. I yield the balance of my time to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I offered this amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Simpson, Senator Snowe and, I believe, Senator Chafee. I have not had time to gather others who, I am sure, want to cosponsor it. This is an important amendment. I hope that my colleagues will listen carefully to what this does. It is an amendment with all the good intentions in the world and something that we all believe in--that we should reduce the out-of-wedlock births. It hopes to do this by giving an incentive to States to do things to try and reduce it and be rewarded if they are successful. What it does is says we shall carefully--keep track of what I say--set as a baseline the year 1995, and we will draw the baseline for each State on the number of abortions which were performed in that State and also the number of out-of- wedlock births that occur during that period of time. That might be well, but I would have to point out that such statistics do not exist in any valid form. So we will be establishing a baseline, first of all, that really we do not have any idea whether it is valid or not. Then it says that if you reduce your out-of-wedlock births by 1 percent and you do not increase your abortions, then you will be rewarded with a 5-percent increase in the amount of money you receive across the board for welfare. If you do it by 2 percent, you will get a 10 percent. That may sound good, too, but remember, to start with we do not have any baseline that we have any accuracy with. What it does is also create an incentive for the States to find all sorts of things to do in order to try and get below that. CBO scores it at a cost of $75 million over 7 years. In their view, nothing will happen, basically, because if it is successful, the cost will be $1.6 billion a year--$1.6 billion a year for which there is no appropriation; so it will come out of something else because it is an entitlement. I point out that both the pro-life groups, if not all of them, but also pro-choice groups are opposed to this amendment for many different reasons. First of all, since we have no baseline, it is going to be difficult to know as to whether or not anything happened. Second, since it refers only to in-State abortions and in-State out-of-wedlock births, that does not include those that go across the border. So you open up serious problems with respect to manipulation of statistics. There is no reporting process now for abortion. There is no definition of what an abortion is in the bill. What is an abortion? Is it an IUD? Is it a D and C? What is it? We do not know. The statistics are all over the place. The States will see that goal out there--and keep in mind that if it is totally successful, it will cost $1.6 billion a year and we will only reduce the out-of-wedlock births by 2 percent over the whole period of time. If you are successful the first year and you stay at that level below the baseline, you pick up this thing for the whole 7 years, the 5 years of the bill and accomplish nothing more. And, I point out, you have letters given to you from the Catholic Charities, who are very much against this. They think it will increase the number of abortions. The pro-choice have looked at this as an intervention into privacy. Also, it includes not just welfare individuals; it includes all of your population. This means you will have to report out-of-wedlock births from every family that has that occur. These things are really disruptive. I hope that we will defeat this provision of the bill. I ask for support of my amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. We all know that out-of-wedlock birth rates show a strong correlation with the rate of welfare dependency. If there are more children born to single parents, there will be more need for State and Federal assistance. That is part of why we are so concerned. But rather than try to constructively work toward lower out-of-wedlock birth rates, this ratio seems completely backward. Mr. President, I also understand, as well as reading the letter from the Catholic Charities, that the Catholic bishops oppose a similar provision in the House. They are concerned, as I am, that rather than effecting positive behavior change by decreasing out-of-wedlock pregnancies, this new entitlement would encourage out-of-wedlock and out-of-State--I emphasize that for your memory later on when we talk about how these things are worked--out-of-State abortions. And I would also add that this may well mean back-room abortions or some of those that we will not be able in any way to take note of in the requirement for statistics here. Because States do not qualify for the funds by showing an increase in their in-State abortion rates, there are a few ways to influence those numbers. The most obvious is underreporting. According to the Centers for Disease Control, several States currently have inaccurate, incomplete, or even completely estimated abortion rates. I think California is one of those. So here we are going to establish a baseline which will be used for the length of the bill that will allow States to collect on figures that are totally or may be totally inaccurate. As we might expect, it is difficult to encourage, particularly without a mandate to report, complete reporting of abortions. We will be looking at situations which will already be in being which have had no reporting requirements. That is, that we use a base year of the year 1995, which is almost over with and will be by the time all of this gets into being. So we are setting up a base year here for which we have no reliable statistics whatsoever and using that to determine an entitlement program. Women who receive abortions want to maintain their confidentiality, and abortion providers, particularly in the face of recent violence, may want to [[Page S 13535]] maintain their anonymity. So the current numbers are not accurate. We have no adequate baseline to compare to, and we have no uniform reporting system in place. If we mandate reporting without providing significant funds for the States to do this, we will be sending an unfunded mandate to the States. Another way to influence these statistics would be to toughen State requirements for obtaining an abortion. In some States--this is important to remember--in some States as many as 40 percent or more of their in-State abortion rates are from people who reside outside the State. So if you know you are going to maybe get millions or hundreds of millions of dollars here by getting abortions performed across the borders, there is going to be tremendous incentive to accomplish that. Making abortions more difficult to obtain could obviously help to lower the abortion rate. This provision would offer a cash incentive to States for tougher abortion laws possibly resulting in unreported abortions or more abortions out of State or more abortions under improper conditions. All in all, accurate abortion statistics will be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. We must struggle with what constitutes an abortion or an induced pregnancy termination. Does the so-called morning-after pill count? What about a routine D & C that may or may not have involved a pregnancy? How will we know if women take a large enough dose of oral contraceptives to induce menstruation? It is an off-label use but expels any pregnancy that may be there and induces menstruation. How are we going to count those? Are we going to require women to report that? There is currently no standard definition, nor accurate or agreed- upon reporting procedure, especially for what we will have to use as the baseline year. Currently, States define their terms and define how they report. Some States only report hospital procedures, and public health officials extrapolate the other numbers. In the case of at least one State, the most recent figures available are completely estimated and are not based upon any report. States that currently report high numbers or broadly drawn definitions stand to gain, while States that have been underreporting will have no alternatives but to continue. We are setting up something here which was well-intentioned I am sure, but is so open to manipulation or intrusion into the personal lives of people that I cannot believe it can be supported by anyone that has examined it, notwithstanding the wonderful intentions. Mr. President, I believe this new entitlement is illogical and unwieldy. It could potentially cost quite a bit of money, but the criteria for qualification are unclear and difficult to quantify accurately. In this provision, we are attempting the very kind of social engineering that we have railed against and tried to prevent. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to strike this illegitimacy ratio. As I said earlier, I know it was well-intentioned, and I would be willing to work with those who are behind it to see if there are other ways that we could reduce teenage pregnancies in particular. I know that from studies that show there are many things that we could do and also enhance our educational system by increasing the school days and more child care, all the kinds of things that can try to bring about the kind of society that does not seem to promote or to enhance the ability for young people to have pregnancies out of wedlock. Mr. President, I am ready to yield the floor. I do not see anyone present at this time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I am here to try and undo what I think is a very unfortunate area of the bill which attempts to do something which we would all agree with, and that is to reduce the number of illegitimate child births in this country and to hopefully reduce the number of abortions. I think it was one certainly sponsored with all the hopes and dreams of being able to do that. However, I oppose it because I find that it would be most counterproductive and would result in an entitlement being created which would in effect not establish any policy that will really accomplish the goals for which it was conceived. Thus, I have sponsored an amendment to strike the so-called illegitimacy ratio from the welfare bill. Last night, we heard from Senator Domenici and others about how conservative social engineering is no better than liberal social engineering. We all know that Federal strings often do [[Page S 13534]] not produce the desired behavior modification and can even produce unintended negative results. I hope my colleagues will join me in my opposition on those grounds. Throughout this debate, we have discussed frequently the importance of ending entitlements. It may surprise some of my colleagues to learn that this provision creates a new entitlement and will be funded by the terms ``such sums as necessary.'' Now, CBO has scored the costs at $75 million over the 7 years. I think their estimate may well be very, very conservative. Because of the way I read the provision, I calculate this new entitlement could cost as much as $1.6 billion per year by the year 2000, if all our States reduce their out-of-wedlock birth rates without reporting higher abortion rates. This gives me pause, especially for reasons I will outline about unreliable statistics. But let me point out also just to verify that figure, which may seem to be outlandish to start with, the reason for that is that all you have to do is one time go below the 1995 base, and for the rest of the period, providing you do not go back up, you will get this bonus which is in it. And if each State does that, we will have the figure I gave you of about $1.6 billion per year. The provision entitles States whose proportion of in-State--I emphasize ``in-State''--out-of-wedlock birth rates have decreased without an increase in their State abortion rates to either an additional 5 percent of their block grant if the birth rate has decreased by 1 percent or 10 percent if the birth rate decreases by 2 percent or more. And it only has to do it once providing it stays below the baseline. So if a State's out-of-wedlock births decrease as a proportion of their total births, they can receive as much as 10 percent more than their base cash assistance and child care block grant. I do not understand why we want to create a new entitlement, especially for States that need the dollars less. In other words, if you have decreased your problem, you end up with more money for perhaps as much as the term of the whole bill, of our period which we are covering here on the budget. We all know that out-of-wedlock birth rates show a strong acceleration with the rate of welfare dependency. If there are more children born to single parents, there will be more need for State and Federal assistance. And that is part of why we are so concerned. But rather than try to construct, actively work toward, lower out-of- wedlock birthrates, this ratio seems completely backward since it sends more money to States that need it less. And States that for whatever reason experience higher out-of-wedlock birthrates and need it more, they cannot tap into the newly created entitlement. Mr. President, I have here a letter from Catholic Charities USA in opposition to this illegitimacy ratio. There are some who tried to get this into the pro-life, pro-choice area here. I would just point out-- and I will read this letter now into the Record because I think it is so helpful in letting everyone know that this is a group which obviously is a pro-life group. This is addressed to Senator Dole. Dear Senator Dole: Catholic Charities USA is deeply concerned about the proposed illegitimacy ratio bonus being put forward as part of welfare reform legislation in the current Congress. The proposal is another speculative venture being imposed upon the entire country and its poorest families without test, trial, or experiment. Our fear is that State governments, in a time of drastic funding cuts and escalating human need, will resort to the family cap, teenage mother exclusions, and other drastic measures, all in the illusive hope of garnering additional millions of dollars of funding. (The funding itself will have to be cut from other needed programs or services in our zero- sum budget situation.) I would emphasize that. There is no provision for the funding in this bill. It will have to come from existing sources otherwise, and it is an entitlement, meaning that it must come. I will continue with the letter. Those measures, while as yet unproven to cut birth rates, are far more likely to produce increased abortions, as the failed New Jersey family cap experiment already has shown, and to hurt poor children and families. And the proposed illegitimacy ratio bonus contains no penalty for increasing abortion rates in States which experiment with the lives and well-being of their poorest families. No church community has been as vigorous as our own in support of human life or of sexual abstinence outside of marriage. And no community has as broad experience as our own in Catholic Charities in working with women who are pregnant and unmarried and with their children. We urge you to remove the proposed illegitimacy ratio from the pending legislation in the interest of sound family policy. Signed by Father Fred Kammer, president of Catholic Charities USA. I ask unanimous consent that letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I ask to call up amendment 2581 for immediate consideration.