Herb Kohl

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KOHL. I yielded back my time. Vote on Amendment No. 2550

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I would like to emphasize to my colleagues that the House, which passed a very small welfare reform bill, which in many respects is really good, took a look at food stamps. They decided that the country could not afford, from a humanitarian and social point of view, to block grant food stamps at all. Now we have decided we should block grant food stamps. I agree that for the population that we are attempting to move from welfare into work we should block grant food stamps and be very different how we parcel out food stamps. But when we talk about children, the disabled, and the elderly, to block grant food stamps, it seems to me, is not what welfare reform is all about and not what we are trying to accomplish here. And that is why I am arguing that this population should be exempt from having their food stamps block granted and ultimately rationed out to them when that is not the intention of what this welfare reform bill is to accomplish.

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent at this time that Senator Leahy be added as an original cosponsor to this amendment No. 2550.

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, we should not need to debate this amendment for very long. It is straightforward. This amendment would exempt the food stamp benefits that go to children, the elderly and disabled from the optional State block grant program set up in the bill. I want to emphasize to my colleagues that the House in its welfare reform bill did not choose to block grant food stamps at all. The argument for this amendment is simple. If it is not broke, do not fix it. Welfare is broke, financially and philosophically, but by ``welfare,'' what we have always meant are the federally driven programs that pay benefits to able-bodied adults who are not working. Most of us and most Americans want to see the welfare programs redesigned to emphasize moving recipients to work rather than paying them to stay home. And many of us believe that such work-based welfare programs can best be managed at the State and local level where officials understand the local economy and the specific needs of those in the community who are without jobs. But Federal nutrition programs that serve the elderly, the disabled and children are not broken. In all the meetings that I have held throughout Wisconsin on welfare reform, no one has complained to me about Federal programs that have provided a hot meal to elderly retirees or a school lunch to children. No one has suggested that we ought to make these populations work for their food stamps. So we should not lump food stamps to the elderly, disabled and the children in with the welfare programs that so many Americans want ended. In ending welfare as we know it, we should not end successful nutrition programs that keep our children, the disabled, and the elderly from going hungry. This amendment would still leave States with the ability to take as a block grant food stamps and money that go to adults that can and should work. However, children, the elderly, and the disabled would retain the assurance that nutritional assistance and Federal nutrition standards will be there when they are needed. And, again, I want to remind my colleagues that the House did not block grant food stamps at all. This amendment has been endorsed by the Children's Defense Fund, the Food Research & Action Center, and Bread for the World. I ask unanimous consent that letters I have in support from these antihunger groups be printed in the Record.

Mr. KOHL. So, Mr. President, I urge the Senate to support this change to guarantee that children, the elderly, and the disabled do not go hungry. I urge my colleagues to support the Kohl-Leahy amendment. I thank the President. Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure to announce that this year the 17th annual Frank Mots Memorial Kite Festival will be held on September 16 in Milwaukee, WI. Kite flying is one of the most beautiful and relaxing hobbies around. Many of us can still remember when we were children, building our first kite and watching with excitement as it became airborne. Today children of all ages can experience this thrill again during the Kite Society of Wisconsin Week, which will take place the week of September 11-17. Frank Mots was a kite flying enthusiast, and it was in his memory that the Kite Society of Milwaukee was created in 1976. The festival that bears his name was founded in 1978 and has drawn people from around the country every year. I invite everyone to celebrate this event on September 16 and take some time out to enjoy the simple pleasures of kite flying. The Frank Mots Memorial Kite Festival has something for everyone, and I am proud of the kite society's accomplishments.

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of this amendment to try yet again to cut a cold war relic located in Wisconsin: the Extremely Low Frequency or ELF system. I thank my colleague from Alaska for his willingness to offer this amendment. It is astonishing to me that we must continue to come forward to offer up this program for the chopping block. We are well aware that this may have a negative impact in our state, but we are willing to make the tough decision to eliminate a program we no longer need and can no longer afford. If we truly want to reduce the deficit, we must start somewhere and make the necessary cuts. As Senator Feingold has detailed, ELF contributes little to our national security. All it can do is signal submarines to come to the surface, thus, it is not a particularly useful or effective communications system. Even if one could make the case that it might have some strategic value down the road--something I sincerely doubt--it is such a cumbersome obvious system that it would be an easy target. I cannot support putting citizens of the region at risk for no good reason. Earlier this year, the Senate passed a Defense supplemental bill which eliminated the ELF program. However, during the conference on the Defense supplemental, the Senate position to eliminate ELF was defeated. During the conference, the House brandished new and classified information from an eleventh hour Navy briefing that supposedly revealed that ELF is essential to our national security. When the defense supplemental came back from conference, Senator Feingold and I decided not to go forward with a planned amendment to cut the program and he sought this highly classified briefing by the Navy. To our surprise, the Navy said that it had no highly classified briefing on ELF. Perhaps there was some confusion, they said, and opponents of cutting ELF were confusing it with EHF? Mr. President, the Navy has to do better than this. Last minute secret justifications for creaky low technology projects are just not enough to justify millions of dollars in spending. I am certain that my colleagues in the Senate will agree. Our amendment mothballs the ELF system so that it could be started up again if necessary. We don't think it ever will be necessary, but this amendment should address the concerns of our colleagues who take a more cautious approach to these matters. Mr. President, I urge the Senate to cut this program in our state of Wisconsin. It is not often that Senators try to kill a $12 million program in their own state, and I want to commend my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, for his work on this issue. The Senate has cut ELF before. I urge my colleagues to do so again.

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, in previous years, the report accompanying the Interior appropriations bill has stressed the importance of funding for the National Trails System within the National Park Service budget. Although no such language is included in the fiscal year 1996 report, would the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee agree that the National Park Service should continue to place a high level of importance on funding for the National Trails System?

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, my amendment seeks to improve the provisions relating to restoration advisory boards by helping them to acquire independent technical assistance. These boards are a crucial way of getting the community around a Defense Department cleanup site involved in the process. For these local groups to feel confident that the Department of Defense is adequately cleaning up these sites, they may need to rely on outside sources of information and analysis. Many times communities are unwilling to accept the Government's claim that they have done the job adequately, and want an external source to help them consider the data. The provisions in this amendment will make sure that they have access to the administrative and independent technical support they seek. I ask unanimous consent that a letter I received from Gary Vest, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security be printed in the Record.

Mr. KOHL

Mr. KOHL. Would the Senator like to use a few minutes on his side?

Mr. KOHL. I will yield some time to the other side if they wish to speak. How much time do we have left?

Mr. KOHL. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his powerful statement, which lends tremendous credibility and impetus to this amendment. I appreciate his coming to the floor and appreciate his speaking in its behalf.

Mr. KOHL. I yield to the Senator from Maine, Senator Cohen. Amendment No. 2118 (Purpose: To reform the management and procurement of information technology for the Government)

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his thoughtful and balanced comments. It is not unusual because that has been the hallmark of his service in the Senate for several years. How much time is left on our side?

Mr. KOHL. I thank Senator Lautenberg for his outstanding comments. We appreciate them very much. I would like to yield 1 minute to a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, the Senator from Nebraska, [Mr. Exon].

Mr. KOHL. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I would like to yield 4 minutes to the fine Senator from Colorado, Senator Brown.

Mr. KOHL. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Grassley].

Mr. KOHL. I thank the Senator from Minnesota. I would like to ask my coauthor and colleague of this amendment, Senator Grassley from Iowa, how many minutes he would like to take initially, 8 or 10?

Mr. KOHL. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone].

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, how much time does this side have?

Mr. KOHL. I thank the Senator from New Jersey. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, my amendment is very simple. It limits the spending in the bill before us to the level in the Senate's version of the budget resolution: $257.7 billion. On May 23, 1995, in a strong bipartisan vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to the budget resolution which would have increased defense spending above the level requested by the administration. Sixty Senators voted against that amendment to increase defense spending. Unless they have changed their minds, the same 60 Senators should support this amendment. It offers another chance for the Senate to support the defense spending level laid out in the Senate's budget resolution and to save $7 billion in defense spending. I also want to remind my colleagues that the defense spending number supported by opponents of this amendment represents an increase in defense spending over last year's spending level. We are spending far too much on defense. We are not at war. We are coming off the defense buildup of the 1980's. The United States defense budget is larger than the combined military expenditures in the next nine largest military budgets, and our defense budget is 3.5 times larger than that of the next biggest spender, Russia. How can we possibly justify these exorbitant spending levels to the American people? How do we explain to them this hemorrhaging of taxpayer dollars? At a time when we are cutting programs for the poor, for students, for seniors--how can we justify giving the military money it has not asked for. This is not a question of national security; there is no major power threatening America. This is not a question of readiness, because most of the increase in spending is not to train troops, it is to pay defense contractors for more military hardware. The question is, do we need an extra $7 billion in this bill that the Defense Department says it does not want or does not need? The President increased the defense budget by $6.9 billion before he sent up his fiscal year 1996 budget request to respond to some perceived shortfalls in readiness, and, perhaps, to head off defense spending increases ahead. Yet, in a move unprecedented in the last 14 years, the fiscal year 1996 defense authorization bill increases defense spending even more, $7 billion above the administration's request. And, I should note, none of the $7 billion went to pay for ongoing military operations in and around Iraq, Cuba, and Bosnia even though Secretary Perry had made an urgent request for funds to cover these contingency operations. The decision not to fund these operations puts even more pressure on the operations and maintenance accounts and raises the question of how serious the Armed Services Committee is in addressing the readiness issue. Again, I want to emphasize: A majority of this body--60 Senators--has already gone on record supporting $257.7 billion for Defense. And that is what this amendment would do. Let me lay out some of the reasons why we should support this amendment. First, this defense bill, with its huge spending levels, is reminiscent of the cold war. Our defense infrastructure looks remarkably similar to what was created to stand up to the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies. Even though we all agree that they no longer pose the same threat to our national security, we have not found a way to reduce the tremendous burden defense spending places on our country. While the Soviet Union constituted the main security threat to the United States throughout the cold war, present-day Russia is a shadow of its former military might. Look at the Russian military's recent performance in Chechnya. The breakup of the Soviet Union has deprived the Russians of military forces and defense production capacity. Even if an authoritarian regime took over, readiness has eroded so much as a result of deep budget cuts that it would take decades to recreate that threat. The greatest threats we face today are less likely to be resolved with military force, and more likely to be resolved through political or diplomatic intervention. To be sure, we need a strong defense. We need to develop a strategy, and maintain a force structure, to protect and advance our interests in the new global environment. The difficulty is recognizing that our present infrastructure may not be relevant to the challenges ahead. If we could start over again, and create a new force structure from scratch, I am confident that we would have a leaner, more mobile and more efficient force at far less cost. Even working with our present defense budget, CBO and others have identified options to cut defense spending which could bring spending down as low as $150 billion by the year 2000. But this amendment is not about making deep cuts in defense spending. This amendment would make a very modest cut of $7 billion from the $264.7 billion authorization bill before us, and bring us back to the spending level that 60 Senators supported just 3 months ago. Mr. President, there are many weapons systems in this bill that are obsolete. Although much lip service has been paid to the need for a new approach to national defense, little has changed in the last decade. Many of the weapons systems in the pipeline today were conceived during the defense build up of the 1980's, and will do little to address the threats of the post-cold-war world. There are countless big-ticket programs, with dubious rationales for their continued existence, that refuse to die. It is time for the Senate to recognize that we must stop buying weapons systems we no longer need and can no longer afford. I believe that when it comes to defense, we are not making the tough decisions to reduce the budget deficit. If we truly intend to reduce the deficit, no area of the budget should be held harmless. The defense budget is no exception. We have not made exceptions for other areas of the budget that contribute as much to the long term security and well being of this Nation as does defense. In this era of deep and painful budget cuts, hitting many Americans hard, the bill before us today increases defense spending above what the Pentagon has indicated it needs and above last year's spending levels. Let me repeat, we are increasing defense spending this year at a time when everything else is being cut: education, health care, environmental protection, Medicare, Medicaid, low-income energy assistance, job training, childcare and child nutrition, highway funding, cancer research, elderly housing assistance, farm programs--everything else, but not defense. Now there are those who will argue that there are defense budget cuts planned for later years. However, I do not believe we will make those cuts because many of the proposed increases we have before us today are devoted to new procurement, and new research and development projects, which lay the groundwork for increased spending down the road. If we do not stop this spending now, we will have unleashed even more projects that will refuse to die. The Armed Services Committee report acknowledges this: let me read from page 3: The committee remains concerned about the adequacy of funding levels for national defense programs in the coming years. Despite the recommended fiscal year 1996 funding increase of $7.0 billion above the adminstration request, budget levels proposed for future years do not adequately [[Page S 11394]] fund even the level of forces required for the Bottom-Up Review Force. These levels cannot meet modernization needs and do not cover inflation. This shortfall will seriously impair the ability of the Department of Defense to field the ready, modern forces essential to our national security. The limited progress reflected in this bill cannot be maintained unless future funding is increased. Mr. President, there it is in black and white; the Armed Services Committee wants to spend more for defense. We cannot sustain the spending levels and the increased procurement in this budget unless we spend more for defense down the road. Experts on all ends of the spectrum agree on this point. Thus, a vote for increased spending this year is also a vote to increase spending next year, and the year after, and so on. Mr. President, let me be clear, our amendment is not about any specific weapon system or any particular defense program. I know that there are colleagues who would like an amendment to target specific programs. But that is not the point of this amendment. Our amendment is about how much we should be spending on defense overall. This Senate agreed to spend $257.7 billion on defense just 3 months ago. In affirming that number today, this amendment is not an attack on defense spending. This amendment is about the amount of defense spending the Senate agreed was an acceptable level, which the present defense authorization bill increases by $7 billion. And so I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment, and for a more responsible level of defense spending. Mr. BRADLEY addressed the Chair.

Mr. KOHL. addressed the Chair.

Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Grassley and ask for its immediate consideration.