Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the Senator from Nevada be generous enough to let us proceed with these technical matters for just a moment?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. If it is agreeable, an hour and 30 minutes equally divided.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. So they would wish to speak and perhaps to be heard. Very well. I do believe we are at a point where we may be reaching an agreement on tomorrow's schedule, Mr. President. Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from Nevada is on the floor. I yield the floor. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I insist that republican be with a small ``r,'' and at the time when Thomas Jefferson assumed to run the democratic Republican Party. But we will not get into that detail. I would simply indicate that it would be my disposition, absent any contrary information, to accept the amendment. If the Senator wishes a vote, of course that is his right. But I will defer to the Senator from Colorado in this regard.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It seems to me, precisely that. By constitutional proviso the Congress guarantees to the States a republican form of government. I am not sure whether this would fall under that admonition or injunction.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I thank the Senator from Colorado for offering this amendment which appears to this Senator, and I believe to most Senators on either side of the aisle, as appropriate, and necessary because there are principles involved. I am sure the Senator from Colorado agrees that constitutional government is a division of powers, and always contemplates that resources will be revenues. These are revenues to State governments that will be allocated in accordance with agreements in the legislative branch and the executive branch. That is the intent of the Senator's amendment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I have not prepared any remarks for this occasion, and I would be the first to assert that I am not especially prepared. Accordingly, to be brief, perhaps the more intense for that reason, to say that in 18 years that we have shared this committee, as the Senator from Rhode Island just said, they have been years of perfect trust between us and, on my part, profound admiration. And just a moment's good cheer. The Senator from Rhode Island will remember in those intense days leading up to the 1986 legislation, we would meet each morning in Senator Packwood's office about 7:30 for coffee and plan the day's strategy. If you would like to [[Page S 12801]] know something about the Tax Code as it then was, it fell to me each morning to read the service, as it were. I would find the previous day an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that said: ``Buy oxen, antelope''--I do not know-- ``cattle, llamas * * * guaranteed losses.'' And they would guarantee you losses and you could not but make money on the Tax Code. It was a scandal and the country knew it. It is all gone now--thanks to you, and thanks for so much else. There is just one line, perhaps of help in the years ahead, of Dr. Johnson, who said, ``How small, of all the ills that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cause or cure.'' This last spring Liz and I--your dear Liz--went to Ephesus, where John took Mary after the crucifixion. We saw Mary's house and the site where John is buried in a basilica. We saw where the Apostle Paul preached, and I can think of only his lines from I Corinthians: 13. ``Now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.'' The Greek--he was writing in Greek--was ``agape,'' and in English we translate it ``love.'' Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I think at this point we may have a few moments remaining, which I would like to reserve for some unanticipated purpose. Seeing no Senators on this side, I see the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the majority leader has very generously suggested we might have an additional 15 minutes for our side, and the Senator from Vermont is present and I give him as much of that time as he wishes.

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I will use each of those seconds to thank my incomparably learned and capable friend from Michigan who has so wonderfully guided us in legal matters through this Congress and who has spoken so wisely about welfare and who has spoken generously about the Senator from New York. Mr. President, if I have 5 remaining seconds, I will retain them for some unspecified purpose.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. No, we understood this would happen and it has happened.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. The Senator from Michigan is accordingly granted 12 minutes. We will have 45 seconds to wrap up. Is that agreeable?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I do not want to go around looking like an Easter procession here or something, but to my friend from California, that is the pen with which John F. Kennedy, in his last public bill-signing ceremony, October 31, 1963, signed the Community Mental Health Construction Act of 1963. We were going to build 2,000 community mental health centers by the year 1980 and 1 per 100,000 population afterwards. We built 400 and we forgot what we were doing. We emptied out the mental institutions. The next thing you know, the problem of the homeless appears. I was there. He gave me this pen. And we said, ``The homeless? Where did they come from? It was certainly nothing we did.'' It was exactly something we did. When you see those children sleeping on grates in 10 years time in your city, do not think it will not be recorded, thanks to the Senator from California, that you can see it coming. Somebody might keep the pen with which this bill is going to be signed, if in fact it is signed, for such an occasion. Mr. President, I thank, again, the Senator from California. I see the Senator from Michigan is on the floor. Would he like to speak? The Senator from Michigan asks 15 minutes. The Senator from Pennsylvania has nobody wishing to speak.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I express particular personal thanks to the Senator from California for her generosity in her remarks, and to make the case--just comment--that in the aftermath of the Family Support Act, we had considerable successes in places such as Riverside. And we also had a continued rise in the number of families headed by women. The CBO has done the best analysis you can do with these things, a regression analysis. It states the caseload increase from late 1989 to 1992, increases in the number of families headed by women explain just over half in the rise of the AFDC basic caseload. A quarter was the recession. I ask unanimous consent the analysis be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I see the able and learned Senator from California has risen. She has asked if she might have 12 minutes. She most certainly can, and I look forward to hearing from her.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. The Senator from Illinois can have as much time as he desires because he has so much to say and says it so well.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. In 5 minutes, the Senator from Illinois can say more than most of us do in 50. I am happy to yield him the time.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I congratulate the Senator from Minnesota not only for the substance of his remarks but for the elegant way in which last night's events in Baltimore were used as a metaphor for what it was about. Having in my youth watched Lou Gehrig at the Yankee Stadium, I had a certain ambivalence about it, but nothing like upward and onward. I will just say that regarding the substance of what is hoped for in welfare, there is a consensus, surprisingly, and it commences with the 1988 legislation, which redefines a widow's pension as a reality of this time. There is no agreement on how you finance--pay for--what needs doing. Yet, the Senator from Minnesota spoke very properly about the prospect of consensus and bipartisanship, and I hope we may yet find that. We have done it in the past; why not in the future? None speaks more ably and with more of a record in this regard than the Senator from Illinois. I see that he has risen. I believe he would like to address the Senate in this matter. I ask him how long he would like?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague on the Finance Committee and my friend from North Dakota for his very generous remarks. May I make the point that it was he who asked in the Finance Committee, how are you going to provide for the job training provisions in the majority measure, and the CBO simply said, ``You can't.'' It was a clear and concise statement of what we are up against and what we are going to do to ourselves if we do not come to our senses. I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I see my friend from Minnesota is here. Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Pennsylvania would like to have a dialog with the Senator from Connecticut. But just before he does, may I say I brought to the floor a pen with which John F. Kennedy, on October 31, 1963, signed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act of 1963. The Senator from Connecticut recognizes those pens. This was the last public bill signing of the Kennedy administration, and we set about emptying out our mental institutions. We said we were going to provide for the children, the young people and the older persons who left. We were going to provide community care. But we did not provide the wherewithal. We almost, for a while, forgot we had ever done it. It now seems to be lost with us entirely. We deal with the problem of the homeless as if it had no antecedent in our decisions. We are on the floor of the U.S. Senate making a vastly more important decision. There were a million, almost a million persons in mental institutions when this bill was signed. There are about 100,000 today. There are 14 million women and children on welfare--14 million. When they end up on the streets, I hope somebody will remember that it was foretold. I wonder. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank my friend from Florida, and I do particularly appreciate his reference to the Family Support Act, which never promised a rose garden. We said if you try hard, you will have something to show for it. Pensacola does. Thank you, Mr. President.