Paul Simon

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, 1 year ago, as part of the National Performance Review, the administration announced that the Office of Personnel Management [OPM] would privatize its investigative branch, the Office of Federal Investigations [OFI]. The Treasury and Postal Service conference report directs OPM not to implement a reduction in force before March 31, 1996, in order to allow the GAO to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. OPM is prepared to initiate an employee stock ownership plan [ESOP], which would have a sole source contract with OPM for the first 2 to 3 years, after which contracts would be offered to private firms. I am very concerned that privatization is not the best approach in this important area. Today I offer legislation that would prevent immediate privatization of this extremely important Government function. For over 40 years, the OFI has been responsible for conducting background investigations for potential employees of various agencies within the Federal Government, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, and the Treasury Department. Overall, OFI conducts about 40 percent of all Federal background investigations for positions ranging from bureaucratic responsibilities to high-ranking positions requiring substantial security clearances. In my view, shifting this responsibility to the private sector raises a host of extremely important questions which must be addressed before the decision to privatize is made. First, we must ensure that our national security is not in any way jeopardized by a move to privatization. Currently, OFI does background checks on individuals that will ultimately have access to top secret information, including weapons systems and nuclear energy data. We need to ask ourselves if this is the type of information that we want a private investigator to have access to. If the answer is ``yes,'' certainly we need to carefully review the safeguards needed to ensure that our national interests remain secure. The ability of private firms to maintain the privacy of sensitive records is another area that needs to be looked at closely. A private contractor would potentially have the ability to amass large quantities of information on Government employees. Although OPM has suggested that they would have the ability to keep records private, I have not heard specific measures that could be taken to guarantee this. Serious study must be given to what measures can and should be taken to protect privacy. We must also ensure that quality investigations will continue to be conducted. The Federal Government currently uses private investigators for a very small fraction of background checks. The only experience with private investigators on a large scale produced numerous investigations that were not up to standard, or, even in a fraction of cases, were falsified. This must not happen again. What safeguards can and should OPM put in place to ensure that quality is maintained? We must be certain that quality can be maintained before we make the decision to privatize. It is also important to ask ourselves if private investigators will be able to provide the best available information to Government agencies. Will they have difficulty obtaining vital information from law enforcement officials? In a preliminary study, the General Accounting Office [GAO] determined that law enforcement officials may be reluctant to give out sensitive information to private investigators. This issue deserves further study. I have asked the GAO, as part of their ongoing cost-benefit analysis, to address my concerns and report their findings to me before the end of January, 1996. In addition, I sent a letter to a number of Federal agencies asking for their input on the effect of privatization. In response to my inquiry, I was told that privatization could cause disruptions to operations and that the quality of investigations could suffer. I urge my colleagues to think carefully about the negative impact that may be created by privatization. My comments are not meant to imply that private contractors cannot perform top quality investigations while also ensuring privacy and protecting our national security. It is certainly conceivable that they could. However, before this decision is made, we must be sure that adequate study of the potential impact has been conducted. The legislation I offer today would prevent privatization from occurring for 2 years, during which time OFI would be prohibited from reducing its number of full-time employees. In addition, the bill would require OPM and the GAO to issue a comprehensive report detailing the likely effect of privatization on all of the issues that I have addressed. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. While I certainly support the goals of the Clinton administration's National Performance Review, and applaud efforts to eliminate Government waste, Federal investigators employed by the government have served all of us extremely well, and we should proceed with great caution before changing this role.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, there are really three alternatives. If my colleague is correct about not having a quorum, they can accept it by voice vote. That is not unprecedented. No. 2, it could come back here and we could decide in desperation we can take this off. And No. 3, we can decide we are going to have a continuing resolution by voice vote for another 5 days while we get this worked out. We do not need to supinely say, whatever the House decides we are going to have to do. I have never known the Senate to do that on any consistent basis.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, in his State of the Union Address, President Clinton made a reference to the successful effort to streamline the college student loan process and make repayment easier. Some of my colleagues may be surprised to learn that much of the credit for these improvements should go to a conservative Republican from Wisconsin, Representative Tom Petri. He developed one of the earliest models for a direct loan program and for income-contingent repayment, and he has been a consistent proponent over the years. Earlier this month, Congressman Petri appealed to fellow conservatives to help save the direct loan program, which has come under attack by banks and agencies that do not want to lose their Government-guaranteed income. I urge my colleagues to read Mr. Petri's article which appeared in the Washington Times on January 9. I ask that the article be printed in the Record. The article follows: Student Loans: Direct Lending vs. Special Pleas (By Thomas E. Petri) How's this for a switch? The Clinton administration stands firm for private enterprise and competition, against Republican attempts to stomp out a successful competitor and perpetuate an inefficient monopoly. That's exactly what's occurring in the ongoing student loan debate. Administration officials accuse congressional Republicans of caving in to loan-industry lobbyists by eviscerating the Direct Student Loan program. And on this issue, the administration actually occupies the conservative high ground. The loan industry (banks, secondary markets and guaranty agencies) wants to protect its lucrative, fraud-infested, no- risk student loan program from any meaningful competition. It's losing in the marketplace; so it mounted a multi- million-dollar lobbying campaign this year to persuade Congress to eliminate direct student loans. By casting the debate in simple, ideological terms, the loan lobbyists have won some allies. they've equated the Department of Education's Direct Student Loan (DSL) program with Big Government--and they've successfully portrayed it as a Clinton initiative. That guarantees enmity from conservative Republicans. Unfortunately, it's a hoax. One creator of the DSL program was a Republican with solid fiscal conservative credentials-- me. It was developed not by the reviled liberal Clinton, but by the Bush administration. And there is far more free enterprise in DSL--and less bureaucracy--than in the bloated Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) program. I dislike the term ``corporate welfare,'' but if any program deserves that title, it's guaranteed student loans. Here are conservative principles I believe in: substituting market forces for political forces; simplifying programs and cutting bureaucracy; saving taxpayers money. On all counts, killing the DSL program goes in the wrong direction. All major functions under DSL are run through private sector services under competitively bid contracts. This competition is bringing down the cost of those contracts via market forces. Under the guaranteed student loan program, all payment levels are determined politically by Congress--not by the free market. Here's just one example of the resulting built- in profits: While the student is in school or during the six- month grace period following school (a period averaging 2.5 years for each loan), the lender does nothing but collect interest directly from the government at 2.5 percent above the Treasury-bill rate on paper that's as good as a Treasury bill. It's a system of political entitlements, and any conservative ought to prefer the competitive bidding system under direct loans. The Education Department says it can manage all direct loans with only 400 employees. All important business functions--loan origination, servicing, debt collection--are handled by private firms, with Education Department supervision. But overseeing 7,100 guaranteed bank lenders takes 525 Education Department employees and another 5,000 employees in 41 federally subsidized guaranty agencies. It's a bureaucratic nightmare. Congress can easily oversee the direct program because it involves relatively few contractors, all of whom have have incentives to do a good job in order to win additional contracts. But there's little supervision of the guaranteed program's guaranty agencies. Congress isn't looking over their shoulders because they're not federal entities. State legislatures aren't interested because the guaranty agencies aren't state-funded. And they have no stockholders to answer to. Unsurprisingly, the result is abuse. In one case, a guaranty agency's chief executive officer earns $700,000 a year plus untold benefits. Some 15 other employees in the same agency earn more than the U.S. secretary of education. In another, board members set up a for-profit corporation to provide services to the guaranty agency that they controlled. More taxpayer money goes largely unchecked in these agencies for platinum parachutes, perks, lavish pensions, executive cadillacs and dining rooms and retreats at posh resorts. Little wonder the lending moguls want to kill direct lending. Their cause is helped by various scoring errors (including some they lobbied for) that make direct lending look more expensive than guaranteed. The worse is the assumption of a high long-term interest rate as the cost of the federal funds used to make the direct loan. That would be appropriate if the interest rate that student borrowers paid were fixed, but it's not. It's variable, based on 91-day Treasury bills; so these loans do not carry the kind of interest-rate risk that a long-term rate discounts. Indeed, no private bank treats variable-rate loans the way the Congressional Budget Office treats direct student loans. In general, it's inconceivable that a simpler program based on competitive bidding could be more expensive than a vastly more complex one based on politically negotiated entitlements. Especially when the complex one actually encourages defaults--because guaranty agencies get to keep 27 cents of every dollar they collect after a default and their costs for those collections average only 13 cents on the dollar. Some Republicans believe that if President Clinton supports a program, that program must be opposed. Right now, Mr. Clinton is telling the American people that the GOP Congress is trying to shut down a conservative reform effort, which is good for both students and schools, in order to keep the gravy flowing to powerful special interests. In this case, the president is right.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the New York Times had an excellent editorial titled ``China's Challenge to Washington.'' There is a reluctance to be forceful with China on the issue of human rights. When I say ``forceful,'' I do not mean the use of force, but the willingness to stand forthright for what this country should stand for. We turn a cold shoulder to our friends in Taiwan, where they have a multiparty system, and seem to quake every time China is unhappy with something someone says or does. As the editorial suggests, we should ``respond far more sharply to Wei Jingsheng's sentence.'' I am pleased to back this administration when they are right, as in Bosnia, but I also believe that we should be much stronger in setting forth our beliefs as far as the abuses in China. I ask that the editorial from the New York Times be printed in the Record after my remarks. Along the same line, Stefan Halper, host of NETE television's ``Worldwise'' and a former White House and State Department official, recently had an op-ed piece in the Washington Times titled ``Taiwan's Unheralded Political Evolution,'' which I ask to be printed in the Record following my remarks and after the New York Times editorial. The reality is democracy has grown and is thriving in Taiwan, and we should recognize that in our policies. The material follows: China's Challenge to Washington If the United States intends to develop a relationship of mutual respect with China, it must defend its interests as vigorously as Beijing does. Now is the time, for China has shown a dangerous new bellicosity in matters from human rights to military threats. Last week Beijing again showed its contempt for the rights of Chinese citizens by convicting Wei Jingsheng of sedition and sentencing him to 14 years in prison. The activities the court cited included organizing art exhibitions to benefit democracy and writing articles that advocated Tibet's independence. This heavy-handed muzzling of the country's leading dissenter is a measure of the Chinese belief that America and other Western countries will not make them pay a diplomatic or economic price for the abuse of human rights. Chinese behavior has been equally provocative in other fields. In recent months Beijing has bullied the Philippines over contested islands in the South China Sea, twice conducted missile tests in the waters off Taiwan, resumed irresponsible weapons transfers and imposed its own choice as the reincarnated Panchen Lama, the second most important religious figure in Tibet. Meanwhile, as The Times's Patrick Tyler reports, influential military commanders have begun pushing for military action against Taiwan and turned to confrontational rhetoric against the United States. Washington has minimized these provocations, setting them in the larger perspective of China's encouraging economic reforms and Washington's hopes for political liberalization. That was the same logic that led the Administration, early last year, to abandon its efforts to link trade privileges for China to Beijing's record on human rights, arguing that anything that helped China's booming economy would ultimately advance political freedom as well. It is working out that way. The 19 months since that policy change have been marked by a serious deterioration in China's responsiveness on human rights and other issues. Discouragingly, this seems to be happening not simply because a new generation of leaders is maneuvering to succeed the failing Deng Xiaoping. Nationalist military officers are steadily gaining political influence, and the two top civilian leaders, President Jiang Zimen and Prime Minister Li Peng, seem committed advocates of political repression. That suggests the newly belligerent policies may not be just a transitional phase, or a sign or insecurity in the leadership group, as some China scholars in the West have said. The Clinton Administration, having done all it reasonably could to smooth relations, including an October meeting between Presidents Clinton and Jiang, now needs to recognize that a less indulgent policy is required to encourage more responsible behavior by China. The first step is to respond far more sharply to Wei Jingsheng's sentence, beginning with a concerted diplomatic drive to condemn China before the United Nations Human Rights Commission next March. U.N. condemnation would be an international embarrassment for China, one it desperately wants to avoid. Another step is to oppose non-humanitarian World Bank loans to China, as already provided for under United States law. Some Administration officials also want to consider human rights issues in judging China's application to join the new World Trade Organization, even though that is likely to bring objections from other W.T.O. members. The Administration still refuses to reconsider the simpler, more obvious step of restoring a link between trade and human rights. In this critically important diplomatic game, the United States may no longer be able to deny itself the leverage that link could bring. [From the Washington Times, Dec. 13, 1995] Taiwan's Unheralded Political Evolution (By Stefan Halper) In an era that believes America's future lies in Asia, what is the Asian democratic model? Singapore and Malaysia are single party states refreshed a bit by economic freedom. Hong Kong, still a colony, has lately been given a measure of self-government--which Americans of 1770 would have scorned-- only to be swallowed whole by the not-so-democratic People's Republic of China in little more than 18 months. South Korea? It's dominated by a government party whose last president is now up on charges of stealing $600 million--give or take a couple of hundred million. Japan, for 38 years, has been run by a corrupt single party (the LDP) only to cede power to a collection of reformers who themselves squandered the chance for real change. Today the LDP is back in a cynical misalliance with its nemesis, the socialists, whom it hopes to shortly expel. When does that leave us? With the Burmese, or the Indonesian generals, or perhaps Thailand, where politicians are so corrupt they stay out of jail? Reading the Mainland press, Taiwan's recent peaceful, multiparty elections never happened. No mention--the dog that didn't bark. A decade ago, the phrase ``Taiwanese democracy'' would have been rightly dismissed as an oxymoron, though compared to Mao's mainland, the island republic was widely seen as an economic miracle. Ironically, it is this economic strength today--$100 billion in hard currency reserves and America's ninth-largest trading partner--that has obscured Taiwan's political evolution. The late Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomingtang single-party rule, was replaced by his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo, who created a supportive environment for democratic pluralism before he died in 1988. Martial law was lifted, opposition parties were legalized, press restrictions were eliminated and it was agreed that Chiang's successor would not be a member of the family or even a transplanted mainlander. Instead President Lee Teng- hui is a native Taiwanese so far determined to further reform by supporting younger, Taiwan-born politicians as leaders of the KMT.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, one of the people who has been most effective in prodding our conscience is Jonathan Kozol, author of several books, including an important one on literacy, another on the sad plight of our schools, and more recently, ``Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation.'' Unfortunately, as we balance the budget--which we should have done long ago--we are horribly distorting the priorities this Nation should have. The use of the word ``horribly'' may seem out of place, but for many of the poor, our budget will result in horrors. To say we want to balance the budget, then start with a $245 billion tax cut is like adopting a New Year's resolution to diet, then having a huge dessert. Compounding that is the fact that the tax cut is largely for those of us who are more fortunate, while those who will suffer will be the neediest in our society. Time magazine recently had an essay by Jonathan Kozol titled ``Spare Us the Cheap Grace,'' which I ask to be printed in the Record after my remarks. Among other things, Jonathan Kozol says, ``What does it mean when those whom we elect to public office cut back elemental services of life protection for poor children and then show up at the victim's funeral to pay condolence to the relatives and friends? At what point do those of us who have the power to prevent these deaths forfeit the entitlement of mourners?'' The piece follows: [From Time magazine, Dec. 11, 1995] Spare Us the Cheap Grace (By Jonathan Kozol) It is hard to say what was more shocking about the death of Elisa Izquierdo--the endless savagery inflicted on her body and mind, or the stubborn inaction of the New York City agencies that were repeatedly informed of her peril. But while the murder of Elisa by her mother is appalling, it is hardly unexpected. In the death zones of America's postmodern ghetto, stripped of jobs and human services and sanitation, plagued by AIDS, tuberculosis, pediatric asthma and endemic clinical depression, largely abandoned by American physicians and devoid of the psychiatric services familiar in most middle-class communities, deaths like these are part of a predictable scenario. After the headlines of recrimination and pretended shock wear off, we go back to our ordinary lives. Before long, we forget the victims' names. They weren't our children or the children of our neighbors. We do not need to mourn them for too long. But do we have the right to mourn at all? What does it mean when those whom we elect to public office cut back elemental services of life protection for poor children and then show up at the victim's funeral to pay condolence to the relatives and friends? At what point do those of us who have the power to prevent these deaths forfeit the entitlement of mourners? It is not as if we do not know what might have saved some of these children's lives. We know that intervention programs work when well-trained social workers have a lot of time to dedicate to each and every child. We know that crisis hot lines work best when half of their employees do not burn out and quit each year, and that social workers do a better job when records are computerized instead of being piled up, lost and forgotten on the floor of a back room. We know that when a drug-addicted mother asks for help, as many mothers do, it is essential to provide the help she needs without delay, not after a waiting period of six months to a year, as is common in poor urban neighborhoods. All these remedies are expensive, and we would demand them if our own children's lives were at stake. And yet we don't demand them for poor children. We wring our hands about the tabloid stories. We castigate the mother. We condemn the social worker. We churn out the familiar criticisms of ``bureaucracy'' but do not volunteer to use our cleverness to change it. Then the next time an election comes, we vote against the taxes that might make prevention programs possible, while favoring increased expenditures for prisons to incarcerate the children who survive the worst that we have done to them and grow up to be dangerous adults. What makes this moral contradiction possible? Can it be, despite our frequent protestations to the contrary, that our society does not particularly value the essential human worth of certain groups of children? Virtually all the victims we are speaking of are very poor black and Hispanic children. We have been told that our economy no longer has much need for people of their caste and color. Best-selling authors have, in recent years, assured us of their limited intelligence and low degree of ``civilizational development.'' As a woman in Arizona said in regard to immigrant kids from Mexico, ``I didn't breed them. I don't want to feed them''--a sentiment also heard in reference to black children on talk-radio stations in New York and other cities. ``Put them over there,'' a black teenager told me once, speaking of the way he felt that he and other blacks were viewed by our society. ``Pack them tight. Don't think about them. Keep your hands clean. Maybe they'll kill each other off.'' I do not know how many people in our nation would confess such contemplations, which offend the elemental mandates of our cultural beliefs and our religions. No matter how severely some among us may condemn the parents of the poor, it has been an axiom of faith in the U.S. that once a child is born, all condemnations are to be set aside. If we now have chosen to betray this faith, what consequences will this have for our collective spirit, for our soul as a society? There is an agreeable illusion, evidenced in much of the commentary about Elisa, that those of us who witness the abuse of innocence--so long as we are standing at a certain distance--need not feel complicit in these tragedies. But this is the kind of ethical exemption that Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ``cheap grace.'' Knowledge carries with it certain theological imperatives. The more we know, the harder it becomes to grant ourselves exemption. ``Evil exists,'' a student in the South Bronx told me in the course of a long conversation about ethics and religion in the fall of 1993. ``Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people--that is my idea of evil.'' Like most Americans, I do not tend to think of a society that has been good to me and to my parents as ``evil.'' But when he said that ``somebody has power,'' it was difficult to disagree. It is possible that icy equanimity and self- pacifying form of moral abdication by the powerful will take more lives in the long run than any single drug-addicted and disordered parent. Elisa Izquierdo's mother killed only one child. The seemingly anesthetized behavior of the U.S. Congress may kill thousands. Now we are told we must ``get tougher'' with the poor. How much tougher can we get with children who already have so little? How cold is America prepared to be?

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, Senator Charles A. Rodriguez, the majority leader of the Puerto Rico Senate, recently had an op ed piece in the Washington Post that speaks with candor about our fellow Americans from Puerto Rico. We should be paying attention to his words, which I ask to be printed in the Record. The reality is that commonwealth status--supported strongly by powerful American corporations who benefit from it financially--is simply another form of old-fashioned colonialism. Puerto Ricans should have the rights that Americans have in our 50 States. Eventually, Puerto Rico will either go independent or become a State. From the viewpoint of our 50 States and from the viewpoint of the people of Puerto Rico, statehood makes much more sense. But that is a decision they have to make. The special financial breaks that certain corporations get should not be a barrier to an improved life for the citizens of Puerto Rico, and that is the reality today. The op-ed follows: [From the Washington Post] The State of Puerto Rico (By Charles A. Rodriguez) Two years ago, when Puerto Rico voted to remain a U.S. commonwealth--again rejecting statehood--many thought the issue was settled for years to come. In fact, the plebiscite raised more questions than it resolved. The vote exposed the undue influence of discredited economic arrangements on the island's political process and the myth of commonwealth autonomy, both cornerstones of our second-class U.S. citizenship. Today proponents of the status quo are on the defensive in both Puerto Rico and in Washington. The plebiscite was held as the Clinton administration sought repeal of Section 936 of the federal tax code, which exempts U.S. companies' Puerto Rican operations from federal taxation--a subsidy that has cost the Treasury nearly $70 billion since 1973. Faced with immediate loss of their lucrative tax break or eventual termination if islanders voted for statehood, companies spent millions of dollars fending off Congress while cajoling workers to vote against statehood or else face job losses and plant relocations. Meanwhile, status quo proponents campaigned for ``enhanced commonwealth,'' replete with promises of expanded political autonomy and parity with the 50 states in the financing of federal programs--all this while preserving the immunity of Puerto Rico's 3.7 million U.S. citizens from federal taxation. Despite the cacophony of economic demagoguery and ``something for nothing'' hyperbole, commonwealth failed for the first time in 40 years to get an outright majority. It won with a plurality of 48.6 percent, against 46.3 percent for statehood and 5.1 percent for independence. Compare this narrow margin of victory with that of 1952 (68 percent) and that of 1967 (21 percent), and the tide against the status quo becomes unmistakable. The false promise behind the alternative of ``enhanced commonwealth'' will do nothing to stem it. For given its current budget-cutting exercises, Congress is clearly in no mood to maintain even current levels of federal funding for Puerto Rico programs, much less ante up the additional $3 billion to $4 billion necessary to bring them up to par with the states. Meanwhile, a groundswell of public opinion has arisen in Washington against preserving ``corporate welfare.'' That's why Section 936 is again under review, as it should be: It has made the island dependent on the whims of Congress and has stifled alternative economic development schemes. Worse, as now constituted, 936 has failed to generate the jobs and capital investment that were its reasons for being. Witness our chronic unemployment rate, which is twice the mainland's, and our per capita income, half of Mississippi's. Revision of 936 could present Puerto Rico with opportunities to attain significant new economic and political objectives; full participation and parity in all federal programs, sustained economic growth and, eventually, statehood. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Resources Committee, has floated one promising proposal toward these ends. In exchange for ending 936 he would phase in full state-like programs for Puerto Rico and encourage private- sector growth through capital grants for infrastructure development and through private and nonprofit enterprise financing to spur new industries. Young's proposal would also, for the first time, subject island residents to federal taxation. Combined with the $3 billion savings from ending the 936 tax credit, this would mean that the U.S. Treasury would see no diminution in revenues. Many statehood advocates balk at this ``halfway'' solution to securing first-class citizenship for Puerto Ricans. They maintain that economic equality would weaken efforts to achieve political equality through a 51st star. In other words, total economic and political equality or nothing. Other point to the absurdity of Puerto Ricans agreeing to pay more taxes while everyone else is looking to reduce theirs. But the fact is that we already have high tax rates in Puerto Rico. They're necessary to finance activities typically provided elsewhere by the federal government. It's safe to assume that as program costs are shifted to Washington, Puerto Ricans will see little change in their tax burden. Nonetheless, revision of 936 might accelerate the movement to statehood: No longer would 936 companies have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Given today's economic and political climate, Puerto Rico may face the same hard choice under option: cut programs or raise taxes. But as a colony deprived of Washington representation we will have no say in the discussions leading up to that fateful decision. It's no wonder that 2.5 million Puerto Ricans have left the island for the mainland knowing that the political and economic benefits of statehood far outweigh the burdens of federal taxation. We share their ambition to be full-fledged Americans here at home, just as we always have shared with all U.S. citizens the duty to defend democracy abroad.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, this week marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest leaders ever to have served in this body, the late Senator from Illinois and former Republican leader of the Senate, Everett McKinley Dirksen. Everett Dirksen was born on January 4, 1896. He brought the small town values and the sense of civility of his native Pekin to his work in the Senate, where he combined these qualities with some of the finest oratorical and parliamentary skills that have been displayed on this floor in his or any era. The Senate has honored his memory by naming one of its office buildings for him, and the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin continues his tradition of public service with its many ongoing research and in-service activities. I call the attention of my colleagues to an insightful article about the Dirksen legacy, written by retired editor Charles Dancey of the Peoria Journal Star, and I ask that the article be printed at this point in the Record. The article follows: [From the Peoria Journal Star, Jan. 4, 1996] Dirksen Brought Sense of Reality Wherever He Went (By Charles Dancey) One hundred years ago, fathers might have dreamed that a son born in a log cabin could become president. But no way could Johann Dirksen have imagined Jan. 4, 1896, that his baby boy's birthday celebrations one day would launch the social season in the nation's capitol. Yet, Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen's birthday bash, usually at the Mayflower hotel ballroom, was the opening ``must go'' event of the social season each year in Washington, D.C., even before he became minority leader of the Senate and a national figure beyond the Beltway. Everybody who was anybody, as the saying goes, attended from both political parties and from the administration and the congress. Those glittering parties were a long way from the neighborhood in Pekin known as ``Beantown.'' Yet, growing up in Beantown may have been an important part of ``Ev'' Dirksen being the toast of the town in the nation's capitol. Actually, the residents, themselves named it that--or rather in their own language, ``Bohnchefiddle.'' They were German immigrants who didn't indulge in euphemisms. They had a strong sense of reality. And the reality was that rich folks had flower gardens in their yards; immigrants grew beans. They were who they were, and saw nothing wrong with it. Beantown was just their American starting place. In fact, most residents in Pekin, and millions more across America, gardened their yards. Even a narrow small-town lot was 50 feet front, 150 deep, and provided space for people who didn't own a horse and didn't need a barn. There was space for berry bushes along the lot line, half a dozen fruit trees set wide apart, orderly squares of garden vegetables, and a grape arbor. There was a lot more than beans, and it all required care. Many folks kept a small flock of chickens by the back porch as well. At one time, in fact, the Dirksens raised a pig. The bigger boys spaded the gardens and raked them smooth. Before he was old enough for school, the youngest son, Ev, could help punch holes in the prepared ground with the wooden split pegs used as clothespins keeping a straight line along the board on which he knelt. Keeping clothes as clean as possible was important when washing them was a major weekly chore. As the produce grew, ripening in sequence, much of it had to be ``put up'' for the winter in fruit jars and glasses, sealed with hot paraffin or special lids, after being well cooked. Cabbage was chopped and salted and then pounded and pounded until it was soaked in its own brine to be kept for winter--sauerkraut. The Dirksen boys took part, and it was the boys who peddled surplus vegetables door to door. The basics of life to the German families were food, clothes, shelter from the cold and cleanliness. So, before he learned to read and write, Everett Dirksen became part of a family team, doing his share in providing those basics, and grew up knowing from whence came the necessities of life. Somebody had to do the work to produce it. Their father had a stroke in 1901 when Ev, the youngest, was only 5. By the time Ev was 9, Dad was dead. The boys were raised by their mother, and the team game of survival that they played put a solid foundation under his whole life. In those circumstances and in the absence of radio, television, telephones or computers, he found school and learning downright fun. Learning was an adventure and a kind of game. He loved reading. He loved to discover a new big word and roll it off his tongue. In books, he could explore the far reaches of this world and of the world of ideas. Thus in his youth, and progressively thereafter, Everett Dirksen combined those wonderful opposites, the contradictions of idealist and a realist. It fit the Lincoln tradition of central Illinois. With his older brothers grown and earning money, the family could let young Everett go off to college. He worked nights while schooling at the University of Minnesota, until World War I interrupted. Three years of ROTC there gave him a leg up on a lieutenant's bars. In France, he was an artillery man. His job was to ride a wicker basket under a rough, hydrogen- filled balloon, held by a cable and linked by a primitive telephone to the gun batteries, overlooking the battlefield. There he observed the fall of the artillery shells his battery mates were firing and tell them how to adjust there fire to bring it on target. Of course, such balloons like his were sitting ducks, even for the primitive planes of the time. When the war ended, the army found his ability to speak German useful and kept him in Europe. He remained overseas for 18 months in all much of the time interpreting for others, or dealing directly with the local German population. He also knew Paris, Berlin, other German cities, and visited England and Ireland. In Rome, the ambassador asked him to join his staff, but Ev was homesick for Pekin. Thus, young Lt. Dirksen returned to Pekin and Bohnchefiddle at age 24, with an extraordinary range of experiences. He was now a college man, a combat veteran and an ex-officer who had traveled, often in very sophisticated circles, in postwar Europe. Back home, he married a Pekin girl and launched his remarkable political career as the youngest person ever elected to the Pekin City Council. As city councilman, he was a young man dealing with a rapidly changing world. Streets needed to be paved for the growing numbers of those new motor cars. The fire department needed trucks to replace the horse-drawn rigs. The aging streetcars, one car running back and forth on a single track, needed replacement with bus service. Power plants were under construction, bringing electricity. The Edison revolution was on, and radio was waiting in the wings. These were not hypothetical or abstract problems to be solved abstractly for the young councilman. He was intimately involved with the reality of finance for technology and the even tougher reality of the effects and demands new technology and dramatic change made on the city workers, and the public. When he grappled with these problems as a councilman, he also worked delivering his brothers' bread to 50 small groceries scattered about town. Everybody knew his route, and at many a stop he confronted people with problems to take to their councilman. Before he went to the national macrocosm, this man had a thorough and heavy dose of the microcosm. Thus, the nature of the man was well-founded long before he became one of that city's best-loved figures, before he crated the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and brought over the votes to pass it with him, before he won a Grammy for recording ``Gallant Men,'' before he was the confident of presidents both Republican and Democrat, and before he became a darling of the once-skeptical Washington press corps. He brought to Washington the prestige of being the Congress' best orator, a skill founded and practiced in Pekin and which largely won for him his original seat in the House of Representatives in the first place. He also brought the attention to detail, the realism, of Bohnchefiddle, and was, undoubtedly, the most skilled parliamentarian in the Senate of his time. He knew how the system worked in every detail, and he knew who was the person that counted, the person to talk to, not only in the Senate but in every department of the national administration. Finally, he made many friends and no enemies in the best tradition of the small town where he grew up, and where some of his local political foes were also lifelong personal friends. When Everett Dirksen died, the president of the United States gave the eulogy--proclaiming that Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen had more impact on history than many presidents. That he was, and he didn't learn that in Washington. That was the boy from Bohnchefiddle.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, victim restitution is an important part of our criminal justice system. It can help make the victim of a crime ``whole,'' while holding the offender accountable for the damage caused by his or her crime. While I certainly applaud the good intentions of its sponsors, I do not support this ``mandatory victim restitution'' proposal. This bill would replace the current system, which allows judges to order victim restitution in certain types of cases, with an inflexible mandate which requires restitution be ordered in such cases. In general, I do not support placing mandates on judges. I oppose mandatory minimum sentences because they substitute inflexible formulas, which cannot account for individual circumstances, for judicial discretion. Similarly, the ``mandatory victim restitution'' proposal will require judges to order restitution in cases where they know it can never be paid. The Judicial Conference of the United States reports that 85 percent of criminal defendants are indigent at the time of their conviction. And yet, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's 1994 Annual Report, judges order a fine or restitution in 37.7 percent of cases sentenced under the guidelines. These statistics lead me to believe that Federal judges are already doing a good job of ordering restitution when practicable. I respect the motives of this proposal's sponsors, and agree that we must do all that is practicable to help victims of crime. However, rather than placing another mandate on judges, which seems unlikely to increase the amount of restitution actually paid to victims, we should instead consider alternative permissive forms of restitution which would enhance the current system. Included in this bill was an amendment proposed by my colleagues, Senators Kyl and Feinstein, which would allow judges to order those convicted of drug trafficking offenses where there is no identifiable victim to pay restitution to the affected community or to drug treatment organizations. I would support such a proposal, and other similar measures, within a permissive system.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, Bill Norwood is set to retire as a pilot from United Airlines. During his career, he participated in numerous educational, professional, and civic organizations in the State of Illinois. He also served with distinction on the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees and the Board of the Illinois State Universities Retirement System. Illinoisans can take great pride in Mr. Norwood's dedication to Southern Illinois University and the State of Illinois. A former U.S. Air Force pilot who flew B-52's, Mr. Norwood used that experience to go to work for United Airlines in 1965. While a United Airlines pilot, Mr. Norwood received several awards, including a community relations award. Mr. Norwood has served his community and State well. I wish my friend and his family the best in his retirement. I am sure he will continue to be active in Illinois serving the community and the State.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I do not ordinarily mention religion on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but in 3 days we will celebrate the birth of Jesus, and the majority of Americans claim affiliation with his religion. And he said, in the Biblical account in Matthew 25, whatever you do for poor people you do to me. That is the judgment day scene that he describes. We, in the U.S. Congress, are going to celebrate Christmas by trashing poor people. What a record: Reducing food stamps, abused children, foster care children, cutting them by 23 percent when the numbers are going up, disabled children, 160,000--sorry, you are off of SSI. For 750,000 disabled children, cutting it by 25 percent. Real welfare reform, not just public relations, will have to deal with jobs for people of limited ability. It will have to deal with problems of poverty. But we are going to celebrate Christmas by trashing poor people. It is not a record we can be proud of. I am going to vote no, and be proud to vote no.

Mr. SIMON. I thank my colleague.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the crime news is good and bad. The good news is that murders in the United States were down 12 percent for the first 6 months of 1995, and the FBI reports an astounding and welcome drop. The bad news is that drug and alcohol use among our Nation's eighth graders is on the rise, and because of that, as they grow older the crime rate probably will rise again. Adding to this likelihood are the numbers. There are more eighth graders than their counterparts 4 years older, and as the numbers grow, we will probably have more, not less, bad news. Ten years from now there will be 25 percent more young males between the ages of 14 and 17. What can be done? There are no magic bullets, but there are some things that will help. They include: Get treatment and counseling for adult drug and alcohol addicts. Children of addicts are much more likely to be addicts. Illinois is like most States: people who want help often cannot get it. Considering the extent of our problem, we are woefully short on treatment facilities. Rev. George Clements, a quietly dynamic Roman Catholic priest, has suggested that all churches and synagogues and mosques should adopt one addict. That's not as easy as fixing the church roof or serving as usher or singing in the choir. But it is a greater test of the meaningfulness of faith. The most effective way to reach children is through a parent. Discourage youthful cigarette smoking. Young people who smoke cigarettes are much more likely to take up drugs and alcohol. Enrich education programs so that they reach all young people. Those who have great difficulty in school are more likely to give up, to see little future for themselves and reach out for the escape mechanism of drugs or alcohol. That is why budget cuts that reduce access to Head Start and other education programs are short-sighted. By the second grade--at the latest--teachers know which students need special help. They should receive it then, not wait until they make it through high school--if they make it through high school. Start jobs programs that put people of limited skills to work. Show me an area of high unemployment, and I will show you an area of high crime, whether it is African-American, Hispanic, or white. Show me an area of high unemployment, and I will show you an area with a high drug use rate and high alcoholism, whether it is African-American, Hispanic, or white. Real welfare reform must include jobs. Without a jobs factor, anything called welfare reform is political public relations. We need something like the WPA of a half-century ago. It would be the most effective anti-crime and anti-addition program we could have. Keep parents from giving up. That's not a Government program, but it is vital. A parent living in a tough neighborhood with drug sales visible in the area has a difficult time, but must strive to give her--or his--child hope. And do simple things like encouraging homework, use of the library, and careful use of television. And attending religious services. Harvard University's Richard Freeman found that ``among black urban youth, church attendance was a better predictor of who would escape drugs, crime and poverty than any other variable, income, family structure, and the church-going youth were more likely to behave in socially constructive ways.'' Yes, there are some discouraging signals for the future, but if we are really concerned, and then act, the future will be brighter. None of these items I have listed is dramatic, yet if we were to act on all of them, there would be a significant change for the better in our future.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, this past summer's military exercises by China near Taiwan were part of a worrisome trend in East Asia--Chinese military expansion. China has been rapidly modernizing its armed forces, allegedly transferring missiles to Pakistan, flexing its muscle in the South China Sea, and continuing to test nuclear weapons under ground. Such actions raise concerns for regional stability, and for our interests in promoting economic prosperity and democracy in the region. In the following article from the New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Kristof points out the growing Chinese power in East Asia and the increasing displays of nationalism. He concludes that United States policy should pay more attention to China's military expansion and the potential threats it brings. This seems to me like a good place to start. I ask that the article be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the New York Times Magazine, Aug. 27, 1995] The Real Chinese Threat (By Nicholas D. Kristof) Almost no one noticed, but this summer the Pentagon drew a line in the sand. Washington committed itself to using American military force, it necessary, to keep international shipping lanes open in the South China Sea. International, at least, in American eyes. But Beijing's maps put the entire area within China's territorial waters. If a stronger China eventually tries to enforce its national law, which governs shipping in the area, then American forces could be called upon to confront a China that has developed enormously since its troops battled ours to a stalemate in Korea. The underlying problem is the oldest one in diplomacy: how the international community can manage the ambitions of a rising power--and there has never been a rising power quite like China. It has 1.2 billion people; it has a nuclear arsenal; it has an army of 3.2 million, the world's largest; and now it has what may be the world's fastest-growing military budget. For now, China's conventional forces are no match for America's. One of my Chinese friends, the son of a general, attended a meeting in which a group of senior Chinese military officials reviewed films of the American air war against Iraq. ``They sat around the room, moaning about China's lack of preparation, asking what we could possibly do to modernize,'' he reported. ``I felt like piping us and saying there was one thing we could do: go capitalist.'' Yet given the rate at which China is pouring money into its armed forces, the situation may eventually be different. The United States Naval War College conducted computer simulations last year and again this year of battles in Asia between China and the United States in the year 2010. To everyone's surprise, China defeated the United States in both. It is said that the Central Intelligence Agency recently conducted its own simulation of such a battle, set in the year 2005, and China won that, too. Simulations don't prove anything. Still, China and Vietnam have both showed, in Korea and Vietnam, how much damage even a backward army can do, particularly when fighting on its own turf. And unlike Vietnam, China has nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. (The United States has stopped targeting China with nuclear missiles, but China has refused to stop targeting America.) China is also believed to be developing biological warfare agents. In Asia, there is now a real fear about what the rise of China will mean. ``The immense presence of China is itself a threat-- whether the Chinese are conscious of it or not--that certainly Japan cannot deal with alone,'' Morihiro Hosokawa, the former Prime Minister, said recently. In the United States, the expression ``containment'' is applied increasingly to China. The Administration's position is that it wants to engage China, rather than contain it, but that if necessary in the future it can switch to a containment policy. ``We're not naive,'' Winston Lord, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told a congressional committee in June. ``We cannot predict what kind of power China will be in the 21st century. God forbid, we may have to turn with others to a policy of containment. I would hope not.'' In the meantime, there is growing alarm in Washington and other capitals at China's military spending and policies. While most countries in the world have been cutting back, China has raised its published military budget by 75 percent since 1988, after adjusting for inflation. And the published budget vastly understates reality. It does not even include weapons procurement. The real figure is probably something like $20 billion, which, when adjusted for purchasing power, may buy as much as $100 billion defense budget in the West. Most disturbing, China is pouring money into those activities that allow it to project power beyond its traditional borders. In particular, it is building a blue- water navy and developing an air-to-air refueling capability. China is also becoming more aggressive in the South China Sea and even in the Indian Ocean--far from its traditional sphere of influence. All of this notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to think that China is somehow a ferocious aggressor. It is not. It shows no interest in seizing areas that it never controlled, like Nepal or Indonesia, and its claims to disputed areas like some islands in the South China Sea do have some merit to them. The risk of conflict arises in part because of stirrings of Chinese nationalism. Nobody believes in Communism anymore, so the Communist Party is trying to use nationalism as the new glue. To some extent, it is working. In five years of living and traveling in China, I met innumerable ordinary people who didn't give two yuan for Communism but who argued passionately that China needed to reclaim its territories. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with an elderly woman from Shanghai--not a Communist by any means--and I asked her what she thought of Mao. ``You know what his biggest mistake was?'' she asked, and I thought of the Great Leap Forward, which led to the deaths of 30 million people. ``It was giving up Mongolia. That's our land, that's part of China! And he allowed Stalin to take it. What we need to do is get Mongolia back.'' I can't say that this woman is representative, although I have occasionally heard other Chinese say they want to recover Mongolia, which is now an independent country. But I have heard many Chinese say that they want their navy to control the entire South China Sea, to seize the Diaoyu Islands from Japan, even to recover Taiwan. Moreover, the likely successor to the present regime in Beijing is not a democracy but a military government. President Jiang Zemin is terrified of a coup d'etat--he has appeared before military units behind a bulletproof shield. If the generals take over in the years following Deng Xiaoping's death, they may be more aggressive than any Communists. The placid waters and palmlined islets of the South China Sea may be the site of Asia's next war. The Government in China refuses to clarify whether it claims the entire South China Sea or just the islands in the sea. But in any case, some of the islands are also claimed by five other countries. China erected a permanent fortress on a reef near the Philippines earlier this year, leading to a tense confrontation at sea between naval vessels for the two sides. Now Americans are training Philippine naval commandos. And Vietnam and China are jostling each other over rival oil exploration programs, by American oil companies, in the disputed area. The worst nightmare in Asia is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province, while many Taiwanese now hope for a country of their own. The authorities in Beijing repeatedly warn that they reserve the right to use force to recover Taiwan. China underlined its threats in July when it conducted missile tests in the open sea 80 miles from Taiwan, forcing the closure of fisheries and the diversion of commercial flights. The Taiwan stock market promptly plunged 6.8 percent amid jitters about a Chinese attack. In any case, the possibility of clashes in the Taiwan Strait may be increasing rather than decreasing. For now, it is not clear that China would win if it attacked Taiwan, but the odds will change as China upgrades its forces. It is impossible to imagine that an island of 20 million could indefinitely defend itself against a country of 1.2 billion. There is, in short, a potential Chinese threat and that drives the question: How should America deal with it? The first step is simply to acknowledge that threat and to pay far more attention to China. America also needs to expand conversations with Chinese leaders, even if that means boosting their legitimacy at times. President Clinton has been reluctant to meet with President Jiang because of Chinese human rights abuses and other problems. But it would be more effective to invite Jiang to Washington and have him listen to hundreds of demonstrators screaming outside his hotel all night. This would convey not only America's willingness to discuss problems but also the seriousness with which Americans take China's misconduct. Washington's aim in such talks should be to promote American interests, and that is not necessarily the same as creating a good relationship with China. There is no reason to provoke a dispute just for the sake of being surly. But the White House has to be willing to risk a dispute when China tests its resolve. For example, China has repeatedly promised not to sell M-11 missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, to Pakistan. Each time China makes such a formal pledge, Washington claims credit for a major breakthrough. And each time, China has apparently gone ahead and sold M-11's to Pakistan anyway. These days, the Administration is reluctant to acknowledge what appears to be the latest sale--despite satellite evidence and the best judgments of intelligence analysts-- because it is reluctant to worsen relations. The lesson Beijing draws from this is that it can continue violating its pledges as long as it acts greatly offended when someone complains. It would be better to risk a deeper chill in relations than to keep on backing down. America also needs to work with Asian countries to apply joint restraints on China. The Asian group of Southeast Asian countries, for example, has become increasingly effective in pressuring China to go slow in the South China Sea. And whatever the risks of confrontation, I think the United States was right to declare its willingness to use military force to escort shipping in the South China Sea. If China were to interfere with those shipping lanes--blocking the flow of oil to Japan, for example--the global economy would be thrown into crisis. Americans also need to use the right historical model. China is not bent on international conquest. Beijing may wish to dominate the region, but it does not wish to raise the Chinese flag over Jakarta or Tokyo. Rather, it is like Germany in the run-up to World War I, yearning for greater importance and testing to see what it can get away with. There could be a major war with China, but if so, it will be because of ignorance and miscalculation--in substantial part on the western rim of the Pacific.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, today, I introduce legislation to grant for a 2-year period additional property right protection for oxaprozin, an important drug in treating arthritis. Oxaprozin is a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug [NSAID]. It is produced and marketed as Daypro by the G.D. Searle & Co., headquartered in Skokie, IL. I am introducing this legislation as a matter of simple fairness and equity because of a protracted review by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] that consumed the entire patent life of Daypro. The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, commonly referred to as the Hatch-Waxman Act, was designed in part to address the unfairness caused by unduly long FDA reviews. Unfortunately, the two major protections created by Hatch-Waxman did not remedy Daypro's situation. First, Hatch-Waxman provides patent extensions in cases of regulatory delay. Ironically, since the FDA review consumed Daypro's entire patent life, the delay rendered Daypro ineligible for a patent extension; Hatch-Waxman simply did not contemplate that an FDA review would consume the entire patent life of a drug prior to its approval. Second, Hatch-Waxman allows up to 10 years of market exclusivity to brand name drug manufacturers following protracted FDA review. If the FDA had promptly approved Daypro, Daypro would have been protected for 10 years; however, as a result of the delay, Daypro only received 5 years of marketing exclusivity protection. The legislation I am introducing today would provide Daypro 2 years of property right protection beyond the 5 years provided in the Hatch- Waxman Act. This additional property right protection is being sought because the delay in obtaining FDA approval of Daypro was so excessive that the provisions of the Hatch-Waxman Act are inadequate to compensate for the complete loss of patent protection for Daypro due to the FDA review. I seek this remedy for a drug that was a victim of even more extreme regulatory delays than those that were instrumental in causing Congress to recognize that the Hatch-Waxman Act was necessary in the first place. The Investigational New Drug Application [IND] for Daypro was filed in 1972, and the New Drug Application [NDA] for Daypro was filed 10 years later in August 1982. FDA approval of Daypro was not finally granted until October 29, 1992. During the 20 years it took FDA to approve Daypro, its patent expired. Thus, the practical patent life for Daypro was zero. A number of reports have been published by the U.S. General Accounting Office and congressional committees in both Houses on the regulatory problems that the class of NSAIDs faced in the 1980's. These reports and studies make it clear that at least some of the problems encountered at FDA were generic--the unprecedented delay in NSAID approvals was due to FDA inaction on all NDAIDs after serious problems were encountered with previously approved NSAIDs. During this time, the FDA effectively imposed a moratorium on the approval of all NSAIDs. It is important to note that the purpose of this moratorium was not to allow the FDA to collect further data on Daypro or because there were concerns about health and safety findings related to Daypro. The FDA ultimately approved Daypro in 1992 as safe and efficacious based upon the same studies originally submitted to the FDA in the NDA. it took the FDA longer to approve Daypro than any other NSAID. This legislation does not grant full recovery of the time lost while Daypro was under review; it does not grant even half of that time. The additional property right protection that would be granted by this bill represents only some of the time lost after the drug applications had been under FDA review. This legislation provides 2 years of added protection as partial compensation for the value lost when Daypro's patents expired while the drug application was pending at the FDA. I believe the figure of 2 years is a fair and equitable resolution of this matter. Daypro confronted an inordinate and inequitable delay in obtaining FDA approval. No other pharmaceutical that I am aware of has had its entire patent life consumed by an FDA review. I urge that the relief embodied in this legislation be anacted.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I want to congratulate the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation on the occasion of its fifth anniversary. The Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation [MEAF] is endowed with $15 million by the Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of Japan and its American subsidiaries. Its mission is to contribute to society by assisting young Americans with disabilities to lead full and productive lives. The foundation fulfills this mission by supporting education and other programs aimed at enhancing the independence, productivity and community inclusion of young people with disabilities. During its first 5 years the foundation has received more than 1,000 funding requests and awarded nearly $2 million in grants to benefit American children and youth with disabilities. The foundation is based in Washington, DC and works primarily at the national level but also collaborates with principal Mitsubishi Electric America [MEA] facilities to have an impact at the local level. Philanthropy committees at MEA companies have made many generous contributions of money, electronics products, and volunteer support to nonprofit organizations in communities across the country. In my home state of Illinois, for example, Mitsubishi Electric Industrial Controls, Inc., and Mitsubishi Electronics America, Inc. maintain active volunteer committees through which dedicated employees serve their communities in the Chicago suburbs. Through its matching grant program, the foundation supplements the companies' donations to local organizations helping young people with disabilities. The story behind the foundation's creation gives insight into the sponsoring corporation. At the 1990 meeting of the presidents of the North American Mitsubishi Electric America group companies, former MEA president Takeshi Sakurai presented his goal of encouraging the companies to reciprocate the good will and hospitality of the communities in which the more than 4,000 MEA employees live and work. Focusing on the challenges and barriers that exist for people with disabilities, Mr. Sakurai urged the corporation to help ensure that young Americans with disabilities have full access to competitive employment, integrated education, independent living options, and recreational opportunities in their communities. With the establishment of a foundation, he declared, the companies and employees could contribute to this critical need through the donation of funds, products, and volunteer time. Following Mr. Sakurai's presentation, many of the senior executives around the table made personal donations, which eventually formed part of the initial endowment of the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation. Takeshi Sakurai became the first board president of the foundation, and with the board of directors worked to strengthen support for the foundation's work within the corporation, develop strategies for its outreach to the disability community, and institutionalize philanthropy within the corporate culture of MEA companies. Through the efforts of its board, the foundation has helped to educate its sponsoring corporations about the importance of good corporate citizenship and on the critical issues facing people with disabilities. The 12-member board includes Mitsubishi Electric America company presidents, the foundation's executive director, representatives from the parent corporation in Japan, and two MEA employees who are nominated by their peers to serve 18-month terms. Mitsubishi Electric Corp.'s investments in the foundation have paid unexpected dividends by influencing the sponsoring corporation back in Japan. Responding to the success of the foundation, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. has expanded its philanthropic activities in Japan and around the world; many of these efforts are aimed at people with disabilities. The Socio-Roots Fund, which was established by the corporation in 1992 to match employee donations, awarded the yen equivalent of $450,000 to organizations assisting youths with disabilities in Japan in 1994. The corporation's Nakatsugawa Works facility now offers sign language classes to its employees. The corporation also donated the yen equivalent of $180,000 to 75 schools, organizations and projects serving people with disabilities throughout Japan. A second Mitsubishi Electric Foundation was established in Thailand to provide promising students who are in need of financial assistance with the means to complete their education; in June, 1993, this foundation awarded its first full scholarships to 30 engineering students. The foundation has received several awards for its achievements in grantmaking, some of which clearly demonstrate the foundation's impact on the MEA companies. For example, the foundation was honored with the prestigious Leadership Award from the Dole Foundation for Employment of People with Disabilities. My colleague from Kansas, Senator Bob Dole, presented the award in recognition of the foundation's accomplishments and also cited Mitsubishi Electric America as a model for other corporations in integrating disability awareness into corporate policies. The MEA foundation and Marriott foundation for People with Disabilities jointly received the Council for Exceptional Children's 1992-93 Employer of the Year Award, in recognition of their successful replication of the ``Bridges . . . From School to Work'' transition program, which helps prepare youth with disabilities in Washington, DC for employment after high school. In 1994, Mitsubishi Electric America was named one of the top 100 U.S. employers by CAREERS and the disABLED, a leading magazine in the disability field, based on a reader survey that asked readers to name the top three companies or government agencies for whom they would most like to work or that they believed would provide a positive working environment for people with disabilities. These public acknowledgements are a fitting tribute to the Mitsubishi Electric Corp.'s investments in our Nation, but I would like to add my own personal thanks to the Mitsubishi Electric America foundation, Mitsubishi Electric Corp., and the Mitsubishi Electric America group companies for their generosity. I congratulate the staff, officers, board of directors, and advisory committee members who have helped position this foundation as a leader in supporting innovative programs for young people with disabilities. I hope the foundation will continue its successful work for many years to come.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, first, if I may comment on the remarks of our colleague from Florida. It was a gracious and generous statement on his part. I think all of us--Paul Simon has been guilty, like most of us have been guilty from time to time, of getting--you know, we get a little wrought up more than we should from time to time. Part of the answer to the question raised by Senator Mack is, if we assume that our colleagues are just as sincere about their position as we are, it makes for a different kind of an atmosphere. If my colleagues have real good memories, you may remember I was a Presidential candidate at one time. I remember a reporter for one of the major newspapers telling me that he had been talking to Senator Helms and Senator Thurmond, with whom I frequently disagree, and both of them spoke very highly of me. He wanted to know how that could be, and I mentioned, whenever I get into a debate I try to remind myself that the other person is just as sincere as I am. I think that helps. But that is not the sole answer. The question that Senator Mack poses is, How can we work together more? It is not a question easily answered. But I think it is very important for the future of the Senate and the future of our country, and I thank him for posing the question.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I rise on the subject that the Presiding Officer knows more about than I do, because he has had to sit through all these Whitewater hearings. I have been designated by the Judiciary Committee as a Democrat to sit on that hearing along with Senator Hatch being designated by the Republicans from the Judiciary Committee. What do we do? I think whenever--it really is kind of related to what we have just been talking about--whenever we can work things out without confrontation, I think we are better off in this body, and the Nation is better off. I really believe the White House has gone about as far as they can go without just giving up completely on this constitutional right that people have in terms of the lawyer-client relationship. I am also concerned about the amount of time that we are taking on this question. I cast one of three votes against creating the committee. Senator Glenn, who is on the floor, cast one and Senator Bingaman, who is on the floor, cast one. My feeling was, we were going to get preoccupied and spend a lot of time on something that really did not merit that amount of time. We have spent infinitely more time: 32 days of hearings, as the Presiding Officer knows better than I, on this; 152 individuals have been deposed; the White House has produced more than 15,000 pages of documents; and Williams & Connolly, the President's personal attorney, has produced more than 28,000 pages of documents. We have spent a huge amount of time. We have spent much more time on Whitewater in hearings than we spent on health care in hearings last year on an issue infinitely more important to the people of this country; much more time on Whitewater than on hearings on drugs, for example. We may have had 2 or 3 days of hearings on drugs this year. I do not know. It certainly is not more than that. We have had 1 day of hearings so far this year on Medicare. I think when we spend huge amounts of time on this, we distort what happens in our country. I read the excellent autobiography of the Presiding Officer, Senator D'Amato, and unlike a lot of autobiographies that are obviously written by someone else, it is pure vintage Al D'Amato. But I know Al D'Amato, our distinguished colleague, represents a State with a lot of poverty. We have spent infinitely more time on this issue than we have spent on the issue of poverty in our country. Mr. President, 24 percent of our children live in poverty. No other Western industrialized nation has anything close to that. I hope we use the telephone a little more frequently, get together a little more and see if we cannot work this thing out without confrontation. I think everyone benefits. Let me add one final thing. I am 67 years old now. I have been around long enough to know that when we get into these things, we really do not know the ultimate consequences. It is like throwing a boomerang: It may hit here, it may hit there, it may hit somewhere else. I hope this resolution is turned down and the alternative of Senator Sarbanes is approved. But I am a political realist. I know that is not likely to happen, because of the partisan kind of confrontation that has occurred and is occurring in this body much too much. But I hope we try, once this gets over, to pull our rhetoric down, and I think all of us benefit when that happens. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, Senator Jeffords and I are introducing the Pension Audit Improvement Act of 1995 today in order to improve the quality of audits performed pursuant to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 [ERISA]. The bill repeals the limited scope audit exemption, enhances ERISA auditor qualifications, and requires speedy reporting of serious ERISA violations discovered during plan audits. Over the past few years, both the Inspector General of the Department of Labor and the GAO have issued reports documenting the need to strengthen the quality of pension audits. Recent investigations by Secretary Reich of 401(k) plans further demonstrate the need for Congress to Act promptly on this measure. I want to commend Senator Jeffords for his interest and work in support of this bill. I also want to commend Secretary Reich for the Department's substantial work and effort in support of this bill. I am also pleased to report that this bill is supported by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and I thank them for their efforts to move this bill forward. I ask unanimous consent to have a summary of the bill printed in the Record.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, with monthly profits from single casinos running to millions of dollars, gambling promoters are using their new-found wealth to increase the spread of gambling. Grassroots community groups who raise concerns about new casinos are being outspent 50 to 1 in some areas. In Congress, high-priced lobbyists are attempting to stop a simple effort to gather information about the impact of the spread of gambling. A recent New York Times story, ``Gaming Lobby Gives Lavishly to Politicians,'' clearly describes issues that deserve our attention. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the New York Times News Service, Dec. 18, 1995] Special Report: Gaming Lobby Gives Lavishly to Politicians (By Kevin Sack) In only five years, the gambling industry has bought its way into the ranks of the most formidable interest groups in American politics, spending huge sums to gain the kind of influence long wielded by big business, big labor and organizations of doctors and lawyers. From the Empress riverboat casino in Joliet, Ill., to the Mashantucket Pequot tribe in Ledyard, Conn., gambling interests, which now run casinos in 24 states, have used vast profits gleaned from their craps tables and slot machines to fatten the campaign coffers of political candidates and wage multimillion-dollar lobbying offensives. While state officials have been the primary beneficiaries of the industry's largess, there has also been a surge in contributions to federal and local officeholders. Gambling-financed political action committees gave three times as much to congressional candidates and the national parties in the 1993-94 election cycle as they gave in the previous two years, according to Common Cause and the Center for Responsive Politics, two Washington-based organizations that monitor campaign financing. The $2 million total for the cycle put the industry in the same league as long-established interest groups like the United Automobile Workers, which gave $2.4 million, and the National Rifle Association, which gave $2.2 million. At the state level, meanwhile, the rising tide of gambling money has in many places become a flood. In Florida last year, pro-gambling forces spent $16.5 million in an unsuccessful effort to win approval of casinos in a referendum. That sum was almost as much as the state's two gubernatorial candidates spent combined. In other states, the industry's wealth has allowed it to outspend its opponents by as much as 50 to 1. In the process, that wealth has contributed to major corruption scandals in Louisiana, Missouri, Arizona, Kentucky, South Carolina and West Virginia, all since 1989, when legalized gambling began its cross-country expansion. Perhaps most significant, the torrent of dollars has rapidly eroded a longstanding stigma against the intermingling of gambling and politics. ``Twenty years ago, if you got support from gambling interests it would have been the kiss of death,'' said Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., who opposes the continued expansion of gambling. ``If you were running for office in Illinois or Iowa an got money from gambling interests, you wouldn't want to tell your brother or mother.'' Noting that today's casinos are run by Indian tribes and Fortune 500 companies, not mobsters, gambling industry officials assert that it is only natural for a heavily regulated, high-growth business to play an active role in politics, just as public utilities and tobacco companies do. ``The only industry that is more regulated is the nuclear power industry,'' said Mark B. Edwards Jr., a gambling analyst for the State Capital Resource Center, a private group that monitors political developments for casino companies. ``Therefore, it's more important for the gaming industry to flex some political muscle.'' The gaming industry has focused its lobbying campaigns on state capitals, where governors, lawmakers and regulators hold the authority to determine whether to expand gambling, which companies will get gambling licenses and vending contracts, and how extensively gambling will be taxed and controlled. Gambling opponents say the abundance of lobbying money, and the promise of bountiful tax revenue, has helped the industry move its operations into impoversished communities, with little attention paid to social consequences like the effect on compulsive gamblers or on small businesses there. A backlash has begun to emerge in which grass-roots anti- gambling drives in some states have managed to neutralize the influence of big money. But that is no easy task. In the last two years, campaigns to establish or expand legalized gambling in Florida, Missouri, Virginia and Connecticut have spent more money than was ever before spent in those states on any lobbying effort. During Virginia's legislative session this year, gambling interests hired 48 lobbyists. In Texas, they hired 74, more than two for every state senator and one for every two members of the Texas House. The lobbyists are often enlisted from the ranks of former public officials. The lobbying payroll in Illinois has included a former governor, a former state attorney general, a former state police director, two former U.S. attorneys, a former mayor of Chicago and dozens of former state legislators, including a Senate president and a House majority leader. Two years ago a Nevada casino company, Primadonna Resorts, offered two Illinois lobbyists a compensation package of $20 million over 20 years if they could reel in a riverboat license. For an April 1994 referendum on allowing slot machines in Missouri, committees financed by out-or-state casino companies paid out $4.2 million, outspending the proposal's opponents by 50 to 1, according to a study by Alfred Kahn, a retired professor of planning at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. The measure failed by one-tenth of a percentage point. Seven months later, the gambling companies were back, this time spending $11.5 million. The proposal passed with 54 percent of the vote. The gambling opponents, Kahn said, ``were just overwhelmed by wall-to-wall television commercials.'' Like lobbying expenditures, campaign contributions have been flowing as freely as complimentary cocktails on a casino floor. Only one state, New Jersey, prohibits political contributions from gambling interests. In Louisiana, in the heart of the nation's oil patch, gambling interests in 1993 and 1994 gave state legislators more than twice as much as did the petrochemical industry, according to a study by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. ``I've been told by legislator after legislator that the gambling industry has become the single largest political influence in their states,'' said Robert Goodman, a professor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., who is the author of ``The Luck Business'' (Free Press, 1995), a book critical of legalized gambling's spread. ``It's a sea change in the political landscape in the states where the gambling industry is operating.'' As in many other states that now have casinos, the spending in Illinois has been spurred by competition among gambling concerns whose interests conflict. Wealthy businessmen who want to obtain casino licenses from the state, which now allows casino gambling only on riverboats, are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in campaign contributions to help persuade legislators to expand gambling to Chicago and any number of suburbs. Fearful of new competition, the owners of the state's 10 existing casino licenses are contributing hundreds of thousands more to protect their monopolies. In doing so, they have placed themselves in an unusual alliance with those who oppose gambling on moral or social grounds. In Washington, the rise of the gambling industry has created influential power brokers. In a single afternoon last June, Steve Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts, one of the country's largest Casino companies, raised nearly $500,000 for the presidential campaign of Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader. The fund-raising luncheon, at a posh Las Vegas country club, came one day after Dole had traveled to Los Angeles to level a withering attack on what he described as the mercenary values of the entertainment industry. Dole opposes new taxes on the gambling industry, said his spokesman, Clarkson Hine, but supports creation of a federal commission to study gambling's effects. The industry opposes such a commission, believing that it could lead to heightened regulation. But Hine said Dole ``feels strongly'' that regulation should be left to the states. In any event, Mirage Resorts is hardly the only gambling- industry player in the capital. The 370-member Mashantucket Pequot tribe, virtually unknown until it opened the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Conn., in 1992, is one of many others, having given $465,000 to the Democratic National Committee and $100,000 to the Republican National Committee from 1991 to 1994. Gambling money is so abundant that on occasion it reaches out even to the most vocal of gambling opponents, like Gov. Kirk Fordice of Mississippi, where casino operations have been growing for five years. In 1993, Fordice accepted $73,500 in contributions from casino interests, almost a third of all the money he raised that year. Then, beginning last Jan. 1, he swore off accepting any more gambling money, although he declined to return the earlier bounty. The purpose of the new policy, said Andy Taggart, his campaign manager, was to take an issue away from his opponent in the gubernatorial race this year. Fordice won. It was political money, along with the promise of new tax revenue for recession-racked states, that provided the kindling for the wildfire spread of legalized gambling in the 1990s. In 1988, only Nevada and New Jersey had casinos. Now, 24 states have casinos on land, water or Indian reservations, and 48 states have legalized gambling of some kind. In the last four years, annual legal-gambling revenue has grown by 50 percent, to $39.9 billion. That is nearly a quadrupling since 1982, according to an annual survey by Christiansen/Cummings Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in the gaming industry. On average, profit margins are high, ranging from 15 to 20 percent, said Will E. Cummings, managing director of the firm. ``Without the outside influence coming in'' to lobby in this state or that, ``there would be no spread of gaming,'' said William N. Thompson, a professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who is co-author of ``The Last Resort: Success and Failure in Campaigns for Casinos'' (University of Nevada Press, 1990). ``The opponents don't get to make their case.'' In the last year, though, the industry has suffered several financial and political failure, suggesting that the market for betting may finally be saturated. A casino in New Orleans and riverboats in Louisiana and Mississippi have failed, and voters and lawmakers have rejected the expansion of gambling in a number of states. Industry analysts say some of the backlash can be attributed to growing revulsion with the amount of gambling money in politics, and to concern about corruption among holders of public office. In the most recent scandal, the FBI said in August that it was investigating whether video poker operators in Louisiana had bribed lawmakers into killing anti-gambling legislation earlier this year. That inquiry is continuing, but many of the legislators who are targets of it either have chosen to retire or failed to win re-election this fall. In Pennsylvania, state Attorney General Ernie Preate, Jr. pleaded guilty in June to hiding campaign contributions from operators of illegal video poker games. And from 1989 to 1992, lawmakers in Arizona, Kentucky, South Carolina and West Virginia were convicted of accepting bribes from gambling interests. Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., president of the American Gaming Association, the industry's trade group, told a congressional committee last month that singling out legalized betting as a corrupting influence was unfair. ``The problem,'' said Fahrenkopf, a former Republican national chairman, ``is that where there is money, there is the potential for corruption, and that is by no means confined to gaming interests.'' After listing political scandals from Teapot Dome to Abscam, he added, ``To suggest that it is unique to our industry is manipulative, cynical and, frankly, dishonest.'' Even when operating within the law, though, gambling supporters have sometimes lacked subtlety. In 1994, the president of the Louisiana Senate, Sammy Nunez, handed out envelopes to colleagues on the Senate floor, each containing a $2,500 campaign check from a casino owner. Nunez lost in a bid for re-election in November. In Illinois in 1993, Al Ronan, a legislator turned casino lobbyist, pulled lawmakers off the floor and handed them white envelopes containing campaign checks of $50 to $300. ``The gambling companies have been like a bull in a china shop,'' said William R. Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, at the University of Nevada at Reno. ``These were companies that did not have the sophistication to understand the nuances of political activity.'' Some exports, noting the intense issue that gambling money has become in some states and localities, believe that the industry has turned into its own worst enemy. Despite devoting $16.5 million to the referendum on casino legalization in Florida last year, pro-gambling forces were crushed at the polls, 62 percent to 38 percent, at least partly because of voter discomfort with that level of spending. And given the corruption investigation in Louisiana, candidates for governor there spent much of the race this year trying to trump each other's anti-gambling stands. Further, after St. Louis County Executive George Westfall accepted more than $150,000 in contributions from companies competing for a riverboat casino license, the County Council this year approved a ban on the industry's political donations. In recent months, some casino companies have decided to put a stop to their own multimillion-dollar political wagers. One such company is Mirage Resorts, which spent more than $10 million in a four-year failed campaign to place a casino in Bridgeport, Conn. ``Our company policy right now is that we are not going to go or in any jurisdiction and actively lobby to change any law, to actively try to convince people,'' said Richard D. Bronson, a member of Mirage's board and president of the company's development arm. ``Look what happened in Connecticut.'' Added Alan M. Feldman, Mirage's vice president for public affairs: ``It has told us that this isn't our bag. We're just not political animals.''

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, one of the impressive leaders in our world is a legislator little known by most Americans. He is Martin C.M. Lee, who has led the forces for democracy in Hong Kong and has courageously stood up for freedom and democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. He does that in the face of a Chinese takeover of Hong Kong that is slated in 1\1/2\ years from now. Recently, he had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post that I hope the leaders of China will see. On the possibility that more Chinese leaders will see it, I ask that it be printed in full in the Record. I hope that all the Members of the Senate and House and their staffs will read it also to help prepare them for what may happen come 1997. The article follows: What Makes Hong Kong Tick (By Martin C.M. Lee) Hong Kong.--On June 30, 1997, Hong Kong and its 6 million free citizens will become part of the People's Republic of China. As the countdown to 1997 advances, the people of Hong Kong should be hearing reassurances from China that we will be able to keep our freedoms and way of life. Instead, each day brings a new threat. The latest has thrown Hong Kong into turmoil, both for the harm it will do to human rights and for the message it sends about China's plans for the future. In October China proposed scrapping key sections of Hong Kong's Bill of Rights and reinstating a number of repressive colonial laws that had been removed from the statute books because they violated the Bill of Rights. On Nov. 15, Hong Kong's legislature fought back. The Legislative Council--elected in September with a surprise majority for democrats--passed, by a decisive 40-15 vote, a historic motion to condemn China's efforts to end human rights protection in Hong Kong. That motion drew a line in the sand over human rights here--and even had the support of a large number of pro- Beijing legislators. Even before the motion was debated, Chinese officials had declared that Hong Kong's legislature had no right to discuss the topic of the Bill of Rights. By defying Beijing, Hong Kong's people sent the message that our rights and freedoms will not be given up without a fight. The Bill of Rights was enacted in 1991 as a confidence- building measure to allay fears raised by the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Thus it is not surprising that China's pledge to emasculate the Bill of Rights is having a devastating effect on future confidence in the rule of law. The Bill of Rights--known in Chinese as Yan Kyun Faat, the Human Rights Law--puts into domestic law the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, under which countries agree to a minimum standard of behavior toward their citizens. Britain and more than 80 countries worldwide have signed the covenant. China, however, has not. Beijing, in fact, sees the Bill of Rights as part of a conspiracy by ``international anti-Chinese forces and the agents of the British side,'' according to its own New China News Agency. The core problems is that China does not understand what makes Hong Kong tick. The People's Republic of China is an authoritarian Communist state. Hong Kong has always been a sanctuary from China, where the rule of law held sway and Hong Kong Chinese people were given economic and civil freedoms to make Hong Kong's the most successful economy in Southeast Asia. In the past decade, the world has witnessed countless examples of authoritarian regimes changing into free societies--from Eastern Europe to Asia. Regionally, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines have all progressed from authoritarian to representative governments, and other Asian countries are moving steadily in that direction. But the world has no recent experience of a vibrant, cosmopolitan and extremely free society losing basic freedoms. Hong Kong today has all the attributes of a pluralistic civil society; a robust press, clean and accountable government and a rule of law superior to any legal system in Asia. The proposal to scrap Hong Kong's Bill of Rights is the clearest indication yet that Beijing is trying to remake Hong Kong in China's image. Because China has been successful in luring international investment without improving human rights, Beijing may now believe it can sustain Hong Kong's economic success while clamping down on civil rights and freedoms. In 1997, China is set to control all three branches of Hong Kong's government. Beijing says elected legislators will be turned out of office and replaced with a rubber-stamp appointed legislature. Hong Kong's top official, the chief executive, and his cabinet will all be appointed by Beijing. And China has ensured control of the Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong's highest court, which will not be set up until after the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. Thus all three branches of government are slated to be under China's control. This is why the people of Hong Kong regard saving our Bill of Rights as our last-ditch battle. Just as the Bill of Rights is an important check on abuse of power by the British government today, so will it be an essential check on arbitrary use of power by China after 1997. At least one senior Chinese leader clearly understands the value and fragility of Hong Kong's system. Last March the chairman of the powerful Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee, Li Ruihuan, admitted errors in China's hard-line policy toward Hong Kong and appealed to his fellow leaders to handle Hong Kong with greater care in the future. In a public speech, he used the metaphor of an old woman selling a valuable antique Yixing teapot. Tea drinkers know that the real value of the Chinese teapot lies in the residue of tea leaves that lines the interior of the old pot. Through ignorance however, the old woman scrubbed the teapot free of the stain, thereby destroying its worth entirely. Mr. Li paraphrased the common-sense adage, ``if it ain't broke, don't fix it,'' pointing out, ``If you don't understand how a valuable item works, you will never be able to keep it intact for a long time.'' If, as it now appears, Chinese leaders do not understand how freedom, human rights and the rule of law have laid the foundation of Hong Kong's success, Beijing may scrub them out--and destroy forever the value of Hong Kong, now and in the future.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, occasionally as we read magazines and newspapers, we find articles on things in unlikely sources. Recently in reading the Christian Century, I came across an article by Paul Mojzes titled, ``The pro-Serb Montenegrins'' which I ask to be printed in full in the Record. It describes the situation in Montenegro, a small Province in what was once Yugoslavia but a Province that has produced leaders including Milovan Djilas, Slobodan Milosevic, and Karadzic. It is not a particularly encouraging article, but it is informative and because I have seen nothing about this anywhere else, I believe it merits placing in the Congressional Record so those interested in this area can read it. The article follows: Travels in the Balkans: The Pro-Serb Montenegrins (By Paul Mojzes) The Montenegrins are fond of joking that if their rugged mountain terrain were ironed out, the area would be as huge as Russia. Living in the tiniest and least populous republic of the former Yugoslavia, Montenegrins have tried to compensate by identifying with Russia and by propelling themselves into the ruling elites of other Yugoslav republics as fiery communists or fierce nationalists. They have produced such leaders as Milovan Djilas, Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic. During World War II Montenegro spawned the most feared nationalist Chetnik units as well as fierce communist Partizans. Members of both groups slaughtered the opposition even if that meant turning against their own families. Vendettas and a fixation on revenge complicated the conflict by making people cross ideological lines out of tribal loyalty. During the current Balkan wars no direct fighting has taken place in Montenegro, though Montenegrin ``volunteers'' ravaged nearby Dubrovnik and its vicinity. Consequently, travelers have been able to move about Montenegro unobstructed. The terrain of these ``black mountains'' is rocky, yielding neither timber nor agricultural products. Nor are there many mineral deposits. But fabulous tourist attractions abound, particularly along the Adriatic seashore, one of the most beautiful in the world. Foreign tourists are now avoiding the area while most Serbs and Montenegrins are too impoverished to travel. For those who venture here this may be a plus. None of the services are overburdened and both food and transportation are readily available. However, travelers flying to Belgrade from one of the two Montenegrin airports have been forced to share space with wounded evacuees from the Bosnian battlegrounds. They apparently have been transported this way in order to avoid the UN-controlled border-crossings between Serbia and Bosnia. The purpose has been to give credence to Milosevic's claim of no longer supporting the Serb warriors in Bosnia. Not many in Montenegro would take such a claim at face value. The single most important issue in Montenegro is defining its people's identity. Some claim that Montenegrins are Serbs, that indeed their country is the very heart of Serbdom, as a politician of the Narodna (People's or Folk) Party told me. Others say that Montenegro is a separate nation now endangered by Serb attempts to absorb it. In Niksic, the ancient capital in which the ecclesiastical head of the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Amfilohiye Radovic, resides, graffiti declare that he should leave Montenegro, though he is one of the few Serbian Orthodox hierarchs who was born there. Metropolitan Amfilohiye militantly espouses the Serbian cause, and the number of such supporters is growing as the ethnoreligious conflict continues. Both the leftist Democratic Party of Socialists (former communists), which holds a firm grip on power, and the right-wing People's Party are pro-Serb. Only the Liberals, who garner a mere 10 percent of the vote, staunchly proclaim ``Montenegro is Montenegrin,'' though there are others who insist on claiming the sovereignty for Montenegro accorded to it by the 1974 Yugoslav constitution. If one visits only the Adriatic resorts one gets an impression of economic well-being, despite tourist workers' complaints that these resorts are operating at less than half of their capacity. Food in the hotels and at the markets is plentiful though expensive. Other consumer goods are available, since people have found a way to skirt UN sanctions. That cows graze on the lawn of the state government building in Podgorica (formerly Titograd) may be a better overall economic indicator. In Podgorica as elsewhere, the socioeconomic difference between people is striking. In one section of the city the apartments for the old communist elite and the new entrepreneurial class feature TV radar disks for nearly every dwelling. Here people dress with an ostentatious display of wealth. But Podgorica's slums resemble those in greatly impoverished countries. Incomes, while considerably better than in 1993, range between $50 and $150 a month. Many workers, however, are paid only every third or fourth month, and approximately 60 percent of the work force is on ``forced vacation''--unemployed and with no welfare benefits. Even the casual observer will notice huge numbers of people hanging around the streets or the numerous drinking places. Even those who do eke out a meager living say that there is little hope for a better future. People survive by trading in the black market and by accepting bribes. Nearly everyone is engaged in smuggling, selling or reselling something--from the lucrative smuggling of gasoline and weapons to the pitiful reselling of single cigarettes. Police raid only the ``little fry.'' Bigger business is protected by the mafia, which is said to reach to the very top of government. Armed robberies in the rump Yugoslavia have increased from about 70 in 1991 to over 2,000 in 1992-93. Few robbers are apprehended. However, the ``new'' Yogoslav dinar is fairly stable. After 1993's great inflation the government pegged the dinar to the German mark at a 1:1 ratio. While on the black market the dinar recently slipped to about a 2.5:1 ratio, it still appears to be economically viable. The locals believe that the hyperinflation of 1993 was approved or even prompted by the government in order to extract foreign-currency reserves from the population. Montenegrins are traditionally Orthodox Christians with a small minority of Roman Catholics (derogatorily called ``Latins'') and Muslims (called ``Turks,'' though they are Montenegrin converts to Islam). The Albanian minority is predominantly Muslim, with a small number of Roman Catholics. There are virtually no Protestants or Jews. The Orthodox Church was nearly wiped out during the communist period. During World War II it had sided with the Chetniks rather than the Partizans and the latter showed no pity toward the losers. Directives from Belgrade to eliminate church activities were taken seriously and religious life became nearly extinct. People would pass by a monastery without even looking at it lest they be called in for an unpleasant talk with the secret police. Only during the last few years under the increasingly liberal Yogoslav regime was church life slowly reactivated. In the postocommunist period Orthodox Church activities are on the rebound. Right-wing nationalistic politicians believe that the church has not only a religious but a political role. Some clergy openly argue that the church should rule over the nation in these difficult times as it did in the distant past. Adjacent to the former royal palace in Cetinje is a large monastic compound nestled against the mountain. Here the archbishop resides. A visit to the monastery was organized for a group of students and professors of which I was a part. Our guide, a middle-aged monk, spoke English fluently. He appeared to be well traveled but displayed an intense Serbian nationalism and an even greater angry anticommunism. He explained that the monastery had been destroyed twice, first by Muslim Turks and then by Latins. A display on the monastery walls credited both destructions to the Turks. Apparently the monk needed to believe that Serbs had been victimized by both of their current antagonists. The Montenegrin government is now making amends for the communist period not only by restoring church properties but also by financing their repair. (The Catholics, on the other hand, complain that the return and repair of their properties is being hampered.) Svetigora, the official publication of the diocese of Montenegro, is disturbing. Even the magazine's title has troublesome implications. Sveta Gora is the Serbian name for the Holy Mount Athos, the monastic republic in Greece. The journal's name suggests that Montenegro is not just a Black Mountain but a ``Mount of Light''--a ``Holy Mount.'' Combined with the ever-increasing claim made by the Serbian Orthodox hierarchs that the Serbs are ``the New Israel,'' the chosen people of God, a ``heavenly kingdom,'' a martyr nation that has suffered more than anyone else on earth except Christ, the name supports the dangerous conviction that all that the Serbs do is somehow of God. A recent issue features a smiling Radovan Karadzic flanked by the patriarchs of Moscow and Belgrade. In a lengthy interview Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, claims the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit in all his political decisions and urges the political involvement of the Orthodox Church in the life of Serbians everywhere. He repeatedly emphasizes the goal of uniting all Serbs into a single state. In another interview Metropolitan Amfilohiye claims that ``the living God can be experienced in the East while the West is a wasteland.'' Another article explains why God allowed Russia, ``the elite people,'' to experience the apostasy of communism. The Herzegovian hard-line Bishop Atanasiye Jeftic associates NATO with Satan and links Ingmar Bergman's films to Protestantism, in which there is ``neither mercy, nor space for the human being, nor salvation.'' Svetigora's contents make one wonder whether the effort of some German and Dutch churchmen to expel the Serbian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches does not have merit. There is a parallel between the Deutsche Christen aberration during Hitler's era and this militant Serbian Orthodoxy. In Germany, however, there was resistance by a Confessing Church led by people like Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; the Serbian Orthodox Church has not yet produced such internal critics, just as Balkans politics has not produced its Vaclav Havel. The political threat in the Balkans is Nazism; the religious threat is idolatrous nationalism.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, as we continue to discuss the Bosnian situation, and we will continue to discuss it long after the resolution has been adopted, I came across an editorial in the Christian Century by James M. Wall which I ask to be printed in full in the Record. It is simple and direct and as powerful a statement as any I have read. I urge my colleagues to read this thoughtful editorial comment. The article follows: [From the Christan Century, Dec. 13, 1995] If Not There, Where? (By James M. Wall) Two questions must be confronted as Americans consider President Clinton's decision to send 20,000 troops to Bosnia: If we don't commit troops there, where do we? And if not now, when? The world's largest military force is equipped and trained to perform missions of peace as well as to fight wars. The president has been patient--some would say too patient--in deciding when to act in Bosnia. He resisted earlier calls for military action, and worked instead for an agreement between combatants which makes it possible for U.S. troops to go to Bosnia not to fight but to prevent others from fighting. Richard Holbrooke's negotiating team in Dayton, Ohio, worked with representatives from Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia to end a war in which at least 250,000 people have died or are missing. The combatants are scheduled to sign the Dayton agreement this month in Paris. President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia was persuaded by NATO air strikes, a punishing economic embargo and military successes by Croatia and the Muslim-led Bosnia government that his goal of a greater Serbia was unattainable. Resistance to the accord has predictably surfaced among Bosnian Serbs because under terms of the agreement Sarajevo will be under Muslim control. Why intervene in Bosnia, and why now? We must first understand that the U.S. is a nation guided by both humanitarian ideals and practical necessities. Our ideals misled us in Vietnam, where we learned the hard way that civil wars are not resolved by outside military force. From our intervention in Somalia we learned that our humanitarian zeal has to be tempered by practical wisdom. We can feed starving people, but we cannot force a political solution on them. Since the end of the cold war the U.S. has been the only world power with the ability to secure a peace through whatever means are appropriate. We have the military might to enforce agreements. The question is: Do we have the will to get involved in conflicts far from American shores? It was clearly the presence of oil in the Persian Gulf that led President Bush to claim that vital American interests were involved when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The former Yugoslavia contains no oil, and trade with the region is not critical to the U.S. economy. Nevertheless, instability in that region could easily spill over into surrounding countries. It was instability in this region that precipitated World War I, a fact which led Pope John Paul II, during his recent visit to the U.S., to plead with Clinton not to let the century conclude, as it started, with a war over Sarajevo. In making his case to the American people and a skeptical Congress, Clinton argued that without U.S. participation the combatants would not have reached the Dayton accord, nor would the European nations in NATO have agreed to supply an additional 40,000 peacekeeping troops to the region. The more persuasive case for U.S. involvement, however, is the harsh reality of the situation: only the commitment of an outside force can keep the warring parties in Bosnia from continuing their mutual slaughter. At one level, the U.S. and NATO assignment in Bosnia is to prevent a recurrence of the war that began in 1991. At another level, however, the U.S. and NATO are making themselves available as a peace broker for enemies who must slowly and painfully build a future together. We cannot arrange that future, but we can help stop those who want to determine the future through violence. Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out that modern technology has increased our capacity for intimacy even as it provides us with the tools to fight wars that avoid intimacy. We need, as Niebuhr argued more than 50 years ago, to develop ``political instruments which will make such new intimacy and interdependence sufferable.'' Our survival depends on finding a way to accept the ``interpenetration of cultures'' rather than turning to mutual destruction. The peacekeeping force that goes to Bosnia will offer only a partial correction of past errors and blatant wrongdoing on the part of several nations and many individuals. We are sending troops to an area that has witnessed ethnic cleansing, torture, indiscriminate killing of civilians, and rape as an instrument of war. We go to the region not to solve problems but to permit Serbs, Muslims and Croats to struggle toward their own solutions. Sending U.S. forces into a region full of generations-old patterns of hatred and aggression is dangerous. But the alternative is worse. If we do not support the peace process, we invite the return of an unceasing war that breeds further hatred and aggression. The U.S. is blessed with wealth and resources and the means to act on behalf of others. We may regard this peace mission as we might speak of any effort on behalf of a people in need. We go to Bosnia not to control or dominate others, but to help others to do what they cannot do for themselves.

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, there is a great deal of discussion about Senate retirements, some of it involving this Senator. I think all of our colleagues would do well to read an editorial about the retirements that appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch which I ask to be printed in the Record. The article follows: What's Wrong With the Senate? With the retirement announcements in recent days of two more veteran GOP senators--Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Mark Hatfield of Oregon--the number of senators stepping down next year has reached a record: 12. It may yet go higher. Not since 1896, when senators were still elected by state legislatures, not directly by the voters, have so many quit. Why? Some suggest three terms is a magic number, after which fatigue sets in, and, indeed, five of the 12 retirees have served three terms. But the rest have had service ranging from one to five terms, and their ages range from 52 to 77. So there's no pat formula when it comes to fatigue. Many of the retirees have expressed disgust with the overly partisan tone today, as well as the distracting burden of constant fund raising--though not all did say so in their retirement announcements. Still, one thing is clear: Most of the retirees were senior members of major committees and held substantial power, and nearly all were pragmatists used to working across party lines. Apparently, the prospect of continued influence wasn't enough to keep the 12 in the Senate. The characteristic all of them have in common was stated by Mr. Simpson. He said, ``The definition of politics is this: There are no right answers, only a continuing flow of compromises . . . resulting in a changing . . . ambiguous series of public decisions, where appetite and ambition compete openly with knowledge and wisdom.'' That is a good description of the legislative process at its best. It is also completely opposed to the philosophy of the newer GOP members who now control Congress and seek to dominate both the party and the country. Under such circumstances, those of moderate tone, even if their politics vary across the spectrum from right to left, inevitably must feel out of place. Though one, Bob Packwood of Oregon, was forced to resign because of scandal and two more are well into their 70s, the retirement of 12 senators in one year suggests Congress is losing many of its best people for the worst reasons. When will the American people put a stop to this by rejecting the poisonous politics of absolute truth and relentless demonization of those who see things differently?

Mr. SIMON

Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to a December 4 editorial in the Washington Post, ``Execution of the Innocent,'' which profiles the case of Rolando Cruz. Rolando Cruz was found guilty of raping and killing 10-year-old Jeanie Nicarico of Naperville, IL, in 1983. Even though there was no physical evidence nor motive, and another man confessed to the killing shortly after Mr. Cruz's conviction, two juries voted for the death penalty based on testimony from fellow prisoners and police who claimed he had confessed to them. The prisoners' stories have now all been discredited, the policemen's supervisor recently admitted that he was in Florida at the time he claimed he had been told about Mr. Cruz's confession, and recent DNA tests exonerate Mr. Cruz and point to the man who confessed many years ago. It took 11 years for the truth in this case to come out. The Senate has passed habeas corpus reform which will severely restrict an inmate's ability to appeal a conviction, and has recently voted to eliminate funding for the post-conviction defender organizations which provide competent counsel to death row inmates. These measures will simply exacerbate the inherent problem with the death penalty: Innocent people are put to death. Our system is comprised of human beings, and human beings, whether by malice or oversight, have been known to be wrong. Rolando Cruz's case is a stark example of this reality. The death penalty is already reserved for people of modest means who cannot afford the best representation. It is already disproportionately applied to black people. Congress' rush to be tough on crime will simply make it even more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the high standards of justice which are the foundation of our Nation. And to put it plainly: More innocent people will be put to death. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the editorial be printed in the Record. The editorial follows: [From the Washington Post, Dec. 4, 1995] Execution of the Innocent The death penalty has broad support in this country, and those who argue against it on moral grounds aren't making much headway. But even the most fervid supporters of capital punishment must have their doubts when it is revealed that innocent people have been convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed. This happens more frequently than one might think. And the increasing availability of DNA technology to prove innocence probably means that these last-minute saves will become more common. The most recent of these cases concerns Rolando Cruz, twice convicted by juries of the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year- old Jeanine Nicarico in Naperville, ILL. Mr. Cruz was arrested with two others--charges against one have been dropped and the other is awaiting his third trial--on extremely thin evidence. He and his codefendants maintained their innocence throughout. There was no physical evidence to tie them to the crime, and no motive was alleged by the prosecution. But successive juries convicted on the basis of testimony from other prisoners that he had confessed to them. These stories were changed, revoked or attacked on grounds of credibility. More persuasive was testimony from two police officers that Mr. Cruz had revealed to them a dream he had had, which contained details of the crime that only a killer would know. Nothing was said or written about this alleged dream for 18 months, and the story appeared only two weeks before the first trial. Last month, after years of litigation and two death sentences, the policemen's supervisor recanted testimony that they had told him of the dream, and confessed that he had been in Florida at the time and could not have had this conversation. Even more compelling is the fact that shortly after the first conviction another man was arrested in the same area who confessed to two rape-killings and numerous assaults, and to the killing of the child for which Mr. Cruz had been convicted. The prosecutors stubbornly refused to believe him, but recent DNA tests exonerate Mr. Cruz and point to this other man. Rolando Cruz spent the years between his 21st and his 32nd birthdays on death row. At his third trial, the judge bitterly criticized the police, the impeached witnesses at the first two trials and the quality of the prosecution's case. He directed a verdict of not guilty even before the defense had presented its case. This prosecution was so egregious that the Justice Department this week directed the FBI to look into possible violations of Mr. Cruz's civil rights. Those who argue that appeals should be curtailed and that executions should become routine should consider Rolando Cruz and the injustice that was visited on him as well as the one he narrowly escaped.

Mr. SIMON

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